On the television Dad and I watched endless news footage of tidal surges and oceanic whirlpools. It looked to me like God had got fed up with us all and decided to pull the plug. All my favourite programmes were replaced by reports about emerging changes to our planet. Birds flocked in unusual directions, clouds formed strange new shapes, and dogs howled after midnight as if plagued by a frequency beyond our hearing.
Even people behaved differently. Many panicked, with riots taking place as far afield as Reykjavik, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro. I also heard from Maisie that her neighbour had switched to a day shift on account of all the late night looting. As for me, I found my hay fever disappeared completely.
At home our cat reacted badly to the situation. It didn’t help that Mum was the one who had always taken care of him. After she left he went hungry for several days because Dad and I completely forgot to feed him. Worse still, the high winds really spooked the poor thing. Instead of spending his nights out on the prowl, he chose to stay indoors. Even with the calm that came at daybreak, he would pop out only for a very short time. Then he’d crash back through the cat flap as if chased in by a snarling dog.
“What’s frightening him?” I asked on one occasion.
My father considered this for a moment, watching the fur on the cat’s back settle. “Change,” he said finally. “It’s an unsettling time for us all.”
Throughout this period, while most governments appealed for calm, the two superpowers continued to raise the temperature. In an address to the world President Reagan not only denied all involvement in the moon strike, but even went so far as to suggest that the Russians had been attempting a surprise attack on American defence satellites. One which had ended in a cosmic disaster for us all. As each side had primed their nuclear arsenal to take flight, I asked if we should prepare a fallout shelter. In response, Dad turned to me as if emerging from a dream, and said it was too late for that.
I was at school when Mum first returned to pick up some things. I knew she had been here as soon as I walked in. Her perfume hung in the air and the cat was at his bowl, finishing a treat of canned tuna.
Then, late last night, she came back again. I was in bed when I heard the key in the lock. Normally at that hour I’d have been asleep but, what with the high winds, I was wide awake.
I heard her close the door against the gale, and then her voice calling softly for my father. I wanted to get up and see her. I really did. I was just worried that by padding downstairs, somehow I would scare her away. A moment later, my parents were speaking in the kitchen.
It struck me then that Dad hadn’t shown any anger about the situation. He wasn’t like the president, whose emotions were quite clear each time he made a broadcast. Reagan didn’t shout or beat the desk with his fist, but you could see it in his face. From a tension in his jawline to the way his eyes pinched when he outlined the American position. My dad didn’t carry that kind of fire within him. Once he had stopped weeping, there was nothing left.
As I listened to them from my bed, it sounded as if my mother was doing all the talking. At one point I even heard some words.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just sorry.”
The storm that night was more ferocious than anything we had experienced. It raged so hard against my window that I was too scared to climb out and peek through the curtains. I just pulled my duvet over my head, and prayed the house would not be blown to bits.
Now, as sunrise sees the winds subside, I look out and catch my breath. Trees have come down everywhere, bringing power lines with them, while somewhere in the distance I can hear a voice droning through a megaphone. Weirdly, though, the street is deserted. I switch on my radio, if only for some company, and that’s when I hear about the emergency measures.
“Dad!”
Grabbing my dressing-gown, I rush across the landing to the main bedroom. If the government really have ordered troops onto the street, there’ll be no school today for sure. I don’t pause to knock. I throw open the door and then stop in my tracks.
I’m surprised to find the cat curled up at the foot of the bed. My father is sound asleep, but what leaves me reeling is the sight of the woman in his arms. Her head is resting upon his shoulder, with her palm flat on his chest. She opens her eyes and looks at me. At first, we just gaze at one another.
“We’ve been ordered to stay inside,” I say eventually, blinking back tears. “It’s chaos out there.”
Just then, from somewhere over the hills, we hear the crack of gunfire. The sound takes a moment to decay, as if refusing to fall silent.
“Things will never be the same again,” says Mum in barely a whisper. “All we can do is hope that we’re over the worst.”
ONE GIANT LEAP
Philip Ardagh
In July 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the Moon…
There are countless monuments to the memory of US astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, with hundreds in the United States alone. The best known must be the Apollo 11 Memorial in Washington DC, and the Armstrong–Aldrin statue at the Kennedy Space Center. There are, of course, no graves in Arlington National Cemetery, where one would have expected such all-American heroes to be laid to rest. There were no grand funerals. No coffins draped with star-spangled banners or soldiers with heads bowed.
The silver-haired man had visited many of these monuments over the years, but it was to the one in Wapakoneta, Ohio, that he always returned. It is an enormous statue of an astronaut, at least double life-size but looking even larger up on its high plinth. It’s of Wapakoneta’s most famous son, Neil Armstrong: one of only two people ever to have walked on the surface of the Moon. The lifeless Armstrong stands proudly in his spacesuit, his goldfish-bowl-like helmet tucked under his arm, looking up with sightless stone eyes to the stars, where he sought adventure and remains for ever. This is the people of Wapakoneta claiming their own.
In July 2009, on the fortieth anniversary of the Moon landing, the man took yet another pilgrimage to Wapakoneta, quietly and anonymously, away from the bigger crowds of officials and dignitaries gathered in Washington and Houston, Texas. He stood in front of the Armstrong statue. Armstrong had not grown old as he had. The commander stays thirty-eight years old for eternity. He, on the other hand, was now seventy-eight. His military bearing was still evident, but his back no longer as rod straight as he’d have liked. Age has a nasty way of sneaking up on one like that. He looked at his shoes and saw that the leather was scuffed at the toes. He wished he’d thought to bring a newer pair – not that anyone would give him or his shoes a second glance.
It was early evening when he arrived, and the dying sun created a beautiful light in the wide Ohio sky, casting long, low shadows. He felt the faintest of breezes ruffle his hair, its usual silver made orangey-gold by the sun’s final fading rays. The cuffs of his light blue shirt were worn, though not actually frayed.
A child laughed and began to circle the outer perimeter of the roped-off area around the statue’s base, chased by a girl the man took to be his elder sister. The boy was clutching a toy space rocket while she had cotton candy on a stick. She happily chewed on the pink spun floss as she roared after him.
The inscription at the base of the Apollo 11 Memorial in Washington DC reads: Their deeds and their sacrifice were for all mankind. The inscription on the Armstrong–Aldrin statue at Cape Kennedy states: These brave men died not for their country but for humanity. Both are quotes from President Nixon’s address to the world, viewed by billions back in 1969.