Rapids (26 page)

With the kayak perched on the bank where Keith and Clive had deliberately capsized them all the first day, he checked and double—checked the spraydeck, running his fingers round the rim of the cockpit. The tab was out. I won’t drown. His buoyancy aid is tight, his helmet tight. I’m afraid, he thought. Just being nearer the water made the world cooler, even shivery. Now, paddle like a god. Vince tipped forward and the boat slid in.

At once, he was surprised by the pull of the current, even where the water was calm. He had barely thought of this when he was with the others. Perhaps because they always moved along together. He was already twenty yards downstream. He broke in and out of a couple of eddies to build up confidence. It was worrying how awkward he felt, how loud and inhibiting his mind seemed to be. I should be back in the City with my figures and phones and papers. Then he remembered the beep of a reversing truck coming through the trees, remembered the mist on the water, the ducks flying low. It was the quiet stretch before the first rapid.

There is no mist now. Midges rise off the shallows in small clouds. Where had they entered the rush? I was following Mark. But where? He back—paddled, ferrying a little this way and that. This is why people need guides. To choose the line. River—left, he decided. He put in three or four strong, determined strokes and met the chute perfectly. This was the place. He steered through the rush, saw the terminal stopper racing to meet him and began to paddle hard. But the river seemed to be higher today, the stopper more powerful. As he ploughed through the soft foam, the tail of the boat began to sink. The canoe was pulled down. Vince stayed absolutely calm. The icy water gripped his face. The noise was furious and muffled. Wait, wait till it flushes you out. Five seconds later he rolled up in calm water. Everything is in order. Hand okay? More or less. He is laughing. Paddle hard now to warm up again.

Two hours later, just moments from the get—out point, the bridge at Geiss where his car is parked, Vince made the inexplicable error. Moving out of an eddy into the stream, he tried that clever flick of the hips the boys made that sunk the stern into the oncoming stream and lifted the bow vertical. He was feeling that confident. It worked perfectly. The front of the boat reared up. Vince experienced an entirely childish thrill. He was on his back on the swift water looking up at the sky beyond the nose of his kayak. The boat came down on top of him. No problem. Under water, he was happy. He set up the roll carefully and swung the paddle. Basic self—rescue. Been here before. He didn’t come up. Or rather, he came half up and sunk back. Still, no problem. He had got a gulp of air. He set up again. He repeated the roll stroke confidently.

The same thing happened. The boat hung a moment on its side, then sank back. Now his mind began to cloud. He can’t remember how far it is to the next hazard. There are rocks in the water. There is a small drop, the rush beneath the bridge. Any second now something will crash into my helmet. Try once more. But his knee was slipping from its brace position now. His body was cooling fast. This time he didn’t even come half up. He didn’t get a breath. Now he is afraid. His right hand felt for the tab on the spraydeck and pulled. Exactly as he broke surface, his back slammed into the central pillar of the bridge.

The river split in two for a few yards here, rushing under dark arches. Vince had had the wind knocked out of him. The boat had gone the other side. He was sucked under a moment. The paddle caught on something. Then he was up again the other side of the bridge. All okay. But the boat was yards away. Vince swam for the bank. There were stones and roots. He stumbled, floundered, sat in the shallow water. Get your breath back. The car keys, he remembered then. The car keys were tied into the boat.

Recovering his energy, he was struck by the inexplicable nature of this reversal. Losing the boat, the keys, if he did eventually lose them, was not the kind of disaster that changed your life. An irritation, an expenditure. But why had it happened? I must get going, Vince decided. I must get them back. He was on his feet. I didn’t try anything beyond my capabilities. The path, he saw now, was not on the road side, where he had climbed out, but the other. I did five miles of river with no real trouble. He hurried back to the bridge and crossed. The kayak was already out of sight. Five miles! He tried to trot, but his breath was short, the wetsuit rubbed behind his knees. Then less than a hundred yards from the end, I fail to do something I can do perfectly well.

There was no sign of the boat. He would have to scramble through a thicket now. Already he was seriously overheated in this powerful sunshine. For a moment he thought of taking off the heavy rubber cag, the helmet. But what if I need them to retrieve the boat? He pushed through the trees. The path has gone. I felt so confident, so sure, so close to taking a decision that would have changed everything. Then the river had rejected him, reminded him he was the merest novice. Or I screwed up myself, on unconscious purpose as it were.

The thicket ended, but there was still no sign of a path. A meadow of deep grass sloped down towards the river. On the opposite bank was a timber business of some kind. He had trotted almost half a mile through long dry grass before he saw it. The river took a sharp bend to the left, and immediately after that he noticed something odd, something red in the water. The canoe was almost completely submerged, pinned against a boulder in the middle of the flood.

Vince gazed. The boulder was the first of a small rapid. Nothing dangerous, a fall of only a yard or so spread over five or six little steps, but the pressure of the water that was holding the boat must be huge. The glassy surface curled upward to pour into and over the red hull. It was about twenty feet from the bank, and Vince has no rope with him. Or rather, he has a rope, in a throw—bag, but it is attached inside the boat. The cockpit is facing upstream, the river pouring into it. So he might be able to get at the rope. Or even the keys, though they were hidden away behind the seat. On the other hand, the water might have carried the throw—bag away.

Vince squatted on the bank and stared, lips pursed. Then, amid the anxiety, he began to feel the pleasure of it. The water swirled round the bend, piling on the further bank. There is a scattering of stones, some breaking the surface, some below; trees on the far side, meadow on this; the boat right in the middle, the water piling and nagging against it. High above, the mountains shimmer gently in the heat rising from the valley. Against the dark green of the forests, a hang—glider is spiralling with rainbow wings. Nearer at hand, a dragonfly darts over the muddy bank. Without the boat, no car keys. No ride back to the chalet. The river is challenging me. I accept.

Vince tried to measure the force of the stream. What if I allow my future to be decided by whether I retrieve the boat or not? He felt excited. He walked about thirty yards up from the boat to the apex of the bend. The water was sweeping round and away from the near bank across the river. You won’t even have to swim hard. He plunged in. In his overheated state, the cold was even more of a shock. But it was too easy. The current was taking him exactly there. He steered himself round a rock. He mustn’t be swept past. You’re going too quickly! He grabbed at the submerged cockpit, missed, just got a hand on the handle at the bow. It was his bad hand. He saw the black stitches sunk in inflamed knuckles as he pulled himself along the top of the boat. The stream was holding him against the hull now. He grabbed the rim of the cockpit and felt inside. The rope was there, in place under a stretch of elastic cord.

With some difficulty, Vince had tied the leading end of the rope to the bow—handle and was planning to toss the rest, in its bag, to the bank, when the folly of this occurred to him. Without anyone to catch it, the stream would pull at the rope floating in the water and carry it away. I need someone on the bank. Pressed against the kayak, his shoulders just above water, he untied the rope with fingers that had already lost their sensibility. Can I throw it unattached? It must reach the bank with the trees. No. Feeling under water, he loosened the waist of his cag, thrust the rope between the two rubber layers and tightened the waist again. Then he pushed off sideways into the rapid.

It wasn’t so much a question of swimming, but holding his body in such a way as to reduce the blows to a minimum. This isn’t serious stuff, he thought, letting the water flush him through. As he was swept round the end of the bend into calmer water, he remembered the boys’ four—star test. Clive prepared us well. It isn’t him in Berlin. As soon as he had passed the rapid he began to swim to the shallows.

On the wooded bank, he scrambled back upstream through thick undergrowth till he was opposite the boat. He unravelled all the yellow rope from its bag, tied one end around a slim tree—trunk and the other to the belt of his buoyancy aid. Just before plunging in again, he suddenly thought: Stop, think. Nothing more dangerous than momentum.

He sat on the edge of a four—foot drop into the water. He was on the other side of the river now. The bank was undercut by the current swirling against it. Instead of taking him towards the boat, it will pull him back in to the bank. Vince stared. If I swim diagonally into the current, as if ferrying, how far will I get? He had no idea. I must psyche myself up, he decided. I’m tired. Fleetingly, he was thinking of the memorials on the mountain. People who no doubt thought they could overcome some obstacle, or didn’t even realise they were in danger. We know catastrophe is awaiting us, wrote the psychologist on the
Guardians
web—pages, yet we choose not to see it. The hell with that, Vince grinned. He started to walk upstream. Twenty yards from the tree where the rope was tied, he chose his spot. For perhaps a minute he took long deep breaths, filling his lungs. Now, plunge and swim.

Keith called it power swimming. Head well out of the water in case of rocks, arms crawling like crazy, feet paddling hard. I’m being swept away. Pointing upstream and across, fighting like mad, he can’t see the boat. Something banged his left knee. Then his helmet. I’ve overshot. No, it was the boat’s stern. He grabbed it. Suddenly, his body is dragged under. The rope has snagged on something on the river bed. It’s tight. The current is pulling him below the stern of the boat. Calm. Vince tugged. It won’t come loose. Don’t wait to be short of breath. He released the buckle of the life—jacket, let the rope go and was swirling through the rapid again. This time, before he could get into position, feet first on his back, he took a fierce knock on his shoulder. For a second his mind clouded. Then he was through to the calmer water, swimming for the shore.

He needed more time to rest now. Sitting against a tree—trunk, eyes closed, his thoughts have lost any structure. The river, the boat, Gloria, the men chained to the railings in Berlin, the girl’s lips approaching his, the torch coming through the undergrowth, his daughter’s perfume bottle, Dyer’s voice: We were expecting you back … everything is present to his mind. Everything is muddled, as if dissolved in the blood flooding his head. Slowly, he began to focus again. There’s no real danger, he thought. I’m just tired.

He fought his way along through the undergrowth, found the rope, pulled it in. One tug in this direction and it came easily. This time he packed the rope back in its bag and clipped the bag itself to the life—jacket belt. It would unravel as he swam, rather than being loose from the beginning. That way it shouldn’t snag. He walked back to where he had dived in. A fish flipped up from the water. A trout presumably. This must be the last attempt, though, he told himself. He feared for the moment when his strength would just go. Adam had warned them of that moment. The cold finally gets to you. Now dive.

Vince tried to keep the strokes fast and determined. Suddenly he had a sense that he was both fighting the water and not fighting it. Perhaps this was what Keith meant. He was fighting, but not
against
the water. Use the thrust to force your way across. Then he was sweeping past the boat on the far side. Almost a yard further than last time. The rope wrapped around the boat, under it probably, and held. At once, he grabbed the rope tight and pulled himself, like a climber, into the small boiling eddy behind the boulder. He could stand here.

Now he was behind the rock with the boat on the other side. Without the pressure of the water against him, he could move. He had time. He tied the rope to the bow—handle. Now all he had to do was dislodge the canoe. He kicked and pushed and shoved. It won’t budge. It needs to be pulled away sideways, he realised, slipped between the opposing pressures of current and rock. Whereas I am behind it.

Vince is almost screaming with frustration now. Then he understood. Once again, he launched into the flood, let himself be flushed through the rapid, swam to the bank, climbed back, very slowly, to the tree, the rope. He sat on the bank a while, just gazing at the yellow rope sinking into the white water, attached to the red hull. Then he began to pull. The rope came taut. At the third tug he felt the boat shift, it definitely shifted, and with a couple more yanks it was free. It went tumbling away through the rapid. Vince lifted the rope as high as he could to keep it clear of the rocks. Good. Inevitably rope and boat were swinging in to the near bank. Vince scrambled back downstream. When he arrived, the canoe was already there, banging against the bank, the yellow rope taut.

He pulled the canoe ashore, felt inside with shaking hands, found and released the buckle, retrieved the keys. Then leaving canoe and kit in the trees, he began the long walk back. There was no way along the bank this side. He had to strike away from the river till he reached the road. Then it was a good half mile. He kept stopping to sit. Have I ever been so tired? But his mind was full of pride. I did it! I screwed up, then I put things right. This is infantile, he thought. He felt wonderful. Towards Geiss he was aware that the sun had fallen behind the peaks. Already! The wetsuit was chafing him, under the arms, behind the knees. How late is it? he wondered. The boat will have to wait till tomorrow.