Rapids by Tim Parks Read Free Book Online Page A

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