She sat at the table, with her bowl in front of her. I got up slowly and joined her. I wasn’t really hungry, but I tried just a little of the soup. It was delicious, homemade. I steadily worked my way through it.
“Nice to see you eat,” she said when I’d finished. “You’re carrying a great burden, aren’t you? It must be dreadful for you.”
I nodded. “I wish it didn’t happen. I wish I didn’t see the numbers.”
“It’s hard, isn’t it? But perhaps you should view it as a gift.”
I snorted. “You mean someone has given me this. I must have done something bloody awful to deserve it.”
“God may have given it to you. Maybe it’s not so much a gift to you, but a gift to all of us.” She’d lost me now.
“I don’t get it.”
“You’re a witness, Jem. You bear witness to the fact that we’re all mortal. That our days here are numbered, that there’s so little time.”
“But everyone knows that anyway.”
“We know, but choose to forget – it’s too difficult to deal with. That’s what you made me realize earlier. We choose to forget.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me. I can’t go anywhere, look at anyone, do anything, without being reminded. It’s doing a number on
“God loves you, Jem. He’ll give you the strength.”
Oh, enough already. I might have mellowed over the past week or so, but the old Jem wasn’t far beneath the surface.
“What are you talking about? If God loves me so much, why did He let my mum die of an overdose, why did He give me to a string of people who didn’t care about me, why did He make me twist my ankle, or put my hand on some bird shit, or give me a big zit on my chin?”
“He gave you the gift of life.”
There was no answer to that one.
I managed to stop myself from saying that actually that was my mum and one of any number of punters, paying her twenty quid to feed her habit. I was the result of a quick shag in a dingy flat; a business transaction. It wasn’t what Anne wanted to hear, and I didn’t want to upset her. So I just grunted and shut up.
We had another bowl of soup each and then tucked into bed. My mind kept going back to the two people in the abbey, and to Anne herself. If I had the chance to find out when I was going to die, would I take it? The answer had to be no, didn’t it? Why would you want to carry that around with you? And surely knowing about it would change the whole thing anyway. What if that knowledge, knowing your own death date, drove you to despair, and you killed yourself before then? Could that happen? Could you cheat the numbers by choosing to go early? Perhaps Spider was right, maybe they could change.
Whichever way I thought about it, it would never be right to tell someone their number. I’d known that instinctively all along, and now, with my secret out, it seemed even more important. Surely, I thought as I drifted off, there weren’t that many people who would want to know anyway.
The next morning, there was a queue of fifty.
Simon came to tell me while Anne and I were having breakfast. Well, Anne was – I only managed to sip some tea.
“There are a lot of people here today, Jem.”
It was just what I didn’t want to hear. I was tired, I felt really rotten, and besides, I only wanted to know about one visitor – today they had to bring Spider back to me.
“What do they expect me to do? I’m a kid.”
He shrugged. “We can keep them away from you. Our team here can counsel them.”
Anne agreed. “That’s right. We’re used to dealing with people in crisis. When I’ve cleaned up in here, I’ll come out and help.”
She looked so ordinary, standing there: crewneck sweater, corduroy skirt, boots, and short, horrible permed hair. But she wasn’t ordinary. She was prepared to sit all day and hear other people’s terror as she struggled with her own. Even I couldn’t scoff at that. Respect. It was more than I would be able to manage.
“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
“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
