He waved the paracetamol and extra-strength codeine at her. ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I prefer not to take anything unless it gets unbearable. Those were for a disc I slipped two years ago. Classic gardening injury.’ She popped on the news channel. David Cameron, the prime minister, was at his party conference, talking to camera about hard-working people. A huge banner behind him proclaimed ‘For hard-working people’. ‘Maybe they should put a comma after hard?’ suggested Petal.
He laughed. In America, the federal government was paralysed, its offices closed, unable to agree a budget with the Republicans over their protest at the Democrats’ ObamaCare health plan. Chemical weapons inspectors were going into Syria to disable chemical weapons. ‘Could you switch that off too, please,’ he said. ‘I hate politicians.’
‘Picky, aren’t you? I can’t believe they shut the Statue of Liberty to visitors,’ she added, snapping off the images.
He looked round the room. ‘I suppose I should go,’ he said, unsure where to sit in the clean house, full of the relics of a long family life: the photos on the mantelpiece, the side-board full of crystal sherry glasses, the book cases and patchwork cushions. ‘This is paradise,’ he said.
‘This old stuff,’ laughed Petal. ‘It’s flotsam. I always think I should thin it out and de-junk, but somehow it works just the way it is.’
‘It does,’ he said. ‘It’s a rare pearl.’ And he wished he had a photo of his grand-parents and his son so that he could stand in his place between them, tying them together through the years with the simple things that mattered: the forks they’d eaten with, the glasses they’d drunk from, the books they’d read and laughed over, the piano they’d played. He wondered when the digital age had got hold of everyone, eaten into their every waking moment so that there was no time to sit by the fire and reflect on the whole picture, thinking backwards and forwards, before taking decisions. The thing he missed most, standing in this snapshot of an old world, was the time to talk things over with family, sitting on well-worn sofas, in flickering firelight that invited secrets and ancestral memory of longer passages of time – like seasons, or stars growing in their nurseries, or planets in their orbits. This press-button society, with its phoney, first-name intimacy; this remembering with strangers and therapists, to counts of one hundred; kindness and time measured out, quantified and paid for somewhere, by someone, didn’t work; and the cost, the real cost was unacknowledged, flaring briefly in support groups and chat rooms – thin, typed lines of isolation, grief and remorse for decisions that snapped, crackled and popped.
‘I need to go,’ he said.
‘Yeah, that would probably be best,’ she replied. ‘You’re still a client.’
‘As opposed to what?’ he asked. ‘A friend? A good Samaritan?’
‘You know what I mean. I have to think of my job.’ She paused.
‘Maintain that professional distance?’ he suggested.
‘Got it in one,’ she replied.
‘Understood, Ma’am,’ he said, saluting. ‘You’re the boss.’ He turned on his heel and marched on the spot, set off across the carpet in slow time, arms swinging up to the level of his chest.
‘Stop taking the piss,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you at the hospital.’
‘For another session with the woodland folk?’ He tapped the side of his head.
She stopped laughing. ‘Show some respect,’ she said. ‘Is that so difficult?’
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Sorry.’
19
Petal lay back on her chaise-longue in the bay window. She could see Archie through the scratched glass walking across the grass to the Meadows with the castle high on its rock behind him. His arms still swung in time to a march only he could hear, although he seemed unconscious of it, and then, without breaking stride, he began to run; slow at first, then faster. He ignored the lights and ran straight across the main road dissecting the park, and onto the track worn between the trees. He increased his pace and became a flickering zoetrope – man, tree, man, tree, as he passed between the trunks. She saw him pass her view-point twice in the distance; a running man, dwarfed by the castle rock and lazy Arthur’s ghost on top of his mountain. She knew almost nothing about him, or what he was running from, what pursued him – hobgoblins from his shattered mind jumping and leaping along the path behind him; goblins who knew he would never outrun them because he was connected to them by strings of remorse, long and sticky – perhaps with human blood. She couldn’t imagine him – this ex-lieutenant – as a killer; couldn’t connect his evident humanity with lifting a gun, pressing his eye to the sight, and firing down the cross-hairs of his decision to take a life in that single instant when it somehow made sense. She saw from her sofa in the bay window of an Edinburgh flat, remote from the conflict, that the decision to take a life, or lives, still burning and smouldering in him, had never been his, but had already been framed, remotely, by players at computers. He was their avatar but he carried the burden of choices that looked different now because they were reviewed from a distance without the catalyst of the heat and the panic, and the fear and the smell, and the noise. How did he feel now, without Death pulling a finger down the back of his neck to chill him, about those decisions made in a hot desert with the breath of the grave-mouth condensing on his back? Now, alone on the planet of his daily life, his insignificance in the scheme of things was apparent, and his right to have been so mighty a player in question. She guessed that his first doubts were revolving in the finite universe of his mind, where he stood – a lonely Adam – the apple in his hand a time-bomb.
Her eyes closed and she dropped off, a small figure in a large room, and she woke only when her neighbour’s voice and a dog barking sounded in the common stair. The front door banged shut behind them. Mrs Robb upstairs was looking after her friend’s dog while she was in hospital, and Petal had become familiar with the scrabble of his claws on the floorboards. He wasn’t the friendliest-looking animal. He had been muzzled since some incident of the Meadows the week before. Mrs Robb passed doggie treats through the plastic bars of his muzzle, which gave him the look of a four-legged and very tiny Hannibal Lecter, his eyes velvety and reproachful.
Petal’s ankle throbbed as she stood up and tried to put some weight on it, so she crunched up two of the old painkillers and swallowed them with a glass of water. She wasn’t going to miss her first second date in three years, even if it was with Baldilocks. They could always talk gardening if conversation ran out: how to mulch strawberries, encourage worms in compost and whether his business venture could take some of the hospital’s produce.
She put on a vintage silk dress from a charity shop along with a shawl, and grabbed a stick from the back of the wardrobe. It had an elephant’s head carved on it. Granny had said it was Ganesh.
The taxi driver dropped her off outside the restaurant Calum had mentioned on their first date, but there was no sign of him. The street was empty and the place was closed, a padlock on a metal grille fixed over its door. She read the menu stuck in the window. He drew up five minutes later in his car and called her over. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Bad choice. I forgot they were shut for refurbishment. I know another place just round the corner. His eyes took in her stick and he smiled. ‘Jump in,’ he said, ‘I’ll drive you round.’
The car door swung open. Her foot was throbbing after standing on it. ‘I’m really sorry, but would you mind just taking me home?’ she said. ‘I’ve sprained my ankle. I thought I could ignore it but being out is making it worse.’
‘Okay, no problem, granny.’ He climbed out of the car and helped her slide into the passenger seat. ‘Your wish is my command,’ he said, a Prince Charming. He shut the door and, walking round the car, settled himself in the driver’s seat. He patted his knee and smiled. ‘Put your foot up here,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a look.’ He leaned over and guided her foot over the gearstick to his knee. His aftershave was dizzying. He pushed the hem of her
dress back up her leg to her knee. His hands were warm as they slid down her calf to her foot. He cupped her heel in one hand and stroked the puffy skin of her ankle with the other. She tried to pull it away.
‘Trust me, I’m a doctor,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Can you move it?’ Grasping her toes, he moved her foot clockwise and then anti-clockwise. His fingers were very strong. ‘It’s a bit stiff and swollen,’ he said.
‘No shit, Sherlock,’ she replied.
‘Permit me to kiss it better.’ He lifted her foot up to his mouth and bent to kiss the top of her arch.
‘Don’t,’ she said, pushing her dress back down her leg. ‘I hardly know you.’
‘Your feet are so beautiful,’ he said. ‘So much nicer than mine. I couldn’t resist.’
‘I really need to get home,’ she said.
He released her foot and stared at the road ahead. A Halloween pumpkin dangled from his rear-view mirror. Its gaping eyes swung round to stare at her as the car reversed. ‘I’m disappointed, of course,’ said Calum, putting the car into first gear, ‘but your wish is my command.’ He glanced over at her and drew a deep breath. ‘I don’t suppose you would agree to a short detour? We could park up on the coast at Longniddry Bents and admire the view over the Forth. It would feel like less of a wasted evening and you wouldn’t need to put any weight on your poor foot. Just sit back and sip the best champagne money can buy. I’ve got a bottle in the back.’
‘I’m flattered,’ said Petal, ‘but I think I should go home.’
He turned the corners of his mouth down and slumped his shoulders. ‘I’m crushed,’ he said.
She looked at him. The first man she had dated for years. She liked his hands. The way his strong fingers gripped the steering wheel. His touch had warmed her. It was odd how little physical contact she had with anyone these days. It amazed her that she could live in a city full of people and only really be touched by her hairdresser, or friends as they met at the pub. The number changed on the clock on the dashboard, another minute gone. Time passing in a series of digital numbers, and another night alone in front of the telly, or gaming, ahead of her. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘one glass.’
He turned to her and smiled. ‘I know the perfect place.’
20
Archie tucked the teddy he had bought his son as a belated birthday present into his sweatshirt and walked over to his old house. He was feeling better after an afternoon snooze and one of Mike’s sparky bacon butties. He slipped into the garden by the back gate, still unlocked, and pressed himself against the wall as before. It smelled of leaf mould. At his feet a woodlouse crawled past. A blackbird tossed over some dry leaves, looking at the ground with a sunshine-yellow eye and turned over the next leaf; a diner making informed choices in his black tuxedo, which glistened green.
Through the window, Archie could see his wife carrying dishes to the kitchen sink and then she opened the back door and let their son wheel out in his walker onto the patio. He had small cubes of cheese on the tray on the front. His tiny legs pushed forward and he rolled onto the grass, pushing faster, moving across the lawn towards Archie’s hiding place beyond the border. Archie slid to his knees and lay down along the base of the wall, the leaf mould pressing into his cheek. A smell of cat pee, or fox, made him gag. His son came closer, taking tiny steps, pushing the walker forward with his chest until he stopped at a shrub and reached out to pull a leaf. His hair was blond now, curling round his ears, and his cheeks were red with teething. He pulled at the leaf and the shrub above Archie rattled, some wind chimes ringing, the hollow tubes clashing together in an alarm call. He heard his wife’s quick footsteps. She bent to scoop up their son and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Not the laurel bush, Mister,’ she said to him. ‘That’s not for eating,’ Daniel laughed, reached out for the bush again, set the chimes ringing. Archie closed his eyes, aware that the force of his gaze could alert his wife to his proximity; that her radar as a mother to the presence of a watcher would be acute – the primitive woman breathing just under the skin of her civilised sister’s designer clothes.
He couldn’t face her inner cave-woman today. He held his breath. She turned away singing to Daniel, ‘Bath-time, gorgeous boy. Swim. Swim.’
‘Dada,’ said Daniel, pointing towards the bush.
‘No Dada,’ said his wife. ‘Dada’s away. Say Mummy. Say hello, Mummy,’ and she rubbed her face in his chest to tickle him, and made him wriggle and laugh.
Archie lay in the earth with the creatures who lived there moving past in their evening routine. They crawled over his hand; something was buzzing. He pillowed his head on his arm and watched the light in his son’s room, watched as it was dimmed for sleeping and the curtains drawn. Pins and needles spread down his right side, and he sat up and pulled the bear out of his pocket. It was damp and had absorbed a stain of leaf mould or earth through his sweatshirt. He stood up, slipped through the gate and threw the toy in a bin in the alley before walking back to Mike’s flat, pumping his arms to try and warm up.
He climbed the stairs to the flat two at a time. Mike was going out. He was wearing his special jeans. Archie put his arm across the front door. ‘Don’t, Mike,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you the money. We’ll work something out.’
‘It’s another bloody sanction, man,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘I missed my reassessment. I went to the wrong place. It’ll be months before I get any cash.’ On the telly behind him David Cameron was talking about hard-working people again. Archie snapped it off with the remote that was lying on the sofa. When he turned round, Mike had slipped out. He threw his muddy clothes into the washing machine and stood under the shower. Water ran down his back and pooled round his ankles. His stomach rumbled.
21
In the morning, Brenda was waiting for him as usual beneath the unicorn. He could see the regulars going for their Sound of Music breakfast, drifting up the street to St Philomena’s. She had her headphones on and waved. ‘Just catching up with Cam’s conference speech,’ she said. ‘Loving it. A real crowd pleaser. Build a land of opportunity. Great stuff.’
‘Almost biblical,’ he said. ‘The promised land.’
‘Talking of which,’ she said. ‘promises, that is. There was nothing new on your website last night.’
‘No,’ agreed Archie. ‘I was … out.’
‘Alright for some,’ said Brenda. ‘I was up to my eyes in a report. Some worries that the American government isn’t going to agree to raise its debt ceiling and will default on its loans. It’s contingency time for us, I’m afraid. Could be apocalyptic for the markets, I kid you not.’
Archie thought of the work that would roll into his old firm, suit and counter-suit, and he remembered his lean year without pay in the 2008 crash. It could swing either way. Recovery had been slow. Recovery. Brenda poked him with a manicured finger. ‘Quote for the day?’ she said.
‘You choose,’ he replied. ‘Is there anything meaningful for you that you could relate to yourself?’ Petal’s counsellor-speak was rubbing off on him.
‘Something about milk and honey?’ asked Brenda.
‘Yeah,’ said Archie. ‘Good for the skin.’
‘Sometimes I think you are completely bogus,’ she said. ‘You don’t seem very religious.’
He clasped his hands and unclasped them, searched back in his memory of school days, sitting cross-legged on the floor in Assembly in the gym while a minister in a white dog collar thundered at them.
‘“I will rain down bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather at a certain rate every day, that I may prove whether they walk in my law, or no.” Exodus, 16:4,’ he said. ‘It’s about bread and fair shares, but also about balance. You can’t complete your spiritual journey if your body is out of balance. The two go hand in hand.’
‘I don’t really want a whole sermon,’ she said. ‘To tell you the truth, Archie, I have a confession to make. I’
m not a church-goer. I picked you because you’re a good price.’
‘Right,’ he said, laughing. ‘I forgive you. Let’s stretch our legs. Fancy more of a challenge? We could just about fit in a circuit through the community garden at the Greenford Hospital, past Watson’s School and back along the canal to Tollcross.’
‘A community garden?’ said Brenda. ‘What’s the point in that? You can get all the veg you want delivered online. No need to waste time digging.’
‘It’s a bit of an Eden,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’
They set off across the Links golf course, dewy with a mizzle of rain, and ran down Morningside Road with its parents dragging toddlers to breakfast club at nursery and buses groaning on the hill. There were no payday loan companies or pawn shops here. Everyone had credit cards and expectations of climbing property and career ladders in the game he used to play round polished tables with pots of coffee and trays of pastries served by middle-aged women in shapeless, janitorial white coats. Who had they been? Anonymous, smiling and reverential. The boardroom was hallowed ground and he had been one of its brightest stars. Now his feet carried him over the pavements of the entrance to the Greenford Hospital, past the sugar cube, the stable block mortuary, the young people’s unit, and along a narrow lane. Brenda was breathing heavily behind him. The path opened out onto a wilderness and they stopped. The nettles were waist-high; scrubby willow trees and a broken wooden bench framed a view of distant hills, soft, blue-grey mounds rising behind the old Craiglockhart Hospital for shell-shocked servicemen of the First World War. He imagined them lying broken in starched white beds, missing limbs, or pieces of their minds, their pale faces at the window, trying to reconcile the purposefulness of the doctors, who repaired them in these clean rooms, with the trench they might yet die in. He remembered seeing his second lieutenant with his new steel leg, machine-tooled and jointed, a gleaming, high-tech robo prop – efficient, ergonomic, tailor-made – and he wondered if someone could tool him a component, bright and shiny, that would calibrate his mind; prop up the pink-curled mine-shaft of his brain, and let him switch off the bad thoughts that drizzled earth through the gaps in the boards.
The Last Tour of Archie Forbes Page 10