Page 107 of One Summer

‘Wait – Maurice?’

‘Yeah, you’ve heard about him?’

‘I’ve met him. On my first day here, he was visiting the landlady of The Lonely Lad. But hang on, she said the owner was a celebrity? You’re not a celebrity.’

‘No, I’m not. Well, I mean, I’m a little bit well known in the surf world.’

Eighty-Nine

Damage

He goes and sits on a dusty, rattan chair, his hand reaching out to a damaged section of an orange longboard, eyes closed, trying to tune into something.

‘Caleb,’ I say. ‘You’re a surfer? I’ve never seen you surf once. I’ve hardly even seen you swim in the sea.’

When he opens his eyes, they’re soft. Distant.

‘I don’t mess with the ocean anymore.’ He opens his eyes fully and looks confused to see me, as if he was elsewhere for a moment. ‘That’s why I do physio every day.’

I take a breath and then ask the question that I’ve been waiting to ask since I first saw the marks on his back.

‘What happened to you, Caleb?’

His face falls, making him look suddenly older.

‘I wiped out, hit a reef and broke my neck. I was dead for twelve minutes, until another surfer resuscitated me.’

The scars, the neat surgical incisions. At last, it makes sense.

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘I can’t talk about it – not to anyone. I don’t let my nan talk about it either. It’s the one boundary of mine she actually respects.’

‘It’s too painful to remember…’ I murmur, wanting to reach out and hug him.

‘No, it’s a complete block. Like, my brain won’t let me go there. Which makes it really funny.’

He starts laughing and wipes sweat from his brow.

I don’t see anything in what he’s said that’s remotely funny.

‘I don’t understand. Are you feeling okay, Caleb?’

His chin shoots up and I see the wounded animal within him, alert to danger.

‘My brain was affected but I’m not crazy. I was just trying to remember.’

‘Remember what?’

‘Why I agreed to write eighty thousand words on how I ruined my life.’

*

I feel myself startle.

‘That’s why I got all my boards out of storage and brought them with me when I moved back to Loor.’

‘I don’t understand.’

---