chapter EIGHT
I woke up on the floor, surrounded by broken stuff, my stuff. The last thought that I’d had before I went to sleep was still in my head: I had nothing left to lose. What more could they do to me than they were already planning?
I checked my watch, still working despite a cracked face: twenty to seven in the morning. I unpeeled my stiff legs, got to my feet, and picked my way across the floor. Then out onto the landing and carefully downstairs. I swigged some orange juice from the carton and stuck some bread in the toaster; then, when it popped up, slathered on some peanut butter and walked out, eating as I went.
Not many people around, although that background buzz was there. It’s always there in London. I nipped up someone’s front path and grabbed a pint of milk sitting outside the door in the cold: something to wash down the toast.
I felt better than I had in a long time. I knew that sooner or later they’d catch up with me — lecture me, confine me, move me — but for now, for this moment, I was free.
I took my pint of milk down to the canal and drank it, perching on the sleepers where I’d had my first conversation with Spider. Light started seeping into the edge of the sky. As it started to spread, everything was gray: the buildings, the walls, the water, the sky. You could take a color photo and it would be the same as a black-and-white one. It matched my mood — I was calm, muted, living in the moment, just hanging.
When I’d finished the milk, or nearly, I put the bottle on the edge of the canal bank and scooped up a handful of stones. One by one, I aimed them at the bottle. Some went past, you could hear them enter the water — plip! When they hit the target, it wobbled, threatened to fall over the edge, but didn’t quite do it. I scuffed the ground with my sneaker, looking for bigger stones. I found a couple and concentrated hard. The first one missed, plopped into the canal. The second one got it right on the neck, took it over the edge, just like that, hitting the water with a smack! I got up and peered over. The bottle was bobbing about on its side, the dregs of the milk still slopping around, moving slowly to the left, heading for the Thames. I thought, I should have put a message in it. For some reason, that tickled me: the thought of some kid in France or Holland wading out into the sea to get my bottle and pulling out a bit of paper to find my message: Up Yours. Greetings from England.
The bottle was a good sixty feet away from me now. I had half a mind to follow it, see where we both ended up, but that wasn’t how I wanted to spend my last few hours of freedom before they picked me up. I wanted to say good-bye to my only friend; so instead, I turned back up the path to the shops and headed ’round to Spider’s house. It was still only half past seven and there were no signs of life. I went up to the front door and my hand hovered over the doorbell. I felt unsure, like I’d look a bit desperate, needy, just showing up like that, so early. I gently tried the door, just in case. It moved beneath my fingers, and a wisp of smoke came floating out through the gap.
I pushed the door open and went in, and there she was in the kitchen: Val, on her perch, with a cup of tea in one hand and a smoke in the other. Damn, did that woman sleep there?
“Alright, love?” she said, like she’d been expecting me. “Come in.” I went farther into the room. “You’re an early bird. You in trouble?” I nodded. “There’s some tea in that pot. Get yourself a cup from the sink, love, and come and sit down.”
And that’s how Spider found us when he emerged at about nine: me and Val side by side at the breakfast counter, second pot of tea on the stove, mound of cigarette ashes on the saucer between us. He shambled into the kitchen with some track pants and an old stained T-shirt on, eyes sort of small and puckered, like he’d been asleep for a hundred years. He looked a mess at the best of times, but this was something else, like someone had crumpled him up and thrown him away.
“What’s all this?” he asked, once the shock of seeing someone other than his nan there had sunk in.
“Jem’s come ’round to see you. She’s in a bit of trouble, aren’t you?”
He looked at me, and I said, “I’m in the shit, Spider. They’re going to move me again.” And for some reason, I could feel a little tremble in my chin when I looked at him. I turned away quickly, feeling stupid. And then, bless him, he said exactly the right thing.
“Stuff ’em, Jem. Let’s have a day out. I’ve got some spends.” Val’s eyes flicked up to search his face at that. “They’ll be looking for you ’round here. Let’s go into town.” He was starting to dance about on his toes again, the familiar energy fizzing through him. He clapped his hands together. “OK, let’s go! Pour me a cuppa, Nan, and I’ll get me sneakers on.”
“I think you’ve got time to take a shower and find some clean clothes, Terry. There’s a load of clean stuff in the hall.”
Spider’s face registered agony and disgust.
“I’m fine, Nan. Don’t nag.”
“You’re not fine. You could cut the air with a knife around you, you smelly article!” she said, lighting another smoke.
She turned to me. “Boys! What can you do?” Despite his protest, I noticed Spider sloping out of the room, and when he came back he was in jeans and a clean T-shirt. There’s no way he’d taken a shower, though, not that quickly. He slurped down his tea and bent to kiss Val.
“I suppose I should tell you to go to school, you naughty kids, but seeing as you’re both suspended”—she winked one of those piercing hazel eyes —“you go and have a good day out. I won’t say nothing if anyone comes ’round here.”
She looked at me, not smiling, but there was a warmth underneath, you could tell, and I thought, You lucky sod, Spider, having a nan like this. If I’d had someone like her in my life, things could have been completely different.
He grabbed his hoodie on our way through the front room, called out, “Bye, Nan, see you later,” and we were gone.
Everything was up and running now, the traffic in full swing, people out and about. Earlier, it had felt like the city was mine; I’d owned the peace and quiet, just me. But now me and Spider were two ants in a city of millions, nothing more than that. The sun was out now, too. It was turning into one of those bright, crisp winter days.
“Don’t have to walk today, we can get the Tube. Could get a taxi, if you wanted — just about.”
“How much have you got, Spider?”
“Sixty quid — all mine.” He grinned. “Got to be back this evening, though. Bit more business to do. But the whole of the day’s ours,” he said, spreading his arms and twirling about. “Where do you wanna go?”
“I dunno. Oxford Street?”
“OK.” He drew himself up to his full height, then spread one arm in front of me, as if showing me the way, and in the loudest, most stupid toff’s voice said, “A little light shopping, madam. Is that to your liking?”
People were starting to look.
“Shut up, Spider!” He looked a bit crestfallen. “Come on, you soft git, that sounds cool. Let’s get on with it.” And I started running toward the Tube, and then he was there next to me, long legs easily beating me in our race to the ticket booth.
“It’s a f*cking rip-off, man, that’s what it is. Sixteen quid to go up in that thing.” He flipped his arm toward the London Eye Ferris wheel, anger fizzing through his body right down to his fingertips. We’d spent most of our money on Oxford Street on stupid sunglasses and hats and Big Macs. Sixty quid doesn’t go very far in London.
People were starting to stare at him. I suppose when you weren’t used to him, he was something to stare at: a six-foot-four black guy, ranting in the street. The queue was gawping at him, like he was a hired clown — just there for their entertainment. I thought, They’ll start chucking coins at him in a minute. Some of them were elbowing each other, saying things out of the corners of their mouths, laughing. Disrespectful, like Jordan had been to me.
“Forget it, then,” I said, trying to defuse the situation. “I don’t want to go on the poxy thing, anyway. Let’s go somewhere else.”
But he was off on a rant now. “Everything’s for sodding tourists in this town. What about us? What about normal people, ain’t got sixteen quid for a poncey carnival ride?” Some of his audience were starting to look uneasy, shifting slowly a bit farther away from him, exchanging worried glances. I was enjoying their reaction now. He was shaking them up a bit.
My eyes ran along the line — yeah, they were getting pretty uncomfortable. A couple of Japanese tourists, wearing matching blue parkas, woolly hats, and gloves, glanced in our direction. In that split second it took for them to look across and look away, I clocked their numbers and got a jolt like an electric shock. They were the same. Weird, I thought, matching death dates — what were the odds? Then the actual numbers registered, like a punch to my head. 12082010. That was today. What the hell…?
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 f*ck 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.