Blue
Page 23
‘Knew you would. Knew it the first time I saw you with that dude.’ He smiled grimly, shook his head and then said, ‘Oh well, see you on the other side.’
‘You can’t be serious.’
The Cribbar waves were breaking due to a tropical storm that had occurred thousands of miles away. Distant low-pressure weather systems affected oceans like pebbles dropped into a pond. The ripples were swells that travelled for days until they made landfall. In this case, the landfall was the Cribbar reef, and the waves were enormous. Faces that were twice the height of the ones I’d watched at the Headland Hotel with Zeke. They were pushing forty feet, at least.
And Daniel wasn’t even wearing a wetsuit, let alone a flotation vest. Just a black rashie and some blue baggies.
‘If your poser boyfriend can do it, so can I,’ Daniel was saying, clutching an electric-green board that looked familiar.
‘Uh, he grew up in Hawaii.’
‘So? I’ve been surfing all my life. I get the sea. I’m, like, connected to it or something.’
‘You’ve been surfing beach breaks. It’s not the same as a mental reef break. Wake up to yourself. This is the Cribbar. You’d be surfing a mountain.’
‘Yeah, well, who says that’s impossible? I can snowboard great.’
‘On a dry slope. And this is a mountain of water that wants to crush you. A mountain that you have to jump off at the scariest possible moment and somehow survive.’
‘Your boyfriend does it like twenty times a year.’
‘Come on, Daniel. You know that’s junk. It’s not a competition.’
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘And what’s the prize?’
‘You, probably.’
‘Don’t be so psycho. You can’t win me.’
‘I’m doing it anyway.’
‘Where did you get that board?’
‘Found it.’
‘Where?’
‘On your boyfriend’s camper van. So what?’
‘So firstly you’re now a thief, and secondly you are actually contemplating riding the Cribbar on an unfamiliar board?’
‘I can do it, Iris. I know I can.’
‘Yeah, like you thought you could beat Zeke Francis in the Saltwater Pro?’
‘What? I was just unlucky.’
‘No, you lost your cool and it all went wrong.’
Suddenly, he smiled and said, ‘Eddie would go.’
I thought of the Eddie Aikau tribute tattoo on the top of Daniel’s bum, which had those exact words.
‘Eddie did go. And Eddie bloody well died, remember?’
‘If I die, I die. But I’m gonna go.’
‘Go home.’
‘No way. This is my day. This is it. I’m riding the fucking Cribbar, and if it kills me, at least I’ll have gone out doing something awesome. Something I love.’
It wasn’t even Kodak courage, because there was no one watching except me. He wasn’t trying to get his picture on the news or on the cover of Surfer magazine. He was just going.
He picked up the board, a leashless ten-foot gun, and started jogging to the cliff-edge. Just the clamber over those crumbling rocks to the water was dangerous. I ran after him and caught him at the ledge.
I grabbed his arm, digging in my fingernails.
‘Don’t do this, Daniel.’
‘I have to. I have to find out.’
‘What?’
‘Who I am. What I’m made of.’
‘Oh come on.’
‘Don’t worry. I got this.’
‘Please don’t waste your life. It’s pointless.’
‘Nah. You’ll see,’ he said.
I looked at him. He was looking out at the set, which was feathering out just beyond the cliff. His whole body vibed with determination. Nothing I could say would get in the way of that.
‘You just get as far down the face as quick as you can before it sucks you back up again, OK, and if you wipe out, cover your head near the bottom, because if you don’t, your head is smashed in and you’re dead. Do you hear me?’
‘Gotcha.’
Then he went over the cliff and clambered down towards the rocks.
chapter thirty-four
‘Be careful,’ I shouted. Either it was lost to the wind and he didn’t hear, or he didn’t give a toss, because he didn’t answer. He was totally committed. He climbed down the rocks and pushed off, stroking powerfully out to the channel that would take him around the reef break and out the back. I saw when the rip took hold, pushing him fast out to sea.
He looked so small and hunched, bobbing out there like a seabird.
The first set came through. Daniel let the first wave pass, and the second, trying to tune in and sense which would be the best wave, I guessed. Then, as the line of the third wave approached, he swung round and stroked hard to take off. It was cresting, and still he was paddling hard to get up enough speed.
Then he started the vertical plunge, carving down the face, this grey wall of water rearing up behind him, getting bigger and bigger. The right rail dug in and he was off, riding down the curl of the wave. It was the wave of his life, no doubt, and it seemed like he was riding faster than was possible. But it was a jerky ride, the wave rising up with weird kinks, drops and lifts, and the board’s tail shaking because of the wave gurgles, which were totally unpredictable. All this was happening in the blink of an eye.
Daniel hung on, but suddenly his positioning looked all wrong to me — too much speed, the tail of his board whipping left and right like he was about to lose control. I don’t know what he was thinking about out there in that awful moment, but if it was me it would have been my life flashing before my eyes, because those would probably be the last seconds of it.
Then, as he shot the curl, it reduced in size to double-overhead, then overhead and suddenly it was just a normal wave. Daniel was hollering, ‘COWABUNGA’ and ‘BANZAI!’ like some kid in a cheesy beach-blanket movie. And he rode that wave all the way to the channel and then he hopped off the back, bellied down on his board and paddled.
He’d made it. I couldn’t believe it. No one would believe it.
For a brief moment he looked towards the cliff where I was standing and did the shaka sign with his hand, and that was when I saw it. Line after black line stacking up much further out to sea.
He was too far away to hear me shout, so I started jabbing my hand towards the horizon. He stared at me. I waved my hands some more, flicking my index fingers to show him what was behind him, but he couldn’t hear, and in the dip of the swell he couldn’t see.
Daniel broke the first rule of surfing: never turn your back to the ocean.
Finally he saw it, but by then it was too late. The line-up had changed. A sneak set was approaching and Daniel was caught inside, deep in the new impact zone. All he could do was stroke out hard towards it. He was on full RPM, going as fast as if he was trying to take off on a wave, but in the other direction, paddling desperately out to sea, hoping that he could get to the other side. The first wave he made and I watched him bob over it, just. I hoped that the speed and momentum he’d built would take him to the next wave. The next wave was twice the size and it was jacking up, monstrous. Daniel was like a stickman desperately trying to paddle over the top of it. For a second I thought he’d made it, thought he was over it, scratching for the next one. Then I saw him sucked backwards. Going over the waterfall.
Holy shit.
I knew he was dead. No one could survive that wipeout.
I screamed because I couldn’t help myself. It was just this primal noise that came out of the depths of me. My eyes scanned the sea, but there was so much whitewater that everything between the cliff-face and the break was like frothy cream. Then I saw a board pop up and a head and shoulders appeared not far from the boneyard. The body wasn’t floating face down. I saw arms working furiously, heading away from that rocky graveyard and towards the calm waters of the channel. On the waves of the wind I could have sworn I heard laughing. He was
alive.
His rash vest had been sucked right off him, and his baggies too, I noticed when he kicked up to swim. It took a scary amount of force to rip the clothes off a surfer. The wave would have been like a tornado in the water. His board, or rather Zeke’s board, was somehow still in one piece and swirling in circles about fifty feet from him and I watched open-mouthed as Daniel swam for it, hopped on, and rather than head for shore to go to hospital, he paddled out again in the lull to catch another wave.
He had lost his mind.
chapter thirty-five
It took him ages to get position again, and just as he’d figured out the line-up I heard someone calling my name. I turned.
Zeke.
Fresh from his session at Great Western Beach, with his orange longboard under his arm. It was one of his favourite boards, a super-fast gun shaped by his mother.
‘Wow, check out the set from Tibet! Totally knew it was breaking,’ he said. ‘There were these insane ripples in my Styrofoam coffee cup just now. Boom, would you listen to that!’
And then before I could say a word, his eyes fixed on the small figure out at sea waiting for the next set of waves to come in.
‘Damn, someone’s riding it?’
‘Daniel,’ I said.
He sighed an awful sigh. Just like his whole chest deflated.
Daniel was just sitting on his board deep outside, resting after the violence of the axing, maybe trying to stop his brain from freaking out. He didn’t go for any other waves, and for the time being at least he was safe.
Zeke said, ‘Is he even wearing a flotation vest?’
‘He’s not wearing anything. The wave ripped his clothes off.’
Garrett and Wes were coming around the headland, carrying shortboards and stuffing their faces with crisps.
They could see something was wrong.
‘Cribbar bombin’, eh? Who’s out there?’ Garrett asked.
‘Some kid trying to be the big kahuna.’
‘Some kid?’ Wes asked, looking at me.
Zeke didn’t tell them it was Daniel. Unfortunately it must have been written across my face.
‘Not Knife Boy?’ Garrett said, looking from me to Zeke.
Zeke just shrugged.
‘Iris,’ Garrett said, ‘is that the psycho gremmie who tried to top our little brother?’
I nodded.
Wes exhaled and shook his head. ‘What the heck is he thinking?’
‘He’s not thinking,’ I replied.
Garrett ate another handful of crisps. ‘Bummer for him. The little squid’s gonna be sea froth.’
‘Iris, you have a cellphone?’
I shook my head, mentally kicking myself for not bringing it with me. Zeke and his brothers obviously didn’t have one either, as they’d just been surfing and no one in their right mind left expensive belongings on the beach while they went in the water.
‘OK, where’s the nearest emergency phone?’ Zeke said, walking to the edge of the cliff.
‘There’s two: North Fistral and Little Fistral. Wait a minute … one of them’s broken,’ I said, vaguely remembering an ‘Out of Service’ sign. I racked my brains, but couldn’t remember where I’d seen it. ‘I dunno which one. We’ll have to try both.’
Zeke said, ‘Wes, you go to Little Fistral. Garrett, you run around to the main beach.’
‘You’re not going in there,’ Garrett said. ‘He’s made his decision. Let him be.’
‘In about two minutes he’s going to paddle for a wave and wipe out, because these sets coming in right now …? Those waves are not makeable. Too hollow, too ledgey, too choppy, boils bubbling up on the face that will stop his board dead and send his ass sailing to the wind.’
‘His choice, brah.’
‘He might make it,’ I said. ‘He’s survived two.’
‘No. This set right here is all wrong. But out back, where he’s paddling, he won’t be able to see how they’re jacking up. Teahupo’o is more rideable than this.’
‘Don’t,’ I said, so choked up I could hardly speak.
‘Just get to a phone and call the coastguard and an ambulance,’ Zeke said to Garrett and Wes. ‘Now.’
I couldn’t take my eyes away from the water. The deep rumble of the breaking waves was so loud that I could feel their vibration through my whole body.
Zeke walked towards the cliff. I grabbed his arm to stop him, and he turned to me and said, ‘He’s gonna need help, and who else is there?’
‘Wait for the coastguard.’
I said wait, and yet my heart wanted him to go out there and save Daniel. To make everything all right again. To put it all back to the way it had been.
Zeke just looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes, and it was like he could read my mind. Then he committed.
‘Stupid freakin’ kook,’ he said.
At the edge of the cliff, he turned back to me, and I said, ‘I love you, Zeke.’
‘Love you too.’
Then he was gone.
chapter thirty-six
He paddled out, taking nice fluid strokes like he was just going out to any other normal wave.
Garrett was running towards me, steaming back from the emergency phone and I knew that within twenty minutes a lifeboat would be in the water and approaching the headland. With every heartbeat, though, it seemed more and more likely that I was about to lose the only two boys I had ever loved.
I saw the moment when Daniel spotted Zeke coming around the break, and he must have known what he was there for. Daniel had been taking a breather, psyching himself up to overcome that defence mechanism that stopped a person from doing crazy suicidal shit, whatever, but as soon as he saw Zeke, it was like he was electrocuted into action and he started stroking hard, too late, way too late, to catch a wave that had passed a few seconds before.
Zeke was taller than Daniel and he had this graceful paddle style in the water, super-fast and efficient, and he started dropping in further down the wave on the shoulder, away from the peak, so that Daniel would back down. He’d have to. Otherwise he’d risk taking the full weight of Zeke’s board. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
Daniel kept going, paddling to get enough speed to take off. Zeke, by this time, was a couple of metres to his right, burning through the water like his life depended on it. Daniel popped up at the exact moment that Zeke got to his feet. Both of them were up and riding, but both were too late to drop in on the wave face. Zeke cut back and turned his board slightly towards Daniel, going against every rule of surfing etiquette that he’d lived by so religiously his whole life. Taking control, like the pro that he was, but this time he was also trying to save Daniel’s life. Zeke’s arm shot out, fist bunched, and caught Daniel in the chest, sending him off the back of the wave, where he’d be safe.
Zeke, though, was nearer to the falling lip of the wave than he’d thought.
chapter thirty-seven
I saw Zeke’s orange board, pointing the wrong way, get sucked over the falls. Attached at the ankle, Zeke followed his board and was pulled over the wave, nothing he could do to stop it.
I closed my eyes.
Garrett had arrived and was roaring by my side, already running for the cliff-ledge. I grabbed him and he shook me off like I was so much rubbish.
The wave didn’t pick Zeke up like the other wave that had grabbed Daniel and sent him down in the lip. Seconds stretched out like hours and all I could think was: air. He needed to swim like hell for the surface and get some air. But I knew that down deep you didn’t know where you were, didn’t even know which way was up. I remembered Zeke telling me about giant waves he’d ridden, where the wipeout was so fearsome and his back was hyperextended so far that he’d thought he was paralysed.
‘When you panic, you make stupid mistakes,’ he’d told me. ‘It’s all about staying calm, staying loose and believing you’ll get through it.’
‘It’s so dangerous,’ I said. ‘Macho bullshit. Why do it? Why risk everything?’
/> And now, here he was, in the grip of the most hideous wipeout I had ever seen.
The board didn’t surface and neither did Zeke. He wasn’t wearing a flotation vest either. There was nothing to engage and send him like a cork to the surface. There was too much water exploding over him; he couldn’t fight his way up.
The wave had passed and another was forming, and still Zeke hadn’t come to the surface.
And then Daniel came sailing over the next monster wave, totally oblivious of what had happened to Zeke. This wave was a little smaller than the first, but Daniel was all over the place. Too jerky, his board rearing up, and way too much speed. The bottom fell out of the wave. He was thrown off the front.
I thought of the calmness. The moment of calm when I first met Zeke, lying in the ballroom of Hotel Serenity, looking at twinkling stars.
I thought of the day Daniel had joined my school, riding up on his skateboard like he didn’t have a care in the world.
Garrett was in the water now, streaming through the swell, under-gunned in his tiny shortboard that wasn’t at all suitable for such crazy conditions. That was when I committed.
I could do it. I’d been practising my yoga routine every day. I knew how to calm my mind, and my body was stronger than it had ever been.
If Zeke and Daniel were dead because of me, I couldn’t go on. I had to fix it. I didn’t have a board with me, so I walked away from the cliff-edge, then turned and ran at it and went sailing over the top, just clearing the slashing rocks below.
As soon as I cleared the froth, I saw that half a board was tombstoning not far from me, and much further away again a figure had popped up, a head and shoulders. Gasping, spitting salt-snot.
It was Daniel.
Zeke was still down.
Garrett was ahead of me, not far from Daniel. The half-submerged board had come up only after Garrett had swum over it. He never knew his brother was down there, trapped, fighting to get free of his leash. He had been down too long. There was no way to hold your breath that long. Not even for Zeke, who had practised free-diving in the Maldives, sitting on the ocean floor alongside the kaleidoscopic fishes as he held his breath for three minutes. Possible if you’re calm. Impossible in this kind of beating.