We Used to Be Kings Read online

Turn it round.

  Oh.

  Ha!

  Ha!

  Shush!

  Frost grunts and rolls over in his bed. We stand up in the middle of the room. Our heart thuds so hard it feels like we are shaking the boards. We walk towards the window.

  Ready?

  Yes.

  Chapter Four

  THE MOON SLIDES out from behind the clouds and turns them silver. We put our suitcase on the ground and stand in the shadow of the wall that stretches high above us, brick on brick until it reaches the wire. We couldn’t reach the top even if we stood on our shoulders.

  We wish we were taller.

  Shush!

  We wish we were giants . . . It would be a small jump for a giant.

  We put our hand over our mouth and kneel down in the shadow of the wall. We need to be quiet, we don’t want to wake the dogs, we don’t want to wake Mrs Unster.

  A small jump for a giant—

  One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

  That’s it.

  We look back at the house – the TV flickers in Mrs Unster’s room like she’s switching channels. All the other windows are black. Everyone else is asleep inside.

  Ready?

  Yes.

  We slide our bag off our back, swing it over the wall and hope our book won’t fall apart when it lands on the other side. Our suitcase is next. We spin around like we are throwing a discus and let go. It flies through the air, bounces off the wire and comes back to us like a boomerang.

  We need more velocity.

  ?

  Speed.

  We try again, and again, until our arms ache so much that we can’t lift the case above our head. We put it on the ground. The catches are broken, the corners have dents, and our rockets and planes are mangled together inside.

  We hear footsteps and a dog barking. We wait for a light to sweep across the grass and pin us to the wall like in The Great Escape.

  Is this a great escape?

  Not yet.

  The footsteps get closer. We hear people shout.

  We rummage through our suitcase. We can’t take them all, we can only take our favourites, but it’s hard to tell them apart in the dark. We feel under the wings, find the smooth lumps of the bombs and the sharp points of the guns – our Spitfire, our Sea Otter and our Messerschmitt Bf 109. We throw them over the wall and listen to them scrape the wires.

  Where’s my Lancaster?

  I don’t know.

  But—

  The footsteps get closer as the voices get louder.

  We find Soyuz 8 and Apollo 9.

  The dogs bark.

  Where’s Soyuz 11?

  Where’s my Lancaster?

  Soyuz 11 is more important.

  Because it’s yours?

  Because it’s the rocket that took Dad to the moon.

  We find it in the corner under our jumper with the other rockets. We throw them over the wall and hope their parachutes will open before they hit the ground. We lean our suitcase against the wall, climb on top and scramble up like a spider. The wire tugs at our shirt and snags on our trousers.

  ‘You no escape.’

  We look back. Mrs Unster stands below us, shining a torch in our eyes.

  ‘You never escape.’ She walks towards us, gets so close that we think she can reach up and grab us.

  We wriggle on the wire, but the more we do, the deeper it cuts.

  It hurts.

  I know.

  We stop wriggling and remember what Dad told us.

  One small step—

  At the airfield!

  . . . Never talk when—

  Play dead.

  —

  —

  We lie still on the wire. The torch makes purple spots in our eyes.

  Don’t blink.

  I won’t.

  We hear the sound of metal scraping as a man runs, dragging a ladder across the ground.

  I think we should—

  Not yet.

  ‘Ha!’ Mrs Unster bends down and picks up a plane. ‘I see you bomb Berlin no more.’ She lifts up our Lancaster and lets it crash to the ground.

  !

  I’ll get you another.

  When?

  When we’ve escaped.

  When will that be?

  The man leans the ladder against the wall.

  When will that be?

  When the enemy least expects it.

  When’s that?

  Now!

  We twist our body and roll. The wire digs further into our knee, our trousers rip, our leg breaks free and we are left kneeling on top of the wall.

  Engage launch control. Engage launch control.

  ?

  Jump!

  Oh.

  We fly through the air and land next to our bag on the other side. Our Sea Otter and our rockets are by the wall, the fighters are by the first trees in the wood.

  Crank engines!

  No, not now.

  We hold the fighters above our heads.

  Turn propellers.

  Jack, just run.

  Can we go back for my Lancaster?

  No.

  Because of Mrs Unster?

  Because it’ll slow us down.

  ?

  We’d have to dump fuel in the Channel and drop the bombs on France.

  . . . And we don’t want to bomb France?

  No.

  . . . Because you like cheese?

  You’re wasting our breath.

  We hold the planes up high, see their wings tilt left and right as they cut across the moon and we run between tall trees with our book in our bag. The Messerschmitt climbs high. The Spitfire climbs higher. We increase the throttle and disappear into the dark.

  Chapter Five

  WE ARE RUNNING. We are running scared. Our legs are aching, our lungs are burning. We want to stop but we have to keep going.

  We run through the woods following the light of our torch. The trees look like shadows and the shadows look like people. We dodge between them. Our shoulders scrape on the bark, our balaclava on the branches. We try to untangle it but our fingers are shaking.

  We have to keep going.

  Because the shadows are coming.

  And the dogs are snarling.

  We leave our balaclava hanging like a pumpkin from a tree.

  We reach a stream that runs fast and cold. The water rushes around our feet and our feet stumble over stones. The further we go, the deeper it gets. We put our torch in our mouth and hold our bag over our head.

  We can’t speak.

  We can’t breathe.

  Our body is frozen when we reach the other side.

  We stop at a hut at the edge of the woods and hide from car lights that flash down the road. Our bag is heavy.

  Our trainers are squelching.

  We wring out our shirt and trousers and put them back on.

  We wish we had a blanket.

  We wish we were in bed.

  In the home?

  In our house.

  Our real house?

  Yes, when we were safe and warm.

  We wish we could ride our bikes to the shop.

  We wish we could stay up late with Mum and Dad on a Saturday night and spend Sunday morning in bed.

  We wish—

  Shush!

  We hear a snapping sound.

  Like crocodiles biting.

  Like branches snapping.

  We pour the water out of our trainers, cross the road and run back into the woods.

  We imagine we are like Dad when he was in the army, crawling on the ground, hiding behind trees with our gun on our back and a grenade in our hand. We stop, listen for dogs.

  Can we shoot?

  —

  Can we throw the grenade?

  I said we imagine.

  We throw a grenade into the air.

  Boom!

  We run on until our legs get heavy and our head gets dizzy. We stumble, fall over and can’t
get back up.

  Can we stay here?

  —

  Can we?

  We roll over. Dead leaves rustle around our ears, dead branches snap under our back.

  OK.

  We rest our head on our bag. It’s not as comfortable as our pillow but at least we are free from the walls we have left behind. Now the sky is our ceiling and the ground is our bed. We lie and listen to the darkness, our heartbeat on the earth, the wind through the woods. We know we should keep going but we ache too much to move. We know we should read but it’s too dark to see the words. But after three years of reading we can remember them all.

  Summer 1971

  The church was dark and cold the day I went to bury Jack. I stood at the front watching the vicar. He was standing with his arms against his chest and a Bible in his hands. People were coughing and whispering behind me but every time I turned around to see who it was, the coughing and whispering stopped. At the back, by the door, two firemen were talking to two friends of Dad’s from the army, Tony and Geoff. Tony waved when he saw me looking, Geoff touched the peak of his cap. It was the first time I’d seen them since Dad had gone to the moon. I thought of waving back but then the big doors opened and four men in black coats carried Jack’s coffin in. I couldn’t stop staring at it as it came down the aisle towards me. It was like the coffin was the only thing that was moving in the whole world. I thought of Jack inside, how much he would hate being trapped in the dark. I thought of him running around on the grass, holding his planes over his head, jumping over paths. And I imagined myself running with him and wished we could do it again.

  My eyes bulged with tears. Auntie Jean put her arm around me and gave me a tissue.

  I hadn’t seen Jack since the day after he died. He was gone when I woke up in the morning. There was no lump beside me, no pile of clothes at the end of the bed. For three days I went looking for him in the places we used to play: up on our hill, outside the shop, in the park. People seemed to be watching me wherever I went. Some stared as they walked by, some smiled and some stopped and talked. But I couldn’t hear what they were saying and I couldn’t reply. I just stared back at them while cars and buses went by with no rumble of engines or exhaust; it was like they were silently floating on air. I kept on looking for Jack, in the chip shop, on the road to town. I even checked at his school but he wasn’t there either.

  I listened to the shuffle of the men’s feet as the coffin got closer. My legs started to shake, my head went dizzy. Auntie Jean squeezed my hand and I screwed up my eyes tight. I heard the vicar speak, people coughed, a baby cried. I screwed up my eyes tighter, tried to imagine Jack pushing up the lid, jumping out, then running up and down the aisle. And I imagined myself following him, circling the altar, climbing over the pews, running for the door.

  It was raining when I got outside. I pulled my hood up and walked between the tombstones that stuck up out of the dead grass. Some of them had little vases of flowers on them, some of them had pebbles or little pieces of slate, and some of them were surrounded by weeds. The further I walked, the louder the rain sounded on my hood and the more it dripped off the edges down onto my nose.

  I looked further up the hill. Auntie Jean was at the top being blown around with her purple umbrella. She had asked me if I wanted her to walk with me. I told her I was OK, I wanted one last chance to look for Jack, but the further I walked, the more I thought he wouldn’t come back. I passed one of the men in black coats, resting against one of the cars. He smiled at me and nodded further up the hill. I walked on, past more gravestones, and stopped when I reached Auntie Jean standing by a pile of earth.

  There were another two men wearing black coats, an old man with a spade and the vicar was there sniffing and blowing his nose. He looked at me and smiled, then took one step towards Jack’s grave. He nodded at me to do the same then pulled a red Bible from his sleeve.

  ‘Friends and family, we are gathered here . . .’ The rain sounded louder on my hood, I pulled it back behind my ears. The vicar kept reading. ‘We thank the Lord for Jack, he has gone, but we shouldn’t feel sad; sometimes God reaches out and takes little people early.’

  I shivered as the wind blew through the trees and blew the pages of the Bible. The vicar screwed up his nose, marked his place with his finger, then lifted his head back and sneezed.

  ‘Bless me,’ he said. ‘Sorry . . . where were we?’

  ‘We were being grateful,’ I said.

  He smiled down at me. ‘Ah, yes . . . We should be grateful for the time that Jack spent with us on Earth, for his little trips to the beach . . . and the park, and of course for all the times he climbed the hill with his brother, Tom.’

  He smiled again. But I couldn’t smile back. I couldn’t help thinking that if he thought Jack’s life was so great, then God could have let him enjoy it a little longer. He’d only just reached double figures.

  ‘It’s not bloody fair!’ I shouted.

  The two men in black coats looked at each other.

  The old man fell off his spade.

  I took two steps forward. The vicar grabbed my arm.

  ‘Don’t jump,’ he said.

  The wind brushed over the top of my head, whistled around my ears and rustled through the trees. I crouched down, put my hands over my head. God had already reached out for Jack. I hoped he hadn’t come back for me.

  ‘Tom, what are you doing?’

  I looked up, across the hole in the earth, wiped the tears and rain out of my eyes.

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  Jack was sitting on his coffin on the far side of the hole. He smiled. I felt sweat run down my back under my shirt.

  ‘I thought . . . I thought you’d gone.’

  He started to giggle as he pointed at my trousers.

  ‘What are you wearing?’

  I looked down. The pins that Auntie Jean had stuck in my trousers were glistening in the rain. I pulled them up until the belt touched my ribs.

  ‘Auntie Jean gave them to me,’ I said. ‘They belonged to Eric.’

  Jack laughed.

  Auntie Jean put her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, ‘aren’t you feeling well?’

  I didn’t answer because Jack’s laugh got louder and then suddenly stopped.

  ‘Why aren’t you laughing?’ he asked.

  I nodded at Auntie Jean and then the vicar.

  ‘Because people don’t laugh at funerals.’

  Jack put his hand over his mouth.

  ‘Ooops. Sorry . . . Are you burying your friend?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘So you’re not burying him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it’s not your friend?’

  ‘Well . . .’ I glanced at his coffin.

  Jack turned his head sideways and started to read the name written on the brass plate.

  ‘Jack . . . Jack Gag . . . Me?’

  I nodded.

  Jack screwed up his face and I watched as his eyes turned from blue to black in the rain.

  I wanted to jump over the hole and give him a hug but the two men in black coats walked over and picked up the ends of the ropes. The coffin rocked. Jack wobbled on top.

  ‘Am I getting buried in this?’

  I nodded.

  ‘But it’s not very big.’

  ‘Neither are you.’

  ‘But I might grow.’

  ‘I don’t think you will.’

  Auntie Jean bent down, water streamed off her umbrella into the hole.

  ‘Tom,’ she said, ‘what are you doing?’

  My teeth were chattering, the rain was dripping off my chin. I held out my hand, Jack held out his and we reached for each other across the hole. My knees sunk into the mud but I stretched out further and our hands met in the middle. He smiled. I wanted to hold his hand tight and never let go, but it was soft, wet and black like newspaper. A finger broke off. Jack slipped away from me and I started to cry.

 
; The vicar bent down.

  ‘Young man,’ he said, ‘did you want a little longer to say goodbye?’

  I didn’t answer. I looked down into the hole, tried to see Jack’s finger, but all I could see was the soil. I looked over at Jack. He was kneeling up, sniffing the fingers he had left.

  ‘Tom, how did I die?’

  I shrugged. I’d had four days to come up with an answer. If I’d known he was going to come back again I would have thought harder. I looked up at the vicar. I looked over at the two men with the ropes. I looked across at the man with the shovel. They were all staring at me. I tried to swallow. Jack looked up at the sky.

  ‘Did it work, Tom? Did we find Dad?’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ asked the vicar.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Auntie Jean.

  ‘No, Jack, it didn’t work.’

  ‘Was it my fault?’

  ‘No, not really,’ I said.

  ‘Will you tell me later?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘After I’m buried?’

  I nodded.

  The vicar coughed, then he blessed the earth, and blessed the heavens, and he blessed himself when he sneezed again.

  The rain stopped and the sun came out. Jack walked round the hole and stood next to me. The man walked over from the car and picked up one of the ropes on the other side. One end of a rope lay spare on the ground.

  ‘Is that one for you?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you carry my coffin?’

  ‘No. I was too short to go on the corner.’

  Jack pushed his eyebrows together.

  ‘You would have tipped out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I looked at the rope. It was too heavy for my arms, too thick for my hands. I looked around for help but no one else looked like they were going to pick up the rope. I heard a horn blast, then the rumble of traffic. I looked up the hill, over the gravestones that stretched on and on until they stopped at a wall by the road. A double-decker bus went by with its windows steamed up and silhouettes of people sitting inside. I looked ahead of it, towards the gates. A tall man with dark hair walked in circles between them, looking at the ground. He lifted his head, ran his hand through his hair and looked over at me.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Where?’ Jack jumped up.

  I pointed to the gates.

  ‘I can’t see him.’

  The vicar bent down.