41

Archie stretched out in his bed, held his arms up above his head and flexed his fingers. He was still young. He could come back from this. Rolling over onto his side, he picked up his phone and accessed the YouTube video of the Slim for Jesus Fan Club. Sooze had been busy while she waited for Louise. He was doing squat thrusts at Louise’s feet; they were wandering along a path under the trees like Pooh bear and Piglet; he was inexplicably running ahead of her; he was eating egg rolls and shouting ‘Hooah’ and ‘Hallelujah’. Granny and the killer mutt tutted from a nearby bench as Archie performed a star jump in the last frame. It zoomed in on his sunglasses and the screen went blank.

He laughed and was filled with a new optimism. Dr Clark had said he could make a call to his wife in the presence of a member of staff. The call had been arranged for 16.00 hours, so as not to coincide with Daniel’s tea-time and bath. Perhaps he could rebuild the bridge between them, cross its dizzying fall to his home, however ruined, and rebuild the walls of his castle, brick himself back into his place of safety. Hannah knew the truth and would forgive him. They had both survived unimaginable stress. They had that in common: a bond of knowledge not commonly shared, in the anticipation of parenthood or battle. Aftermath. He knew now what the knowing had been, written on the faces of teenagers in the trenches of France – grainy films on hand-wound cameras – the Boy’s Own adventure of war. It was the same stillness visible on the face of the birth-mother: the knowledge of the abyss, narrowly missed, but there for another day, and every other day, for someone to fall into. They had leapt the smooth, mossy walls, the drop, the stream gurgling over rocks at the bottom, its unimaginable depth. Urban runners. Free-runners.

Archie wandered along the corridor to find the nurse. The pink and silver lino lay flat under his feet, didn’t leap up to torture him. He paused and looked down at it. It was dull, ordinary. He was coming home. He had reached his Cyprus, his staging post, and was waiting for the flight to Brize Norton. He heard the patter of small feet on lino and looked up. A woman was walking along the corridor with a small boy holding onto her hand. He waved. She smiled and pushed open the door of the women’s ward. It wasn’t Hannah. He found the nurses’ station and sat down. The nurse took his phone from his hand, scrolled down to his home number and passed the phone back. ‘Put it on speaker phone,’ he said, ‘so we all know where we stand.’

Archie nodded. The ring tone was a pulse in his head. He counted the rings. It would be eight until the answer phone kicked in. He swallowed. It was a long time since he had made a call to his old world. There was a hiss of static on the line. ‘Please leave a message after the tone.’

Archie was silent. He held out the phone to the nurse who shook his head. ‘Archie, you speak,’ he instructed.

Archie hung up and sat looking at the screen.

‘It happens all the time,’ said the nurse. ‘We’ll try again later, okay?’

‘She doesn’t want to speak to me,’ said Archie.

‘You don’t know that,’ said the nurse.

‘Want a bet?’ asked Archie as he tried to smile.