Tim Parks - Rapids

Vince breathed deeply. What a powerful smell there was, of freshly cut wood and dung and smoke. He took a step, caught his foot, lurched. Even staying vertical is a hard thing when the darkness is so complete. Then he heard a little cry and a giggle. Vince was electrified. They had come here. But why did I follow? What do these shenanigans mean to you? He was swaying on his feet. He didn’t know which way to tread. A fifty — year — old widower with a big job in the City? Should I tell Clive? Now there was a sharp intake of breath, followed at once by a quiet whimper, and this time a boy’s laugh. I’m so, so sorry. Get out of here! Vince began to move. He stumbled. Gloria was never fazed. Which was the way back? Twigs cracked. Shit! In a second’s stillness he was aware of low voices. Then someone else was banging through the undergrowth. It’s a dream. The noise was so loud. I must go the other way. Just as he turned, a bright light flashed up from very low. He was on the edge of a steep bank. The torchlight swung towards him through the trees. There was a cry. Vince ran away from it, up the slope.

Back in the tent he went through his bedtime routine with great deliberation. The branches had scratched the back of his hand, the side of his neck. Don’t think anything, he kept repeating, don’t think till your mind is calm. He slipped off his socks and put them in his shoes under the fly — sheet. But now there were rapid footsteps. Dad! No sooner had he stretched out on his sleeping bag than a torch shone in. Louise dived into the tent. Dad, weirdest thing happened. Just now. God! She plunged on her stomach. Turn that thing off, he complained. You’re blinding me. Really frightening! Tell me. Vince began to pay attention. Are you okay? I was with Mark, you know. I guessed, Vince said. Oh, he’s all right. We were just kissing a bit, in the trees behind the bar. The other side of the track where it goes down to the river. Kissing? Oh, nothing heavy, Dad, come on! When this pervert comes along trying to spy on us. Really! Like, he was only a yard or two away. I mean, he could have been a serial killer or something. It was like a horror movie. I pretty well wet myself.

Vince lay back on his sleeping bag. Did you see him? Mark did. He turned on the torch and made a dash, saw the bloke running away. Some old guy. Anorak type. Wasn’t it a bit dark, Vince asked, to be fooling around in the woods? He knew what he had heard there. No, there’s plenty of light when you get used to it, she said. Oh God, the phone, she announced then. The torch came on again and in the glow Vince watched his daughter’s face as she rummaged in her rucksack. There was a healthy blush on her cheeks. Strands of blonde hair fell over her eyes. Where did I hide the damn thing? There. Sure enough, just a few moments after she turned it on there came the beep of a message arriving, followed by a low giggle, the sound of a thumb on the keypad. Vince said: You have a boyfriend back home, don’t you? That’s what all these messages are about.

None of your business, she laughed. Then she said. Course I’ve got a boyfriend. What do you think?

Only that you’re two — timing him, obviously.

What a funny expression.

I don’t know what the current word is.

And so?

Well, it’s not altogether nice, is it?

Altogether?

It’s not nice.

I’m enjoying it.

Louise, I’m trying to talk seriously for once! By the way, your clothes smell of cigarettes.

He’ll never know, she said.

And Mark?

I told him.

And he doesn’t mind?

Dad, it’s a holiday! Everybody does this on holiday. It’s what they’re for. And even if you don’t, everybody imagines you do.

I thought it was a community experience.

She giggled. More like an orgy sometimes. But I mean, Phil and Caroline, Amelia and Tom, it’ll all be over when they’re home. You can’t believe Tom doesn’t have a girlfriend, can you? At college. A fab — looking bloke like that.

Was it you smoking or Mark?

She said, Mark.

I’ll try to believe you.

She leaned over and kissed him. You’re a treasure, Dad. Then he knew she had been smoking. Do your teeth, he said.

When she came back from the bathroom, he asked:

And what if I did the same thing?

How do you mean?

Went kissing in the woods.

Dad!

Because we’re on holiday.

But you wouldn’t, would you?

He didn’t answer this. She was right, he wouldn’t. The air quickly grew warm in the tent when the two of them were together. The smoke on her sweater gave it a stale smell. They were so near each other inside here, father and daughter, and outside there was so much space and air, a tinkle of distant voices, occasional footsteps across the breezy dark in the flat of the valley beneath the mountains towering in their emptiness, trickling with the water that tomorrow would rush them down the river. Go to sleep, Vince told himself, you need sleep.

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.