OOM: Room 6620, #4

[the_gene_genie]

 He hadn't dozed for long yesterday. And it had been another restless night, although not as bad as before - he still gave up in the end though, and slipped out of bed before Alex woke up. He thought she'd be awake by the time he got out of the shower, but no. 

He went downstairs for a pint. Ridiculous really, at that time of morning, but he always recommended the pub after long operations that finished in the morning, so why should now be any different?  

Of course, he got a bit more than he bargained for.

Which is why he's not trying to be quiet when he comes back into the room. If she wakes up, good. She needs to hear this.

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[the_gene_genie]

This translates to Gene, basically, as 'trust-fund baby', though he knows it's only the morbid equivalent. No one would want to come into money that way, and at least her parents had the foresight to provide.

'So your daughter will be all right. That's somethin'.'

[lady_bols]

She nods, her gaze fixed on the ground.

'She'll be fine. I was.'

It's repeated more as a mantra to still her own mind, more than as an observation of fact.

'And anyway, a Volvo is not a bad car. It's practical. The only people I know of in my time who drive like you are in the movies.' Her shoulder bumps his as she walks, a quiet touch of affection.

[the_gene_genie]

'Practical's boring.'

He lights another cigarette.

'And yeah. Me too.'

More or less how he learnt to drive, watching movies. He never seems to crash, anyway.

[lady_bols]

She laughs, shaking her head. 'Never a dull moment with you behind the wheel, that's for sure.'

The path turns, and they're out of sight of the bar, the lake still in the distance, a broad meadow spreading out in front of them. She can see the stables in the distance, and the shooting range. There's something of a garden over there too, but she takes the path that leads up into the trees.

'You know, I never heard much about where you went after school. I know you were in the service for awhile.'

[the_gene_genie]

He looks a bit taken aback.

'Didn't go anywhere. Left school at fifteen, worked in the mill, did National Service, became a copper.'

And she knows what happened after that.

His life prior to...what it became; well, he's starting to realise what it is about the whole thing that made him so furious. Or maybe he's just starting to remember, very much against his will. But he lays the basics out for her there in the hope that'll be enough to settle the question. It's all the truth, and there's very little practical information to add.

[lady_bols]

'You worked in the mill?' That's a new bit of information. She won't touch his formal education with a ten foot pole, because as far as she's concerned, he's a DCI. She's never doubted his qualifications in that regard. 'What -- kind of mill?'

She really has no clue.

[the_gene_genie]

'Well, I had to do something. Can't join the force until you're nineteen, an' National Service wasn't 'til eighteen.'

He looks out towards the lake.

'It was a cotton mill. I spent most of the time cursing the Jerrys for not dropping a bomb on it.'

He had a Saturday job in a garage as well, but he's not mentioning that in case she brings up the Quattro again.

[lady_bols]

'A cotton mill.' Hmm. She'll no doubt be researching that when she gets a chance. Maybe they have a library here? Surely, they must.

'And in the Army? Did you serve overseas?'

She's genuinely interested in hearing about his life, now that they can talk like this.

[the_gene_genie]

'Yeah. Far East.'

He'd enjoyed the Army, until they left the UK.

'Food were shit.'

[lady_bols]

Her eyebrows shoot up.

'Really. I've always wanted to see Asia. Never got the chance.'

She imagines her version of traveling and his are vastly different, but it'd still be fun to see the Great Wall with him, or take tea in a tea house in the Japanese countryside.

Hmm, on second thought, maybe not.

'I'm beginning to wish we'd filled out those dating forms a bit more thoroughly, now,' she says, her tone telling him she's teasing. 'Were you infantry? Or something else?' She has no clue what his military career would have looked like.

[the_gene_genie]

'Mmm, infantry. Manchester Regiment. And if your idea of fun is dragging your way through a jungle, bein' eaten alive by every insect you can imagine an' plenty you can't - then I'm sure you'd love it.'

He had not loved it.

'Germany were alright. Apart from bein' full of Germans, straight after a war with the bastards.'

[lady_bols]

'Mmm, no, no that doesn't sound like fun at all.'

She cuts a glance at him as they cross the treeline.

'I imagine you found a fraulein or two who weren't so bad.'

[the_gene_genie]

He shrugs.

''Course.'

Goes without saying, doesn't it?

'Some spat at us in the street, some used us to piss off their boyfriends, some just wanted a good time. Same as anywhere. Less complicated in Singapore, but same general idea.'

He's not ashamed to admit it. He was eighteen, and in the company of a large number of young men. Of course they were going to go looking for women.

[lady_bols]

She hums, smiling as she imagines a young Gene Hunt chatting up some blonde thing with huge tits. He must have oozed charisma even then. And testosterone, never forget the testosterone.

'How old were you when you married?'

Her tone gentles a bit at that. She's not sure if Barbara was left behind after his murder, or if she was another construct of his world.

[the_gene_genie]

'Dunno. Never got married, did I?'

He's looking far away, half wondering where she's going with this, and mostly not wanting to think about it.

[lady_bols]

She walks in silence for a long time, wondering herself where she's going with this. She wants to know about him, that's most of it. But he's a young man in an older man's body. How much of his "life" has he actually lived, she has to wonder.

'You don't remember your wedding?'

[the_gene_genie]

'Oh yeah, I remember the wedding. Stag do, proposal, whole works.'

He's bitter, and sounds it.

'None of it were real though, was it?'

He won't look at her either, because he's furious about this but it's not her fault. It's all on him.

'One morning I had a girlfriend. By teatime, I'd been married more than twenty years.'

How is that fair? How!?

[lady_bols]

Her brow furrows, and her gaze falls to the path ahead of them.

'But you have -- memories of the interim time. As far as you knew, you'd lived that life right up to the day you met me.'

[the_gene_genie]

He glances across at her now, trying to understand why she's not seeing the point.

'Yeah. But they're not real.'

He thought she was asking how old he was when he actually got married. But he never did.

'If you want my fake age for my fake marriage, I was twenty.'

[lady_bols]

'And did you fake love your fake wife?'

She may be trying to make a point.

[the_gene_genie]

He looks away again, his face setting hard. OK, now he's angry at her.

'If there's something you're trying to say, just say it.'

[lady_bols]

'What I'm trying to say is, it doesn't matter whether or not it actually happened in some world that went on after you left it. It happened to you. The emotions were real. The events you experienced are written in your memories. As far as you're concerned, it's as real as any life you would have lived had you never been shot.'

She's trying to be gentle about this, but he's never done well with gentle. Gentle and direct, maybe?

It's a delicate balancing act.

[the_gene_genie]

'It would be if I'd never found out it was fake.'

But he has. So everything's different now.

[lady_bols]

Alex crosses her arms over her chest, and slows her pace, walking with her eyes closed for a few steps as she tries to think.

'Does it feel fake to you?'

[the_gene_genie]

He sighs, exasperated, and not convinced she isn't being deliberately obtuse.

'My wife used to nag me when I came home late without phoning, which was most nights. She used to give me an earful when I'd drank too much, also most nights. She cooked a fantastic steak and kidney pie, and had an arse that'd put any bird to shame. If she didn't talk to me for more than two days, it usually meant she suspected I'd got off with some slag, and I knew I wouldn't be gettin' my leg over for at least another week. She was blonde, and it wasn't out of a bottle, ever.'

He looks across again, his face still set hard.

'Barbara at eighteen used to burn toast. God knows what she'd do to suet pastry. She'd go to church every Sunday, and secretly drink when she was out with me - never gave me gyp for gettin' pissed. Once I'd persuaded her that sex before marriage wouldn' kill either one of us, she never denied me that either. And she definitely wouldn' have stayed blonde without help.

Point bein' - do they sound like the same to you? I don't know what she would've been like twenty five years later. So yeah, it seemed real an' it always would, if I didn' know better now. But I do. You think the mother you met is the same as the real one I knew? You're dreamin', Alex.'

His 'life' was real - but it's all been undermined now. He doesn't know what's real, or what he made up. He doesn't know if he based the people he loved on what he wanted them to be, or whether he took bits of reality and expanded them to the logical conclusion. Nothing he knows is based on solid ground, and it's one of the things that's so hard about this.