“Sasha.” Finn’s face crinkles in a warm smile that makes my heart tug. “Meet my colleague Dave. Demon surfer.”
“Welcome to Rilston Bay!” I say, feeling an instant, ridiculous flare of hope. “I’m so glad you could come! So, Finn …” I try to sound casual. “You said you were bringing someone. Did you mean Dave?”
“No,” says Finn after a pause, and his eyes move away from mine evasively. “I meant … someone else.”
Right. Got it.
“Right!” I say, bright and breezy. “Got it! Someone else. Of course. Well, anyway, Dave, welcome!”
Finn is still avoiding my eye, and I feel a pang of grief because this only means one thing. Olivia. And I guess up until now I was wondering … hoping, even …
Anyway.
“Looking forward to it.” Dave slaps his board. “I hear we’re all having a lesson first.”
“If the teacher’s up for it.” I grin, suddenly spotting Tessa and Sean escorting Terry toward the stage, like two celebrity minders. “Terry! It’s Sasha! Welcome! How are you?”
Terry is wearing board shorts and a bright red T-shirt, his skin tanned and wrinkled on his skinny frame. His hair has been cropped short, and his eyes are looking uncertainly around the crowd—adults and children in wetsuits and swimsuits, all holding boards, all beginning to turn toward the stage.
“That’s Terry!” I hear a voice say.
“It’s him!” chimes in another.
“Look, it’s Terry!”
The message starts spreading through the throng, and the faces turn and the surfers start to press forward.
“I think we should begin,” says Sean. “Or Terry will be mobbed. He’s pretty much Beyoncé right now. All right, Terry?” he adds encouragingly.
“Who are all these people?” Terry looks confused and a little fractious. “Did they book?”
“That’s your four o’clock class, mate,” says Sean. “Big turnout today. Big turnout,” he adds to me, looking impressed. “They’ve hired every board in the town and Campion Sands and up the coast, most likely.” He pauses, running his eyes over the crowd. “Can any of them surf?”
“Don’t know.” I laugh. “But they can all learn.”
“True.” He turns to Terry. “You ready, squire? You’ve got an audience waiting for you. Wanting a lesson.”
For a moment Terry is silent as he surveys the waiting crowd, his eyes flickering in confusion. And I feel myself tense up, wondering if he’s going to be overwhelmed, if this was a bad idea.
“Why are there so many people?” he says at last, in familiar, tetchy tones. “It’s twelve to a class, Sandra will tell you that. Twelve!”
“I know,” says Sean reassuringly. “But this is, like, an extra class. We thought we’d squeeze in a few more.”
Terry nods, as though making sense of this, then frowns again. “But how will they all hear me?”
“We thought of that,” says Finn, quickly fitting a microphone to Terry’s collar. “See? Testing, one-two, one-two,” he says into it, and his voice booms through the speakers on the beach. “All yours, Terry.” He nods at the stage.
After a moment’s hesitation, Terry walks up onto it. And the cheering begins, a colossal roar of appreciation, up and down the beach. Everyone is clapping, whooping, stamping. Now the cheering turns to a chant: “Ter-ry! Ter-ry!” and Terry gazes back, looking perplexed, a slender old man with spindly legs and white hair and the love of all these people on the beach.
“Well,” he says at last, as the noise dies away. “Well.” He pauses, and there’s a breathless hush in the crowd. “There are too many of you, for a start.” There’s a ripple of laughter, and Terry looks still more confused. “Have they surfed before?” he asks Sean, who nods.
“They’ve surfed before.”
“Right,” says Terry, sounding more sure of himself. “Well, in that case …” He steps forward, looking at the faces, the boards, the sea, as though sinking back into a world he’d lost. “In that case, here’s what I need to tell you,” he says, his voice gaining strength. “You won’t like it. But you’d better listen.”
There’s silence on the beach. I can see Cassidy in a neon-pink bikini top and board shorts, Simon in a blue shortie wetsuit, surprisingly muscled, and Herbert looking like a black daddy longlegs … I can see Mum … Kirsten.… Gabrielle waving at me … and, oh my God, there’s Lev, in a sleek steel-gray wetsuit. When did he get here? I glance at Finn, and he winks back. Then we both turn to gaze at Terry, along with everyone else.
“You think you can surf,” Terry continues at last. “Oh, you all want to rush ahead, catch the hugest waves, show off to your friends—but that’s not what it’s about, don’t you see?” He looks around at the avid faces. “It’s not about showing off. It’s about you and the sea. You and the ride. The ride is it.”
“What’s the ride?” chimes in Sean, leaning into Terry’s microphone, his eyes twinkling at the audience.
“The ride is it!”
The mammoth shout from the crowd echoes round the beach as if we’re at a rock festival, and I feel shivers. I turn to Terry, wanting to see if he has any appreciation of the reach he has, the power he has, the effect he’s had on so many people. He blinks, his vague gaze traveling over the eager faces, and I hope above anything that the sight is sinking in. That it will warm him and cheer him for the rest of his life.
“You’ve been listening!” he says at last, and there’s a huge laugh. “Well. This is encouraging. I might make surfers of you yet. The ride is it.” He nods. “So. Remember that. And now let’s begin our warm-ups.”
It’s quite a sight. Several hundred people, all lined up on the beach, all following Terry’s warm-up exercises. New people keep joining in at the edges, holidaymakers and passersby and children holding lollies, until it seems that the whole endless stretch of sand is one big class, with Terry calling out instructions from the stage.
As everyone starts practicing getting up on their boards, Terry looks tetchy again.
“I can’t correct them all,” he says to Sean. “I can’t get round to them all.”
“Leave it to me, mate,” Sean assures him. “I’ll have a word with a few of them.”
And he roams around the crowd, greeting people and high-fiving and constantly glancing back up at Terry with a thumbs-up.
Soon after that, it becomes apparent that Terry is flagging in energy, and Sean leaps back onto the stage, taking a handheld microphone from Finn.
“Surfers,” he greets the crowd. “I’m Sean Knowles, the new owner of the Surf Shack, trying to follow in the footsteps of the giant, Terry Connolly!” Again the cheers ring out over the beach, and I exchange smiles with Finn.
I’m finally breathing out, I realize. I’m relaxing. My plan worked. Terry has given one last, epic surf lesson.
“There are lots of thank-yous to give,” says Sean. “And I’m sure there’ll be a speech or two later on. But for now, one very special person needs special thanks, for pulling this all together. Sasha Worth, get onstage!”