6: Forbes

There is a certain amount of comfort to be drawn from the statement "I was only following orders."

Not as much as you might imagine. Not as much as you might hope. But some.

So it seemed, at least, to Forbes. Forbes was always following orders.

His duties were wide-ranging and complicated, and most of them were unimpeachable. He drove people from one place to another. Laid their tables, ironed their clothes. Ran errands, smoothed their paths, managed their lives. Who could fault him for that? He had a job, provided a service, and was rewarded for it. All he ever did was to help people do what they wanted, what they needed. All he ever did was help.

Most of his duties were unimpeachable, but not quite all. Every now and then he was called upon to do something that was...

Was...

Take the girl. Karen? Something like that. She'd come to the city for the wrong reasons and the lady didn't take her in. She wasn't right, not right in the head. The lady felt sorry for her, but giving her charge of the children was completely out of the question. "Let her down gently," she'd said. "Send her on her way."

Forbes knew Karen had nowhere to go, and knew she didn't understand that having nowhere to go was a problem. The girl was a born victim, exposed on a hillside surrounded by slavering wolves. She was crying out to be saved, but no-one told Forbes to save her, so he didn't. He let her down gently. He sent her on her way.

He left the lady's service soon after.

Years later, when he was ferrying Miranda to one of her illicit assignations, Forbes thought he saw Karen wandering one of the uprooted streets around King's Cross station. It was only a brief glimpse, he could easily have been mistaken, but in his heart he believed it was her. He believed she was there, homeless and bewildered and suffering, because of him.

He'd had his chance to be a decent human being. He'd had his chance to save someone who needed saving. His career, his whole life, was predicated on helping people, that was what he did, but when he'd had the opportunity to really help, he'd let it pass. He never forgave himself that.

Years later, when he was ferrying Miranda to one of her illicit assignations, recording the whole thing for Georgie's delectation, Forbes wondered whether his services to both of them were just as much of a failure as sending Karen on her way. He wondered whether both of them would have been better off without his interventions. He wondered, as Miranda fucked some anonymous rentboy on the back seat, what kind of monster he had become.

But, when it came down to it, he was only following orders.
Posted by matt at November 7, 2004 01:33 AM