Drifting on the outskirts of sleep, Sam tried to rearrange his fantasy. He blotted out Gene and Ray and the others and tried to replace them. But who with? He wanted to imagine Annie’s father proudly escorting his beautiful daughter up the aisle, but Sam had no image of the man.
I don’t really know anything about Annie’s father, he thought, sleepily sipping more beer, and sliding further into the warm bath of sleep. In fact, I don’t know much about her past life at all. Bits and pieces. She may have mentioned something about brothers. Are they in the Force too? Does she come from a police family? And what about her childhood, all those years before I met her?
He began to imagine old boyfriends she might have had over the years. There would have been no shortage of willing candidates. Spotty, callow-faced youths, trying to impress her at the disco, or deep-voice uniformed coppers with little intelligence and even less imagination, offering her a future of child-rearing and domestic servitude.
Sam felt waves of jealousy lap at the edge of his dozing mind. To think that he could so easily have missed his chance with Annie, that he might have lost her to some schoolyard boyfriend or dull-as-ditchwater lug in uniform. Just to imagine her with somebody else made his muscles tighten and his stomach clench.
But she’s not with somebody else – she’s with me. More or less. Pretty much. In a manner of speaking.
There was no husband, emerging from the shadows to reclaim his runaway bride. Whatever the Devil in the Dark may be, it was not Annie’s husband. It was impossible. It was unthinkable!
MR HUMPHREYS: Wait there, Miss Belfridge, while I get my motorcycle things. I stuck my helmet round the back.
CAPTAIN PEACOCK: Stuck it round the back, Mr Humphreys? I hope you haven’t put it anywhere that might cause a blockage.
MR HUMPHREYS: It’s only a small one, Captain Peacock. I could probably stick it anywhere and nobody would notice.
MRS SLOCOMBE: Well I hope you don’t try sticking it under my ladies’ counter, Mr Humphreys! I’d certainly notice! There’s no room down there to accommodate your helmet.
MR HUMPHREYS: Are you giving me backchat, you orange-haired bitch? Jesus Christ, you need to learn some bloody manners!
Since when did Quentin Tarantino start directing Are You Being Served?, Sam thought. He forced his eyes open and looked at the TV screen, and was disturbed to see Mr Humphreys stride furiously across to Mrs Slocombe’s counter and lay into her with both fists. As Mrs Slocombe went down, curling into a foetal position, Mr Humphreys slammed his foot into her, over and over again, aiming kicks at her back, her legs, her head.
MR HUMPHREYS: Still feel like showing me up in front of people, do you? I can’t hear you, you cheap little bitch! Do you still feel like showing me up! Answer me, you filthy whore!
I don’t remember this episode, Sam thought dopily. I must be dreaming. This can’t be real – this must all be some sort of—
‘No, Sam – it’s very real,’ said a horribly familiar voice. The Test Card Girl was standing right beside his chair, clutching her blank-eyed dolly. ‘Can’t you see who the lady is – the one lying on the ground, being hurt?’
His voice thick and slow with sleep, Sam muttered, ‘It’s Mrs Slocombe.’
‘Is it, Sam? Or is it really somebody else …?’
Forcing his eyelids apart, Sam peered at the screen. Mr Humphreys – not that it looked at all like Mr Humphreys any more – was still kicking the hell out of a woman on the ground. But, where there had been orange hair and a frilly blouse and frumpy shoes, there was a much younger woman, with dark hair and a paisley-pattern one-piece jumpsuit and platform boots.
‘I – can’t see her face …’ Sam slurred sleepily.
‘She keeps it covered when he beats her,’ the Test Card Girl said. ‘But you don’t need to see her face to know who she is. Come on, Sam – you’re asleep, but you’re still a policeman. Work it out. The answer’s obvious.’
Sam felt ice run through his veins. Sleep fell away. He sat bolt upright, fully awake, fully alert.
‘Make it stop,’ he ordered.
‘You can’t change the past, Sam,’ the Girl said.
On the screen, the appalling beating continued.
‘I said make it stop!’
The Test Card Girl gently touched Sam’s sleeve, as if to console him. ‘He’s a horrid man, isn’t he. She should never have married him.’
Sam leapt to his feet, crazily lunging at the TV set to save the girl on the floor. He’d grab that evil, bullying bastard – he’d grab him and give him a beating – the biggest damned beating of his life! He’d batter him to a pulp! He’d stamp him into the ground! He’d kill him! He would really kill him!
But all at once, Sam found himself standing alone, in silence. Wherever he was, it wasn’t his flat. He looked about him, saw drab, brown walls and a set of flimsy and quite obviously fake lift doors. To either side of him stood a couple of small shop counters with an array of suits and trousers behind one of them, a selection of ladies’ undergarments behind the other.
‘It’s Grace Brothers …’ Sam muttered in disbelief. ‘I’m actually in Grace Brothers.’
It was as rickety and unconvincing in reality as it looked on TV. A cheap set, pieced together and dressed courtesy of the BBC scenery department.
‘Just a set,’ Sam said to himself. ‘A set – with three walls …’
He turned slowly towards the non-existent fourth wall. What would he see? An array of huge old BBC cameras, and the seats for the studio audience behind them? Or would there actually be another wall there, enclosing him, sealing him in?
Sam turned – and gasped. There was no fourth wall, but neither were there cameras or an auditorium. Instead, there was the universe. Stars – billions of them – swirling slowly and breathtakingly around the luminous hub of the galaxy.
The Test Card Girl appeared beside him and took his hand. Her skin was warm. Surprisingly warm. Together, she and Sam looked out across the glittering cosmos.
‘Makes you feel very small, doesn’t it?’ the little girl said. ‘A single life can’t mater all that much, can it, Sam – not compared to all this?’
‘It matters,’ said Sam softly.
‘The woman you saw being beaten, Sam – you know who she is.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you love her.’
‘Yes.’
‘But she doesn’t matter, Sam. Look at all these stars. Too many to count. And what you can see is only a fraction of the whole. The woman you love is less than a grain of sand in the desert.’
‘She matters.’
‘But
