Numbers

under control. There was no sign of Spider – without wanting to, my eyes scanned along the track under the train. The police were obviously thinking the same as me – some of them were walking along beside the end cars, peering underneath. My mouth was dry. “Oh, please, no,” I breathed to myself.

There was movement on the far embankment, something scuttling from bush to bush. I thought it was an animal at first, then glimpsed it again. It was a person on hands and knees: It was Spider.

He was making his way up the slope and away to the right. When the bushes ran out, he got down on his stomach and crawled on his elbows. I got to my feet and started walking along the road in the same direction. I was limping, but I didn’t notice the pain. I kept my eyes on Spider, and soon enough I caught him looking over toward me. I gave him the thumbs-up and he mirrored me. At the top of the embankment now, he scrambled to his feet and vaulted over the fence.

Below him, someone shouted out, “Oi! That’s the other one! Stop him!”

Spider broke into a run and I did, too – well, as much of a run as I could manage. We ran parallel to each other for a while, and then he disappeared from view, hidden by a wooden fence. We caught up with each other at a road bridge a few hundred feet farther on. He grabbed my hand, and we went for it, blindly running wherever our legs took us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

We had nothing to carry anymore, nothing to slow us down, and adrenaline was surging through us again. After a few twists and turns, we found our way into a park. This was better: only a few people around, a couple of old ladies with their dogs. We walked along the paths, looking for somewhere to hide. Spider kept sending me into gaps in the bushes.

“Go in there and have a look.”

“You do it!”

“Don’t be like that. You’re smaller than me. Go and check it out.”

I got ready to squeeze my way in, moving the branches out of my face. “People like you sent people like me up chimneys a hundred years ago. Just ‘cause I’m small,” I called behind me.

“No, mate, people like that woman who gave us a lift would have had us both cleaning her house, or polishing her shoes, or wiping her arse. ’Specially me. I’d have been someone’s slave.”

Point taken.

That opening was no good, but we found one a couple of minutes later. If you bent down and ducked under the bushes with thick rubbery leaves, there was a space behind, next to an old wall. It was big enough for us both to sit down and the ground was dry. No one could see us. We would be alright here for a bit.

We sat down next to each other, our backs leaning against the wall. The instant my butt hit the ground, all the strength went out of me. I was so, so tired. I closed my eyes.

“Ciggy?”

“No. Nothing.” I didn’t want to think, or feel, or see things anymore. I didn’t want to run or to hide.

“You alright?” His voice came to me through a thick fog. I’d nearly fallen asleep, just in that instant. I opened my eyes.

“I’m just tired.” He put his arm ’round me, pulled me in toward him.

“Did you hear what that bastard said?”

“About your nan?”

“Yeah. I should’ve killed him, Jem, while I had the chance. I was so mad, I just went for him. I forgot about my blade – should’ve pulled that and finished him there and then.”

“What good would that have done? Killing him? It would’ve just meant more trouble for you.”

“I don’t care. He don’t deserve nothing different for what he done. He had no right…”

“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.”