by Tim Parks
She was shaking her head slowly. He waited. You don’t want him to come back, she said, do you?
Vince hesitated.
Tell the truth! She was trying to laugh, but her voice faltered. Give an honest account.
I’ve been worried he might not, Vince admitted now. Actually, well, I contacted a possible alternative guide, you know. Just in case. So you wouldn’t be in trouble with this group that’s coming, I mean contractually, if he doesn’t turn up.
You did what?
Vince feels ridiculous. He explained his conversation with the people at the rafting centre.
But why should you care? It’s nothing to do with you.
I … it seemed a way to help. Vince began to search in his wallet for the card he had been given. Shuffling through three or four, he heard her say:
So, you think Clive blew himself up.
Vince shut his wallet. He looked up. Her face wore a strange expression of triumph, pained and exulting. He shook his head. He didn’t know what to say.
If he doesn’t come back, you want to stay and have sex with me, right?
God! Vince was appalled. No. For heaven’s sake, Michela!
Why else say you’re staying till he comes back when you don’t think he is coming back. I don’t mind if you want to have sex with me. Most men do.
It’s not what I want, and certainly not something I’ve been planning.
Don’t be so upset! She leaned forward across the small table and put her hand gently on his. Vince can see the tops of her breasts. There’s a sort of … she smiled, but slyly. Yearning is the word, isn’t it. There’s a yearning in you.
Vince said firmly. I’m sure Clive wasn’t one of the people who blew themselves up. He’s not that crazy. And I assure you that I’m not trying to get into your bed.
She withdrew her hand abruptly. Let’s get the bill and go. She stood up, pulled the dress down a little on her thighs. But climbing into the front of his car, she asked, When was the last time you made love?
I beg your pardon.
Come on, Mr Proper, don’t pretend you didn’t understand.
But why do you ask me a question like that? She has him riled now.
Why not? I just wonder if you’re, er, giving the best possible representation of all your various transactions. Laying it on, she said: I’m concerned for you of course. It was crazy of you to stay here when you should be back in London accounting for all that money. Oh, and by the way, I don’t think those men who blew themselves up were crazy at all.
Despite his age, Vince has no experience of conversations like this. Perhaps this is why he can’t leave be. Michela has a strange glow on her face.
Let’s talk about Clive, Vince says. You didn’t seriously imagine I thought he might be one of the three. Watching the road as they began to drive, Michela told him:The last time Clive and I made love was four days before your group arrived, and one day before two people were killed in a demonstration in Milan. I don’t know if you heard. The police charged some demonstrators and two protestors fell under the wheels of a tram. We were right close by. That night Clive was mad. He smoked a lot of dope. Then the day you arrived, that night, he told me that we weren’t going to make love anymore. He was obsessed that he should be doing more about everything that was wrong.
Maybe, Vince said, negotiating the unsurfaced road, to go back, that is, to what we were saying before— maybe the real risk, for Clive, would have been to settle down with you.
Don’t be sentimental, she snapped.
Vince was remembering Clive’s peculiar charisma. It had to do with a sort of sovereign aloneness. He turned the car onto the main road through Sand in Taufers. After a moment’s silence, Michela picked up: Anyway, I told him, if he really couldn’t live because of how things are in the world, he should do something important, not just go chucking himself down dangerous rivers. Again an odd ring to her voice made Vince glance sideways. Michela was sitting on her hands, back straight, lips pressed tightly together. He wondered then if she had bought her new dress and sunglasses before or after hearing that news from Germany. Seat—belt, he said. You haven’t done up your seat—belt.
They spent the afternoon checking out the equipment. Michela changed into some old denim shorts. Vince pulled all the boats off the trailer and Michela got into them and checked what size of person they were padded out for, more or less, and put a sticker on the boat— small, medium, large. There were twenty people in this group, she said. From Birmingham. I hope I can understand their accents. But at least five would have their own kayaks. There was no one under seventeen. It should be a question of removing padding rather than adding, she said. Towards four, the first thunder rumbled far away up the valley. Clive will have to drive in the rain, she said. It would take him an hour from Bolzano.
They had all the boats out on the baked ground between the chalet and the pitches and Vince moved quickly to stack all of them on the trailer again and cover the top with a sheet of heavy plastic. Shit, we’re two paddles down, Michela discovered then. The one Phil had broken. The one she had lost. If necessary somebody could use the splits, but that still left one short. I’ll go to ask at the rafting centre, Vince offered. They’ll have paddles. The first big raindrops were falling. A wind rose. All around people were hurrying to zip up their tents and tighten the guys. Stay here, she said. We can ask tomorrow. If necessary there’s a place in Brixen we can buy from.
They hurried to the chalet. The rain began to fall in slapping waves. The wind gusted violently. Hang on, Michela said. Let’s freshen up. She stopped just outside the porch, on the steps, and let herself be soaked. Vince was already in. The doors and windows were banging. He turned and saw her shoulders shiver as the yellow T—shirt darkened. Then she came in, drenched, laughing. But the moment everything was shut, it was hot again. How tense we are, Vince realised. He had thought they were relaxing, sorting out the boats. Instead it seemed they were more on edge than before.
It was past five o’clock. Her T—shirt was clinging to her body. Vince looked away. Bending forward, Michela peeled the shirt off, towelled herself quickly, put on another. Then took off her shorts. Her pants are white. He couldn’t understand if she was doing this on purpose. She seems so natural, opening and closing a couple of cupboard doors. Where did you put my jeans? she asked. I can’t believe you sorted our stuff out like this. Second drawer from the top, he said, I think. You’re weird, she told him. He gazed determinedly out of the window where somebody was trying to ride a bicycle under an umbrella across a field of mud. There! She was dressed. Let’s be English and make tea.
The rain beat on the wooden roof. They sat quietly over their tea. There was too much at stake to say anything now. Outside, plastic bags, bits of polystyrene, a sheet of newspaper, are being chased about in the wind. Michela’s face is crossed by sudden spasms. Vince watches. A moment of misery is transformed into elation. She gets up and walks back and forth between sink and table. She throws herself on the bed. Oh shit! Suddenly Vince is aware she is smiling at him. A warm smile. Then she is gathering up an armful of clothes, kicking the wall. She wants it to have been Clive who killed himself, Vince thinks. And she is terrified he has done it for her. The news, the girl suddenly said. Where’s the radio. Damn! It was a couple of minutes past six.
She found an Italian station. Vince can’t understand. Her face is concentrated. She’s sitting on the bed, chin on hand. Then, with a grimace, she turns it off. So? Oh various groups have claimed responsibility. Police think they may have identified the one who spoke to them, matching the recordings they made of his voice. They didn’t say who though. Then she was furious. Can you believe they had some prick expert comparing them with the Islamic suicide bombers. I can’t believe it. They’re not terrorists. They didn’t hurt anyone else. Then not a single word about what the conference decided! Vince watched her. Nothing, most probably! The girl was full of pent—up energy. Their world is burning up and all they can do is criminalise the peop
le who care. She stretched forward and grabbed her ankles. For a moment her arms seemed to be straining to pull her legs towards her, while her knees thrust down against them. Ow! She sat up. In a hundred years from now, those men will be heroes, saints.
Vince’s phone was ringing. He saw from the display it was his colleague, Dyers. Vince? Listen, I won’t be in the office tomorrow when you get back. His wife’s father, the director said, had just passed away. He was going to Edinburgh for the funeral. I just wanted to tell you what you’ll find on your desk when you get back.
Vince listened and asked pertinent questions. At the same time his gaze met Michela’s. Their eyes held each other’s as they never did when they were talking. It was close in the room with the rain outside and the accumulated heat of the morning in the wood. Vince was sweating. I’ll give precedence to the stuff from V. A. then, he said. I presume we can rely on their assessment. As he spoke, her bright eyes were intent and enquiring. There was just a hint of a smile on her lips. Vince imagined her passing judgement on the work he did every day. She wants to see into my world and dismiss it. Is everything okay there now? Dyers was asking. Ready for the drive back? I should be leaving in a hour or so, Vince said. Michela raised a mocking eyebrow. When he closed the call she was still watching him. Should be? she asked. Then she said, Look, call the airport. We can find out what time he landed.
Vince gave her his phone and she called directory enquiries. The rain still clattered on the roof. He said it was a charter flight, Vince remembered. Michela spoke in Italian. Her voice seemed sharper, more nasal. They were sitting together now on the stools by the counter beneath the window. The earth outside was black and splashing with puddles. The trees screening the river were waving darkly, but above the peaks, to the right, Vince could see a break in the clouds. It is easing off. Michela suddenly smiled. Waiting to be connected, she ran a fingertip round the wound on his left hand. Then she saw the white mark on his ring finger. She looked at him, lips pursed, head cocked.
Pronto? Si. Volevo sapere … Vince didn’t understand. The conversation went on longer than seemed necessary. Apparently Michela was objecting, insisting. He understood the words Germania, Berlino, Dusseldorf. She closed the call. There is no charter flight, she said. She shook her head. It’s a small airport. There was a flight from Vienna this morning, Frankfurt early afternoon, Dusseldorf at seven. But it seems crazy to go from Berlin to Bolzano via Dusseldorf.
She stood and paced the room. He was bullshitting you. Oh fuck! She flung open the door. The cool air rushed in with a sprinkle of rain. Fuck and shit! Don’t say anything, Vince warned himself. He was trying to understand. Perhaps the flight was cancelled, he eventually said. What reason would he have had to lie to me? Charters often get cancelled. Perhaps he’s called the campsite, to leave a message. At once, Michela was pulling on her sandals. She hurried off. Vince stood at the door watching. It was pushing seven now. A beam of sunshine lay horizontally across the glacier high over the village. I am afraid even of thinking of the next few hours, he realised.
Nothing. Michela came back. But she seemed pleased. She was smiling. We’ll just have to be patient. Why don’t we take a look at his laptop, Vince said. Perhaps there’ll be some letter or something. The girl was wary. Clearly she is nervous that they will indeed find something. But as Vince expected, the screen demands a password. Any ideas? As he asks, he taps in, ‘Michela’. Error! Incorrect password. Then ‘No global’. And ‘No—Global’. Error! He tried zeros instead of ‘o’s. Stopper, she said. He likes those river words. Eddy—out. Vince typed in one after another. She was standing at his shoulder watching. Error!
I give up, she suddenly said. What do I know about Clive in the end? Nothing. Vince kept typing. I mean, I know him, but I don’t know anything about him. He never said much about his family, old girlfriends, anything. Vince stared at the small luminous rectangle. Come on, he said. Try, think. But how can you ever know the word another person will choose? After all, Vince had never found the password Gloria used for her e—mail. Kyoto, Michela said. Destiny, Vince tried. No doubt there would have been some way of accessing the program, with expert help, but he hadn’t bothered. He had packed her computer away and forgotten about it.
Rabiaux, Michela said. That’s the name of this mad wave he loved to play on in France. They do rodeo competitions there. R—a—b—i—a—u—x. It’s on the Durance. Error! Incorrect password. Rebel then. The girl began to laugh. She is relieved when the error sign comes up. Paddle. Puddle. Ferry—glide. Break—in. Break—out. The sheer fact. She was giggling. He always says that. The sheer fact is … It drives me crazy. Free—style. Rodeo. Vince gave up. She had put a hand on his shoulder. He turned to look at her. Maybe we might go out and grab a pizza, he said. He’ll already be here when we get back and I can set out on a full stomach.
They sat in the same pizzeria with the ancient keyboard player and the clutter of kitsch. Vince explained that they had come here after that last trip, when she was in hospital. I booked the bloody place, she told him. And for next week too. They should kiss my feet the business I’m giving them. Then she asked: I hope everybody was properly concerned about me, by the way.
Waiting for their order, Vince ran through people’s attitudes, mimicking. He isn’t a very good mimic. But suddenly they were laughing together. It’s as if we were happy, he thought. Amelia and Tom, he remembered, were both being terribly solemn and self—important, as if they were involved. He described the conversation with Tom. Michela did her characteristic head—shake. I should never have bothered them like that, poor things. At last the girl seemed completely relaxed. I thought she was a happy person! Vince did Amal’s high—pitched voice. I really liked Amal, Michela said. She frowned. You don’t think he was castrated or anything? Sorry, not funny.
The keyboard guy, Vince resumed— isn’t he fantastic, by the way?— was playing ‘El Condor Pasa’. You know? I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail. Gloria used to like Paul Simon, he said. My wife. Tell me about her, Michela asked. Having cut up her pizza into slices, she folded each one in long fingers, eating elegantly, with appetite.
Vince talked. He feels strangely at ease, speaking without pain or embarrassment about his wife, about the music she listened to, the sports she did, her rather brusque, efficient ways. We will drive back to the chalet now, he thought, and Clive will be there. I will shake hands with him, say a word or two about the prices they should be asking for their courses, then set off for England, the City. My desk is piled with papers. For a moment it crossed his mind to worry whether his passport was still in the glove compartment.
And your ring, she asked. She still had food in her mouth. Smiling an apology, touching her lips with a napkin, she looked very young, fresh, at ease. Vince explained how he had dropped it into the rapid. The moment seemed far away. It’s the strangest thing I ever did in my life. She is attentive again, reflective. Perhaps you should do more things like that, Mr Banker.
Don’t call me that, Vince said.
Their eyes met.
But you are, she said. I’ll give precedence to the stuff from what’s—its—name, she mimicked his phone voice.
If I was just a banker, I would have gone back a week ago.
That’s true. Looking away, she said: I’m glad you didn’t.
The chalet was as they had left it. Clive isn’t back. Again the young woman was on edge. They spread a bin—bag on the damp steps outside the door and sat there together as darkness fell. The evening was fresh and mild. There was still thunder somewhere far away. Lights high up on the mountainside seemed nearer in the clear air, as if the night were blacker and softer than usual. After a while she slipped a hand under his arm. At what point will you decide to go anyway? Vince sighed. Good question. He felt anxious. Then he said: Help me put up my tent somewhere. I’ll still be in time to leave in the morning. She didn’t move. It’s horrible putting up a tent in the wet. You can stay in the chalet. Vince isn’t happy with this. Michela, he sa
id firmly, I am not, repeat not trying … Clive slept on the floor, she said, in his sleeping bag. If you’ve got an inflatable mattress, you can use that.
Every time headlights turned into the campsite, there was a moment of tension and expectancy. But the cars never came this far. Towards midnight she asked: Assuming it was him, I mean, you know what I mean, do you think he would have done it to prove something to me. Am I responsible? Or would he have done it even if he had never met me?
What kind of answer is she after? There are a hundred and one reasons, Vince said, why a guy comes back late from a trip, or doesn’t come back at all for that matter. The car, he suddenly thought, their Jeep! The thing to do would be to find out where the Jeep was, whether it had been abandoned. Though even that wouldn’t actually prove anything. Out loud, he said: Whoever blew themselves up like that, it was their decision and no one else’s. He paused. Like it was your decision to go down the rapid the way you did. You can’t blame Clive for that. On the contrary, you put his life and mine at risk. That’s true, Michela said. Keith and Mandy, Vince went on, kept talking about a community experience, and it was, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t responsible for themselves, does it? This car, he thought, as headlights swept into the site, this will be the one. Here he is. The headlights were in fact coming their way. They were passing the bathrooms. He felt her hand tense under his arm. The lights stopped abruptly and went out two chalets away. She sighed. She is shaking her head. It’s so weird, not knowing if he’s alive or dead. And no one to phone. There’s no one I can ask.
When Vince went to the car for the inflatable mattress, she called, Vince! He already had it under his arm. You may as well sleep with me.
I told you— Vince began.
It’s not an invitation to have sex. She was giggling. It’s a big bed. Keep your clothes on if you like.
I’ll be waking you up. I always go to the loo a couple of times a night. He was pleased with himself for having admitted this.
