Num8ers (13 page)

Spider stood up as he was eating and walked around our little woodland, up to the edge on one side, and then across the middle to pick up another biscuit, and on to the other side. “I can’t see anything,” he said, chewing and talking at the same
time. “I was thinking we should walk on a bit farther, but it’s going to be dark soon. I think we should rest up here, set off early tomorrow.”

I wasn’t going to argue with that. I didn’t mind if I never walked anywhere ever again.

Having decided we were going to stay put, we were suddenly faced with twelve hours of nothing to do. It became impossible to relax, to sit still, and there was no question of sleeping. We both wandered around the wood for a bit, looked out at the view from various points. I stood for a long time watching banks of cloud roll across. They seemed to move so slowly, but if you fixed your eyes on one, then looked away for a few seconds, it had gone farther than you thought. Bit like us, walking through the fields, going so slowly, like a pair of bugs crawling on the surface of the planet, and then looking back to find we’d covered miles.

“I’ve never seen so much sky,” I said. “It did my head in, walking out in the fields with all that sky above us.”

“It’s good when you get used to it. There’s so much air, you can fill your lungs with it over and over again.” Spider flung his arms out wide. “It’s like this at the seaside. Great flat beach, and sea and sky. You’ll love it, Jem.” He turned ’round to face me. “We’ll find a B&B, and have fish and chips every day. We can walk along the pier, write things in the sand, just have a laugh.”

He started clambering up a tree, but didn’t get very far before his feet slipped down. He tried again, with the same
result. The light was going from the sky, like the color was being sucked out of it. The air temperature was dropping even lower, too.

“It’s going to be dark soon,” I said with a shiver. “What do we do then?”

“We’ll just have to go to sleep.”

“It’s only half past four.”

“I know, man, but what are you gonna do? Watch TV?”

The reality of it was dragging me down. I started thinking about the cold, the blackness. I didn’t want to be out there in the dark. It had been bad enough the night before in the car, but at least we had had four metal walls and a roof.

“Let’s not stay here, Spider. Let’s try and find somewhere else.”

“We haven’t got time, mate. Can you see anywhere? It would take hours to find somewhere, and we’d be walking in the dark. We haven’t even got a flashlight.”

Around us, the world was going from color to black-and-white. Soon it would be just black. I had no idea what went on in the countryside at night — animals? people with guns out hunting? — and I didn’t want to find out. I was starting to lose it.

“Why haven’t we got a flashlight? Why?! Wasn’t it just a little bit stupid to come out here without a flashlight?”

“Are you calling me stupid? What about you? Look in the mirror, Jem. There’s two of us out here and neither of us brought a flashlight. It’s not just me!”

We were shouting in each other’s faces now. His spit sprayed my cheeks, went into my eyes, but I didn’t even care. I was so mad that he’d brought me here, put me in this situation.

“I can’t look in a fucking mirror, can I? There’s no fucking mirror! There’s no fucking anything!”

“Look, we’ve just got to deal with it, OK? I’ll try and find us a car tomorrow, but for tonight, we’re here, and that’s it.”

“I don’t wanna be here, don’t you understand, you moron? I don’t wanna be here. We don’t know what we’re doing! We haven’t got a clue!”

“For Christ’s sake! You are vexing me with your attitude.” He was right in my face, wagging a long finger in front of my eyes. “You can’t be a little girl out here! You’ve gotta grow up, man! What’s wrong with you? You were way harder back in London. Listen, I’m walking away from you before I do something or say something.” And he stalked off, shaking his head and flapping his hands about.

“Yeah, just fuck off!”

“You fuck off!” he shouted without turning ’round.

Of course, there was nowhere to go. We were stuck on a tiny island. I could still see him, an agitated cartoon, silhouetted against the inky sky. I wanted to scream,
Don’t you fucking walk away from me!
but I bit my lip, tried to calm myself down, tried to disentangle the angry thoughts in my head and think straight. Whichever way you looked at it, we were in trouble. I went back to our camp and lay down on my side, pulling the coat over me and the blanket ’round me.

If I closed my eyes, I saw bodies and bits: that old guy flying through the air, tattered pieces of bright blue on the ground, my mum. So I kept them open and stared at the odd pattern of branches, twigs, and leaves at ground level in front of my eyes. I watched a bug of some kind struggle up the stem of a plant and totter about at the end, the little leaves bending under its weight. My skin started to itch at the thought of bugs and spiders crawling all over me all night. God, the countryside was disgusting.

I heard Spider crunch back through the undergrowth, then plonk himself down nearby and rummage in the bags. He had obviously fetched out another blanket, because I could hear him shifting around where he sat, trying to get comfortable, then more rummaging, and the sound of something scraping, something metallic.

I thought,
I’m not going to talk to him, he can do whatever the hell he likes, I don’t care,
but every fiber of me was tuned in to him now, trying to figure out what he was up to. After a pause, there was the unmistakable flick of a lighter and a little glow in the gloom. A tiny crackle as his cigarette took, and then a long breath out and a gentle sigh of satisfaction.

I sat up, and his voice said, “I knew you weren’t asleep. Here, do you want a drag?” The glowing tip of the cigarette moved toward me as he held it out. I took it and inhaled. There was something reassuring about the smoke — it felt normal, familiar, comforting.

“Sweet,” I said, but I didn’t really mean the smoke, welcome
though it was — it just felt good to reestablish a connection. The way I saw it, we couldn’t really afford to fall out.

We passed the cigarette between us for a while, not speaking much, just being in the moment. Then Spider said, “Do you think there are any black farmers?”

“I dunno, shouldn’t think so. Why?”

“I like this place. I like the feel of it under my feet. I like looking for miles.”

All this, based on one day, walking across some fields. “Come on, Spider, that’s not going to happen.”

“Why not? Do you need a diploma to be a farmer? Do you need a degree? Do you need to be white?”

“I dunno, I dunno. I guess you need money, though. Loads of money.”

“I wouldn’t have to buy a farm, just work on one. I don’t think running around for Baz or anyone like him is much of a career. I don’t wanna do that stuff. I need to find something else.” His voice was passionate in the dark. “I’ve got out now.
We’ve
got out. I don’t wanna go back. Wherever we end up, I want to start a new sort of life, not fall back into my old ways.”

What he was saying, it touched me. He was speaking from the heart.

“The Nutter was right, you know,” he continued.

“No way!”

“No, he was right. People like you and me, we’ve got the future all mapped out from the time we’re born. Dole queue,
checkout, building site, street. No future at all. I don’t wanna be like that.”

“You going to go back to school, get your equivalency?” I asked, not believing it for a minute.

“Nah, think I’ve left it a bit late for that. But I want to do something. I want to be different. I don’t want to be no cliché black boy, a statistic.”

The knot that had been forming in my stomach as he spoke gave a lurch and tightened to a physical pain. It was breaking my heart to hear him talk about the future. How could I sit there and listen to him, to the boy with only a week left? What he was saying, it was right, it was inspirational. But it was way too late. If the numbers were right. If…

I knew I was on the edge of blabbing. I wanted to tell him everything — to share it, maybe work out a way to change it. But you can’t do that, can you? I could never tell someone their number, except bastards like McNulty, and he was probably too stupid to figure out what it meant. I swallowed hard, trying to get back in control of my emotions. Change the subject, fill the void with words.

“How come you ended up living with your nan? Do you mind me asking?”

“Nah, man. No big secret. My mum pissed off with some bloke when I was still a baby. Don’t even remember her. Don’t think I missed out on anything — I’ve always had Nan.”

“She’s cool, your nan.”

“Yeah. Daft old bitch.”

“Do you think you should call her? Let her know you’re alright?”

“Nah, it’s not safe to phone. They can trace them, you know. Nan’ll be alright. She’ll be cool.”

A picture of her standing by the side of the road as we left — was it only yesterday afternoon?—flashed into my head.

“I heard you tell Nan about your mum,” Spider said quietly. “I’m sorry and all that.”

“Not your fault.”

“I know, but…”

“Probably better off without her. She was…complicated.” I lapsed into silence. I was a liar, and I knew it. Whatever life I would have had with her, I would rather have had that — had some sort of home — than the gypsy life I’d had since she died. Nobody’s child.

We talked on and off for hours. Our voices sounded thin in the open air, but as long as we kept going, they fended off the unknown ghosts and monsters waiting out there, in the acres of dark stretching away in every direction. The gaps between conversations got bigger as we started to drift in and out of consciousness.

I guess I was pretty deep under when an almighty screech woke me with a start. I opened my eyes, but there was little difference: Open or closed, it was pitch-black.

“Did you hear that?” I whispered.

“You’d have to be dead not to hear that.”

Whatever it was went off again, a high-pitched screaming noise tearing into the night, so loud it felt like it was all around us, on us, in us. I was wide-awake, too scared to move. Spider shifted nearer, I could hear him squirming through the leaves and stuff on the ground, smell him getting closer.

“What do you think it is?” he said in a low voice, very near to my ear.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you believe in witches?”

“Shut up!” Yeah, right then I believed in witches. And ghosts and werewolves and all the other things that go bump in the night.

Another bloodcurdling screech, this time followed by a couple of loud hoots.

“It’s an owl, Jem. I’ve never heard one before. Noisy buggers, aren’t they? Where’s a stone or something?” He sat up and rummaged around next to him, then stood up and launched something into the trees above us. I could hear it clipping the leaves and branches. A few seconds later the screeching set up again, but grew fainter and fainter as the owl went off looking for somewhere less dangerous to perch.

“You’re a true countryman, aren’t you? Chucking stones at an owl.”

“Too right, they’re always shooting something or setting their dogs on it, ripping something to shreds. I reckon I’d fit right in.”

The owl was still protesting, but a long way away now. Its voice seemed to emphasize how alone we were, the dark space all around us. As we listened, I felt the cold taking hold of me. We might manage one night out here, but we’d have to find something else tomorrow.

I was so awake now that sleep was out of the question. All I could do was lie there and listen and try not to think too much.

I thought Spider was asleep, but after a while I felt his hand inching over my blanket until he found mine. And we lay there, hand in hand, waiting for the light to creep back into the sky. And we were both awake when we heard a new sound thudding through the heavy night air — a helicopter.

“Can you hear that?” I asked. Stupid question.

“Mm.”

“Do you think it’s just a helicopter?”

He knew what I meant. Just a helicopter taking someone somewhere, going from A to B. “I dunno.”

He moved away from me, crawling through the undergrowth. It was still dark, but there was a hint of blueness in the sky when we looked back the way we’d come yesterday. It was over there that the noise was coming from.

“It’s just hovering there, Jem. Shining a light down. There’s other lights, too.” I could hear him worming his way back to me, then he was there, right beside me, rolling up his blankets. “Come on, Jem. We’ve got to get a move on. Looks like they’re onto us.”

“Spider, it’s dark. We haven’t got a flashlight, remember?”

“We’ll just have to do our best. Better to move in the dark, anyway.”

“Yes, but…” I was going to point out the mud, the fences, the barbed wire, but another noise cut in then. The sound of a dog barking. It was coming from behind us, too. Lights,
helicopters, dogs. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. This was a proper manhunt. I shut up and started bundling up my belongings.

We blundered out of the copse and set off down the hill. You couldn’t see where you were putting your feet, and the ground was so rough we both kept stumbling and tripping. I put my right foot into a dip and staggered forward. I dropped my bags and flailed my arms blindly, trying to rescue my balance. My right hand found something to grab on to, but it dug into me as it moved under my grip, and I still fell forward. Something ripped across my face as I sank down onto the ground and let out a string of curses.

“Where are you?” Spider’s voice came through the dark.

“I’m here! I don’t know where I fucking am!”

“Don’t move. I’m coming.”

He found his way back to me, at first nothing more than a dark shape against the darkness. As he came close, I could see his face was furrowed with concern. “Jesus, Jem, you’ve fell in some barbed wire. Here…” He gave me his hands and pulled me up onto my feet.

I gasped and cursed again as he squeezed the wound on my right hand.

“Have you got a hankie or something?” he asked. I reached into my pocket and found an old tissue. He took it and gently wiped my face. It hurt like hell. My hand was screaming, too. Spider ferreted about in a bag, pulled out one of his T-shirts, and ripped a strip of it off. He wound it ’round my hand and
tied it in a knot. He was taking charge again, doing his best, but even as he did it, my confidence was slipping away.