IN BARCELONA, THE city of Gaudi, she’d spent six months teaching English to wealthy Spanish teenagers who wanted to know how to curse and to make love in her native language. Tongue in cheek, she had taught them words like ‘feck’ and ‘shite’, wishing she could be there to see the reactions of British hosts or visitors to the Irishification of their swear words. Restless and feeling the urge to travel further she considered the map she’d spread out on the bed, trying to work out distances to Lisbon, Rome or Milan. She wanted a change and in the end decided to toss a coin in the air about deciding to stay in Europe or not. She tossed again, torn between New York and Sydney. Australia won.
The far side of the world was as far away as she could go and she phoned her parents and sisters briefly to tell them of her planned change of continent.
‘Please, Romy!’ her mother had pleaded. ‘Come home for a few days before you go off. I promise there will be no questions or upsets. We just want to see you.’ She had hardened her heart, reluctant to put her travel plans in jeopardy, and had instead flown to Sydney via Bangkok and London.
Australia suited her and in Sydney, the magnificent city on the sea, she found work in Molloy’s, an Irish bar, serving pints of dark Guinness and traditional brown bread and fresh prawns to city businessmen and tourists and freckle-faced Irish students missing home. Living only a block from the beach at Coogee, life was almost perfect. Then after twenty months she’d been hit by wanderlust and had once again packed up her bags. Aunt Vonnie had been right about her when she was a kid, saying she was like a tinker that could settle no place and wanted to be on the road the whole time. Bussing it up to Brisbane she had discovered paradise in Byron Bay. Bypassing the temptation to join the hippie trail in Nimbi she had instead rented a one-bedroomed beach-front apartment overlooking the ocean. The place was packed with surfers and those searching for something more to life than wealth or position: writers, artists and researchers. Romy immediately fitted in. Bar work was plentiful and in a few weeks she had mastered the art of mixing cocktails and surf-speak and cleaning sand off the wooden floorboards and making tuna melts for the masses.
Rob Kane came into her life not long after. She had watched him often from a distance on the beach early in the morning, chasing the waves, envying his ability on a surfboard, and was surprised as hell when he had come over to watch her feeble attempts to barely stand on the second-hand board she’d borrowed off Marti, one of the girls she worked with.
‘You’re doing it all wrong,’ he chastised her, standing on the sand watching her. ‘The board knows you’re afraid of it and it’s just tossing you.’
‘The board knows I’m afraid?’
‘Have you ever ridden a horse?’ he insisted.
‘Yeah of course, back in Ireland.’
‘Well did you let the horse know you were afraid?’
‘No, Paddy Ryan told us that the rider is always boss.’
‘Well the same goes for boards! You walk out a bit further. You’re playing it too safe here, making it easy to fall off where it’s shallow.’
She waded out further and further.
‘Good girl, climb on now!’
She looked like an ungainly seal trying to climb onto the slippy board, Rob suddenly holding it steady for her as she managed to right herself and, trying not to wobble, almost stood up.
‘Don’t look down, only look up!’
Unbelieving, she had caught a gentle wave and actually stayed on the board for a few seconds before tumbling off again.
‘Not bad,’ he praised, as dripping she stood up out of the water, her hair and face covered in sand. Mortified, Romy introduced herself.
Rob must have been a glutton for punishment as over the next week he seemed to miraculously appear just when she needed him, ignoring her pleas to just leave her be and ‘Go off and surf!’
One Saturday night he’d turned up in the bar with a crowd of friends. Romy waved to him and gave him a free beer in return for her lessons and was amazed when at the end of the shift he was waiting out on the veranda for her and insisted on walking her home. They sat on the cold sand in the moonlight talking for hours, Romy hugging her knees as she told him about leaving home and all the places she’d been, Rob telling her about his Melbourne childhood, confessing his sole obsession was with the waves and where they ran. As the morning sun came up, she led him towards her lonely bed and they made love till they were both sweat-soaked and exhausted and Romy fell asleep in his arms. The next day he’d packed up his things – a computer and three boards – and moved in with her.
He worked designing websites – surf sites for boardies, mostly: places, resorts, best boards, surf gear, competitions. His dream, he confessed, was to create a surf game for non-surfers to enjoy.
He was easygoing and fun and very loving, working at night and the evening mostly on his own projects or as a programmer for the bank while she was busy in the bar, the days kept for the water. He had a huge group of friends, all sharing the same obsession, a gaggle of beach-babe girlfriends in attendance as they polished their boards and worked out a strategy for tackling each day’s waves.
Month after month passed and Romy had never felt so relaxed and comfortable with her surroundings. Using her tools she had bought some silver and designed a few pieces based on surf and the crashing crescendo of waves on the rock and beach. She showed them to Tilda Gray, who ran a high-class jeweller’s and gift shop on the Shore Road, and was pleased beyond belief when Tilda put on her glasses and studied them, immediately ordering more.
‘Wow that’s great!’ shouted Rob, scooping her up in his tanned arms. ‘Now you’ve got your own business too.’
‘It’s just a bit of silver work, that’s all.’ She didn’t want to make too much of it or take on more work than she could handle.
‘If you want I can set you up with a website to sell your designs.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, maybe people who can’t come to Byron Bay or to Tilda’s might be interested in your designs and want to buy them?’
She hadn’t even thought about it. It was too soon to think that way.
‘You don’t have to do anything, Romy. I’ll set it up for you and you can expand it and operate it any way you want in the future.’
On Christmas Day she had sat at a massive barbecue on the beach eating shrimp and steak, drinking chilled sparkling Australian champagne and thinking of Moya and Kate gathered around the Christmas tree down home, her mother fixing the stuffing and cranberry sauce for the turkey, her father throwing logs on the fire and making sure the booze cupboard was adequately stocked for the arrival of their cousins and friends. The scent of her mother’s hot mulled wine would be filling the Stone House.
Overwhelmed with loneliness and homesickness she stared at the sun dancing on the waves as crowds of holidaymakers took to the water, swimming and surfing and splashing around. This was such an alien landscape.
‘Happy Christmas!’ yelled Carl, one of Rob’s friends, wearing red Santa swimming trunks and a silly red hat.
Romy, trying not to cry, told him to ‘Feck off!’
In the New Year Rob and some pals wanted to go up north to Cairns and the Reef for a few days. Romy took holidays and joined the surf pack on the move. The Reef blew her mind, the colours, the shapes and the azure blue sky and tropical landscape like nothing she had seen before. She didn’t need much persuading from Rob to don goggles and a mask and do some diving. After two weeks she had returned to her job and her commissions from Tilda’s, unwilling to throw away her work to up sticks and move with Rob and his cronies to follow the surf further north.
The business grew and grew, Tilda taking almost as much as Romy could make, the rest orders from those who had seen her designs on the internet. She cut back her hours in the bar to concentrate on creating handcrafted pieces of silver and bronze. With ferocious intensity she had written a cheque to her father for the sum of one thousand pounds, returning his blood money with no note or letter.
Weeks turned to months and eventually Rob reappeared with a broken collarbone. Temporarily out of action, he was planning his next campaign. It was good to have him back in her life again and Romy promised herself that the next time, wherever he travelled she’d go too.