The Last Tour of Archie Forbes

by Victoria Hendry

  ‘Is this what you’re paid to do, Doc. Sit in silence?’

  ‘This is your space,’ replied Dr Clark.

  Archie bent his chin forward and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’m in the garden at the Abbot’s House in Dunfermline. I’m six.’

  Dr Clark didn’t move. Archie thought maybe he sighed, blowing the air out in an imperceptible exhalation over dry lips.

  ‘Who do you speak to, Doc?’ he asked.

  ‘I have a supervisor.’

  ‘For difficult patients like me?’

  ‘Something like that. Let’s try to focus. Where are you at twenty?’

  ‘I’m sitting on the grass looking at the graves the archaeologists are excavating. They’re brushing round the skulls with paint brushes, dusting the earth from the bones. They’re peaceful, these sleepers, not creepy.’

  ‘And at forty?’

  ‘One of the men is calling someone over and pointing into the hole at the far end. I run over and stand by the path. There are chains round the feet of the skeleton. They say it’s facing the wrong way. Its head isn’t in the west.’

  ‘Why is that important?’ asked Dr Clark.

  ‘It’s a Christian site. He won’t be able to rise with the dead on the day of resurrection. He’ll stay in the grave. I hear them talking. They say they’ll leave him that way. I want them to turn him, to be like the others.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dr Clark, ‘I’m guessing not.’

  ‘Got it in one. That poor sod is still back-to-front under the bush they planted on top of him. They wouldn’t, couldn’t turn him, out of respect for the others. They upheld their judgement on him. So he’s lying there unforgiven. His feet chained so he can’t climb out of the grave.’

  ‘That’s in the formal garden at the back? Near the cathedral, where they buried Robert the Bruce.’

  Archie nodded. ‘Those buggers sat there afterwards, among the day-trippers, and drank lattes, and admired the flowers and the ornamental shrubs and box hedges, and kids chased each other on the paths, racing over the dead. They’re still doing it today. No one remembers him. He’ll be outlasted by his chains.’

  ‘And where were you at eighty?’

  ‘I was afraid.’

  ‘And at ninety?’

  ‘Afraid.’

  ‘Of what, Archie? This isn’t your story.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘How would you know?’

  Dr Clark leaned forward. ‘Do you remember we said we would begin to leave the emotion behind at seventy, eighty at the latest?’

  ‘I don’t have that much control,’ said Archie.

  ‘But you can shut the real memory off completely,’ replied Dr Clark. ‘The one that’s digging at your foundations.’

  ‘Not completely,’ said Archie.

  Dr Clark nodded. ‘No,’ he said. ‘So I see.’ He closed his notebook. ‘We’ll stop for today.’ A seagull flew past the window. ‘We need to find out why you hurt yourself.’

  ‘I don’t know why I did it,’ said Archie. ‘It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.’

  ‘I think you do know,’ said Dr Clark.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ said Archie, his voice, rising. ‘Is that how this goes? You say I do, and I say I don’t. You say I will and I say I won’t. We’re like fucking Tweedledum and Tweedledee.’

  ‘We’re not going to battle,’ said the doctor.

  ‘What are we doing now, then?’ asked Archie. ‘What are we doing now?’

  7

  Archie lay on his bed in the ward for three days and waited for his personal action plan. He was good at waiting; action and inaction. He tried to go to happy places in his mind. His wife riding pillion on their bike trip to Lewis. He had parked his Honda Pan-European at Callanish and they had danced round the standing stones with the summer light gleaming on the shining, red paint of his motorbike and his wife’s lips. He had proposed that day, among the giants, and in the silence of the moment after she had said yes, he was the happiest man alive. Part of him still stood there, his happiness caught on the stones like sheep’s wool. It had been a million miles from the place they had first met, at his company, Forbes, Stock and Wilson. Was this one of Petal’s images detaching itself from his mind? He floated with it. Hannah had been batting for the other side. He had anticipated that Dr Grüber would be a crusty, middle-aged bloke. She had blown him away. As she had passed the glass partition leading to his office in the penthouse, she had been laughing into the phone pressed to her ear, and something in him had dissolved and reassembled itself so that he was open to her. He hadn’t believed in love at first sight. She ended the call and pushed open the door with her hip, dropping the phone into her bag. He stood and reached out his hand across his glass desk. ‘Hannah Grüber,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Her coat had been soft when he hung it up for her – wool and cashmere. Good label.

  ‘Great view,’ she said, seating herself at the meeting table that ran the length of the window. ‘Let’s get started. My company has agreed your board’s terms for a thirty per cent controlling share in their online business. As you know, I am a senior player in the operational business team. If we are agreed that you can define risk as the possibility of incurring a misfortune or loss, then can you confirm that the usual checks and balances are in place to mitigate against any such eventuality?’

  She sounded like a robot, he thought. It must be her PhD; too many hours talking jargon in the tiny studies of bearded academics. He tried to reply in kind, on automatic, but all he could think was what extraordinary grey-blue eyes she had. They sparkled as she spoke. He cleared his throat. ‘I have prepared a report on our policies and procedures as approved by our directors, an external auditor and the FCA. They regularly review risk policies, test them and review outcomes of actual losses in comparable projects. I’m pleased to report that in view of the directors’ low appetite for risk, we have an exemplary record.’ It was a dance of words, rich and formulaic.

  She matched him step for step. ‘That’s why we were attracted to your offer,’ she said.

  ‘We continually update our strategies and mitigants,’ added Archie.

  ‘Delighted to hear it. As you can imagine, by selling you such a large controlling share, our primary concern would be loss of reputation and business interruption in the unlikely event that it all goes down the Swanee. So naturally we require a suitable level of professional indemnity.’

  ‘All approved by our board,’ said Archie. ‘I head up group legal and I can give you my personal guarantee that we have a strong framework in place to deal with the concerns of your board, shareholders and customers. If you could action your marketing department to promote the rebranding of the company to include our logo in a prominent position, then I’d be happy to sign off on this one.’

  ‘I guarantee you a positive market impact – all singing, all dancing, balloons and champagne.’

  ‘Talking of which,’ said Archie, ‘there’s a great tapas bar round the corner for a quick lunch if you fancy it, to celebrate? The cava is more than halfway decent, and while we’re there I’ll get my secretary to print out the draft contract.’ He emailed his secretary with a clatter of keys.

  ‘Is that the place with the honey-grilled aubergine?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘The very same,’ said Archie, getting to his feet and holding her coat open for her. As she turned her back to him to slide her arms into her sleeves, he saw that the nape of her neck was slender; a gold chain lay against the bones visible under her skin.

  He opened the door for her. His secretary was at her desk. ‘You want to watch that one,’ she said to Hannah as they passed. ‘He’s been single for a year now. Too much time spent running around with toy guns at weekends with the TA.’

  Hannah smiled.


  He made a throat-cutting gesture as Hannah turned to go, but his secretary laughed. ‘You’re not scary, you know,’ she called after him. ‘Not scary at all.’

  * * *

  On the last day of his incarceration, he was released with a box of pills, his care plan and an appointment card. He made his way to the job centre at Tollcross as instructed by the hospital’s resident social worker, a fifty-year-old woman who smelled of fabric conditioner.

  There were two security guards on the door. He could take them both out, no bother, he reckoned. ‘Morning,’ he said, as he made his way past to the desk labelled ‘Enquiries’ in the middle of the floor. It was unmanned. A sign above it said, ‘Our employees have the right to be treated with respect.’ Beyond it, people sat opposite advisors. A man behind him baa’d like a sheep, and grinned when Archie turned round. ‘It’s a market, pal,’ he said, ‘but we’re not the ones making the money.’

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ asked a girl of about eighteen, coming over.

  ‘I’ve come to sign on,’ he said.

  ‘First time?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  An advisor will be with you in a minute if you’d like to take a seat over there in the waiting area. You’ll be one of the first to try the new Universal Credit. It has already been trialled in the North of England and will be rolled out by 2017. It’s all done online. You computer literate?’

  He nodded. The man behind him bleeted again.

  ‘No problem then,’ she said. ‘As long as you can budget monthly. It’s up to you to allocate your own expenditure. Think you can do that? You’ll need to set up a direct debit to pay your landlord.’

  He nodded again. His head felt light on the drugs, like it would keep going up and down in slow motion. He shook it from left to right.

  ‘Which is it?’ she asked. ‘Yes or no?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘If you come this way, I’ll let you see the YouTube video released by the DWP – that’s the Department for Work and Pensions – which explains how you can improve your situation. Work pays,’ she said.

  ‘Depends on the work,’ observed Archie.

  She turned round.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, his default setting. ‘Sorry.’

  She pulled up a blue, padded nylon chair for him in front of a screen and clicked on the link: ‘Who is eligible for Universal Credit?’

  An orange, cartoon man appeared on screen to upbeat music like false teeth clacking together. He was orange – not black, brown or white. ‘James is a single person, aged twenty-two, who becomes unemployed,’ said a voice. Archie tried to put the volume up, but it was already at the maximum. He leaned forward to hear. The orange was distracting, head to toe Guantánamo. No escape. A bus went past outside. ‘… and is due to pay rent of £261 a month,’ continued the voice. An arrow shot across the screen to a pink house. ‘Universal credit of £580 a month,’ it said.

  Orange James, the good citizen, appeared in the next shot carrying a tool bag and, to a trumpet fanfare, rose to the heights of £693 per month for twelve hours’ work on the national minimum wage. Archie pressed pause. ‘Please watch it to the end,’ the girl said. ‘It’s important.’ She slid the red dot back to the beginning.

  Archie rested his forehead on his outstretched fingers and took a deep breath, then flexed his hands and cracked his knuckles. He looked straight at her. ‘I get the picture,’ he said.

  ‘We require our clients to watch the information video from the beginning to the end.’ She stopped speaking as her eyes met his, then flicked a glance at the security guard who was looking away. ‘Never mind,’ she added. ‘Please, follow me.’ She led him over to a male advisor, who brought up a new screen on his computer and turned it part way to face Archie.

  ‘Right then,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you started.’

  The tick boxes were all being ticked: National insurance number? Yes. Aged between eighteen and sixty years and six months? Yes. Single? Yes. No kids living with you? No.

  ‘Fine,’ said the adviser leaning forward. ‘We can proceed with your claim but I should tell you that this is not an unconditional award, a something-for-nothing benefit. You will be expected to sign a Jobseeker’s Agreement and work on your CV with a personal advisor, as well as attend training with one of our approved service providers.’

  Archie nodded.

  ‘If you fail to attend for any session as advised, I have to inform you, and I say this with your best interests at heart …’ He lodged the mint he was sucking under his top lip with the tip of his tongue, which was white and furred, ‘then sanctions will be taken against you. Seven, fourteen or twenty-eight days, which will be enforced unless you can provide a good reason for your non-compliance. For example, you had to take your mother to hospital.’

  ‘Why would I have to do that?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Well, you might,’ said the advisor. ‘That was just an example. These low-level sanctions are for things we expect you to do. This is new territory for us too, but the good news is that once you comply with the request, then the sanction will be removed. Do you understand? It’s very straightforward.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Archie, ‘but what if you have a mental health problem, or something like that?’

  ‘Do you have a mental health problem?’ asked the advisor.

  ‘No,’ said Archie, looking round. ‘I’m not a nut-job, a bampot.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the advisor. ‘That’s fine then. All perfectly reasonable and above board. The high-level sanctions would be enforced in the realm of things that can’t be remedied, for example …’ He paused to crack the mint between his teeth. ‘For example,’ he repeated, swallowing, ‘if you don’t accept a job and comply with our request.’

  ‘Like Syria,’ said Archie.

  The advisor sat back in his chair. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘Sanctions,’ said Archie.

  ‘The point is this,’ continued the advisor, ‘compliance is the cornerstone in the edifice of the Jobseeker’s Agreement. It has supported our labour market performance in this recession. We’re on the case. We’re making people do things. These are not isolated changes on the margins, but a move to reduce the national deficit through equipping people to work, moving the shirkers to centre stage and putting a spotlight on them. For the good of the nation. So who was your previous employer, Archie?’

  ‘Mr Forbes.’

  ‘We’re all on first-name terms here. One happy family,’ said the advisor, turning the plastic ID card on the end of his lanyard round. His photo looked out like a face on a bus. ‘Pete,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, Pete,’ said Archie. ‘Her Majesty’s Government in the person of the British Army.’ He saluted. ‘Lieutenant Archie Forbes of the TA, seconded for duty in Afghanistan from my company – Forbes, Stock and Wilson.’

  Pete looked up from paring his nails with a pencil. ‘Why don’t you go back to Forbes, Stock and Wilson?’ he asked.

  ‘I was shafted,’ said Archie. ‘Long story. When can I expect to get my first payment on your Universal Credit?’

  ‘It won’t take more than a month to check your claim,’ Pete said, unwrapping another mint from the tube in his pocket, a cartridge of green and silver paper.

  Archie heard the cartridge drop into place, saw the rifle snap back up. ‘Pull,’ said a loud voice in his head and he saw his best man raise his gun and shoot the clay pigeon; the disc exploding against the sky to hang there; shards of a jigsaw flying out in the air, sketching the shape of its own destruction. First barrel kill – three points.

  ‘If that is a problem,’ said the advisor, ‘then we can put you in touch with the Scottish Welfare Fund. I think it’s up and running.’

  Archie stood up and stepping to the side, pushed in his chair until it was hard up against the edge of the desk. He adjusted it a
nd ran his hand along the top edge.

  ‘I’ll need your bank account details,’ said the advisor, but Archie had already passed the guards and was standing in the street. ‘Go back in, son,’ said the older of the two. ‘Get yourself sorted out.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ said Archie. ‘They don’t want to help me. It’s just another bloody assault course and I’m too damn tired to get over it.’

  The street outside was grey. He began to walk but had nowhere to go. Uneven cobbles stretched past the Justified Sinner pub. Pole-dancing bars advertised their opening hours and he crossed the street, leaving the three-sided block of strip clubs locals called the pubic triangle. A drunk was mooning the window of a café where students pored over iPads. His cracked and hairy arse was pressed to the glass, fleshy like a snail where it made contact with the smooth surface. The manageress was heading for the door. All hell was going to break loose. Archie walked on past the fire station and the art school, crossing the road to the Meadows. He reached a bench and sat down. He was thirsty. He pulled his jacket closer round his chest and tucked his arms under his armpits, bowing his head. He was a beetle. He remembered seeing the desert beetles skate to the tops of the dunes in the Namib Desert, and turn their back to the fog that rolled in from the sea. Had he really seen that? Was it on telly? Had there been a narrator’s voice, words on desert wind? The water from the air condensed on their shells and ran down in clear drops to envelop their heads and arms. Such a long drink. They were detritivores feeding on seeds blown from distant, green places. ‘I’m a detritivore,’ he thought, ‘trying to suck food and moisture from this land. Suck, suck – sucker.’ His brain was a barren blank. How to change channels?

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ said a voice. He looked up to see Sooze standing there, her dog sniffing a nearby tree, his lead at maximum stretch. The dog rooted under leaves, around the bulging, fungus ball of extruded bark, reading the history of the squirrel that had crouched there, the child trailing its hand round the trunk in a game of hide and seek. ‘I couldn’t find the Slim for Jesus website,’ she said. ‘Are you still running classes?’