Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

She grabbed at that, and said it to herself. But there was nothing good to pay attention to.

Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

She knew she looked stupid, standing there. She tried again.

Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

She tried again. She breathed.

Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.

She looked down at the grass, and the earth, and the river pulsing at the edge of her vision. The sun beat down on her head, like the light was shining straight into her brain. She looked up and down the riverbank. Not a soul. She pulled off her shoes and went some way along the path. Quickly, she took off her skirt and T-shirt, and dropped them, and then, without putting a toe in to test it, launched herself out into the river. It was freezing, cold that stabbed like spikes. She took a gasping breath.

‘God!’ she shouted. ‘Shit!’ more quietly.

She pulled up her legs, thought of parasites, worms and frogs, and kept her chin up.

‘Fuck it,’ she said, breathless from the cold. ‘Fuck that fucking shit. Bastard.’

She took a breath and dived, and opened her eyes, and saw clouds of light, and her own hands, then came back up, water streaming from her hair and gave a yell of a laugh, then dared herself and put her feet down to touch the slimy bottom. She pulled her feet back up, triumphant. Disgusted, delighted, she scrambled back towards the bank. But then, looking up, she saw someone.

A teenage boy was standing by her pile of clothes. Her foot slipped, and scraped against something sharp. She righted herself. The boy looked at her. Stopping, she crouched, feeling the deep water of the big river at her back, and the current, pulling. Bracing her legs, she wiped her eyes. She and the boy looked at one another; she low in the water, he, quite relaxed, on the bank. She felt the weight of her breasts in the saturated cotton of her bra. He was wearing a red-and-white striped T-shirt, like a blond, hatless Waldo. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his shorts, pulling them down below the bony channel of his hips. She recognised him, the boy from the tractor, at the Orderbrechts’ farm. Water lapped her collarbones.

‘Va-t-en,’ she said. ‘Can you go away?’

His expression didn’t change. She remembered how he’d stared from the tractor as it passed.

‘Go away. Va-t-en!’

Her thighs ached but if she knelt her nose would be underwater. The boy began to move his hand, up and down inside his shorts. He watched her, rubbing himself, smiling as she registered the unmistakable movement.

‘Va-t-en now!’ she said loudly. ‘Go away!’