Swell (25 page)

‘He’s not surfing like himself but if he keeps surfing like this angry machine he’ll win the final for sure,’ Oli commented to Chuck.

‘Bring it on,’ Chuck whooped, rubbing his hands together. ‘Cain’s done us a favour.’

‘He must be tired approaching every heat with such aggression,’ I said with concern. ‘I just hope he doesn’t peak too soon.’

Ruby and Rory nodded their agreement while Oli tutted disapprovingly and wobbled off to wish Jason luck for his semi-final against the wildcard and local favourite, Petit Sylvain.

‘I’m backing you all the way, Jason,’ Oli said, giving him a manly pat on the shoulder while Jason kept his eyes on the ocean. ‘We need this win.’

Not five minutes later I overheard Oli giving his young hopeful, Petit Sylvain, a rather similar pep talk.

‘I’m backing you all the way, Sylvain. We need this win.’

His sincerity was touching.

The surf continued to build throughout the semi-final until the sets were a definite ten feet, dwarfing the surfers on the face of the wave. The wind also switched onshore as the land heated up in the blazing sunshine, turning the waves into frothing, voluminous mountains of water.

‘Last wave of Sylvain a nine-point-eight,’ announced the commentator who was a local pro surfer, before repeating the same in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Basque.

‘That was no nine-point-eight, you’re kidding me!’ Chuck hollered. ‘What is this, every French man for himself?’

Many of the surfers around us agreed and even with my limited knowledge of the judging system I suspected Jason was struggling against Sylvain’s local advantage. Cain, who had already qualified for the final and was watching intently to see who he would have to surf against, roared with laughter.

‘Your boy’s letting it slip away, Brah,’ he shouted to our group. ‘I can smell the success already.’

‘I can smell something you asshole,’ Chuck hissed, ‘and it ain’t your motherfuckin’ success.’

However, to the chagrin of perhaps one third of the fans on the now heaving beach, Jason beat Petit Sylvain in the dying seconds of the semi-final with a superior display of surfing that surprised even those of us in Jason’s camp. Oli bounced up and down.

‘Good job you were backing Jason all the way, hey Oli?’ I said coldly. ‘We needed this win.’

Oli narrowed his eyes at me. I smiled at my small yet satisfying victory.

‘The final you have all been hoping for, ladies and gentlemen. Cain Ohana our current world champion from Hawaii and Jason Cross who is chasing his heels for a thirteenth world title, from California, the champion of the people. Let’s hear some noise for our finalists.’

The roar from the beach was loud enough to dislodge an avalanche of sand from the dunes. Cain and Jason avoided each other before paddling out, heading for the ocean from opposite sides of the contest site like two gladiators entering an arena. The ocean was the lion, waiting with frothing jaws for the attack. I had never wanted Jason to win a contest more than I did at that moment.

‘Stand away from the water’s edge,’ the commentator warned in five languages as the overhead waves violently pounded the shore.

However, the now hysterical fans continued to surge forwards for a better view.

For the first half of the heat, Cain and Jason matched each other wave for wave. They both put super-human effort into each ride, pulling off apparently impossible
manoeuvres in enormous waves that were neither smooth nor predictable. The onshore wind closed down the sort of tube rides we had witnessed at Teahupoo so the surfers adapted their approach. They performed big, snapping turns off the lip of the wave and awe-inspiring floaters. They carved graceful yet aggressive cutbacks, aerials and full three-sixty degree turns that were over in the blink of an eye. Both had an unassailable desire to prove they were the best surfer in the world and both surfed better than they had for months as a result.

After each nail-biting ride, Cain and Jason had to claw their way back out to the peak to beat the other one and gain the priority that would allow them to then choose the wave they wanted from the next set. When their talent was so closely matched, tactics such as priority and wave selection would make the difference between winning and losing.

Chuck gave us all a running commentary of the heat over the commentary on the loud speaker above our heads, while I furiously scribbled facts, descriptions and details of the proceedings so as not to miss a moment.

‘Jason Cross takes the lead and priority…’

‘Cain re-takes the lead with that last phenomenal ride, ladies and gentlemen…’

‘If the result stays the same Cain will have a commanding lead on the world circuit…’

‘A huge floater from Jason Cross. He free-falls and he lands it, he’s lost in the foam but no there he is. That has to regain him the lead…’

‘The surfers are fighting to get out the back. They’re almost there; it’s too close to call. The judges award the all-important last priority to Jason Cross with one minute remaining.’

Jason had priority and could choose any wave he wanted, thus putting Cain at a tactical disadvantage. Rory was on his feet and Ruby gripped my arm. Cain splashed the water angrily and threw his arms in the air when the priority call was announced. He then gave the judges a two-fingered salute that would very likely cost him a five hundred dollar fine. With the final hooter approaching, Cain needed a score of seven-point five to retake the lead.

I put down my pen and concentrated on the action. This was more than just a contest; this was a battle for pride. Jason looked like he was about to paddle for a wave but pulled back. Cain hit the water again and was forced to wait. On the next wave Cain tried to push Jason out of position but a defiant Jason would not budge. The minute ticked by, Cain grew increasingly frustrated and the Tiger Sharks to my left began to make the sort of noises one would only expect to hear at the zoo. When Jason stroked into an awesome wave and jumped lightly to his feet just as the final hooter sounded, Cain’s screams were carried to the beach on the strong onshore wind. Jason attacked his final ride with the power of a man who knows he is a winner. His turns were bigger and more powerful than ever and a precocious aerial carried him into the arms of his fans on the beach. They beat the security guards to reach him and Jason offered no resistance when the fans lifted him onto their shoulders and carried him to the podium where his trophy and cheque were waiting.

‘Jason surfed that last wave so aggressively I thought I was watching Cain,’ Ruby said and she was right.

When Cain reached the beach, he was still screaming so loud the fans backed away in fear. When a small boy naïvely approached his hero to ask for an autograph, Cain threw his surfboard onto the hard sand and rammed his foot into the base of it, snapping the board in two. He then handed the bewildered child the fragments before storming up the beach in a rage. There were no more autograph hunters brave enough to make their requests.

Ruby, Rory, Chuck and I took our positions on the top of the grandstand and looked proudly down on Jason who soaked up the adoration on the podium. He thanked the contest organisers, the fans and his sponsors before spraying the delighted crowd with a magnum of champagne. There would, I was sure, be plenty more of that during the evening. Jason had narrowed the gap between himself and Cain with just three contests remaining. Cain was forced to accept his second prize on the podium and Jason took great delight in shaking his hand.

‘The best surfer won,’ I overheard him say.

‘It ain’t over yet,’ Cain replied through gritted teeth.

‘Look at Cain. Man he’s pissed,’ Chuck laughed, wrapping his arm around my shoulder.

‘It must be awful having to stand there watching your nemesis lap up the glory.’

‘Yeah.’

We looked at each other and Chuck thrust out his hand for a hi-five.

‘I think we’re back on track, Bailey Brown, whoo hoo. Life is good.’

A piercing wail down below us suddenly silenced the crowd and even Jason stopped celebrating to see where the noise was coming from.

‘Aidez-moi, s’il vous plaît, c’est mon mari, aidez-moi, please, HELP ME!’

The woman fought her way through the crowd screaming and crying so hysterically I thought she might collapse. Her body visibly shook and her face was dripping wet with tears. Her eyes held an expression of genuine terror.

‘Her husband is drowning,’ somebody shouted. ‘The lifeguards are off duty now.’

Before the mêlée could assemble into some sort of order, Jason had leapt off the podium and was already sprinting towards the ocean. The woman ran with him pointing wildly at the spot where she had last seen her husband before she stumbled with exhaustion and fell as heavily and as suddenly as if she had been shot in the back. Chuck and I clambered down the stairs and followed the thousands of people to the water’s edge. People were shouting directions and straining to see any signs of life in the water. When we reached the sloping shoreline, the waves breaking in front of us were so huge and created such a haze of spray that our view was limited. Tyler dived straight in without missing a beat.

Every so often I saw Jason’s arms pounding through the water in a front crawl motion as he was lifted up on the swell before dropping from sight again behind the waves. Before long, a pack of surfers including Rory had joined him in the search and were paddling around the area on their boards. The woman, who had regained her footing, stood to our right held up by a man and a woman who looked at a loss at how best to help her. The wails coming out of her mouth were spine chilling.

‘He was swimming during the final so nobody saw him when he got into trouble,’ said the Chinese whispers.

‘He should never have been out in these conditions, the beach was red-flagged all day, which means no swimming.’

Which was fair enough in hindsight but wasn’t going to help the poor, desperate woman whose heart was breaking into pieces as the minutes ticked by.

How quickly the mood had changed from jubilation to trepidation. How cruel the ocean was to have us adoring it one moment for bringing Jason the waves he needed to win and then hating it the next for taking this woman’s husband as payment.

After the effort and emotion of the day, Jason was clearly exhausted but he refused to stop searching, diving frequently underwater and following the current that hurtled down the long beach towards Spain. When his arms grew fatigued, he borrowed a surfboard from a local man and paddled along the coast with Rory until the sun vanished into the water. The crowd thinned as time passed, people glancing with a mixture of embarrassment and sorrow at the woman who maintained her vigil on the beach. The lifeguards had been rallied from the nearest emergency station and the helicopter that had whirred above us during the now-forgotten contest scoured every inch of the water like a hawk scanning the fields below for an unsuspecting mouse. Ruby joined Chuck and I on the beach and we stood in a line, holding hands and barely speaking except to say repeatedly – ‘That poor woman.’

I did not even know the woman but found myself crying silent tears. Her grief was so overwhelming it made me want to hurl myself in the water and find her husband myself, but the waves were so large and ferocious I did not stand a chance. Only men like
Jason and Rory who lived their lives by the tide had a hope of staying alive in the conditions, which made us all the more aware that the woman was very likely now a widow.

As I stood staring at the ocean that had swallowed the man with the sound of the grief-stricken woman ringing in my ears, I thought of my own father’s death and how I had not seen my mother cry a single tear for him. She had shown only anger; at him for leaving her in such a way, at me for being the teenager she was left to deal with alone and at herself for giving her life to Bob Brown. At the time I felt I could not turn to my mother, even though my own heart felt as if it had been shattered like a mirror dropped from a great height onto a stone floor. I had held the pain inside and as I had fought to rebuild my heart, I had secretly vowed not to let it be broken again.

I wondered whether my mother had grieved like this woman in private. Or whether she had not loved my father the way this woman loved her husband. I wondered whether this woman would be able to see that life could carry on without him or whether she would find it impossible to live. She was a stranger but I was privy to her most raw emotions. I wanted to reassure her that she would survive as darkness settled around us like a veil and her husband had been missing for over two hours. However, I knew the only thing keeping the woman on her feet was the irrational hope that at any point her husband would emerge uninjured from the sea. That he would comment on his refreshing swim before wrapping his arms around her and taking her back to what may have seemed like a humdrum reality before she had been forced to entertain the thought of living it alone.

When Jason and Rory returned to dry land, it was so dark we could barely make them out against the silhouette of the waves. Ruby said nothing but gave my hand a tight squeeze as if to say
thank God my own man is here
. Jason looked crestfallen and fragile when he trudged up the beach towards the woman, dropped the surfboard onto the sand and then pulled the woman into his arms. She screamed until her throat could take the strain no more and she fell limp in his arms. Tears of despair mixed with the salt water on Jason’s face.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated over and over again. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.’

SPAIN

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

There was no champagne that evening. Instead we made a silent pilgrimage to the Basque village of Mundaka where the next contest was due to begin the following morning. In the big scheme of things, Jason’s moral and physical victory over Cain did not seem quite so important and we were all dealing with issues the disaster on the beach had unearthed from our consciences. The deathly silence in the car was only broken by Oli cursing his own bad luck at having a man drown during his company’s contest.