At Risk

25

The fenland village of West Ford, some thirty miles southeast of Marsh Creake and the coast, offered little in the way of entertainment. There was a panel-beating and exhaust repairs business, a small village store incorporating a sub post office, and a pub, the George and Dragon. But precious little, reflected Denzil Parrish, to engage the imagination of a sexually frustrated nineteen-year-old with time on his hands. And Denzil, over the next fortnight, would have quite a lot of time on his hands. The evening before, he had arrived home from Newcastle, where he was at university. He had considered staying in his Tyneside hall of residence until Christmas Eve; there were any amount of parties going on and a wild time had been prophesied by all. But he hadn’t seen much of his mother in the last year-since her remarriage, in fact-and had felt that he should try and spend some time with her. So he had done what he considered the decent thing: packed a rucksack and crammed himself into a southbound train so crowded that the ticket collector had given up trying to push his way through-just as well, because Denzil had no ticket-and after several delays and missed connections had arrived at Downham Market station well after dark, and with no prospect of a bus to West Ford. He had walked over four miles through the rain, jerking out his thumb at every passing car, before an American airman from one of the bases had stopped for him. He had known the village of West Ford, and had joined Denzil for a beer at the George and Dragon before speeding on southwards to the USAF base at Lakenheath.

After he had gone Denzil had scanned the pub. Typically, there wasn’t an unattached girl in the place, so there really wasn’t a viable reason to go on drinking, although he would have liked to. But money was too tight to blow on solitary drinking-drinking that had no hope of yielding any kind of female acquaintanceship. With tuition fees and the rest of it he was already thousands of pounds into the red. He really should have stayed up north. Right now he could be at a party, drinking someone else’s lager for free. And with a bit of luck locked on to some cheerful Geordie lass into the bargain. But it was not to be, and after the American’s warm VW Passat had vanished into the wet darkness he had foot-slogged home, only to find the place empty except for a gormless creature who had identified herself as the night’s babysitter. His mum, she had explained without taking her eyes off the TV, had gone to a function somewhere. A dinner-dance. And no, no one had said anything about anyone arriving from Newcastle. Denzil had dug out a frozen pizza and joined the babysitter in front of the TV. He was so dispirited he couldn’t even bring himself to make a pass at her.

At least the sun was shining today. That was a plus. His mother had apologised for being out when he arrived home, given him a quick kiss and hurried off to mix up a new bottle of formula. What was the woman thinking of, wondered Denzil vaguely. Having a second baby at this time of her life. It was just undignified, surely? But what the hell. Her life. Her money.

Denzil had decided to get out his wetsuit and do some canoeing. He had had a vague project in mind for the last couple of years-since they had moved to West Ford, in fact-which involved the systematic exploration of the area’s interconnecting grid of drainage channels. The Methwold Fen Relief Drain was only ten minutes’ drive away, and promised many miles of deserted but navigable water. He might even take the fishing gear out, and see if he could pick up a pike. The single advantage of his mother’s post-natal state was that she didn’t use her car so much. He’d be able to borrow it for hours at a time. The knackered old Honda Accord wasn’t exactly what you’d call a babe magnet, but then, mused Denzil pessimistically, rural Norfolk wasn’t exactly troubled by a babe overload.

The problem, for all their geniality and likeability, was the Americans. There were hundreds of them, mostly single young men, and they had nowhere to go off-base in the evenings except to the local pubs. West Ford was several miles from the nearest base, but you still got a handful of them at the George most evenings, and while this was fine in itself it meant that a single, impoverished geology student didn’t stand a great chance in the event of a halfway-decent-looking girl fronting up there.

Throwing his wetsuit into the back of the Accord, Denzil manoeuvred the glass-fibre kayak out of the garage and on to the car’s roofrack, where he secured it with a couple of bungee cords. The kayak had belonged to the house’s previous owners, or more precisely to their daughter, who had lost interest in it and left it behind when the family moved. It had been gathering dust and house-martin droppings in the garage rafters for several years when Denzil had decided to clean it up. Initially his idea had been to sell it, but he had taken it out for a trial run on the relief drain and enjoyed himself more than he had expected to. It wasn’t something that he revealed about himself on first dates, but Denzil was a keen birdwatcher, and his silent glides between the rushy banks of the fenland cuts and channels had brought him into rewardingly close contact with bitterns, reed warblers, marsh harriers and other rare species.

On the way out of the village he was forced to brake the Honda behind a tractor and trailer which were blocking the road. The tractor’s driver was attempting to back the trailer, which was loaded with fertiliser sacks, into a field. His inexperience, however, ensured that the trailer kept jacknifing into the gatepost. Realising that the operation was going to take some time, Denzil switched off the Honda’s ignition and settled philosophically back in his seat. As he waited, he noticed a young couple in hiking clothes crossing the field towards him. They were covering the ground fast-much faster than tourists or sightseers usually did-and their step was purposeful. Or at least the woman’s step was purposeful. The man, an Asian-looking guy, was more laid back. His arms swung loosely at his sides, and he appeared not so much to be walking over the damp, uneven ground, as floating over it. Denzil had only ever seen one person cover ground like that, and that had been the wiry old ex-Royal Marine sergeant who ran the Snowdonia climbing school he’d worked at in his gap year.

Absently, his thoughts touching briefly on the question of whether fancying a woman in a cagoule and mountain boots constituted sexually aberrant behaviour, Denzil watched the pair out of the car window. Neither was smiling, neither gave the impression of being on holiday. Perhaps they were a couple of those high achievers from the City that one heard about. People who could never fully unwind, and who, even away from work-even here, in soggy East Anglia-felt the need to submit themselves to rigorous and competitive activity.

Up close, he saw that the woman was quite attractive in a no-nonsense, no-make-up sort of way. All that was missing was a smile on her face. The answer to the perversion question, he guessed, was that you were perfectly safe up to the point when you actually had to dress women up in foul-weather clothing to fancy them. Thereafter you were in trouble.

The car behind him beeped, and Denzil saw that the tractor driver had finally managed to steer his load into the field and that the road ahead was clear. Engaging the Honda’s ignition, he moved forward in a shudder of exhaust and non-specific erotic fantasy, and promptly forgot all about the couple in the hiking gear.