Rapids

SELF — RESCUE

Was it possible though? In the same internet café where he had bought the whisky, Vince studied a photo on the Guardian website. He has written to all his closest colleagues apologising for his absence, giving generic instructions, promising that he will be in the office on Saturday morning and will work through the weekend. The three men are wearing masks. Willing to Die to Wake Up the World, is the headline. Their spokesman speaks three languages fluently. No one knows who they are. The police have cleared the area. How can they sleep? Vince wonders. Or piss or shit? The masks are bags of white linen with holes for eyes and mouth. A strategy to prevent the police putting pressure on them through relatives, the article surmises. The temperature is in the mid — thirties. They are in full sunlight. Vince recognises the Reichstag with its pompous monu — mentality. He has visited the city more than once. But what he is looking at very closely is the exposed wrist of one of the men where it is handcuffed to the railing. This man seems to have a familiar build. Or perhaps not. He presses the ‘back’ button to return to the Waterworld site where Mandy has already posted four sets of twenty pictures. The quality is good. Here you are folks! she has written. Our mythical Community Experience! Vince searches for one of Clive and clicks to enlarge. The instructor is photographed face — on in his yellow boat, paddle held across his blue buoyancy aid. It’s a fine face, lit up somehow, the eyes glinting, the beard giving an impression of vigour, a secretive smile playing round the lips. Vince tries to find some distinguishing mark on the exposed wrist and forearm, but it’s hopeless. A tattoo or a scar would do it. The red boat just poking into the background must be Michela’s, he thinks. Or my own perhaps. He glances at one or two of the other pictures. Although there is loud music in the café, it’s strange the silence that gathers around these images. Max doffing his straw hat. Caroline balancing the singing hamster on her head. Vince returns to the Guardian. He checks all related articles. They have the latest figures on global warming, speed of temperature rise, glacier retreat. There is a map predicting flooding, shaded in different colours to suggest possible dates. Holland gone mid — century. The Po valley gone. World in state of denial, a psychologist writes, like a party on a riverboat drifting towards Niagara. Odd he used that metaphor. Can it really be Clive? Vince goes back to the photo. The three men have small coloured backpacks. Ready to blow themselves up, is the caption.

Vince checks his mail again, then spends the day repeating last Thursday’s walk up on the glacier. He takes the chair — lift above Sand in Taufers, finds the path, bends his back to it. He has put on his walking shoes. Making the trip alone, he gradually becomes aware, all around him, of the same silence that emanated from those photographs, the silence of voices that are no longer there. All my life has a kind of silence to it, he reflects, these days. He remembers Clive’s uncomfortable apology to Adam. It’s a noisy silence. I don’t think I can get through the whole summer like this, Michela had said. Vince stops to straighten his shoulders and look around. He had imagined she was referring to the heat. I didn’t pay attention. Same with Gloria. And it’s hot again now on the steep slope. The views are awesome. The peaks rise up one after another, quivering, immense and blue, but mainly bereft of snow. Perhaps we can feel a new tenderness for the landscape, now that we know we are killing it. Further down the valley there are cowbells clanging. Every time an animal moves, tiny, far below, a bell clangs in Vince’s mind. It must drive them mad. And across the wide air that separates him from a further slope comes the tinkle of children laughing. Some party or other. Vince listens, he picks out the distant figures. This is the silence of the mountains. Does Michela know what is happening? he wonders. How will she react? There were a hundred thousand, the Guardian said, at Sunday’s demonstration. It won’t be Clive.

Long before he reached the top, Vince was aware of speeding up, of marching more purposefully. He wants to get to Katrin Hofstetter’s death marker. On the way, he has seen three or four other memorials. Why didn’t I see them last time? Now he comes across a small iron cross driven into a boulder and the name of a young man, Karl Langer. There’s no photo, but a plastic rose has been fixed to the cross with a piece of wire. It’s the girl’s photo that draws me. Vince is aware that he has become hypersensitive to everything, and aware that it won’t last. I should enjoy it, this intensity.

The high ridge where the glacier begins is a strange mix of heat and cold. The sun is burning his forehead and the grainy ice freezing his feet. Then he can’t find the photo where he thought it must be. It’s irritating. He stands aside to let a group of German hikers pass in the opposite direction. Only four days and I’ve forgotten. Grüss Gott,a stout woman says. Grüss Gott. Eventually he finds the memorial twenty yards further on, facing west from a low wall of rock. 1999 she died. The thirty — first of August. How strange. And what a little miracle of technology to seal a photo so well it can survive the winter blizzards, the summer sun! The face is not quite as he remembered it. She’s prettier, happier, the hair wavier, brushed forward on one shoulder. Katrin Hofstetter: 19.1.1979—3i.8.i999.Vince imagines her eyes staring west into the sunset when the world around is all desert, when hikers no longer pass by, the planet is quite dead, and for the first time it occurs to him that those men chained to the railing in Berlin are not, perhaps, completely mad. Dyers and Hilson and the others will be in some committee meeting now. Much of the money the bank deals with is oil money. Inevitably. Glancing round to check that the path is quiet, Vince takes out his wallet, removes an ID photo of his wife and, without looking at it, lets it drop into the glassy crack between glacial ice and rock wall beneath the little memorial. In company, the dead may visit him less often.

Driving back, below the gorge at the entry to Sand in Taufers, he stopped the car at the sign ‘Rafting Center’ to the left of the road. In a small closed yard stood rack after rack of wetsuits and life — jackets. A tall, blonde man was loading gear into the back of a van. Do you know of any kayak guides I could contact? Vince spoke clearly and slowly in English. Not for myself, he explained. There was a group who already had their own instructors, but they might need a guide to show them round the local rivers. An expression of caution and recognition crossed the young face. You are with the English people, right? The girl who is nearly … He made a comic, choking expression. Right, Vince said. My name is Gerhard. The young man reached out a damp hand. She is okay? I helped to pull her out of the water. Very pretty girl. Vince gave his name. How much would a guide cost? he asked. It occurred to him now that there might be some local resentment of the English canoe group moving in like this on their pitch. We could have to talk about that, Gerhard said. I could have to see who is … who can help. Okay. Vince explained that he would only know on Thursday if their own guide could come or not. Then the work would be from Sunday onwards. I’ll call you Friday morning. Gerhard gave him the Rafting Center’s pamphlet, with a phone number.

The protestors have set a deadline of Wednesday evening at six o’clock, the radio said. Tomorrow. Vince listened stretched on the bed. It was early evening. There is one demand: a commitment to reduce greenhouse — gas emissions in line with Kyoto. Outside the open door of the chalet, the campsite sounds reminded him of the previous week: the singing, the shouts of children playing, radios, the occasional drumming. A diplomat who spoke in some unrecognisable tongue was translated as saying that his country would never be seen to reward terrorism. They were calling it terrorism. You have to keep a clear head, said an American. Vince was struck by the idea that the men at the railing might have very clear heads. As they saw it. Certainly they were keeping their nerve, despite the heat. How clearly I saw everything as the boat tipped down into the rapid. The image is sharper in his mind than any photo. What does clarity mean exactly? All those years doing the accounts, how clear — headed I was! How blind. Police spokesmen said they were taking the bomb threat very seriously. Vince looked at his watch. I could go and have a drink with Roland again, he thought, and get thoroughly muddled. Instead he fell asleep easily and early and woke in the night to hear the radio crackling voicelessly and feel the cool air drifting in through the open door. I didn’t even close the door. Returning from the bathrooms, he was aware that his mind felt peculiarly healthy and purposeful, but without quite knowing what the purpose was. Caught yourself smiling, he muttered.

On the Wednesday morning he drove down to Bruneck, stopping at Geiss to check the bus timetable. He had put a change of dry clothes in the car. If someone like himself, he thought, could paddle the easy section of the lower Aurino on his own, then, in the event, there would be no guide required until the Monday.

Arriving at the hospital, he found the ward sister and asked her if she could tell Fraulein Donati he was here and would she be willing to see him. About five minutes later Michela appeared in the corridor, belting up the towelled robe he had brought her three days before. What are you doing here? she asked. I thought you’d gone. The bruise on her cheek has drained to yellow. She is standing very straight. Vince only shrugged. We can talk in the garden, she said brusquely.

Turning, she walked away so quickly he had to hurry to catch up. Her sandals slapped down two flights of stairs, along a corridor and out into a courtyard with five or six benches. I told you not to bother, she repeated over her shoulder. That’s why I sent the nurse to ask if you were willing to see me, Vince answered. Michela went to a bench in the shade and curled herself up right in the corner, arms folded, knees drawn in under them. But Vince could sense she was better now. Her body had a quick feminine lightness as she moved. You look well, he said. Not because I want to, she told him.

He waited. The so — called garden was just a few square yards of lawn and shrubs with a near life — size Madonna, carved in wood, on a pedestal in the middle. Has Clive been in touch? she asked. No. He sat uncomfortably with his hands on his knees. Again it was fearfully hot. He was sweat — ing. Actually, I was wondering if either you or he had mobiles, you know, it might be useful. He hates them, the girl said. What do you need to call us for anyway? Vince let it pass. Also, I thought you might need some money, but I couldn’t find a wallet or anything, in the chalet. I don’t have one, she told him. Clive left some money for me with the doctor.

Vince was surprised at this level of dependence. Again he waited. He wasn’t going to tell her anything, if she didn’t know. Eventually she said: They’re letting me out tomorrow morning.

So you’ll be there when Clive gets back.

Right.

Casually, he asked: You don’t know if he had any special plans for while he was in Berlin?

No. At once she was more alert. Why?

Oh, I just wondered what on earth these demonstrators could actually get up to for four whole days.

She relaxed. If it’s like other things I’ve been to, there’ll be a kind of alternative conference in some abandoned warehouse or other.

Catching a smile in her voice, Vince turned to look at her. A soft irony was playing round her lips. He raised his eyebrows. Quite unexpectedly, she reached across the bench and took his bandaged hand. Is it bad? Vince couldn’t hide from himself a sudden flutter of excitement. Just a couple of stitches. He didn’t say he was planning to take out a boat this afternoon. So why haven’t you gone back? she repeated. I wasn’t very nice when you came last time, was I? Vince bit his lip, cast about. I promised Clive I would stay. Then I thought, you know, I might as well take advantage of the chalet for a couple of days. He wasn’t so much lying as speaking at random. You’re sad, aren’t you? she told him. He hesitated. Not especially. Yes you are. One night I was sitting outside, behind the kitchen tent, and I saw you walking to the bathrooms. Really late. You had your shoulders bent— she sat forward and mimicked, cruelly, her face comically gloomy— like you were carrying something that wasn’t there. Something pretty heavy. Oh, that’s just old age, Vince said. He had expected to talk about her problems, not his. She laughed. Not true, you’re sad. Why not admit it? Your wife died, didn’t she? That’s right, he acknowledged. The girl was looking at him. Did you love her?

Vince was unprepared for such a direct question. Yes. I did, he said. Of course I loved her. Poor fingers, she muttered. She was still holding his hand. And did she love you?

Yes. Listen …

You do know there was a nasty story going round?

Vince turned and looked straight at her. He pulled his hand away. She shrugged her shoulders, pursed her lips. She had done it deliberately. Her eyes are glinting. But he won’t rise to it. Speaking very quietly, he asks: So what have you been up to these last couple of days?

Nothing. Lots of neural tests and scans and things.

Results?

Apparently I could be an athlete.

Great.

She didn’t reply. She still has a mocking smile in her eyes. I suppose, Vince tried after a moment or two, the hospital must get pretty boring when you’re not really ill. I mean, people must end up watching the TV and listening to the news the whole time.

There is a TV room, but I haven’t been, she said. I can’t bear TV voices. I can’t stand the way the world talks. I … but she stopped. She was repeating things Clive said. Oh, and a counsellor came to see me, of course.

Any good? Vince felt more relaxed now; she doesn’t know.

He told me I’d chosen a dangerous way to cry for help.

Is that all?

Michela sighed. I didn’t really talk to him. I’ve seen counsellors before. They work for money. My mother’s seen millions of counsellors.

Did they get in touch with your mother?

I wouldn’t give them her number. Michela lifted her face in a wry smile. Can you imagine? Another hysterical loser is the last thing we need.

You’re not a loser.

Oh please, the girl said abruptly.

Vince breathed deeply. So what are you going to do when they discharge you?

I’ll have to see through this summer. There are the canoes to be paid for. We owe the bank.

Vince said: I’ve been thinking about that.

What?

I’ve been thinking about your business. Frankly, you need to do a few sums again.

In what sense?

You’re not charging enough for what you’re giving, for the investment you’ve made. I picked up a couple of papers off the floor, in the chalet, and couldn’t help but see some of the figures. I hope you don’t mind. If you want, I could work out the right price to ask.

Clive did all of that, she said. Talk to him when he gets back.

I will. The fact that she was so convinced that Clive was coming back made his melodramatic suspicions about Berlin seem ridiculous. Again they fell silent. The heat in the little courtyard was oppressive, yet neither of them mentioned it. Finally Vince took a piece of card from his pocket. Tom asked me to give you his e — mail.

Who?

Tom. Tom.

Right! Oh God, she put her face in her hands, shaking her head. He watched her. Was she laughing or crying? I am drawn to this unpredictability. Without looking up, Michela reached out an open hand for him to put the card in, took it and shredded it into little pieces. They sifted down onto the gravel. Tom, she sighed. She was still shaking her head.

Vince said, So why don’t you tell me about you and Clive?

After a moment she threw her head back rather dramatically. Took you a while to ask, didn’t it?

Vince held steady. She is wishing I would go. She doesn’t want me here. Yet for some reason, even if it was only the merest social inertia, Michela began to talk. They had met in London, she said, at a peace rally. She began to tell Vince the story of herself and Clive, how she had liked him at once, how enthusiastic he had been, how full of projects. They went for long walks across the city, talking about everything they saw, kissing, hugging. They liked to walk in the rain, roll cigarettes under bus shelters. Clive really cared about things, about mountains and rivers, got so upset at the state of the world. He looked after me in every possible way, she said. When she glanced up at Vince there were tears in her eyes. They had made love so much. They started living together only a couple of days after they met. Nottingham. Carlisle. I’d never lived with a man before. Clive had been teaching an outdoor survival course. He taught me how to paddle. He’s a great teacher. When he wants to be. But sometimes he sort of loses interest. He hates bullshit and hypocrisy so much. He’s sort of obsessed by the way people just go on and on consuming. Then we went to the French Alps. He was teaching courses on the Durance. I worked in a restaurant to build up some money. It was wonderful.

So you should be happy, Vince said.

Don’t pretend to be stupid! She glared. I hate that!

What I meant—

What you want to ask is why I kissed you under that waterfall, why I went after Tom like that.

Again he felt that flutter of excitement. Actually I was thinking more of your tossing away your paddle at the top of the rapid.

The kiss meant nothing, she said. It was a joke.

Vince watched her. She smiled now. As always there was a sardonic twist to the lips. The fact is I’m not good enough for Clive. That’s the truth of the matter.

Rubbish.

Perhaps I know things you don’t. She was biting the inside of her lip now. Tell me.

You wouldn’t understand.

Vince waited. Michela had put her feet on the ground and was sitting forward now, her hands on her chin. She turned her face to him rather brashly.

A couple of weeks ago he said he wouldn’t fuck me anymore because I was no good in bed.

I don’t believe you.

Oh well then, if he doesn’t believe me! If the banker doesn’t believe me!

Clive doesn’t seem to me the kind of man who would talk like that.

She had begun to breathe very deeply. She pushed her head down, between her legs almost, breathing hard. For a moment he thought she might be sick. Instead of leaving be, he asked. Why don’t you just tell me the truth? It can’t be that bad.

Sounds like you didn’t believe your wife was the kind of person who did the stuff she did.

Vince let it pass. I’m sorry, she said. She spoke softly, half laughed. I just can’t believe you haven’t gone and left me alone. You should have gone. I can be really awful.

Still Vince said nothing. He has ceased to ask himself why he is bothering. Two griefs are calling to each other. Tell me, he says.

What’s the point, he’ll be back tomorrow.

There was a clatter and a young woman appeared, stepping backwards between the swing doors, pulling a wheelchair. She forced down the handles to turn it on its back wheels and pushed its occupant into the shade against the wall. It was a young man, his head lolling on one side, his tongue pushed out between his teeth at the corner of the mouth. Michela watched. The nurse squatted down and began to do something with the young man’s hands. Almost before Vince was aware of it, Michela began speaking very slowly and softly. He told me this world was such shit that it was pointless our being together. Okay? He said it isn’t a place for love. This isn’t the right world, this isn’t the right world. He must have said it a million times. This isn’t the right world for love, Michela. For us. She was crying now, Vince saw. Not sobbing, just letting tears run. Her voice was still steady. That’s why I can’t watch the news, the atrocities, the wars, the elections you know? I can’t read the papers, I can’t listen to the radio. I’ll just hear his voice telling me I can’t love him. I mustn’t love him. I see a fire, smoke, and it’s Clive telling me it’s not the right world. I see a truck with filthy exhaust, the same. I see a cripple on a wheelchair and it’s Clive saying we mustn’t have sex, we mustn’t have children in an ugly world. Oh God! She put her face in her hands and sobbed. Vince sat still. He made no move to touch her. Deliberately coarse, she sucked up hard through her nose, then wiped her face on her sleeve. Her lips quivered. The eyes were miserable and defiant. Satisfied?

I believe you now, Vince said.

Oh, well, thank God for that. What a relief!

He hesitated. What I don’t understand, though … I mean, he didn’t leave you. You were still together. And now he’s coming back and you’ll be together again. I don’t understand that.

You don’t understand! I wish he had left me. I wish he had done something cruel and left me. He could have kicked me out when I went off with Tom. Everybody must have seen. He should have told me to get lost.

You could always leave him.

She tried to smile. I thought that was what I was doing on the river the other day. There must be easier ways.

Not that I can think of! Then she was laughing and snuffling. No, don’t worry. Don’t worry, Mr Banker, I haven’t the energy to try again. She shook her head. You can’t imagine the energy it took. Actually, come to think of it, I can’t believe my mother’s tried so often. That must be why she’s so wiped out all the time.

Unthinking, he asked. What did it feel like?

What do you mean?

When you did it. When you turned the boat over.

The question has surprised her. She sat back, closed her eyes, smiled. Actually, you know, it felt great. When I finally decided, like, when I said, I’m going to do it, I’m really going to do it, it was great. I didn’t feel anything going down. I mean any pain or anything. I just let myself go in a sort of trance. It was the waking up that was shit. She looked up. And you?

What?

Well, you came down after me. How was it?

Absolutely terrifying! From nervousness, Vince burst out laughing. You know how Keith kept saying not to fight the water? Well, I started fighting the moment I dropped into the rush and the water won in about one second flat. The only weird thing is, he hesitated, wondering how to put it, the strange thing is that although it was frightening, I mean I knew I could die, I had the sense I was sort of detached, my mind was clear. And now I keep waking up wishing I could do it again.

I suppose, she said, that Clive came down with no trouble at all? She looked away.

That’s right. She’s still in love, he thought, watching her face. He made it look easy. As he spoke, Vince remembered the man’s bearded face as he passed the rock that he, Vince, was stranded on. Yes, Clive had been smiling! But he didn’t want to say this now. Instead he suddenly offered: Look, if you tell me what time they’re letting you out, I’ll come and get you tomorrow.

Why don’t you just leave now? she asked. Aren’t you supposed to have a terribly important job? Not to mention a lovely daughter. Why don’t you go? You can see I’m all right.

Do you want the lift or not? I’ll go home Friday. After Clive is back. As promised.

She looked up and smiled. He was struck by a certain mischief about her fine features, sly eyes, a wayward shrewdness. Okay, she said, taxi — driver.

Vince parked the car at Geiss and had a beer and a sandwich in the Brückehof while waiting for the bus. He feels good. He is almost pleased now to be so lost. Disorientation need not be a problem, he thinks. The bus came on time, full of housewives returning from their morning’s shopping in Bruneck. An older man fanned himself with a newspaper. A couple of young hikers were consulting maps. Nobody spoke to Vince. He got off at the stop before Sand in Taufers and crossed the bridge to the campsite. The canoes were stacked on the trailer beside the chalet. Clive had told him where the keys were hidden. The boat he had been using was the third from the top. He dragged the others off, put them back, locked the chain again. My hand feels okay, he decides. It was two o’clock. Four hours to the deadline in Berlin. He has stopped imagining that it could be Clive now, yet feels attracted to those men. Suddenly all kinds of behaviour seem explicable. They are gambling their lives.

It felt strange putting his kit on alone. He took the bandage off his hand, clenched his fist, thrust it carefully through the tight rubber cuffs of his cag. Then the spraydeck, the buoyancy aid. Again he was struck by the noisy silence of doing things without others. He heard Louise’s voice now: Dad, where are my thermals, I’ve lost my thermals. There was always something she couldn’t find. And Brian’s. I’m Brian, the boy had said, Max is the fairy. Vince smiled. Car keys, he thought. Where? He threaded the leather loop into the ties that held the boat’s backrest. Perhaps I should have been a scout leader.

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.

When he reached the car, he didn’t even have the energy to undress and change clothes. Seven o’clock. He turned on the radio. I should have put some food in here. I need sugar. Checking his mobile for messages, he was vaguely aware that the German newscaster he was listening to had used the word Mord in the headlines. Selbstmord. When are you coming back, Dad? Louise had written. Miss you. Things to talk about. An hour later, in bed in the chalet, he thought again, it won’t be Clive. The American Forces radio station said that the protestors were as yet nameless. They had blown themselves up before the deadline when an armoured car had approached them.