Millions (13 page)

‘You said the Mormons
were
the train robbers yesterday.’

‘New evidence, Damian. Like they’ve just been burgled. How can they be the robbers if they’ve just been robbed.’

‘So who are the robbers, then?’

‘Obviously, it’s Dorothy.’

‘No. Obviously it’s not Dorothy.’

‘Think about it. You put thousands in her bin. Does she give it to charity? No, she tells the head. Why? Because she wants to know who put it there. Which is you, idiot. Then when she’s found out, does she go home? No, she hangs around the school, getting pally with Dad. Why? So she can find out where we live. The next thing, she’s wandering round our house like she owned it, rooting around in our kitchen and all that. Why? So she can check up on us and find out where the money is. The next thing you know, the neighbours get burgled.’

Now I could see Anthony was passionate in his belief, but I could also see that he was mistaken. ‘Anthony, if she knew
we
had the money, why would she burgle the house next door and not us?’

‘I don’t know. A communication problem, probably. She’s not on her own, is she? It’s a big organization. There’s dozens of them. And they’re everywhere and they all know and they’re all after us. And not just them. Everyone who hears about the money wants it. But it’s OK . . .’ He didn’t look OK. He looked like he was going to cry. ‘What we’re going to do. We’re going to hide it in your den.’

‘It’s not a den. It’s a hermitage.’

‘Whatever. We’re going to hide it there and take a wedge each . . .’

‘What if someone looks there?’

‘Like who? No one else knows about it. Do they?’

‘The man with the glass eye.’

It took him a while, but eventually he managed to repeat, ‘The man with the glass eye?’

‘He had a look inside the day we . . .’ I didn’t go on. Anthony looked like he was going to cry. ‘Anthony, let’s tell Dad. He had really good ideas about what to do with it and . . .’

‘You don’t understand a thing, do you? We can’t trust anyone.’

‘But Dad . . .’

‘Dads and Mums are no different. One minute they’re there and the next they’re gone. You should know that. We’re on our own, Damian. Get used to it.’

By the time I’d thought of something to say back to him, he’d gone to bed. He was curled up in a ball deep under the sheets, pretending to be asleep.

Next morning, Anthony shovelled all the money out of the Subbuteo box and into our school bags. ‘We’re going to have to keep it with us. All the time. No days off. If we leave it in the house, it’ll get burgled or she’ll find it. We can’t put it in your den. We can’t put it in the bank. We’ll have to keep it with us. Maybe we should stay off sick?’

‘But we’re not sick.’

‘No good anyway. They’re casting for the nativity play today. We’ve got to get parts or our cover’s blown.’

So we put the bags of cash on our backs. To be metaphorical about it, the money had become a burden.

There was a man outside putting up a sign that said, ‘This is a Homewatch Area.’ Dad said it was pretty ironic putting it up on the day after the burglary. We set out for school.

Terry from IT was getting into his car. He pointed to the sign and said, ‘Irony, eh? Do they still do irony at school? If they ask you for an example, that’s it.’

‘OK. Will do,’ said Anthony, and walked on.

When we were crossing the field, I said, ‘What if we don’t get picked? For the nativity play?’

‘We’ll get picked, don’t worry.’

When we were at All Saints Primary, everyone wanted to be in the nativity play because you got a special party of your own afterwards. It turned out to be different at Great Ditton. When Mr Quinn came in and said, ‘Right 5M, this class is going to provide Mary, Joseph and the shepherds for the juniors’ nativity play. Who wants to be Joseph?’ I shot my hand up in the air, the same as anyone would. But when I looked around, instead of being surrounded by waving arms, I was on my own. Not one other boy had put his hand up. They were all sitting there looking at me. I couldn’t understand it. Then I looked closer and saw that every one of them was clutching a twenty-pound note under their desks. Anthony had paid them all off.

Mr Quinn looked uncomfortable, ‘No one else?’

I kept my hand up there.

‘No one else want to be St Joseph? Damian could be a shepherd. He’s probably had enough of saints, eh? Jake, what about you?’

‘Couldn’t do it, sir. Allergy, sir.’

‘Allergy to what?’

‘Synthetics, sir.’ Mr Quinn looked puzzled.

‘The beard.’

I kept my hand high up through all of this, so he had to pick me in the end.

Trying the costume on was interesting. I’d always endeavoured to emulate the saints but I’d never actually dressed like one before. I had sandals, a crook and a big black beard.

Mr Quinn helped me put them on. He said, ‘St Joseph never did anything weird, did he? I mean, he didn’t spurt milk or levitate or anything?’

‘Not unless being visited by angels is weird.’

He looked me searchingly in the eye and then said, ‘No, no. I can live with that.’

Anthony was playing one of the kings. His teacher (Miss Nugent) said, ‘Now there are three kings – Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar. Which d’you want to be?’

‘The one with the gold.’

The one with the gold was Melchior, by the way.

Miss Nugent made Anthony a block of gold out of a Rockport shoebox wrapped up in gold paper. He carried that block of gold with him everywhere. He became interested and inspired by historical aspects of the nativity story. For instance, he said to me, ‘Do you realize how much a block of gold that big would be worth at today’s prices? A lot. An awful lot. It makes you wonder.’

‘What?’

‘Well, he had all this money and then later on, when he was grown up, he was poor. They must’ve spent it. They must’ve had a great time.’

We had a big dress rehearsal. We didn’t go home after school. We all took sandwiches and waited in class for our turn to see the make-up lady, which was Tricia’s mum. There were dozens of little girls dressed as angels. They had to stand in the corridor and practise ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Little Donkey’ until they sounded like real angels. Miss Nugent kept giving them orange squash. I know they weren’t really angels but they still made me feel safer.

Tricia’s mum drew lines on my face with an eyebrow pencil to make me look old and she made my hair grey with flour. And I was ready to go on.

I’d already managed to Google up quite a lot about St Joseph. I think Miss Nugent found it all very useful. For instance, when it was my turn to knock on the inn door, she said, ‘Remember now, Damian. Be tired. St Joseph has walked a long way. So he’s very tired.’

I said, ‘Well, he was a carpenter, so he was very fit. And the walk from Nazareth, well, people did walks like that all the time. It would’ve been like taking a bus to them. Also, she was going to have a baby. So they weren’t exactly planning to sleep. They might have been stressed, but I wouldn’t have said tired.’

You could see she was impressed by the way she said, ‘Whatever,’ and went straight on to the three kings.

When I came off, Tricia’s mum said my beard was too tight. ‘The elastic’s making your ears go red. See if you can fix it yourself.’

I went to the boys’ toilets to try and loosen it in the mirror. There was a man already in there with a huge black beard and a big wooden staff.

‘St Joseph,’ I said, ‘dates unknown.’

‘I just had to say, you’re doing a great job.’

‘Thanks very much. I’m not making you sound too stressed?’

‘No. I was stressed. The way you’re playing it, it really puts me back in there.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Do you want me to take you through the birth, because obstetrics has really changed?’

‘I think we’re going to skip that bit.’

‘OK. Well, break a leg.’

In the corridor, Mr Quinn said, ‘What about the bag, Damian? You’re not going to be carrying that round with you on the night, I hope?’

I’d got so used to the bag, I’d forgotten it was there. If I couldn’t carry it, where could I put it? I looked at Anthony. He just shrugged.

‘What are you wearing it for anyway?’ said Mr Quinn.

I looked at Anthony again. He looked at me pleadingly.

Mr Quinn said, ‘You don’t need it, do you?’

He was coming towards me. He was going to take it off me. I blurted out, ‘My mum’s dead.’ He took a step backwards immediately. Raised his hands and said, ‘OK. I’m sure St Joseph was carrying a lot of stuff with him on the day. Why don’t you go and practise with Dave?’

Dave was the donkey. He was made of plywood and fun fur. He stood on a platform with castors on it and he had a pair of sacking saddlebags stuffed with straw. I took him out in the corridor and practised pulling him up and down with Mary (Rebecca Knowles) on his back. It took a while, but I eventually got the knack of steering him. We powered up and down the lino, doing three-point turns by the fire doors.

Rebecca kept saying, ‘I will be the Mother of God,’ over and over, and we could hear the angels practising ‘It was on a Starry Night’ in Miss Nugent’s class, and I wished that I could live my whole life inside a nativity play.

That night, I was still humming ‘It was on a Starry Night’ when I went up to bed. There was going to be a collection for Water Aid after the play. The angels were supposed to give out envelopes before and collect them again afterwards. I managed to get hold of a whole packet of envelopes. I lay on the floor putting a twenty-pound note in each one. I was planning to put them in a bag and hand them to the Angel Gabriel.

Suddenly a big leather sandal stood on the envelopes. There was a huge hairy foot in it. I looked up. Above me was a brown robe with a massive man inside. Round his waist was a belt with seven chunky iron keys dangling from it. I sat up and hit my head on the biggest one. The big man said a swearword. I won’t say which one as it was unenlightening. And then he said, ‘Don’t put your address on the back of them. They pass it on to other charities.’

I said, ‘St Peter (d. 64)?’

He just swore again. ‘Don’t remind me. It wasn’t the nicest way to go. Put your address on the back of there, you’ll be besieged. I promise you. Every tin-shaker in Christendom will be on your doorstep. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I’m infallible.’

I actually had written our address on some of the envelopes, but only a few.

‘Is this yours?’ He was holding up a key.

It was the key to the old house. I normally kept it on the windowsill.

‘Jointed pin tumbler. Engineering perfection that. The drum action is miraculous. I’m the patron saint of keys, you know. About this money . . .’

‘It’s stolen.’

‘I know. I am the patron saint of keys and locks and security arrangements in general. I know it’s hot.’

‘Doesn’t that mean we should give it back? But if we do, they’ll burn it. So that’s bad too, isn’t it? I keep trying to do good but everything’s messed up.’

‘You’re stressed. I’m stressed. We’re all stressed. This is my portfolio, right – like I said, keys, locks, security. On top of that – fishermen, popes, Rome . . . I am run off my (swear) feet. I’m supposed to mind the gate too, you know. I see everyone in and everyone out.’

‘Do you really? Everyone?’

‘Yeah. Why? Was there someone you were looking for?’

I said, ‘Well . . .’ and then I changed my mind. I said, ‘No. It doesn’t matter.’

He looked at me and sat on the end of the bed. ‘I’m going to tell you something now I’ve never mentioned to anyone. Didn’t mention it to Luke or Mark or John when they were asking. Just kept it to myself. But . . . it’s true. Are you listening?’

And then he told me the story of the feeding of the 5,000. I didn’t like to say it was fairly well documented and widely known. He talked about all the people following Jesus and listening to him and how Jesus never planned anything, and how every time Jesus got hungry he acted like this was a completely unexpected development. ‘He wouldn’t put a scarf in his pocket if he was climbing Everest,’ he said. ‘And he definitely didn’t bring a picnic for these people. The police said there were 5,000, but I reckon there was twice that number, easy. And they were all starving. D’you know what he did?’

‘Well . . .’ I didn’t want to spoil his story but I had to admit, ‘Five loaves and two fish.’

‘No. You see. I knew you’d say that. That’s what everyone said afterwards and I’ll tell you why they said it – guilt.’

‘Sorry. What?’

‘A little kid came up to him – about your size. His name was – I’ve forgotten. I still see him sometimes. Anyway, he came up with these loaves and sardines and Jesus blessed them and passed them round. He wasn’t trying to do a miracle, he was just one of those people who thought everything would be all right, you know. Anyway, so he passed these sardines, and the first person he passed them to passed them on. Know why? Because he had a honey cake and a piece of lamb hidden in his purse. So he passed the fish on and sneaked the honey cake out and made out he’d just taken it off the plate. And the next person, he had a pocket full of dates, so he did the same – sneaked one out, passed the plate on. And so it went on. The truth was, every single bastard one of them had food with them, but they were all keeping it to themselves. Hidden away. Every one of them looking after Number One. And they would have starved where they stood rather than let anyone see. But as the plate came round with the loaves and the fish on, they all got their own food out and started to eat and, as they ate, they started to share and then it began, the biggest picnic in history. And the plate went all the way round back to Jesus and this kid – I’ll think of his name in a minute – and it still had the fish and the loaves on. And Jesus was a bit taken aback, but when he looked up (he’d been talking all the time) he could see that everyone was eating. So he said, “What happened?” and I just said, “A miracle.” Because I didn’t want to bad-mouth anyone in front of him. I was always bad-mouthing people and he hated it and it was turning into a nice evening. And at the time he didn’t say anything, and I thought I’d fooled him, but now I see it was a kind of miracle. The best kind. Because all those people had all they needed. Except something – I don’t know what you’d call it – courage, maybe, or grace. And then this little kid. He stood up and suddenly everyone there got bigger. They were all filled with it and they were there for hours, talking and laughing and drunk on this stuff – this grace or whatever. A little kid stood up and was ready to be generous and that’s all it took. One little kid. He wasn’t planning to save the world. He was planning lunch. He just did the right thing at the right time. One little kid and a plate of fish, and 5,000 people sorted. And that’s according to the police. Like I said, it was twice that, easy. Do you understand what I’m talking about?’