Tim Parks: Rapids

Your buoyancy aids! Keith arrived at a run. He was yelling. No one in the water without buoyancy aids! The swimmers protested. We must keep an eye on them, the group leader told Vince. There was a hint of reproach. Out! He raised his voice. It’s a question of insurance. There are rapids round that bend.

But we’re here, Amelia complained. You can’t accuse us of being round the bend!

Caroline wallowed beside her. Respect, she said.

Out of the water at once, Keith insisted.

Wally! Show Wally!

I’ll show Wally when you get out.

Only as they came out on the mud did Vince realise that one of the boys had a club foot. The red — haired lad with the sly face. He had trouble getting to his feet. It was a serious malformation. I’ve forgotten their names, Vince told himself. He breathed deeply.

Crazy as it may sound, we now paddle upstream, Clive told them. Remember, no one said this was a holiday. In about quarter of a mile, we get to some white water and we can have our first go at a wave. But getting there is going to be a sweat.

Hear that, Phil? Keith asked. Neoprene jacket unzipped, the man’s paunch was in evidence.

Doddle, the boy said. On the back of his helmet he has a skull and crossbones and the words, Don’t follow me!

Clive smiled. Okay, basically, the thing to do is to use whatever slack water you can find, in the eddies by the bank, or behind the rocks midstream, to keep moving upstream. It’s an exercise in reading the water. Anyone in despair, there’s a path behind those bushes on the other side. You can always carry the boat.

There was a minute’s unpleasantness pulling the damp wetsuits back on, a minute’s sleepiness, perhaps. The day was clouding over, as so often in the mountains at noon. It was muggy and chill by turns. There were midges and dragonflies. The air hummed. As soon as Vince was back in his boat, paddle in hand, life seemed possible again.

All right, Mark? he asked Adam’s son, when they were on the water. He knew that name.

Fine, the boy said. He had an earnest, slightly vacant face. Just me feet going numb. Like having your legs jammed up yer arse.

You look good on the water, Vince said.

Tell me dad that!

No sooner had they rounded the bend, upstream, than the river narrowed. The water began to flow more swiftly. The boat wobbled. Wake up, Vince told himself. There was a constant gurgling. He was concentrated, nervous. Lean back when you break into the stream from the eddy, Keith warned. Lean back, you’re crouched! You’re tense. How can your shoulders work like that? Relax.

The kayaks zigzagged, gaining in the slack water behind rocks and spurs, fighting to cross the swift flow in the centre. Show your butts to the stream, everybody. Make the river carry you across! Vince rested behind a boulder. His eyes moved over the water ahead. From brown it had turned black. Perhaps that was the sky growing darker. There was no time for the landscape. He looked for the flat swirling of water that marked the lower part of an eddy.

Break into the current with the hull scraping your rock, Max! Clive called. Scraping it, I said!

I’m Brian, the boy complained. Max is the fairy.

Bugger you, Bri.

See what I mean!

Vince watched. Brian then was the boy with the club foot— concentrate— Max the blonde lad who had worn the straw hat. He was surprised to find how well he was doing. Never in his life had it been so difficult to get through a day, or even a single hour. There had been weeks and months of misery. But now, when you spoke to someone for a moment, or managed to cross a big rush of water and hide behind a low rock, then a little time passed unnoticed. He felt a sense of achievement. Life was flowing again. I’m doing fine, he thought. By the end of the holiday, I’ll be cured.

But now there was a more serious obstacle. They were trapped behind a spur. You fight up the cushion of water, Clive explained, then, at the critical point— don’t worry, you’ll sense it— you throw your weight forward and paddle for it like crazy.

Vince’s paddle caught on the rocky spur. The water rushed towards him. I’m gasping. I’m sweating like a pig. He hung on the surge of the current, fought it, paddled wildly, then was carried down, had to struggle just to get back in the same eddy. Meantime, all the others had passed. He was last.

Try again, Clive told him. The key is the angle when you enter the flow. Vince tried and failed. The strokes weren’t powerful enough. Or weren’t placed right. He sensed the strain in his shoulders.

Just keep working at it, Keith said patiently. He had come back for them. But you have to believe you’re going to make it. Use your shoulders, not your wrists. Punch the stroke through.

The sheer fact is, Clive laughed, there’s a difference in the ratio of strength to body weight between us and the youngsters. We adults sink deeper. We’re heavier. They just try and they fly.

Between me and the youngsters you mean, Vince said grimly. Suddenly he was again telling himself he shouldn’t have come. I’m making a fool of myself. He should have stayed home to wait out this mental state. To wait till he became himself again.

Go for it!

Vince looks hard at the solid curve of water coming down from above the spur and doesn’t understand how all the others have done it. Even tubby Caroline. He throws himself at it again. He gives it everything. The left side of the bow grazes the rock. He lifts the left edge to meet the current. The boat is pushed to the right. Paddle like crazy, someone is shouting. Now! Weight forward! Now! Vince paddles. One stroke goes in with surprising power. It feels different. He’s done it. He’s on top. It wasn’t even that difficult. Now he just has to fight to the slack by the bank to avoid being carried down again.

Mandy is there, her head among the branches of a willow. Waiting for my heart rate to come down a little, thank you very much, she laughs. Even on the water she has the camera attached to her jacket, apparently waterproof. She squints at the little screen. You’re red as a lobster! This’ll be good. Vince’s skull is pounding under his helmet. Did it! he finally finds the breath to shout. Did IT! He punches the air. He is overreacting.

At that moment a red hull swirled by, a kayak floating upside down. Immediately alert, congratulating himself on the fact, Vince broke from the eddy to meet it. They must look out for each other. That was the rule. But even as he pulls into the current, swept back towards the rush he has just climbed from, a paddle breaks the surface beside the hull and in a second the boat has flipped right side up. Phil is grinning gormlessly, chewing, nose dripping under a green helmet. Vince crashes into him as they go down the rush by the spur together. See that! There’s a flurry of water and paddle strokes. The boy seems to do everything instinctively. See that tail squirt I did! I was bloody vertical. No sooner are they back in the lower eddy than Phil climbs the rush again, apparently without effort, and is gone. Vince is exhausted. After one failed attempt to get back to Mandy, he paddles the boat the other side of the rock and over to the bank.

There’s a heavy smell of dank vegetation here, exposed willow roots with water flowing through them, a buzz of flies. Vince pulls his boat up on the bank, then flounders, looking for a break in the nettles. Now there are raindrops pattering all around. His foot sinks into black mud. Hey! Clive reappears in the eddy behind the rock. You should tell me if you’re getting out. He’s irritated. Otherwise I’ll be worried we’ve lost you. I’ll go searching downstream.

But how could Vince have told him, if the others were all ahead? The path squeezes through dense woodland. On his shoulder the heavy kayak knocks against trunks and branches. It’s dark here among the trees and there’s a dull roar of water coming from up front. Or is it traffic on some road? Now the rain pours down. Summer storm rain. The boat knocks against his head. He has to crouch to get the thing through a thicket. The ground is broken. The earth smells strangely warm and resiny. Stumbling into a small clearing, he almost bangs into a low makeshift hut put together with blankets and tarpaulin, blue nylon string and hunks of driftwood. On a sheet of cardboard in the mud by the entrance, a thin, heavily bearded man jumps to his feet. Vince stops. Immediately, the man waves a bottle and begins to speak excitedly.