The Last Tour of Archie Forbes

by Victoria Hendry

  He nodded, his lie appearing on the horizon of his mind. ‘I’m redoing the site,’ he said.

  ‘Got your Bible with you,’ she said.

  He glanced down at his pocket, surprised to see it sticking out.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed.

  ‘So how about I bring my friend here on Thursday. You could give her a trial lesson?

  ‘What day is this?’ he asked.

  ‘Wednesday the eighteenth of September. A year to go to the referendum. How could you not know that? It’s a big day.’

  ‘For some,’ he replied.

  ‘You a Unionist?’ she asked.

  ‘Never thought about it,’ he said. ‘Ex-army, queen and country, face on the coin, coin in my pocket – generic, comfortable, easy-peasy, or so I thought.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘There’s always a hidden cost, Sooze. No such thing as a free lunch.’

  Her dog came over and snuffled round his feet. ‘Hello, pal,’ he said, scooping him up. ‘Still in one piece?’

  The dog tried to lick his face, diving at his lips, spilling from his hands. Archie laughed.

  ‘He likes you,’ said Sooze.

  ‘Glad someone does,’ he replied.

  ‘So tomorrow, here, at two pm? That suit you?’

  ‘Affirmative,’ he replied.

  ‘Twenty pound okay for a trial lesson?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No problem.’

  He sat on after Sooze left. He watched the people cross the Meadows in waves along broad paths that dissected the grass, and pass out of sight under the whale jaw-bone arch, green with moss. Jonahs – reborn at the next street corner. These were the daylight people – pensioners, mothers, schoolchildren, teenagers and students; and later the night people would come – shouting – party-goers in search of a laugh and a shag. His eyes were fixed open as they marched across his retina, a meaningless parade, spot-lit by the SSRI tablet hanging like a winter sun over his frost-bleached landscape.

  * * *

  This time the road to Leith had been longer, his shoes heavier. He had caught up with Mike at the writers’ group and now lay on the bed in his spare room, sublet with promises of paying his bedroom tax. It was no more than a box room with the misfortune of a small window that looked into the kitchen above a glass-brick partition. He supposed it had once been a sleeping alcove with a box bed. The door made it a room, and now it was an asset of the State. The ceiling was decorated with black vinyl discs. He lay on the single bed behind the glass bricks. Through them, he could see the wavy shape of Mike supervising a baked potato in his microwave, which sparked. The cooker was a burnt-out shell. Mike had assured him that he was on the anti-booze and there would be no more fires. ‘One sip of alcohol and it’s like the fucking Exorcist,’ he had said, miming vomit spouting from his mouth. ‘The disulfiram reaction is not a good look. And I’ve stopped putting my fag ends in the plastic bag on the back of the door. Got a bin out of Oxfam after the last visit from the fire brigade. Fire Safety Man, that’s me. Dry as a bone.’

  The microwave pinged. Mike knocked on his door with a dish-towel over one arm and said, ‘Dinner is served.’ Archie walked through to the kitchen. A bag of tins from the food bank lay unpacked in the corner. ‘Take this, mate,’ said Mike passing him the baked potato on a plate. You need it more than me.’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Archie, trying to smile.

  ‘We’ll go halves then,’ said Mike. ‘There’s some beans in that food bag at your feet. We’ll add them. Tomorrow can take care of itself.’

  After the meal, Archie opened the Bible in his room. ‘Thank you, Moira,’ he said, as he turned to the Concordance at the back for references to food. ‘And now to business.’

  ‘In these times of social austerity,’ he wrote in a notebook from Dr Clark to chart any ‘unsettling incidents’, ‘it is a social imperative not to squander resources. This is as true for the individual as for the society in which they live. The society that feeds them.’ Then scored it out.

  ‘Ladies,’ he wrote in capital letters, ‘Slim for the Lord! You want to be in the best possible shape when you reach the Pearly Gates. He doesn’t want to see you there early, girls.’ He added, ‘And boys.’ He scored that out too.

  ‘Loving,’ he wrote, ‘starts with yourself. How can you spread God’s love if you don’t start at home? Real love is nourishment for body and soul, and nourishment is goodness. That’s natural food, untainted by the processed world of manufacturers and big business. Jesus cast them out of the temple, the usurers who profited from over-consumption. Why let them into the temple of your body?’ Archie wondered if the drugs were inspiring him. ‘Man, this is good,’ he thought. He went through to the kitchen for a snack. There was only one banana in the bag. ‘Mike,’ he shouted through the hall. ‘Do you mind if I eat the banana?’

  There was no reply. He walked through the hall. Mike had his headphones on, plugged into the telly, watching the news. A TV diet of horror. Assad’s picture rode above a red line of newsfeed saying that Putin expected he would sign up to the Convention on Chemical Weapons. One hundred thousand dead since 2011, as civil war reaches stalemate. Archie waved the piece of fruit in the air. Mike looked at him. ‘Be my guest,’ he said.

  Archie cut it into a bowl of kids’ cereal and added milk. He returned to the Bible. It fell open at Jeremiah. Chapter 22, Verse 3. He read, ‘Do no wrong to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.’ He flipped over the page, Verse 16. ‘He judged the cause of the poor and the needy: then it was well with him, was this not to know me? saith the Lord.’

  ‘Fuck knows,’ said Archie to himself. He flipped back to the Concordance. ‘Can I use your computer, Mike?’ he shouted as his new landlord lifted one ear of his headphones on seeing him at the living room door again.

  ‘As long as you treat it with respect,’ he said. ‘Dinnae dis’ it man.’

  The computer sat in the hall on an old dressing table. He slid his legs underneath and tried to ignore his reflection in the mirror. He could see the sides of his head in the wing mirrors that were splattered with black patches where the silver paper had flaked away. As the computer loaded, he pushed the mirrors flat so that they reflected the wall behind him. Through the open door he could see that Mike had fallen asleep, his ears still connected to the world of the television, the woman shouting at her partner in the soap opera that played out in daily episodes, her scripted misery emptying itself piecemeal into the room.

  The computer was slow to load. The monitor’s fat, beige body still boasted charity shop and electrical testing stickers. He scratched at them with his nail and then went to look for some scouring powder he had spotted under the sink. When he came back the screen had loaded. There was a picture of a tropical paradise. It was password protected. ‘Password,’ typed Archie. It opened. He created a new email address and joined Facebook, his eyes skimming over their stock price. He clicked on a new page and typed in ‘Slim for Jesus’. He added a picture of a smiling Jesus with arms outstretched, and put in a picture of the trees on the Meadows. ‘Looking for pastures new?’ he typed. ‘Are you martyred to an unproductive way of life? Join me on Tuesday and Thursday mornings for a new approach to personal fitness.’ Then he added, ‘This class is aimed primarily at those with a persistent weight problem. Learn to distinguish between need and want.’ Archie smiled. He flicked to the back of his Bible, looked up the account of feeding the five thousand and added, ‘Look out for my forthcoming recipes based on a Mediterranean diet known to promote good health. Eat the food Jesus himself would have eaten; walk in his shoes.’ He skimmed through a few recipes online but began to feel hungry and logged off. He sat down in front of the telly and stared at the wall. His mind was racing.

  Mike stretched and walked towards the bathroom, yawning. There was a sound of splashing water, tooth cleani
ng and spitting, and he emerged in a tight T-shirt and black jeans. Archie noticed they were split at the back. ‘There’s a hole in your jeans, mate,’ he started to say and then stopped. ‘For God’s sake, Mike,’ he said. ‘Don’t do that.’

  Mike shrugged.

  ‘It’s not safe,’ he said.

  ‘Safer than pulling them down,’ said Mike. ‘Get caught with your keks round your knees and the wrong kind of dick up your hole, and I’m telling you, man, it’s not going to end well.’

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ Archie repeated. ‘You don’t know who’s out there.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Mike. ‘There’s quite a high class of client. There’s knobs and there’s nobs. Lube up and think of England. Easy.’

  ‘I’m not laughing,’ said Archie. ‘Sit down, mate, and we’ll talk it over. Find you something else.’

  ‘No can do,’ said Mike. ‘I’m late as it is.’ He opened the front door. ‘Don’t you break my computer,’ he said. ‘Or do anything I wouldn’t. I don’t want the police round here because you’re a fucking terrorist paedo.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Archie, saluting. ‘I’m ex-army, remember.’ And he tried not to remember, as he heard Mike’s feet echoing on the stairs, growing fainter, winced at the bang of the door at the foot of the stairs as it closed. He walked into the kitchen and put the tins in the cupboard, turned all the labels to the front and then lay down on his bed. He banged his head on the pillow seven times so that he would wake up at seven, and closed his eyes, willing himself to believe he would sleep. The moon swam through the glass bricks, having let herself in at the window, and someone, somewhere, laughed.

  8

  Sooze and her friend were waiting for him as he ran up in a pair of joggers he had borrowed from Mike. They were a bit tight, but he was pleased at the way they showed off his thigh muscles. It made him look the part. He had an old whistle round his neck over a T-shirt. The women waved as he drew up with that strange shoulder-high, tick-tock hand gesture they reserved for friends. He nodded. ‘Alright?’ he asked.

  They looked sepia through the sunglasses that he had found in the drawer of the dressing table. He hoped they didn’t smell of old lady face powder.

  ‘This is Louise,’ said Sooze.

  He held out his hand, saw her wondering at the sunglasses and looking up at the sky. The sun was back-lighting the flat, grey clouds. ‘I need to protect my eyes,’ he said. ‘Sun damage.’

  ‘Sun damage?’ parroted Louise. ‘In Scotland?’

  ‘Afghanistan,’ he said. The word was rocky.

  She smiled a sepia smile. She was fat. Doll-like. ‘Okay, Doll,’ he said. ‘Ready to start?’ She opened her mouth. Her skin was good, he noted. Soft, like her brown hair.

  ‘Don’t call me Doll,’ she said. ‘Unless you want me to call you something I’ll regret as a good Christian.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘The client is always right.’

  ‘No, I’m right,’ she said. ‘There is no client about it.’

  ‘Well, let’s get started. We’ll do a trial lesson and you can tell me if you want to continue.’ He stretched his arms up and rolled his shoulders. ‘Time and tide wait for no man.’

  ‘What about a prayer?’ she asked. ‘Your page said each session starts with a prayer.’

  He hadn’t remembered typing that bit. ‘Dear Lord,’ he began, clasping his hands together and trying to remember the nun’s blessing over the food at St Philomena’s. ‘Please reach out your loving arms over this, your servant, and make us truly thankful for what we are about to receive.’

  ‘What are we about to receive?’ asked Louise, opening her eyes.

  ‘The gift of health,’ he replied, enjoying the internal sunshine of Dr Clark’s potion. ‘The gift of eternal life.’ He wondered if that was overdoing it and, grasping his ankle, pulled his calf up to meet his thigh. ‘Let’s warm up,’ he said. ‘Put one hand on that tree if you feel wobbly,’ he said.

  She stretched out her hand. Her nails were painted green, shellacked and shiny; beetles.

  ‘What do you do, Louise?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a hausfrau,’ she said. ‘A homemaker, a domestic engineer, a mum.’

  ‘And when are you going back to work?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve got three kids,’ she said, ‘under ten. That’s work. W-O-R-K.’

  He grimaced, thinking of his son. He must be one now. He wondered if he had missed his birthday. Wondered if that made things better or worse with his wife.

  ‘I’ve got a son,’ he said.

  ‘How old?’ asked Louise.

  ‘One,’ he said. He pulled up his other leg. ‘We’re going to warm up and then run along that path. I want you to follow me. Keep your arms level with your ribs and tucked in. Don’t let them flap.’

  ‘I can’t run,’ she said.

  ‘Then we’ll walk to the first tree and jog to the second. Walk to the third, jog to the fourth. When I say jog, it’s optional, we can increase the pace to a faster walk if that’s easier. The trick is to get your heart rate up. Do you want to do this?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it for the Lord.’

  ‘Hooah,’ he said, American army style, then changed it to, ‘Hallelujah.’

  She started walking. Her pink bottom wobbled through her joggers. He drew level with her. ‘We’ll up the pace in three,’ he said. His stomach rumbled, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘This is better than I expected,’ she said, as they reached the children’s playpark ten minutes later. A spray of sand flew over the railing from the sand pit. A few grains hit his lip. Kids were screaming in a swinging dish, small bodies lying under the sky. His eyes rolled; he felt them flickering behind his glasses and drew a deep breath.

  ‘Are you alright?’ she asked, touching his arm. The beetles crawled up his sleeve.

  He bent over. ‘Cramp,’ he improvised.

  ‘I thought you were the tough guy,’ she said, and passed him a plastic water bottle from her pocket. The water was warm on his lips. Body temperature.

  ‘Let’s go a different way,’ he said. ‘We’ll cut over there.’ He began to run.

  ‘Wait,’ she shouted. ‘I can’t keep up.’

  He stopped, and jogged on the spot until she caught up. He was on the parade ground.

  ‘I don’t know if this is going to work,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll stop now. I’ll still give you the twenty pounds.’ Sooze wandered over from a nearby bench.

  ‘No giving up, Mrs,’ she said to her friend. ‘Remember what you said about the website last night? You thought it might help to work out with a group a few times a week.’

  Louise nodded. ‘I’ll start properly next time.’

  ‘I’ll post something tonight,’ said Archie. ‘Just for you. Something motivational.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Louise, passing him the twenty-pound note she had scrunched up in her pocket. ‘You can promise me a miracle, if you like, but you had better deliver.’

  Archie wondered what the ‘or what’ might be on the end of that sentence. ‘Or what?’ he said, but she had already turned away with Sooze.

  ‘I’d invite you to the café,’ Sooze shouted, ‘but you might give us a row for the sin we are about to commit.’

  He laughed. He could give Mike the £14.95 for this week’s rent and still have a baked potato from the spud shop at the foot of the Walk. A real business lunch, he thought. Paid for by yours truly. Eat your heart out, Orange James.

  * * *

  The TV in the baked potato shop was shouting from a shelf. Armed gunmen ran round a shopping centre in Nairobi firing at people crawling away, cowering behind aisles.

  ‘Those terrorists are animals,’ tutted the woman behind the counter. ‘No better than that lot in the hotel in Mumbai the other year. Nowhere’s safe n
ow,’ she said.

  The newsreader showed a map of Somalia, explaining the war against terror for Orange James, if he was watching. ‘African Union troops drive out the Al-Shabaab terrorists daily.’

  A map of Somalia flashed up on the screen.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Your finest baked potato with cheese, please.’

  She snapped on a pair of plastic gloves. ‘Any extra toppings?’

  ‘How much are they?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Fifty pence.’

  ‘No, thanks. Just cheese.’

  ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘a big lad like you? Treat yourself. Try some tuna.’

  ‘Just cheese,’ he repeated. He propped himself up on one of the bar stools along the wall. African Union troops loaded into trucks were rattling across the sand in the goldfish bowl of the television. ‘The Al-Shabaab attack on the centre is thought to be motivated by revenge for the presence of Kenyan troops in Somalia,’ said the newsreader.

  ‘Would you like tea?’ asked the woman, balancing a white plastic fork on top of a polystyrene container that hadn’t closed over the potato.

  ‘UN mandate,’ said the telly.

  ‘No, thank you,’ said Archie.

  ‘Help yourself to a napkin,’ she said.

  Archie pulled a white napkin out of its steel container. It was a paper sail. He thought of the Somali pirates with their strings of tankers, tried not to think of the microcosm of his Facebook page, and its tangle of religion and cash.

  ‘We’re all to blame,’ he said to the woman.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Money,’ he said. ‘At any price.’

  She laughed and walked across the shop to hold the door open for him. Best to get the cranks out pronto. ‘Have a good day,’ she said. ‘And splash out on tuna next time. It’s good. Dolphin friendly.’

  * * *

  He logged on when he got back to the flat to shut his site down. He felt like a fraud. Mike was floating in the peach-coloured bath with the door open, snoring to music on a waterproof radio that was taped round the edges. There was a new message in his newsfeed. A businesswoman looking for a thirty-minute early-morning session. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Sixty pounds a week at the introductory rate, he calculated. Too good an offer to refuse. His scruples would have to wait. He heard the splosh of water running onto the floor as Mike woke up with a start and climbed out of the bath. There was the sound of deodorant spraying and then an ‘Oh, fuck, man’ as it stopped.