A smack, so hard it seems to shatter my bones, to break me in pieces. The shock of cold. Water filling my mouth, my ears, my eyes. Splashing, closing over me. White sky, high above, blurred by a wash of brown. Light flying in shards and specks on the surface, disappearing. Bubbles bursting in my ears, then the slow, dense whoosh of underwater quiet.

My mouth, opening, drawing in liquid. Peat and mud and filth. My feet kicking out, frantic, trying to stand, finding nothing, slipping, falling through emptiness.

My head breaks the surface. Water in my throat, then both air and water. Eyes, blinking, water-logged, struggling to clear. Air noise: wind, birds, shouts. A blur of greenery high above, bright sun, the bank already drawing away, the current catching me, sweeping me, into the depths.

Ahead of me, you rise and fall, arms flailing, eyes panicked, your mouth too full of water to scream. The surface churns to foam. I throw myself forward through the current, my lungs bursting, arms pumping, straining for you, Gracie, my love, my life, seeing you swept on always by the water.

The tide draws us both into the narrowing, sucking channel of the bridge, funnelling us together through one of the high Victorian arches. My fingers lock round your hair and I pull your head towards me, rest it on my chest, my hand cupping the curve of your jaw, willing you to stop struggling, to be still against me and let me hold you, keep you afloat, keep you here in this precious world with its sun-flecked water and rushing noise. I hold you steady in the current, my body flat under yours, bearing your weight as water washes over my face. My eyes close.

Sudden lightness. All at once, the weight of my body falls away and I soar, rising clear of the river’s dirty, snatching water. Below, I see my own body, gently rising and falling, arms limp, legs splayed, with you, lying on your back on top of me, your own human life-raft, your panicked face white and turned to the sky.

Coach in his speedboat, the motor racing, bounces like a skimming stone across the surface towards us. His face is grey with shock. He reaches over the side, tipping the boat, gropes for your billowing clothes, your arm and drags you up.

You hang there on the side, then flop, a caught fish, smack into the bottom of the boat. He, panting with exertion, pumps your arms, puts his mouth to your chill, dark lips in the kiss of life.

My body, inert now, moves rapidly away from him, lost in its own silent music, floating on downstream.

The boys watch from their boats. Chastened by the horror of it. Oars dangling. One, Jeremy or Roland perhaps, bends over the side and vomits noisily into the water and no one mocks him.

Far ahead, further downstream, Matt drifts ahead of me, face down, unseeing and unseen. His hair streaks in tendrils from his skull. His coat, bloated now by mud and water, spreads round him. A stream of blood trails from the gash where his head, driven forwards by the current, crashed against the rising stone arch of the bridge. The blood divides into streaks and finally disperses.

Now I am soaring, seeing the boats, the bridge, the river all shrink as I draw away from them, propelled with a great whoosh of energy into a swirling tunnel of darkness and, even as I fly down it, I think: you told me. This is what you said and I didn’t believe you, why did I never believe you, my love, when all you ever told me was the truth?

A pinprick of light at the end of the spinning vortex grows like an exploding sun and we seem, both of us, the light and I, to rush always towards each other.

I hear nothing but I feel myself soaked in laughter. In peace. A figure then, emerging as a silhouette from the brightness, steps forward, arms open to embrace me. My father. A smile on his face, those kind features I’ve almost forgotten, his eyes gentle, his hair jet-black as if he were again young.

And even as I sense him, another figure emerges, smaller and more distant and I fly forward to greet you, weeping with joy, my arms reaching for you, my lovely girl, hearing your giggling and seeing your smile, your eyes on my face. Gracie, my love. Thank God. Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me again.

And you cling to me, your arms warm and tight round my waist and your hair soft and sweet-smelling and your eyes, when you tip back your head to look up at me, more radiant with love than I have ever seen on this earth.

‘I can only visit, Mummy,’ you say. ‘I’ve got to go back.’

‘Gracie.’ It’s all I can say. ‘Please. Not yet.’

But even as I try to speak, to cling on to you, your words are lost and you fall backwards, away from me, out of the radiance and back into the darkness we call life.