Kook

At the beach I saw a couple of surfers heading in. I kept my distance though. I didn’t want to bang into them, or them into me, so I walked right down the beach, to get my own space.

I paddled out easily, there were really long gaps between the sets of waves, but when they came through they were bigger than I’d guessed they’d be, bigger than I wanted and way bigger than I’d been out in before.

They were breaking fast too, really fast. I was a little nervy, but I still had this itching feeling, this twitchy, bursting energy running through me. The same muscles that had screamed ‘enough’ when I’d got out of the water the last time were now begging for more.

Rag was right. Surfing was addictive. Day by day, wave by wave, I was becoming a surf junky. So right then I was crapping myself and excited as a dog chasing sticks on the beach.

When my wave came, I knew it. I’d been in the water enough times that I could see it was no way going to slip under me or break in front. I was exactly where I needed to be. But when it got close, my stomach flipped. It was rearing up, sucking the water into it.

It was vicious looking, and fast, but peaking, with a shoulder, breaking a way to my right, and there was a good stretch between the breaking point and the unbroken hump of green. A rideable shoulder. So I turned and paddled, and gave it one hundred per cent. I dug my hands into the water. I just went for it. For a second I thought I’d imagined it, thinking, It should have hit me by now. Then the water I was in dipped, and I was being sucked backwards, upwards. I put all my strength into getting the board moving, making sure it went a bit to the right, not just straight down, and as soon as the wave’s energy took over, thrust my body upwards.

My feet connected with the deck and I pointed the thing down the wave and dropped, turned, raced up the wave, along it, spun the board, digging the fins into the back of the wave and riding straight back into the heart of the thing. It was like a line of energy, and all I needed to do was follow it. It wasn’t even me surfing the board. I’d connected with something. Something with more power than my body could ever have. It filled me up. Pure freaking juice.

I didn’t plan the carves, twists and turns; they just happened.

Finally it got steep, heaping power on power into an arc of a wall, faster and faster. No need to turn now; I just pointed the board and shot like an arrow, true and fast into the heart of the wave as it jacked up. As it closed, it covered my head. I tried to dive into the wall, to come out the other side. But it ate me. It beat me sideways, churned me over. Walloped me. When I stood, I was in waist-deep water, dizzy and breathless as a kid who’s just got off a rollercoaster. I held the board steady and pointed it through two walls, each one pulling me backwards, then stepped forward, threw myself on to the board and paddled like crazy.

I’d ridden a proper wave. Not a lump of white trash, not a two-foot wall, but a proper, over-your-head, make-your-knees-tremble, green, clean wave.

I only had one thing on my mind. More. Now.

Every five minutes or so, another set came in. Curving walls of turquoise crystal. How long would it last? Who knew? When you have a great sesh, you milk the fun out of it till your muscles turn to jelly. After I came off one, I raced out to get another, then sat outside, scanning the horizon, twitching like a landed fish, hungry – no, desperate – for the next one. I surfed long after the juice had been squeezed out of me. But when I really had nothing left, I still wasn’t done. I caned it till I was stumbling on each wave, falling and floundering every time I tried to get one more.

It was late now, the sun was getting up. I wasn’t going to school that day. I’d missed that bus. And I’d have to make up some bullshit for Mum, like a flat tyre on my bike or something. I didn’t even worry about it. Detail. I’d sort it out later. I knew it was worth it. Because I’d never had it like this. In the weeks I’d been surfing, I’d never even seen it like this.

One more, I thought, and kept thinking, after every wave. Just one more. Then, when I’d got it, one more again, over and over. There was no ‘last wave’, no ‘done’, no ‘over’. It went on and on and on, till I was so drained I could barely paddle.

At the end, when I had to finally admit it was time to go, I sat as far out as I could and just waited for the killer wave to end on, even though I was so knackered I knew I’d struggle to even stand on the thing.

When it came, it was way bigger and meaner than any wave that day. But I wasn’t going to let it go. I couldn’t tell which way it was breaking, so reckoned I’d go straight and see what happened, then turn. I paddled with all the energy I had left. The board rode up, lurched forward, fast. I was looking down a cliff of water. There was no shoulder, either side. There was only one thing going to happen – getting nailed. I didn’t even try to stand. I pushed the board away, put my arms over my head and went down.

It battered me into the water like it was concrete, sending a shock through my body. It got a grip on me and then spun me over, wanting me to know what a sap I’d been for even trying to ride it. It didn’t let go till I’d been turned over and over so hard I didn’t know which way was up. I tried to swim up, but another one hit before I got near the surface. When I did make the surface, I got a good lungful of air, tried to reach out for the board, but as my fingers brushed against it, I got hit by another wave. This one held me down longer. When it let me go, the wave and the board stayed glued together like they were mates in this Sam-battering routine, dragging me backwards and under.

I began to get scared. Fear rose up in me like sick. I tried counting, holding on. But I couldn’t make myself do it. I was too afraid. A small voice in my head was telling me I didn’t have enough juice left to cope. The waves were getting stronger and bigger, and I was getting weaker. By the second. And the sea was going at me like it was personal.

I flailed about, swimming, not knowing if I was even going up.

I hit the surface.

“Please! Please!” I shouted. I didn’t know who to, and anyway, they weren’t listening. I got hit again, went deeper, again. I couldn’t seem to stay above the surface for more than a second or two. Half of me didn’t accept the sesh had gone from great to pear-shaped in a heartbeat. But the other half of me knew I was beginning to drown.

Bang. Another wave. I hit the bottom. Got rolled along it.

But then…

I got to the surface. Pushing my feet downwards, they connected with sand. A whole set had washed me in. I was standing in waist-to-chest-deep water. I almost cried with relief.

There was no way I was going back out so I waded in. Another one got me, knocked me over, but I gave in to it, grateful for every bit further it took me towards the beach.

I had a hold of the board, and half body-boarded in, gripping it, and letting it drag me to the shore.

Right up to two pairs of wetsuited legs.

“Hello, Kook,” said Jade. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

I stood up, staggering and reeling. Just great, I thought. Total humiliation.

Skip was with her. “All right, Sam?” he said. “We been over at Gwynsand. It was getting big, so we came here. My choice; Jade wanted to stay. Good job we did. You’re really keen to kill yourself, aren’t you?”

“You saw me?” I said.

“I did. Jade didn’t. She was way behind me.”

“Oh.”

Jade’s eyes were twinkling, and the side of her mouth was curling into a smile. She looked pleased, but also like she was trying not to laugh.

“Aaaaw, Kook. You’re a surfer! Why didn’t you say? You could have come with. Loads of times. Might have been safer. Did you learn much today?”

I nodded. The sea had taught me a lesson all right. “There’s only one teacher,” I said.

“Go on, Skip,” said Jade. “I’ll catch you up.”

Skip hesitated, looking at me and Jade oddly, almost suspiciously.

“Go on!” said Jade. He shrugged, and headed into the water. Jade was frowning; she was curious.

“How come you never said you were learning?” she said.

“Oh. I wanted to get okay at it before I told you.”

“I already knew. We all did. Never trust Rag with a secret. Skip saw you surf. He said you did okay out there.” She pointed at the waves. “How come you want to surf?”

I looked at the sea, at the sand, anywhere but at her.

“Let’s go,” I said, picking up my board. Jade put a hand on the rail, and pushed it down.

“No way, Kelly Slater. You just got screwed. That’s a serious wave.”

“The website said a couple of feet.”

“The wave period’s super long. It increases the size and power… a lot.”

“I’ve got a lot to learn.”

“We’ll teach you.”

“Really?”

“Sure. You’ll only kill yourself otherwise. This Saturday, when it’s small. Big G’s around too.”

She headed out.

I went and sat on the sand. Hard, steady sand, that didn’t move around, or try and swallow me up, or hit me. Right then I liked the land a lot more than the sea. My nose burned from the salt water flushed through it, my muscles felt like overcooked spaghetti and my skin was sandpapered by sun. I’d nearly drowned. Again. I’d be in deep shit for bunking school.

And I was just about happier than I’d ever been.

I WENT AND TALKED to Grandma. About Jade, about surfing. I needed to talk to someone. I couldn’t talk to Mum. Not about the danger, leastways.

We had tea and cake in her conservatory, looking out to sea.

“Are you sweet on this girl?” she said. Her hand trembled as she lifted her cup to drink. She looked tired.

“Yeah, I am. I like the surfing too… It’s just… I got in a bit of trouble. Almost drowned.” I blurted it out. I looked for a reaction, but she was still and calm. She let out a long sigh, and put her tea down.

“Why did you tell me that?” she said. I shrugged. “Are you waiting for me to tell you to be careful? Are you waiting for me to say that’s how your father died? That you should stop?”

“I… I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t talk to Mum. She thinks it’s a fad that I’ll give up. But it’s not a fad, and it’s…”

“Dangerous.”

“Yeah. Yes. What would Dad have said?”

She looked out, at the sea.

“He loved the ocean. It had a pull on him like nothing else. Right up to the day he died. I think that angered your mother. She was jealous of it… And if he were here now?” She paused. “He’d understand. He’d want you to love the sea like he did, but he’d want you to be careful too… Sorry, Sam, but you’re old enough to make up your own mind.”

I thought about my dead, drowned dad. Again, I tried to find memories. But they were vague. Distant.

“Grandma, is it all right if I go and check out his stuff?”

“Of course,” she said, and I made my way upstairs.

The room was the same as before, a mess of boxes and piles of equipment. I yanked the curtains back, letting the sun in.

I didn’t know where to start. I flicked through books full of numbers and graphs. Stuff I couldn’t understand, even though I was good at maths. The equipment was beyond me too.

There was one chest, already open. Inside were papers and charts, messed up like someone had rummaged around in it.

At the bottom of the chest there was a neatly folded piece of paper. I took it out and flattened it on the floor. It was a sea chart. The land part was one big brown blank, but the sea part was full of detail. There were lines and dots and numbers, and on the bottom edge of the chart were scribbled notes. I guessed it was my dad’s handwriting. It looked a lot like mine. That spooked me too, just like the smell of the place had.

The writing was above a couple of small dots – tiny, but the same colour as the land, so they had to be little islands. They had lots of rings around them, showing the layout of the seabed.

He’d written:

Trench ends here. 930 isobar. 60mph wind, 90mph gusts.

Then he’d put in a bunch of x’s, dotted round the island, and some writing by each of them:

X The Excalibur

PN

X The Hope

BZ

X Star Cross

DH

Something in it struck me. It was like the memories of Dad, with the blue paint, and him holding me in the shore break. Something in it made sense. But I didn’t know what.

I took it downstairs and showed it to Grandma.

“I found this. It’s got his writing on it,” I said. She looked at it, carefully.

“I’m sorry, Sam, I don’t know what this is. But take it if you want.”

*

I was going surfing with Jade and the others on the Saturday. I went over to Jade’s on the Friday night and we hung out in the den. She offered me vodka, like Grandma offered me tea.

“Sorry there’s no spliff,” she said. “Big G’s giving me some of his tomorrow.”

“That’s okay,” I said. I said yes to the drink though.

“I nick it from Dad,” she explained. “A bit here or there. He doesn’t know.”

We couldn’t really sit on the makeshift bed without it being awkward, so we squatted on the floor, on cushions, facing each other.

We talked about me, surfing. She wanted to know everything: from getting the board off Rag, right to when I’d washed up at her feet. The wind, the waves, what it felt like, how I rode waves, what was difficult, what I found easy. Everything. She seemed impressed, grinning and nodding all the time I was talking.

“Sounds like you done well for a beginner. Sounds like you got hooked too. That’s why you were grinning, that time at the bus stop. You’d been surfing.”

“Did you know then?”

“No, soon after. I figured you’d tell me when you were ready. I also figured you were going out in small conditions. The other day though… shit. I didn’t know you’d been out in serious stuff. Respect. You’ve got some nuts.”

“WelI, yeah. But I didn’t really know what I was getting into. The forecast said three feet. I didn’t know about wave period then. Didn’t know what it does or why. Concave refraction, and all that?” I checked her eyes for some recognition. “You know about that, right?”

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