Adam immediately stepped into the water. His leg sank to the knee, then the thigh. The water crashed on his helmet. Leaning forward, his hands supported on the rock behind the fall, he edged along with nervous slowness. There was no regulation way of doing things now. The waterfall is perhaps twelve feet across. The man had reached the middle when suddenly he stumbled forward through the curtain of white spray and disappeared. Jesus! Mark breathed. For about thirty seconds there was no sign of him— Don’t worry, Clive laughed— then Adam reappeared further along and began to climb out from the water. From the opposite bank he turned and shouted something, held up a thumb. Now you, Clive told Phil, and try to enjoy it more than he did.
One by one the group inched along the ledge, then, with nowhere to stand on the far side, people began scrambling back down the slope to the boats. Vince was second to last with only Michela behind. As he stepped into the falling water, he was astonished by the force of its downward thrust beating on his helmet. His neck tensed to resist. Nobody said I wouldn’t be able to breathe. The air was all water. His eyes are blind, ears full of sound, cheeks stinging with cold. His hands advanced, pressing numbly on the slippery rock behind the fall. Then, as he imagined, the resistance suddenly disappeared. There was no wall. He stumbled forward through the heavy water and stood, thigh — deep, in a space that might have been the size of a tall wardrobe. So little light filtered through, it was impossible to make out what was above him. Vince stood there breathing deeply.
Why didn’t he just hurry on then, as the others had? Was it guile? Suddenly, it seemed essential that he should have come here, that he should know this cold, roaring place, at the heart of everything, he thought, but dark and hidden. It’s important that there are places like this. He couldn’t think why. But he knew the Italian girl would be coming. Any moment. He waited, breathing the saturated air. Sure enough, she suddenly blundered forward through the water and against him. He could just make out her pale face as she yelled something inches away. What was it? He couldn’t hear. He started to edge out, but she is holding an arm. He turned to her. She pulled him against her. Her hands had fastened tight on his jacket. Their cold wet faces are together now. Still she was yelling something. The water thundered. He shouted: I’m crazy about you. Absolutely crazy! He was shouting at the top of his voice knowing she couldn’t hear. I do nothing but watch you. She shook her head. Their eyes had caught each other, gathering a faint brightness from the shadow. Something was quivering there. She put her hands behind his head. Their helmets banged. And for perhaps three or four seconds she pressed her cold lips to his. Then she let go. She pushed him. He turned. Stepping outwards, the weight of the water was again so unexpected he lost his footing on the ledge and fell outwards. The pool was up to his neck and he had to swim. By the time he reached the shallow water, Michela was already ahead, hurrying down after the others.
Mystical experience? Clive asked Adam as they got into their boats again.
Claustrophobic, Adam replied. He had his sardonic smile. Place could use some good garden lighting.
Bit of a toilet, if you ask me, Phil sneered.
Vince?
Can’t describe it. He shook his head. What could he say? A great wind was blowing through him. Like a place, he hazarded, I kind of always knew existed but had never been to. Does that make sense? He didn’t look at Michela as he spoke, but saw Clive lift an eyebrow in her direction. There was a squint of anxiety in his expression. The Italian girl’s voice came very flat and clear: Last place on earth, she said. Terminal.
Did we really miss anything? Amelia was demanding of Max. And has anybody got any lipsalve?
Rapid poke in Mother Earth’s old womb, Max said. Core of the universe kind of thing.
Earth’s what?
For Christ’s sake, Phil, where have you been, where did you come from? The womb!
Cunt to you, Brian explained, checking his spraydeck.
Kids, Adam began.
Not exactly, Amelia protested. She pressed a stick of Vaseline against her lips.
Thereabouts, Brian said. And just as wet by the sounds.
You should be so lucky, Max told him.
Cunt is warm, Phil objected.
Unless you’re into necrophilia.
Kids, I said enough!
Then they were on the water again. It was distinctly dirtier now as the rising streams brought down earth from the mountain sides. There were the first bits of debris. A broken branch, a dead bird. Yuck, Amelia said. Bugger off, foul fowl. The creature rolled over softly in the eddy — line, limp feathers outspread. How quiet the valley seemed, Vince thought. The dull roar of rain and river made a strange ferocious hush.
Just before the first rapid, Clive told Phil and Max to go ahead together and scout. First sign of anything really tricky, out of your boats and check it from the bank. This is the definitive four — star test, okay?
The boys paddled off and disappeared over the horizon line. The others chattered. Adam acknowledged that the little cave behind the fall was worth a visit, but didn’t see why Clive wanted to insist on the word mystical. Michela stared glassily into the water: because it was where she and Clive had kissed so passionately three weeks before, she thought. Amelia was asking Brian if they would let him have his four — star even if, with his bad foot, he couldn’t do this scouting business. Then Mark shouted, Listen up!
It was Max’s voice. He was hoarse. Shrieking. Unable to get along the rocky bank, the boy had climbed five or six yards up in thick bushes. Quick! He’s drowning. Quick. Oh God! Hurry. Help!
Clive thrust his boat out into the stream. Adam! With me. Everybody else, stay. The two men were out of sight in a matter of seconds. Max was crashing away again through the trees. About halfway through the rapid, the instructors found Phil trapped under a tree that had fallen, uprooted, across the water, its trunk just clear of the flood, the branches beneath forming an impassable sieve. This was a place to die in. But a man was already out there. Straddled on the trunk in a mass of broken twigs, he had got a hand under the boy’s shoulder, keeping his face just half out of the water. That crazy bloke was waiting there shouting, Max explained later. The boys had gone down over the pour — over, heard him yelling, seen the obstacle and tried to eddy out. But Phil must have planted his paddle exactly between two rocks as he turned. When he lifted it, the blade had gone. He hadn’t even felt it snap. The river had him. The boat was dragged beneath the tree. The water pulled him down into the tangled branches.
With a coolness that was the opposite of his reaction to the violence in Milan, Clive found two half — submerged stones to wedge his boat between, got out and tossed his tackle to Max who had arrived on the bank. In a moment he had brought Adam alongside of him. But for all their competence, with the strength of the current sweeping into the matted branches and the difficulty moving along the bank and then out onto the trunk, it took the men almost fifteen minutes to get the boy free. Meantime, the old tramp held onto his shoulder in the freezing water, shouting incomprehensibly, while the instructors secured ropes to the belt of his buoyancy aid.
Pulled clear, Phil retched and vomited. Never again. He would never get back on the water again. His gormless face was white, lips bloodless, and his whole body shaking. Never, never, never! He shook his head violently. It’s my fault, Clive told Adam. He studied the narrow gorge with its steep banks, the fallen tree. We’ll have to portage.
The kayaks were dragged out with ropes. They must find a way round. At this point it was clear that the person who really ought to have been excluded from the trip was Brian. Safest in the water, the crippled boy couldn’t carry his boat and couldn’t even walk unaided except on a fairly flat surface. Ask the guy if there’s a path, Clive told Max. Wie heissen Sie? Max asked. The man was squatting on a rock with his shoulder bag and rod, filthy khaki trousers soaking below the knees, a sodden raincoat. He had shaved perhaps a week ago. The stubble was white. Roland, he answered. There was a smell to him. He wore boots with no socks. Roland. He grinned now. I’m Max, Max said.