“I know. But I’m glad you didn’t. Anyway, he-” I was going to say, Anyway, he’s going to die today, but I stopped myself just in time. Surely, if Tattoo Face was going to die, it would have happened; Spider would’ve knifed him, or he would have split his head open on the rail when they were wrestling, or the train would’ve hit him. I was certain I’d seen his number, certain it was today. I didn’t get it. I wasn’t sure anymore – were the numbers just in my head or were they real? If I’d just made them up, that was cool – I could ignore them, try to change them, whatever. I could stop the clock ticking Spider’s life away. If they were real, though, that meant Spider’s nan was OK – she had years to go. It was getting all muddled up in my head. Whatever the truth of it, though, there was one way I could comfort Spider.
“I think she’ll be OK, your nan.”
“Really? I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
I turned around to face him. “Spider, I know she’ll be OK.”
“Because of her number?”
“Yeah.”
“But what if you’re not the only one to see numbers? What if someone else sees completely different ones? What if her number’s changed?”
“They don’t.” I hesitated, checking Spider’s number again – yeah, it was still there, still the same. “They don’t change.”
“So, the date we’ll die is set from the minute we’re born. Is that what you’re saying?”
He was starting to piss me off now. I was trying to make him feel better, and he was giving me the third degree. Questions I didn’t have answers for.
“I’m not saying anything.” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. “You’re the one saying it all.”
“But I want you to say it, ‘cause it doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“What?”
“How everything is fixed for us. It’s like it don’t matter what I do because the end will be the same.”
“P’raps that’s how it is. Things happen.” I wanted him to stop it, but he was like a dog with a bone.
“So everything’s preset? It’s all meant to be?”
“I dunno.”
“That bomb was meant to go off. That bastard was meant to beat up my nan. That’s not right, Jem, is it? That can’t be right.” He was raising his voice now. He’d taken his arm away from me and was waving it around. He seemed bigger than ever in this confined space.
“’Course it’s not right.”
“It don’t make any sense.” A bit of his spit hit my face. He was well worked up.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“What?”
“Nothing makes any sense. Nothing means anything. You’re born, you live, you die. That’s it.” My philosophy in a nutshell.
That shut him up for a while. We sat, side by side, backs against the wall, both of us with our arms folded. But while I was still, Spider was shaking his head back and forth – it made his whole body move, his shoulder joggling into mine. Knowing, as I did now, how still he could be when he was happy and relaxed, it was disturbing to see him so agitated. He was out of his mind with worry. It felt like my fault. I wanted to reach him; I wanted to take his distress away.
“Spider, listen. Maybe I’m wrong.” I was scared of what I was about to say. The words crept out of me like quiet little mice.
He was still shaking away, caught up in his own dark, mad world. I sat up on my knees, facing him, and put my hands on both his shoulders. “Spider.” He couldn’t hear me. I moved my hands up to his face, held him firmly, slowing but not stopping his movement.
“What I said. That’s not right, either.” At last he was listening. His face was still and he looked up at me, his eyes haunted and sad.
“Why not?”
“It’s not all random. It can’t be.” I took a deep breath. “Because I was meant to meet you, and you were meant to meet me.”
His eyes filled with tears. Without saying a word he unwound his arms from around his ribcage and wrapped them around my waist, burying his face in my shoulder. Kneeling there, I held him to me, and stroked him, his back and his hair, and we cried together. There were no words to say what we were feeling; the tears said it for us – terror, relief, love, and grief, all mixed into the salt.
Later, much later, we disentangled ourselves and sat up. It was getting dark, and in our leafy cave I could only see Spider as a vague shape now.
“We need to get out of here, Jem,” Spider said. “We couldn’t have brought more attention to ourselves if we’d bloody tried earlier on.”
“Yeah, I know.” I had no energy left. My hand was hurting, my knee was hurting. I didn’t want to be found, but it would be so easy just to curl up here in Spider’s arms and wait for the inevitable.
“The best way to get out of here fast is to get another car.”
“And then what?”
“Drive to Weston. We must be bloody close now. You’ll love it.” Even in the dark, I could tell he was smiling again. I wanted to feel it with him, I really did, but I couldn’t. I felt cold inside, miserable, scared.
“What are we gonna do at Weston, Spider? They’ve got TV and newspapers there, too, you know, and police and sniffer dogs and -”
He put one of his long fingers up to my lips. “I told you. We’re gonna eat ice cream and fish and chips and walk along the pier.” He was saying it like he believed it. Perhaps he did.
I gently took hold of the hand that was shushing me and laid it on my open left palm, softly tracing along his bony fingers with my other hand.
“What you doing?”
“Nothing. You’ve got lovely hands.”
“You’re soft in the head, you are.” He leaned across and kissed me tenderly. “OK,” he said, like his mind was suddenly made up. “I know you’re tired, so you stay here and be ready to run when I come back for you. I’ll find us some wheels, don’t worry. I won’t be long.” He started to crawl out from under the branches.
“Spider.”
“What?”
“Be careful.”
“’Course. Be ready, OK? I’ll only be a few minutes.” And he was gone, the branches swishing for a minute where he’d pushed his way through. I watched as their movement slowed and stopped. And I sat in the gathering dark, and waited.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I sat there, listening hard, with every bit of me ready to jump up and run. I was waiting for his footsteps, for the leaves to rustle, for a whispered instruction. In the background, each noise was heavy with significance – the hum of traffic, the odd shout far away, a couple of sirens. What the hell was going on? Where was he?
Two minutes turned to ten. Ten minutes turned to twenty. As time went on I started to get glued into my position – hunched up, hugging my knees. I made myself breathe slowly, almost in a trance, trying to suspend everything until Spider came back for me.
How long was it until I realized he wasn’t coming back? I don’t know, but gradually it seeped through me like the freezing rain that had started soaking down from the leaves above and up from the ground below. Something had happened to him. Because I hadn’t seen it, I didn’t feel shock, not then; it was like something even darker than the night all around, settling on me, in me, a chill going right through to my bones. I didn’t move or make a sound, I just kept on sitting there, curled into a ball, only rocking a little, backward and forward.
I must have gone to sleep, because at one point I woke up lying on the ground with one thought in my head: He’s gone. I was cold and wet, curled up in the dirt. I held both hands up to my face, covering my nose and mouth. My own breath warmed my face as I whispered over and over, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” I had no idea what to do – I was too scared to cry.
My whispered words filled my ears, but suddenly I was aware of other voices filtering through, and another sound, a swishing and flicking noise. Somebody was going through the bushes with something.