by Tim Parks
Vince is watching all this from the safety of his eddy on the opposite bank, thirty yards upstream. He sees the woman try to brace her paddle against the oncoming water to keep her head up. He has a picture of the blue helmet, the orange paddle—blade. But it’s only a fraction of a second before she’s down. Now she will pull out and swim. She doesn’t. Arm in a sling, Keith is scrambling down the bank. But there are thick brambles between himself and the rock. He can’t get to it. Mandy is still under. Amal! Vince looks round. The boy is locked away from the stream by Vince’s boat. Vince looks for Phil. Incredibly, he is fooling around in the hole. He’s let his kayak be sucked in and is throwing the boat this way and that, tail up, tail down, in the spongy water. He hasn’t seen anything. He can hear no screams.
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.
Then after only ten more minutes Amal asked for
another stop. I’m getting a headache, he said. Pressure, Adam told him. At this point when I climbed it two years ago, we were already on the ice, Clive said. All around them, the ground was arid flint. Again Michela said out loud, I won’t get through the whole summer like this. Again no one responded. She said it in such a strangely detached way. Slim and tall against the sky, it was as if she wasn’t quite among them. Or she is just complaining about the path. Look at this, Amal said. On a plaque nailed into the rock there was an oval photograph of a young woman’s face. Vince went close to read. Katrin Hofstetter: 19.1.1979—31.8.1999. The face was bright and the woman’s long blonde hair had been brushed forward to fall on her shoulder. Actually, that’s about the fourth of those, Adam said. First woman though.
Eventually, they reached the snow and began to walk around the horseshoe of the ridge, so as to descend behind the hostelry. They were on top of the world here. Only far to the north, in Austria, were there taller peaks with larger glaciers. When the ice is gone, Clive explained to Vince, but he evidently wanted Adam to hear, you won’t get that slow storage and release of water you get at the moment. It’ll either be bone—dry, or, after it rains, you’ll get great surges ripping down the slopes and flooding the valleys out. Obviously, the less snow there is, the more the temperature goes up and the more the glacier melts, so there’s a built—in acceleration to it all.
Standing on the crusty grey ice, Vince turned to look in all directions at the phenomenon of the Alps. It was curious how something could be at once awesome and vulnerable. Your instinct was to shiver at the majesty, yet you were being told you had destroyed it. Amal asked if anything could actually be done. Only if the whole world changes its lifestyle, Clive remarked, and drastically. Then Adam said: A hawk, look. Apparently he has decided not to argue. Below them a large bird was slipping across the air—stream that rose from the valley. Same principle as a ferry—glide, the Indian boy said. See how he sets the angle and lets the wind squeeze him sideways. Standing right on the edge, where the ridge fell away into the valley beyond, Michela had taken Clive’s hand. The couple stood together looking out over an ocean of empty air. The drop is dizzying. The hawk closed its wings and went down like a stone. Clive slipped an arm round her waist. How can I ever go back to the bank? Vince wondered.
Then Michela said: You must do something serious, Clive. She squeezed his hand hard. He turned and found her face flushed with the sun and the glare from the ice. Her eyes were melting in the bright light. Not just demonstrations, she told him. He was staring at her. They were standing on the edge. One forward step and they would be gone right out of things. Had he understood? We have to move, Clive announced. Or we’ll be late. This is where the path turns down. Careful not to slip now.
Where are you taking us? someone shouted. Driving back to Sand in Taufers, the minibus had turned off the road down a dirt track. Suddenly the river was beside them, swirling through a deep gully. We’re going to look at the get—out point for those of you who are on the trip tomorrow. Clive had his solemn, almost religious expression. When he speaks, Michela thought, it’s as if he knew vastly more than anyone else could imagine. He hasn’t told me anything.
The bank was steep but easy enough to get down. Basically, Clive pointed upstream, when you come under the bridge, there, where the road crosses, you have about two hundred yards more to paddle, and you’re looking for the long flat spur on your right, here, below us. Everybody crowded round. Doddle, Phil said. As ever, he gave the impression of being let down. Yes, it’s easy, Clive said. Oh, check out the marker someone’s tied on the tree there. A few yards upstream, a long ribbon of orange plastic dangled from the drooping branch of a spruce. And now, Clive said, let me show you what would happen if by chance you fell asleep and drifted a few yards further down.
The dirt track turned abruptly away from the river and up the mountainside through stands of larch. Leaving it, they scrambled down a steep narrow path through brushwood and saplings. This was the gorge that made such a dramatic backdrop to the castle of Sand in Taufers as seen from the campsite. You can see why Long John Silver stuck to oceangoing craft, Brian complained. His club foot slipped. He had hurt himself. Max and Mark stayed to help. Vince grabbed a thin branch and leaned out over the water. Narrowing, the river tumbled rapidly in jumps of five, six and even ten feet, swirling between boulders and rushing against smooth walls of rock.
Clive stopped on a patch of mud and waited for the others to catch up. X—treme! Amelia breathed. They were looking down into a boil of water as the main stream went over a ledge to crash and froth around a huge dark rock just visible in a torment of backwash. This, Clive said, is grade five, verging on six. Give us the BCU definition, Amal. In his high—pitched voice, the boy sang: Only one line to follow, as with grade four— but harder to find and more technical to negotiate. Failure to follow line is seriously life—threatening. He seemed pleased with himself. Ambulance waiting at the bottom sort of thing, Louise said. Hearse more like it, Amelia added. Wicked! Phil approved. He was excited. Wally says this is nothing to Niagara, Max remarked. He was holding the bear to his ear, as if they were whispering together.
Mark stepped back. It’s not do—able, though, is it? he asked. He looked worried. I mean, like, I don’t see how anyone could get through that. They’d never try. Adam had been gazing with folded arms. Now he invited his son to come and stand beside him. He squatted down, pointed: Punch through the stopper to the right of the rock. There’s just room, okay? You use the hole behind to brake and turn, but without falling into it. Then a determined ferry over to the far side, spin just before the bank and take the next drop where that tongue of water shoots through the debris down into the next pool.
They all considered this hair—raising manoeuvre. Vince tried to imagine the effect of gravity in the drops, the power of the water. Perhaps it was possible. Is this the hardest bit, then? Tom enquired. To look down with more safety, Amelia had put an arm round his strong waist. It was curious how she was both the gawky schoolgirl and the society snob. Louise, Vince thought, has a coarser, franker energy. Let’s go and look, Michela said. She seemed to have cheered up. The sheer energy of the river was a source of pleasure.
They worked their way down a further hundred yards, scrabbling on stones and mud, occasionally pushing through the wet grass to the edge of the gully from which a soft spray drifted upward with the impact of water falling onto stone below. Immediately you looked down, the eye was captured by a kaleidoscopic shifting of dark—green and brown rock, white foam and blue transparent pools.
Fun to be had with the log there, Adam said. He was shaking his head. Life hath many exits, quoted Max. You just don’t have to hit the bloody thing, do you, Phil said boldly. Hard to avoid, Amal thought. A thick tree trunk was wedged between boulders right below a pour—over. Unless you’re mad enough to run river—left, that is. They were all relishing this contemplation of dangers they would never undertake. The water boomed. Almost belligerently, Mark again demanded: But nobody’s ever done it, have they? Sure they have, Clive replied. He had a smile on his face. There’s almost nothing people haven’t done. The boy wasn’t satisfied. He pushed back the hair that fell on his eyes. But, like, someone you know, you’ve seen them?
I’ve done it, Clive said.
Wow! The announcement caused excited reaction. Michela looked at her man sharply. I mean Wow, wow, and triple wow! Louise said. When you went to visit your mother, Clive whispered quickly. Michela couldn’t take it in. Why would he lie like this?
How many of you? Adam asked. The kids were all shaking their heads. Respect! Re—spect!
Two local guys, Clive said. From the rafting centre.
But you don’t know any local guys, Michela thought.
In the Pyranha? Amal enquired. Wouldn’t you need something with more volume?
And you fixed throw—lines and things? Adam asked.
No, no support on the bank, Clive said. They told me the line to follow and we went for
it. River—left to avoid the log. The gap is just big enough.
You’re mad, Mark declared.
I could do it, Phil said. Bet you I could do it, if someone would let me.
And you never capsized?
Everybody was looking at Clive’s bearded face, the pioneer ponytail. She loves him, Vince thought again, catching Michela’s gaze.
Sure I did. Three times, Clive said. See that rock there? Downstream of the pour—over, it’s invisible as you approach. I came crashing over the ledge, see, and speared it. Bang on. Boat went vertical and I was down. Vince asked: How on earth did you come up? They were looking at a storming torrent of water plunging through boulders.
I’ve no idea, Clive told him.
The Slobs had cooked curry. Everybody had picked up a bit of colour in the afternoon sun up on the mountain. If you never eat what’s on your plate, Mandy asked Phil, whence do you draw your sustenance, my boy? My what? Supply of Mars bars in his tent, Brian said. He must have about a hundred. Caroline kept setting off the hamster to general groans. It worries me to say, that I’ve never felt this way. Was that what you were saying to yourself, Max asked Mandy, when you were pinned underwater on the slalom course? The hamster never tired of his song. He beat his drum and waved his microphone. I was saying to myself, Mandy laughed: I think I love life, but this is what death is made of. Oh, it wasn’t even a close shave, Keith protested. You could have taken a photo or two, under water. Wally had been ceremoniously handed over to Amelia, who had dropped a shoe coming down on the ski—lift. It’s his fault, the girl cried, poking Tom. The young man grinned with embarrassment. She did it on purpose, Caroline scoffed, so’s she’d have to lean on him, like, walking back to the car park. Slander! Amelia shrieked. She hung the red—scarfed little effigy round her neck and pushed it down inside her T—shirt between the small breasts. Let’s see if anyone dares to steal it there! I consider that an invitation, Brian cried. Please, Adam said. Kids!
