We Used to Be Kings

by Stewart Foster

  The TV picture started to flicker. I heard music play quietly, drums and trumpets, but the drummers were too tired to beat and the trumpeters were too scared to blow. Another truck drove across the sand and stopped. I couldn’t see the capsule any more. The music got quieter and slowly the picture faded away.

  I pressed a button on the TV, then another and another, but all I could find were fuzzy pictures and the sound of white noise. I didn’t know what to do. I thought maybe I’d misheard the commentator, or maybe he was deaf and had misheard the rumour. A hundred thoughts rushed through my head at the same time. I wondered how it could have happened, that maybe Dad had got tired and pressed the wrong button, or Georgi should have changed direction, flown over Kazakhstan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. My body started to shake. I wanted to tell someone, someone who could help. I turned around. Auntie Jean was asleep on the settee with her mouth open. I looked at Jack and thought of asking him but if I couldn’t understand then neither could he.

  I crawled across the floor and climbed up onto a chair. Jack squeezed in beside me. I couldn’t say anything, all I could think of was the Russians and Dad and the word ‘suffocate’. I put my arm around Jack and we waited for Mum to come home.

  I felt a tickle on my face, like an ant crawling from my neck up to my eye.

  I scratched my cheek and rolled over.

  I felt the tickle again and heard the faint sound of a soft voice calling my name.

  I opened my eyes. The sitting room was dark, full of silhouettes and shadows.

  ‘Tom.’

  Mum was kneeling on the floor with her chin resting on the arm of my chair. I blinked. She smiled and gently rubbed her hand over mine.

  ‘It’s late,’ she whispered.

  I looked around the sitting room, started to get up.

  ‘Where’s—’

  ‘He’s OK,’ she said. ‘I took him up to bed.’ She rubbed her hand up my arm like she was trying to flatten the chicken bumps on my skin. ‘You’re cold,’ she said.

  I stared ahead at the TV, the blank black screen in the corner, and remembered all the pictures of the Russians I’d seen during the afternoon. A horrible feeling grew deep inside me, an ache, a throbbing ache around my heart, like a balloon filled with water was going to explode in my chest. The word ‘suffocate’ kept whispering through my head over and over again.

  I’d woken from a nightmare and found out it was true.

  Tears started to fall down my cheeks. Mum held me tighter.

  ‘Tom, what’s wrong?’

  The feeling came again, like a wave through my body. I swallowed.

  ‘Dad’s dead,’ I said.

  Mum put her hand on my head and started to rock me from side to side.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No. Dad’s not dead, he’s just gone away.’

  ‘But he came back. The Russians came back.’

  ‘Hush,’ she said. She held me close to her chest until my crying words were smothered against her. ‘It’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘Everything will be OK.’

  I wanted to talk, I wanted to tell her everything that had happened to Dad and the Russians since she’d been gone. But the more I thought about it, the worse the pain got.

  I felt the warmth of Mum’s breath, I heard the thump of her heart. I closed my eyes and wished Dad was back and that the pain would go away.

  There were pictures of tanks and marching bands carrying red flags on the TV when I woke up the next morning. Writing kept flashing up on the screen:

  LIVE FROM MOSCOW’S RED SQUARE.

  Two photographs the size of our house hung from the roofs of red buildings – two men in uniform with red stripes on their hats and gold stars on their arms. I stared at the screen and saw the faces of Georgi and Viktor staring back at me.

  Jack shuffled beside me. We looked at the pictures and I read the numbers written underneath.

  ‘It’s the dates they were born,’ I said, ‘and the dates that they died.’

  He nodded like he understood.

  The camera moved across the square, over the top of tanks and horses, over the heads of the soldiers, and stopped when it reached a red building with gold turrets on top. A photograph hung from the roof down to the ground. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to see a picture of Dad. The music got louder, cymbals and trumpets and drums.

  I heard someone sniff and turned around. Mum was standing in the doorway, her face was white and her eyes were red like a rabbit’s. She wiped her nose on a tissue.

  ‘Boys, there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  She came in and sat on the floor behind us. The drums drummed, the cymbals clashed. The giant photograph flapped gently in the wind. I put my hands up to my face and peeped through my fingers at a man in a uniform with shiny buttons on his shoulders and little flags and medals pinned to his chest. A big grin stretched across his face. I took my hands down. Jack nudged my arm.

  ‘It’s not Dad,’ he said.

  I stared at the face, at the man’s brown eyes, his black hair.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I know.’

  ‘Who is it then?’

  I read the name and the dates written underneath.

  VLADISLAV NIKOLAYEVICH VOLKOV

  NOVEMBER 23, 1935–JUNE 30, 1971

  I shook my head. I didn’t understand, I suddenly felt happy and sad at the same time. Mum sat on the floor beside me.

  ‘It’s not Dad,’ I said.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered and shook her head slowly.

  The music stopped playing.

  The tanks stopped moving.

  And the soldiers stood still.

  A man shouted something backwards and the soldiers pointed their rifles and shot three times into the sky.

  ‘So where is he?’ I whispered. ‘Where’s Dad?’

  Mum’s lips started to move but no words came out.

  The soldiers started marching, the music started playing, the pictures of Georgi, Viktor and Vladislav were moved together until they took up the whole screen.

  Mum got up and sat on the settee. Me and Jack got up and sat beside her as the pictures and music started to fade away. Mum took a deep breath.

  ‘I don’t know where to start,’ she said.

  Me and Jack waited for her to speak but all she did was wrap her arms around us and stare at the TV.

  The scientist came back on. He pointed at a diagram of the moon and traced the line that went back to Earth. He told us about the mission and showed us a model of Soyuz 11 and a Space Station. He opened up the hatches, joined them together to make a tunnel and then told us how the cosmonauts had crawled through to conduct their experiments on the other side.

  ‘This is where the leak may have occurred.’ He pointed at a circle of metal on the hatch of Soyuz 11. ‘It may have melted in the atmosphere, or the Russians may not have sealed it properly when they undocked from the Space Station.’

  He pointed at the model again. He said that the Russians may have run out of money when they built the rocket, that they may have used spare parts from tanks and cars. He drew a graph on a board and wrote a complicated equation underneath that I didn’t understand. I looked back at the model. There were three cosmonauts sitting on one side of the tunnel and one sitting on his own at the other end. My heart started thumping and my head started spinning like rockets, Space Stations and satellites were flying around me.

  I stood up.

  ‘He’s OK,’ I said. ‘Dad’s OK.’

  Jack looked at me like I’d gone mad. Mum shook her head.

  ‘No, Tom,’ she said.

  ‘He is,’ I said. ‘He is.’

  I walked over to the TV, pointed at the rocket, the Space Station and the tunnel where the hatches joined together. I pointed at the three cosmonauts in the capsule, then at the other one in the Space Station.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ I said. ‘Dad isn’t dead. He’s just been left behind.’

  Mum put her hand up to her mouth.

  ‘
No, Tom,’ she said. ‘That’s not . . . I don’t think—’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘It is.’ I looked at Jack; his eyebrows were pushed together like he still hadn’t worked it out. I pointed at the TV again.

  ‘See, Jack. Three cosmonauts . . . And Dad doing experiments on the other side.’

  Jack started to smile.

  We both looked at Mum.

  ‘I’m right,’ I said. ‘I worked it out.’

  Jack got up and stood by my side.

  ‘He’s always right.’

  Mum’s hands started to shake and her eyes glistened like glass.

  ‘Isn’t he, Mum?’

  Mum stared at me, like she was still thinking, then slowly she started to nod.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think Tom might be right.’

  That night I dragged my blanket across our bedroom and me and Jack sat together on his bed. We opened our book and read Dad’s letters from the moon over and over again. We thought how lonely he must be now Viktor and Georgi were gone and wondered how long he would be able to survive in space on his own. He’d said in one of his letters that he could hold his breath for two minutes.

  I pulled back the curtain, looked up at the sky and tried to find a light that might be the Space Station flickering between the stars. I hoped Dad could try and take deep slow breaths, that maybe he’d find a little pocket of oxygen in the corner by the switches, that he could stay alive for days like sailors when their boats turn upside down in the sea.

  A cloud crossed the moon. I heard the rustle of pages, turned around and saw Jack flicking through our book like he wanted to get to the end before he went to sleep.

  ‘Don’t tear it,’ I said.

  He kept turning the pages, his hand moving so fast it started to blur.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘This,’ he said. He pulled a piece of paper out of the back of our book and jumped out of his bed.

  I looked at the page, at the diagram of wires going into boxes then coming out the other side and going into a washing machine and a fridge. All the parts Dad had used for his rocket were written in a long list underneath. A big smile crept across Jack’s face. I looked out the window and up at our hill. The silhouette of Dad’s launch site stuck up like castle walls in the dark.

  ‘Can we do it?’ Jack whispered. ‘Can we build the rocket?’

  I looked back at the diagram.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s complicated.’

  I looked back at the piece of paper, at the lines looping across the page, over and under each other, like a puzzle where you guide the mouse to the cheese. Dad always said it wasn’t easy, he said if it was easy everyone would be building rockets. I looked back up at the hill, then at the sky.

  ‘We could try, Jack.’ I said. ‘I think we should try.’

  I jumped as our bedroom door clicked open. Mum put her head around the side.

  ‘I thought you’d be sleeping,’ she said. She walked in and stood between us at the window.

  ‘We’re going to build a rocket,’ said Jack. He smiled and looked as excited as I felt inside.

  Mum looked up at the hill and slowly shook her head.

  ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘Someone’s telephoned the council, they’re taking it all away in the morning.’

  ‘But they can’t,’ I said. ‘It’s Dad’s rocket . . . And I’ve got the instructions.’

  She took them out of my hand. Her eyes moved side to side as she followed all the wires then she stopped and whispered the words written underneath. ‘Trust no one . . . Tell no one . . . They might be spies.’ Dad had written it ten times.

  Mum folded the instructions and gave them back to me.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She kissed us both goodnight then walked out and closed the door.

  I sat on Jack’s bed and looked at my clock on my wall. It was still stuck on T minus zero.

  ‘Are we still going to build it?’ Jack whispered.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ I said.

  ‘But we’ve not got long left.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They’re going to take it away.’

  ‘I know . . . I know . . .’

  I stopped talking as Mum’s footsteps crossed the landing into the bathroom.

  ‘We can’t rush it,’ I said. ‘Mum always says—’

  ‘Good things come to those who wait.’

  ‘Yes.’ I lay down on my bed, tried to figure out everything we had to do, knowing that all the while I was thinking, time was disappearing. I didn’t know what to do. The person I wanted to ask was the person I was trying to help. It was too late to send Dad a letter, it’d never reach him in time.

  The toilet flushed. Mum went back into her bedroom and clicked off the light.

  I couldn’t let the council take the rocket, but we couldn’t take off without being prepared. I got up, put on my dressing gown and slippers. Jack jumped out of his bed and did the same.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We can’t let them take it,’ I whispered. ‘We’ve got to get it down.’

  We crept towards the door.

  ‘But where are we going to put it?’

  ‘Somewhere safe,’ I said.

  ‘But where?’

  ‘The back garden.’

  I pulled the door open, looked left towards the bathroom and looked right towards Mum’s bedroom. The coast was clear. We crept onto the landing and down the stairs. Dad had taken the whole of the summer to take the rocket up the hill. Me and Jack only had one night to bring it all down.

  Chapter Fifteen

  TOM.

  —

  Tom!

  What?

  Can we go now?

  —

  Can we go now? Beep.

  . . . We can’t.

  Why not?

  Harriet says it’s too late.

  ?

  She doesn’t like driving in the dark.

  But what about Dad?

  —

  What about Dad? Beep.

  We’ll find him tomorrow.

  I can’t wait that long.

  You’ll have to.

  Why?

  —

  Why? Beep.

  Because she’s just made us tea.

  —

  Harriet passes us a bowl and sits down beside us. We pick up a fork, twist it in our spaghetti, our elbow knocks against hers. She smiles, we smile. Our elbows knock again.

  It’s like we’re back at Mrs Drummond’s.

  It’s like we’re fighting for space in a submarine.

  ‘So, what happens next?’ Harriet nods at the bench where our book lies open on the last page we read. ‘What happens now that the Russians have come home?’

  Can I tell her?

  I thought you wanted to leave.

  We built a rocket.

  !

  In our garden.

  —

  Out of a fridge and a washing machine. Then—

  I think that’s enough.

  But—

  We shove a spoonful of spaghetti into our mouth.

  Harriet smiles.

  ‘You’re a good writer,’ she says. ‘I’d be rubbish. I haven’t got any imagination.’

  ?

  ?

  ‘How did you make it all up?’

  It’s true.

  Shush!

  But it is.

  ‘Ha!’ Harriet puts her hand up to her mouth, coughs and laughs at the same time.

  ?

  !

  Her face goes red and her eyes start to water. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m not laughing at you.’ She takes a drink.

  We look down, turn our fork in the bowl.

  ‘I didn’t mean it.’ She puts her hand on our arm.

  It’s OK.

  !

  She smiles, we smile, and we think how pretty she looks with tears in her eyes. We sit in silence and look out the back window at the car lights crawling up the h
ill, they look like people carrying lanterns. The camper-van light flickers. We look up at the ceiling like we’re looking for ghosts.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘We’ve just got to save the battery or we’ll still be stuck here tomorrow.’

  But we can’t . . .

  !

  She gets up, opens the cupboard and lights a candle. We watch as she walks towards us with her tongue poking out, trying not to blow out the flame. She switches the light off and sits back down beside us.

  We sit in the dark surrounded by shadows.

  ‘Oh,’ she says.

  We jump.

  ‘I nearly forgot.’ She leans forward, reaches under the bench and slides out a cardboard box.

  Ludo?

  —

  Snakes and ladders?

  ‘Here.’ She lifts up four bottles of beer.

  Oh.

  ‘We can share these.’

  She opens a drawer and finds a bottle opener.

  ‘You do it,’ she says. ‘I’ve just got to go outside.’

  —

  Shall I come?

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I just need the loo.’

  She opens the door and steps out. We pick up a bottle.

  I think we should go now.

  Why?

  I want to find Dad.

  I told you. Tomorrow.

  I won’t help you open the bottle then.

  I don’t need your help.

  !

  The bottle opener slips off the top and onto the floor.

  I don’t like it when we meet people.

  —

  You don’t listen to me.

  —

  You don’t listen to me. Beep.

  Shush!

  Harriet steps back inside with her arms folded across her chest.

  ‘It’s a bit cold,’ she says. She sits down close to us like she wants to get warm.

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t drink?’ She nods at the bottles.

  We don’t.

  —

  We show her our bandaged hand.

  ‘Oh, sorry, I forgot.’

  She prises the tops off two bottles and curls her feet up on the bench. We take a drink, then Harriet takes a drink, and leans against us, rests her head on our shoulder.

  !

  —

  She wriggles, makes an umm sound like she’s trying to get comfortable on a pillow.