by Tim Parks
Then she began to giggle again. Who with anyway? Mandy?
What?
You kissing in the woods.
Mandy? Vince was surprised. Actually, I got the feeling that Mandy had something going with Keith. Don’t they?
Oh that was yonks back, Louise objected. I remember Mum telling me. It’s been over at least two years. She’s been following you all over the place. She even got you to rescue her!
Oh come on. You don’t get yourself nearly killed just to have me bang into your boat.
Don’t underestimate a woman! Louise cried. The girl was full of confidence.
Vince thought about this. Mum came on a lot of these holidays, didn’t she? he asked. And you went with her on that one in France. Right. That Ardêche thing. How was she?
What do you mean?
Vince was conscious that this was their longest conversation for months, if not years. There was a different kind of intimacy in the air. As if between equals.
I don’t know. Adam was saying how Mum was never fazed. I wondered what he meant. He seems to have liked her a lot.
After a short silence, Louise sighed: Mum was like, the soul of the party. She was everywhere. On the Ardêche she organised this really nutty midnight descent of the river with candles and everything and we were supposed to be Indians. We wore headbands and feathers. But that was open canoes, she added. The water was easy.
I’m afraid, Vince said, that I don’t find Mandy very attractive.
For some reason the two of them began to laugh. His daughter turned towards him and reached out. You’re so predictable, Dad! Then she said, You’re hand’s bleeding. Just a scratch, he said. He drew back. Against a tree on that path by the rapids. And he went on: You like living at Uncle Jasper’s, don’t you?
It’s okay, the girl said.
He didn’t pursue it.
And you really don’t mind not going on the big trip tomorrow?
Dad, I asked not to go. I get scared when it’s too wild.
This surprised him. You seem so sure of yourself. Don’t you want the challenge?
No. She was frank. She laughed. I don’t need challenges like that. I don’t want cuts and bruises. Mark’s wetting himself. He doesn’t really want to go either, except to show his dad. Then she added: You’ll enjoy it though.
If I don’t kill myself, Vince said.
In a few moments the girl was asleep. Vince couldn’t. He lay on his back, trying not to wake her by moving too much. How quickly he had swung from near panic to an easy chat about difficult things. He couldn’t remember a moment when he had felt less in control of his life, more subject to the flow of volatile emotions. Now there was just tomorrow’s river run, then Sunday the drive home, and Monday he would be back in the bank: the busy bright foyer, the lift, the fourth floor, the coffee machine, fluorescent lighting, e—mails, meetings, phone—calls. Before the week was out, they would begin final preparation of the balance sheets. He would be anchored again, not by the breathing of someone beside him in the dark of the tent, but by the exhausting routine. The world would close in. August was the moment to finalise the foreign accounts. There would be pressure to present things other than as they were. And even if you don’t, he heard his daughter’s laugh, everybody imagines you do. Cheat. But actually Vince didn’t. He never has. I never fudged a single figure. My career, he knew, has been based more on absolute probity and solid common sense than any genius. You’ll never get rich, Gloria would tease. He can hear her voice. But we are rich compared with most others, he told her. She said she loved him for this. There was a condescending note. Vincent Marshall, incapable of guile, she laughed. But we are rich, Gloria, he insisted. The top five per cent. Isn’t that enough? You don’t have to stay at the hospital, you know, he always told her, if you don’t want to.
Suddenly Vince was back in a particular weekend, in the rather empty comfort of their sitting room. Again, Gloria had been telling him he must take up a sport. They were speaking across the polished dinner table. It was stressful, she said— she’d just finished a week of nights in Intensive Care— to watch people dying all the time. That’s why she needed to do so many physical things. You don’t have to work, he told her. You could be a woman of leisure. Me? She had laughed. She put a hand on his: Come on, come down to the club tomorrow. Why don’t you? You’ll feel better if you get your blood moving. How can they? she asked a little later when there was some documentary on aid workers in the Third World. The television showed a boy picking maggots from his scalp. They were sitting together on the sofa, but without touching. About half our bad loans are to Third World countries, Vince remembered now. He lay in the tent listening to his daughter’s breathing. How pleased with herself the girl was, to have kissed one boy while texting another. She felt alive. Then at last a real question presented itself: When was the last time Gloria and I made love together?
Vince sat up, slipped out of his sleeping bag, unzipped the tent, set off for the bathroom. I’m better integrated with the photo—electric cells of the toilet—flushing system than I was with my wife. Coming back he could see the light in their chalet was on. There are eight chalets arranged either side of a central track. Vince stopped. A blind had been pulled down but there were chinks shining through. Theirs was the last in the near row. What had happened this evening, he wondered, with Michela? With Tom? It was strange.
He checked his watch, turned left into the track between the chalets, skirted round the last building at the end. The window on the far side showed chinks of light too. None of your business, Dad, Louise said. What is my business? Vince asked. I was away week in week out doing my business, in London, then home Saturday and Sunday and Gloria obsessed by the idea I must be stressed, I must take up a sport. What was it all about? Cautiously, Vince took a step or two beyond the track towards the chalet. I am a widower with a job that makes me co—responsible, with others, for the management of billions of pounds. Gloria betrayed me, Vince decided. My daughter hardly recognises my authority. I can’t tell her anything about smoking or sex. Continents away, people die like flies, as a result of our carelessness, perhaps. Or our prudent decisions, our need to balance books. It’s none of your business. Vince stood in the dark on the edge of the campsite. I’m just a man, he suddenly thought. For some reason the words were reassuring.
In the safety of the shadow on the further side of the chalet he approached the window. The room is empty, he saw. Where are they? He frowned, then something moved and he realised there was a figure on the floor. Stretched out on a blue sleeping bag, wearing a pair of glasses hung round his neck on a string, Clive was studying a stack of papers in a folder. Invoices perhaps. Why wasn’t he on the bed? Vince watched. Clive was underlining things, circling figures. He turned back and forth among the papers, handsome forehead frowning. It was odd.
Then the bearded face looked up, alert. The sound of footsteps set Vince’s heart racing. He crouched low. Someone is coming along the track, walking quickly. The door squeaked. He didn’t dare stand up yet. A pervert, Louise protested. An anorak type. Yet Vince felt sure it was his business. He heard their voices, low, flat, couldn’t make out their words. He listened. They weren’t arguing, but there was no warmth either. It is my business. For years I paid no attention. I let things slide. I was an excellent bank director. He waited a little longer then stood. Clive had rolled on his stomach, head sideways on a pillow of folded clothes. For just a second Michela crossed Vince’s line of vision. She is naked. Her hand stretched out and the light was gone. He saw a pale blur re—cross the cabin and stretch out on the bed.
I thought they were lovers, Vince repeated to himself as he hurried back to the tent. You are a fool! You understand nothing. Gloria never walked around naked. She always put on her nightdress before removing bra and pants. I paid no attention to her. She was never fazed. Perhaps Adam honestly only meant: by river trips. She wasn’t fazed by rapids and pour—overs. I saw the girl’s sex, he thought. Perhaps Gloria honestly only m
eant, she needed her sports if she was to watch people dying every day, if she was to look after the invalid wives of canoe—club friends. Why had she stopped the Saturday outings, then, as soon as he started?
Poor Gloria! Stretching out beside his daughter again, Vince prepared himself for a night of insomnia. His muscles are aching after all these days on the water. This churn of thought, he sensed, the evening’s sounds and images, they wouldn’t release him. Suddenly to know you are dying like that! he remembered, to feel your body changing, you’re head filling with blood. She had rushed to the phone. She had apologised. I’m so, so sorry, Vince. He listened to the words again and again. The minutes passed. Perhaps she had only meant: I’m sorry I’m dying. He let the thoughts flow on. Let them flow. I won’t fight them. She hadn’t meant that. I don’t feel unhappy, he decided. He had seen the girl’s lithe body, her dark sex. It’s strange. He didn’t feel depressed or guilty at all.
LIKE GODS
I know this will sound a bit weirdy—beardy, Clive said, but I want you all to close your eyes for a minute, okay? Close them Phil. Moment’s sheer silence. You’re all kitted up, right, you’re in your boats, nice and tight, okay? You’ve got your hands on your paddles. Good. Now, take three or four long slow breaths, in and out. No, really slow. Fill your lungs and empty them. Mark? Slowly. And again. Okay. And while you’re doing that, I want you to remember the last time you did something really cool in your kayak, something you’re really proud of. Maybe it was the perfect tail squirt. Okay? You went vertical without capsizing. Or maybe you were surfing a busy wave, right on the crest, or you rolled up perfectly in a stopper. Some moment when you and the water seemed to go together like old friends. You were helping each other. The paddle was like a wand. Remember? Picture it. Keep breathing deeply, eyes closed, and picture that moment. Got it? The sheer magic, the well—being, you and the water. It was great. Right, now, on the count of three, I want everyone to say out loud, no, I want you to shout out loud: TODAY I’M GOING TO PADDLE LIKE A GOD! Okay? Then we’ll open our eyes and we’re away. Ready? But I want you to really belt it out, okay? Psyche yourselves up. Even Adam who hates this mystical stuff, he’s going to say it. Right Adam? Okay, on the count of three. One Two Three …
They were lined up on the bank. It had begun to rain, hard. The high plateau was flat here and the river seemed tame enough. I’m going to paddle like a god! they shouted. And again! Go for it! I’m going to paddle like a god! Great, now, everybody launch and eddy out river—right below the bend. Did I hear, like a clod? Max asked. Like a sod! Brian giggled. Your buoyancy aid’s not buckled, Adam muttered to his son. Buckle it.
Michela didn’t shout with the others. She hadn’t eaten breakfast. Enjoy yourself, Keith had told Vince by the kitchen tent. Remember, the leader said, the key to survival is to be totally alert and totally relaxed at the same time. The Louts were cooking bacon sandwiches. The Slobs prepared the packed lunches. Food in the boat today, guys! And never fight the water, the leader confided. Which is funny, I know, coming from a guy with his arm in a sling. But the moment you’re fighting it, you can guarantee you’ve lost.
Eat for energy everybody! Mandy shouted. The bacon smell was overpowering. Vince ate, but then felt sick. Shut that hamster up! Adam yelled. The tall chinless man went round with a cardboard box full of wine gums and jelly babies. Instant glucose, he promised. At least six packets in every boat. Believe me, you really don’t have to worry, the hamster sang. Mandy came to eat her bacon next to Vince, but now he had to get up for the first of his pre—trip craps. You’re going to have a great day, she told him. When they left, Tom still hadn’t appeared from his tent.
The minibus led the way pulling the trailer, while Vince drove behind in his car to run the shuttle. Entering the gorge, Adam asked Clive if there weren’t any places they should get out and scout on the way up, what with all the rain there’d been. The decision to include his son seemed to have settled the quarrel between the two men. They were both intent on the job. Can’t from the road, Clive said. We have to scout as we paddle down. Practise for the four—stars.
In fact, almost immediately above Sand in Taufers the road left the river to climb and wind spectacularly over the valley. Jesus, Mark whispered. Clive drove surprisingly fast beside drops of hundreds of feet. Jesus Christ! It was a landscape both massive and crumbling. From the seat behind, Brian plunged his hand down Amelia’s T—shirt to grab Wally. Not funny, she said. The boy couldn’t get the string over her head. You’re hurting! It had tangled in her hair. Her eyes were red. The minibus attacked another hairpin. Belts everybody! Adam shouted. Brian!
I hope I can keep my breakfast down, Vince was saying in the car behind. To his pleased surprise, just as the two vehicles were setting off, Michela had climbed out of the minibus and come over to his car. In case you get lost, she explained. Now she smiled, but without opening her eyes. She had her head back on the headrest. The nerves will go as soon as you are on the water. After a pause, she added: When you speak someone else’s language, you are always repeating what someone else has said. Vince was eager to please, but couldn’t understand. Her eyes still shut, the girl seemed to be elsewhere. What’s repeating on me is the bacon, he said. In front, the minibus had dived down a steep track towards the river.
After the kayaks had been lifted off the trailer, and everybody had changed and put their dry clothes back in the bus, Vince and Clive had to run the shuttle: that is, to drive both vehicles back down to the get—out point, then return in the car, so that minibus and trailer would be waiting at the bottom when the group arrived, tired and perhaps cold, in the late afternoon. So forty minutes later Vince would again be fighting his nausea as he drove up the steep road a second time, now with Clive beside him. The rain had begun to fall. Large sections of the landscape grew grey and insubstantial.
Any demonstrations planned? Vince asked. Talk of the river would only make him more nervous. There was the international heads of government summit on global warming in Berlin next week, Clive said. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard. And you’re going? Sure. With Michela? A bunch of people they knew, Clive explained, would be there to picket. We’re in touch through the net all the time. The cheap flights make it easier.
Then Vince said that, leaving aside the clash with Adam, he admired Clive for his commitment. Why do I keep telling them this? he wondered. He was thinking of the man lying on the wooden floor of the chalet with his reading glasses and stacks of photocopies while the pretty young woman stretched naked on the bed. He wanted to understand. So often, he started to say, people can see that a cause is right, you know, but it seems impossible actually to do anything about it. They were stuck now behind a tractor pulling a trailer loaded with logs. Like, up on the glacier, you were saying how all together we’ve managed to destroy it, without even really trying, but individually we feel powerless to reverse the process, our lives are so set. Clive leaned forward and stared into the rain. He wore a peaked cap on his long, tawny hair. This is one hell of a river, he said quietly. Let’s enjoy it. About twenty minutes later Vince got into his boat, secured the spray—deck and shouted: Today I’m going to paddle like a god! He didn’t even notice the nerves had gone.
Four—star assessment! Clive shouted. Rescues. Time out, guys. They had run about two kilometres of hectic river. The plateau ended in a narrow race of water bouncing through stones, eroding its way into the gorge. Vince’s right shoulder ached from the wrench it had taken yesterday pulling Mandy’s boat off the rock. All in all, though, the old body was holding up surprisingly well. Gloria would be proud, he thought. He’d learned so much so quickly. Up front, Michela paddled mechanically in Clive’s wake. The boys darted all over the place, crashing over rocks into stoppers. Wild, but manageable, Adam remarked, banging into Brian’s boat when they eddied out. We need volunteers, Clive said. Three swimmers to be rescued by our three four—star candidates. All you have to do is jump into the stream from the bank. Nothing dangerous here. The rescu
ers will throw you a line from the bank and haul you in. Important technique, kids, because we’ll probably need to do it in anger at least once today when things get trickier.
I’m on. Adam volunteered. He obviously enjoyed this registration of measurable achievement, the business of stars and certificates. Mark? he asked. Cold, the boy muttered. He was slouched in his boat. I’ll do it, Vince said. He beached and pulled his deck. Michela seemed hardly to notice what was going on. She didn’t offer to help. Amelia announced: Since I feel suicidal anyway, I may as bloody well. She climbed out of her boat. Clive picked up the sour catch in her voice. What’s the matter? The girl exploded: Don’t ask me what the fucking matter is, ask her! Without actually turning, she gestured in Michela’s direction. The young woman was arching right back in her cockpit so that her helmet rested on the deck behind her. The rain fell on her smooth cheeks and closed eyes, the boat turned slowly in the eddy.
Ask your friend! Amelia repeated. Then she said brutally: Are you bloody blind or what? The girl was on the brink of tears. Michela appeared not to have heard. Phil was watching with a twisted grin. Vince wondered if Clive had understood. He seemed puzzled. Come on, kids, he said determinedly, sheer concentration now. Where do you want me to jump from? Adam asked. Hobbling along the bank downstream, Brian called: I’ll rescue you, Melly. Count on me. Under a blue helmet, the boy’s round freckled face and chapped lips made him seem no more than ten years old. Don’t call me that, she snapped.
They jumped from the spur above the eddy. The rescuers had a good fifty yards to save them before anything serious could happen. It was a question of tossing a nylon throw—bag stuffed with rope, while holding the loose end of the line. Always throw just behind and beyond the swimmer, Clive explained. The rope floats faster than a body and naturally swings round to the bank you’re on.
