The Last Tour of Archie Forbes

by Victoria Hendry

  ‘Petal,’ she replied, ‘of nothing in particular.’

  He put a hand under her arm and steered her to a table at the back. There was a bottle of Chardonnay open. ‘Wine okay for you? It’s from Burgundy, none of your sweetie water trash. I thought I’d let it breathe.’

  She nodded and watched him pour her a glass. He topped up his own. Not spiked then. She smiled and raised her glass.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘I must say your dress looks lovely.’ He put the glass back down on the table. ‘So what do you do, Petal?’

  ‘I’m an art therapist,’ she said. ‘I’m working on a felted wall-hanging at one of the local hospitals.’

  ‘Really,’ he said. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever met an artist before.’

  ‘It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. I spend half my time digging in the community garden. Health and food are intertwined, don’t you think?’

  He nodded. ‘I built my fortune on it. Just secured a deal to supply a well-known hotel chain. The dirtier the vegetable the cleaner the money.’ He laughed. ‘I’m thinking of moving into a range of juices.’

  She noticed his nails were very short. ‘What about the sulphites in wine,’ she asked. ‘How far do you take this health kick?’

  ‘Everyone’s allowed one vice. Otherwise we’d all be saints.’

  She laughed. ‘Here’s to you, Mr Saintly. Was there ever a Mrs Saintly?’

  He nodded. ‘Sadly it didn’t last. I’m a fallen angel. Thought she could do better elsewhere. My new business venture was slow at first, and she wasn’t the most patient of women.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Petal.

  ‘You?’ he asked, leaning forward.

  She swirled the wine round her glass. ‘Never seemed to meet the right bloke,’ she said. ‘Still single. I mother the people in my classes. That keeps me going.’

  ‘So you want kids?’ he asked.

  She was surprised by the directness of the question. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I suppose I do.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for something serious. A long-term commitment.’

  ‘Let’s drink to that,’ she said. ‘And a second date?’

  He clinked her glass. ‘I’ll take you to a nice little restaurant I know. They build the menu around foraged foods in season. We’re talking about a new, joint range called Forage.’

  ‘Like Nigel Farage,’ she quipped.

  He didn’t laugh. ‘It’s a big market since the horse-meat scandal. Organic produce used to be left on the shelf because it was more expensive. Those were the golden days of freeganism: executive, dot-com hippies raking in designer-supermarket bins at night, feeding themselves and their green principles for nothing on discarded stock.’

  Petal smiled. ‘You’re painting quite a picture.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you were one of them?’

  ‘No, I’m a primary gardener,’ said Petal. ‘You’ll find me at the sharp, pointy end of a garden fork. I agree people are prepared to spend a bit more for organic, if they can afford it.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Calum, ‘and it goes into the pocket of yours truly, now that the hungry customer has been persuaded that antibiotic-saturated meat, factory eggs and pus-filled milk really do sit at the wrong end of the safe-to-hazardous spectrum.’

  ‘Stop,’ said Petal. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘But true. The scary food stories that the media delight in publishing cater to the apprehensions of the amygdala, your radar for danger, and humanity’s primary instinct kicks right in: “Avoid what might be dangerous”. No rational thought required. It’s now an emotional decision. What’s safe to eat? It’s a whole new field of neuro-economics. “Eco”, “green” and “organic” are the magic words that drive our purchasing decisions and make me very rich, even if deep inside the consumer knows it’s perfectly okay to eat the shit they always ate. The new golden rule is better safe than sorry whatever the price.’

  ‘As I say, if you can afford it.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re a bleeding heart liberal?’

  ‘No,’ said Petal, ‘but I do believe in community initiatives. They used to grow veg along the sides of the roads in housing estates in Communist Yugoslavia. I saw it on holiday years ago. We could do that here. Transform our council estates. Plant fruit trees instead of those hellish, hairy green leylandii. Create an orchard city.’

  ‘Careful,’ said Calum, ‘you’ll put me out of business.’

  ‘I thought you said you were marketing yourself to the designer end of anxious foodies?’

  ‘I am.’ He drained his glass. ‘I have very particular tastes myself. I like to go against the flow; fugu is a favourite, it really gets the amygdala shrieking. Blowfish tetrodotoxin is not for the faint hearted, but I’ve had the luck of the devil so far.’

  * * *

  That night at home she googled his company, but there was no sign of it. She tried spelling Ben with two ‘n’s. Perhaps it was registered off-shore, or was a subsidiary? She wasn’t sure how these things worked. He wasn’t on LinkedIn or Facebook either. Maybe that fitted with the alternative, organic kick. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to go for a meal in a public place. She drained the beans in her slow-cooker and put them in single-portion sizes in her freezer. It would be nice to have male company.

  14

  Archie was standing at the end of his garden among the shrubs, his back pressed to the wall. He could see his wife through the window of the extension. She was feeding Daniel, swooping a spoon of baby-mush into his mouth as he played with a piece of chopped apple. The baby reached out to her and she lifted him out of his high chair and put him to her breast. His legs kicked as he drank. She opened a magazine on the table and paused while reading it to stroke his hair. He could see her lips moving as she sang to him. His son looked up at her and laughed. It was the last feed before bath-time. Above him a bird chattered. All was well but not for him. He was lonely. He had treasured feeling the weight of his new son strapped to his chest on the way to the paper shop on Sundays; the shape of his floppy limbs; the feel of his tiny foot cupped in his hand as he walked. Hannah had often been too tired to come with them to their favourite café on the shore after the birth. He had missed their small rituals: the office stories she told him to make him laugh; her impressions of her golf-mad boss.

  Archie emptied the peanut feeder into his pocket and slipped back out through the gate into the alley. He had told her to get a padlock to secure the hasp, but the gate still flapped. He walked down Ferry Road towards Leith and into Great Junction Street. He fancied a beer to go with his peanuts, but the supermarket would only sell him a four pack. He paid with the money from Brenda and reckoned that still left him enough to pay Mike his rent. He would get more money from Louise in their session tomorrow. If he went to bed early, maybe he wouldn’t feel hungry. When he got in, Mike groaned at the sight of the beer shining through the plastic bag. ‘How could you, man?’ he said. ‘I told you what happens to me on the anti-booze if I take even one sip. Do you want to see my face go beetroot, and my blood pressure fall into my boots? Do you want to see me crashing into the furniture because I don’t know which way is up? And a word to the wise, you’d better dive for cover when I start spewing unless you have a bloody huge umbrella. Get that fucking beer out of here.’

  Archie backed out into the stair and sat on the top step drinking his cans and nibbling his peanuts. He had a bit of small talk with himself, for old times’ sake. The party guests were standing in his head, holding glasses of champagne. He mingled among them hiding his beer behind his back. ‘Yes, we had a great holiday in the south of France; it’s a gite we take every year, but we thought we might book Cambodia this year. Yes, fabulous food from the floating markets. You haven’t tasted fresh fish until you’ve shopped for it on Lake Tonlé Sap.’ He was warming up. ‘A great squid ink reduction at that new restauran
t on Morrison Street? Five star? Yes, lunch? I’ll call you. Is that the time? I really must go. So sorry to cut our evening short – early flight tomorrow. Business in Vancouver.’ He tucked the last can into his jacket, and opened the door.

  ‘I’m clean,’ he said to Mike as he went back in. He lay on the bed in his alcove. The glass bricks were a turquoise waterway. He picked up his phone and called his old home number. ‘Hello,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Hannah, it’s Archie. Don’t hang up.’ His speech was slow and slurred. He drew a deep breath.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to ask you a question.’

  There was silence.

  ‘About Vancouver.’

  ‘Couldn’t you google it?’

  ‘What was the mountain called?’

  ‘The one with the cable car?’

  ‘And the lumber-jacks shinning up poles in that cheesy show.’

  ‘Grouse Mountain.’

  ‘That’s it. I couldn’t remember.’

  ‘Look, this isn’t a good time.’

  ‘Do you remember the sign we saw about the bear on the loose? The one we saw after we’d been through the woods.’ He laughed.

  ‘Why are you asking me this, Archie?’

  ‘I was thinking about our happy times.’ He could hear Daniel crying. ‘Why is Daniel crying?’

  ‘Mum’s trying to settle him.’

  ‘Is he okay?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I need to go.’ He heard her draw a deep breath. ‘Archie? I don’t know how to say this any other way. I don’t think you should call again.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to bother you,’ he said. ‘I was …’ he paused, ‘… at a party and I wanted to hear your voice.’

  The line went dead.

  ‘Hannah?’ He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and pressed redial. It went straight to the answering machine. ‘I’m sorry, no one is available to take your call and you cannot leave a message.’ He hung up and opened the last can under his cover to muffle the sound from Mike.

  15

  ‘Here comes the man of mystery,’ said Louise as he ran up, out of breath. He had slept in. It had taken him longer than he thought to design Brenda’s training plan, and Bible-dip to find this morning’s quote for Louise. Ed Miliband had been on the telly proclaiming, ‘If you can’t tell the difference between me and Cameron, just remember he’s the one who brought in the bedroom tax. I’m the one who’s going to abolish it.’ There was a shot of the conference floor, Ed Balls looking dewy-eyed.

  ‘Where’s Sooze?’ he asked.

  Louise shrugged. ‘We’re not joined at the hip. This is Benjy,’ she said, indicating the two-year-old in the buggy behind her. I had to bring him with me today. My mum’s sick.’

  ‘Hey, Benjy,’ he said. He turned to Louise. ‘How’s this going to work?’ he asked, hoping she might cancel. His head was foggy after the beer.

  ‘I’ll fast walk, and push him. It’ll be more of a work-out,’ she said. ‘Like those yummy-mummies with their running groups and jogging buggies.’ He thought of the mums’ army he had seen on a circuit round the Meadows, chatting, a brisk woman running alongside them with a whistle.

  ‘So what’s today’s quote?’ asked Louise.

  ‘He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat … Matthew 15:36.’

  ‘And your point would be?’ said Louise.

  ‘We can all eat if we share?’ said Archie, his voice going up at the end.

  ‘Are you saying I’m eating more than my fair share?’ asked Louise. ‘Because I am this close to dumping you.’ She pinched her fingers together.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m saying,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of the food banks in Leith.’

  ‘What’s that to do with you?’ asked Louise.

  ‘Nothing,’ he lied, picturing Mike’s tins. ‘Food is a resource and we need to understand our place in relation to it.’

  ‘Are you going all eco-righteous on me?’ she asked, ‘because I’ve got my own multitude to feed here.’ She waved at the pram. Her son had fallen asleep.

  ‘Why don’t we do some body conditioning?’ he suggested. ‘There’s no point in busting a gut when you still have to push His Majesty home.’

  She smiled. ‘Let’s get started,’ she said, ‘and then I’ll take you for a coffee if you behave. You look like you could do with one.’ She tried a star jump and then clutched her groin.

  He helped her up. ‘Follow my lead,’ he said. ‘Marching on the spot.’ He began to pump his arms and feet. He looked along the path, narrow, stippled with sunlight, then stopped. He saw the man ahead of him sweeping for mines, watched him place his feet; sweep, step, heard the ping of … a bell. Archie turned too late. A cyclist swerved to avoid him. ‘For Christ’s sake, man,’ he shouted at Archie, and gestured. ‘Are you crazy, or what?’ He straightened his bike and pushed off.

  Archie watched his helmet receding and, in a time-slip, saw him fly through the air, silhouetted in the light of an explosion; a starfish spinning; saw his limbs detach and catch in the trees. He felt for his belt pack to find a bin bag to put the body parts in. Take them to the freezer back at camp. Nothing. The feel of his own belly.

  He looked down to see Louise touching his arm. ‘Are you okay? Why don’t we have that coffee now?’ she asked, ‘and come back to this?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I’ll still pay you,’ she said. ‘I really just fancy a chat. Anyway, you’ve got a face like a sheet. You’re not much of a superman.’

  They sat at a table outside Sooze’s usual café, squeezed against the wall, cyclists and joggers rolling past. He supposed they looked like a family: mum and dad enjoying a day with their son, his hair cherubic, gold and curling. Benjy was nibbling an egg roll, the yoke running down his chin. Archie leaned forward to mop it up with a thin paper napkin. ‘Just leave him,’ said Louise, ‘he’s a fussy eater. This is good.’ She smiled at her son. ‘Wish I had his problem,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking of having my stomach stapled. Save me all this effort.’

  He drew a deep breath. ‘It could be hormonal, as you say. Or a food intolerance,’ he added. The coffee was calming him down. He drew another breath. The air smelled of damp grass and mouldering leaves.

  She shrugged. ‘The doctor tells me I’m borderline diabetic. How’s that for a sticky end? Killed by a bun.’

  ‘Don’t get surgery,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard fasting is good. You can drink fruit juice so it’s not too painful.’ He thought of the weight he had lost since coming back. ‘It really works. Why not try it once a week to start and build up from there?’

  ‘Or why don’t I just tie a really huge rubber band round my middle? That should suck it all in and then I can forget about it. I won’t need to wrestle with myself.’

  ‘You’re not alone,’ he said. ‘I go ten rounds with myself every night.’

  ‘But you’re so thin,’ she said. She passed Benjy a carton of juice and stood up. ‘Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I have to get this bundle of fun to the park before he goes nuts.’

  Archie wondered why it made him feel lonely. ‘What about the rest of your session?’ he asked.

  ‘Too full. We’ll start properly next time. Promise. Don’t tell Sooze. You should try and get a few more clients. I’ll see you on Thursday.’

  He watched her walking away, saw her open the gate to the playpark and release Benjy from his pushchair. A woman waved to her from a bench and she sat down beside her. He tried to put the call with Hannah out of his mind, but he heard her voice replaying: ‘I don’t know how to say this, Archie.’ It echoed in his head. ‘Say this any other way.’ He leaned back in his chair and tipped his head up to look at the sky, as if he could dislodge the hard pebble of the sound
. ‘Don’t call’ – and then the hard click of the answering machine: ‘I’m sorry, you cannot leave a message.’

  ‘Fuck,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’ He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the women had gone from the park.

  Karim came out to wipe the table. ‘I’m seeing you around here a lot these days,’ he said. ‘Sooze is still so grateful to you for saving her ridiculous dog. Want anything to eat?’

  Archie nodded.

  ‘Fancy a change from the usual fry-up? A little house speciality? Kebab karaz?’

  ‘A kebab?’ said Archie.

  ‘Not just any kebab,’ said the man. ‘My mother’s special recipe from Damascus.’ He waved at the sign above the door. ‘The City of Jasmine, aka Damascus. Lamb meatballs cooked with cherries and cherry paste, pine nuts, sugar and pomegranate molasses.’

  Archie remembered the pomegranates he had eaten staking out the Green Zone, sheltered from the burning sun but not the eyes of the dickers. Eyes like pips.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. He thought of his promise to include recipes on his website. ‘Is that a recipe you could share?’

  ‘I’ll see,’ said Karim. ‘If you clean your plate, you can have my recipe. It was good enough for St Thomas, one of our most famous Damascene residents, so it’ll be good enough for you. Guaranteed.’

  Somehow Archie had always pictured the apostle tucking into a dry crust. Karim passed him a menu. ‘This is for special customers,’ he said. There were no pictures. Just names, a long list of spells: kibbeh, wara’enab, tabbouleh, fattoush, and ingredients that spoke of an oasis – orange, rose water, dates, pistachios, tamarind sherbet, mint lemonade.

  ‘No sparrow’s tongue?’ he asked.

  Karim took out his pad and sighed.

  ‘Just joking,’ he said. ‘You could contribute recipes to my fitness website and I’ll advertise your café. What do you say?’

  ‘What’s your website called again?’ he asked.