“Whatever. I can’t see them. I don’t want to. I’ve got nothing to say to them.”
“That’s fine. We’ll deal with it.” Simon disappeared to make the arrangements. Anne pottered about, washing up the cups and her breakfast dishes.
“Jem,” she said, “you need to think about what happens next. Where you want to go. This isn’t the ideal place to stay.”
“I know what I want to happen – I want some time with my friend. And then…and then, I dunno…” The truth was I’d stopped even thinking about life after the fifteenth. After today.
“Karen will be here soon – I think the consensus is that you should go back home with her. She can help you through all the legal stuff, if they decide to bring charges. She knows you, Jem. She really cares.”
“I’m not going back to Karen’s.”
“You’re fifteen, Jem. You’re not old enough to be out there on your own. Not yet.”
“Please, can we not get into this? I don’t know what I’m doing until Spider gets here.”
I suddenly realized I hadn’t had a proper wash since my shower at Britney’s. I wanted to look nice for him. I took myself off into the little cloakroom, stripped down, and washed as best I could with soap and water from the sink. At least I could be clean, even if I was still stuck in Britney’s slightly-too-large clothes. It woke me up, too, that wash – I got rid of that sickly, worn-out feeling. I couldn’t wait to see him now – I’d never looked forward to anything so much in my life.
Back in the vestry, Karen had reappeared. As I emerged from the cloakroom with bare feet and a towel ’round my head, she came over to hug me. “Jem, how are you? You’re looking a bit better than last time.”
She held me away from her, but kept both hands on my shoulders. “People out there are desperate to see you. It’s all gone crazy, but I think you should think carefully before doing anything, because -”
She didn’t get a chance to finish because at that moment the door from the abbey burst open and a blingy middle-aged bloke breezed in, making a beeline straight for me.
“Hi, Jem, good to meet you. Vic Lovell.” He strode across the room with his hand thrust out, practically shouldered Karen out of the way, grabbed my hand, and shook it vigorously. Instantly, the room was full of him – his presence, his energy. He wasn’t after my help. He was after something else.
He started talking even before he took off his coat. “Now, Jem, I’m here to talk to you about your future, which is looking very bright indeed. I’ve had some amazing offers coming in for you, and if we play this carefully, you can be set up for life. Literally. We’ve got print, radio, and TV interviews lined up. I’m certain we can get a major magazine deal. This will cover the next couple of months, and then we need to get a book out, and there are already publishers desperate to talk to you. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t expect you to sit and write it, there’s people who can help – you just need to talk to them and they do the rest. But the important thing is that I need you to sign up with me, so that I can manage all this for you. If it’s not carefully managed, you could get overexposed or miss a key offer – but done the right way, as I said, you’re made for life.” Finally, he stopped. He gave me a broad smile and nodded encouragingly at me.
“What?” I said.
“What do you think? Are we going to be partners?”
Still reeling from his verbal attack, I just shrugged and said, “I dunno.”
And he was off again.
“I know, it’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? Perhaps you don’t really understand what I mean. I can make you rich, Jem. We’re talking hundreds of thousands here. You’re young, you’ve got an amazing story to tell, the whole world is talking about you. This is it, Jem. This is your moment. You can have everything you want – clothes, parties, cars, trips. You name it, you’ve got it. The world wants to hear from you now. It’s all about you.”
“And what do you want?” I looked at his camel-colored overcoat, the fat gold signet ring on his finger, and the Rolex half-hidden by his crisp white shirt cuff.
“I want to help you.”
“And you get…?”
“A percentage, of course.” He fixed his hard gray eyes on me. I couldn’t avoid seeing that, middle-aged as he was, he still had another thirty years of hustling, wheeling and dealing ahead. “I’m not a charity. We’ll be in this together, Jem.”
“No. Fuck off.”
“You what?”
“Fuck off. I don’t want any of it – I don’t want your help.” I spat it out like a swearword. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want fame. I don’t want to be a poxy celebrity.”
He looked at me like I’d lost my marbles.
“You have no idea what you’re saying. You can’t walk away from this. You’d be mad to.”
“I know what I’m doing. I know what I want. And I want you to leave.”
He held up his hands. “Let’s not be hasty. You’re under a lot of stress here, I know that. I’m going to leave you to talk it over with your mum here. Give you a bit of space. I’ll be right outside.”
Sitting in the corner, Karen had been watching all this. I thought of her little house back in London, with the wallpaper peeling off the damp patch in the kitchen. She’d struggled all her life without money. What would it mean to her if I went along with all this? I knew she only had a few years to go. Perhaps this guy could make sure that those last ones were the best years of her life.
“What do you think, Karen?”
She shook her head. “You know what I feel about all this. It’s gone too far already. If you start giving interviews and writing books, it’ll just get worse.”
“But I could get you things – a bigger house, with more of a garden for the boys.”
Her face softened. “They’d like that, wouldn’t they?” she said. “But you don’t have to get me anything, Jem. We’re alright where we are. His kind of world – it’s a fantasy, it’s not real. I know you, Jem – that’s not what you really want, is it?”
Maybe she did know me after all. I grinned at her.
“No – it’s all bullshit.”
Karen opened her mouth to object to the language, then shut it again and came over to give me a hug.
“I don’t want any of it,” I said. “I want it all to go away. I should never have told anyone.”
“It’s alright. It’ll be alright.” She was still holding me, but I eased away.
“But it won’t, will it? This sort of thing feeds on itself. Now that it’s out there, there’s no stopping it.”
“I think you could stop it yourself.”
“How?”
She looked straight at me, clear-eyed. “Just tell them…tell them you made it all up. That it’s not true.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The last time I’d had to stand up and talk to a group of people had been back at schooclass="underline" “My Best Day Ever.” When was that? A month ago? I couldn’t remember. I’d stood up at the front of the classroom that day, and I’d told the truth, at least the truth as I saw it. That hadn’t exactly turned out well. Now I was getting ready to stand up in front of a crowd of strangers – the sick and dying, journalists, people like that agent, God knows who else – and call myself a liar. I was going to deny the truth that had dogged me my whole life.
“OK, let’s do it.”
Karen gave my arm a squeeze. “Good girl,” she said. I think she honestly felt I was coming clean. She’d never believed me, and she was pleased now that I was owning up.
We walked out of the vestry and into the abbey. Well, there were way more than fifty people there now. It looked like there were hundreds milling around, all keeping near to the vestry door. As soon as I appeared, the noise level rose, and people started moving toward me. Karen steered me through them toward the front of the abbey, where Anne was standing with Stephen, the rector.