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217 pages

English

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As the slums around him are being cleared, thousands of miles away preparations for the first moon landing are being made, and Henry Lothian is consumed by the idea that men really could walk upon another world. He feels compelled to prepare for this event so that he will remember every detail for the rest of his life. But not everyone shares Henry's enthusiasm. Some, his father especially, think that mounting expeditions to the moon is a waste of money. Others believe that Americans are going there for the wrong reasons and that Apollo will be squandered. When his friends move away and tragedy strikes his family, Henry is drawn towards an unlikely ally. But when conflict between himself and his father reaches breaking point, Henry's plans for the moon landing are turned upside down. To what lengths will he go to ensure that he absorbs the event he is convinced will change the world forever?

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Publié par	eBookPartnership.com
Date de parution	31 décembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783010141
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0124€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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One Time on Earth
Neil Newton
For my parents, who were beside me when men walked upon another world
For Christine, who was beside me during the writing of this
A special thank you to Mary Firth
* * *
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known
Carl Sagan
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 1
Apollo 8. December 24 th 1968. An encounter with a tramp. Arguing with father. The Genesis broadcast.
I sit in darkness listening to the radio when a ladder crashes against the wall outside my room and moans to the rhythm of someone climbing it. Seconds later, a misshapen figure appears at the window, tapping and rattling the glass. At first I ignore it, but when the figure calls out my name, I sigh, slide off the bed and raise the bottom part of the window. The glass shudders and in comes frigid air and traffic sounds. Kevin leans into the room, pushes back his duffel coat hood and palms his spectacles up his nose. He glances around the room, and for a moment he listens to the plummy voice on the radio.
… Lest we forget, but what we are witnessing here is the most complex project ever undertaken by human beings; therefore, we should think of this as an engineering and scientific triumph, and not just one of exploration…
‘What you doin’, Henry?’ Kevin asked and sniffled, snapping his attention back on me. ‘Me and the lads, we’ve been brayin’ on the back door.’
I sat back down on the bed, stared at the floor and did nothing to disguise my anger. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, it’s Christmas Eve,’ I grumbled. ‘There’s people going round the moon for the first time and I’m listening to it on the radio. What the hell do you think I’m doing?’
Kevin rolled his eyes and said they had seen a tramp.
‘Where?’
‘In one of the old houses.’
I dismissed him with a wave of my hand. ‘They’re all old; that’s why they’re pullin’ ‘em down. Half the houses in Stoneygate have gone, Kev.’
‘The ones down the road where the old Vanguard’s in that falling down garage; thought we’d take a look.’
‘Then take a look,’ I said, shaking my head.
Kevin grinned and rubbed the back of a finger across the tip of his nose. He said, ‘You scared, Henry?’
‘You know I’m not.’
Staring blankly and chewing the inside of his cheek, it was clear Kevin was searching for something else to say. ‘Ray and Nige saw him too,’ he said, with hope in his voice.
I stood, poked my head out of the window and looked down into the street. Underneath the Traveller’s Rest sign Ray and Nigel were waiting on the cobbles. Nigel was walking in circles flapping his arms and Ray had one foot on the ladder, cupping his hands against his face and lighting a cigarette. The flaring match lit up his bony features. Shivering, I ducked back in. ‘What was he like?’ I wondered.
‘We didn’t get a proper look; we saw him when we were sat on the slab behind the bogs. Then we followed him and we heard him walking up and down in the house. Rantin’ like a squealing pig he was, having a right old argument with himself.’
‘Why don’t you just leave him alone? He probably just wants somewhere to kip for the night; it’s freezin’.’
Kevin readjusted his position on the ladder and sighed. He shook his head and began speaking with a mocking and posh accent. ‘Oh yes, I forgot. All these years, toff school’s been turning one into a spineless toad.’
‘Hasn’t.’
‘Then come on then. Unless you’re frightened your old bloke’ll catch us.’
In the Tap Room dominoes were being shuffled, while in the lounge, piano keys were tinkling and ladies were beginning to sing Ding Dong Merrily on High. We both looked at the floor and then at each other, as the plummy voice on the radio summed up.
… Well, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration came under a lot of criticism over the risks some people said it was taking with this mission. All the time though it insisted there were science goals to be met if human beings are ever to set foot on this uninviting world. And that is the impression that the moon has left on these three young men as they near the end of their stay in Lunar Orbit – that the moon is an unwelcoming, harsh and unforgiving place. But the mission has been a success, a greater success than anyone dared to imagine and the road does seem clear now for a landing attempt before the end of next year. There will be other missions before that, of course. The Lunar Lander will be tested in Earth orbit on the forthcoming Apollo 9 mission. After that, there will be Apollo 10, which in all likelihood will be a dress rehearsal for a Lunar Landing. If these two missions are successful then surely an attempt will be made to land in the summer…
‘You’d better not be having me on,’ I said, driving my fists into my trouser pockets. ‘Before they leave orbit tonight there’s broadcasts on the telly, and I’m not missing that, tramp or no tramp.’
Kevin laughed. ‘Why would we have you on about tramps, Lothian? C’mon, how about it? There’s time; broadcast’s not ‘til after midnight, anyhow.’
I groaned and began scooping books off the floor, throwing them on to the mattress. ‘All right, I’ll see you by the bogs, but you put that ladder back.’ I moved to the window and began closing it without waiting for a reply. Kevin ducked back out and I watched his misshapen image until he descended out of view.
Apart from the spitting and whistling of a slumbering fire behind a mesh guard, our small living area was quiet, half-lit by the nicotine glow from a standard lamp. Twirled paper trimmings that drooped from the ceiling were the only signs that Christmas was here. Hurrying around the bare-topped table at the heart of the room, I moved to the pot sink, pushed curtains beneath it to one side and snatched at a flashlight. From a peg on the wall I took my duffel coat, struggled into it, dropped the torch into a pocket and stepped outside, closing the door behind me as quietly as I could.
In colourless moonlight they waited in clouds of their breath by the toilet block, the towering silhouette of the run-down Brew House looming over them. High-shouldered, with hands in pockets, Kevin and Nigel walked in circles, stamping their feet; while Ray, in the Whitsuntide suit he had grown out of, was flicking a scuffed leather ball into the air with his foot and catching it on the back of his neck.
‘What about this tramp of yours?’ I barked, startling them.
Nigel hurried over and began rocking backwards and forwards before he spoke. He gulped, and in a breathless voice, he said, ‘Yep, we saw him all right, Henry. He were hanging about at the end of the street; rough looking bugger.’
In the half-light, it was difficult to see Nigel’s cherub face beneath the dome of his curly hair. I said, ‘Our street? Faraday Street?’
‘Our street.’
Ray coughed and chuckled and half-volleyed the ball across the yard. I watched the ball come to rest by the Brew House double doors and asked what had happened then.
Kevin said they had followed him. ‘We hid in German Trudy’s shithouse yard.’
I shivered, trudged around the toilet block and sat on the concrete slab there with my hands in my coat pockets, gazing down the length of Faraday Street, at the soot-blackened old houses and their tiny back gardens. Weak amber lights glowed behind many of the grimy windows, and with this being a windless night, threads of chimney smoke were drawn towards the stars.
One by one they sat down to my left, and at first we said nothing and just stared at the half-moon, high now with a halo of violet around it. ‘You know what?’ I said.
‘What?’ said Nigel.
‘Have you thought of it this way?’ I said.
Kevin glowered and looked along the line. ‘Friggin’ ‘ell, Lothian, thought of what what way?’
I squirmed on the cold slab, stretching my legs out, crossing them at the ankles. ‘Thought that we’re the first people to look at the moon and know there’s blokes up there going around it.’
Collectively they sighed, leaning back against the wall.
‘And soon, Henry,’ Nigel said, we’ll be the first people to look up and know that there’s people on it, working there and exploring.’
I agreed and told Nigel that he had made a good point. ‘I can’t imagine what that day‘ll be like,’ I confessed. ‘That’s all I think about these days; what that day will be like, what it’ll do to people and how the world’ll change when it happens. I want to remember it, every second of it, so I can remember it, just as it was in twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, seventy years’ time. It’ll be the biggest day ever. The biggest day on Earth there can ever be.’
‘Unless it’s a Commie that gets there first,’ Kevin said, laughing.
‘It won’t be the Ruskies,’ I snapped. ‘Not after this. Not after Americans have been in orbit round it.’
Kevin wasn’t so sure. ‘Commies might still have some tricks up their sleeves. They might just go for it next year and try to land …’
‘And we have a deal,’ I said, cutting him off. ‘We have a deal that we’ll be together when it happens. We cut our thumbs and made a pact, remember?’
Solemnly they all nodded and raised their hands and looked at the cut each one had to his thumb.
Again we fell silent. Beside me, Ray patted his breast pocket for his cigarettes, he pulled out a packet, pulled out of it a cigarette, tapped the end of it on the packet, and with narrowed eyes he lit the cigarette within his cupped hands. ‘What if they’ve pulled our houses down by then and we’ve all flitted?’ he asked, coughing after his first intake of smoke. ‘That int gonna be far off.’
‘A deal’s a deal,’ I told him.
And Ray sat back, blowing columns of smoke above our heads.
Soon we were on our feet and they followed me over a frozen tongue of undulating dirt to a point halfway down the street where there was a smell of brick dust and sewage. Kevin walked on