I looked back across at them, but Spider’s antics had become too much: They’d turned their backs on us, probably hoping that we’d go away. I must have made a mistake, I thought. I needed to check this out. I started walking toward the queue, thinking I’d go ’round to the other side, have a look at them again. Spider didn’t even notice I’d gone – I could hear him cursing away to himself, cocooned in his outrage.
The line was pretty dense. I made for a slight gap between a young guy in a tracksuit with a rucksack on his back and an old lady with a thick tweed coat on, carrying a straw bag.
“’Scuse me,” I said as I walked toward the lady. I needn’t have said anything, she was backing away, anyway. “Ta,” I said as I squeezed through. She smiled thinly, clutching her bag to her body, and I caught the worry in her face as our eyes briefly met. I caught her number, too, and stopped in my tracks. I stared at her, I couldn’t help it. 12082010.
This was unreal. What did it mean? Sweat came pricking out through my skin, all over me. I stood there, rooted to the spot, staring at her.
The old lady took a deep breath. Her pupils were wide with fear.
“I haven’t got much money,” she said quietly, voice wavering ever so slightly. Her hands were holding her bag so tightly the knuckles were white.
“What?” I said.
“I haven’t got much money. This is a treat for me – I’ve been saving my pension…”
The light went on: The old dear thought I was going to rob her. “No,” I said, taking a step backward. “No, I don’t want your money. No, that’s not it. Sorry.”
I’d bumped into the guy in front of us, and he swung ’round, the corner of his damn bag catching my back. God, I’m going to get a beat-down, I thought. I started backing away in Spider’s direction.
“Hey, sorry,” I said, head down, hands in pockets. “I didn’t mean nothing.”
“It’s OK. This is not a problem.” His stilted English caught my attention. I peered out from under my hood. Weirdly, he looked as spooked as I was, sweat beading on his forehead, hair dark and damp around his scalp. “Everything is OK,” he said, and nodded, willing me to agree with him.
“Sure, everything’s OK,” I echoed, amazed that I could still speak like a normal human being. Inside me, my real voice was screaming now – a piercing shriek of terror tearing through me. He had it, too, you see. 12082010. His number.
Something was going to happen to these people.
Today.
Here.
I turned ’round and stumbled back to Spider, who was still cussing like a sailor.
“Spider, we’ve got to go, now.” He ignored me, wrapped up in his own little world. I grabbed his sleeve. “Please, mate, listen to me. We’ve got to get out of here.” Couldn’t he hear the fear in my voice? Couldn’t he feel my hand shaking on his arm?
“I ain’t going nowhere, man. I ain’t finished with this place.”
“Yes, Spider, you are. It doesn’t matter. We just need to get away.”
Every second we stood there talking was a second closer to whatever was going to wipe these people out. My heart was hammering away in my chest, like it was going to burst through my rib cage.
“I’m going to talk to the main man, whoever’s in charge here. Someone needs to tell them, set them straight. It’s disgusting, ripping off people like this. We shouldn’t put up with it no more. We…”
He just wasn’t listening. There was no way to make him listen.
“…take too much of this shit in this country. We’re all treated like second-class citizens. We -”
Without even thinking about it, I lifted up my hand and slapped him hard in the face. And I do mean hard. Smack! He stopped midflow, frozen in total shock. Then he put his hand up to his cheek.
“What the fuck did you do that for?”
“I need you to listen. We’ve got to get out of here. Please, please, get me out of here, Spider. Come on.” I grabbed his other hand and pulled until, finally, he started to move. I broke into a run, kind of dragging him along, and then, at last, he was running, too. Getting into it, he let go of my hand and sprinted ahead of me, long legs striding out, arms pumping. Half a minute later, he stopped to wait for me, and then we jogged together, along the Embankment and over Hungerford Bridge. We slowed to a walk midway across the bridge, then stopped and looked back where we’d come from. Everything was just as it had been, no problems.
“What’s going on, Jem? What was that all about?”
“Nothing. You were just upsetting people, that’s all. The next thing someone would’ve called the police.” It could have been true, couldn’t it? But even as I said it, I knew it sounded lame, and it didn’t fool Spider.
“Nah, that’s not it. Look at you, there’s something wrong. You look like a ghost, man. Even whiter than normal. What’s wrong with you?”
Standing there, looking over the Thames and the city just getting on with a normal day, I suddenly felt that I’d made a fool of myself. The words running through my head didn’t sound real, even to me – numbers, death dates, disaster. It sounded ridiculous, a stupid fantasy. And perhaps that was all it was, some twisted game my mind was playing on me.
“It’s nothing, Spider. I had a bad feeling there, a panic attack. I’m OK now – well, not OK, but better.” I tried to turn the conversation back to him. “I’m sorry I hit you.” I put my hand up to his face and held it there for a couple of seconds. “Is it sore?”
He smiled ruefully. “Still stinging a bit. I’d never have thought you could batter me like that.” He snorted and shook his head. “Bloody Mike Tyson’d have trouble with you.”
“Sorry,” I said again.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, still smiling. And that’s where we were, leaning on the bridge, looking along the river, when we heard the bang and saw the London Eye blown to bits in front of us.
CHAPTER NINE
You’ll have seen it on TV a hundred times, so you know what we saw that day: a sudden explosion, debris flying everywhere, a plume of smoke going up, one Ferris wheel pod completely destroyed, others damaged and distorted in the blast. All around us people had stopped in their tracks and turned to face the Eye. We could hear screaming carrying across the water.
Spider and I said the same thing, “Oh, my God!” and it was echoed from every mouth along the bridge – maybe a prayer from some people, just the words you say when you’re in shock for most of us. We stood watching for a minute or two, as the dust settled and the sirens started wailing. I felt numb. I’d started to doubt the numbers, hoping they weren’t real, that it was all some silly game in my head. Now I knew it was no game. The numbers were real – I was the girl who knew people’s futures, and I always would be. I shivered.
“Let’s get out of here, Spider,” I said. “Let’s go home.” Whatever was waiting for me at Karen’s, it had to be better than watching London clean up its dead. I turned to continue across the bridge, but Spider didn’t follow. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Still leaning on the bridge, he looked ’round at me, frowning. There was confusion there, but also accusation. I knew what was coming next. I couldn’t avoid it. Still holding my eyes, he spat out the words.
“You knew. You knew about that.” We were perhaps fifteen feet apart. His words were loud enough to reach me and several other people nearby. A couple of them quickly turned their heads to look at us.