“Hard pass,” says Finn, making an appalled face. “How about skimming stones on the sea?”
We head down to the sea together and skim a few stones, but the waves are getting raucous in the wind and it’s hard to make the stones bounce. I’m about to suggest we call it a day when the Wests come into sight.
“Hello!” I say in my most friendly voice, and Finn lifts a hand in greeting.
“Hi,” mumbles Adrian, and Hayley just gives us a tight smile. They walk down to the edge of the waves and stare out silently, while I exchange glances with Finn. For a few minutes we stand awkwardly, all four of us, then Hayley murmurs something to Adrian. She gives me a nod, then they turn and start walking away along the beach.
“Jeez.” Finn breathes out, when they’re out of earshot. “The friction between those two.”
“It’s awful.” I watch them walking, their misery apparent in their stiff backs. “I wonder what happened? Did one of them have an affair? Did they fall out of love with each other?”
“I think he still loves her,” says Finn slowly. “He has a way of looking at her when she’s not paying attention. I noticed it at dinner.”
“I think she still loves him,” I reply, slightly fixated by her birdlike steps along the beach. “It’s the way she runs after him. If she didn’t care, she’d just let him go.”
“They’re walking together,” adds Finn, following my gaze. “Look, he keeps slowing down to wait for her.”
“Together but apart. They’re not touching.”
We watch, mesmerized, for a minute longer, then turn back to look at the sea. The waves are swelling up on the horizon, one after another, without pause. I can hear Terry’s voice in my head: Infinite waves. Infinite chances. And then Finn’s voice from last night: You’ll get a great job.
A job will rise up on the horizon. I have to believe this. I have to make it happen. I gaze at the infinite waves, trying to tap into their strength, trying to visualize the job that’s out there for me, if I only believe in it. Then an idea comes to me, and I swivel to Finn just as he turns too.
“We could surf!”
“Surf’s up!” he says simultaneously. “And guess what? The Surf Shack is open. The owner’s in there—I saw him earlier when I went for a walk. There are boards for rent, if you need one. I brought mine.”
“I know you did,” I say, and he has the decency to look abashed. He seems much more relaxed than that moody guy on the train, snapping at a toddler. “Bit early for a walk, wasn’t it?” I add, letting him off the hook.
“Before breakfast,” he admits. “Saw the dawn.”
“Don’t you sleep?” I joke—then realize it isn’t a joke. He doesn’t. “Anyway, thanks for the tip; I’ll rent a board.”
“You’ve got a wetsuit, right?”
“Er … yes,” I say, wondering for the first time whether this is a good idea. “I mean, I haven’t tried it on. And I haven’t surfed for years. Maybe you should surf and I’ll have a coffee and watch.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Finn stares at me. “Look at this sea. Look at it!” He gestures at the waves, and as though to bolster his argument, a shaft of sunshine appears from behind the clouds, making the surf twinkle and look almost blue. “We have the beach to ourselves, practically. We have waves. We have sunshine. We have boards. You are being offered the keys to heaven—literally heaven—and you’re considering having a coffee?” He sounds so like Terry that I laugh.
“Fair enough. I’ll surf.”
OK. Reasons I should not be attempting to surf in front of the guy I have belatedly realized I have a crush on:
1. I’m in a wetsuit, which makes me look not like Wetsuit Girl but like “Sasha squashed into a wetsuit.”
2. I’ve forgotten how to surf.
3. Every time I wipe out, my hair gets plastered all over my face.
4. Every time I try to stand up, I wipe out.
5. Finn can surf.
6. Really well.
But on the other side of the argument:
1. Terry was right. Nothing beats this.
I’m out at sea, beyond where the waves break, sitting on my board, feeling the familiar motion of the sea rising and falling beneath me, staring at the horizon. Everything else in the world has stopped existing. All I’m focused on is the waves. That’s all there is. Waves, only waves.
Finn can surf better than me. A lot better. A few times we’ve gone for the same wave, and he’s ridden smoothly onto the beach, whereas I’ve timed it badly or didn’t manage to get up on my board. Or rolled over and over in the kind of unstoppable wipeout that leaves you spread-eagled and gasping in the shallows.
But I’m not giving up. I keep hearing Terry’s voice: Infinite waves. Infinite chances. You can’t dwell or think about what might have been. There’s always another wave. Although you have to be looking the right way to see it.
“Look for the waves!” he used to bellow at us, when we were too busy chatting or moaning about the water up our noses to focus on the horizon. “Look the right way! Look for the waves or you won’t catch them!”
That’s what I wasn’t doing in my life. I needed to look the right way, away from my screens, my emails, my narrow life, my limitations. I need to look to the horizon, to see the opportunities rising and paddle toward them. And again I hear Terry’s voice, hoarse with exasperation: Don’t just sit there—paddle! Paddle hard! Harder!
Finn is up on his board again, and I watch him ride into shore, feet firmly planted, legs powerful and secure. He’s finding waves I’m completely missing. Just for a moment I feel a kind of crushing failure, but then I give myself a Terry-like pep talk. Finn last surfed two years ago in the Canaries, he told me as I got my board. Whereas I haven’t surfed for, what, a decade?
There’s a telltale bump looming on the horizon, and I squint, trying to assess it. So much of surfing is judgment. It’s experience. It’s reading the waves. I haven’t sat on a board scanning the horizon for years. But there must be a residual muscle memory in my brain, because it’s slowly coming back to me. The way the waves break and fall. Bits of surf slang I once knew. Above all, I’m remembering the tricks the sea plays. The phony, deceptive non-waves, which seem to build, then disappear. As opposed to the strong, powerful, genuine swells that seem to come from nothing but were there all along.
Because that’s the other thing: It’s not enough to be able to read the waves; you have to have courage and timing. The courage to go for a wave. The timing to know when to go for it.
The distant bump I was tracking has died away, but now I can see a new one rising. A real possibility. There’s always hope out there on the horizon. Which is why surfing is obsessive. It’s addictive. I’d forgotten. I’ve lost track of time; I’ve forgotten every other thing in my life. I have to catch a wave, and nothing else matters. I already know that when I go to bed tonight, when I close my eyes, all I’ll see is endless waves.
OK. The second bump on the horizon was real. It’s coming, it’s a wave, it’s moving fast, and without even knowing I’m going to react, I start paddling. My entire body is focused on the task. My muscles are already burning, but they need to work faster, and now the water is rising beneath me and I’m pushing with all my might, cursing myself for not visiting the gym every morning, but … I’m there. Yes! Somehow I’m on my feet, my back protesting, then I’m straightening up and it’s happening! I caught it!