The wind whipped Mia’s hair across her face and pinned Noah’s T-shirt flat to his chest. They stood on the shoreline, bare legs smarting from flung sand, watching the ocean writhe beneath the brewing storm.
When Noah spoke he had to raise his voice above the wind. ‘Rain’s coming.’
She glanced towards the sky. A flotilla of dark clouds, swollen with rain, were bowling in from the east. She guessed they had three or four minutes until the clouds reached them.
A wind shadow quivered across the surface of the sea, like the twitching scales of a fish. Noah took her hand in his and she felt grains of sand pressed between their fingers. ‘Here’s a big set,’ he said, dark eyes shining.
Great mounds of swell the size of buses were building at sea. ‘Could they be surfed?’
His gaze swept across the water as if he were mapping out a route. ‘It’s possible, but you’d be paddling into wind and the waves are breaking over reef. Tomorrow the wind will drop off, but the swell should stick. It’ll be perfect.’
He’d been watching the forecast all week, checking the maps as the low pressure travelled in from the Indian Ocean, following a course from Antarctica. She’d been surprised by the technicality of forecasting, listening as Noah talked knowledgeably about weather systems, swell periods and local effects.
The lead wave of the set reared from the sea. It sucked up the water in its path, exposing the reef, jagged and brittle like the bones of a body from which the flesh has been sucked clean. The wave broke with a thunderous boom that reverberated in her chest. Water splintered across the serrated reef.
‘My God!’ Mia said, gripping his fingers. ‘The power in that wave…’
‘It’s humbling.’
She nodded, amazed.
‘You must get some big Atlantic storms rolling into Cornwall?’
‘We do. When we were kids, our mum would drive us to the quay and we’d eat fish and chips in the car, watching the waves smash against the sea wall.’ As soon as they’d finished, she and Katie would bundle up the greasy papers and race to the bin with the wind at their backs. They’d linger for a while, edging close enough to the sea wall to feel the briny vapour kissing their faces. When they climbed back in the car, their hair matted and tangled with salt, it always smelt of chip fat and vinegar, and their mother would be singing along to the radio. ‘I miss it.’
Noah turned. ‘Cornwall?’
‘Cornwall. The storms. My mum. My sister. All of it.’ She fingered the shells on her necklace. ‘We grew up on the beach. It was our backyard. And now Katie’s in London and I’m here.’ She sighed. ‘Katie avoids spending time on the coast. I know it sounds stupid, but I think of it as our place. Our link.’
‘What changed?’
Mia thought for a moment. ‘She’s afraid.’ She remembered that day at Porthcray when the current turned the water dark and rough. She could almost feel the hard surface of the windsurfing board pressing into her hips as she’d spread herself across it, digging her arms into the sea. She shook her head, freeing the memory. ‘You and Jez are lucky – you both surf together still. It must be nice to share that.’
‘Maybe.’
She caught the change in his expression. ‘Did Jez find it hard when you started surfing professionally?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it.’
‘But when you went home, you must have sensed whether or not he was happy for you.’
‘I never went home.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I came out to Bali for a year. After that I travelled for a while, then joined the tour.’
‘You never went back?’
He shook his head.
‘You saw your family though?’
‘I’d meet my brothers whenever I was in Australia.’
‘And your parents?’
A gust of wind blasted across the beach and they turned as the palm fronds clattered behind them. When they faced the ocean again, Noah was silent.
She squeezed his fingers between hers. ‘What about your parents?’
‘Let’s just enjoy the waves.’
They watched wordlessly as the waves continued to thunder in and sand blew across the beach in sheets.
‘How about you stay over with me tonight?’ she said later, trying to regain some of their lost intimacy.
He shifted. ‘I sleep better alone.’
‘Who said anything about sleeping?’
He didn’t respond and kept his eyes levelled at the water.
‘You are pleased I came to Bali?’
He released her fingers to wipe salt from his brow. ‘I thought we were watching the storm coming in.’
‘Not in silence. Sometimes I feel like …’ How did she begin to explain the cool stack of pebbles building in her stomach each time he pushed her away? ‘Like you’re not letting me in. Like you’re not always there.’
‘I’m standing right next to you.’
‘Yes, but you’re not talking to me.’
‘You were talking about your sister. I was listening.’
‘So let me listen to you.’
He swung round. ‘I talk when I want to. Not because it’s being demanded of me.’
‘Demanded?’
‘You’ve been here, what, two weeks? But you’ve not mentioned what went on between you and Finn. And that’s cool with me. I just figure people tell you things when they want.’
‘I only want to feel closer to you—’
‘And this is the way you go about it?’ He turned from her, his T-shirt billowing in the breeze.
‘Don’t go,’ she called, but already he was striding towards the car.
She wouldn’t follow him. She wrapped her arms around herself as his reproach settled around her like clouds.
When the first raindrop fell, it landed on her wrist before sliding downwards, leaving a glistening trail. Then the clouds burst and rain fell in a heavy procession, leaving fine dimples in the sand. The noise filled her ears and within seconds she was sodden, her thin T-shirt turning skin pink. She wouldn’t go back to the car. Her eyes were stinging with tears so she turned her face to the sky and opened her mouth wide, letting rain bounce across her lips and tongue. An earthy taste filled her mouth.
When she began to feel cold she rubbed her arms, her fingers sliding over her water-slick skin. Something in the distance caught her attention. A figure emerged from the rain, moving towards the shoreline. Every muscle in her body tightened as she realized it was Noah, board underarm, jogging determinedly into the surf.
*
Mia stood ankle deep in the sea, a hand held to her brow. She squinted through the driving rain trying to keep Noah in focus, while the seascape shifted and swam all around her.
It had taken Noah thirty minutes, maybe forty, to paddle through the hulking broken waves, duck-diving beneath solid walls of white-water. Now he was only a blur sitting astride his board, being lifted and dropped by the swell rolling beneath him. She pictured the concentration on his face as he absorbed the rhythm of the waves, searching for the right one. A wrong choice out here could be fatal.
Mia caught the roar of an engine and turned. The battered truck Jez was renting swung into view, windscreen wipers cutting back and forth. He jumped out with a jacket pulled above his head and jogged towards her.
‘He’s out there!’ she yelled.
‘What the fuck’s he playin’ at?’ His tanned skin looked leathery and his lower lip had split from the sun.
A wave stormed in, sucking the reef raw and exposing new patches of jagged coral. Had Noah mapped out where the reef was hidden? Or was he hoping luck was on his side?
‘How long’s he been out?’ Jez shouted.
‘Half an hour or so.’
They both watched as he paddled furiously for a wave. As it rose beneath him, he looked no larger than a barnacle on the back of a whale.
‘Not that one,’ Jez murmured at her side. ‘Too fast. Drop back, drop back.’
But he didn’t. The wave suddenly took him, carrying him upwards to its crest. The world seemed to slow. Mia felt needles of rain against her scalp, heard the howl of the wind, felt the sea sucking at her feet. Noah pushed himself up from the board and began gliding down the face of the wave and, for a moment, she was mesmerized by the sheer beauty of that image, the muscular power at the throat of the wave, the agility with which Noah danced across the water under a pouring sky.
In a split second, everything changed. Noah’s legs skidded from under him as if he’d hit ice. The board shot into the air and he bounced across the wave like a skimmed pebble. The wave smashed into the jagged reef in an explosion of white-water and Noah disappeared.
As the rain lashed down, she began to count silently. One, two, three … He could have missed the shallowest section of the reef, landed in a deeper channel … eleven, twelve, thirteen … He was experienced, used to being held under by waves … twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six … He was fit and his lungs must be strong … thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three …
There was a flash of white against the charcoal horizon. His board. It had been snapped in two and spat out further down.
‘There!’ Jez shouted.
Noah’s head broke the surface. He bobbed in the seething water, a man amongst giants.
Behind him another wave loomed. He turned too late; the lip was already crumbling and it crashed down with a snarl that filled Mia’s ears. The sea turned white. She imagined him being rolled and dragged with the storm of water, his lungs burning.
She hugged her arms to her middle and waited. Beside her, Jez shifted from foot to foot.
‘Thank God!’ Mia cried when Noah surfaced.
This time, Noah began to swim. His movements looked awkward, as if he was using one arm. ‘He’s injured!’ she said, turning to Jez.
But he didn’t answer. He simply stood on the shore watching, rain pouring from the hood he’d made of his jacket, his gaze never leaving Noah.
For several minutes they watched him making slow strokes towards the beach, diving beneath the waves as they passed, then clawing back to the surface. Wave after wave came, like an army with endless troops, and each time he surfaced he seemed to have been dragged further offshore.
‘He’s stopped! He’s not swimming!’
‘Come on, you bastard!’ Jez said. ‘Kick your fuckin’ legs!’
But he didn’t. He floated like a piece of driftwood, washing in and out of view.
Suddenly Jez threw his jacket to the ground and stripped off his T-shirt. His chest was paler than his forearms and Mia could see his ribs beneath the skin. He ran into the sea, launching into front crawl; his strokes were hard and nippy but he gasped breaths by lifting his head straight out of the water every few feet.
Mia rubbed her arms to keep warm as the gap between Jez and Noah closed. He’s coming. Just hold on.
The sky continued to throw down more rain, which slid from her skin in chilled streams. Her fingers moved over the wet shells at her neck, pressing each like a rosary.
Finally, Jez reached him. She paced the shore, her footprints filling like puddles as she waited for them to swim back together. It looked as though Jez’s arm was hooked around Noah’s neck. When they were closer in, she saw Noah twist free of his brother’s grip.
He staggered out of the shallows and she could see at once the torn rash vest, the sleeve of blood. He was panting. His forehead was cut and rain washed the blood down his face, like red tears.
She moved towards him. ‘Noah—’
‘You crazy fuck!’ Jez yelled, cutting across her. His eyes were bright, livid. ‘What the fuck were you doin’? You want to drown out there?’
The snapped leash was still attached to Noah’s ankle and he looked like a shackled prisoner who’d attempted to escape. ‘I didn’t need rescuing!’
‘Bullshit. You’d quit!’
They glared at each other.
‘You want to see how Johnny felt? Is that what this is about?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘No, Noah. Fuck you!’
Noah turned and stalked up the beach.
‘Wait!’ Mia called, running after him. ‘Let me drive you to the hospital.’
He didn’t answer her. Didn’t even see her. She stopped halfway up the beach and watched as he opened the car door, pulled himself in and gunned the engine.
*
‘There’s a spare towel in the truck,’ Jez said, moving past Mia. She was standing in her sodden clothes, watching Noah’s car disappear through the swaying trees.
The rain began to thin to a steady patter as she followed Jez up the beach, clods of wet sand clinging to the soles of her feet. He opened the driver’s door and pulled out a thin blue towel that flapped in the wind. She took it and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘Well, get in then,’ he said, and she did, sweeping aside wrappers and an empty can.
She dried her face and hair with the towel, which smelt of motor oil and cigarettes, while Jez put on a dry T-shirt. Then he leant across her, took a polythene bag from the dash and began rolling a joint. He worked silently with nimble, practised fingers, and then lit the joint. Thick pungent smoke filled the truck and she watched his eyes flutter closed each time he inhaled.
‘Here,’ he said, offering it to her.
Mia placed it between her lips and drew in the warm smoke, feeling it reaching deep into her lungs. She exhaled slowly. ‘We had a fight. That’s why he was out there.’
‘Noah has a private battle with the ocean. It wasn’t your fight.’
She thought for a moment. ‘What did you mean down on the shore when you asked Noah if he wanted to see how Johnny felt? He was your youngest brother, wasn’t he?’
Jez turned in his seat to face her. Rain had flattened the thin tufts of blond hair to his scalp. ‘He drowned.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
He shrugged, but his eyes had turned glassy.
‘Here,’ she said, passing the joint back.
‘Take this,’ he said, swapping it for a small bag of weed he dropped into her lap. ‘I’ve plenty.’
‘Really?’
‘I wouldn’t tell Noah about your stash. He wouldn’t approve.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, tucking it into the damp pocket of her shorts, somehow feeling a small victory.
Jez moved his head slowly from side to side, loosening his neck.
‘Hurt your neck?’
‘Old injury.’
‘Surfing?’
He laughed. ‘No.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘Fractured it years ago.’
She thought of the way he turned his whole body towards her when he spoke. She’d found the gesture odd, invasive almost, but now realized he didn’t have full mobility in his neck. ‘How did you do it?’
‘I didn’t. I was punched in the back of the head.’
‘That’s awful.’
He took a drag on the joint. ‘Yeah, it is when it’s your old man who’s done it. He’s pretty handy with his fists.’
Her eyes widened. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Why would you?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Is that why Noah left home? He said he moved to Bali at 16.’
‘Couldn’t hack it. He just shot through.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘No fucking word to anyone.’
‘Why didn’t you leave?’
He glared at her. ‘Johnny was a fuckin’ 13-year-old. Would you leave a lamb in a lion’s cage?’
They sat in silence. Outside, the wind howled through the gleaming trees.
Glancing in the rear-view mirror, Jez hissed, ‘Get your window down!’ He wound down his window with one hand and ground the joint into the dash with the other.
She hesitated, confused by the sudden command. Too late she saw the policemen standing either side of the truck. The passenger door clanked open and a coke can fell onto the wet dirt with a clink. A policeman with heavy-lidded eyes and an oiled moustache wrinkled his nose at the smoke that curled from the truck.
Mia and Jez were instructed to get out and place their hands on the bonnet. The rain had stopped but left deep puddles on the ground. Mia’s bare feet sank into the murky brown water as she splayed her hands over the wet metal. The policeman searched her, pausing at the pockets of her shorts.
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he pulled out the bag of weed.
Her blood ran cool.
‘We don’t like drugs in Bali. No good.’
She felt light headed; her lips tingled. She glanced across at Jez, whose search turned up nothing, but he wouldn’t meet her eye.
She was asked for her passport and the policeman flicked to the back. ‘English?’
‘Yes.’
‘You do drugs in England?’
She shook her head.
‘Why in Bali?’
‘I’m sorry. It was a mistake.’
He clicked his fingers, signalling the second policeman. They spoke in Balinese, the musical lilt of the language now sounding stern and threatening. ‘Come,’ he said eventually, and she felt a hand pressing down on her shoulder as she was led towards a police car.
‘What are you doing? Please! This is ridiculous!’
He opened the rear door and she was ushered inside. She smelt incense and polish, and heard the click of an automatic lock as the door closed behind her.
Panic felt like tiny electrodes prickling at her skin. Was she being arrested? Where would they take her now? The police station? She tried the door, but it was locked. She looked down. Her feet were bare, her shins mud flecked. Everything she wore was wet and water gathered at the ends of her hair.
She pressed her face to the rain-smeared window and saw the blurred forms of the policemen talking to Jez. One of them raised an upturned palm and shook his head. She couldn’t hear anything. She twisted her necklace until it tightened around her throat, pressing against her voice box.
The window began to steam up and she cleared a circle with the heel of her hand. Through it she saw Jez handing the policeman something. The policeman nodded. A moment later he was walking towards the car. The door opened and she was instructed to get out.
‘Very lucky,’ he said, wagging his finger. ‘We have your passport information if this happen again.’
Dazed, she moved towards the truck where Jez was waiting, his hands slung in the pockets of his wet shorts.
‘Get in,’ he said, in a low voice.
She obeyed and pulled herself into the seat, slamming the door. The smell of marijuana and wet towels lingered in the truck. ‘What just happened?’
‘A Balinese bonus.’
She was trembling. ‘You bribed them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank God!’ she said with relief. ‘How much?’
‘Ten million rupiah.’
Her eyes widened. It was a huge sum, near enough £800. ‘What about my passport?’
‘Got it,’ he said, tapping his pocket. ‘I’ll keep hold of it till you can repay me.’
She was about to protest that it was his weed that had caused the trouble, gift or not, but then he smiled. ‘Rough day, eh?’ He squeezed her shoulder lightly as he turned the key in the ignition. She wasn’t sure if she imagined it, but it felt as if he trailed the pad of his thumb along her shoulder blade before finally removing his hand.