‘Yes, thanks. It was up there with the best of them.’ I haven’t told Kirstan about Tybalt. Maybe I never will, unless we get to the stage where we’ve got nothing to talk about. Besides, Kirstan would only go and find him and hit him, wherever he was at the time. Just thinking about that little Tybalt interlude makes me want to puke like that actor puppet in Team America.
‘Good. I told you – one little chunk at a time. Now you’re here at the last chunk of the day. Now all the subsequent chunks will be good chunks.’
‘What’s that?’ says Kirstan, opening the bonnet.
‘Nothing, mate.’ she says, ‘Come here.’
Janica grabs Kirstan so hard that I can hear the air being forced out of his lungs. It looks like they’re trying to squeeze each other to death. I can see tears seeping from Janica’s tightly closed eyes.
‘I’m going to miss you, my friend. I’ll miss our surfing trips, despite the fact that I never really felt you’d be able to save me if I got into serious trouble.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. But I wouldn’t have even tried to save you,’ gasps Kirstan, hardly able to breathe.
They pull away from each other and examine each other’s faces.
‘I am so glad, Kirstan,’ she says, wiping tears from her face. ‘I am so glad this has happened for you. You can stop, now, can’t you? You can stop all the running. You’ve got to treasure this and you’ve got to treasure her ladyship there. Most people never, ever get a second chance with something like this. I’d still advise that offer with my brother, though. Maybe you could think of it as a new start. A new start for both of you, you lucky bastards. I’m going to start crying in a minute.’
‘Here,’ Says Kirstan. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
He reaches in one of his pockets and pulls out a purple and yellow friendship bracelet. ‘Give me your wrist.’
Janica holds her wrist out and Kirstan ties the bracelet around it, knotting it tightly. For once, his knotting skills bear fruit. ‘Wish for something, Janica. You know how it goes. When this thing disintegrates, that wish’ll come true.’
She grabs the back of his neck, kisses him on the lips and they embrace again. In another universe, I could see they’d make a great couple. Janica recovers, turns and looks at me.
‘Now it’s your turn, kitten. Come here, you gorgeous creature. Kirstan, if you see this starting to get too gay, you must pull us apart.’
‘Are you kidding?’ says Kirstan, grinning, ‘Can you possibly wait until I find my camera?’
This time it’s me that’s on the receiving end of one of her mega-hugs. She strokes my hair and I can feel her breath by my ear.
‘You poor, poor baby. All that shit. I’m so happy for you. And now I’m going to give you some advice.’
I pull away from her and smile. ‘Advice?’
She turns to Kirstan. ‘Get on with sticking the oil in that thing, will you? We’re having private girl-on-girl talk here.’
Kirstan shrugs and continues whatever it was he was doing with the van. Janica continues.
‘Yeah. Advice. Take it from me, sugar. Get rid of them.’
‘What?’
‘Get rid of them. Don’t play the innocent. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You don’t need ‘em, they don’t suit your figure and they’ll cause you all sorts of emotional stress in the long run. They’ll be an embodiment of bad memories for you.’
‘But I thought you said…’
‘Never mind what I said. I’m full of shit. Just do what I say. OK?’
She smiles at me. We’re not actually crying like last night, but we’re getting there.
‘Now I’m going to kiss you as well. It’s only fair. Get ready. I swear you’ll bloody enjoy the crap out of it.’
She’s right. Her lips are soft and it’s nowhere near as weird as I thought it would be. Quite pleasurable, if the truth be known; I even get a little tingle down my spine.
Kirstan clears his throat loudly. ‘Come on, girls. You don’t want me to come and separate you with a crowbar, do you?’
I pull away with mock alarm and pretend to spit on the floor. This gets a laugh from everyone.
‘Anyway,’ says Janica, ‘If you guys end up in Oz with Lachlan, we’ll probably bump into each other again. I’m sure.’
‘Don’t worry, sex bomb.’ says Kirstan. ‘We’ll keep in touch. We’re not going to lose you. We can always contact you through your brother, and vice versa.’
‘OK. Come on, both of you. Mass surfer cuddle.’
Kirstan joins us for yet another gratuitous rib-crushing session.
‘And if you two ever feel the need for a ménage-a-trois, make sure you contact me first,’ says Janica, laughing.
‘Well! This looks like it’s going to be an interesting place to work!’
It’s a female voice I don’t recognise. A slight French accent, I think. I turn and find myself looking at an unbelievably attractive girl with long, jet black hair, very dark, tanned skin and the most amazing green eyes. Exotic isn’t the word for it. All three of us stare at us like she’s some beautiful alien who’s just stepped out of a spaceship.
She looks dubious for a second, like she’s come to the wrong place or approached the wrong people. ‘I’m Cyana de Rosnay. I’m the new surfing instructor. One of you two girls must be Janica Atherton, hopefully.’
‘That’s me. Hi,’ says Janica, shaking hands with her. They smile at each other and something – I don’t know what – passes between them. Cyana raises an eyebrow and smiles wickedly.
‘I had a feeling it was you. I’m so pleased to meet you, Janica.’ They still haven’t unclasped their hands. ‘I saw you surf at the Roxy Pro in Hawaii two years ago. You were fantastic.’
Janica actually blushes. ‘Not that fantastic. I was knocked out by some bloody sixteen year old.’
‘Just bad luck. You were easily the best surfer competing that day.’
Janica laughs. ‘Thank you! Best looking, too!’
‘I certainly wouldn’t disagree with that,’ says Cyana, smiling sweetly.
Kirstan is still looking at our new arrival. ‘Do they all look like that just outside Guildford, do you think?’ he says, grinning his head off.
Janica introduces me and Kirstan. Cyana has heard of Kirstan, too. For someone who didn’t like the idea of surfing as a competitive sport, he certainly seems to have made a name for himself over the last few years. He and Larry are still not welcome in the south of France.
It’s finally time for us to leave. Janica becomes tearful again, but she knows this won’t be forever. Besides, picking up on the vibes between her and Cyana, I wouldn’t be surprised to find she’d forgotten all about us in a few days from now.
Kirstan starts the engine and we crunch over the car park gravel and out onto the main road. I look back and see Janica and Cyana waving. I still can’t believe I’ve only known Janica for a day and a half. Kirstan, of course, I feel I’ve known all my life.
After about ten minutes, I look in one of the big wing mirrors and can see the hotel and its accompanying golf course fading into the distance. The air conditioning doesn’t work in the van, so we’ve got the windows open to try and dispel the heat. This is blowing our hair everywhere, but it feels good, not annoying, as it might have felt to me a few days ago, when I was a shallow, spoilt bitch.
I start thinking about the constant attention my hair has needed for the last couple of years, since I went blonde. I’ve probably been spending about seven to eight hundred pounds a month on it, which, when you really think about it, is totally insane.
It’s almost as if it was someone else that needed all that pampering, all that expensive maintenance, all that constant distraction from the reality of her life. Some blasé, indulged, rich man’s woman who, in some strange way, is still in that luxury suite in The Rico Paraiso Lerdo, slowly running her hand across the fabric of yet another dreamy designer dress, trying on a new pair of Sophia Webster shoes,
sipping from a glass of the finest Champagne, and feeling completely and utterly dead inside.
Fifteen
I got a postcard from Janica the other day. She and Cyana are on holiday in Hawaii, attending, but not competing in, some big surfing competition that they’re having up there. It’s sponsored by Red Bull. Not too surprisingly, they’ve been an item since day one and, from what I can gather, seem very happy together. I’m so glad. I smile whenever I think of her.
The postcard was a work of retro-style art, featuring a glamorous, dark haired Hawaiian girl, a luau around her neck, a grass skirt around her waist, playing a ukulele on a bright yellow beach in front of some palm trees. It said ‘Aloha From Hawaii’ in garish red lettering across the sky, which was a sort of unearthly green colour. Kirstan stuck it on the mantelpiece and immediately sent off for a frame for it.
It’s been eighteen months since we left the Algarve. Almost as soon as we got to Janica’s brother’s place in New South Wales, I followed Janica’s advice and looked into getting rid of my implants. I found this fantastic female plastic surgeon in Sydney, who reassured me about the whole process and said that my breasts would look totally normal after the procedure. This was mainly due to the fact that I hadn’t had them in long enough for them to have seriously affected any tissue or muscle in that area. Whew!
I was soon back to a pert 34C and there were hardly any signs at all that I’d had any type of surgery. (The bruising took two and a half months to clear up, though!). It cost quite a lot of money, money that we didn’t really have, but we both agreed that it was something that needed doing. The average Australian male probably wouldn’t have agreed!
As you probably have guessed, I also let my hair go back to its natural colour of chestnut brown. While we were still in Italy, I had it chopped into a really short style (in a male barber shop!), so that the transitional phase of colour change wouldn’t look too tacky. I found a nice photograph of Natalie Portman with short hair which I took to show the guy who did it. He asked if he could keep the photograph.
I must point out that this was not the sort of short hair that Natalie Portman had in V for Vendetta.
Kirstan loved it short. He kept running his fingers through it, saying that under certain circumstances (you’re not getting any details), it was as if I was a different woman.
Kirstan started teaching surfing again, while becoming quite a star at the local competitions. He worked out of Lachlan’s surf school, though Lachlan wouldn’t ever regard him as an employee. As you might expect from someone who was a surfer and Janica’s brother, he was far too cool for that.
We rent a small place overlooking the wonderfully named Boomerang Beach (just up the coast from Blueys Beach!). It’s one big room with a bedroom at the back and two smaller rooms. I’ve never been so happy.
In the mornings, Kirstan stands looking out at the sea, hands on hips, just like he used to in the old days. He says he’s checking out the waves, but I know that he’s really looking for signs of sharks or jellyfish. Lachlan tries to allay this fear. He says that no one has been taken by a shark around here for three years. To Kirstan, that means that the chances of it happening again are increasing with each day that goes by. Lachlan just smiles and shakes his head.
Sometimes, you can see dolphins about a quarter of a mile out, leaping in and out of the waves, showing us humans how it should be done. Occasionally, one of them will catch the same wave as a surfer, riding it in as far as they dare, before turning around and heading out to sea again. This hasn’t happened to Kirstan or I yet, but we live in hope.
I work three days a week for a small company that specialises in coastal, marine and hydrographic analysis. The pay isn’t great, but it helps the environment, so I feel like I’m doing something useful at last. I knew that geography degree would come in handy one day!
Oh. I almost forgot. My surfing skills. I can’t cope with the really big waves yet, but Kirstan reckons that a naïve passing tourist with poor eyesight would easily mistake me for a proper surfer (how generous of him!).
I can finally carve across the front of a wave now, as opposed to just taking a straight line into the beach, though the number of scary wipe-outs I’ve had has increased. I’m thinking of taking swimming lessons. I did see a big, nasty-looking jellyfish out there once (plainly not camouflaged), but I didn’t tell Kirstan. Besides, they aren’t all deadly.
I quite like jellyfish, actually. They may well cause your death, but it isn’t personal in any way. They don’t even know you’re there. I think of them as being the dangerous animal version of a stinging nettle. At the moment, though, Kirstan isn’t keen on me going in the sea at all.
It’s a warm evening and we’ve decided to take a walk down the beach. Kirstan is walking next to me, his arm around my waist. Occasionally, he’ll spin me around to face him and kiss me. His kisses are soft, sensual and last for a very long time. They make me feel dizzy, intoxicated and slightly faint. I can feel my heart fluttering.
I can see a woman approaching us who I recognise as one of the surfing instructors from another surf school further up the coast, near Charlotte Head. Her name’s Addison and she’s an athletic-looking redhead.
As she gets closer to us, I can see she’s grinning.
‘So, lovebirds! When’s it due?’
I unconsciously run a hand across my swollen belly. ‘Two months to go,’ I say.
She shakes her head. ‘It’ll change your life, darling. You just wait. It’ll change your life.’
I laugh and high-five her. I don’t worry about life changing experiences. As far as I’m concerned, they can only be a good thing.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Summer Loving Page 15
