by Lisa Glass
Zeke had a lot of ground to make up. In the lull I could see him talking to Silvio, laughing about something. So much for the Brazilian’s bad attitude.
Silvio went for another wave, gathered speed and found a ramp for the air section, but mistimed it and did a backflip while his board went in the other direction. Wipeout. 3.92 score. Then a beautiful right-hander peeled away and Zeke was in the perfect position on the perfect wave. All of his grace and flexibility came together in a sequence of moves that he’d practised on our first surf together when we’d paddled out after yoga class.
I couldn’t believe that was my boyfriend out there. He was incredible. I knew he had a serious work ethic and said the ocean was his office, but seeing him work those waves, my whole body ached with longing for him and I knew for sure that I was the luckiest girl in the entire world.
I crossed my fingers for a big score but was pretty confident, because that last wave had to be considered a ‘wave of consequence’ and Zeke’s ride would surely be scored in the excellent range. I was right. 8s and 9s from all five judges, averaging a 9.23. The buzzer sounded again. Zeke had won the heat and would advance to the next round. The Brazilian looked narked, but that was to be expected. He shook Zeke’s hand and ran off to the competitors’ tent, where he was greeted by a couple of big-boobed massage therapists in polka-dot bikinis.
I jumped up to greet Zeke. I went for the fist bump, but he swept me off my feet and kissed me. I could tell he was psyched. He was literally trembling with the high of winning. After two years of pro-surfing, I thought all the contest craziness would be normal to him. Apparently not.
Zeke set me down and said hi to Kelly. Then he looked around and said, ‘Have you seen my parents? They said they’d swing by for my heats.’
‘No, sorry.’
‘I guess they lost track of time. It’s OK. They’ve watched me surf a million contests.’
He had a few hours so I bought him a veggie burger, chips and Coke as he was ravenous and needed all the calories he could get for the next round heat. All eyes were on us in the cafe. I wasn’t sure if Zeke was recognized, or whether the stares were because he had stripped down to just his boardies. I had bought a strappy orange dress from the Quiksilver summer sale and new flip-flops, but even at my most glam I still felt like a total trog next to Zeke. As usual, he was ignoring the stir he was causing, and I wasn’t going to flag it up.
‘You were great out there,’ I said. ‘You really knew how to read those waves.’
‘I came down to the beach last night with Garrett to watch the water.’
‘Couldn’t sleep?’
‘Oh, I was super-sleepy, but I knew I’d be starting my heat at midday, so I thought I’d come take a look at midnight, to see how that tide level worked against the ocean floor.’
I smiled. That was just classic Zeke: always trying to learn more and figure out ways to surf better.
I offered to pay for a beer from the downstairs bar for Zeke, but he was absolutely against that. He couldn’t even risk one bottle of beer, he said, because even that small amount of alcohol could screw up his balance. We walked back down to the beach and the results board showed that Zeke was up against a wild-card entry, who would be wearing a white jersey. Zeke was getting suited up again and pulling his blue jersey over the top, when I spotted the wild card.
Daniel.
He had been invited to compete in Saltwater? Every year they invited two locals, but the organizers had picked Daniel? Maybe his new lifeguard crew had sorted it for him. Whatever, this was mega. The whole of the professional surf scene was here. All the sponsors, all the agents and promoters. If Daniel caught a perfect wave here, things could change for him overnight. All that stood in his way was Zeke.
Zeke spotted Daniel about two seconds after I did, and I saw the realization pass over his face. Daniel waved, but Zeke only gave him a chilly nod.
‘He’s just a wild card,’ I said.
‘I know.’
‘I guess if you’d pressed charges then he wouldn’t be here.’
‘He’d be here.’
Daniel came over, put his hand out and Zeke shook it. Daniel could barely make eye contact.
‘I didn’t know I’d be up against you, man,’ Daniel said. ‘I didn’t expect to win my first heat.’
‘No sweat.’
‘I feel shit about what went down, but I still have to beat you here, OK?’
‘Well, you can try, dude.’
Daniel shrugged and said, ‘May the best man win.’
‘Yeah,’ Zeke said. ‘He’s gonna.’
The buzzer sounded and they ran down to the water. Kelly and Garrett were walking up from South Fistral, where they had been surfing, judging by the beginner foamie under Kelly’s arm and the fish board under Garrett’s. Kelly’s eyes were popping out on stalks as Zeke and Daniel ran into the water.
They came straight over.
‘Am I tripping or is that the guy whose nose I broke?’
‘Yeah, he’s the wild card.’
‘He’s like scabies,’ Kelly said. ‘He gets everywhere.’
‘Gross, but accurate,’ I said.
Daniel caught the first wave, but a big section closed out and sent him flying. Zeke was on the second and almost took off Daniel’s head as Daniel surfaced in the zone. Somehow Zeke missed him and turned towards the lip, floated on the crest and dropped back in. At 7.33, Daniel would find the ride difficult to beat. Daniel punched through and made the line-up, took off too fast and wiped out again. It was embarrassing. He had to calm down, or he was going to score zero. Zeke stayed away from Daniel in the lull and looked towards shore for a moment. I waved but he couldn’t find me in the crowd and he didn’t wave back. The next set was pristine and breaking in one long beautiful curl. It was slightly outside, so Daniel and Zeke stroked out to position themselves for take-off. Whoever reached the crest first and got to their feet would have right of way, so it was a full-on race. Zeke had better paddle technique and his board skimmed perfectly through the water, but Daniel had desperation on his side, and they were neck and neck.
Daniel messed up the turn to shore, and Zeke got to his feet first. Zeke had priority, but Daniel went for it anyway and was flagged for interference. Daniel slid down the back of the wave, and watched, just totally humiliated, as Zeke pulled a frontside grab-rail reverse aerial, which was something I’d never seen any surfer manage. It was a highly technical aerial trick, where a surfer grabbed the edge of the board and then did a 360 high in the air, but rotating in the opposite direction from whatever momentum they’d built. It scored Zeke a 9.62.
With only one minute left on the clock, Daniel scratched for the next wave but it was junky slop with no power and he was only riding for five seconds. He managed a 3.90. That was his only scoring wave. It was a total hammering. Daniel had been humiliated by Zeke in front of the entire competitive-surf community. He’d choked and blown it, big-style. The buzzer sounded again and Zeke paddled in, but Daniel stayed out there, desperate to catch another wave to redeem himself. He was being warned over the loudspeaker to come in but he just ignored it. An overhead wave reared up and Daniel took off, only to wipe out once more. It was not his day. He should have quit when he was told, because now a lot of people were watching.
Eventually he came in, tore off his white jersey, threw it on the ground and went straight to his car without saying a word. Bad, bad loser. Zeke was trying not to grin, but failing. His fan club surrounded us, the cameras on their phones clicking overtime.
Zeke never got to surf his next round heat.
Running up the beach were Wes and Elijah.
‘Come on,’ Wes urged Zeke and Garrett. ‘We’ve gotta get to the hospital.’
And then he said it:
‘Nanna’s had a stroke. It’s bad.’
chapter twenty-eight
Nanna was only in the hospital for two days before they moved her to a hospice.
‘Come visit her with me?’ Zeke aske
d.
‘Yeah, of course I will,’ I said, grabbing his hand.
Zeke drove us there in his camper van, but hardly said a word during the whole journey. As he reversed into a space in the hospice car park, I saw Garrett’s green motorbike and pointed it out to Zeke.
‘Wes is here too,’ he said, nodding at the hospice entrance, where Wes was talking to someone on his mobile phone. I jumped out while Zeke was rooting around in the van for a card and a basket of flowers and I heard Wes say, ‘That’s bull. You know how I feel.’
Wes turned around, saw us and flinched.
‘I gotta go. I’ll hit you up later,’ he said, and hung up.
‘Chick troubles?’ Zeke asked.
Wes just shrugged and said, ‘Tough day. Go sign in and then I’ll show you to Nanna’s room.’
Nanna was lying flat in her bed. The left half of her face had slumped, there was drool at the side of her mouth, and she could hardly talk. But when she saw Zeke, she smiled and started moving her good hand in an undulating motion. Then she grabbed a Get Well Soon card, turned it on its side and skimmed it along the bedcovers, like a surfboard.
‘I think she’s saying she wants to go to the beach and watch some surfing,’ I said. ‘Is that right, Nanna?’
She nodded vigorously.
‘Nanna, you wanna go to Fistral?’ Garrett asked.
She nodded again, her eyes wide with hope.
‘We can’t take her,’ Wes said flatly.
‘Why not?’ said Garrett. ‘The doc says she’s only got one or two days left, if she’s lucky. Her body’s, like, filling with fluid or whatever as her heart shuts down.’
‘Dude. She can hear you,’ Zeke said.
‘She knows. So let’s give her one last awesome memory. Take her to go see the surf.’
‘What if it kills her, bro?’ Wes said.
‘Then she dies by the ocean instead of in this fugly hospice.’
‘Feel how cold her hand is, even under all these covers,’ I said. ‘She is gonna be freezing in the sea air.’
Zeke nodded. ‘Iris is right. So we’re gonna have to keep her as warm as possible. We’ll have to take a ton of blankets.’
‘Can we really do this?’ I said.
‘No,’ Wes said. ‘We can’t.’
‘Just one hour,’ Zeke said. ‘And then we’ll bring her back.’
Garrett exhaled. ‘OK. We’re making this happen. Let’s go.’
‘Right now?’ I said.
Zeke raked his hand through his hair and said, ‘We can’t just waltz her through the lobby. How are we supposed to get her out of here?’
‘Window,’ Garrett said.
Nanna was smiling her lopsided smiled and waving her fist around.
‘Seriously, bro?’ Wes said.
‘Do it.’
Wes sighed and cracked open the window. Garrett went to Nanna and gently lifted her out of her bed.
I stood next to Wes and looked out of the open window. The hospice was on a hill, so it was going to be a drop of maybe seven feet.
‘It’s gonna be tricky getting her out,’ I said.
Very gently, Garrett handed Nanna to Wes.
‘I’m not throwing Nanna out a fucking window,’ Wes said.
‘So you wanna catch her then?’ said Garrett.
‘OK, so I’ll pass her down. Man, this is not gonna end well.’
Zeke turned to me and said, ‘Baby, can you go tell the receptionist that Nanna is resting and that we’ll be staying with her for a couple hours? Ask her to give us some time to say goodbye?’
I nodded and tried not to blush because Zeke had just called me baby for the very first time.
He carried on: ‘Then, once you’re back, lock the door. We’ll get her back before they even know she’s gone.’
I did it and the receptionist smiled and said that was absolutely fine and that she understood that people needed to say goodbye in their own way and in their own time.
Little did she know.
When I got back to the room, I asked, ‘Who’s catching her?’
‘I am,’ Garrett said. ‘Zeke’s driving.’
I watched as Wes passed Nanna down to Garrett and Zeke, then I gathered some of her blankets and scrambled out after them, landing in Zeke’s waiting arms. Garrett wrapped Nanna in the blankets and carried her into the back of Zeke’s camper van. Wes and I jumped in the back too, holding Nanna still so that she wouldn’t get slammed against any of the surfboards as Zeke took the corners. He drove at maybe ten miles an hour, if that, all the way to the esplanade.
Nanna’s eyes sparkled with excitement when she clapped eyes on the surfers out in the line-up. Seventy-five years old, but she was buzzing like a grom.
‘Water,’ she whispered.
Garrett took Nanna in his arms and carried her down the old stone steps and past Bodhi’s, where Zeke’s family had gone to celebrate after they’d taken Nanna for her final tandem-surf.
How quickly things could change.
Nanna kept saying ‘ocean’, so Garrett waded into the sea up to his knees and Nanna tilted her head back so that she could see the surfers, the breakers rolling in and the backwash swirling around Garrett’s legs.
We were standing a little way behind Garrett, in the shallower water, but Nanna moved her head and motioned for us to wade deeper so she could see us and the waves. Wes, Zeke and I stood apart, thigh-deep in the sea, and looked back to Nanna. Then Zeke threw his arm over Wes’s shoulders and turned to me to take my hand.
Nanna smiled.
Garrett’s face was stern and I could see that he was only just holding it together. Then Nanna started wriggling in Garrett’s arms, her fingers reaching for the baby waves. Garrett bent his knees to let her splash the water. When he looked up, I couldn’t tell if his face was wet from the sea or his tears. Maybe it was both.
The tide was coming in fast and the sand getting even more tightly packed with holidaymakers. Garrett wanted to walk up the beach where it was quieter, but someone was having a fire and Nanna started whimpering when we walked past.
‘I think she wants to stay here,’ I said to Garrett, who looked down at his grandmother and smiled.
‘Then this is where we stay.’
Some of the surfrats were passing around a bottle of whisky and, as it went past, Nanna reached her hand out for it.
‘Is she on meds? Is she even allowed to have some?’ Wes asked.
‘Yeah. And yeah,’ Garrett said.
‘She wants it, she gets it,’ Zeke said.
Garrett took a swig, then put the bottle to Nanna’s lips. She drank deeply, and then lay back on to the sand and looked up at the sky.
‘Tired,’ she mouthed.
‘You can’t sleep here, Nanna,’ Wes said. ‘We gotta get you home.’
She waved her good hand around at the beach. This was her home. The beach was home to all of us.
Then she whispered, ‘Kiss me,’ and Garrett, Wes, Zeke and I planted light kisses on her cheeks, lips and forehead.
‘She’s shivering,’ I said.
Half a dozen of the surfrats sitting around the fire handed hoodies and jumpers down to me and one kid passed down his beanie hat. Garrett, Zeke and Wes loaded her up with the clothes, covering her head, lap and shoulders. Then they huddled around her: Garrett behind, with his arms wrapped around her waist; Zeke and Wes either side of her. A triangle of body heat keeping their grandmother warm. Their own little boat.
Nanna closed her eyes and almost immediately strange gasps and gurgles started up in her throat.
Wes turned to Garrett and said, ‘She’s hardly breathing. We need to get help.’
‘Leave her be,’ Garrett said.
‘Zeke, come on. She’s gonna croak out here.’
‘I think I can live with that,’ Zeke said.
‘We’re gonna be in deep shit if the cops find out about this. Zeke, you could get into trouble with your sponsors. And you really don’t need any more heat in that department
.’
‘Screw ’em.’
Nanna took one huge breath and then stopped breathing altogether. Her face looked calm, ancient and beautiful.
Garrett’s eyes were full of pissed-off tears and Wes was white as a sheet. Zeke stroked Nanna’s hand, his fingers light on the paper-thin skin.
The surfrats gathered around, quiet and respectful. Garrett gave them back their clothes and then carried Nanna in his arms across the beach to Zeke’s camper van, laid her on the spare duvet and pillow that Zeke kept in there, and Wes and I jumped in next to her. Garrett and Zeke walked around to the front of the van.
I closed Nanna’s eyes and then Zeke drove back to the hospice.
He swung into the car park, backed up the van so it was near Nanna’s window and we got her back in the way we took her out.
Zeke ran at the wall, scrambled through the window and into the room and then leaned back out, hands stretching down. Garrett and Wes held Nanna up and Zeke took her.
Garrett gave me and Wes a leg-up, and then he climbed the wall and shut the window behind him.
The room was so silent.
Zeke brushed the sand off Nanna’s cheek and I combed it out of her hair. Then Zeke laid Nanna gently in her bed and Garrett pulled the covers up and over her.
Wes was silent, Garrett was flushed with the effort of holding in tears, but Zeke looked at Nanna and smiled.
Because, even after she had passed, on Nanna’s face there was a look of pure stoke.
chapter twenty-nine
There was to be a Paddle Out for Nanna, which is how surfers remember their fallen comrades.
Everyone was welcome. Nanna’s family and friends were there and plenty of the Fistral tribe had turned up with their boards to paddle out to the calm water beyond the break, where they would sit in a circle and honour Nanna.