The man began an expansive monologue, gesturing constantly towards the tree. He seemed to be scolding them. Gibt es ein Weg? Max asked. Ein Wanderweg? The man pointed up. Tell him how grateful we are and ask him if he can help us with the portage, Clive instructed. We have someone who can’t walk. Tell him we’ll buy him a meal. Anything.
Max interpreted, but Roland didn’t seem to understand. Max repeated the offer. The man picked up his rod and opened his bag. It stank of fish. I think he’s saying he has to stay by the river. Cius, Roland stood up abruptly and without moving began to wave as though to people already in the distance. Auf wiedersehen, au revoir. It was clownish. We should have scouted ourselves, Adam said. But if his paddle hadn’t snapped … Max objected. We’ll debrief later, Clive said. We’ve been lucky.
The slope above the river bank was slippery with rainwater trickling down through roots and pine needles and patches of exposed rock. Having got back to the main group and then found a way up to the path far above, they arranged a pulley with the throw — ropes and hauled the eight boats more than a hundred steep yards through undergrowth and thickets. Clive lifted Brian on his shoulders and staggered zigzagging among the trees. Keep your helmet on, he told him. Good view, the boy said, ducking his head. Then they regrouped along the path. It was narrow but clearly marked, following the contour of the gorge through slim pines a couple of hundred feet above the river.
The rain still fell heavily. They hoisted the kayaks onto their shoulders. How far do we walk? Back to the minibus, Phil said. I’m not getting in the water again. The others were silent. Each boat weighed twelve kilos plus whatever kit they had. Emergency candy supply, Adam announced cheerfully. He still had a dozen packs of wine gums. Clive carried two boats, one on each shoulder. Brian used paddles for crutches. He seems undaunted. How far? Mark repeated. There’s a sort of chute here, Clive explained. He had run it twice. Too fast and steep to get back in on. Especially in the state we’re in now. About quarter of a mile. Maybe half.
Suddenly they were exhausted, what with the waiting around, the cold, the dragging the boats one by one up the slope. Everyone had a blister, a rash, scratches. Only Vince was still in a strange state of elation. Why had he behaved like that? He hadn’t even told himself he was crazy about her. So why had he shouted it? And why had she kissed him, then hurried off? But he wasn’t really thinking of Michela. He wasn’t sure at all that she mattered to him. His main thought is: When I wake up tomorrow, will I really have changed? Is it over, the paralysis of these awful months? The canoe bit into his shoulder. He didn’t notice. He wanted to speak to Louise, though he couldn’t tell her of course. Phil almost died, he chided himself. It didn’t seem important. Okay, here, Clive eventually decided. He put down the boats. We’ll try here.
Clive and Adam slithered down the slope to scout. They have found an understanding, Michela noticed. She sat apart from the others, her body numb, her mind fixed. I am not going back to the campsite, she decided, not to the chalet. Clutching her knees, she rocked back and forth in the damp pine needles. It was like the moment on the train between Brescia and Milan when she had told herself that she would never see her mother again. That’s it. I will never speak to you again. This clarity is a relief. She didn’t question the moment with Vince beneath that thunder of water. She didn’t see the wooded slope in the rain. Her head is leaden. But she knows: I’m not going back.
Do — able, Clive announced, but only if everyone’s feeling positive. While the instructors were away, Phil had been going over and over the accident with the others. When I started to go under the tree, I thought I was dead. There was like, this roar of noise. I was grabbing at the branches, shitting myself. I must have swallowed a bathtub full. From time to time, as he spoke, the boy had fits of shivers. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, he shook his head fiercely from side to side.
They were sitting on their upturned boats on the path in their uncomfortable waterproof clothes. Now Clive appeared from the woods with his solemn smile, weighing them up. Time for a morale massage, kids, he said. You’ve got to tell yourselves that essentially nothing has happened and that you’re going to go on paddling just the same way you did this morning. Like gods. When no one replied, he said slowly: In the end, it’s all here folks, he touched his forehead just above the nose. It’s just a question of believing you can do it. It’s in your head. Phil, he went on briskly, you take my paddle and I’ll use the splits. It was a BCU rule that a trip leader carried a collapsible paddle. But Phil said no. He was shaking his head wildly. No way he was going back on the water. No fucking way. I’ve got a flask of tea, Adam told him. Warm you up. Come on. Then Mark said: Don’t chicken out, Phil. Suddenly Max was on his feet. Shut up! he shrieked. You fucking stupid wimp! How can you talk about chickening out? Phil nearly fucking died. He was choking. It’s a miracle that bloke was there. And you, you … Max seemed about to explode with frustration. You’re useless! You’re shitting in your pants the whole time.
Two years older, Mark muttered, I didn’t mean anything. I … Just stay out of it, Adam told his son quietly. He said nothing to Max. If you really can’t, Clive told Phil quietly, then I suppose you can climb up to the road and just wait for as long as it takes for us to come and pick you up. We’ll get someone else to volunteer to stay with you. But it can’t be me or Adam. There have to be two instructors with the group. Then Amelia said, actually, if she wasn’t mistaken, the road must be on the other side of the gorge. And she was right.
The pressure of the group now was to get the boy back on the water. There was some discussion. The leaders couldn’t decide how much of an emergency this was. The day hung in the balance. What’s the water like, Phil eventually asked. Adam said coolly: More or less the way you’ve always wanted it, Phil. Worst comes to worst, Clive said, you can ferry over to the other side and climb to the road there. But everybody remembered that the road had been dizzyingly high, right at the top of the gorge. As they set up a rope and sling to lower the boats down, Michela got to her feet and walked over to Vince. At once he was tense with expectation. She put her mouth to his ear: He wants to save the whole world and now someone in his own little kayak group is going to die. Vince was shocked. The girl’s face was pale with anger and scorn. Her dark eyes were gleaming. As he was trying to think what to reply, she turned away.
We should abort, Adam announced. Half an hour later they had got the boats lined up in a thicket of young saplings precariously rooted over a drop of perhaps four feet into a roar of muddy water. The river has come up two or three inches, Adam insisted, in the time it’s taken us to bring the boats down. I’ve got my mobile in the dry — bag, he said. We can call Keith and sort something out.
Michela said, Really, it’s fine. There’s nothing specially difficult from here on. Vince stared at the swollen water. A couple of small planks came tumbling down, part of a broken pallet perhaps. We should abort, Adam said firmly. Your dad’s scared you won’t be able to make it, Max taunted Mark. Max! Clive said. Shut it! Okay? Enough! Now listen, come round— they were huddled on the mud among the thin trees— listen, if we played it strictly by the rule book, I think Adam would be right. We can rig up a pulley across the river, do a rope — assisted ferry — glide, climb about a thousand feet and spend till midnight and gone getting the boats out.