We Used to Be Kings

by Stewart Foster

  Frost sniffs.

  We have sat on our bed like him and watched people leave. We have watched them go out of the door, into the car park and get into cars or vans. Some of them shout goodbye, some of them just wave and some of them laugh and give us the finger before they go out the gates. And all morning, after they have gone, we sit in our room and listen to ourself until a new boy arrives with a bag on his back and a blanket for his bed.

  Shall we say goodbye?

  No.

  Why not?

  Because he hates us.

  It might make him like us.

  It won’t.

  Frost sniffs again as we walk past.

  Goodbye, Frost.

  ‘Fuck off!’

  Told you.

  !

  We carry our book under our arm as we bump our case down the stairs. We turn left at the bottom and walk along the corridor. The sound of clashing cutlery comes out of the canteen. Mrs Unster slows and checks her watch. We see steam coming from the kitchen, see the cooks standing behind big saucepans and the porters wiping tables, sliding out grey plastic chairs and putting out green jugs of water. We sniff, smell liver and onions. They’re preparing dinner before they’ve served breakfast.

  Mrs Unster shakes her head. ‘Not now,’ she says. ‘You eat later.’

  We smile.

  Because we’re not coming back for breakfast.

  Because we can get food outside. Crisps and bread.

  And ham.

  And cheese.

  I don’t like cheese.

  I’ll eat yours.

  OK . . . We can have a picnic.

  Yes. We can eat without listening to anyone screaming and shouting. We can drink without bread rolls flying through the air and bouncing off our head.

  Ha!

  Ha!

  We leave the canteen behind us, walk on past radiators, windows and doors, jumping over the shafts of sunlight that cut across the hall. Mrs Unster starts to puff as we turn a corner; we think of slowing down, of saving our energy, but we know how far we have to go, we have been here so long that we don’t have to count the strides.

  Fourteen between Dr Greenaway’s room and Dr Short’s.

  !

  And sixteen between Dr Short’s and the Assessment Room.

  —

  Mrs Unster begins to slow.

  We’ve reached Dr Smith’s door.

  She blows out her cheeks, reaches up to her head and adjusts a pin in her hair.

  ‘Here we go,’ she says.

  We look at the brass nameplate on the door.

  Dr M. Smith. BSc. PhD. Head of Neurology and Psychotherapy.

  Are we going to say goodbye now?

  I think so.

  We like talking to Dr Smith, don’t we?

  Yes, but not today.

  ?

  Don’t talk to him today.

  But—

  Do you want to leave?

  Yes.

  Then let me do the talking.

  I’ll try.

  Mrs Unster turns the handle and swings the door open.

  Hello, Dr Smith.

  !

  I forgot.

  Dr Smith is standing behind his desk looking out the window. ‘Tom.’ He turns around and smiles. ‘I thought it was you I heard coming.’

  We step inside. The room smells of smoke and polish and aftershave. Dr Smith unwinds a piece of string that’s anchored by the side of the window.

  ‘Lovely morning,’ he says. The string slips through his fingers. A blind falls down and the room turns dark. Mrs Unster starts to close the door behind us.

  Our suitcase.

  Shush!

  My Lancaster . . . your Spitfire.

  ‘What’s that, Tom?’ Dr Smith moves across the window and lets down another blind.

  Nothing.

  ‘Are you sure?’ He clicks the lamp on his desk. We look back at the door.

  It’s just . . .

  ‘Go on.’

  We’ve . . . I’ve left my suitcase outside.

  Dr Smith smiles.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he says. He walks towards us, stops, puts his hand gently on our shoulder. We smell nicotine on his fingers. He eases us across the room towards two chairs in the corner. We listen to him hum. He sits down in the big one with wings that wrap around his head, nods at us, then at the chair opposite him.

  Sometimes we think he has gone to sleep when we’re talking. We accidentally kick his shoe and he tells us he wasn’t sleeping, that he just closes his eyes when he’s thinking. He is the oldest person we know, he tells us stories about the war, about Doodlebugs and Zeppelins. He is so old that even he has stopped counting. He says his wife thinks he is like a tree, that you can tell how old he is just by looking at his forehead and counting the wrinkles.

  Seventy-two.

  But not now!

  Oh.

  ‘Sorry?’ He scratches his ear.

  !

  We sit down opposite him. Our legs are shaking and we can’t stop our trainers from tapping on the floor. We put our book on our lap. Dr Smith checks his watch with the clock above the door, then hovers his yellow finger above a red button on a tape recorder.

  We grip the arms of the chair.

  ‘Relax,’ says Dr Smith. ‘There’s no need to worry.’

  We breathe out and stare up at the ceiling. We have done this so many times but it still makes us nervous.

  It’s like my first day at school.

  It’s like a worm is eating through our stomach.

  Dr Smith checks the time again, even though only ten seconds have passed since he last looked. We sit back in our seat and close our eyes. We have to remember to be quiet, do nothing but answer his questions. We have to remember that both of us can’t talk at the same time. Don’t we?

  —

  Don’t we?

  I’m practising.

  Dr Smith clears his throat as he presses the button. The tape begins to turn.

  ‘The twenty-first of August, ten thirty a.m.’

  —

  —

  ‘So, Tom,’ he says. ‘How are things going?’

  We don’t answer. We know we don’t have to answer yet. We know what we have to do. We have to have a routine: question, count to ten, think, count to ten, answer. It helps us keep things in order.

  ‘So, Tom,’ he says. ‘Let’s—’

  Complete the circle?

  !

  ‘Yes, have you read another chapter?’

  We look at our book. Every time we have to complete the circle, we don’t know where we’ll start or where we’ll go, only that after half an hour of talking we have to return to the same place.

  ‘Have you?’

  We shake our head.

  It was too late—

  We read a letter instead. But we could read now.

  We open our book. Dr Smith leans forward, puts his hand on top of ours.

  ‘No, Tom,’ he says. ‘We’re not reading today . . . I know what’s in there. I need to know what’s in here.’ He taps us gently on our head.

  —

  —

  The tape recorder hums. There are footsteps and voices out in the corridor.

  Dr Smith looks over the top of our chair towards the door.

  ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘we’ve not got long.’

  Until we leave.

  ‘Until we have to go next door.’ He leans forward and whispers so quietly that we can’t work out what he’s saying. We shuffle in our seat until our head nearly bumps against his. ‘Tom, how’s Jack?’

  Who?

  Me.

  ‘Jack, have you seen him?’

  No, I haven’t seen him for ages.

  ?

  —

  !

  Dr Smith shakes his head slowly and takes his glasses out of his jacket pocket. He picks up a pen and writes on a piece of paper. We sit up straighter, try to read what he has written, but his writing is small and scratchy.

 
Still in . . .

  Still in . . .

  What’s that word?

  Dr Smith cups his hand over the page like we are trying to copy him. ‘So, tell me what happened last night.’

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He looks over the top of his glasses, raises his right eyebrow. We know what he wants, we know what he’s doing.

  He’s leaving a gap of silence for us to fill in.

  But we won’t fill it.

  No.

  ‘Tom? Are you sure you don’t know what happened last night?’ He clicks his pen six times. We can’t keep the answer in any longer—

  We couldn’t sleep – I couldn’t sleep. We tried to read, but—

  ‘But?’

  It was too dark.

  ‘So . . .’

  So we bombed Hamburg.

  Shush!

  ‘And then . . .’

  And then we bombed Berlin.

  !

  Dr Smith shakes his head slowly and bites his top lip.

  ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘you can’t destroy everything.’

  But I didn’t start it.

  ‘Then who did, Tom?’

  Hitler did.

  !

  But he did, that’s what it said in our encyclopaedia.

  Dr Smith scribbles another note, then taps his pen on the top of his pad. We look around the room, at the cobwebs in the corners, at the clock on the wall, at all the books we haven’t read on the shelves. We wish we could read them, Dad told us we should read whenever we get the time. But we haven’t got the time.

  Because we’re too busy flying our planes.

  Because we’re too busy reading a book of our own.

  The tape clicks and makes us jump.

  ‘Sorry.’ Dr Smith flips the cassette cover and turns the tape over. We get ready for more questions, but he just sits with his finger hovering above the record button. ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘can you keep him quiet, just for a little while?’

  We shrug.

  I’ll try.

  ‘It’s important. We need him to listen, not talk. Just for a little while. Remember, I’m trying to help. Are you ready?’

  We nod.

  ‘Just you, Tom, no one else.’

  OK.

  Dr Smith presses the button. He checks his watch, I check the clock and we wait fifteen seconds for the tape to wind. Dr Smith takes a deep breath like he is getting ready to read the news.

  ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘it’s been nearly three years—’

  And now we’re leaving.

  ‘And the pills don’t seem to be working.’

  They do. They make me go to sleep.

  —

  But then I wake up again.

  !

  ‘Jack.’

  Yes.

  ‘I said I need to talk to Tom.’

  Oh. But will you talk to me after?

  Dr Smith nods.

  ‘Tom.’

  Yes.

  ‘We’re going to . . . We’re going to have to—’ He stops and looks towards the door. We hear footsteps and then two men are talking outside. Dr Smith grunts as he pushes down on the arms of his chair and rests his hand on our shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  We watch as he slowly walks across the room with his head bent down. He opens the door. The shadows of men grow across the carpet, with voices that turn to whispers.

  ‘Five minutes,’ says Dr Smith. ‘We’ll be done in five minutes.’ He closes the door, walks back across and presses the stop button.

  Is it my turn now?

  ‘No, Jack.’ He takes off his glasses and pinches his nose between his fingers. His eyes are shining with little bits of red in the corners. He shakes his head. ‘No, Jack, we’re finished now.’

  For ever?

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  He walks over to his desk and opens up his case. It’s as battered and worn as ours. He rubs his hands over his face, then pulls out a little box wrapped in brown paper.

  ‘Did you think I’d forgotten?’

  We stand up and walk towards him. The box is shaking in his hand.

  ‘Happy birthday, Tom.’ He smiles.

  We hold the box in the palm of our hand.

  It’s not very big.

  Shush!

  But it’s not.

  We shake it.

  What is it?

  ‘It’s new,’ he says. ‘I’m sure you haven’t got it.’

  Can we open it now?

  The door opens and closes in the next room. Dr Smith shakes his head.

  ‘No, I think you’d better open it later.’

  When we’re gone?

  ‘When I’m gone.’ He puts his hand on our shoulder, slides it around the back of our neck. ‘Tom,’ he says, ‘when we go next door, when Mrs Unster comes to get you, it will be best if you leave Jack behind.’

  But I can’t.

  He can’t.

  ‘But you’ll try?’

  Yes.

  Yes.

  He walks to the door, opens it and looks back.

  Like he will miss us.

  Like he is looking at us for the last time.

  The door closes and he leaves us in the dark.

  We hear him talking in the corridor. Then the other two voices, then Mrs Unster. For two minutes we listen. We think about what Dr Smith said about leaving one of us behind.

  We think about opening the box.

  We wonder what he meant.

  I can’t get the tape off.

  !

  The door opens. We tuck the box under our arm with our book. Mrs Unster carries our case as we walk along the corridor. She stops outside a door.

  Assessment Room. Session in progress.

  She knocks twice, then opens it before anyone answers.

  Mr Stride and Dr Watts sit behind a table in front of three windows that stretch from the floor to the ceiling. We’ve seen them before, once a year on our birthday. We first met them at Dunston’s, then again at Downend, and now they have followed us here.

  I don’t want to go in.

  But you want to leave?

  Yes.

  Then we have to go in.

  Mrs Unster nudges us in the middle of our back. We pick up our suitcase and stop in the middle of the room. Dr Smith is standing in the corner rubbing his hands together like he is cold. Dr Watts and Mr Stride look down at the table and open their green files. We look at the floor, out of the window, up at the ceiling.

  We hear the sound of pages turning.

  I want to—

  Shush!

  We dig our hands deep into our pockets to stop them shaking. Our suitcase topples over. The room echoes with the sound of our rockets crashing into our planes. Mr Stride looks up and shakes his head.

  Sorry.

  We’re sorry.

  He stares right through us like we’re not here.

  A line of sweat trickles down our neck.

  We feel hot.

  We feel cold.

  Dr Smith pulls out a chair and sits down. He nods at the two wooden chairs in the no-man’s-land between us and them.

  No-man’s-land?

  !

  No-man’s—

  It’s from the war.

  The war?

  Not now.

  But—

  It’s the land between trenches.

  But there aren’t any trenches.

  —

  Mr Stride looks up from the file. ‘Are you going to stay standing or are you going to sit down?’

  We’ll run.

  That wasn’t one of the choices.

  Oh.

  We sit down. Mrs Unster sits beside us. Mr Stride pulls his file towards him, shelters it with his arm like he thinks we are trying to read it upside down. But we don’t need to read the file to know the name that is written on the front. It’s the same file as last year, and the year before, and the year before that. It started as a single piece of paper and now it�
��s a book. And we don’t need to look inside, we sneaked a look once when there was a fire.

  But we didn’t start the fire.

  No. We only smashed the glass.

  Ha!

  One day we smashed the glass on the alarm and ran into Mrs Unster’s room. There was a cabinet in the corner. We opened the drawer marked D–K and found our file inside. It was full of long words that we didn’t understand. There were lots of pictures: one of our house, one of Mum and Dad standing outside, one of each of them on their own, one of us sitting on the wall at the beach, and one of us with our body cut off and our name crossed through underneath.

  We used to be Kings.

  We liked being Kings.

  But we like our new name better. Dad had tossed a coin in the sitting room to decide. Mum thought he was joking.

  But he wasn’t laughing.

  No. Heads for Armstrong, he said.

  And tails for Gagarin.

  Mum said she’d had enough, that changing our name was the final straw. Dad told her shush, that people might be listening. But we were the only ones there.

  We watched him flip the coin. It landed on the floor and disappeared under a chair. Dad got down on his knees, but all he found were sweet wrappers and marbles. His face was turning red and there were bubbles of sweat on his neck. He lifted up the chair. The coin was in the middle surrounded by dust with the head facing up.

  Armstrong.

  Yes, but he said it was best of three—

  One of the men coughs. We look up. Little pieces of dust float in the air as the sun shines over their heads. All we can see are dark shapes. Dr Watts points. Dr Smith turns a page. Mr Stride speaks.

  ‘So, Gagarin . . .’

  Yes.

  Yes.

  He shakes his head. ‘Well . . . we only have to sit here and listen to your constant mumbling to know you haven’t changed.’

  We have.

  I have.

  We’re one year older.

  !

  ‘But you’ve not actually changed.’

  . . . I can read better.

  Shush!

  And Tom’s started to shave.

  I said, sh—

  Mr Stride shakes his head again, then looks along the table.

  ‘Have we got the report? Dr Smith?’

  Dr Smith puts his hand behind his ear. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The report.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Dr Smith. ‘It’s all there in the file.’

  We sit and watch as they all flick through our file. Every once in a while they mark their place with their finger, then lean over and whisper. Mrs Unster walks around the side of the table and makes it four against two.