by Lisa Glass
I swigged some mouthwash, spat it out in the bathroom sink and then ran down the stairs, brushing my hair. I stopped for a second to look in the hallway mirror and put on some light pink lipstick and mascara. My face looked tense; it reminded me of my mum.
I got back into the car and sat in the passenger seat next to Saskia.
‘Six minutes,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘Not bad.’
‘What name is Zeke under at the hospital?’
‘Jack Johnson. Anders’s idea of funny.’
Before Jack Johnson became a multimillionaire musician, he was a pro-surfer. Then he wiped out at Pipeline on the North Shore of Oahu, hit the reef and cracked his head open. Right after the one hundred and fifty stitches were taken out of his forehead, he decided to ditch pro-surfing and become a songwriter instead. I wasn’t sure I got Anders’s sense of humour there.
When we got to the hospital and Saskia went off to pay for parking, I slipped out of the car and went straight to reception, where I asked for Jack Johnson’s ward.
I didn’t want Saskia to be there when I saw Zeke. I took the lift up, surrounded by old people dragging oxygen canisters, and I thought about how he would look. I couldn’t imagine seeing him all wired up to medical equipment.
The ward was quiet. A nurse sat behind a desk reading a magazine and ignored me as I walked in.
Zeke was at the far end, asleep.
I walked over quietly and stood at the end of his bed. He was very pale, and a cut on his lip was beginning to heal, a mess of purple congealed blood.
He opened his eyes and smiled.
‘Hey. Howzit, Iris? Wow, you look hella fly.’
‘Cheers. You don’t look so bad yourself, all things considered, like.’
‘Caught any killer waves today?’
‘Uh, no. Mum ragged on me for an hour before school this morning, so I didn’t exactly get a chance to go surfing, even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. How are you feeling?’ I said, wishing I’d thought to bring him some surf magazines. But maybe that would just make him feel worse. Like rubbing salt into the wound.
He moved a games console from his lap, slid off the bed and walked to the window.
‘Guess I’m not going base-jumping in Utah. Bummer. I’ve always wanted to see the Moab desert. It’s not your fault, by the way.’
‘It so is.’
‘I was getting vibed by your ex all night. I thought it was funny. I should have just gone and asked him what his problem was. Sorted it out like men. None of this knife bull.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Forget it. Wasn’t kidding when I said I’ve gotten better beatings.’
I must have looked a bit sceptical, because Zeke said, ‘This is nothin’ compared to getting my knees dislocated, my eye socket shattered and my head split open when I wiped out in the wrong spot and got slammed all over a Tahitian coral reef. Anyways, I’m getting out of here tomorrow.’
‘Yeah? Awesome.’
‘But they say I won’t be able to surf for a while. Maybe two or three weeks. Not until my rib’s all healed up again. It’s gonna take a while for my leg to feel OK again too.’
‘You should press charges. Daniel deserves it. He needs to know he can’t go around attempting to murder people.’
‘Anders and Saskia have been telling me the same thing. I’m not pressing charges. He’s just a pissed local, mad at me for coming here and taking a crack at his waves. And his girl. Besides, Garrett beat the crap out of him. Broke his face.’
‘I’m not his girl, and press charges anyway.’
‘The kid’s nuts about you. He made a mistake. We’ve all done it.’
‘You ever beat up someone over a girl?’
‘Sure.’
‘Don’t believe you.’
‘It happened. I was eight.’
Not exactly the same thing. I shook my head and smiled.
Saskia walked over and gave Zeke a kiss on the head. ‘You’re not to worry about a thing,’ she said. ‘I’ve made all the necessary telephone calls and your schedule is wide open for the next month, so all you have to concentrate on is getting better. We’ll get you back to London in the next few days and have you seen by the best physios this country has to offer.’
‘I’m going no place but Newquay.’
‘What? Why?’
‘Because my planner is blank for like the first time in two years? And I’m not going to waste my time in some city.’
‘You can’t surf, darling. The doctor was very clear about that.’
‘So I’ll eat ice creams and catch some rays.’
‘Oh yes, on the two days of the summer that Cornwall actually gets sunshine.’
‘Who cares about the weather?’
‘Let me get you a cup of coffee,’ Saskia said, talking to him like he was a toddler, before swishing out of the ward.
As soon as she was gone, Zeke turned to me and said, ‘I can still stand-up paddle surf. I have a great new SUP board my sponsor wants me to try out. I’ll go explore hidden coves, see if I can spot a new break, one not accessible by land. Maybe name it too.’
I couldn’t help laughing. Stabbed, bottled and battered, but not broken. ‘I know I shouldn’t say this, but I’m so glad you’re staying.’
Zeke grinned and said, ‘Yeah, Iris, it’s gonna be real interesting.’
chapter eleven
On the first day that Zeke was released from hospital, he came around to my house.
I clocked him from the window. He walked up the path smoking a cigarette, which I watched him crush underfoot. Then he picked up the dog-end and put it in what looked like a little black film canister that he fished out of his pocket. I seemed to remember the Surfers Against Sewage gang handing out those film canisters as part of an anti-beach-litter ‘Get Your Butts Off Our Beach’ campaign, because billions of cigarette butts end up in the ocean each year and some of them hang around for a decade, leaching toxic chemicals into the ocean and killing marine life.
Tidy smoker though he seemed to be, I was still surprised that Zeke smoked. As a vegetarian, yoga-expert surf champ, smoking seemed weirdly out of character. I hoped it was something that he only did when he was stressed, though that would mean he was stressed by seeing me, which wasn’t a brilliant thought.
I opened the door just as his hand was raised to knock and caught my hand around his fist, unfurled his fingers and led him into the hallway. Before he could say anything, I reached up and put my arms around him, lightly so I wouldn’t do any extra damage to his cracked rib. I just wanted to hug him. It was all I’d wanted to do for days, and now he was here I wasn’t going to wimp out. He put one hand on the back of my head and quietly said, ‘Thanks for worrying about me, but I’m OK now.’
My mum’s voice rang out in the hallway: ‘Put him down, Iris. The poor boy is walking wounded.’
I released Zeke and spun around.
My mum was smiling, and looking curiously at Zeke.
We went into the kitchen and my mum pottered around, making us eggs Benedict, with veggie bacon and wilted spinach for Zeke. I noticed her eyes widen slightly as Zeke carried our plates out of the kitchen and into the breakfast room. Then she gave me a little smile, which clearly said, ‘Good taste, daughter.’
‘So what do you do, Zeke?’
‘I’m a pro-surfer.’
‘Oh yes, I think Iris did mention that. And what do you do apart from surfing?’
‘I play a little golf, I guess? But pro-surfing pretty much takes up most of my time.’
‘What about job-wise? I don’t suppose that surf contests pay all that well, do they, even if you can win them?’
‘They pay pretty good, but it’s the sponsorship and endorsements that really bring in the bucks.’
‘And how much do they pay? Roughly?’
‘You really wanna know?’
‘Is it a secret?’
‘No, ma’am.’
‘Oh, go on. Ten thousand dollars? Twe
nty?’
‘A little more than that.’
I looked over at Zeke and I could see he was mortified.
‘Leave him alone, Mum.’
‘Boys today are so easily embarrassed. You’d never see that sort of coyness in my day.’
When we’d finished eating, my aunt Zoe knocked at the door, bringing Cara, my two-year-old niece, who my mum was supposed to be looking after for the day. Cara was holding a small cake tin full of plastic animal figures, which she offered up to Zeke.
‘Hey there, little lady,’ he said to her, pulling out the animals one by one and asking what they were. I was rubbish at keeping Cara interested, but Zeke seemed to be finding it totally easy. My aunt went into the kitchen to talk to my mum, where I could hear enough of their conversation and raucous laughing that I went out to ask them to keep it down.
When I got back to Zeke, he was standing, legs apart, arms outstretched, on the coffee table. Cara was watching him open-mouthed and shouting, ‘More surfing, Zeke,’ every two seconds.
‘Does your aunt have a surfboard for her?’ Zeke said.
‘She’s two.’
‘Let’s hire a foamie and take her surfing today.’
‘You’re not allowed to go surfing. And neither is she, probably.’
‘Ask her momma. Go on. We’ll only take her in the baby waves.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘What’s this?’ my mum said, marching into the room with a tea tray.
‘Zeke was thinking we could take Cara to the beach today, if it’s OK with Auntie Zoe.’
‘She’s a lot of work,’ Zoe said. ‘She needs constant watching. Can you handle that?’
‘I have a three-year-old cousin, and I sit for my aunt whenever I’m home,’ Zeke said.
‘I didn’t know that,’ I said, surprised he hadn’t mentioned it.
‘Yeah — Colton. I’m used to taking care of him, and he has some severe ADD, so looking after Cara will be a piece of cake.’
‘Well, OK then, but just for an hour,’ Zoe said. ‘And don’t you take your eyes off her for a second, Iris.’
‘Can we take her in the water?’ I said. And Zeke added, ‘On a surfboard? Just up to our knees?’
‘She’s a bit young,’ Aunt Zoe said.
Zeke’s face fell, and I saw my aunt’s expression soften.
‘Well, OK, but only because you’re a young man with years of good seamanship under your belt, and I trust you to be sensible in the water.’
‘Cool,’ Zeke said. ‘Also: do you have any duct tape?’
‘Yes, there’s a roll in the kitchen drawer,’ my mum said, looking confused. ‘Why?’
‘The nurse made me promise I’d tape my dressing if I went in the water any time soon. It probably won’t get wet if we stay in the shallows, but I should maybe cover it anyways. Guess I don’t need an infection.’
Mum got the tape and then Zeke went into the kitchen to put it on, while me, my aunt and my mum talked about whether it was, in fact, possible to be a surf addict.
So that was it. Zeke and I were off to the beach, looking after a little kid. People were looking at us, scandalized, as if Cara was our little girl. I felt like writing on my back, ‘She’s my aunt’s kid, not ours, and mind your own business.’
I went to hire the foamie, as Zeke and I only had fibre-glass boards and we needed something really big, stable and soft to take Cara safely out. A foamie could support a twenty-stone kook, so it’d be fine for a wriggly two-year-old.
As I walked away from Denny at the surf-hire shack, I saw a familiar head of wavy yellow hair in front of me. I just knew it was her from her awful bobbing walk and tanorexic arms.
Cass’s best and only friend, Rae. Rae was the sort of girl whose greatest hope in life was to be a hippie, doss around some remote islands in the South Pacific and have her name officially changed to Dolphina. What she had in common with Cass I couldn’t figure out. She seemed all right, but I didn’t want to be reminded of Cass or Daniel.
‘Oh hiya, petal!’
This was the way she talked. We were all petal or rosebud or Delilah or some other word that popped into her brain. She couldn’t just call a person by their actual name. Some people at school thought she was on drugs, but really she was just incredibly weird.
‘Hiya,’ I said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Not so bad. Had a magic surf this morning and I’m off now for a toasting on the sunbed at Cass’s place.’
‘Fun.’
‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned Cass, should I?’
‘I’m not stopping you.’
‘You’ve gone all moody now, see. I honestly didn’t mean to mention her. I only did because she’s on my mind, I guess, because of the argument.’
‘You two had an argument?’
‘No, her and Daniel had a massive blow-up. Mahoosive. I could hear it from my house and I live six doors down. It was mega.’
‘Yeah?’ My ears had definitely pricked up. We were walking down the beach and Zeke and Cara were getting bigger. A minute or two and we’d have reached them. Whatever Rae had to tell me, it had to be then.
‘Cass couldn’t take it any more.’
‘The drinking?’
‘Well, yeah, that wasn’t helping, but all the rest of it was getting to her even more than him being constantly tanked.’
I nodded, as if I knew what she was going on about.
Cass and Daniel were having arguments? It was news to me. Just a few weeks previously, they’d been love’s young dream. Even Kelly had to admit that, and she was always waiting for the cracks to appear, as she knew that was the only thing that could cheer me up. Maybe it hadn’t all been skinny-dipping and heart-shaped bars of surf wax.
At that moment Cara ran up to me, shouting, ‘Cara surfing now, please!’
‘Hello. And how are you today, duckie?’ Rae again.
Holding Cara’s hand, Zeke walked up slowly and looked at Rae as if to say, ‘She cool?’ I nodded slightly.
Rae was freaking out.
‘Oh my God, oh my God. You are a lej! Zeke Francis. Born 1996 in Oahu. Current holder of the Hawaiian Junior Men’s title, and June centrefold of Surf Girl Magazine. Earns a quarter of a million dollars every year just from endorsements. I am your biggest fan!’
All Zeke said was ‘Oh boy.’
‘You’re in SGM?’ I said, turning to Zeke, surprise probably written all over my face, but also noting that Zeke was apparently pulling in the mega-bucks.
He nodded.
“Sexiest Athletes 2014”. There’s a different guy every month, but June was the best,’ Rae said, grinning. ‘You should get a copy, Iris.’
‘It’s probably not on news-stands any more,’ Zeke said. ‘At least, I hope not. They took the pictures last fall but the magazine came out in, I think, May? It’s so lame, right?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Nanna had her podiatrist buy her a copy of the magazine and she keeps making the nurses in the retirement home look at the picture. It’s kind of mortifying.’
‘I’ll have to go into Smith’s and order a back copy,’ I said.
‘And look out for Cosmo Girl too. I read in their forum that you’re nakey in their August issue, Zeke? The feature has Oli Adams, Sebastian Zietz and the Geiselman brothers too, so you should definitely check it out, Iris. It’ll probably be out any day now.’
Zeke gave Rae a really pained look, which she didn’t seem to notice at all.
‘Seriously, Zeke? Naked?’
‘Um, kind of? But you know, obviously I’m not showing my junk.’
‘So are you in every girls’ magazine in this country?’ I said.
‘Far as I know it’s just those two. And that’s all on Anders.’
Zeke turned to play with Cara, who was covering the foam surfboard with sand and saying, ‘Surfboard gone! Zeke find!’
‘So are you actually dating Zeke Francis?’ Rae whispered.
I wanted to say yes,
but that wasn’t strictly true so I shook my head.
‘Cool. Do you think he might go out for coffee with me?’
‘No idea. You’d have to ask him. Be my guest.’
At first, I wasn’t sure if Zeke heard that, but he suddenly picked up Cara and walked her over to some rock pools, which seemed like pretty clear body language to me.
‘Maybe another time,’ Rae murmured.
‘So I guess you’re itching to go check on Cass?’ I said.
‘Oh God, I totally forgot! I better dash. Have a lush weekend, Iris. Say bye to Zeke Francis for me,’ she said, grinning.
I tried not to suffocate as she gave me a crazy bear hug, and then she went on her way.
I walked over to Zeke, who was knee-deep in a rock pool with Cara clinging on to his back. He was flushed and not in a good way; Rae had really rattled him.
‘Can we take her surfing now?’ he said.
‘Sure.’
We waded out into the shallows and started what Zeke was calling ‘Cara’s first step on the journey to pro-surfer’.
He was so gentle with Cara, sitting on the back of the board, with his feet touching the seabed and letting her stand in front of him, as if she was riding the wave herself. She kept saying, ‘Me love Zeke!’ and then looking at me, waiting for me to say it too. For obvious reasons I just smiled and said nothing.
‘Shall we let her have a go on her own? Just bodyboarding? For like two feet?’
‘Probably shouldn’t. Board might turtle-roll,’ Zeke said.
‘Just one try.’ A ripple rolled towards us and I steadied the board and let go.
The board rose up and got swept along with the wave’s momentum. The ripple had looked super-weak but the board was so buoyant that the water ran away with it. The board suddenly tilted and Cara was plunged face down into the water.
I rushed towards her, the water slowing my legs so much that it seemed like I was hardly moving at all, even though I couldn’t have been more than a second or so behind her. Zeke came out of nowhere and scooped her up in his arms, his face white with panic.