Nor'East Swell Read online

  Through the daylight ahead he saw Alana sit up on her board, hold an imaginary camera to her eye and click before her own image disappeared up and over the wave. Witi adapted to the wave’s mood and carved the surfboard back into the chaos. He found enough energy to push through turns and send feathers of water skyward. The whole ride may’ve only lasted a few seconds, but by the time he hit the final section and sent his board into the air, the barrel episode with the voices had become irrelevant.

  The paddle back gave him an opportunity to watch Alana’s ride: she did a series of cutbacks and driving bottom turns in her own way. Witi raised a hand and hooted loudly as she sped past close enough for him to touch her. Witi often thought of surfing as more a wahine than a guy thing anyway. Something to do with wanting to nurture rather than destroy. Same reason it was Mother Nature not Old Man Nature. Alana was all over this. She attacked waves for sure – last year she made some of the local upstarts feel a little inadequate in the nuts area when they watched her drop in on an eight-foot beast – but she always made it look like she was in no danger, like she’d signed a deal with Tangaroa himself.

  Or perhaps it was because she was baptised by a waxhead of a dad too, fully charging on a lifelong connection with the ocean.

  ENTRY 12

  You always had the body of a surfer, pal.

  I’d often say to your mother, look at his hands, like scoops hanging off tentacles for arms. Yeah, you were a skinny kid too, with feet like paddles. And she’d stick up for you and try to remind me her baby was happy on land. Safe on land. Comfortable amongst the concrete and communities and her reach. But you can’t change destiny, son. You were born a surfer.

  In the first two years of your life you held my neck and I’d wade into the surf and you’d shriek with glee as each wave smothered us. To you it was fun but the ocean and I were introducing you to something else. That’s how your relationship started, up close like a hongi.

  When you were three I’d take you out in the waves on small days on my longboard and you’d hold onto my back while I stood and together we rode to land. You didn’t know it, but a part of you saw what the petrel sees as it glides across the ocean’s surface and you subconsciously learnt about flow and placement.

  When you were four you could hold your breath in the bath for over a minute.

  Your mum insisted on swimming lessons and you were put up two classes in the first week.

  We’d sit up on the dunes by ourselves and watch the other surfers and you’d know the difference between a reo, a roundhouse, and a snap. You said the barrel was king and floaters were overrated. At kindergarten you would walk around with hands like scoops and feet like paddles and tell other kids you were Kelly Slater and they thought you wanted to be a girl. You were born a surfer. You were starting to know it.

  When you were five I took you for your first surf and you almost drowned. Back on the beach you vomited up the wave that held you down and said, Again.

  And again,

  And again,

  And again we surfed that year.

  Out the back I would tread water next to you and during lulls you’d sit up on your surfboard. I taught you how to see a set coming. I’d push you into the wave as you learnt how to use your scoops and kick your paddles efficiently and you soon managed to co-ordinate your limbs and weight into standing. The first time you turned to me afterwards, all smile and teeth, and I was fist pumping my life away. You thought you’d ridden your first wave, but you’d just learnt to dance with nature.

  The next year I sat on my own board next to you and taught you how to read the ocean. Lying in the proper place on the surfboard and paddling was second nature now. You could paddle out the back of the breaking waves with ease. Paddle out of trouble. Paddle back into trouble. Sometimes you’d paddle in circles to pass the time. You’d paddle past others to greet the set of the day before they knew it was even coming at them, because you could read the ocean and they couldn’t. You had tentacles for arms and scoops for hands and they didn’t. It was your destiny and you were starting to believe it.

  When you turned seven I told you to listen to the ocean.

  Like, really listen. You hear them? Yeah, you did.

  You didn’t know it at the time, but you started to get a reputation as the grommet who had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time. They thought you were fluky, how’d you catch a wave

  over there

  in there

  out there.

  Most of them thought you were a cocky grommet, a seven-year-old wave hog. Needs pulling down a peg or three, they’d say. Nothing a bit of grommet-abuse wouldn’t fix. A few of the old guys on the longboards could see it, though. I stayed away from others, but on occasion someone would paddle over to ask how a seven-year-old could do what took them fifty years of surfing to do.

  Dunno, I’d say. Must be his destiny.

  OFFER A RIDE

  Back in the city, Witi and Alana drove past a lone figure walking with a bag on his back and a surfboard under his arm with a wetsuit draped across it. He had a bounce in his step that reminded Witi of the guys in suits rushing for their caffeine fix down the Quay way. He turned his attention back to the road.

  But Alana stretched her neck and kept looking. That’s him, she said.

  Who?

  The new guy, the Aussie, she said. Turn around.

  What for?

  Offer him a ride.

  Fuck that. No room.

  We’ll make some, she said. I’ll get in the back.

  Witi pulled over and started reversing along the gutter line. Alana said his sigh was unnecessary and wound her window down so she could talk.

  Heading far? she asked.

  Know where Pirie St is? he asked. Up on the hill?

  Alana turned to Witi and he nodded: Yeah, kinda.

  Your lucky day, she told him and started to open the door.

  But Witi heard him block the door. The rear hatch sprang open and the tip of a new surfboard was sliding gently between the front seats. Witi stared up into the rear-view mirror and felt the car lean towards the footpath as the new kid squeezed into the small space in the back. Then he was staring back at Witi. The resonance of a guitar string accidently plucked peaked then faded quickly.

  This yours? he asked Alana.

  It’s his, Alana said.

  Know any Barnsey songs?

  A couple.

  Cool.

  You always scrap on your first day? Witi asked.

  He shrugged. I’m meant to be quitting. He held a hand out. Name’s Jordy, he said.

  Alana grabbed at it. I’m Alana. She pointed with her thumb. This is Witi.

  Witi turned in his seat and found himself obliged to shake too.

  Hey.

  It’s not every day you get to have a blue with the whole pride, he said. You looked like you needed a hand.

  A blue? Alana asked.

  Yeah, you know, scrap? Biffo? he said.

  Alana looked at Witi. She had an excited look about her. Almost giggly. But Witi didn’t see how having an Aussie in their car was suddenly so fuckin’ exotic.

  Jordy continued: Your guys’ footy wonderkid always that tough with his mates around?

  I had ’em, Witi said. Didn’t need help.

  Nah, no stress, Aussies are the best in the world at helping out the underdog. You’re welcome, by the way.

  You came all this way to prove that point? Alana asked. Ain’t much of a claim.

  Farkin’oath it is.

  What part of Oz you from? Witi asked.

  All of it.

  Where-bouts, though?

  You know the place?

  Nah, not really.

  Don’t worry about it then. It’s got warmer water than this place. Having to wear a full steamer here in summer is bullshit.

  So what brings you over to our chilly slice of paradise then? Alana asked.

  The backseat was silent. Witi guessed Jordy was thinking about the best answer, or maybe whether they were trustworthy enough to share stuff like that.

  The old man got headhunted, he finally said. Thought the fresh start in another country would do me good. Pretty much sums it up.

  Witi felt a pat on his shoulder.

  Damn, I knew you surfed, mate. You had that look in ya eyes when I was getting carted away, same one ya see everywhere back home. You guys hungry? They better serve pies in the ass-end of the world.

  IT WAS COMING

  That night the guy on TV told Witi and his mum about Cyclone Trudy’s devastation of a popular Pacific island. Buildings had been flattened, trees snapped like twigs; there had been severe flooding, and a child was swept away from its mother’s outstretched arm. He said experts predicted the storm would move south and grow, which was later confirmed by the graphics of dense circles and a blood-red rain chart building in intensity and dropping slowly down the weather guy’s map.

  It was coming.

  Afterwards in bed Witi dreamt:

  He couldn’t see land

  Sitting on his surfboard

  His feet dangling in the dark ocean

  His hands gripping the board’s rails to stop him toppling

  Yeah, amongst the gale force winds

  And stinging sea spray

  Hurting his eyeballs and filling his eardrums

  Amongst the enormous white caps flashing in the moonlight.

  Feeling the violent dips of water beneath him heading towards their destination a thousand kilometres away. Joining energy like blobs of mercury and, by the time the first sets hit New Zealand, the trade winds and sea currents would’ve worked together to sculpt giant lines of clean groundswell, like no one had ever seen before.

  But something wasn’t right.

  Something else was here too.

  He could now see lights in the distance. Machines. Scattered along the shore. And could feel a pulse. Dark and sucking life from everything. Paralysing him in the impact zone.

  The first of the monster sets rose in front of him, stretching high enough to shadow the moonlight, before folding and exploding on him and the reef.

  Witi sat up in his bed and took deep breaths. He settled back and stared through the darkness.

  The bedroom door opened slightly and he saw his mum’s silhouette in the yellow light.

  You okay? she asked.

  Yeah.

  That dream again?

  Same one.

  Tomorrow’s –

  Just another year, he said.

  It’ll be eight.

  I know. We’ll be fine.

  I love you, son.

  Sure.

  She closed the door but the shadow from her feet hung around beneath it.

  ENTRY 1

  Your mother always said I must’ve come from the ocean, pal, and I reckon she was right.

  I didn’t know my parents and I don’t reckon I was born like you and her. Father O at the orphanage down at the harbour said God must’ve left me on the outgoing tide because I appeared on their doorstep with sand in my hair and salt in my cry.

  When I was older he told me I used to do that a lot as a baby, cry. He said it didn’t take long to work out I only stopped when I was in water. In the bath, tub, sink, bird fountain, holy water – whatever was around at the time. I’d begin laughing, he reckoned, become a different kid. But when they took me away from it again I’d start crying, wriggling and flapping my limbs.

  Just like a fish outta water, he said.

  And music, he said, he’d play me hymns on the radio and sometimes on the organ and I’d rock back and forth to hits like 'Breath of God' and 'The Holy City', and 'Joyful Joyful'. When I got older he showed me which fingers to stick on which keys to play notes on that organ. I was getting good until the day one of the young churchgoers from the local parish came in and did a solo concert for us orphans on his guitar. What was this thing of beauty? That acoustic was more organic than the sound of falling water. Father O must’ve seen me all wide-eyed and silent and figured a guitar was more portable than a piano and he gave the guy five bucks a pop to visit me once a week and teach me the chords.

  I’d found my oasis on land.

  And I got good at it.

  So good that before I was eight I was accompanying Father O on Sunday mornings up next door at the Catholic Church. Not many people attended in our community so he didn’t take it seriously and I didn’t get nervous. He’d belt out the hymns on the ivories while I’d play the rhythm. Sometimes he’d turn to look across at me and he’d wink, or nod, and we’d become even more symbiotic, and I would strum a little harder or concentrate more. And I think the few attendees liked seeing the cute kid with chocolate eyes beneath a nest of hair struggling to hold the giant borrowed guitar.

  'Joyful Joyful' never sounded more joyful.

  After a while more people started turning up and within a couple of months there was standing room only. I got more confident. I even started singing a bit, joining in with the chorus or helping with harmony, until Father O put a microphone in front of me one day and I closed my eyes and sang three songs in a row. Afterwards I opened them again and he led the assembly in a rousing applause.

  They didn’t come here to listen to God, he told me afterwards, just you.

  I’M COMING WITH YOU

  Witi’s mum hadn’t handled his dad’s disappearance well. Sure, she seemed to be getting better every year, but he had a hunch she was just better at hiding her sadness from him. He’d hear later about people losing years in a matter of weeks when a family member died suddenly. He saw her shoulders droop under the weight and stay there. She stopped functioning at her admin job in the accountancy office and ended up behind a sewing machine in a building full of duplicate sewers. Her friends dwindled from many to only a couple of hard-core mates who could handle her stress. She didn’t talk much and sometimes he’d catch her sitting and staring. Especially at the old landline that never rang. Their garden grew heaps of weeds and when a new spring season came around Witi would see his mum unsure what to do with the warmth.

  Still, of all the things she lost, being his mum wasn’t one of them. He felt her protection every day, from the first day his dad left. A year later she must’ve got determined not to let him become as insular and lost as she was, because visits to Dr Herbert suddenly became a weekly thing. It felt like a million visits. Finally, when she attended one time, his mum saw the look in Witi’s eyes and heard the deadpan answers and she realised something was dying inside her son – so she decided to protect Witi from psychological interference as well. Always protective. Recently Witi joked the new iPhone in his pocket would achieve the same thing. She took hold of his shoulders and just stared at him for him a bit, like she’d seen a new piece of his dad in his face. She kissed his forehead and broke the moment with a wisecrack: Thank God you don’t have a receding hairline like he does.

  Like he does …

  Yeah nah, she was still talking about Dad in the present. As if he could walk through the front door at any time.

  Next morning his mum lit a single candle on the breakfast table. But neither of them said anything about it being the anniversary of the day his dad disappeared. After Witi rinsed his plate he placed a hand on her shoulder. She put both of hers on top of his and gave a nod.

  Witi ignored the turn-off to college. Instead he drove through the suburban streets that snaked towards the main artery. Slowing at one of the last intersections, he saw Alana. He stopped and she ran around the side of the car. Her smile said she’d been there a while.

  She slammed the passenger door shut and gave a deep, excited sigh.

  I wasn’t sure you’d take this route, she said. Almost gave up.

  Whaddya even doing here? he asked. You should be at school.

  Yet here we are.

  But I’m heading out to the coast.

  I know. I’m coming with you.

  He looked in the rear-view mirror at the cars backing up behind them. I’m not going surfing, he said, and I’m not looking for company. Not today. It’s sort of …

  Personal?

  Complex.

  C’mon, Witi, I’m sick of being your rehab friend, always picking up the pieces while you get over it. Don’t turn into your mum.

  He imagined his mum sitting behind her sewing machine, surrounded by co-workers who couldn’t give a shit about her problems. He thought of the brave face she’d put on in the smoko room, and the fact she still had to pump out her quota for the day, while he bailed on all responsibilities.

  The first car honk from behind them brought Witi back to Alana.

  Just drive. Please?

  Fine, he said.

  They headed north, up over the steep, thin road that wove over the Remutaka ridgeline. Alana insisted they park up at the summit for a few minutes, and with their home turf stretching in the distance behind them, she made him lean in while she took a selfie. After deciding his grimace wasn’t worth keeping, she kissed his cheek on the second go, and captured his smile with a well-timed digital chime.

  Down the other side and onto the flats, they headed east into deep farmland where the paddocks grew steeper and higher. Around each blind corner they were greeted with another patchwork of fencing and pockets of sheep and cattle, and trees that grew buckled towards the coast due to the prevailing wind.

  Alana finally asked where they were going.

  Witi didn’t answer.

  At the peak they could just make out a slice of dark green sparkling on the horizon, but before she got too excited about being close, they twisted down another hill that buried them deep in a valley of forestry. The tar seal gave way to loose gravel, and a thick tail of dust rose behind them. At the end of a minor incline the sea seemed to rush up to meet them. The road turned sharp right and began flirting with the foreshore and its white surges of water across shiny black stones.