Page 30 of The Girlfriend

The rain stopped sometime in the night. Cherry had been aware of it as she’d woken, uncomfortable and irritated by the mattress that sank in the middle.

It was pitch black, and utterly quiet outside, and the silence seemed to seep in and lie thick in the room, watching her.

She got a sudden longing for home, for bright streetlights and the sound of sirens.

She felt like she didn’t belong there. She had no idea of the time or how long until the alarm would wake them at seven.

She lay there for what seemed like ages, staring into the darkness, listening to Daniel’s soft breathing beside her.

She felt very alone in that dark room for a moment and almost nudged him awake so she could snuggle in close, feel his arms around her.

But just thinking about it made her loneliness seem silly, childish; she didn’t quite know what she’d say if she woke him.

She closed her eyes and willed herself back to sleep.

At some point, it must have happened because the next thing she knew, an increasingly loud beeping was coming from Daniel’s phone.

Breakfast was toast, eggs, and marmalade, the pub this time only populated by the half-dozen or so of the younger clientele from the night before.

Then they drove the short distance to the rafting company’s HQ, where a purpose-built stone building housed the equipment, changing rooms, and a small cafe.

As they walked through the muddy parking lot, awash with puddles from the rain, to register and find their guide, they saw a large sign outside the HQ building: TODAY’S WATER : GRADE 4.

“That’s pretty fast,” said Daniel, and Cherry felt a stab of nerves. She, unlike Daniel, who’d taken on rapids in Colorado, had never been white-water rafting before.

A young man, with sun-bleached hair and a clipboard, stood outside the building, welcoming people.

He was dressed in a wet suit, one that looked like it was expensive and professional; together with his outdoorsy hair, speaking of months on the river, it emphasized her own ineptitude.

She didn’t like the feeling of the unknown, of something she had no control over, and had been unable to research or test first. They were checked off and then went into separate changing rooms to get fitted for wet suits, buoyancy aids, and helmets.

Cherry didn’t talk to the other giggling girls who were in there, squeezing their bodies into neoprene.

She got dressed and locked her things away and then went outside, carrying her helmet.

Daniel was already there, with another couple and the outdoors hair guy, who’d ditched the clipboard.

Once she arrived, their group was complete.

“Hi,” said their guide, “now we’re all together, we’ll do some introductions and then I’ll go through the safety briefing. I’m Gareth.. . .” He smiled through his beard and indicated that Cherry should go next.

“Cherry,” she said, waving, and then it was Daniel, and next the couple were Jane and Paul from Bristol. She looks like an accounts clerk, thought Cherry, safe and slightly dowdy, and he, like someone who works for the local council.

“Right,” said Gareth, “here’s what you need to know.

I will be at the back of the raft and will control it, but you will be required to paddle as well, or at some point we will fall in.

At no point do you stand up on the boat or you will fall in.

When you do paddle, listen for my instructions on which side of the raft needs to do the work, or”—he paused for impact—“yes, you got it, you will fall in.”

Idiot, thought Cherry, does he think he’s funny? She caught Daniel’s eye and bit the inside of her cheeks as she saw him trying not to smile.

“If you do fall in, you will have your buoyancy aid on and your helmet, which is the type with holes in it so the water can drain out quickly. The best thing to do if you go into the water and you can’t get back in the raft is swim for the bank.

I will radio for someone to come and get you, and depending on how far you are down the river, you’ll either be minibussed or walk back up to the start.

When we get to the bottom of the run, there is a quieter patch, which we will need to paddle out of quickly so we don’t get caught in the rapids farther downstream as these lead to a series of small waterfalls that are too fast-flowing for today’s trip.

Once we’re out, we get the boat on the trailer and then everyone gets in the minibus and you get a ride back up to the top.

Then we do it all again! Any questions?”

Everyone looked at each other, but no one had any.

“Great. Can everybody swim?”

Wry titters from the group and then they followed Gareth to the riverbank.

He apportioned the places: Jane and Paul at the front; Cherry and Daniel at the back.

Each took a handle of the inflatable raft and, under Gareth’s instruction, pushed it into the water.

They followed and Cherry felt the icy cold against her neoprene boots.

They climbed in, the girls nervous, the boys full of bravado and excitement.

Gareth got on the back and instructed everyone to start paddling.

At first, it was calm, the water a semiopaque algae green, the bank serene and tree-lined.

A pleasant meander down the river, but then all of a sudden, the water dropped down as it ran over a series of boulders on the riverbed.

It created a rush of pummeling white water that flooded the raft, soaking them, but they had no time to take in what had happened as the boat surged forward on another rapid, then crashed into some rocks.

She held her breath as they spun around a full three-sixty degrees, then hurtled faster downstream, where more waves engulfed them, these at shoulder height.

Cherry spluttered from the cold that slapped her face, then screamed with laughter.

“Paddle left!” yelled Gareth, and she realized, being on the left side, this was meant for her and Paul and they were supposed to be helping propel the raft over the next set of rapids.

She wildly plunged the paddle in the water, feeling completely ineffectual, particularly as she lurched sideways in the boat as it plunged over another boulder.

Then another swift gradient change and more frothing water that came up over the side of the raft.

And so it went on, an exhilarating twenty minutes, all four of them thrown about laughing, clutching their paddles in the air, trying to listen to instruction and use them when required.

Suddenly the commands became more urgent: “Paddle to the right bank! Paddle!” shouted Gareth, and this must be the part, thought Cherry, where you had to get to the side to avoid the waterfalls.

Even though the water had calmed considerably, it was harder than she thought, and she struggled to fight against the current as they all paddled to Gareth’s increasingly insistent shouts, eventually bringing the boat close enough to the bank that it was no longer dragged downstream.

“Everybody out,” said Gareth, and they climbed out of the raft, and dragged it up onto the bank, where a team of two guys helped them pull it onto the back of a trailer. Cherry was grateful for the help; her arms and legs felt rubbery and she took Daniel’s hand as he hauled her out of the water.

“That was brilliant,” he said, giving her a wet, river-tasting kiss. She grinned back at him.

Once they were all in the minibus, its seats and floor wet with river water, it set off back up the hill. Gareth, who was in the front, turned around to face the four dripping passengers. “Everyone want to do it again?”

“Yes!” they yelled in unison, polite barriers well and truly knocked down.

The second time was just as fun, as was the third, with Cherry and Daniel changing places and sitting up front, which was even wetter and more thrilling as you faced the rapids head-on.

They even got to grin at the professional photographer who was on hand, halfway down the run, to take snapshots that you could buy afterward.

They’d been promised one more run if there was time, and Gareth seemed to think they could squeeze it in.

* * *

Each couple reverted to their original seats, and started with the now-familiar, gentle paddle down to the first rapid.

Cherry, having been bounced and tossed down the river three times now, was starting to feel tired.

It took more effort to paddle when Gareth shouted his instructions, but the run started as intoxicatingly as those before.

The water was as relentless in its determination to hurl them downstream, get them off its back.

“Paddle left!” yelled Gareth, and Cherry felt a mild irritation at having to do so; her arms were aching and she was tired of hearing his self-important bellows.

In the hesitation, the raft was caught in a sudden rapid; as she raised her paddle, she was lifted up into the air and her arm swung outward and whacked Daniel on the front of his head.

She opened her mouth in alarm, but in the blur of movement that followed, she hardly saw him propelled upward, more heard the thud as he landed on a rock that jutted from the riverbank.

She strained to see over her shoulder, flicking her head from side to side as the raft belted down the river, expecting him to be waving at her, amused that he’d been thrown from the boat.

But he wasn’t moving. Gareth was trying to look backward too, both of them fighting the power of the water so they could see what had happened.

“Paddle right!” screamed Gareth suddenly, and Jane and Paul, the laughter dying on their lips when they saw one of their party no longer in the boat, plunged their paddles in the water.

Cherry was losing sight of Daniel, but then she caught a glimpse and he was still lying motionless on the rock.

She tried to stand to get a better look.

“Sit down!” roared Gareth, and she flinched, then sat back down and followed his urgent moves to paddle them to the bank.

Gareth was already on his radio, calling in help, as he ran up to the rocks.

Cherry climbed out of the river, slipping on the bank and back into the water twice; then Paul yanked her hand to help her.

She ran upstream to where Daniel lay, confused as to why he wasn’t getting up.

It was only when she saw him close up that fear flitted through her body.

He was draped over a rocky outcrop, lying on his side with his head lower than his body and his feet still dangling in the water.

His face was pointing downstream, but his eyes were closed.

His helmet had been knocked backward and she saw a red welt on his forehead, which she suddenly realized, in horror, was what she’d inflicted when she’d accidentally hit him with her paddle.

Gareth was leaning over, taking Daniel’s pulse.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God,” she said, clambering over the wet rocks to get to him.

She knelt down and touched his hand, which felt cold from the river.

“Is he okay? Daniel, Daniel, talk to me.” His face remained white and still; the only movement came from his legs, which were jerking up and down in the flow of the water.

The minibus pulled up in a screech of mud and two staffers jumped out, carrying a first aid kit. Behind them, on the bank, stood Paul and Jane, arms folded, helpless looks on their faces.

“He’s breathing, isn’t he?” she insisted angrily, not believing the alternative but saying it, just to eliminate it.

Gareth nodded. “We need an ambulance.” One of the staff was already on the phone.

“Daniel, Daniel,” Cherry implored, stroking his cheek with her thumb. She squeezed his hands tightly as if that might wake him up. When it didn’t, she squeezed his arm.

“Don’t move him,” shot out Gareth, and she stared at him incredulous, none of it making any sense.

The sound of sirens grew louder and then an ambulance flew up to the riverbank, stopping abruptly, its light still spinning, and two paramedics came running, carrying a stretcher.

They took over. As they rolled Daniel carefully onto the stretcher, bluntly telling her to get out of the way, they painstakingly took off his helmet and Cherry saw another mark, a red circular lesion on his temple.

The paramedics expertly packaged him away, simultaneously asking questions about what had happened, had anyone moved him, how long had he been there, who was his next of kin.

As they deposited him into the ambulance, a red helicopter whirred into view above them, then landed somewhere beyond the trees.

Just before they closed the doors, one of the paramedics spoke to her:

“You’re his girlfriend?” She nodded, too stunned to speak.

“The air ambulance will take him to Wrexham Maelor.”

“Is that a hospital?” she asked, but they didn’t answer, too preoccupied, or they just didn’t hear. The sirens started up again as they took him up the hill and toward the helicopter.

She still hadn’t moved when she saw it rise up into the air, and she didn’t know if it was because she had stood there a long time or the ambulance had been extremely quick.

But the sight of him being taken away, of the noise of the blades fading into the sky, emphasized the shocked silence on the ground. She shivered, suddenly freezing cold.

“Where is it?” she said, meaning the hospital.

“We’ll give you a lift, or you can follow us in your car,” said Gareth.

She suddenly realized she still had to change and the idea of being delayed a minute more panicked her into action. She started to run back up the hill.