Numbers

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The last time I’d had to stand up and talk to a group of people had been back at school: “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.

“Jem wants to make a statement,” Karen told them. “Where’s the best place?”

“Well-” Stephen started to say, when the pushy agent guy elbowed his way to the front and butted in.

“I’d totally advise against a general statement. We need careful media handling with a story like this. You’re much better with some specifically negotiated one-to-ones. Come on, let’s get you back to the vestry.”

He put his hand on my arm. I tried to shrug him off, but his grip was pretty viselike.

“Get off me!” I yelled. “I don’t belong to you, and I’m not going to do a deal with you.”

He looked genuinely shocked, and puzzled, like he didn’t understand what I was saying.

“Weren’t you listening to me in there?” he asked.

“Yeah, I was listening. But you weren’t. You never let me get a word in edgewise. I’m not interested. Now get your hand off me, or I’ll bite it.”

He removed his hand, but he didn’t back off. Instead, he leaned in close to me.

“I can’t believe someone would waste such an opportunity. You’re either very naïve or very stupid.” His voice was pitched low now, but Karen and the others had heard him.

“She’s neither,” said Karen firmly. “She’s her own person, and she’s made her own decision. Now I’d like you to leave her alone.”

Vic did move away then, but he didn’t leave the abbey, he stayed at the back of the crowd, watching.

“You’ve got something to say, have you?” Stephen was asking.

“Yes. I think it’s time…time I stopped wasting everyone else’s time.”

Anne glanced worriedly at Karen, but Stephen nodded and looked relieved.

“Good. I’m glad. This farrago has gone on long enough. You can speak from here.” There was a slight step up into the part where the choir sat, but it only brought me to the head height of most of the crowd.

I looked up at the pulpit. “What about up there? There’s a microphone, too.”

He went redder in the face.

“That would be completely inappropriate…,” he started to bluster, then thought better of it. “Oh, very well, if it gets it over with…”

He led me up some steps and suddenly I was there, in the dark wooden pulpit of Bath Abbey. He switched on the microphone and introduced me, his voice booming out across the pews.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please find a seat. Our young…guest…here at the abbey has a few words to say to you.” He spread out his arm, inviting me to step forward and speak, and then retreated down the stairs.

A hush fell over the crowd.

I made the mistake of looking down. A sea of faces met me – a sea of numbers. I had nothing prepared: no clever words, no speech, no beginning, middle, or end. And one thing to tell them: a barefaced lie.

I took a couple of deep breaths.

“Hello,” I said, “I’m Jem. But you know that, that’s why you’re here.” No reaction. I swallowed hard and continued. “At least I don’t really know why you’re here. I’m just a kid, the same kid I was a month ago, a year ago, five years ago, when no one wanted to know me. I suppose what’s different is that I’ve been saying stuff about knowing when people are going to die. And I suppose you’re here because you think that I might tell you. But I’ve got to tell you…I’ve got to tell you…that it’s all a lie. I made it up.”

There was a collective gasp.

“Attention-seeking, that’s all. Boy, did that work. I’m sorry. I’m a fake. You’ve been scammed. You can all go home now – there’s nothing to see here.”

I turned to make my way down the stairs. People were starting to call out – it wasn’t what they’d wanted to hear. There were angry shouts, but also, rising above the other noise, a scream of genuine anguish – a terrible noise. I turned back and scanned the crowd. The lady screaming was the one in the head scarf, the one who’d touched my hand yesterday. Even though it was unfair of her to look to me for answers, I couldn’t help feeling that I’d let her down. I went back to the microphone.

“What did you expect from me?” I was looking at her, talking directly to her, but the whole crowd fell quiet again. “If you want, I can tell you what you came here for.”

I paused, licked my lips.

“You’re dying.”

She clapped her hands to her mouth, eyes wide with shock. More gasps rippled through the church.

“And so is the guy next to you. And the one behind. And so am I. We’re all dying. Everyone in this church, and everyone outside. You don’t need me to tell you that. But there’s something else.”

At the back of the church, a door opened. A group of men came in – policemen in uniform.

“You’re all alive, too. Right now, today, you’re alive and kicking. You’ve been given another day. We all have.”

The men walked over to the end of the main aisle and started moving toward the front. There was one guy in the middle, way taller than the rest of them, ridiculously tall, in fact, with his head bobbing and nodding to a rhythm all its own. It couldn’t be. Could it? My heart stopped beating, I swear it did, but my mouth kept going.

“We know it’s all going to come to an end one day, but we shouldn’t let that weigh us down. We shouldn’t let it stop us from living.”

Spider had come to a halt now, about halfway down the church. He was just standing there, looking up at me, with that big, silly grin on his face. I was talking to him now, there was no one else in the abbey for me, only him.

“Especially if you’ve found someone who loves you – that’s the most important thing of all. If you’ve got that, then you should appreciate every damn second with them…”

He flung his arms up in the air then, and let out a great whoop. Other people started clapping.

I backed away from the microphone and stumbled down the steps. I didn’t care who was looking at me, how many lenses or cameras were trained on me. I ran toward him, through the clapping, cheering, confused crowd, my feet nearly slipping on the polished tiles. Spider hadn’t moved, he was clapping, too, and then holding his arms out wide. I launched myself at him and he gathered me in, swinging me up and around before holding me close. I wrapped my legs around him, clinging like a limpet.

“What’s going on, man?” he laughed into my hair. “I only left you for a few days and you’ve turned into a preacher! Here”-he bent his face down to mine -“come here, I’ve never kissed a vicar before.” And he kissed me, so tenderly, in front of everyone. “I missed you,” he breathed.

“I missed you, too,” I said back, and above us, way up in the bell tower, the rods and levers clunked into place and the great abbey bells started to chime the hour.