Tim Parks - Rapids

Capisco niente. Vince says. Verstehe nicht.

The small man is gesticulating, perhaps warning him. His eyes are red. There’s an unpleasant smell. His jacket looks as if it too might have been pulled from the water, like the driftwood of his home. There are fish — heads lying in the mud. The man goes on shouting. In his early forties maybe. Or older. His eyes are fierce.

Verstehe nicht ,Vince repeats. He turns and pushes on. The man screams after him. He hurls his bottle into the bushes over Vince’s head. Vince finds the path, and after five or six paces the trees open up on the river bank. He sees the rapids and again the hull of a boat floating upside down. Blue this time. The boys are playing at breaking into the stream with the tail edge dipped towards the current. The back of the kayak is forced deep into the water, the nose lifts in the air. Tail squirts. Phil’s boat rears up like a mad horse, or a motorcycle raised on its rear wheel. For a moment, the boy holds it there, yelling Yahoo, alrighty! The boat collapses back on top of him.

Vince watches, his face tense.

The river here is squeezed through a gap of only four or five yards then immediately opens out with big turbulent eddies swirling against each bank. A stone ledge stretching halfway across the flow at its fastest point causes the water to drop in a deep trough that then curls up into a tall, steady wave. Adam is showing the girls how to break from the side of the river and surf on the crest of the wave. The water is high and fierce and Caroline refuses to try. She has hooked an elbow round a sapling on the bank. Not my bag, she says, chewing. Adam repeats the same movements, simple and mechanical. Unlike the boys, he seems to take pleasure not in the thing itself, but in knowing how to do it, the control, the communication of technique. He is reassuring, but cold. Amelia ventures into the trough of the wave. The little girl seems so small in her long green boat, so hesitant. For a few moments the wave holds her, then the boat is tossed out like a cork.

Too cautious, Louise misses the trough altogether, spins round when the bow hits the crest of the wave, almost capsizes but, seemingly unconcerned, regains the bank. Vince is proud of her.

At the same time, over and over, the boys throw themselves into the turbulent stream, pushing to the front of the eddy, ignoring any queue the others have formed. Brian with his club foot has an uncanny balance in the boat. He never capsizes.

You selfish brats! Mandy yells. She is dragging her boat out of the water having failed to roll up. She shouts at Max and Phil as if it were their fault. You’ve got to watch out for each other!

Clive and Keith are sitting a few yards down from the action, ready to help any swimmers. The Indian boy Amal is also playing helper. He has an air of pleased diligence about him.

Try it, Mark, Adam invites his son.

Me arms are aching, the boy complains. I need a rest.

It doesn’t require any strength, Adam insists.

I’m well tired, the boy repeats. I got pins and needles. He won’t do it.

Vince reaches the top of the eddy. So how do you do this? he asks the instructor.

Okay. Adam holds his boat. You put your nose in the current, pointing upstream and just a little across. You break into the flow and lift your right knee to give a hint of an edge. You shouldn’t even have to paddle if you get it right.

Vince is nervous. He is facing a rush of water such as he hasn’t seen before. It foams, silver and black, over the stones, moss — green here, marbly grey there. He recalls the bearded face of a few moments before, the alcoholic shouting in German, throwing his bottle. What if I get it wrong, capsize, hit my head on a rock?

Go, Adam says. Don’t shilly — shally.

As he shifts his boat out of the eddy, Vince finds it suddenly drawn towards the submerged ledge over which the water is surging so powerfully. He is being sucked upstream and under. This is quite unexpected. How can I be pulled upstream?

Lean back! Adam shouts.

Vince tries to correct, back — paddling, but this has the effect of sending the boat careering sideways, rocking violently. A mountain of water piles down on him. Vince tries to raise the edge of the kayak to meet it, but it’s too late, he is down. His head hits the foam.

The experience is quite different from any other capsize he has known. You are no longer in slow water with time to reflect. You are in the quick of it— this is life— eyes open but blind. An icy flood rears and tugs and swirls. The paddle is being dragged away from him. He can’t push it to the surface. It won’t move, it’s trapped against the boat. He tries the rolling motion anyway. The boat half turns. His head breaks the surface. For a split second, comic no doubt to the onlooker, he can catch a breath. He has a vague impression of the world rushing by. Someone’s shouting. Then he’s down again. Now the helmet scrapes, again he fights with the paddle, again fails to right the boat. This time his fingers find the release tab. The spraydeck pops. The freezing water floods the cockpit and he swims out. Hold on to your paddle! Don’t let go of the boat! Turn it upright. As his head breaks the surface, Keith is already there with a tow — sling and a clip. And you forgot to bang on the sides!

All afternoon they keep at this. It’s today’s lesson. Very soon they are in three groups. There are those who take few risks, happy with what they can do; those who seem to have no trouble with anything— the elect— and then those who will keep trying and trying though almost always beaten.

Time and again Vince approaches the top of the eddy. Fascinated, he watches how others— Michela, Amelia and Louise now too— penetrate the current and glide across to the wave apparently without expending energy or taking risks. How is this? There is some hidden place, it seems, between eddy and flow, between the soft grey water milling on shallow stones and the fast dark stream pouring into the wave, some place where the river can be unlocked. A secret entrance. You’re admitted directly to the heart of things. You’re privileged. You can sit on the wave in a miracle of exhilarating speed and reassuring stillness. This mystery is denied to him. The entrance isn’t there when he approaches. The explanations— do this, do that— don’t seem to correspond to the experience.

In the eddy, Michela brings her boat alongside his. She is laughing. She seems happy. She shows Vince exactly the point of entry, the movement of the paddle and hips. Clive will come round, she has decided. It’s so fine to be near him. He is so strong. Those deaths in Milan have brought on a crisis. It will pass. Speaking English makes her feel cheerful. He gives me strength too. Relaxed and determined, she tells the older man to go with the flow. Don’t fight it, she says.

Vince grips his paddle. The rain pours on the rushing water. Unnoticed above, the mountains have dissolved in cloud. And take it easy when you capsize, Michela repeats. You’re hurrying. There’s always more time than you think. Imagine you’re in a swimming pool.

Dad, don’t overdo it, Louise shouted. You’ve got to drive me home, you know.

On the fourth attempt, having once more capsized without reaching the wave, Vince rolls his boat upright in the worst of the turbulence. The paddle is suddenly in the right place. He arches the arm, moves his hips and with no effort at all there he is, tossed out on a boil of water, disorientated, floundering, but up, breathing. Things could still go right.

Last night, Keith was saying later, I asked everybody to introduce themselves. But then, as you know, there have been two late arrivals.

It was raining still, but uncannily warm. They had trailed the boats back to camp. They had strung up lines between the trees to hang the equipment. At least if it doesn’t dry, the rubber won’t stink. They had showered. The Louts had cooked. The three teams are the Louts, the Pigs and the Slobs. This had been young Max’s idea during the trip out. A spirit of healthy emulation, he said in his precocious little lawyer’s voice from beneath the straw hat. Now they were all crowded into the kitchen tent in the light of the gas lamp. Across the site the French boys were drumming under their awning. Occasional thunder rumbled over their heads. The church clock has just chimed eight. It was time for the evening meeting. Sitting in his canvas chair again, Keith wears a permanent smile of self — congratulation.