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.