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.
Suddenly Vince was back in a particular weekend, in the rather empty comfort of their sitting room. Again, Gloria had been telling him he must take up a sport. They were speaking across the polished dinner table. It was stressful, she said— she’d just finished a week of nights in Intensive Care— to watch people dying all the time. That’s why she needed to do so many physical things. You don’t have to work, he told her. You could be a woman of leisure. Me? She had laughed. She put a hand on his: Come on, come down to the club tomorrow. Why don’t you? You’ll feel better if you get your blood moving. How can they? she asked a little later when there was some documentary on aid workers in the Third World. The television showed a boy picking maggots from his scalp. They were sitting together on the sofa, but without touching. About half our bad loans are to Third World countries, Vince remembered now. He lay in the tent listening to his daughter’s breathing. How pleased with herself the girl was, to have kissed one boy while texting another. She felt alive. Then at last a real question presented itself: When was the last time Gloria and I made love together?
Vince sat up, slipped out of his sleeping bag, unzipped the tent, set off for the bathroom. I’m better integrated with the photo — electric cells of the toilet — flushing system than I was with my wife. Coming back he could see the light in their chalet was on. There are eight chalets arranged either side of a central track. Vince stopped. A blind had been pulled down but there were chinks shining through. Theirs was the last in the near row. What had happened this evening, he wondered, with Michela? With Tom? It was strange.
He checked his watch, turned left into the track between the chalets, skirted round the last building at the end. The window on the far side showed chinks of light too. None of your business, Dad, Louise said. What is my business? Vince asked. I was away week in week out doing my business, in London, then home Saturday and Sunday and Gloria obsessed by the idea I must be stressed, I must take up a sport. What was it all about? Cautiously, Vince took a step or two beyond the track towards the chalet. I am a widower with a job that makes me co — responsible, with others, for the management of billions of pounds. Gloria betrayed me, Vince decided. My daughter hardly recognises my authority. I can’t tell her anything about smoking or sex. Continents away, people die like flies, as a result of our carelessness, perhaps. Or our prudent decisions, our need to balance books. It’s none of your business. Vince stood in the dark on the edge of the campsite. I’m just a man, he suddenly thought. For some reason the words were reassuring.
In the safety of the shadow on the further side of the chalet he approached the window. The room is empty, he saw. Where are they? He frowned, then something moved and he realised there was a figure on the floor. Stretched out on a blue sleeping bag, wearing a pair of glasses hung round his neck on a string, Clive was studying a stack of papers in a folder. Invoices perhaps. Why wasn’t he on the bed? Vince watched. Clive was underlining things, circling figures. He turned back and forth among the papers, handsome forehead frowning. It was odd.
Then the bearded face looked up, alert. The sound of footsteps set Vince’s heart racing. He crouched low. Someone is coming along the track, walking quickly. The door squeaked. He didn’t dare stand up yet. A pervert, Louise protested. An anorak type. Yet Vince felt sure it was his business. He heard their voices, low, flat, couldn’t make out their words. He listened. They weren’t arguing, but there was no warmth either. It is my business. For years I paid no attention. I let things slide. I was an excellent bank director. He waited a little longer then stood. Clive had rolled on his stomach, head sideways on a pillow of folded clothes. For just a second Michela crossed Vince’s line of vision. She is naked. Her hand stretched out and the light was gone. He saw a pale blur re — cross the cabin and stretch out on the bed.
I thought they were lovers, Vince repeated to himself as he hurried back to the tent. You are a fool! You understand nothing. Gloria never walked around naked. She always put on her nightdress before removing bra and pants. I paid no attention to her. She was never fazed. Perhaps Adam honestly only meant: by river trips. She wasn’t fazed by rapids and pour — overs. I saw the girl’s sex, he thought. Perhaps Gloria honestly only meant, she needed her sports if she was to watch people dying every day, if she was to look after the invalid wives of canoe — club friends. Why had she stopped the Saturday outings, then, as soon as he started?