The Last Tour of Archie Forbes

by Victoria Hendry

  ‘Is that hospital empty now?’ asked Brenda. ‘Great location. Ripe for redevelopment.’

  He took a sip of water, and, as he swallowed, wanted to hit her with the bottle he refilled each night at Mike’s. The raised plastic ridges were the contours of a grenade. He fought down the thought. Tried not to think of the bottles and bodies they had retrieved from the sand after the Warrior in front of them was hit.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. They ran on past the wooden gate to the community garden: raised beds of strawberries and kale, brambles trained upwards on trellises and the ancient orchard, one hundred and fifty years old, where apples fell under the stars with a soft thud. They reached the main road through the back gate and arrived back at their starting point with five minutes to spare. Brenda tapped her watch. ‘07.55. Great timing,’ she said. ‘Spot on.’ She stretched out her legs and looked up at him. ‘I’m curious,’ she said. ‘How did you find out about that place?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ said Archie. ‘Once you run off the beaten track, it’s amazing what you discover.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Archie.

  22

  Petal woke in a dark room. Her foot throbbed. She lay there remembering the plastic champagne glass Calum had passed her as they parked up on the coast. It had been very dark and quiet, but he had put on some music. The jazz and distant city lights dancing on the water had made it seem alright. She had a memory of him popping Turkish Delight into her mouth after a second glass, and laughing. The pills and alcohol had made her woozy. Perhaps she had passed out. Calum must have brought her here, not knowing where else to take her. Had she told him her address? She swung her legs over the edge of the bed, tested her foot and put a bit of weight on it. Not too bad. She hobbled to the door. The light didn’t seem to be working. Perhaps there was a power cut. She tried the handle. The door was stuck. ‘Calum,’ she shouted, ‘Calum. The door’s stuck.’ There was no answer. She crouched down. Between the edge of the door and the door frame she could see the metal rectangle of the lock had been shot.

  ‘Help,’ she shouted. ‘Help.’ The word scared her. Confirmed a new reality. In the faint lamplight from the grille high up in the wall she could see her hand. It was grey and ghostly. Suddenly her granny’s flat seemed so bright and precious, and her patients waiting for her at the studio table, sitting among the rainbow colours of wool and bubbles, so unutterably fragile. They needed her.

  She watched the daylight hours pass through the window grille, thin shafts of light pressing through the holes. Searchlights that missed her. She lay on the bed trying to keep warm, but her feet were growing cold and the chill had reached her knees. There was a taste of rose water at the back of her throat and something bitter.

  She was woken by a tapping at the door. She looked up to see that it was chained on the outside and Calum was peering through the gap. A light was on in the hall behind him.

  ‘I’m going to come in,’ he said, ‘but I want you to stay still on the bed.’

  She sat up. ‘Where have you been? Why the hell am I here?’ she shouted.

  He put a finger to his lips. ‘Shhh,’ he whispered. ‘Calm down.’

  Her throat was dry and she had a headache.

  ‘If you’re good,’ he said, ‘then you can improve your situation.’

  ‘Improve my situation?’ she said. ‘Improve my situation? Get me out of here now.’

  He shut the door.

  ‘Come back,’ she shouted.

  ‘I was hoping you’d be a bit more cooperative,’ he said, through the closed door.

  ‘I need the fucking loo,’ she shouted. ‘I don’t want to pee on the floor again.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Calm down, and I’ll let you use the toilet and bring you a light bulb. And every time that you are good, I’ll bring you something else.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Just be quick.’

  He peeped round the door and came in, locking it behind him. He had a torch on an elastic round his head – the kind cyclists or mountaineers use. He screwed a bulb into the light fitting. ‘It’s an economy bulb,’ he said. ‘Eleven watts but gives fifty. Not too bad. Bright enough.’

  Petal looked at this poor sun. Calum’s bald head gleamed in the light. ‘This must be some kind of a mistake,’ she said. ‘I want to go home now and I promise I won’t say anything to anyone. Please just let me go.’

  ‘We both know you’d go to the police,’ he said.

  He passed her a bottle of mineral water, waited until she had taken a sip and then walked across the room and unlocked a door in the back wall. It led to a loo with a tiny sink. ‘En suite,’ he said.

  She lowered the bottle. ‘You’re fucking insane,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not very ladylike,’ he replied. ‘I’m not being rude to you. I could be rude, but I’m not being rude. So I expect the same standards of behaviour from you.’

  She screamed.

  ‘I told you to be quiet,’ he said, taking a step towards her. The lamp on his head was a huge eye. She pushed herself to the back of the bed. He looked down at her, then went out and locked the door.

  She hopped over to the bathroom and used the loo. There was no mirror. She splashed her face with water and wiped her hands dry on her dress. The plaster on the walls was erupting in small craters. The air smelled damp and mouldy. Her stomach rumbled. She walked over to the door to the room and pressed her ear against it. There wasn’t a sound. ‘I need something to eat,’ she shouted, through the door. She heard his footsteps coming down some stairs.

  ‘I said no shouting. If you’re quiet, I’ll bring you something. Are you going to be good?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said through the wood. It was a whisper.

  He returned with a freezer tray of food. ‘Sweet potato casserole with aduki beans and silken tofu,’ he said. ‘Mood enhancing.’ There was a disposable wooden fork riding on the vegetables.

  She didn’t reply. Accepting it made her shudder, as if this could become a new way of being.

  ‘It will be alright, Petal,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘You are hurting me,’ she said.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m your friend. I’m looking after you until you get better.’

  23

  Archie was sitting at the table in Petal’s studio at the Greenford Hospital, but the room was empty. He watched the grey clouds drifting across the sky, watched the tree branches waving backwards and forwards, and seagulls gliding east on the wind, or flapping against it before tumbling back in a short collapse of wings. After an hour, he stood up and stretched. Dr Clark stopped at the door. ‘I think you should just go home, Archie. She’s not in. Must have called in sick or something.’

  Joy paused at the door. ‘Where’s Petal?’ she asked.

  ‘Missing,’ said Archie, and stood up to go. Joy sat down at one of the art tables and squeezed washing-up liquid onto her felting tray. ‘I’m forever blowing bubbles,’ she sang. ‘That’s your song, Archie.’ Her voice echoed along the empty corridor behind him.

  Outside the sugar cube, a three-year-old child was cycling its tricycle on the road towards the exit. A car was passing on the other side and the child’s mother was strolling fifty yards away. ‘Come onto the pavement,’ he said. ‘It’s safer.’

  The child stopped and stared.

  ‘Come onto the pavement,’ he repeated, ‘and wait for mummy.’

  The child still stared. The mother came level with him, pulled the child’s bike onto the pavement by the handlebars and passed without eye contact. He followed them towards the exit and chose a different road from them to walk back to the Meadows. He hit the main path through the trees and walked, surrounded by students and tourists, who shuffled and stopped to take photos in a stop–start rhythm that left him no clear line of sight. His heart was beating faster. It was the
marketplace crowd that hid death. He veered away towards the street overlooking the park, escaping over tree roots on a well-worn shortcut. He jumped a patch of disturbed earth out of habit in case there was an IED, and stopped. He was near Petal’s flat. He walked forward along the pavement, looking at the doors. Petal’s door was red with a thick rope carved in stone above it. He walked up the path and rang the bell. There was no reply. He tried the door handle. It didn’t budge. The elves still climbed their sunflowers and autumn leaves had gathered in the dark well of the pots. One of the tiny figures and fallen off and he picked it up and put it in his pocket – a talisman, a souvenir. He rang again. Still no reply.

  * * *

  Mike was sleeping in front of the television when he got back. There was a faint shadow of bruises on the side of his neck, the imprint of fingers that had held him too tight. Archie threw a blanket over him and then sat down. The reporter believed that American Special Forces had grabbed the leader of Al-Shabaab in Somalia. ‘Some voices have objected to the use of drones on past operations,’ said the newsreader. Another guy had been bundled into a car in Tripoli. Since Iraq, the war on terror had become a high-tech game of snatch with high-value targets. Now there were no more decks of most-wanted cards, dusty with sand and gum, in the hands of American troops hunting Saddam Hussein. The Ace of Spades had died at the end of a rope, and dodgy dossiers sat photocopied in exhibitions on propaganda in the British Library. Archie wondered when the world had become a tower of Jenga bricks, piled high; wondered when a hand might slide a piece out, with a sideways smile at his companions, and bring the whole game tumbling down. The weather forecast woman was talking about warm and cold fronts, waving a manicured hand at blue air sinking over the United Kingdom – average for the time of year, but feeling colder in the wind. He switched it off. He walked into the kitchen and opened a tin of rice pudding from Mike’s latest food-bank carrier bag, and, after a few mouthfuls, lay down on his bed. It was time to update his website, but he did nothing. He thought of the Jews walking across Sinai to the Promised Land, the parting of the Red Sea. He thought of the women running on the Meadows. He thought of himself alone in the wilderness of his mind and wondered where God was. Where were his miracles? Where was his great hand? His rage? His justice? It was a planet of curiously shaped beings with jointed limbs, a place of confusion. It was a Christmas bauble planet in a pound store universe. His Bible-dipping was getting him down – the half-glimpsed passion of the prophets, the words of Christ highlighted in red ink, skim-read. Where was this new world?

  He pulled a leaflet Petal had given him from under his pillow. It advertised a charity cook-out next weekend on Leith Links for five thousand people, organised by the churches running the food banks. They wanted volunteers to cook and prepare vegetables from Edinburgh’s community gardens to publicise their work. Some politician had said going to a food bank was a life choice. Mike had said it had kept him alive. Archie tried to imagine himself at the cook-out as a volunteer; he pictured the trestle tables, the buckets of muddy carrots and potatoes, and the knives laid in rows ready for use. Could he trust himself with them? Pick up one of the deadly blades, and not run his thumb along the edge with practised habit, slash the throat before him in rehearsal of the move that could save his life in that other world he knew where it was reflexive, expected, praised. It was all about context. It was all about control. He could picture the headline: ‘Vegetables Fly as Crazed War Vet Runs Amok at Church Barbeque’. He couldn’t risk it. Another quiet weekend then.

  24

  As usual, Brenda was curt with him when he met her on Monday for their session. She had on a new navy top and knee-length, skin-tight bottoms. ‘Your website’s flat,’ she said. ‘In fact it’s flat-lining. If you’re not going to update it daily, why have it? You’d be better to tweet. I’m sure you could get your message into one hundred and forty characters. In fact, I think Jack Dorsey was being generous with the word limit in your case.’

  He nodded without answering and set off running with a measured stride. He could hear Brenda’s footsteps behind him and she drew level, matching his pace.

  ‘If you’re not going to chat, you might be pleased to hear I did lose a kilo,’ she said. ‘As you would know if you had bothered to log on last night.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘Let’s check your BMI today and create an eating plan. Organic and Mediterranean are the watch words.’

  ‘I need more feedback,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll get it,’ he replied. ‘Honestly.’

  It was as they stopped to cross the cycle path that he saw the picture of Petal taped to the lamppost. It was in a plastic stationery pocket. ‘Missing,’ it said.

  ‘You’d think she was a cat,’ said Brenda, jogging on the spot.

  ‘Arabella Dexter, also known as Petal, failed to turn up for work. Family and friends are concerned for her safety. Please contact police on 101, or call Joy on the mobile number below if you have any information.’ There was a picture of Petal at a party, smiling over a raised glass. ‘I know her,’ Archie said. ‘She was at my last class.’

  ‘So how can she be missing today?’ asked Brenda.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Archie, looking towards Petal’s flat as if he might spot her at a window.

  ‘Shall we finish the run? This is on my time, after all,’ said Brenda, checking her watch. ‘Big meeting today,’ she said over her shoulder, running on. ‘They’re actually going to discuss getting more women onto the board – and ethnic minorities – maybe someone working-class. Bit like the Conservatives’ ministerial reshuffle. Got to please the voters, not have too many moon-faced white men round the table; need a little crunch in the salad, some nuts in the crumble.’

  He laughed, pulled out of his thoughts about Petal. ‘You’re really working the food metaphor.’

  ‘Maybe I’m feeling hungry on your ridiculous diet,’ she said. ‘I mean, where am I meant to get reduced-sugar pomegranate syrup?’

  * * *

  That night, Archie’s feet took him to Petal’s flat. He was curious to see if she was home safely, the poster a premature alarm call. Women weren’t cats. They couldn’t disappear on sunlit days, could they? The lights were off and the curtains drawn as he paused on the street. He rang the bell. No answer. The lion’s head door-knocker smiled at him as he banged the brass ring clenched between its teeth. Still nothing. He tried the stair door next to Petal’s front door. It was locked. He buzzed the service bell. A voice mumbled, ‘Hello?’

  ‘I’m delivering leaflets,’ said Archie. ‘Could you let me in please?’ The door clicked open. Polished Victorian tiles bordered with acanthus leaves lined the walls. He walked past the bikes chained to the railings and down the back steps into the garden. It was brighter here after the dark street: kitchen lights were blazing. There was the sound of voices from open windows, steamy with the mist from boiling potatoes and damp washing hanging on pulleys. Petal’s flat was unfenced, although the ground-floor flats often claimed a private patch of the common back green. Her patio was full of geraniums in pots. The hens were clucking in their coop. He put a shovel of grit and grain through the bars into their dish. He paused and scanned the building. Her bathroom window had been left open at the top and he pushed it down and climbed in. The bathroom was papered with golden carp swimming in black water and weeds. Their silver eyes stared at him as he walked across the room to the hall. He could hear her neighbour moving about upstairs, the sound of a child’s tricycle on the floorboards, merry laughter, and a radio playing. ‘Petal,’ he whispered. There was no reply. He opened all the doors in the flat and peered in. Every room was empty. His whisper met silence. He arrived in the living room she had made so bright with her warmth. It was lit by the orange glow from the street lights outside. At her desk in the corner, he found her computer. She was logged on, her password remembered by the machine. Remember me. The box checked. How many people would re
member him, he wondered – ex-everything, and his memories X-rated, an impenetrable barrier between him and his previous life, patrolled by himself. The only way he could move forward was to retreat. Why was he standing here uninvited in the home of a woman he knew only as a therapist? He sat down at the desk.

  There was nothing in her emails that caught his attention. The first one read ‘Five Thousand Cook-out’, as if the loaves and fishes were a modern-day miracle that could be repeated, a hat-trick. The emails were peppered with smiley emoticons and ‘yeah!’ was typed over and over, by this cheer-leading campaigner, this good soul. Her name was signed off with loads of kisses and lots of love. He sat back. What he was looking for wasn’t here. In the bin at his feet he saw a copy of the local newspaper and a smiling lip shape drawn round some text in red felt pen – a personal column ad. He tore the page off and put it in his pocket. Then he shut down the computer and walked to the front door. It had been double-locked with a key. He turned back and slipped out the hall door into the communal stair.

  Granny and the killer mutt from the Meadows were standing there. She was holding a child by the hand. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Is Petal back? I never heard her this morning and her curtains are still shut.’

  ‘Eh, no,’ he replied. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he agreed, moving towards the door to the street.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘You’re the man who kicked poor Hector – you’re that Jesus nut from the park.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You must be thinking of someone else.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ she said. ‘I could report you for cruelty to animals. Hector was pretty sore, I can tell you. Bruised. I had to take him to the vet.’