Numbers

by Rachel Ward

  “That would be completely inappropriate…,” he started to bluster, then thought better of it. “Oh, very well, if it gets it over with….”

  He led me up some steps and suddenly I was there, in the dark wooden pulpit of Bath Abbey. He switched on the microphone and introduced me, his voice booming out across the pews.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please find a seat. Our young…guest…here at the abbey has a few words to say to you.” He spread out his arm, inviting me to step forward and speak, and then retreated down the stairs.

  A hush fell over the crowd.

  I made the mistake of looking down. A sea of faces met me — a sea of numbers. I had nothing prepared: no clever words, no speech, no beginning, middle, or end. And one thing to tell them: a barefaced lie.

  I took a couple of deep breaths.

  “Hello,” I said, “I’m Jem. But you know that, that’s why you’re here.” No reaction. I swallowed hard and continued. “At least I don’t really know why you’re here. I’m just a kid, the same kid I was a month ago, a year ago, five years ago, when no one wanted to know me. I suppose what’s different is that I’ve been saying stuff about knowing when people are going to die. And I suppose you’re here because you think that I might tell you. But I’ve got to tell you…I’ve got to tell you…that it’s all a lie. I made it up.”

  There was a collective gasp.

  “Attention-seeking, that’s all. Boy, did that work. I’m sorry. I’m a fake. You’ve been scammed. You can all go home now — there’s nothing to see here.”

  I turned to make my way down the stairs. People were starting to call out — it wasn’t what they’d wanted to hear. There were angry shouts, but also, rising above the other noise, a scream of genuine anguish — a terrible noise. I turned back and scanned the crowd. The lady screaming was the one in the head scarf, the one who’d touched my hand yesterday. Even though it was unfair of her to look to me for answers, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d let her down. I went back to the microphone.

  “What did you expect from me?” I was looking at her, talking directly to her, but the whole crowd fell quiet again. “If you want, I can tell you what you came here for.”

  I paused, licked my lips.

  “You’re dying.”

  She clapped her hands to her mouth, eyes wide with shock. More gasps rippled through the church.

  “And so is the guy next to you. And the one behind. And so am I. We’re all dying. Everyone in this church, and everyone outside. You don’t need me to tell you that. But there’s something else.”

  At the back of the church, a door opened. A group of men came in — policemen in uniform.

  “You’re all alive, too. Right now, today, you’re alive and kicking. You’ve been given another day. We all have.”

  The men walked over to the end of the main aisle and started moving toward the front. There was one guy in the middle, way taller than the rest of them, ridiculously tall, in fact, with his head bobbing and nodding to a rhythm all its own. It couldn’t be. Could it? My heart stopped beating, I swear it did, but my mouth kept going.

  “We know it’s all going to come to an end one day, but we shouldn’t let that weigh us down. We shouldn’t let it stop us from living.”

  Spider had come to a halt now, about halfway down the church. He was just standing there, looking up at me, with that big, silly grin on his face. I was talking to him now, there was no one else in the abbey for me, only him.

  “Especially if you’ve found someone who loves you — that’s the most important thing of all. If you’ve got that, then you should appreciate every damn second with them….”

  He flung his arms up in the air then, and let out a great whoop. Other people started clapping.

  I backed away from the microphone and stumbled down the steps. I didn’t care who was looking at me, how many lenses or cameras were trained on me. I ran toward him, through the clapping, cheering, confused crowd, my feet nearly slipping on the polished tiles. Spider hadn’t moved, he was clapping, too, and then holding his arms out wide. I launched myself at him and he gathered me in, swinging me up and around before holding me close. I wrapped my legs around him, clinging like a limpet.

  “What’s going on, man?” he laughed into my hair. “I only left you for a few days and you’ve turned into a preacher! Here”—he bent his face down to mine —“come here, I’ve never kissed a vicar before.” And he kissed me, so tenderly, in front of everyone. “I missed you,” he breathed.

  “I missed you, too,” I said back, and above us, way up in the bell tower, the rods and levers clunked into place and the great abbey bells started to chime the hour.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  “You’re OK, are you?” I searched his eyes for any signs of illness. Nothing, just his number, ever present, unchanging.

  “Yeah, bit tired. Can’t sleep in those cells.” He wiped his big hands over his face. “Kept thinking about you. Wondering where you were. I’d no idea you were holed up in a church.”

  “It’s mad, isn’t it? I kept thinking about you, too. It was making me crazy, thinking about you shut up in a cell. But that’s it now. You’re out. Are they bringing the car here?”

  He frowned.

  “What you talking about? What car?”

  “That was one of my conditions — they had to bring you and a car and some money, and then I’d talk. So we can carry on. Get to Weston. It’s less than thirty miles from here.”

  “Nah, you’ve got that wrong. They haven’t finished with me — they haven’t charged me yet. They just brought me here for a few hours, must be the deal you had, and then they’re taking me back again. ’Xpect they’ll take you an’ all, too.”

  “But they agreed — they signed an agreement! It’s all legal!”

  “What you gonna do? Take them to court?” He shook his head. “You can’t trust anyone, Jem, you should know that. Except me, of course.”

  “But they lied. Bastards! What are we gonna do now? How are we gonna get away from here?”

  He sighed. “I don’t think we are, Jem. This is it — we’ve got a few hours. We’ll just have to make the most of it. Like you said up there.”

  “But that’s not right, Spider. We’ll never make it now. We’ll never make it to Weston. I wanted to walk along the beach with you, have fish and chips like you said….” I had to stop there, as I was choking over the words. He put his long arm ’round me.

  “Don’t get upset. It doesn’t all have to be today. We can do it another time. Face it, they’re gonna put me away this time, probably you, too, but I can wait. I’ll wait for you, if you…?”

  “Of course I’ll wait for you. I waited fifteen years to find you. I could wait another fifteen if I needed to, but…” How could I say it? But time’s run out. There is no more after today.

  “But what?”

  “Just…just…I dunno. I just don’t think it’s going to work out.”

  “’Course it is. Sometimes things are really simple — I love you and you love me. That’s all we need. Whatever happens, we can get through it.”

  Why can’t things be like that? He loved me and I loved him, but the number in my head was telling me that he was going to die today. And the numbers had never been wrong. Leaning against him, breathing in his muskiness, I suddenly got a sick, sick feeling. There was nothing wrong with Spider. He wasn’t lying beaten up in a police cell. He wasn’t ill. Tattoo Face was gone, and there was no one chasing us with a gun or a knife.

  The only thing threatening him was me. I’d made it happen — I’d drawn him back to me on the fifteenth of December 2010: 12152010. I saw the number and somehow I knew its message would come true. While I existed, the number existed. I was the number and the number was me. I don’t know if anyone else, anywhere in the world, saw them, or if the numbers they saw were the same ones I saw, but once I’d seen one, that was it. They didn’t change, they didn’t go away. Anne was right: I was a witness, but maybe not just in a ge
neral way. I was a witness to the end of particular people on particular days.

  There was only one way to deal with it. The only way to cancel that number out was to remove the person who saw it.

  I stood up slowly and looked around. I couldn’t expect the keys to be back in the drawer in the vestry, but I knew Simon always had some on him. He was talking to Anne in one of the side aisles, keys glinting in a big bunch at his waist. I ran up to him and lunged at the keys. I had them unhooked from his waistband before he knew what I was doing. Pushing him aside, I raced to the tower door. There were so many keys, so many, but I got the right one, second try. I didn’t look back, not once, I just wrenched open the door, slipped through, slammed it behind me, and locked it, shutting out all the raised voices, even the one I longed to hear. Especially the one I longed to hear. But it was there in my head as I climbed the spiral staircase.

  “Jem, what the fuck…? Jem!”

  As I stepped out onto the roof, horizontal rain lashed into me. I locked the door at the top of the staircase and picked my way across, over to the tower. In those few seconds, my clothes were soaked, jeans flapping wetly around my legs. Once I was in the tower, I knew what I had to do. Ignoring the other side doors, I went up until I found the bell-ringing room, then across and up the top staircase. I didn’t bother securing the last door — the other three or four would slow them down enough. It would be far too late by the time they got to me. I was breathing fast and hard, my chest hurting with the effort. My legs were wobbly from the climb, and the wind buffeted at me, almost knocking me over. I put both hands on the stone parapet to steady myself.

  From far below, I heard shouting. I wouldn’t let myself look down. I kept my eyes on the rooftops and the hills beyond.

  I waited until I’d caught my breath a bit, but not long enough to lose the adrenaline rushing through my veins. Eyes on the horizon, I gave a little jump and, using all the strength left in my arms, pulled myself up onto the stone wall. I crouched there for a second, getting my balance, and then slowly, with arms outstretched, got to my feet.

  The rooftop pool across from me contained a handful of swimmers, defying the storm above them. I knew now for sure that I’d never be one of those people. I would never be anything other than what I was now — a girl who, for fifteen years, had brought death and destruction to those around her. A girl who’d been stupid enough to start to believe in love, and who now knew that there was only one way to save the boy who loved her.

  Perhaps, after all, I had seen my own number.

  It had been reflected in Spider’s eyes all along.

  12152010.

  The day I said good-bye to it all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  My toes were curled inside my shoes, as if that would help them grip on to the wet stone. I tried to stand as tall as I could, to face the end with dignity, but the wind and the rain were mocking me. They knew that in the scheme of things, I was tiny, nothing, and by blowing me around, soaking me, they were putting me in my place. It took a surprising amount of strength just to stay up there — the weather was blasting in from the front of me, trying to knock me back onto the flat roof behind. I could lean into it and not fall, except it would suddenly change; the wind would drop, and then I was flailing my arms about, reeling on the edge, toes gripping even harder.

  I guess my mistake was thinking. I didn’t just get up and jump, that would have been the way to do it. But not me, I had to stand there for a bit with my mind full of stuff. If I jumped, would the wind actually blow me backward? How long would it take to fall? Would I feel it, when I made contact with the ground? Would I actually hit the ground or the pitched roof? Was this really meant to happen? Was this my life, fifteen years and no more? Did I have a future, lying somewhere out there, waiting for me, and was I about to cheat it?

  I tried to focus, to bring all these random thoughts back to the important one: If I ended it now, if I found that courage, I could stop the misery for a lot of people. Most of all, there was a chance I could save Spider. If no one saw his number any longer, perhaps that number would no longer exist.

  I needed to do this, and the way to do it was to go in style, like diving into a pool. I raised myself up onto my toes, stretched my arms out wide. I’d count myself out. Numbers would see me through to the end. “Three…two…”

  “Jem!”

  I looked over my shoulder. Oh, God, he was there, spilling out of the staircase door in an untidy mess of arms and legs.

  “Jem! Please, please, no!” His voice was thick with terror.

  “Keep away, Spider. Keep away from me. I need to do this.”

  “But why? I don’t understand…please don’t. Oh, my God, please don’t.” He was inching toward me.

  “Keep away!” My words a high-pitched screech, carried away on the wind. He stopped, held his hands up.

  “It won’t be that bad, Jem. Prison. We can handle it. And then we can wipe the slate clean. Start again. Jem, please, we can do this.”

  “It’s not that. I can’t explain. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I have to do it.” I was teetering on the brink now.

  “I don’t understand, Jem. I don’t understand why you’d leave me. Why would you do that?” He was edging forward again. Even in the wind and the rain, I could smell his sweat — it flooded through me, jolting me back to our first meeting under the bridge, back to our night in the barn. “Why would you leave me, Jem? I don’t understand.”

  I owed him that, at least, didn’t I? An explanation?

  “I’ve got to stop the numbers, Spider. I’m the only one who sees them. They’re inside me. I can’t get rid of them.” I dropped my voice, speaking more to myself now than to him. “I’ve got to do this. It’s the only way.”

  But he didn’t get it. He was still hung up on hearts and flowers.

  “It doesn’t have to end like this, Jem. We can be together now.” His words were so seductive — he was the only person in the world who knew what to say to me, what I really wanted to hear.

  I started to cry.

  “You want that, too, don’t you, Jem? I know you do. You can’t tell me that none of it meant anything to you, can you? Please don’t tell me that….” He was crying, too, now.

  I can’t stand men crying. It’s wrong, isn’t it? Their faces aren’t made for it, they kind of crumple; it’s painful to watch.

  He was close now, so close to me. If he reached out one of his long arms, he’d be able to grab me. I didn’t want that — I needed to go through with this — it was the most important thing I would ever do.

  Three…two… and yet, and yet, to feel him again, to feel his arms around me, just for one last time — that sweet thought held me back.

  “Wait, please wait a minute.”

  “I’ve got to do it, Spider. You don’t understand.” The rain was mixing with tears on my face, with the snot bubbling out of my nose.

  “I don’t understand. I don’t understand, man. We had something. We can still have something. You and me, Jem.”

  “No, it never happens. Happily ever after. It’s a lie, Spider. It doesn’t happen to people like us.”

  He dropped down to the floor, crouched into a ball, clutching at his springy hair. He was sobbing, saying stuff at the same time. I couldn’t hear him properly. I should’ve jumped then, while he wasn’t looking, that was the time to do it, but I needed to know what he was saying. I didn’t want any loose ends.

  “What is it? What is it, Spider?”

  He looked up at me. “I can’t go on without you, man. There’ll be nothing left.” He got to his feet, held out his hand. “Give me your hand, Jem. Help me up.”

  It’s a trick, I thought. He’s tricking me. I said nothing, did nothing.

  “Why won’t you help me?” he said. “I’m coming with you.”

  In one easy, fluid movement, he was up on the wall, right next to me. He tried to steady himself against the wind. “Whoa, this is awesome.” His big grin had broken out again now;
he couldn’t help himself. “Look at it, man. You can see for miles. Whoo-hooh!” His whoop was whipped away on the wind.

  “You’re mental. I always knew you were,” I said.

  He grabbed my hand.

  “Solid, man, solid. If you really want to do this, I’ll do it with you. We’ll go together. I love you, Jem. I don’t want anyone or anything else.”

  Do you know what it’s like to hear those words? To hear the person you love telling you they love you, too? If you don’t now, I hope you do one day.

  “I had a blast with you, Jem. These last few weeks, they’ve been the best time of my life. Don’t go without me. I love you.”

  He was ready to go. We could dive off there together. His number would be right, after all, and I’d join mine with his.