Tim Parks - Rapids

The main group was left to eat their lunch while four boats raced down five miles of busy river to the get — off point where the minibus had been parked: Keith, Mandy, Michela, Vince. The two men with coaching qualifications must stay with the kids. Keith had been adamant about that. Those were the BCU rules. He looked the two of them in the eyes. Clive is in charge, he said.

Hurrying down the river, with no plan for playing or learning, just one goal, to get the man stitched up, Vince finally found himself at home on the water. The sudden purposeful — ness made it easier, and the trust they had put in him. The bow swept into the current. He paddled. He reached determinedly for his strokes. The river was swollen, but straightforward. Perhaps I am a canoeist, he decided. They smacked into a wave train. He laughed. His face ran with sweat and spray. But Keith was evidently in pain. The bandage was soaked in blood. The man was gritting his teeth. Mandy was scolding him for always taking risks, showing off to the kids. How could he have known? Michela objected. She was panting. It was one in a million to catch a sharp edge like that.

At last they were paddling across a low lake at the bottom of the run. A storm of ducks rose from the water. Keith and Mandy were already approaching the beach, the get — out point. The air was humming with flies. Vince had waited to let Michela catch up. He was elated by the speed of the descent. Okay? She looked at him, flushed with effort, eyes shaded beneath black helmet. Exhausted, she said.

Course, if I go to hospital, Keith complained, they’ll tell me I can’t paddle for the rest of the week. He was up front in the minibus. You’re bloody well going, Mandy told him. She had a proprietorial manner. You’ll need stitches, I’m afraid, Vince said. Keith blew out his cheeks and sighed. Photo of my war wound, please, he asked.

With Michela to interpret, the injured man was left at the hospital in Bruneck, while Mandy and Vince drove back to the campsite to get a car. It was ten miles up the valley. What Keith was really worried about, the woman explained, was the last day, the stretch of river above Sand in Taufers, the grand finale of the trip; he wouldn’t be able to be there, which meant Clive and Adam running the show together, who hated each other. Keith played the fool, but in the end he only did it for the group. He was totally dedicated.

Vince was driving. Well, the combatants seem to have agreed a truce today, he said. It was the first time he had driven a minibus. Actually, I can’t help thinking Clive is right really. At least in general. I mean, when one of us gets hurt, like now, we immediately rush to help. But we don’t do anything for people we don’t know.

Nor do they for us, the woman said sensibly. She was still wearing wetsuit shorts, and a soaking T — shirt on a stout body. The thing is there’s helping, she said, and there’s shouting about helping.

It was mad to hit him, Vince agreed.

No, but apart from that, don’t you think, it’s all very well him having this cause and so on, we all agree with it, but in the end it’s easy rushing about and chanting at demonstrations. Clive’s never had to deal with things like a divorce, or you losing Gloria like that. He’s always worried about people on the other side of the planet.

Can’t blame him for not having suffered a catastrophe, Vince thought.

All I’m saying is, I judge a bloke by his personal life, what he makes around him, not his ideals.

He looks like he’s got something pretty nice going with Michela, Vince said. He glanced in the mirror.

I’ve seen him the same way with half a dozen others.

Really? Well, good for him, I suppose.

Turning towards her a second as he spoke, he found the woman looking at him quite intently. Her chubby right knee jerked up and down under her hand. I think blokes like yourself, she said quietly, I mean who’ve been husbands all your lives, don’t understand men like Clive. And vice versa. You’re chalk and cheese. But women understand. They have to. Look at Keith, for example, married too young, then has affairs, everybody knows, but won’t leave home, like. He has his responsibilities.

Doesn’t sound like my idea of being a good husband.

He’s stuck at it, Mandy said. While Clive is always talking about universal justice.

And Adam? Vince was aware of a social circle drawing him in. Perhaps, having lost his wife, he should become part of the Waterworld community. He would go to all the club’s events. He could gossip and be gossiped about. Except, of course, that there was nothing to say about him. What have I ever done?

Adam’s wife’s handicapped, Mandy said. MS. No, handi — capped’s the wrong word. She shot Vince an enquiring glance. Actually, I think your Gloria looked after her in hospital.

I’m really sorry, Vince said. I had no idea.

Campsite! Mandy shouted. Don’t miss the turn.

They crossed the bridge, passed the church, trundled down the track between the tents in the bright sunshine. Mandy took over the driving seat of the minibus to head back to the river and pick up the group. Vince went to get his own car to return to the hospital. This was what he’d been brought along for. Fifteen minutes later, on impulse, trapped behind a tourist coach on the narrow, bendy road to Bruneck, he opened the glove compartment of the car, found his mobile and turned it on. There were no messages. Then, driving, he called the office. It was strange. In a matter of seconds he was in touch with London, with reality. His secretary was a small Chinese woman in her fifties. Of course you’re needed, she told him, but everybody’s agreed to wait till you’re back. That would be Monday. So nothing urgent? he asked. It’ll be urgent on Monday, Mr Marshall, but not before. She asked him if he were having a good break. It was blistering in London, she said. She couldn’t remember a year like it. He told her he felt immensely refreshed.

Vince drove past stacks of timber, sawmills. The sun was fierce. There was an open yard full of wooden weathercocks, machine — carved, life — size crucifixes, curious trolls. We come here to play on the river and have no contact with the locals, he thought. A lean old man in a broad — brimmed hat and blue overalls was scything the steep bank above the road to the right. Quite probably he had never been on the water that raced through his valley. Is it really possible I’ll be back in the City on Monday? Vince was conscious of enjoying the drive, of deliberately looking out for everything foreign and unusual: the wide wooden balconies, the gothic script over shops and hotels, the weathercocks, the hay hung on wooden trestles up steep slopes, the little children in leder — hosen, the onion domes of the churches. Did I ever belong to anything aside from the bank? he wondered. Was I part of any community outside the office? Important decisions were being taken without him. I mustn’t miss the turn to the hospital, he worried.

They’re seeing him now, Michela looked up and smiled. The waiting room was a mix of tourists and locals, sitting round the walls, flicking through provincial newspapers, international glamour magazines, nursing wounds and coughs. Two or three men kept glancing at the tall Italian girl in her neoprene shorts and white bikini top. Only since Gloria’s death had Vince become acutely aware that he had never been with any other woman but his wife. He had never ‘picked up’ a woman. They had found themselves, he and Gloria, in adjacent rooms in Durham university dorms. It would have been hard to establish a moment when either deliberately chose the other. By a process of happy osmosis they had married. If you removed that boulder, Keith had been talking to the group yesterday about reading the river, which way do you think the water would go? How many things downstream would that effect? Suddenly Vince is in trouble again. With a determined effort, he asked the girl: