by Chris Ward
Then, after unpacking her suitcase, hanging her clothes in a clean, lavender-smelling wardrobe and arranging the rest of her things on various dresser tops and in drawers, she went out for a walk.
It was still only a little after ten in the morning and Blue Sands Cove was just waking up. As was the nature of many Cornish villages, at least half of the houses were holiday homes rarely used outside August, so the handful of narrow streets was mostly deserted. She greeted a boy delivering newspapers, and paused to watch a little local bus trundle along the road behind the promenade, its only passengers a kid wearing headphones and an old lady wrestling with a broadsheet newspaper.
Across the road from the promenade, t-shirt and shorts-clad staff from several surf rental shops were setting out signboards and gear. On the promenade, a younger generation of local surfers was already sitting on the edge of the seawall, perusing the low breakers rolling in against the shore. For a few years in her teens, Grace had been among them. While Joan had liked the beach but not the water, Grace’s mid-teens had brought a brief obsession with the waves that had even won her a couple of local prizes. However, like most of her possessions, she had given her parents permission to sell her surfboard, and with ten years having passed since the last time she hit the waves, she wasn’t sure her body could still take it.
Today, however, with a gentle two-foot break massaging the shore, was a good time to try. She walked up to the first shop she saw with an OPEN sign and went inside. Immediately, the waxy scent of the place, the stacks of boards and wetsuits, and the surfing video playing quietly on a TV hanging from the ceiling took her back. For a few moments Grace just stood there, remembering better, more carefree days.
‘Help you?’ came a voice from a corner. A sales counter plastered with brand logo stickers, was half-obscured by leaning boards. A young man wearing a Stone Age sweatshirt stood behind it. His matted hair was bleached blond, his smile relaxed.
Grace met his eyes and frowned. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’
The man pouted, shaking his head. ‘Maybe. Dunno. You local?’
‘I was. My name’s Grace Clelland. I used to live up in the village.’
The young man came out from behind the counter and stood with his arms folded, watching her. ‘Ah, I remember you. You were Dan Woakes’s girl.’
At the sudden recognition, Grace started. ‘Well, I don’t think I’d quite say that,’ she said. ‘It was only a month. Perhaps a summer.’
The man smiled again. ‘Long enough. You don’t know me? Jason. Jason King. I was a couple of years below you. I used to help out in the school library.’
Grace stared. ‘Jason? The nerd Jason? Weren’t you thin?’
Jason laughed. ‘Filled out a bit in my late teens. Got a laser job on my eyes and got into the boards a bit. The sea water cleared up the spots like nothing else.’ He shrugged. ‘Still read, you know, when the surf’s flat. You look … toned.’
‘Ah, thanks. Spinning.’
‘Spinning? What’s that? Some kind of biking, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, it’s when the bike wheel only moves when you pedal. It doesn’t free wheel. So you have to keep moving.’
Jason laughed. ‘Sounds weird. Better to go get a ride outside, isn’t it?’
Grace smiled. ‘Yeah, I think it is.’
‘Take on that hill. Gonna try? Got a race this August Bank Holiday. First one to the top gets the new surf club cat named after them. Been getting some practice in, gonna have a go. Reckon Jason fits.’
‘A cat called Jason?’
‘Catamaran.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah, they’re gonna use it for surf lifesaving training offshore.’
‘Sounds interesting.’
‘Gonna have a crack?’
‘A crack at what?’
‘The race. Gonna be a few celebs there. Can’t have one of them winning it, can we? Gotta be a local. All that spinning, reckon you can do an uphill?’
It was something Grace had been planning to challenge herself with over the course of the summer. However, she had planned to cycle alone with Joan walking alongside to provide the benchmark speed. Now that couldn’t happen, she hadn’t made any decision on what to do, but Jason was staring at her with a small smile on his face, as though daring her to accept the challenge.
She smiled. ‘I think Grace is a pretty good name for a catamaran,’ she said. ‘I’ll be there. And in the meantime, I’d like to rent a surfboard.’
Jason nodded. ‘Nothing like a bit of cross training. You gonna head out to the rock?’
‘Which rock?’
‘Sharker’s. Got rollers coming in. A few of the lads are gonna take a boat out this morning, wait for the big guys. Should be epic. I’d be there but I’ve gotta work.’
‘Ah, I’m a bit out of practice, so I was thinking more to just hit up the regular surf. You know, over on the beach there.’
Jason frowned. ‘But you’re a local.’
‘So?’
‘Locals can’t be seen in there.’
‘Why not?’
‘That’s tourist surf, that is.’
Grace laughed. She had once shared Jason’s opinion. Times had changed, though. She had been a long time away.
‘Is there any way for me to not look local?’
Jason frowned for a moment, then lifted a hand and clicked his fingers with a dry crack.
‘Got a suit over here,’ he said, going to a corner and poking about. ‘You’re what, five six?’
‘That’s right.’
Jason held up a bright sky blue wetsuit and turned it around. On the back, in huge white letters, it read, RENTED FROM J’S SURF SHACK.
‘Can see it from the beach,’ Jason said. ‘I’ll let you use it for free if you like. With this on, no one’ll know you’re local. Helps with the rep.’
Grace grimaced. If you could see the writing on the suit from the beach, you would be able to see it from the Low Anchor’s windows.
‘Do you have a helmet I can wear?’ she asked. ‘Just to make sure no one can recognise me? Or a mask?’
Jason frowned. ‘Swell’s only about two foot. Not gonna hurt yourself in that.’
‘But just in case?’
‘Don’t be a wuss.’
‘I’d really prefer it.’
Jason shook his head. ‘People’ll think I’m trying to fleece you. Look, I’ll give you half rates on a day’s rental for the board, and the suit is free. And I’ll throw in a can of Coke. Can’t say better than that, can I?’
Grace stared at the suit with its gleaming white letters that looked freshly printed. ‘What’s the chance of sea mist coming in this morning?’ she asked.
Jason smiled. ‘None.’
10
Breakers
No one heckled her as she walked down to the beach with the rental board under her arm, but she caught a couple of grins from dog walkers as she reached the shoreline.
‘Good morning,’ one young guy called as he tossed a stick for an eager Labrador. ‘Down on holiday?’
‘Something like that,’ Grace answered, ignoring the smirk behind his words as she strapped the leash to her ankle. From the shoreline, the breakers looked even smaller than they had from outside J’s Surf Shack, tiny, feeble little things perhaps not even strong enough to lift the board. As she moved the board out into the water, , she realised the only other people in the sea were two groups of kids playing in the shallows. A couple held up polystyrene boards to the breakers, others tossed a beach ball back and forth.
At least no one will recognise me.
She had soon pushed the board out to waist deep. At low tide, the beach was a gentle slope, and already she had gone beyond the break line. Feeling like an amateur rather than someone who had once dragged herself out of bed at six o’clock to catch a few waves before school, she pushed the board back until she was just inside the first gentle breakers. Then, climbing on, she began to paddle for the swell.
From flat on the board, the wave rose behind her, pushing her up out of the water. Grace paddled hard, feeling the old thrill of catching on to a wave. As the water took her, she laid her hands flat and tried to flip herself up into a standing position, only to find that her body’s old flexibility had deserted her.
She made it halfway to her knees, before overbalancing and falling sideways off the board. For a moment freezing, salty water filled her senses, then her bum bumped against the sand and she stood up, the water reaching just above her thighs.
Nearby, something was buzzing in the water. Grace turned to see a small motorboat speeding out from the beach’s northern end, angling across the shore towards Sharker’s Rock at the far southern headland, where proper rollers had begun to pound. A couple of men she couldn’t recognise over the distance lifted their hands to wave.
‘Nice break!’ someone shouted, accompanied by a cackle of laughter from the others. Grace scowled, tugging the leash line to pull the board back to her. More determined than ever, she turned the board around and pushed it back out into the surf. The motorboat was past her now, but up along the promenade, a few people had stopped to watch. Or was it her imagination?
Trying not to feel a prickle of embarrassment, she paddled onto the next swell, another two-foot monster which would have failed to threaten the defenses of a child’s sandcastle. She felt the board catch, pushed herself up, managed to hold a position at one knee for a few seconds, then fell sideways into the water. This time, she was barely submerged before she hit sand.
She was catching funny looks from the children further up the beach. They were only little, she realised now, pre-school age. Their parents watched from the sand nearby.
Grace wanted one more go before she gave up. Turning the board around, she climbed on top and began to paddle, only to feel the board’s fin scrapping the sand beneath her. Glancing back at the foreshore, it appeared at least a dozen people were now watching her from the promenade.
The swell rose behind her. Determined to prove a point, or at least provide some entertainment, Grace paddled hard, aiming to catch the little wave at the exact point of breaking, and ride it serenely into the beach. As it caught her, however, she tilted the board too straight. The wave broke behind her, pointing her straight down. She gamely tried to stand, but as the board’s tip hit the sand it flipped her forward. For a brief moment she was airborne, arms flailing, then she was crashing into the shallows.
She rolled over as delicate little waves lapped at her body. The traitorous board bumped gently against her leg as she looked up into the face of a child clutching a beach ball.
‘Are you all right?’
Joan shook her head. ‘Are you out of your mind?’ she asked, sitting in her wheelchair across the table from Grace. ‘I mean, there’s not even enough swell for the sponge boarders to play, and you went out there in full gear?’
Grace shrugged and licked her ice-cream. ‘It looked better from the beach.’
‘You’ve been away too long.’
Across on the promenade, a family strolled past, buckets and spades in hand. A toddler’s arm lifted to single out Grace.
‘Mummy, there’s the surfing lady,’ the little boy said. ‘She’s funny.’
‘Go on, give them a wave,’ Joan said, trying not to laugh. ‘Less than a day you’ve been back and you’re already a celebrity.’
Grace gave the family a quick thumbs-up, resulting in laughter from the two children. She pushed her sunglasses further up her nose as they walked on, wishing she’d pressed Jason harder for the rental of a mask.
‘At least Jason didn’t charge me for the board’s broken tip,’ Grace said. ‘He told me he’d had twenty customers already that morning. Someone even bought a board. He said I could keep the wetsuit if I wanted.’
‘He’s a good lad. Good mates with Daniel, too. He’ll know you’re back by the end of the day for sure.’
‘If he didn’t see me himself.’ Grace sighed. ‘I don’t think there’s much chance of igniting that old flame.’
Joan grimaced. ‘Ah, Graceful, there’s something—’
The café door opened and Belinda leaned out. ‘Joan, we’ve got the pasty guy on the phone. Can you handle tomorrow’s order please?’
Joan gave Grace a regretful smile. ‘Work calls,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you later. What are you going to do for the rest of the day?’
‘Sit on my patio and read a book.’
‘Ah, staying out of trouble?’
‘Something like that.’
After Joan went back inside, Grace finished her ice-cream and walked along the promenade. It seemed that her brief, embarrassing surf had made her a minor celebrity, with a couple of strangers wishing her uncharacteristically jovial hellos.
At the end of the promenade, she took the little bridge that led over the stream gurgling down from the upper valley and walked onto the beach. It was nearly lunchtime, but the beach was fairly quiet, most people still at work or school. Grace wandered around the foreshore for a while, before taking a path leading up the cliff to the south. In a hollow set back from the beach stood the surf club, a small stone building surrounded by a grassy bank. Only members had keys, but there was a notice board outside which Grace paused to peruse.
Jason was right. Over the last weekend of August, there was a beach gala, including a number of events such as the Melrose Hill Bicycle Race, a team tug-of-war, a life-saving competition and a paddle board race. Most of the events were open only to teams or surf club members, but Grace signed her name under an open list for the bicycle race, and then, as an afterthought, for the mixed surfing competition.
With ten years of inactivity behind her, she wouldn’t have a chance against some of the local kids who dedicated their lives to the waves, but it would give her a chance to make up for the morning’s embarrassment. She would be sure to ask Jason to keep the wetsuit back for the occasion.
‘I’ll show you,’ she muttered with a smile.
11
Old friends
The chalet’s tiny garden collected the sun from just after three p.m. until five, which was long enough for Grace to settle with a pot of tea, some biscuits she had picked up on her walk home, and a book. With her phone unable to get a signal down in the cove, she was entirely free from distractions, barring the occasional call of a gull which came to perch on the chalet’s roof in hope of some crumbs.
Just after seven o’clock, by which time she had moved to the sofa in her small living room, a tremulous ringing came from a cupboard in the hallway. Narrowly avoiding spilling her most recent cup of tea, Grace discovered she had a landline. When she tentatively answered, Joan’s voice explained she had got the number from the letting agent. They agreed to meet for fish’n’chips on the promenade at eight o’clock.
It was certainly a sobering moment and a reminder of how things had changed to see Joan wheeling her chair along the promenade. As Grace jumped up from the bench where she was waiting and hurried to help, Joan waved her away, telling her, ‘It’s the only exercise I get these days.’
On Grace’s recommendation, they went to a popular place just back from the main road called Haddock Enough Yet?, which hadn’t changed much since their teenage years, even if the owner, Gerry, had now retired to a villa in the south of France and been replaced behind the fryers by his son Brian, whom Grace remembered from a couple of years above her at school. The fish’n’chips smelled as good as ever, and the only change appeared to be in the portion sizes (‘gotta match the competition’) and the replacement of old newspaper with greaseproof (‘sod the government; they have no idea of taste’).
They took their warm, greasy bundles back to the promenade. To Grace’s surprise Joan suggested they eat on the beach, and pointed to a disabled access ramp nearby.
Realising that the slope was inappropriately steep, Grace took the handles and lowered Joan down backwards to the bottom of the ramp where it ended at a patch of rocks which was beach in name only. She t
hen hauled Joan’s chair a few metres through dry sand until they came to a small patch clear of stones.
‘Right, tip me over.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘You think I’d make you haul me down here just to sit in this stupid chair? Don’t worry, I’m used to this kind of thing. Haven’t been on the beach in years, though. Probably not since before the operation. Mum doesn’t have the shoulders for it.’
‘If you really want.’
‘Just lean me sideways and brace me so I don’t end up going down face first.’
It wasn’t easy, but with a bit of maneuvering, Grace was able to get Joan out of the chair and prop her up against a rock.
‘Just like old times, Graceful,’ Joan said, brushing sand off her thighs.
‘Yeah,’ Grace said, feeling wistful, more aware than ever that things were nothing like old times, and never would be again.
‘So, you had an eventful first day, then.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Things will settle down once I put you to the grindstone. You’ll be too tired for morning surfs on flat calm days for a start.’
‘I’ve entered the beach gala surfing competition.’
Joan paused, a chip hanging out of her mouth like a drunken cigarette. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘I’m not expecting to win. Just to make a point.’
Joan laughed. ‘You always were a stubborn one. Nothing’s changed then.’
‘I’ll need a bit of practice, but it’s like riding a bike, isn’t it?’
Joan shrugged. ‘You’d know.’
‘Half the village is laughing at me now. On the day of the competition, they’ll laugh no longer.’
‘Depends on the weather,’ Joan said. ‘If we get some decent surf maybe, but if its flat calm like now they’ll move the competition out to Sharker’s Rock and no one will see it.’