Last Long Drop

by Mike Safe

  Vargas stood by one of the benches applying an even coating of wax in long and even strokes from a longboard’s nose to tail.

  ‘Pick out whatever you want,’ said Vargas. ‘There’s all sorts over there. We’ll go round to Tea Tree. It’s only a metre or so but it should be pretty sweet as the tide’s starting to come back in and that might give it a bit of a kick.’ He laughed and added, ‘Nothing like surfing with fifty other guys. It’ll be a zoo out there but we’ll still get a few.’

  Harcourt went over to the row of longboards. Tea Tree, like the other Noosa points, tended to be the domain of longer equipment until the waves picked up in size and power, allowing shorter and more manoeuvrable boards into play. His eyes were instantly drawn to a Vuelo, a lightweight nine-footer shaped by Bob McTavish, a legendary board designer. As Harcourt recalled, Vuelo meant flight, or something similar, in Spanish and this model was supposed to be a high performance flyer. He’d owned a few McTavish boards through the years but had never ridden one of these – they were expensive and susceptible to damage because of their light construction. He had a flashback to the cyclone surf and breaking Brown’s board.

  Oh, well, this was small surf – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  ‘I’ll give this a go,’ Harcourt said, taking it from the rack. It was indeed light and had only a thin coating of wax on its deck. It couldn’t have been ridden more than a couple of times.

  ‘Okay,’ said Vargas. ‘Nice choice, a little bit of high performance coming up.’

  Harcourt added some wax to the deck as Vargas continued to work on his board, longer and heavier than the McTavish with a large single fin. Such boards were sometimes disparagingly described as ‘logs’ as they were supposed to be slow and harder to manoeuvre but this one had a modern, even streamlined shape.

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Harcourt said of it as they waxed up.

  ‘Got it from a Californian guy who lives in Bali and makes boards that he surfs on the reefs a lot,’ said Vargas. ‘It’s meant for bigger stuff than here but it still goes all right on a nice point wave, lots of down-the-line glide and speed. When guys see it coming they tend not to drop in – it would be a bit like being run over by a bus if it collected you.’

  They exited through the house’s back entrance and headed across the lawn to where Vargas punched a code into a security monitor by a hedge-covered side gate. ‘Can’t be too careful around here – there’s all sorts who wander by, from the simply curious to the downright weird.’

  The walk out to Tea Tree took about fifteen minutes, first along the leafy roadside, the meandering rocky-pointed beach on one side, hidden away millionaires’ mansions, similar to Vargas’s, on the other, and then along an undulating trail through the national park. Vargas exchanged greetings with every second person they passed.

  ‘Lot of folks around here know you,’ commented Harcourt.

  ‘Good idea to keep the locals on side.’ Vargas, who was leading the way along the narrow trail, stopped and turned back to Harcourt to make his point. ‘The more you talk and interact with them, the more they leave you alone, if that makes sense. But if you ignore them, they think you’re just another rich dick up here for his week or two a year to lord it over them. But it’s the weirdos you have to watch out for and they’re inevitably out-of-towners.’ He shrugged and they continued to walk.

  There were a few sunbathing groups scattered along Tea Tree’s strip of perfect white sand. Among them were a couple of families, mums, dads and kids up for holidays, no doubt. As Vargas and Harcourt made their way down from the rainforest fringe to the water, a bikini mum’s mouth gaped in surprise and she whipped off her bug-eyed sunglasses and stared at the Hollywood star before her eyes. She shook the shoulder of the fat guy beside her who had been snoozing on a beach towel and he sat up as if shocked. The woman pointed at Vargas and for a moment gave the impression she was about to jump up and come running over, but the man muttered something to her and she simply put her sunglasses back on, adjusted her amply packed bikini top and returned to trying to look cool and collected.

  Vargas and Harcourt paddled easily across the glassy water of the inner lagoon and over towards the point where regular sets of postcard-perfect shoulder-high waves were breaking in neat lines. It was crowded, mainly with longer boards, and the competition seemed intense, a mix of younger and older guys and several women.

  Okay, thought Harcourt, here we go again. It was just as he’d expected – nice location, not so nice vibe.

  Precision point waves like these were supposed to be one rider affairs and it was all about getting the inside slot closest to where it was breaking, not dropping in on whoever might be already up and riding. It was the oldest rule in the surfing book, but when it got crowded and competitive like this the book tended to be forgotten. From previous visits here, Harcourt recalled Tea Tree having a reasonably mellow take off, if the crowds weren’t too intense, and then a fast-breaking section across a length of shallow reef before the wave produced an easy ride as it wound its way down the point towards the beach.

  He watched a nice set slide through. A couple of the riders were coming from so far back that they failed to make the fast section where a group of opportunists were hovering to pick off any unattended wave that slipped by.

  But Vargas paddled in closer to the bunch sitting just off the point and as a smaller set came through managed to snare one straight away. On his feet quickly, he turned the big board in one fluid motion and took off down the line. He kept its trajectory high and tight, flying across the shallow section of reef, his upper torso visible from behind the wave, his dark hair blown back as the gentle offshore wind blew a halo of golden spray off the near-perfect swell.

  Pretty good for an old guy, Harcourt thought.

  The next wave, almost of replica of the first, was picked off by a woman who had managed to grab the inside slot from a couple of younger males. As she streaked by, they seemed somewhat chastened that they’d been out-paddled and out-positioned by a female. Her board was long and sleek, something like Vargas’s. Lithe and tanned in a red bikini, blonde hair streaming behind her, she looked like someone from one of those ridiculous surfer girl swimwear shoots that the glossy magazines turned out at the start of every summer. In a display of speed and footwork, she cross-stepped, placing herself on the front third of the longboard as it raced across the shallow reef.

  Jeez, impressive, thought Harcourt, her face and body a study of grace and power as she flew by.

  As the last of the set cleared, Harcourt paddled hard to maintain his spot in what remained of the group sitting close to the point. There was no letup in the contest to secure the inside spot and the right to the next wave. He was thinking how he was too old for this sort of squabbling when what appeared to be the biggest set since he and Vargas had arrived presented itself.

  Those inside of Harcourt had the sense to realise they were too close to the rocks to take the first wave so he was left in prime position to go for it – an opportunity due entirely to good luck rather than good placement.

  He swung the longboard around, aimed it down the line for immediate speed and direction on what was going to be a late take off, only needing to paddle a few strokes before the wave picked him up and dropped him down its face. It wasn’t big, maybe a bit over head-high, and again, with more luck than planning, the board held in the wave, its sharply turned-down edge and sweptback three fins doing as they were supposed to, gripping hard and true to make the turn.

  For a handful of seconds it was all exhilaration as the board held its line, spearing across the wave’s face. Then it hit the section of shallow reef, rearing up on itself, forcing Harcourt to crouch and grab the board’s rail, hoping to stay on and drag it through the imminent descending explosion of white-water. It didn’t work out that way. The wave hit him with considerable force for its size, knocking the board out of his grasp and whipping it from under him. He was left floundering on the end of a stretched leg-rope. It
dragged him for a couple of seconds and then he came up gasping, more embarrassed than distressed. At least he’d escaped being bounced on the reef.

  The next couple of waves were about the same size as the one that had hit him, but the surfers on them made it across the shallow reef unscathed as Harcourt floundered, getting pushed further across the reef as the swells reared and broke. After a couple of smaller waves the set subsided and he managed to paddle back out into clear water.

  ‘That smacked you a good one,’ said Vargas as he came back out from his first long ride. ‘A little bit of local knowledge helps. Those wide-breaking ones can be tricky.’ He kept on paddling towards the point.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ offered Harcourt.

  He decided to sit a bit further along the waveline and catch a few smaller more mellow ones to get a feel for the place. The woman in the red bikini came paddling back out after her long ride. She smiled at him and kept going towards the point, where she and Vargas exchanged what appeared to be friendly words.

  Poppy something, thought Harcourt. She used to be on the contest circuit a decade or more before, a local contender who made the women’s world tour for three or four years and even won an event or two. She’d be about forty now, give or take a bit, and was in ridiculously good shape, both in body and surfing ability. Shit, he thought, I’m getting done over by women as well as old men.

  Even so, he started picking off a few of waist to chest high waves and rode them reasonably well, as he got used to the lightweight board with its speed and manoeuvrability. Vargas and Poppy whatever her surname was cruised by on a succession of waves which they seemed to have pretty well wired. Local knowledge must mean something when a man in his sixties and a woman, who didn’t look whatever her age was, were showing him up.

  After an hour, Harcourt and Vargas headed in and walked back along the path through the national park. The wind had all but dropped as the beach and its backdrop of rainforest were drenched in a soft light with the sun starting to sink behind the headland. It was one of those moments of change as if you could feel the earth tilt on its axis as the heat ebbed slowly from the day.

  ‘That woman in the red bikini.’ Harcourt asked. ‘She used to be on the tour, didn’t she?’

  ‘Poppy Parmadour,’ said Vargas. ‘Yeah, she was on the women’s circuit back a bit.’ He laughed. ‘Great name, huh?’

  ‘You know her then?’

  ‘Sure, everyone in Noosa knows Poppy. Very cool girl, doesn’t take any shit from the he-man idiots you can get out there. She goes all right, doesn’t she? She’s a honey.’

  Back at the house, Vargas let them in through the security gate and they went inside to change and rack their boards. Harcourt excused himself before going through to his room where he used his mobile to call Jack. By his calculation it was early to mid-morning in London and a reasonable hour to ring.

  Jack answered on the second ring. ‘Nothing new, Dad,’ he said. ‘Well, nothing but craziness. The story’s all over the TV and radio – it’s the most publicity we’ve had since we’ve been here which is kind of weird. Social media’s gone nuts – I think our website has crashed, heaps and heaps of traffic from back home. Shit, I wouldn’t mind being back there now. Without Elmore … I don’t know what the go is now.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah, we’re okay, I guess. Just waiting to find out what happens next … What?’ Harcourt could hear someone talking to Jack in the background. ‘Oh, Sissy wants to talk to do you.’

  Sissy Broughton, the Solar Sons manager, came on the line. ‘Hello, John.’ She might have had a tough reputation, but her voice was loaded with emotion. ‘This is dreadful, a tragedy. The boys are pretty shaken up and that’s totally understandable – I am too.’

  The latest from the police was that the attack on Elmore appeared to be chance – wrong time, wrong place opportunism. ‘Not that that’s any comfort,’ Sissy said. ‘There’s no immediate suspect, just every pill-popping fiend in London, I guess, and they’re countless.’

  The police were checking to see if there was any surveillance camera footage from the scene but it was a poorly lit back alley. ‘We’re waiting for the autopsy, but there’s no doubt they’ll find he was on all sorts of concoctions. I had no idea this was happening with him. Jack and the other boys have been filling me in. If I’d have known I would have sorted him out, I can tell you.’

  Harcourt thought Sissy was protesting too much. Damn it, she was supposed to be their manager. But he reasoned it best to let that be for the moment and pursued another line instead. ‘What about these two idiots from the record company who Jack told me about last night? What’ve they got to say for themselves?’

  ‘I have a meeting with the record company in three hours, John,’ Sissy said, the usual tough edge returning to her voice. ‘Don’t worry – they’ll hear all about it. We’ve a lot to work out.’

  ‘Well, for starters, those two need their arses kicked out the door and to maybe face charges of supplying.’

  ‘John, I can’t do much for Elmore now, except try to get him justice and look after his parents, who are on their way here as we speak. You don’t have to say it – I feel that I’ve failed them. The welfare of Jack and the other boys is my priority now – I can do something about that and I won’t let your son down again, I assure you.’

  TEN

  The three of them ate around a large glass-topped table in the dining room. Dutton had prepared the meal – fresh Vietnamese-style rice paper rolls with vermicelli noodles, prawns and a jazzed-up hoisin dipping sauce for starters and then across the Pacific for Cajun-style fillets of fish done in chilli and paprika with brown rice and a garden salad. There was a bottle of Adelaide Hills sauvignon blanc and a bottle of sparkling water. Harcourt and Dutton drank the sav blanc, moving on to a second bottle, while Vargas stayed with the water.

  ‘My friend Dexter,’ said Vargas, raising his water glass after Harcourt had complimented Dutton on the meal. ‘He has many talents. From busting some bothersome pest’s arse to busting moves on the dance floor, from whipping my tired old body on the training track to whipping up a storm in the kitchen.

  ‘I kid you not, Johno. Over the last twenty something years Dexter has been through some serious shit with me – the good, the bad and everything between. He’s saved me from all sorts of situations, some best not mentioned – well, at least until the book comes out. I owe him big time and, yes, he’s my employee, but he’s also my best friend. It’s as simple as that.’

  Dutton smiled and concentrated on his food. Harcourt was also busy filling his mouth with fish and rice.

  ‘Maybe you should do a book with him – he’s much more interesting than me,’ said Vargas. ‘A kid from the ghetto, a Navy Seal black ops hard case who knows where all the bodies are buried, has pulled more chicky babes than an old man like me ever could, ever even imagine I could.’

  ‘Hey, c’mon now, you’re almost embarrassing me,’ said Dutton. ‘There are stories I could tell, but, like you say, only in my own tell-all book if the price is right.’

  The dinner conversation continued more or less in this manner until they were done and while Dutton cleared the table Vargas suggested adjourning to the updated Elvis jungle room to discuss the book proposal. ‘After all, that’s what you’re up here for, right? Not the food.’

  They sat across from one another on the big lounges, Harcourt with his wine glass in hand, a little fuzzy from what he’d already downed at dinner. Vargas offered him a cigar and cognac – he refused both – but his host fired up a torpedo-like Cuban stogie and helped himself to a generous splash of Hennessy Paradis. So much for his alcohol ban.

  ‘So why me?

  ‘Why not?’ replied Vargas. ‘I’ve had dealings with you in the past and we found a certain rapport, if that’s the right word. I know it was only a few days in Vanuatu of all places and a few years back but your article was interesting, had a bit of depth to it, was widely syndicated from memory, a
nd so when Vinnie told me your name had come up I thought, well, okay, that might work.’

  ‘But I’m not the one Montacue Publishing want. They’ve told me as much.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn who or what they want,’ said Vargas. ‘This is my deal. I had a lot of years of supposedly important men in suits telling me how it was going to be, but now I tell them.’

  ‘But the truth is there are more qualified people than me, people who write this sort of stuff day in day out…’

  ‘So what?’ Vargas interrupted. ‘Johno, don’t put yourself down. It might be you, it might not be you. We’ll see. Let’s run it up the flagpole and see if it salutes as the Madison Avenue ad men used to say.’

  ‘Did they really say that sort of stuff?’

  ‘How the fuck do I know! That was a line I had in The Real Deal.’

  ‘Oh, I remember that one, I think.’

  ‘It was okay, I guess, and it did good box office. The flagpole quip was probably the best line in it. It was a redemption story where an adman finally comes to see the error of his ways and is saved. But it was also good for me because it proved I could be more than the he-man hero type, that I could turn a profit in a tear-jerker. There was a time there when audiences loved that stuff. Middle America couldn’t get enough of it.’

  He raised an eyebrow as if punctuating the end of the story while taking a sizable drag on the cigar, then exhaling, the smoke floating towards the ceiling in a wispy spiral. Harcourt wondered if it would set off a smoke alarm.

  Vargas was in full flow now, saying he saw the book as his story, an autobiography, even if he personally didn’t put the words on the paper. He didn’t want a biography, having made too many enemies along the way. ‘If others have a different opinion they can write their own books.’

  Harcourt was relieved – it would make the project easier, not having to interview numerous others whose recollections, be they real, imagined or simply biased, might run contrary to Vargas’s.