Tim Parks: Rapids

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 said 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.