The Last Tour of Archie Forbes

by Victoria Hendry

  Archie went quiet, buried his face in the earth and held every muscle still. If he didn’t move they wouldn’t see him. The torch beam swept over him and back towards the ice-house. He crawled under the bridge. ‘I know you’re down there,’ said the voice. ‘I’m serious – any more noise and I’m calling the police. Can’t you find some other place to jack up? I’m more than sick of this.’

  Archie rolled onto his back. ‘Man down,’ he whispered. ‘Man down.’ He heard footsteps crunch on the gravel of the drive and then a door bang. He imagined the key turning in the lock.

  A door opened in his mind and he was walking in the poppy fields, slashing at their heads; he was heaving sacks of wheat seed out of the backs of trucks; he was building a better world. In a week, or a month, or a year the Chinook would come and he would spin away, a seed blown on a hot wind; a samsara rotating against the sky, one of thousands. He had landed here in this green gully. The temperature was falling, and he crawled back towards the ice-house. He was shaking, his teeth chattering. The earth packed itself in under his nails as he crawled up the slope, grasping tufts of grass and loose handfuls of leaves to pull himself up towards the gate to his den. He reached it and tumbled in. He crammed a mince pie into his mouth to ward off hypothermia and curled into a ball under the jacket, his head inside his rucksack. He was his own prisoner. There was no other truth he could confess. Warmth returned to his fingers, making the bones ache. His nails were on fire.

  * * *

  He remembered Hannah curled round behind him, spooning in bed, imagined her warm arm thrown over him, light as feather, resting on his ribs. Downstairs Daniel was crying and his mother-in-law, Frances, was singing a song, turning tears to laughter as the kettle boiled: ‘Nobody loves me, everybody hates me. I think I’ll go and eat worms.’ He remembered the mattress levelling as Hannah got out of bed, her footsteps on the stairs, the bright ‘good morning’ of the women greeting each other with a kiss. He joined them an hour later, pausing to tie his dressing-gown belt in the doorway before going into the kitchen. He heard her mother say, ‘You mustn’t mention this to anyone. They’ll take the baby away. You’re just over-tired.’

  ‘I’m scared,’ she said. ‘I can’t make the thoughts go away.’

  ‘You won’t hurt him.’

  Archie walked in and they stopped talking. Frances stood up. ‘Oh, I never heard you come down,’ she said.

  ‘What were you talking about?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like nothing.’

  ‘Women’s troubles,’ she replied, and he saw a glance pass between them. Hannah left the room.

  He turned to follow her. ‘It’s fine,’ Frances said, moving to the door and putting her arm across the opening.

  ‘What’s fine?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Everything’s not fine when people are whispering in kitchens.’

  ‘We weren’t whispering.’

  ‘You were,’ he shouted. ‘About something that affects me.’

  ‘Don’t shout. You’re scaring the baby. You’ve been a bit touchy recently.’

  Archie picked Daniel up and carried him to the window to distract him.

  He looked back at Frances. ‘When I got back from work last Friday, I found Hannah at the top of the stairs. She had climbed over the banister and was walking along the outside of the railings on the ledge, like we used to do as kids. There’s no carpet in the hall. She’d have been hurt if she’d fallen onto the stone tiles. Don’t you think that is a bit weird?’

  ‘Not really,’ replied Frances, picking up her mobile phone. ‘No messages,’ she said.

  ‘Please, Frances,’ said Archie. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘Lots of people revisit their childhood games once they’ve had a baby.’

  ‘She was naked,’ said Archie.

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Frances.

  ‘I put her in her dressing gown.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘She couldn’t stop crying.’

  ‘It’s just the baby blues.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’

  ‘No, Archie, it’s not. I’m here and it’s nothing I can’t handle.’ She took Daniel from his arms. ‘You’ll see. Time for this young man’s change.’

  He watched her walk out of the room. It was the door of the ice-house. He woke. He felt sick and dehydrated. His limbs were stiff, and he wiggled his fingers and toes to get the circulation going. He crawled out. A watery sun was skimming the treetops. Midday. An old man was sitting there. He was wearing a tweed jacket and tie. ‘Your pal ran off,’ he said.

  Archie tried to focus on the speaker before him. He was sitting on a rock with the lurcher at his feet.

  ‘I don’t have a pal,’ said Archie, straightening up and brushing the dust from his clothes.

  ‘Well, he was sitting over there, looking this way. I thought he was with you.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Average,’ said the man. ‘Shall we say follicularly challenged? Look, I’ll be frank with you. I don’t want your type using this place for whatever it is you do. I’m going to fit a steel door, so you can all clear off.’

  ‘I won’t be back,’ said Archie.

  ‘Sure,’ said the man. ‘Until the next time. I’m trying to be reasonable here. The police do bugger all, but I will call them again and make a complaint.’

  ‘I won’t be back. I’m just a bit down on my luck.’

  ‘It’s not about luck,’ said the man. ‘Life is what you make it.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Archie, turning to pick up his bag. ‘I was born like this.’

  ‘Is that a private school accent?’ asked the man.

  Archie was silent.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ he said.

  ‘And what’s a private school boy doing sleeping in an ice-house?’ asked the man.

  ‘So you want to talk now?’ asked Archie.

  ‘Look, son,’ said the man. ‘I don’t know what your story is, but I can help you.’

  ‘No one can help me,’ said Archie.

  The old man’s eyes ran over him. ‘I’m guessing ex-army. You look pretty fit.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Archie.

  ‘Come up to the house and I’ll phone the police for you, or social services. The barracks are just up the road. Help for Heroes?’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ said Archie. ‘There’s something I have to sort out.’

  ‘And that would be?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘Well, you know where I am if you change your mind.’ He pointed up to the house. ‘It’s a strange place to live, I can tell you. Attracts all sorts, and its fair share of ghosts.’

  ‘I have my own ghosts,’ said Archie.

  The old man stepped closer and touched his arm. ‘You take care,’ he said. He looked into Archie’s eyes. ‘I had my own troubles.’ He held out a twenty-pound note. ‘I want you to take this to tide you over.’

  Archie nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking it, and looking down.

  ‘The defence industry’s worth twenty-two billion. That’s all I’m saying. They owe you. Anyway, with these drones, you’ll all be redundant soon. You were the last of the guys with the guns. They’ll be outsourcing to teenagers in bedrooms next, geeks on computers miles from the conflict. Geeks who won’t sue for bodily harm.’

  A little, red Google map balloon popped like a blood corpuscle in Archie’s mind.

  ‘We were the last of the battlefield warriors,’ said the man. He saluted Archie. ‘I’m not saying it was good, but at least we were there. We remember the guys we took down. That’s a kind of immortality, isn’t it? For them.’

  ‘Is it?’ said Archie. ‘What if there was co
ntrol Z? What if it could all be undone?’

  ‘There’s no going back, son,’ said the man. ‘We’ve come this far.’

  ‘I’m not sure I ever got out,’ said Archie. ‘It’s still in here.’ He touched his forehead as if it were tender.

  ‘Let go,’ said the man. ‘You can’t change it, but you can change what happens next. That’s the good news, but don’t expect too much. Life is hell with a little bit of heaven, or heaven with a little bit of hell. It’s never entirely one thing or the other.’ He released Archie’s sleeve and turned away, leaning on his stick as he walked. The dog leapt ahead along the path through the gorge.

  Archie watched until he turned a corner and disappeared from view. There was no sign of the watcher he had mentioned, and Archie heaved himself up to the path back to Roslin. Hunger was making him dizzy. He’d heard the Syrians trapped in Homs were eating stones to kill the pain in their stomachs, give the acid something to bite into. He picked up a pebble and threw it against the trunk of a tree. It bounced off, and dropped into the desiccating autumn leaves. There was a crack of a stick breaking behind him, a slither of gravel rolling on the path. He crouched down and turned. He couldn’t see anyone. ‘Show yourself,’ he shouted, standing up.

  There was no movement. ‘I know you’re there,’ he said. ‘Show yourself.’ He grabbed a fallen branch and, bracing it under his foot, snapped off a short staff. He swished it in the air in front of him. ‘Come out,’ he shouted. He waded into the bracken and climbed up a short slope through the trees. There was no one there. The chapel still stood in its field. A groundsman was raking up leaves, his head nodding to music on his iPhone. Archie turned and leaned against a tree, scanning the scene. The path was quiet. Nothing. He walked round the chapel wall to the main road, his eyes darting from side to side. Every few paces he stopped and turned round. Up ahead, a doggy day-care van pulled into the car park and a young woman jumped out. There was no one else in sight. He stuffed the jacket into a bush and pulled up his sweatshirt hood to change his appearance. At the junction, he bent to re-tie his shoe lace and scanned the road. A bus was coming and he stayed crouching, peering round behind to check no one was creeping up on him. An old lady walked past with her shopper. ‘Good morning,’ she said, with old-world charm.

  He nodded and stood up, moving up the main road towards the supermarket. There was a furniture store next to it that offered half-price cooked breakfasts and he marched in with a couple of mothers with toddlers. The revolving door kept stopping as one of the toddlers reached out to touch the glass. ‘Why does that man smell, mummy?’ asked a piping voice behind him.

  There was no answer, and he didn’t turn round. Someone laughed. The door began to move again, and they moved with it, automatons, stop-starting in a glass jar. Upstairs in the café, he selected an all-day breakfast, pointing at the greasy bacon and yellow suns of fried egg in silver trays. He filled a cup with coffee at the self-service machine and sat down in a corner near the stairs. There was no sign of his tail. All around him people were chatting about their plans. A man behind him was trying to reach his wife on the phone about the length of the Roman blind she wanted. ‘Yes, you gave me the measurements, but is that for the inside or the outside of the window frame? I know, darling.’ There was a pause. ‘The assistant here said you need to make an allowance to match the pattern when you are joining two pieces of fabric together, otherwise it looks funny. No, it doesn’t work.’ Another pause. ‘About forty centimetres. It’s quite simple. You have to match the pattern to get a good result.’

  Archie filled in a loyalty card application form on the table with a false name and address so that he could get a second breakfast half price. He thought of his derelict cottage, imagined it with bright floral blinds but no glass. He laughed out loud. The security guard, who had been leaning against the far wall, stood up and clocked him. Ex-services by the look of him, going out of his mind with boredom. Archie raised a hand, an emigrant from the same world. The guard nodded, an almost imperceptible dip of the chin, then jerked his head towards the door. Archie stood up to leave. The toddlers were charging each other in the play pen as he passed, waving pieces of foam, throwing plastic balls at each other, the colourful spheres filling the air. Fairy lights hung from the ceiling, strings of stars. One of the kids started to scream. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he shouted, covering his ears.

  A mother jumped to her feet and scooped up the child. He heard quick, heavy footsteps behind him and the guard had him by the elbow and was marching him downstairs towards the exit. ‘Think you’re a big man, do you? Scaring kids,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Archie. ‘I’m a bit strung out. Sorry.’

  ‘Go and be strung out somewhere else,’ he said. He pulled the loyalty card out of his hands. ‘You won’t be needing this.’ The guard waited until he had completed the revolving door shuffle, and disappeared back upstairs.

  38

  Archie bypassed the car park, each car sitting in its place, orderly, logical, part of the seamless dance of the ants’ nest. He crossed at the lights on the main road, but didn’t take the turning to the research centre. It was too long and too busy. He was tired. He wanted to get back to the cottage, to sit on the hillside above the city and think it all over. He cut across the straggling scrub-land parallel to the city bypass and put his fingers in his ears to shut out the noise of the diggers scraping away the earth for new family homes. ‘Quality Living,’ proclaimed a sign, ‘for Happy Families.’ Ahead of him, the Pentlands stretched in a long line. Nine peaks, three like the pyramids from his honeymoon at Giza. He reached the cottage and lay down, a pharaoh waiting for the starlight to strike his face, waiting for the gods to find him and take him home, to lift him up to hang from Orion’s belt, or pass through its holes into an ether where it was light and everything made sense. He was cold. Through the doorway, he could see the day unfolding in a concertina of snapshots: the traffic building up on the bypass, old couples returning from a shopping trip to fill the day, the school run, the first of the workers to escape their call centres and battery-farm offices. The Forth was battleship-grey and hazy. The clouds flirted with the land and then soared above the sea, pink in the sinking sun. The icy blue of the far distance, which looked flat but was limitless, waved a finger at him in admonition: ‘Don’t stay out, brother, night is coming.’

  He didn’t care. If he lay here long enough without water he could die. Dry out the pain that flowed, juicy with regret through his mind, and slip away. ‘No one ever left a life worth living?’ Had David Hume written that? Was his a life worth living? Petal seemed remote, a figure in a story he had stumbled into. The girl in the garden. His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. ‘You have one voicemail message,’ it said, in a mechanised female voice, as he pressed it to his ear. It was Bitchin’ Betty; it was the unexpected item in bagging area; it was the cinema help-line that didn’t recognise human speech. ‘Press one to retrieve your message. You were called today at 16.45.’ The voice slowed over the numbers.

  ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ said Brenda’s voice, angry, demanding, real. ‘I have a good mind not to …’ Her voice was cut off.

  ‘Contact operator services free on 212,’ said Bitchin’ Betty. The low battery symbol flashed.

  He dropped the phone into the grass beside him. ‘I love you, Brenda,’ he said. ‘I fucking love you.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’ asked a voice.

  Archie looked up, startled.

  ‘A friend for the road on the epic journey of a broken man? The hop-a-long kid? Dead man walking?’ Calum Ben was standing there, the man from the bar, the shadow by the bonfire. He was wearing an overcoat over a sharp-cut suit. A pair of binoculars hung round his neck. ‘I enjoyed our sleep-out, and our little shopping trip this morning,’ he said. ‘Most amusing.’

  Archie tried to scramble to his feet but stumbled on a tuft of grass. He steadied himself against the wall.

 
‘It’s polite to knock when you enter someone’s house,’ he said.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Calum. ‘Knock, knock.’ He smiled. ‘Not looking too hot,’ he added, ‘after your night in the ice-house. Very touching bromance with that old geezer. Looked like a very animated conversation. Shame you won’t be having another one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That’s for me to know and you to find out.’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ shouted Archie, but his voice was hoarse. ‘And what the fuck have you done with Petal?’

  ‘She’s at home, Archie. Where she always was.’

  ‘You’re a liar,’ he shouted, but his voice was no more than a croak.

  ‘Pardon,’ said Calum, putting a hand to his ear. ‘I can’t hear you.’

  ‘If you’ve hurt her, I’ll get you,’ said Archie. ‘I’ll make sure you pay.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll find me, Archie,’ said Calum, and suddenly his voice was cut-glass southern English and then Scouse. ‘You can try. That would be fun.’ It was French, then American, and then Spanish, and, as he spoke, it kept changing. ‘You can search the world but you’ll never find me. I’m a peeled man,’ and his bald head gleamed. ‘An independent nation of one.’ Calum rubbed his hands over the stubble that was just beginning to break through the surface.