We Used to Be Kings Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Praise for We Used to Be Kings

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Six years ago Tom’s brother died. The next day he came back.

  It’s Tom and Jack’s 18th birthday, but it isn’t a cause for celebration. For the past three years they’ve been in a care home for troubled children, a place where Dr Smith tries to silence the voice of Jack in Tom’s head. But Tom doesn’t want that. He’s already lost his brother once, he’s not going to lose him again.

  And so, when they go in front of the review board, they will have to pretend Jack has gone so they won’t be sent to the Young Men’s Institution or they’ll have to escape. Because one way or another they’ve got to get out of this place. They’ve got to be free, they’ve got to remember everything that happened to them, to their mum, and to their dad. They have to find their dad, whom they haven’t seen since he left on a space mission to the moon when they were young.

  We Used to Be Kings is the story of a young boy’s descent into madness following the loss of everything he knows. Set in the 1970s, it is reminiscent of unusually hot summers, pictures of Russians in space and war on our doorstep. It’s an audacious, at times hilarious story that is ultimately heartbreaking and unforgettable.

  About the Author

  Stewart Foster lives in Wiltshire and is married with two children. We Used to Be Kings is his first novel.

  Praise for We Used to Be Kings

  ‘We Used to Be Kings is a very powerful book, written with a poignant intensity that often burns. It is one of the most touching books about madness I have ever read, and deserves a wide readership. Stewart Foster has created something very special’

  Matt Haig

  ‘Fresh and original, a spare and moving tale that’s never showy but often dazzling’

  Observer

  ‘An extraordinary debut’

  Irish Examiner

  ‘There’s a youthful intensity about this coming of age story’

  Herald

  ‘Foster’s descriptive narrative keeps you gripped and desperate to find out more. A really well-written and engaging first novel, We Used To Be Kings is an absolute must-read’

  UK Press Syndication

  ‘A highly original and hugely moving story of deep psychosis. Stewart Foster challenges us to live in his character’s chaotic world, where the dead whisper in our ear, but throughout it all his compassion never falters’

  Ciarán Collins, author of The Gamal

  We Used to Be Kings

  Stewart Foster

  Max. Lobes. Tal.

  Special thanks to Jonathan Bentley-Smith, without whose dedication, editorial judgement and friendship, this story could not have been told.

  We look out the window, down into the yard where the shadows of children run and scream under the sun. They go in all directions, in straight lines and zigzags until they stop at the walls, turn around and start running again. We rest our head against the glass and close our eyes. Sometimes we wish we could go outside and join them. Sometimes we wish we could play soldiers, march in time, fire our guns. Sometimes we wish we had a tank that we could drive at the walls to knock them down.

  But we can’t.

  No.

  Because we can’t drive.

  —

  And we haven’t got a tank.

  !

  A bell rings. A hooter hoots. We open our eyes, see the children walk across the yard towards us and form into a line.

  A bolt slides, a key clunks, the children shuffle forward. We stand up on tiptoe and watch the last one disappear through the door beneath our window. Even though the bell has stopped we can still hear it ringing in our ears.

  We walk over to our bed, lie down, stare at the cracks in the ceiling, the cobwebs that stretch from the light bulb to the corners. Footsteps and shouts echo through the corridors and halls. Our heart starts to thud, our head thuds harder.

  This is the place where we live.

  This is the place where they keep us. This is the place we have been trying to escape from for the last three years of our lives.

  Because our dad has gone missing.

  Yes.

  He’s gone to the moon and we’ve got to find him.

  Who’s telling this story?

  We are!

  Ha!

  Ha!

  A door slams shut. We roll over and face the wall and think about the times we have tried to escape. How the police always catch us. They ask us what’s the point? What’s the point in running away when we know they will always find us?

  Because one day they won’t?

  Exactly.

  So we have to keep trying?

  Of course—

  We screw up our eyes as a pain shoots through the middle of our head like a bullet from a rifle.

  It hurts.

  I know.

  We put our hands over our ears and curl into a ball.

  It’s one of our headaches.

  It’s the first sign of our madness.

  . . . What’s the second?

  —

  What’s the second?

  The pain shoots again.

  You know.

  I don’t.

  Remember what Dad used to say?

  Sporry wurry sputnik?

  No, not that.

  Don’t talk when the planes fly?

  Yes . . . and the third?

  —

  A sound grates in the middle of our head like someone with a spade is trying to dig us out from the inside. We press our hands tighter until our blood thuds through our palms. We know the third sign of our madness, but we can’t tell anyone.

  Except them.

  ?

  Our readers.

  What’s the third sign of our madness?

  What’s the third sign of your madness?

  The third sign of our madness is me talking to you even though I know you are dead.

  —

  —

  We put our head in our hands.

  —

  I’m sorry . . .

  —

  I had to tell them.

  It’s OK.

  But it’s not really?

  No.

  —

  —

  We lie on our bed and wait for the pain to go away.

  —

  —

  Can we show them our book now?

  ?

  Can we?

  I think we should just lie here.

  We lift our head and reach under our pillow.

  !

  We’ve writ a book.

  We’ve written a book. Our mum told us to write it six years ago during the hot summer.

  We did it on the kitchen table every evening after we’d finished tea.

  That’s why it’s crumpled at the edges.

  That’s why it’s covered in baked beans.

  Because you were too lazy to mop them up.

  I’m lazy—

  He’s very lazy.

  I only drew the pictures, he wrote the words.<
br />
  —

  Here’s one of Dad’s rocket.

  It’s not actually Dad’s rocket.

  But it’s one just like it?

  It’s as close to the truth as we can get.

  And that’s important?

  Yes. Mum said everything had to be true. She said our book should be like a Bible, and that we were her disciples.

  She named us after them.

  My name is Tom.

  My name is Jack.

  Tomorrow we will be eighteen.

  Not me.

  No, not you.

  Tomorrow we will be eighteen and they will open the gates and let us out.

  Chapter One

  THE MOON HANGS high in the sky and we wish we were on it. That’s where Dad said he had gone. It’s 240,000 miles away, beyond the clouds, beyond the jet stream and the atmosphere, but if we reach out and press our finger against the glass we can touch it. It’s smooth.

  And it’s cold.

  It took Dad thirteen hours to get there in his rocket. If we stole a car and drove at sixty miles an hour we’d get there in 167 days.

  But we haven’t got a car.

  No.

  And we wouldn’t steal one.

  Do you have to interrupt all the time?

  But—

  It’s hypothetical.

  ?

  It means we can’t actually do it.

  But I saw it in a film . . . a man, and a lady, and two children.

  That was fantasy.

  ?

  Magic.

  Oh.

  We think for a while without talking. Cars can’t fly, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to imagine. All we need is FTT.

  Flight, thrust and tragedy!

  Trajectory.

  Oh, isn’t it the same thing?

  No, not really.

  But we’re still going to find him?

  Yes.

  Tomorrow we will go out the gates without being chased. Tomorrow no one can tell us when to eat or where to go. We will be able to talk as much as we like, shout at each other and tell jokes.

  We can run up hills and roll back down them. We can go to the park, play on the swings and roundabouts.

  We can lie on the bank, drink beer, smoke cigarettes and get off with girls.

  ?

  You can close our eyes.

  Thanks.

  A cloud creeps across the moon, makes us feel cold. We shiver, our breath plumes out onto the glass and turns the stars blurry. We wipe the window with the sleeve of our pyjamas, but the night sky has now disappeared into fog.

  I think we should go to bed now.

  ‘I wish you fucking would!’

  We jump and turn away from the window. Martin Frost sits up in his bed in the corner, his eyes piercing through the dark. We don’t like him.

  Because he swears a lot?

  Because he killed his sister.

  He said it was an accident.

  Ha!

  What?

  Jack, all murderers tell lies.

  But he said she slipped on a banana.

  He told me it was a pool of water.

  It happened in the kitchen.

  —

  We don’t go to the kitchen.

  No. Especially not with him.

  Especially not with a knife—

  ‘Jesus, are you going to keep mumbling all fucking night?’

  Sorry.

  Sorry, Frost.

  Sorry—

  We put our hand over our mouth to stop our words coming out.

  Frost lies back on his bed, pulls his blanket up to his chin. His feet stick out the end like he’s in a mortuary.

  What’s a mortuary?

  It’s where you go when you’re dead.

  But he’s not dead.

  No, but we wish he was.

  Frost clamps his pillow around his ugly head, rolls over and faces the wall. ‘Aaaaaaarghhhhhhh!’ he shouts.

  Ha!

  What?

  You said he was ugly.

  His eyes are too close together.

  Like an eagle.

  Like a bald eagle. They shaved off his hair because he had lice.

  And he smells of fish.

  !

  But he does . . . sometimes . . . in the mornings . . .

  But we don’t tell him.

  No.

  We look back out the window, down into the garden where the shadows of tall trees crawl across the grass to the house. Everything that was dark has just turned darker. Everything that was cold has just turned colder. The hills are like clouds, and the clouds are like monsters.

  I’m scared.

  I’m excited.

  We are scared and excited. There’s a light on a hill with only darkness between us and it. It flickers on and off like a lighthouse.

  Because we’re on an island.

  Because we’re in the middle of nowhere . . . It’s like Alcatraz without water.

  What’s that?

  It’s a prison in America.

  The one with sharks?

  Yes.

  Are there sharks here?

  No, only Mrs Unster.

  Ha!

  Shush! She’ll hear us.

  We stop talking and listen. Mrs Unster’s room is below ours. Her radio is playing. She comes up and checks on us every night, just to make sure we are still here. She checks every room. The house is full of rooms.

  And the rooms are full of beds.

  And the beds are full of children.

  Children like us.

  ‘I fucking give up!’

  And children like Frost.

  —

  Ha!

  Our laughter echoes against the window.

  Shush!

  But can we tell them about the children?

  —

  . . . And the TV?

  OK . . . We all argue about what is on TV. There’s only one TV.

  It’s black-and-white.

  One black-and-white TV, twenty-six children.

  Not including me.

  Not including us . . . We don’t get to watch TV, the others stand in front of it and block our view. They say it’s only the news, but we have to watch it to know when the next mission will go into space. We complained.

  I shouted.

  —

  And I screamed. Aaaaaaargh!

  ‘Jesus fuck!’

  Ooops!

  Sorry, Frost . . . but it was something like that.

  It made our throat sore.

  It made our ears bleed.

  It didn’t work.

  They put us in here with Frost.

  And I’m scared.

  And I’m excited.

  We already said that.

  I know; sometimes it doesn’t hurt to say things twice.

  Like Dad did . . . Sporry wurry sputnik! Sporry wurry sputnik! Ha! It got on Mum’s nerves.

  Like you get on mine.

  !

  The wind blows through the trees, rattles the window. A draught tickles our neck and makes us shiver. We hug ourself and try to get warm, but our blanket is damp and heavy and itches against our skin. We yawn. We are tired, but we can’t go to sleep because we need to start packing. We turn to face our bed, it’s long and skinny and moves in the night.

  Because I wriggle.

  Because it’s got wheels like the beds in hospitals. We go to sleep in the middle of the room, and when we wake up we’re by the door. Frost can’t get out.

  And Mrs Unster can’t get in.

  It’s our barricade, but she barges the door and still gets through.

  Because she’s like an elephant. One day she fell—

  We’ve not got time for that now.

  Sorry.

  We walk over to Frost. He hasn’t moved for a while. We lean over and hear him breathing, see a picture by the side of his head, crumpled on his pillow. We try to look closer. Frost grunts and rolls over. The picture falls down onto his bed. We pick it up, see five people
sat eating fish and chips on a wall. His mum, his dad, his brother, his sister, and Frost smiling, sitting in the middle. We look at Frost, then back at his picture and wonder how someone who looked so happy can have turned into someone so sad.

  —

  —

  We put the picture back on his pillow and creep back to our bed.

  Our clothes are piled at the foot end – three pairs of trousers with holes in the knees, four pairs of socks with holes in the toes. We reach under the bed, pull out our suitcase and pack blindly in the dark. We’re not sure we need all our jumpers, they take up too much space and it’s the middle of summer.

  But it gets cold at night.

  Yes.

  We wear one, pack one and leave the third behind. Shoes are easier, we’ve only got one pair and we’ve got them on. We squash all the clothes in one side and look around the room.

  Don’t forget my crayons.

  They’re already in there.

  And my Lego.

  OK.

  What about our aeroplanes?

  They’re under the bed.

  But we’re taking them?

  Yes.

  We reach under the bed and pull out a cardboard box. We put it on our blanket and lift sheets of newspaper out. Underneath are our model aeroplanes with drop-down wheels and stickers on the wings – Hawkers, Hurricane and Tempest. Sea Otter and Spitfires, Supermarines.

  Fighters.

  And bombers.

  Our planes came in boxes with pictures of them on the front, flying between the clouds with fire burning from their engines. Dad used to open the box and lay out the pieces of plastic in a line on the table. He used to show us the stickers and put them in a saucer of water. They floated on the top and we’d pick them up on our fingers and stick them onto our planes.

  We put swastikas on the Spitfires.

  We covered the Messerschmitts with Union Jacks.

  Dad said that was wrong.

  He peeled them off and swapped them over. We didn’t think it mattered. We thought they were just decorations to brighten up the grey. We didn’t know it was so people knew who were their enemies and who were their friends.

  We reach back into our suitcase and pull out a Lancaster: it’s the heaviest and the biggest. We lift it up into the sky, stand on tiptoe and fly it from our bed to the door—

  Oh no, do we have to fly the planes again?

  I like it.

  But we’re too old.

  I’m not.

  We fly over Frost, back to the window, bank left and start the circuit again. The Lancaster gets heavy, makes our arm ache. We need to save fuel, fly higher, lighten the load.