We Used to Be Kings Read online

  Jack nudged me, told me to open the letter.

  I slid my finger under the envelope.

  Dear Jack, Dear Tom.

  Gone to the moon.

  Back soon.

  Love, Dad

  I thought about Dad and the things we had talked about when we were lying on the grass, looking up at the stars. I knew he’d said he’d send a letter but this wasn’t from the moon, and I thought he would have written more, not just told us he was going.

  I felt cold. I felt sick. I looked at Jack, he was biting on his bottom lip and there were tears shining on his face. I put the letter back in the envelope and we walked downstairs to find Mum.

  The front door was wide open. The wind blew through the hall. I called for Mum. She didn’t answer. Jack closed the door and we walked towards the kitchen. There were no lights to guide us, just the red glow of the cooker switch on the wall.

  I wanted to find Mum, I wanted to show her the letter, but the further I went down the hall, the slower I walked, until I was creeping like I was searching for ghosts. Jack slipped his hand in mine. I called for Mum again.

  I heard a sniff.

  We walked into the kitchen, looked into the dining room, then towards the back door. Mum was sitting on the back step looking out into the garden.

  ‘Mum,’ I said.

  She turned around and smiled, then slid along the step and made space for us. I sat down beside her. The cold of the concrete made my feet ache. I handed her the letter, asked her if she wanted to read it, but from the look on her face I could tell she already knew what it said.

  She put her arms around me and Jack and we sat on the step in silence, listening to the distant hum of the milk float and the rattle of bottles, and a tweet from the first bird in the sky. We looked down over the garden, over the electricity station, towards the dim lights of the building on the side of the hill. I imagined Dad inside, wired up to the monitors, with his heart beating mountains and valleys in a jagged green line.

  Our dad going to the moon was supposed to be more exciting than this. People were supposed to be cheering, people were supposed to be waving. He was supposed to walk out of the cosmodrome, stop in front of flashing cameras and have his picture taken on a metal gantry. He was supposed to go to the moon in a blast of smoke and flames, not sitting in the back of a yellow taxi.

  The clouds moved apart and the sky got brighter. Then the street lights turned off one by one.

  Chapter Twelve

  WE’VE FALLEN OFF the table onto the floor. Our head aches and our arm hurts. We crawl out the door and lie on the platform with our head against the wall. The sky is blue and our breath smokes in the air.

  A pigeon hoots.

  We cup our hands over our mouth and hoot twice.

  The pigeon hoots back.

  We laugh.

  We’re happy.

  Because the sun is shining.

  Because the smell of liver isn’t choking our throats.

  We step down the stairs and turn underneath. We find a door in the shadow, push it open and walk inside. It’s dark and stinks of piss.

  And wee.

  It’s the same thing.

  Oh.

  We flick a light switch and sit down on the toilet. The door swings open, we jam it closed with our foot because, even though we can’t hear anyone coming, we never know if someone will.

  Like George Hart.

  —

  We don’t like George Hart.

  Can we just go to the toilet?

  George Hart is fat.

  George Hart was a fat bastard.

  !

  —

  He wanted our sweets.

  He wanted our money. He turned us upside down and stuffed our head in the toilet.

  It fell out of our pockets.

  I told you to put it in our shoes.

  —

  —

  . . . There’s a paper.

  What?

  On the floor. Can we read it?

  No . . . I don’t think we should.

  Why not?

  Because papers only have bad news.

  But this one might be different.

  It won’t be.

  We reach down by the side of the toilet and pick up the newspaper.

  I said—

  Uh-oh!

  What?

  It looks just like Frost.

  Shit!

  But he’s got curly hair.

  Fuck!

  Boy dies in . . . What does that say?

  Jesus—

  Does it?

  We throw the newspaper on the floor. It was bad enough knowing Frost was dead in our head, it looks even worse in black and white.

  Tom? Tom?

  What? What?

  We look down at the paper.

  There’s a picture of you.

  There’s a picture of us.

  !

  We need to get out of here.

  But what about our story? I’ve been practising my words.

  They won’t believe us.

  We open the door.

  Aren’t we going to wash?

  No.

  But Mum said—

  We take our T-shirt off and turn on the taps. Our blood swirls around the sink and drains down the plug. We feel hot and sick.

  Because of the blood.

  Because of Fr—

  The sink starts to flicker and everything around it turns black like we are going into a tunnel. We splash water over our face, it drips down our neck, onto our chest and makes us shiver. Our legs shake. We hold onto the sink, lift our head to get air and see our face split in a cracked mirror.

  Boo!

  I wish you wouldn’t do that.

  We sway towards the mirror. Our face gets bigger, our face gets smaller.

  We’ve got eyes like a monster.

  And a nose like Pinocchio . . . but we don’t tell lies.

  No.

  We never tell lies.

  —

  We never tell lies.

  Jack!

  Sorry.

  We press our hands on the sides of our head.

  To push ourself back together?

  To take away the pain.

  Dr Smith said we had to take deep breaths.

  I am . . . We are.

  Our arms shake, our sweat turns cold. We put our head against the mirror.

  Are we going to take our pills?

  No!

  ?

  We’ll never take the pills.

  —

  —

  We stand up, put on our T-shirt and turn to go outside for air.

  Wait!

  What?

  We look in the mirror. Our T-shirt is on back-to-front. There are blackberry bullet holes splattered across our back like we have been shot while running away.

  But we haven’t.

  We might be now.

  We hear the sound of an engine and the rumble of music. We go to the doorway and look out. A car door slams shut on the other side of the fence.

  Our planes!

  Our book!

  We run up the stairs, back into the office and find our bag on the table. Outside a woman with black hair steps through the gate in the fence carrying a cardboard box under her arm. She walks across the yard, puts the box down on the bottom step and disappears towards the toilets.

  We creep down the stairs, but the slower we go, the more they rattle. We take two steps at a time, jump the last four, then run across the yard between the lorries.

  This one?

  We run past numbers 6 and 5.

  I thought you were good with numbers?

  I am.

  We pull back the canopy and climb into number 9.

  Car engines rumble, then stop. Doors open and shut. We peer out through a gap in the canopy and watch two men stand and talk.

  ‘I got the Blackpool run.’

  ‘Say hello to Fiona for me.’

  ‘Ha! I will.’

  They laugh.<
br />
  One of the men walks towards us. We back away from the gap.

  Keys jangle. The gates creak open. A woman screams.

  ‘Blood! Blood!’

  Oh no.

  Oh shit!

  ‘What!’

  ‘Blood! Everywhere!’

  ‘Calm down, Beryl.’

  ‘Call the police!’

  Don’t call the police.

  Please don’t call the police.

  We move across the trailer and look out through a small hole in the canopy. The men run across the yard. Beryl comes out of the office with her hands over her eyes.

  ‘And in there too, all over my typewriter.’

  One man puts his arm around her, the other goes inside.

  ‘Is there anything missing?’

  Only biscuits.

  —

  . . . And batteries.

  Shush!

  . . . And a big map of Great Britain.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I can’t tell.’

  ‘Must be an animal . . . a fox . . . a badger.’

  ‘An animal that smashes glass?’ asks Beryl.

  ‘Or an animal that types?’ A man walks out onto the platform holding a piece of paper.

  Jack, you didn’t.

  —

  ‘Dear Beryl.’ The man laughs. ‘Dear Beryl. Sorry we smashed the glass, sorry we ate your biscuits . . .’

  You idiot!

  I couldn’t help it.

  How did you know her name was Beryl?

  It was written on the stapler.

  !

  ‘Sorry about the blood . . . we didn’t mean to do it.’

  !

  —

  Well, at least you didn’t—

  ‘Now we’re going to the beach. Love Jack and Tom.’

  Shit!

  The men laugh and walk across the yard. Beryl shakes her head and goes inside.

  We take our eye away from the hole. We think about our picture in the paper. We think about the police, how they will know where we have been and where we are going, how they will get the dogs to follow the trail of our blood across the yard.

  Will they?

  They might. But we can’t wait for them to come looking.

  We hear footsteps outside our trailer. A man starts to whistle as the lorry door clicks open and the engine begins to rumble. We hold onto the sides of the trailer to stop ourself falling over. The engine gets louder, a horn blasts like a lighthouse in the fog.

  ‘Tell Beryl it was just kids.’

  ‘I will.’

  The lorry pulls away. We grip the sides tighter but our trailer doesn’t move.

  !

  !

  We look out through the gap.

  Jack.

  What?

  The trailer wasn’t attached.

  !

  We jump down onto the tarmac and run after the lorry. Horns blast as two more lorries loom up behind us and overtake. We run between them towards the gates, through a cloud of blue fumes that smoke from the exhausts. We put our hand over our nose and mouth and hold our breath but the fumes sting our eyes and creep through our fingers.

  We cry.

  We cough.

  We stagger through the gates out onto the road. Lorries, cars and buses roar around us as we run alongside the fence.

  I’m sorry.

  Not now.

  I’m sorry I wrote—

  I said—

  A police car speeds towards us, overtakes a bus, then a lorry.

  We stop running.

  Because we’re tired.

  Because we’ll look suspicious.

  We walk quickly. The police car flashes by. We look over our shoulder and watch as it goes past the depot and disappears into a line of traffic in the distance.

  Are we safe?

  Yes. I think so.

  We walk along a road that is wide and dusty where the chimneys of red factories stretch up into the sky. The further we walk, the smaller the buildings get, until they turn into warehouses and big open spaces filled with cars. We keep walking, wait for the road to turn west. That’s what Dad told us: always go west; the same way he told us that hitch-hikers might get their hands ripped off if they hold out their arms and stick out their thumbs!

  Ooops!

  !

  —

  —

  I’m sorry.

  —

  I’m sorry I wrote the letter.

  It’s OK. Forget it.

  Oh good. So it’s OK we took the rubber as well?

  !

  Summer 1971

  All the days had disappeared and the last hour had passed. The sun was shining in through the sitting-room window and me and Jack were sitting on the settee eating breakfast while we watched TV. I heard the crackle of a man talking on a radio. It was T minus six minutes, fifty-three seconds and counting.

  I heard a noise, a beep, beep, glitsch, then a voice crackled on a radio. It was talking backwards like Dad when he started to learn Russian.

  I saw a picture, a rocket on a launch pad lit up bright in the dark. Clouds of smoke poured out the bottom and swirled around the letters written on the side. There was a clock in the corner of the screen, not like the ones Dad had made for us – it was just a series of flickering numbers that seemed to make time go twice as fast.

  Jack got up, went over to the window and looked up at our hill.

  ‘Why can’t I see the rocket?’ he asked.

  It was because the Russians had changed the launch site.

  Yes.

  Because there were too many shepherds.

  No.

  Because there were too many—

  It was because of the weather.

  Oh.

  I heard a whooshing noise on the TV, then a voice.

  ‘10 – 9 – 8 – 7 – Sporry-wurry-sputnik. Beep.’

  Jack sat down by my side. ‘Was that Dad talking?’

  I didn’t know and I was too busy watching and listening to think of an answer.

  ‘6 – 5 – 4 –’

  Flames shot out the bottom of the rocket, smoke spiralled out and made the letters on the side of the rocket disappear. Jack squeezed my arm.

  ‘Is it going to catch fire?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not real smoke,’ I said. ‘It’s liquid nitrogen, it cools the rocket down.’ But I don’t think he believed me, because his eyes opened wider as the flames grew bigger and the numbers on the clock jumped up and down in the corner of the TV.

  3 – 2 – 1 – 0.’

  The flames turned from orange to blue, but the rocket stayed still. Some strange writing flashed up on the screen:

  Lift-off! We have lift off!

  Shush!

  But that’s what it said.

  We didn’t know that then.

  The flames got higher, the smoke got thicker, but the rocket looked like it was stuck. Me and Jack looked at each other. For something that could travel at 17,000 miles per hour it seemed to be taking a long time to take off.

  The launch pad fell away and disappeared into the dark. The rocket started to rock, then slowly it lifted off the ground. People began to cheer and clap inside the TV. Me and Jack did the same in our sitting room.

  ‘Sporry-wurry-sputnik. Beep – beep – glitschhhhh!’

  The rocket went high, disappeared into the clouds, then came out the other side. We watched it climb with smoke trailing behind it.

  There was a big flash. A piece of metal broke off the rocket and fell from the sky. Jack thought the rocket had exploded. I told him it was the boosters, that they have parachutes so they fall gently back to Earth, then the Russians can use them again.

  I looked back at the TV but all I could see was blue sky.

  No one was clapping.

  No one was talking.

  The picture shook and went blurred. The camera searched for the rocket but all it could find were the smoke trails that had been left behind.

  The picture changed to a newsreader sit
ting behind a desk. He said that communication with Soyuz 11 had been lost because they had gone behind the moon and that it would be two hours before they came round again. Then the screen went blank.

  I walked over to the window. The sun was shining on our hill, the grass had turned from green to brown. I wondered if Dad had taken his samples with him or if he’d left them at the top in the freezer. I looked at Jack, at the blank TV, then at the clock. If we hurried we had time to climb our hill and check before the Russians came around again.

  We were hot when we got to the top. The wind blew and stuck our T-shirts to our bodies. We took them off and walked under our swing poles, between the fridge and the washing machine. I told Jack to look for scorch marks while I looked for pools of nitrogen. We knew Dad had launched from somewhere else but we thought he might have had a practice run before he went. But by the time we’d walked a circle of the launch site, I realised that nothing had changed.

  We walked between the wheels and the tyres and stopped by the freezer in the middle. The top had turned yellow from the sun, the sides had turned brown from the rain. I picked up the combination lock, turned the cog and entered the number 090334, the birth date of Yuri Gagarin. I threaded the lock through the handle and lifted the lid. My blood bumped through my palms. I looked inside. All Dad’s samples had gone. All that was left was hundreds of yellow bags. I threaded the lock back through the handle and shut the lid, and as we walked back across our hill I wondered if the rocket would take longer to go around the moon now that Dad’s samples were weighing it down.

  I checked my watch when we got to the edge of the hill. There were only twenty minutes left. Me and Jack started our engines and flew all the way home.

  We ran—

  Can I do this bit?

  ?

  Can I do the next bit?

  It’s important.

  I know.

  So you have to get it right.

  I will.

  OK.

  . . . What if I get stuck?

  Then I’ll help.

  —

  —

  —

  Hu-hum.

  !

  Ready?

  Yes.

  We ran into the sitting room. Tom turned the telly on and we waited for the picture. It took ages, all I could see were dark shadows. The picture got brighter. Tom nudged me. Three astronauts wearing funny hats were floating around inside our TV.

  Cosmonauts.

  Isn’t it the same?

  No, cosmonauts are from Russia.