“Toby Hausner made it to the finals.”
“He did?” Jon seems mystified, then gradually a look of astonishment crosses his face. “Christ! That kid in dreadlocks who scorched through the semis, then came out barefoot for the final?”
“The very one.”
“He self-immolated out there. It was a horror.”
There is a short silence as they digest this sorry tale.
“He played magnificently today,” Jean-Paul eventually says. “This is an artist I’d pay to see.”
“Yes, but …” Portia ventures. “Do we dare promote him?”
“Come on, lads an’ girls, let’s hear it for our courageous driver!” This is Marcus holding forth as he lunges down in the aisle of the rented bus.
“Rah-rah,” someone says.
He slaps his hands together. “Who knows a song? C’mon, you lot. I want to hear boisterous singing.”
The bus brakes sharply, and Marcus tumbles forward, grabbing the back of Trace’s seat for balance. “Fucking shite!” He’s been hammered since being dropped from round one.
Pine trees spin by on the old highway, a river route following the crevice of a glacier-age gorge. Let the judges deliberate, Toby thinks. You can’t sit on your ass waiting for your future to arrive. Worse, you can’t let your recital haunt you, endlessly replaying the program in your mind, each hiccup going stereo, every misstep and string buzz pressed into memory. “A hundred bottles of beer on the wall!” he roars, and everyone joins in for a verse.
“Sit down!” the long-suffering driver pleads.
Acting like a bunch of unruly camp kids, the gang’s on furlough from the competition, trying to pretend it doesn’t exist for a few fragrant hours. Air streams through the open windows, message from the larger world.
Marcus, the Brit who was expected to ace the first round but didn’t, ignores the driver’s instruction. “What’s our national anthem, mates?” He starts ripping an air guitar version of the opening chords to “London Calling.”
The rented school bus crests into the final leg of the journey, then drills a sheer downward slope to the launch area next to the riverbank. A picturesque log cabin is set up next to stacks of kayaks, canoes, and rubber rafts.
The group clambers out, stretching and yawning after the hour-long ride on hard seats.
“Fuck those,” says Marcus, pointing to the row of kayaks. “Eskimo tippies. I want something with a nice fat arse.”
“You must wear PFDs, sir,” the youth in charge of rentals insists. “It’s the law.”
Marcus lifts up one of these objects. “Did the mighty voyageurs wear lifesaving vests? I think not.”
Lucy and Armand haul the cooler of beer from the bus as the door swooshes shut, and they all watch the rattletrap vehicle take off, due to return in two and a half hours.
Many competitors elected to stay back in their dorms, continuing to practise, not allowing their precious focus to soften. Toby was like that once, but now he grabs a beer and clambers up on a rock — Champlain discovers the new world. It pours in from all sides, the rolling foothills of the Laurentians, the river curling below, and behind them the highway buzzing with traffic. The universe is a bigger place than an airless room and a guitar.
Hiro, looking capable in track pants and purple tank top, scrambles down the hillside and lifts the bow of a kayak, testing its weight. Toby leaps off the rock, beer can in hand, and skips after him to the launching area. They could be a normal group of pals on an outdoor lark. Daniel, a francophone guitarist, negotiates with the youth in charge, and soon a pair of kayaks slides into the water, Hiro deftly stepping into one and Trace in the other. The girl lives on an island, so she swings away from shore with an effortless tug of paddle. The rubber raft bobbing dockside is for everyone else. They pick over the stack of orange vests, and Toby pushes his arms through one bulky number, not bothering to fasten the ties. He can almost see Jasper pointing a warning finger. Rolling up the cuffs of his jeans, he steps into the unsteady craft, clambering over the benches toward the bow.
The gorge is a placid waterway this time of year, long past the unpredictable surges of spring. Armand, followed by a musician from Belgium, then Marcus and Lucy, all settle into the raft, lurching as they find their seats.
“Who’s in charge here?” Lucy frets.
“Call me skipper,” says Toby, lifting a wooden paddle. “Cast off!” He takes a final gulp of beer before stashing the can under his seat.
The craft rocks as Baldo, a Serbian guitarist with shoulder-length hair jumps onboard, cigarette dangling out of his mouth.
“No smoking!” the Belgian shudders, and the others chime agreement until Baldo is forced to extinguish, shooting the spent cigarette toward shore.
They’re all wearing ball caps emblazoned with the vanished Montreal Expos team logo — even Lucy, who looks like a kid in her capris and T-shirt. She shrieks with glee as the craft enters the current and picks up pace, cruising down the centre of the river, cliffs rising on both sides.
Toby paddles like crazy, then remembers that this is no time to mess up a shoulder and eases off. Two kids working a plastic paddleboat chug past, knees cranking, and everyone waves, fellow mariners. Smoke trickles into the sharpness of sky: trash burning on the far side of the hill. There’s something manic in the group’s mood as the raft noodles midstream. They’ve been cooped up too long in small rooms. Marcus finally gets everyone singing sea shanties, and Toby reaches over the side to drag his hand in the current. The water is coated with fine pollen dust, luring dragonflies that dart and hover. Sun bathes his skin, ultraviolet rays be damned, and he feels the tension of the past few days exit his body.
Hiro adeptly steers his kayak around sandbars and rocks, marking the route ahead. Back in Japan he’s on a rowing team that gets up at the crack of dawn to practise.
Marcus, despite his extensive knowledge of shanties, turns out never to have set foot in a boat smaller than a car ferry. “Whoah, man, look sharp!” he shouts. “Rock to starboard side.”
“Port, actually,” Lucy corrects him.
“Will ya get your paddles out and work now?”
“I’m skipper,” Toby reminds him, though he didn’t notice the rocky patch and it’s the current that saves them from mishap as it loops around the boulder back into the deeper water.
Lucy points: is that a hawk soaring over the firs?
“No, dear, it’s a cormorant,” says Marcus, taking a snort of beer.
Armand reads aloud from his guidebook, translating from German. “Watch for the narrows. In early spring, high waters rage through the sudden narrowing of the gorge.” He points a finger upward. “Limestone walls heave as the river surges toward the sharp bend, transforming the placid river into a turbulent froth.” He twists so that he’s looking back at Lucy and Baldo. “You hear this, my friends?”
“No!” they chorus.
“A turbulent froth. But —” Armand peers at the page “— this danger disappears by midsummer when the run reverts to being a suitable family activity, ideal for novices and children.” He beams. “So, precious musicians, your search for glory is not in jeopardy, ja?”
Toby stashes his life jacket under his seat when it starts to bunch under his chin. He’s an ace swimmer, and these are hardly class three rapids. Klaus drove Felix and him to the Y every weekend for lessons and made sure they earned their badges.
Trace shoots ahead in her kayak, then paddles back to report on what’s in store, making fancy manoeuvres, switching direction