We Used to Be Kings Read online

  ‘This is nice,’ she says.

  ?

  —

  We want to lie back.

  We want to go!

  We want to close our eyes, we want to touch her hair, we want to lift our arm and put it around her.

  But we’re not going to.

  We might.

  !

  Harriet puts her hand on our chest and sighs.

  ‘I don’t want to go back,’ she says.

  Nor do we.

  —

  ‘I don’t even want to be a bloody nurse.’

  She takes a swig from her bottle. We take one from ours and listen to Harriet.

  ‘It was my dad’s idea. He said I needed to find a career, but he just wanted me out of the house . . . but only because she’s there.’ She takes another swig. ‘Bitch . . . I hate her.’

  !

  Who?

  ‘His new girlfriend.’

  —

  —

  We take another swig of our beer. Harriet nestles in closer, makes a quick huffing sound like she’s going to laugh. ‘You might be quiet, but you’re a bloody good listener.’ She lifts her head and stares into our eyes.

  Can we turn the torch on?

  !

  ‘What?’

  I think we should turn the torch on.

  Harriet laughs. ‘You are funny,’ she says.

  Are we?

  Am I?

  ‘Yes. Sometimes.’

  She brushes her fingers across our cheek.

  ‘Wouldn’t it nice if we could just stay here?’

  No.

  —

  We lie back. Harriet puts her head on our chest. Our heart beats slowly through our body.

  Can we go—

  I think you should go to sleep.

  Is it half past ten?

  I think so.

  But you don’t know?

  I think it might be later.

  We yawn.

  Will you keep guard?

  Yes.

  Like a soldier?

  Ha!

  ?

  I knew you were listening.

  I always am.

  —

  Goodnight.

  Goodnight.

  —

  —

  —

  —

  ‘This isn’t very comfortable.’ Harriet puts the drinks on the drainer then puts her hands under the table. We get up. The table goes down level with the bench and we help her slide a mattress on top.

  ‘That’s better,’ she says.

  We climb on the bed. Harriet pours water in a kettle and lights the gas.

  We lie back, put our hands behind our head and think of the bed we have left behind, the one on wheels that kept creeping to the door. We think of our room, wonder if someone new is already sleeping in it. We wonder if they have read our writing on the wall, if they are listening to James Lewis crying on the other side like we used to do. We think of Frost in the corner, picking his nails, looking at his picture— Oh shit, Frost! A scream pierces through our head. Our hands start to shake and a line of sweat creeps down the side of our face. We sit up.

  Harriet puts one hand on the mattress.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  —

  ‘You look worried.’ She puts her hand on our shoulder.

  We catch our breath.

  Yes.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she says. ‘We’ll just lie together.’

  She opens a cupboard, pulls out a sleeping bag and puts it on the bed.

  We reach for it, slide down inside and pull it up to our chin. Harriet turns off the kettle, pours water in the sink. We watch her silhouette move from one side of the van to the other, unzipping a little bag, unscrewing a cap on a little bottle. She opens the cupboard door and starts to get undressed behind it.

  Her dress falls to the floor.

  We smell her perfume and soap in hot water.

  The water drains away and she closes the door. For a moment she stands still like she’s lost.We see the shape of her head, her hair hanging down her neck, and the gap between her arms, and the curve of her body where the light shines through.

  She bends down, creeps to the bench by the side of our feet and puts on her pyjamas. The van shakes as she crawls up the mattress and lies by our side. We stare at the ceiling. Harriet rolls over and we feel her breath on our face.

  —

  ‘Tom,’ she whispers.

  We stay still.

  ‘Tom.’

  Yes.

  She shuffles closer until her body is pressed against ours. ‘I’m cold,’ she says. ‘Can we cuddle?’

  We ease our arm out of our sleeping bag and wrap it around her. She puts her head on our chest. We run our hand through her hair and she lets out a little giggle.

  What’s wrong?

  ‘Nothing.’ She giggles again.

  What is it?

  ‘Why have you still got your clothes on?’

  We try to think of an answer but it’s hard when the one who does most of the talking is now sleeping.

  —

  A quick getaway.

  ‘From me?’

  From anyone.

  She moves her foot and knocks it against ours.

  ‘And your trainers?’

  It takes too long for us to tie the laces.

  ‘Us?’

  Me.

  —

  —

  —

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Her voice is a whisper.

  ?

  ‘Your book, is it really true?’

  Yes.

  ‘All of it?’

  We nod.

  ‘Will I be in it?’

  It’s finished, we— I just read it.

  ‘Sixteen times.’ She laughs.

  Yes, sixteen times.

  ‘Why?’

  Because sometimes I forget.

  ‘How?’

  —

  ‘What happens?’

  —

  —

  We sigh. Harriet takes a deep breath like she’s going to say something. We turn our head towards the window.

  —

  —

  Harriet leans over, puts her finger on our chin and smiles.

  ‘What . . . What would you say about me?’

  —

  ‘Would you say that I talk too much?’

  No.

  ‘But I do?’

  Yes, but not as much as someone I know.

  —

  ‘I talk when I’m nervous,’ she says. ‘I can’t help it.’

  I like it.

  ‘Because I’m funny?’

  Because it gives me time to think of what to say.

  She laughs.

  —

  ‘I wish I could go to the beach with you.’

  —

  ‘I could phone college, tell them we can’t get started.’

  —

  We close our eyes. We wish we could do this all the time. We wish we could travel with Harriet. She could stop going to college, we could stop running away. We think about tomorrow, what we will do when we get to the beach, how one of us wants to look for Dad and play in the sand while the other wants to sit on the dunes and watch the waves. We screw our eyes up tight, see shades of colour, see shapes of shadows that turn into aeroplanes and rockets and Mum and Dad when we were all at home. I think how everything has changed since that summer. I think of all the places I have been since the night I went to bed as me and woke up as us.

  —

  Harriet nestles her head further into our shoulder.

  ‘We’ll decide in the morning.’

  We yawn, our eyes are heavy and tired. We know we shouldn’t go to sleep, we know one of us has to stand guard, but we think it’s OK.

  —

  Isn’t it?

  —

  We put our hand on Harriet’s head. Her fingers crawl down our neck onto our body. We turn over on our side; the candle flame flickers across her
face, catches one eye, casts a small shadow of her nose. She smiles again. We feel ourself shaking, try to stop it. She smooths our hair, presses her body against ours and her fingers go up over our cheek towards our temple.

  We put our hand on top of hers.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  We can’t let her touch our temple, the burn marks might have gone like our memory, but the scars are still there.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says.

  —

  —

  —

  We close our eyes.

  —

  —

  —

  —

  Intruder alert! Intruder alert!

  —

  Intruder alert! Intruder alert!

  What?

  Intruder alert.

  It’s not.

  It is.

  It’s just Harriet.

  ‘What is it? What is it?’

  She hasn’t got any clothes on.

  —

  Oh shit!

  What?

  Neither have we.

  Harriet sits up. ‘Tom, who are you talking to?’

  It’s nothing.

  She’s naked. We’re naked.

  It’s OK, it’s OK.

  ‘What the—’

  Harriet scrambles to the end of the bed and turns on the light.

  See! Intruder alert! Intruder alert!

  Jack! Don’t do this. Not again.

  Harriet puts her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh my God.’

  We’ve got to find our dad. We’ve got to find our dad.

  In the morning, Jack. We’ll find him in the morning.

  Now, we’ve got to go now.

  We put on our trousers, pull our T-shirt and jumper over our head.

  Harriet picks up her sleeping bag and hides behind it.

  We’ve got to go, we’ve got to find our dad.

  I’m sorry.

  We’re sorry.

  Harriet screws up her face like she’s going to cry.

  We look around the van.

  Our book, our book. We need our book.

  —

  And our rockets and our planes.

  We put our hands on our head.

  Harriet opens her mouth.

  Don’t scream.

  Don’t scream.

  We pick up our book and our bag.

  It’s just him.

  ‘Who?’

  My brother.

  Harriet stares at us, starts to shake as tears run down her cheeks.

  We slide the door open and look back at her. She sits down on the bed.

  I’m sorry.

  We’re sorry.

  We step out into the dark. The grass is cold on our feet and the night air makes us dizzy. We hear the sound of footsteps, the door slamming, then the click of a lock.

  Our head aches, our neck starts to throb. We want to shout. We want to scream but everything is trapped inside. We don’t want to leave her. We don’t want to leave her like we have left everyone else. But we have to, because no one understands, because the more we talk the worse it gets.

  —

  —

  We put our book in our bag and walk out onto the road. The wind rustles through the hedge. We turn round and look through the windscreen of the van, where an orange light glows.

  —

  —

  We think of Harriet inside curled up on her own in the corner. We watch for a moment and then turn away. The road stretches out in front of us, the sky is full of blurry lights. We hear the sound of someone crying.

  —

  —

  We sniff, wipe our tears from our eyes.

  —

  —

  —

  —

  We put our book in our bag, put our bag over our shoulder. Our head begins to thud. Our throat already aches. We walk along the road.

  —

  —

  I’m sorry.

  —

  —

  I’m—

  It’s OK.

  . . . But it’s not really?

  —

  ?

  No, it’s not really.

  —

  —

  Chapter Sixteen

  WE ARE TIRED.

  We are tired of running.

  We have run through valleys, we have crawled over hills and we have waited for a bus that never came.

  We were hungry.

  We were thirsty. But we had to keep going as we had come too far to stop.

  But we did look back.

  —

  Just for a minute.

  —

  We looked back and thought of Harriet.

  —

  Because if we had stayed in her van we could have been at the beach in an hour.

  —

  Green fields stretched out in front of us. They turned to brown, then yellow and disappeared into the sea. Cars roared past with rubber dinghies on top.

  A girl shouted out the window and showed us her toy crocodile.

  —

  We wish we had a crocodile.

  We wish they’d given us a lift.

  We reached the last hill, smelt the salt in the wind. Our lungs grew big, our heart grew bigger. We swung our bag on our back and rolled like a marble down to the sea.

  Now we are standing at the bottom of a sand dune and looking up to the top. It seems too high to climb over and too wide to go around. Mum said that things would seem to get smaller as we got older and taller, but the dune seems bigger than we remember. We look around and wonder if this is the right place because there is no one to follow. We have never got here so early that our footprints were the first ones in the sand.

  —

  —

  But it is?

  What?

  The right place?

  I think so.

  We put our bag on our back and start to climb but with every step we take our feet slide back through the sand to where they began.

  Like Tom and Jerry.

  Like a dog burying a bone.

  We sink to our knees and start to crawl. The sand slips between our fingers but sticks to our cut.

  Our legs ache.

  Sweat stings our eyes.

  And I can’t breathe.

  Neither can I.

  We try to fill our lungs but it’s like someone has chopped off our head and poured tar inside. We spread our arms wide, we spread our legs wider.

  We wish we could stop.

  We wish we were geckos.

  ?

  Lizards.

  Oh.

  We throw our bag in front of us, take off our shirt and wrap it around our head like a pirate.

  To stop the flies from eating us?

  To stop the heat of the sun.

  Are we going to die?

  ?

  Are we going to die?

  No.

  But I saw it in a film with you and Dad.

  ?

  Men wearing sheets?

  ?

  Lots of camels . . . It was boring.

  It was Lawrence of Arabia.

  And Lawrence died.

  But this is a sand dune, not the desert. And he didn’t die there.

  How did he die?

  I thought you were watching.

  I’ve forgotten.

  Keep crawling.

  I am.

  The sun burns on our back. We look up at the top; we have been crawling for five minutes but it feels like we haven’t even started. Our sweat drips off our chin onto the sand. We grab at pieces of grass; they hold us for a while but then come away in our hands. Our head seems to be getting hotter the closer we get to the sun. We take a deep breath and crawl on.

  —

  —

  So how did he die?

  ?

  Lawrence, how did he die?

  He crashed his motorbike when two boys ran into the road.

  Ooops!

  —

  But it wasn’t us?<
br />
  No.

  Sand fills our shoes and weighs us down. We take them off, stand up and throw them along with our bag, up ahead to where the sky gets wider and the sun flattens out. We put our head down and crawl on.

  At the top we kneel down and let the wind cool our face.

  Is he here?

  —

  Is he here?

  —

  Our head sinks in the sand. Our heart beats in our chest. We breathe deep, screw up our eyes tight and the world turns orange. We try to picture Dad’s face, we try to imagine his voice, we try to remember his big hands wrapped around ours as he pulled us through the water.

  We look down across the beach out towards the sea, past blankets and windbreaks to where children jump and scream in the waves. Red buoys float up and down in the breakers and trail out in a line towards the horizon. There are no tankers in the heat haze, there are no vapour trails in the sky. We look along the beach towards the rock pools in the distance. They are blue and empty. No one walks through them.

  This is the place.

  —

  Isn’t it?

  Yes, this is the place. This is the place where we were sharks.

  So what do we do now?

  What we always do.

  ?

  Wait.

  We lie back on our bag and watch the sun burn a hole in the sky.

  —

  —

  Raindrops fall on our skin. We sit up. A cloud bubbles in the sky, then another, and another, until they join together and float across the sea like an army coming towards us.

  I think we should run.

  A flash of lightning turns a fishing boat black on the grey water.

  I don’t like—

  We clamp our hands over our ears—

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

  We feel the rumble of thunder.

  We pick up our book.

  Another flash of lightning zigzags across the sky.

  123456789 . . . it’s going away.

  It’s because you’re counting quicker.

  Oh.

  We run along the dune with our bag banging on our back and our book clutched tight to our chest. A path dips up and down and weaves in front of us.

  Like a snake?

  —

  Like a roller coaster?

  Like the Great Wall of China.

  ?

  Just keep running.

  The rain comes down hard, slaps our hair to our head, sticks our shirt to our skin.

  . . . What’s the Wall of China?

  —

  Is it the same as the Iron Curtain?

  —

  Is it the same as—

  No.

  Our legs start to ache. Our heart thumps hard. We run fast through the rain as it blotches the sand.

  Will Dad be there?

  Don’t stop.

  I’m not . . . will Dad . . .?

  No.

  But he said . . .

  He said he could see it . . . he didn’t say he was there.