Free Mad Hope by Heather Birrell

Americans’ wake. Oil or diamonds – it doesn’t matter, we’ll take their sloppy seconds with our shadowy lesser dollar.’
    She scrambled her way down the concrete wall that had been built to counter flooding, found a log designed for sitting and looked towards the old stone bridge, the site of the Old Mill, its ruins replaced by a spa and stacked-up condos. A fisherman was standing under the bridge, his hip waders making him appear large and mournful. He prepared his bait, cast into the deeper waters downstream and hooked a salmon while Beth watched. In the fall, the salmon would be running thick through these waters, leaping with a ferocious joy, using every ounce of their life force to clear the man-made steps that had been installed to control the flow of the river. Their connection to their home, to their little patch of earth and rock and water, was that compelling, that terrifying and true.
    The water was higher than it had been for weeks; in June there had been fierce, unseasonal rains, then in late July the sun had come out and the river had receded, but the most recent downpour had made the trees thrive and weep again. The river was murky. Above them, to the west, a subway train went rumbling by. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth caught sight of a small black airborne shape, a scrap of red. And there it was: everything familiar, everything home, dogged by its Ecuadorean shadow, its strange tropical double. Here: a red-winged blackbird darting out from the shelter of a shrub. And there: a toucan decimating a small, hard fruit with its unlikely beak. Here: a pair of squirrels trapezing through the low branches of a maple. There: a monkey grooming his mate, bold and fastidious, perched on his very own Amazonian awning.
    Paul tapped her shoulder. ‘Let’s not stay here, Beth.’ He did not appreciate the river the way Beth did. Six months ago four boys had mugged him on a Saturday night as he strolled with two friends, reminiscing and taking turns toking like teenagers. The boys held a long serrated knife to Paul’s throat; they fancied themselves gangsters. Later, close to dawn, the police found three of the four hiding in a gully. They were peppered with red-ant bites, their pockets clanking with change. ‘Beth, I’m taking you home. You’re in no condition to be traipsing around down here like some goddamned explorer of yore.’ He grabbed her arm.
    Beth shook free, but could not remain sitting. She got up and swatted at the seat of her pants, but nothing was clinging there. The damp had simply seeped in down to the skin, it would not be brushed away. She had to cut back up to the main path before she could make it down to the beaten sandy trail next to the water again. Paul zigzagged behind her, panting and riven by loyalty. On the far shore, a night heron was picking through pebbles and bits of trash. The bird stepped carefully over a pop can. Beth stopped to trail her hand in the water. At the edges, the river was lukewarm, but in the centre, in the depths, it would be cold. A man had drowned here, having jumped in after his dog. The dog survived. This was a fable of sorts.

    That first night in the jungle, she and Paul had huddled close on their mattress, flicking the flashlight on and off like schoolchildren, peering out through the mosquito netting at the matte surface of the night and the six other gauzy, tented sleeping areas that surrounded them under their wooden shelter.
    â€˜They’re like bridal beds, aren’t they?’ Beth said.
    â€˜Or ghost ships,’ Paul replied, and Beth turned to him, surprised. They kissed then, softly shocked kisses that helped them both to sleep, despite the rustlings, the constant exchange of information and emotion under the canopy, along the riverbank, despite the scurrying geckos and dazed spiders Miguel had warned them might come tumbling from the rafters. Despite their recent history and despite themselves,