by Chris Vick
I got back in the next day though, when it was smaller. The wolf wasn’t going to get the better of me.
Then we kept going. Every week, and some mornings too. We never told anyone about the place.
We’ll surf it as long as it lasts. Till the next big storm comes and changes the layout. It might ruin the break, or it might make it better. No one knows.
Of course, with it being a new break, we had to give it a name.
We called it Jade’s Point.
THE WEEKS WENT BY.
At home we fell into a routine. Grandma’s hospital appointments. School for me and Teg. Me surfing. Mum working at the pub.
It may sound odd, but in spite of Jade’s death, life began to be better. In some ways, at least.
We were with Grandma and we were out of that tiny cottage. There was space, and light. There was time to think. There was no arguing. Or almost none. No one worried about the small stuff. Maybe that’s because of what happened, or maybe it just happened by itself. I don’t know.
We didn’t talk about the Devil’s Horns at home. Mum and Grandma knew there was no point in it. They didn’t need to tell me how stupid I’d been. Even if they had, nothing they’d say could make me hurt more. And nothing could make me feel better either.
Mum was just kind to me. She didn’t even try and stop me surfing. Like she knew I’d know the limits now, and that I’d never do anything so stupid again. That I’d work all that out myself.
She kept up with her job at the pub. And with Brian too.
A month or two after the Horns, we went to the pub for a meal. He didn’t join us at the table, but he served our food and drinks. It was just an excuse to meet him. Mum was really nervous about it.
He was middle-aged, beer-bellied and a rugby fan. Local through and through. I didn’t especially like him. I didn’t not like him either; I just wasn’t interested in him. He came round after that, to Grandma’s, once in a while. He was nice to Tegan, he brought her books and cakes, and told her stupid jokes. At first I was suspicious. I thought it was a way to worm his way into Mum’s heart. But when I’d met him a few times, I sussed he was just a nice guy. Warm-hearted. And I could see how Mum liked him. All round, she was brighter and nicer and less moody.
Sometimes I’d come downstairs and she’d be singing, doing her hair in the mirror. She’d stop when she saw me, and give me a weak smile, like she was guilty about being happy. But you can’t hide that kind of happiness. And I didn’t want her to.
*
It’s been months now. More time has gone by than the amount of time I knew Jade.
I have to get an early bus to Penzeal today. Then get the coach up to Truro, to the sixth form, where I have an interview.
I’ve missed a lot of school. And it’s not like I was a model student before Jade died. But if I do a good interview, they’ll make ‘allowances’ on whatever grades I scrape. I’m lucky they’re even giving me a chance.
I stood in front of the mirror, first thing. I looked at how I’d changed. The bruises and scars are long gone. And that dead shadow of grief is gone from my eyes too. So is the guilt, the accusation. Now there’s a still, blue-green light in them. They’re not so different to Jade’s. Though not as bright, not as intense.
My face is browner than it was before I came to Cornwall. I’ve got the muscles from surfing. I’m not that lily-skinned geek from London any more. He’s as dead as Jade.
But what, then? Who? A surfer now? One of the gang? Jade’s boyfriend? It might have gone that way.
But now? I don’t know. I’ve got to start again I guess. But I feel okay about that; I feel ready.
And maybe I’m not such a kook any more. I guess I’ll find out. In time.
But today I put on a jacket and a tie. And brush my hair.
I stand now, leaning against the bus shelter, feeling awkward in the cheap jacket and tie Mum bought me, missing the smell of Jade smoking a pre-bus roll-up.
It’s cold. No clouds in the sky. Late spring, promising summer, but with a chill on everything before the sun comes out proper.
A fresh wind is coming off the hill, smelling of cows and straw.
Offshore.
I wonder what the surf’s like.
I hear the low rumble of the bus, still with its lights on, coming from Lanust. Coming to get me.
Then I hear a ‘boom’. The low, solid sound of a wave hitting the cliffs.
“Reckon the surf’s good today, Kook.” I hear her voice in my head. Clear. I imagine her standing there, rolling a fag. And what she’d make of me, in my jacket and tie.
“Where you off to then?” she’d say, looking me up and down.
“Interview. Sixth form.”
“Fancy that, do you?”
“It’s a change. What Mum says I need. A change of scene. A new start.”
“A new life. Without me.”
I don’t have an answer to that.
“What’s it gonna be like now, Sam? How’s things gonna go? You gonna surf much now I’m gone?”
I don’t have an answer for that either. I’ve spent all my time remembering. I haven’t thought about the future much. But I do now, almost like she’s forcing me.
I see my life ahead, clear as the morning sun coming over the hill.
All the days. Without Jade. GCSEs. A levels. Then there’ll be a degree, somewhere up country. Then a job. And girlfriends. When I’m thirty or so, I’ll find one that isn’t too much trouble, one that wants kids. We’ll get married. We’ll take holidays by the sea.
“Yeah,” I say. “I reckon I’ll surf. When I can.”
She shakes her head. Smiling, sarky as ever.
“Not good enough, Sammy boy.”
“What then?” I say.
“All those breaks we talked about. Thumping beach barrels in France. Long Moroccan rights, on the desert coast. Barbados. The crooked coast of north Spain…” She makes it sound like choice dishes on the world’s best menu. “I’ll never see them, Sam… but you can. So you have to promise. You have to.”
I have to.
“I promise,” I say, thinking… I’ll surf those breaks. All of them. And when I’m done, when I’m older, I’ll get a longboard. I’ll ride two-foot waves, out with the kids, the groms and surf schools. And when I haven’t got it in me any more, I’ll stand knee-deep in the shore break, dipping my grandkids in the water, thrilling the shit out of the little monkeys.
I’ll be in the water till my muscles waste, my skin sags and my bones snap.
“I promise,” I say, again.
The bus stops. The door opens. The driver waits.
I think about those places. I think about getting on the bus too. But I don’t.
“That’s good news, Sam. Right fucking choice. Let’s start today. There’s a fresh swell. Let’s go to Jade’s Point. We’ll have the place to ourselves. Just you and me out there.”
“What about the interview?” I say, laughing.
“You all right, son?” says the bus driver. “You getting on or not?”
“Come on. It’s a good day to go surfing,” Jade says. She folds her arms. Raised eyebrow, lopsided smile. It puts a hook in me. “The sun’s up; it’s offshore. Five-foot walls. Sweet rides. It’s a good day to go surfing, Sam. A good day.”
Her image fades. Her voice melts in the breeze.
“There’ll be other days,” I say, looking at the steps on to the bus, then looking back, across the fields, to the sea.
“Not like this one, Sam. Not like this one …”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Love and thanks to my family for putting up with me, all of those hours and days I spent with my head in a notebook or laptop.
Major thanks to HarperCollins Children’s Books and especially Nick Lake for his support, belief and for ‘getting it’.
Thanks to my agent, Catherine Clarke, who never puts a foot wrong and whose advice is always spot on.
Thanks to all at the Bath Spa MA: Lucy, Sarah and the w
hole workshop gang, Julia Green and all the tutors.
Thanks also to G-PL, Tom, Rallsy, Jag, Jim and Rob for all the ‘research’ trips.
Finally, a big hug and enormous thanks to the fireball of talent that is Lucy Christopher; for inspiring writing, superb mentoring and without whom this book would not exist.
As a footnote: Books come from a writer’s own experience (or at least mine does). But the telling of the story is also influenced by great writing. I owe a debt to the following: Kevin Brooks (Lucas, plus everything else he’s ever written), Julia Green (Breathing Underwater, Hunter’s Heart), Lucy Christopher (Stolen, The Killing Woods) and Tim Winton (Breath).
About the Publisher
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