Tim Parks - Rapids

Amal is trying to force a way round Vince to the stream, but now Vince breaks in himself. He will get to her first. In one stroke he’s in the quick of it. The power of the current tosses the boat round. It’s a matter of seconds. He is bearing straight down on Mandy’s boat, still pinned upside down against the rock. The bank is to the right, the next rapid to the left. I have no idea how to do this, Vince thinks.

Keith is shouting something, but Vince can’t hear, can’t listen. Instead of fighting the pull of the current onto the rock, Vince speeds towards it, as if to spear Mandy’s boat as he goes down. Lean into it! Keith is yelling. Vince pays no attention. Just before he hits the submerged boat, he lets go the paddle with his right hand and throws his body towards the rock to grab the bow — handle of the boat. His arm is wrenched violently, but the boat shifts. It’s free. Dragged over, Vince thrusts his hand down on the bow of Mandy’s boat to bounce up and prevent himself from capsizing. Now he’s spun backward and dropping into the rapid. He’s just got both hands back on his paddle when he hits a stopper sideways and goes down. This time he rolls up without thinking, as if rolling in white water were the easiest thing in the world. Mandy is swimming. Keith has already got a line to her. Amal is chasing the upturned boat down the river. Exhausted, mentally more than physically, Vince pulls over to the bank.

The deck just wouldn’t pop, Mandy is repeating. There’s a note of hysteria in her voice. She is stumbling up on the rocks. Her body is shaking. The water was so powerful, it wouldn’t pop. I couldn’t get out. I was drowning. Thought I might have to take a swim there, Keith laughs. Stitches or no stitches. Then the woman insists on embracing Vince. You saved my life. Nonsense! Later they worked out that the whole crisis had lasted no more than twenty seconds. Nursing the pain in his shoulder, Vince understood he had booked himself a place on tomorrow’s trip.

The chair — lift begins a mile or so above Sand in Taufers. It took them up in threesomes, their feet dangling a few yards above the tall pines either side, the cables humming and clicking above them, the air cooling around their faces, the valley falling away dramatically behind. The kids giggled and took photos of each other. Amelia was quiet beside Tom. Max dangled Wally below his seat on a string amid shrieks of fake horror. Somebody had begun to sing ‘Inky Pinky Parlez — Vous’.

At the top, a large timber — built hostelry, flying the vertical red and white banner of the Tyrol, sits in a wide meadow hemmed in on three sides by even steeper slopes leading up to a ridge at almost nine thousand feet. But the youngsters really don’t want to walk. The sun has a sharper, brighter quality here. They could buy Cokes at the hostel, fool around and sunbathe. Since Bri can only hobble, we’ve all decided to keep him company, Max laughed. Keith and Mandy had stayed behind, to explore Bruneck, they said. The woman had needed a rest. So for the walk up to the glacier there were just Vince, Amal, Adam, Clive and Michela. Adam tried to persuade his son to join them. Risking nothing, the boy had survived the slalom course well enough. He doesn’t want to, Vince said softly. It was clear there was something going on between him and Louise. Adam insisted. It would do everybody good to stretch their legs after being cramped in the boat. Mark didn’t even reply now. He turned and ran after the others.

Then no sooner had the walkers set off up a path that zigzagged steeply through walls of flint, than Clive suddenly stopped to apologise to Adam. Michela didn’t expect it. The party was brought to a halt on the narrow path. I shouldn’t have hit you. A clouded look came over his handsome face. Dead right, you shouldn’t, Adam agreed. Then the instructor said, Forget it, but grudgingly, Michela thought. They climbed in single file up the steep slope under bright afternoon sunshine, and as they walked and she watched Clive’s strong legs in short trousers and his powerful back bending to the slope, she began to feel angry. You shouldn’t be apologising, she began to speak to him in her mind. He isn’t worth it. And you shouldn’t be wasting time, doing stupid, touristy things, taking groups up mountainsides. The kayaking was a mistake, she told herself now. If we aren’t to be happy together, what point is there in arranging these trips? She was thinking in English. What point for a man like Clive? Suddenly she understood that he must do something serious. That’s why he has never married. He is preparing himself. Michela knew that Clive had lived with two or three other women before her. He couldn’t marry because he must do something important. It’s crazy for him to lead ungrateful people up a mountain, when they just want to hang around at the rifugio and flirt and sunbathe. He must do something that changes the world. Yes. Oh, but it made her so furious that he could break off their relationship, he could stop making love, just like that, before there was really any need, and that he could do it without missing her body at all, without any sense of loss. Why did I have to find a saint? she complained. I’m his last temptation. You’re a saint, Clive. The voice in her head was louder now. So what are you waiting for? she demanded of him. It sounded like a scream. Whatever it is you have to do, do it!

They climbed slowly, in silence, but in her mind the noise is loud and angry. Why had he apologised? You have a cause, a goal, the voice insisted. She couldn’t stop it. She doesn’t want him to have doubts. Do something then! If we are not going to love again, at least let me be proud of you. Let me admire you. She stumbled. She put a hand down. How gritty and unrelenting the ground was. She felt dizzy. I haven’t been sleeping enough. Above them the slope was a mass of ugly shards. Only far away did it make sense, the peaks ranged in line after line, quivering in the slow convection of the sunny afternoon. There are so many mountains, and so empty. Michela loves them for their emptiness. She loves the miniature look of distant villages in the valley bottom, the thin threads of plunging streams, this placing yourself far away in utter emptiness to look back and down on it all. From way below came the clang of the cowbell: the beasts, the herd. Why had he humiliated himself like that? Why was he so knotted and tense and thwarted? Clive! She could have helped him. She wanted him to be free. When they stopped at a vantage point, she said out loud: I don’t think I can get through the whole summer like this.

She was speaking to Clive, but quite loudly. She feels exhausted. I really can’t, she said. The voice was matter — of — fact. It echoed in her head. The others didn’t understand. Vince put it down to some momentary slip in English, some conversation he had missed. The climb had been long and steep. He is panting. The panorama was extraordinary. Drink? He offered her his bottle. But people were already moving again. As they walked, Vince was constantly aware of her girlish body swaying after Clive’s, the man’s powerful tread, her feminine lightness and flexibility. It was strange to be so attracted to a couple like this, to be so conscious of their bodies, of femininity and masculinity, their togetherness. He had seen the girl catching her man’s eye. Were Gloria and I ever like that? He wanted to tell them that he approved. He imagined them twining together in love. His interest disturbs him. I approve of their loving and their politics, he thought. Two people cleaving to each other, and caring about the world too. You approve because your own life is so empty. But he did not feel unhappy this afternoon. Being near them, the taciturn man, the urgent girl, seemed to cheer him.