We Used to Be Kings
Page 2
Bandits below, bandits below!
We need to stop.
We only just started.
We’ll wake Frost. We’ll disturb Mrs Unster.
Who cares?
Our planes soar high up towards the ceiling. We bank and turn. Spin our wings and slide our tail.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeonnnnnng!
We release the hatches and drop bombs that scream through the night sky.
Booooooooombhhhh! Boooooooombhhhh!
They explode below us into fragments of burning light.
Oh shit!
That’s a bad word.
Oh fuck!
That’s worse.
!
Have we woken Frost?
No, we’ve bombed Mrs Unster.
Ha!
Shush!
Mrs Unster turns her radio up louder.
Under fire! Under enemy fire!
We climb high, bank left, bank right, dodge the white lines of tracer bullets, dodge the red splinters of shells. We clamber onto our bed, stall in the air, dump the last of our bombs and have a dogfight with the light bulb.
We should stop now.
Mayday! Mayday!
!
The bed moves, we wobble, the Lancaster veers out of control, takes bullets in its wings, smashes into the light bulb.
Oh no!
Oh fuck!
You shouldn’t say that w—
‘You noisy fucking bastard.’
He shouldn’t say those words, either.
Bits of glass shower around our head and fall down onto our bed. Frost jumps up, thuds across the boards towards us.
‘I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you . . . Every fucking night . . . Every . . . fucking . . . night.’
We run to the window, along the wall, crawl under our bed. Frost crawls after us, tells us we’re a bastard and grabs at our ankles. He pulls off our shoes, throws them at us.
Ha! Missed.
They go over our head and smack against the door. We jump on his bed. He jumps up, opens his arms like a bat and traps us in the corner. We curl up into a ball. Frost punches us on the head, sticks his elbows in our ribs, puts his knee into our stomach. Our breath shoots out of our body.
It hurts.
I know.
We want to cry.
No, we don’t.
We jump up and push him against the wall. He kicks us, we kick him. He grabs at our face, gets a grip on our hair. We reach for his throat, curl our fingers around his neck, press our thumbs on his Adam’s apple. His eyes bulge. We squeeze tighter. He makes a noise like a cat being sick. The bed moves away from the wall. We fall over the top of his bedstead onto the floor. We roll over and over, one moment we are on top of him, the next he is on top of us. Shards of glass stick in our back. We hold on tight, turn away when he dribbles spit onto our face.
‘You bast—’
The music turns off.
We stop.
We listen.
We stare at Frost.
He stares at us.
We pant like dogs.
A door clicks open. A door slams shut. We hear footsteps land heavily at the bottom of the stairs, then get heavier and louder the closer they get to the top. Frost jumps up, runs across the room and climbs into his bed. We lift up our case, put the Lancaster inside and close the lid. The footsteps thud along the landing. A shadow stops, blocks the light under the door. We climb into bed, lie down and pull our blanket over our head.
I can’t breathe.
Shush!
The door clicks open. We spy through a hole in the blanket. Mrs Unster’s body blocks the doorway. The only place that light gets through is either side of her head. She sucks in air and then blows it back out.
Has she got asthma too?
No, she’s just fat.
Oh.
‘What you doing?’
—
—
‘I said, what you doing?’
—
—
‘I know you awake. I hear you muttering . . . So, what you do?’
We slide our blanket off our head, put our hand over our eyes to shade them from the light.
Nothing.
Nothing, Mrs Unster.
‘Nothing . . . Always you say nothing.’ She turns and looks at the lump that is Frost in his bed. He snores loudly under his covers. ‘I hope all your mumbling not wake Martin.’
Frost rolls over, stretches and yawns. ‘. . . Uhhh . . . What’s that?’
‘He wake you?’
Frost sits up and rubs his eyes. ‘Yeah . . . they did . . . He did . . . Always talking . . . and more bombs, Mrs Unster. I heard lots of bombs.’ The whites of his teeth catch the light.
It was only Hamburg—
Shush!
. . . And Berlin.
‘And still he doesn’t stop.’ Mrs Unster’s fat sucks away from the door frame, shards of glass crack under her feet as she walks towards us. She stops and looks up at the light bulb and sighs.
‘You damage again?’
It wasn’t our fault. It was an accident.
‘Always you say it nothing. Always you say it accident.’ She stands and stares at us. We stare back.
We . . . We didn’t bomb Moscow.
!
Mrs Unster shakes her head, turns away, closes the door behind her, then thuds down the stairs.
Frost sniggers. We hear the sound of trumpets, cymbals and drums coming up through the floorboards. They shake our bed, rumble through our body. It gets louder and louder until it feels like we are surrounded by an army of marching soldiers.
I think you upset her.
Me? It was you that said Moscow.
That’s where she used to live.
She lived in Latvia.
Isn’t that the same?
No.
‘Bloody nutter!’ Frost rolls over and faces the wall.
We wait for five minutes, then get out of bed and start packing again. We park the aeroplanes in the corner of our case, wedge them together, slide wing under wing until the tips touch the fuselage. We get out our rockets. They are easier to pack, but we have to be careful. Dad used to tell us they were more delicate than planes, that they were more sensitive to the wind direction and pressure. We know we have to protect them. We wrap them in our jumper and then put the jumper in the case.
Are we packing our book too?
No, we’ll carry it.
Can’t we read it now then?
I think it’s too late.
It’s not.
We walk over to the window and angle our watch to the moon.
. . . Ten to two?
Ten past ten.
So it’s not too late?
It is.
What about if we just read one of Dad’s letters?
No.
I’ll get the torch.
!
We tiptoe across the boards and find the torch on the chair by the piss-pot. We creep back, put our blanket over our head and sit cross-legged on the bed.
Like we are in assembly.
Like we are Red Indians around a fire.
We turn on the torch, it shines on the cover, on the drawing of us standing with Mum and Dad in front of our house. Dad’s stood tall, smiling with his uniform on, Mum is smiling, wearing a flowery dress, and we are standing in between them with our hair in our eyes.
?
What’s wrong?
I don’t think our hair was that yellow.
It was, people used to say you looked pretty.
!
They said you looked like a girl. Ha!
That’s all right.
?
I used to tell them you were my sister.
Oh.
—
—
We hold our book. It took six months to write, but we have been reading it for the last three years. Dr Smith tells us it’s part of our therapy, that reading about our past might help us get better. He says one day we will write another
chapter, when everything is quiet and all our headaches are gone.
Are we going to write it now?
No.
?
Because it’s not quiet yet.
Oh.
We open the cover and flick through the pages. Some of them have fallen out and been stuck back in, some of them are torn, and on some of them the ink and pictures have started to fade away. We flick past our pictures, past the maps that Dad left us. The blanket weighs heavy on our head. Where it has holes, the wind comes through; where our clothes have holes, we itch.
I can’t breathe . . . My asthma.
We lift the blanket, turn it round so that the hole we spied through is now by our mouth.
Better?
Yes.
Our torch flickers bright, then starts to fade. We shake it to make it come back to life. An envelope slides out from our book and lands between our legs.
Are we going to read this one?
Yes. It might be an omen.
?
It might have fallen out for a reason.
Oh.
We look at the envelope, all the corners are bent and Dad’s writing is scrawled across the front. We remember the day we first saw the letter on the mat by the front door at the bottom of the stairs.
I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.
I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. We picked it up, ran through the hall into the kitchen and gave it to Mum. She told us to calm down, that we wouldn’t be able to read the letter if we didn’t stand still.
I wish she—
I know.
—
—
—
We put our torch under our chin and open a letter from the moon.
19th June 1971
Dear Jack. Dear Tom.
Last night the sun burnt another hole through our window and this morning when I woke up all I saw were the stars.
Tom, you would love to see the Earth, it never changes shape and it is prettier than the moon. Jack, you would love to float, but you would hate the food.
Georgi says Boo.
Viktor says Hi and can you make sure you’re not looking at the sun by mistake the next time we come around.
Got to go, the deregulator just went irregular. I’ll write again soon.
Love, Dad
X One for Jack
X One for Tom
X And one for the piggy that got left behind. Ha!
We have read Dad’s letter a thousand times, but it still doesn’t help us find him. He was so busy telling us about Viktor and Georgi that he forgot to give us directions.
But we won’t give up?
No, we’ll keep looking.
Because he would have kept looking for us?
Yes. We could make cards and hand them out in big cities, search through the bins in back alleys, stick posters in shop windows.
Could we?
Yes, that’s what parents of missing children do.
But we’re not missing, he is.
. . . True.
We hold the letter up and read it again . . . Dear Jack. Dear Tom. Last night the sun burnt another hole through our window and this morning when I woke up all I saw were the stars.
We shake our head.
Is it one?
?
An omen?
No, I don’t think so.
—
—
We fold the letter and slide it back into the envelope. Our torch flickers again. We shake it, but the bulb just glows orange and then fades away. We’ll have to get some money and buy new batteries from a shop when we get outside.
We lie back on our pillow. Our heart thuds in our head. We take a deep breath and think about the morning when we get to leave, when we will say hello and goodbye to Dr Smith for the last time.
I’ll miss him.
I know.
Can we come back and visit?
!
?
We turn over, face the wall and close our eyes.
Chapter Two
WE CAN’T SLEEP. We can’t stop our legs shaking because the thoughts in our head disappear but keep coming back again. It’s cold and we’re shivering like we have woken up early on Christmas morning. We wrap our blanket around our shoulders and look out the window. The grass is grey, the walls are grey, the fields are greyer. The moon has fallen from the sky and we are waiting for the sun.
Today is our birthday.
Not yours. Mine.
But we can share it?
Yes.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday.
What have you got us?
?
We sit up and look around the room. There are no presents at the end of our bed, there are no presents on the table. We never get presents. We never get cake. We never get to feel good on our birthday. It’s just a day when we get older.
I made us a card.
Did you?
Yes. It’s here.
We lift our pillow and look underneath.
Well, it was here . . . somewhere.
We reach down between the cold metal poles and our mattress and feel the edges of a piece of paper.
Got it?
Yes . . . This is our card.
Do you like my sun?
It looks like a cat.
Oh . . . but you do like it?
Ummm . . . it’s . . . it’s nice.
A door slams shut somewhere behind us and the sound echoes down the landing. We fold our birthday card and put it in our pocket. A boy runs past our door laughing. We hear the sound of feet scuffing and another boy crying.
It’ll be James Lewis.
He’s always crying.
Because he misses his mum?
—
Because he always gets beaten up?
Because he’s opened his eyes and realised he’s still here.
We get up and creep past Frost. He’s asleep, lying on his back, snoring with his mouth wide open. James Lewis walks along the landing towards us, his head tilted to the ground, water dripping from his pyjamas.
Shall we help him?
I think it’s too late.
He stops in front of us and looks up. His eyes are wide open and shiny like a baby’s. We lean close to him.
They’ll get bored.
‘Will they?’ He wipes his nose on his sleeve.
Yes. They’ll pick on someone else.
Because the things they do to you they used to do to us.
Cold showers.
Stealing your clothes.
Stealing your shoes.
Dunking your head in the toilet. But we’re OK now.
Yes, we’re OK.
!
We put our hand on his shoulder and he jumps like we are made of ice.
We hear someone shout. James Lewis looks over his shoulder towards the stairs.
Run.
Run.
‘Why?’ He looks at the floor – a pool of water surrounds his feet.
We want to help him but we don’t know how. We think of letting him in our room, letting him hide under our bed, but they’ll find him easily because the sheets are so small that they don’t reach the ground. We think of hiding him under our blanket, but he’ll make it stink of pee.
The shouts get closer, footsteps thud on the stairs. We watch as he walks down the landing, stops by the toilets and pushes open the door.
We step back into our bedroom and watch the shadows rush by.
Maybe they won’t find him.
They always do.
Because they’re clever?
Because all they have to do is follow his trail on the floor.
The toilet door opens, slams back against the wall. More shouts, then a cry, then silence.
—
—
The water pipes rattle. The radiators drone. And a vacuum cleaner whines as it sucks somewhere clean.
—
—
We walk over to our window and try to bl
ock out the noise.
A black car winds its way down the road towards us. It disappears in the fold of a hill, then comes over the top.
How long will it—
Shush!
The car stops at the gates.
Sorry . . . but how long will it be?
Not long.
Seconds?
—
Minutes?
Maybe an hour, then we will be in that car, going the other way.
‘Ha! You’ve got no fucking chance.’
We turn around. Frost sits up on his bed, wipes the sleep from his eyes. ‘Do you really think they will let you go?’
What?
‘Do you really think they’ll let you out?’
Yes.
Yes.
He swings his legs over the side of his bed, sticks his hand down his pyjamas and scratches himself. ‘You’ve got no chance,’ he says. ‘They’ll send you to the YMI.’
What’s that?
Don’t listen to him.
‘They’ll like you at Houndsgate. They’ll love a pretty boy like you.’
What does he mean?
It doesn’t matter.
Frost laughs, then puts his head on one side and listens to the thud of footsteps coming up the stairs. He swings his legs up onto his bed and starts to pick at his fingers. The room goes dark like a cloud has arrived.
Mrs Unster stands in the doorway. She shakes her head at the fragments of glass scattered on the floor, looks at us, then at Frost. Mrs Unster walks towards him.
‘You OK, Martin?’ she asks.
Frost shrugs and smiles at the same time, then goes back to his fingers.
‘So.’ Mrs Unster’s chins wobble, she nods at our suitcase. ‘Are you ready?’
We’ve been ready all night.
Mrs Unster shakes her head. She knows how long we have been ready. She knows we have been waiting longer than one night. She knows we have been waiting for three years.
We pick up our suitcase and walk towards the door.
Wait!
What?
We forgot our book.
We go back to our bed and pick up our book.
‘Buzz.’ Frost makes a noise like a wasp. ‘Buzz, buzz.’
‘You stop!’ Mrs Unster raises a finger.
Frost grins.
‘Buzz, buzz.’
Why’s he doing that?
It doesn’t matter.
Frost bites a piece of loose skin on his fingers. We look around the room, at the piss-pot in the corner, at our blanket screwed up on our bed, at the window we have looked out of. For a second we feel sad, because even though it is just a room it has been our home, the place where we have remembered Dad, the place where we have thought about Mum, the place where we have imagined all the other worlds we would like to be in.