Rapids (8 page)

Vince gave the black wallet with the Waterworld kitty to Max and told the boys to carry out the boxes. Then he invited Amelia back into the shop and with his own money bought two more trays of beer and various goodies: marshmallows and skewers, in case they made a fire, and three bottles of sparkling wine. Since we’re the Pigs, let’s be pigs, he announced. He felt cheerful. You’re a tempter, Mr Marshall, Amelia laughed. Vince, he again insisted. Why couldn’t they use his name? You don’t call Keith Mr Whatever, do you? Bags I the front seat, Max rushed. Tom and Amelia were quiet in the back.

No! Mandy said. No drinking! No, no, no! Keith overruled her. The group leader seemed extravagantly, even brutally merry. Suck on that. He gave a can to Caroline, another to Amelia. Adam was evidently irritated. He gets like this, Mandy shook her head. Soon he’ll be flirting with the under—sixteens. It’s only beer, Keith insisted breezily. Drink, he told Mark. You’re not on the river now. A holiday’s a holiday. Even when it’s a community experience, Amelia chipped in. And if you want to be really English— Keith handed another can to Michela— you’ll have to get in training. You know the British government’s thinking of introducing an alcohol test for citizenship: ability to imbibe five pints a day, five days running. A working week, no less, Brian observed. Mark took his beer and sat on the ground beside Amal. The boy had barely spoken after his accident at the rapid. On the table in the kitchen tent, the hamster began to beat his drum. I think I love you. Oh no! the children groaned. Turn the beast off! I think I hate you, Phil laughed. Vince couldn’t help noticing the way he and Caroline leaned on each other as they sat.

At the meeting, after the casserole, Louise nominated her father for Wally and the vote was unanimous. Only an idiot could capsize in six inches of water. Public humiliation! Keith demanded. On his third beer, Vince was nervous and pleased. I am becoming part of the group, he thought. But what was the punishment to be? Something really degrading! Louise shrieked, can in hand. Gloria had never let her drink. Uncle Jasper’s family was even stricter. You decide, Mandy told Caroline. Vince had seen how carefully the older woman brought in everybody. There would be no faces missing from the website. The big girl grimaced and chewed, then looked to Amelia. There was an old complicity between the two. They burst out laughing. The Chicken Song! Both struggled to their feet, stood side by side in the tight circle of the tent, where the gas lamp was throwing shadows as the twilight faded. Caroline was almost a head taller than her friend, her thighs heavy, wrists and ankles thick, her manner timid, but when she began to dance there was a mad energy and unexpected elegance to her. Incongruous together, the two girls kicked their legs, flapped their arms. I’m a chubby chicken, ready for the chop, they’ll cut my pretty head off, stricken, plop, but still I run around and kick ‘em. Hop Hop! The girls pulled faces, lolled their heads, broke one one way and one the other, running round the group kicking at people.

Pathetic! Brian and Max shrilled. Naff!

I have to do that? Vince asked.

You’re getting off lightly, Mandy told him. She smiled indulgently. Everybody was looking.

With the actions or without?

He took his place in the centre of the circle. Michela is watching me, he saw, and my daughter. Vince danced, Vince who never danced. He was wearing corduroys and a thin sweater. I’m a chubby chicken, he sang. He heard his voice singing. He and Gloria had never danced. He tried to do it well. He was absurd. Gloria did every kind of sport, but didn’t dance. It was strange at fifty to be making yourself so ridiculous. I am director of all overseas accounts, he told himself. The kids were giggling. He tried to remember the words. Ready for the chop! The others were clapping and as he made to kick at them, they jumped to their feet and dashed out of the tent. Rise, Sir Wally, Keith said, dropping the creature over his head on a piece of string. Thou must take care of he who protects us. Pathetic! Phil shrieked.

And they went up to the camp bar. On a low stage a local band were playing music for karaoke. There were people of all ages and from all over Europe, Austrian bikers and ageing Dutch nature lovers. The tables were spread over a wide terrace. The kids disappeared, Amelia and Louise dragging Tom with them. It seemed there was an internet café up the road. Everybody has a life elsewhere, a message to send. We’ll need you to order the drinks, the girls protested. Tom turned a lingering glance to Michela, but the young woman never noticed. Mark was boasting to Louise about something he had done on a previous expedition, in an open canoe. He has started to talk again. Only Amal stayed with the adults. The boy seemed eager to agree with everything everyone said.

How the twit could get pinned in the world’s easiest rapid, I do not know, Adam repeated, taking his seat. Leave the kid be! Mandy cried. She ordered a round of large beers from the waiter. And no, I’m not being inconsistent, she turned on Keith. It’s fine when it’s us and not the kids whose mothers I’ve promised. The man brought half—litre glasses. Some middle—aged Germans were trying to sing ‘Maggie May’. Maggie I vish. Drink up, and stop fussing, the stout woman told Adam. My new cag is giving me a rash, Keith complained. Bottoms up.

The music grew louder. A group of Spanish children were playing hide—and—seek among the adults. Vince got the next round. It was years since he had had more than a couple of beers. A strange excitement was fizzing up. Unasked, he started to talk about the man he had seen on the river bank the other day, in the ramshackle hut. Every river has one, Keith said. People who’ve dropped out and they’re just drawn to the river. The river is life, Clive said rather solemnly, sheer life. Michela was beside him. Oh, they’re just alkies, Adam objected. He kept playing with his mobile, apparently sending and receiving text messages. It’s just easy for them to get driftwood and water by the river and you can crap off the bank. They leave a lot of rubbish around. Shouldn’t be allowed. He tapped on the keypad.

The bloke threw a bottle at me, Vince said.

There you are.

Clive began to speak about a man he had got to know by a river in the Canadian Rockies. This guy had lived there for years in brushwood shelters, hunting and selling pelts, sleeping in animal skins. After a rainfall he could tell you exactly when the river would rise and how much. To the inch. He even knew when a tree had fallen into the water upstream or a cow. The birds and fish behaved differently.

Oh I find that very hard to believe, Adam said.

Let’s karaoke, Keith interrupted. Come on. Let’s ask for some oldies. Be sentimental. But Mandy had launched into an intense attack on someone or something. It’s all either technical, she was complaining to Amal, like, we all have to do every stroke in the regulation BCU style; or commercial, you know, if we take an extra instructor, we won’t break even, or if you have an end—of—season party, you’ll lose money. I must have missed something, Vince thought. His eye had settled on Michela’s slim wrist as she poured some of her beer into Clive’s glass. They were sitting round a large white plastic table. Clive was drinking a lot. He had rolled himself a Golden Virginia. They will make love later, Vince told himself. He looked away. Adam was consulting his mobile again. The man doesn’t see, Mandy was explaining, that that’s not really what people are after. They don’t come to Waterworld for that. Or not
only
that.

Who are we talking about? Vince asked Keith. Amal was nodding in agreement. Ron Bridges, Keith told him. District Superintendent, Kent Sports and Recreation. The boss. He lowered his voice: Mandy applied for the job, but they wouldn’t give it to her.

And the thing is— the squat woman was almost shouting— I don’t know how or why, but we never finished a year in the red till he came along. Can you believe it? I remember Sylvia saying, Soon we’ll have lost as much as the film
Waterworld, remember?
Hollywood’s biggest flop. He’s been a bloody disaster! She slammed her beer down, wiped her mouth. People want to have fun, don’t they, and to feel their life is being given some sense— she was evidently repeating things she had said before— in a group together, you know? Out in nature. They want excitement and friends. You can’t persecute them just because they can’t do a reverse—sweep stroke exactly the way the British Bloody Canoeing Union prescribes.

Keith stretched his arms: Attaboy, Mandy!

You should have seen, she shrieked, the list of instructions he gave us for this trip. The length of that list! We wouldn’t have had any fun at all. We’d have spent the whole time practising low braces in the first eddy.

Adam again clicked his mobile shut. Still, you do have to teach the strokes right, and you do have to break even.

Of course you bloody do, of
course
— the woman leaned forward across the table. But that’s not
the point
of it all, is it? It’s not
why
we do it.

Adam began to object, but a beep indicated the arrival of another message. The missus? Keith asked, with an arching of bushy eyebrows. The mistress? Mandy echoed.

What sad minds! Adam shook his head. He began to tap out a response. Across the table, a dangerous expression of scorn had settled around Clive’s lips. He rubbed the knuckle of one thumb back and forth in his beard across his chin. There is no
one
way to do any stroke, he began very deliberately. It’s a question of
attitude
. Vince for example knows the strokes. You tell him what to do and he does it. But his attitude’s wrong.

Vince asked: How?

Clive half smiled. He bit the inside of his lip. Watch Amal, he said.

Me? The dark boy sipped his beer and looked at them over the glass. I don’t know anything.

No, tell me now, Vince said. Explain. Then I can work at it.

Keith chuckled: Clive’s right, watch Amal, then you tell us.

But I only started kayak last year, the boy protested in his oddly high—pitched voice.

Oh you’ve been on the water since as long as I can remember, Mandy said approvingly. You’re a natural.

I’ll watch him too, Michela told Vince. I’m constantly thinking I must be doing something wrong.

Again Adam snapped his phone shut. Your problem is— he began.

Don’t! Clive cut in. He’ll learn better watching Amal.

Since it’s my problem— Vince began.

Wally! Keith cried. Produce Wally or prepare to face total humiliation.

Present and correct, Vince pulled the little effigy from his pocket. He smiled. He liked Keith.

It’ll all sort itself out, the leader reassured him, in good time. It’s an intuitive thing.

But Adam wouldn’t leave be. This mysticism is silly, he said. It’s a way of giving yourself airs. Like stories of riverside alcoholics with uncanny powers of divination. Why don’t you tell him he sits too far back in the boat? There’s no great philosophical wisdom to kayaking. It’s the same with the anti—globalisation stuff, to be frank. People want to feel they have a good, semi—religious cause— save the planet, and so on— because then they’ve got an excuse for breaking things and causing trouble. They release a bit of energy and imagine they’re saints.

The chinless man said all this in a relaxed, even cheerful voice, as if it was hardly a criticism at all. At once Michela was frantic.

How can you say that? she demanded. Do you have any idea how many people are dying of hunger while their governments are forced to spend the money that could save them to pay back loans to Western banks?

Not the loans, Clive cut in. He was leaning forward on his chair, smoking intently. Not the bloody loans, the
interest
on the loans. The interest! It’s scandalous. I’d feel like a worm if I didn’t do something about it. I wouldn’t feel human. I’d die of shame if I didn’t get involved. You don’t have to go
looking
for a good cause these days. The miracle is that some people manage to hide from them. They sit in their air—conditioned offices and pretend the climate hasn’t changed, while the rest of the world roasts.

Adam said calmly: If somebody asks for money from a private organisation, what is that organisation supposed to do, give it them for free?

But there are whole continents dying of AIDS, Michela pleaded. She seemed on the verge of tears. Because the drug companies don’t want to lower their prices.

That is true, Mandy observed. She mentioned a TV programme.

What a petty morality! Clive cried. A petty, petty morality! Like the money—lender demanding his pound of flesh when the victim and his children are starving. As if we weren’t all part of the same human family.

Ask the September nth people about that.

All we are saying, Keith began to hum, is give peace a chance! He placed his beer mat on the edge of the table, flipped it in the air and caught it. Chill out, folks. Let’s talk about tomorrow’s paddle.

Why don’t
you
explain to them? Adam suddenly said, straight—faced. He twisted his lean neck and turned to Vince. You understand it better than anyone here.

I think we could do with an expert opinion, Mandy agreed.

Clive snorted.

Keith sent half a wink that invited Vince to calm the waters. Waiter, he called. He pointed to their beers. It was after eleven now. The three youngsters on stage with their keyboard and rhythm machine were trying to persuade someone to do the Macarena. Two Scandinavian children obliged, then two couples in swarthy middle age. Slavs perhaps. Above the open terrace, the sky had cleared and was seething with stars.

Bit of a far cry, Vince tried hesitantly, from my kayaking problems, isn’t it?

Actually, perhaps not, Clive said in a knowing voice. Maybe not at all.

Oh come on, Adam laughed. If you treat everything as a deep and mysterious secret we won’t be able to talk about anything at all.

Vince saw Michela’s hand gripping Clive’s now. He sighed. He pursed his lips. I’ve been involved, of course, in negotiating and renegotiating loans to Third World countries. What can I say? Actually the bank directors do think a lot about the human consequences of their decisions. It’s a complex situation.