Chapter 18
Mum and Dad were still up when I got home, drinking wine on the decking. But I wasn’t in the mood to talk so walked straight past them and opened the door.
‘Margot! Did you have a nice day?’ Mum asked, her tone overly cheery from too much wine.
‘Yeah, it was nice,’ I said, not turning round.
‘Come and talk to us,’ said Dad.
I walked back outside and stood beside them at the table. ‘How was the girls’ lesson?’ I threw a question at them before they could ask me more about my day.
Mum looked at Dad for an answer.
‘It was good. The boy with all the tattoos, he’s very good with them, and the girls love it, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing for Rue at the minute.’ Dad took a sip of wine, and I looked at him in shock.
‘What? Why?’ I asked, anger spilling seamlessly out of my mouth.
‘Why?’ Dad replied, like it was obvious. ‘She has cerebral palsy, Margot.’ And he said it like I hadn’t been in the same house after she got her diagnosis or held her hand when she got her injections. Rue loved it, I knew she did, and he was going to take it away from her?
‘Yeah, Dad, I know. And?’
‘And it’s not the same for you and Wren as it is for her. It’s too much. She was exhausted after her lesson today.’ Dad looked at me sadly and Mum reached for his hand.
‘Of course she was, because she’s using muscles she doesn’t usually use.
Let her sleep after! She loves it. Do not take this away from her.
Do you know how horrible that would be? How terrible she’d feel?
And Antoine, he said she had more determination than any of his adult students.
’ The emotions from earlier were so close to the surface.
Rage made my stomach tight and my jaw clench.
‘He adapts things for her. Did you not notice how he takes the girls alone and someone else takes the other group of children?’
‘They did seem to love him,’ admitted Mum.
And I couldn’t stop. It just seemed so unfair. ‘But this isn’t about surfing, Dad, it’s about letting her try and maybe letting her fail, the way you used to do with me. Let her have the same opportunities as everyone else,’ I said through gritted teeth.
‘She’s not the same as everyone else,’ Dad countered. I knew he was frustrated and that this was coming from a place of love. But the injustice of it all, and the thought of Rue’s face if he told her she couldn’t surf any more. I just couldn’t bear it.
‘You’re right. She’s not. She’s better.’ It was like all my feelings about Felix were spilling over and tangling up with something else.
I left them to it without saying anything more, and on my way to my room I stopped outside the girls’ room and looked in at them, asleep, peaceful, and I silently promised I’d do all I could to stop them ever being disappointed, because I couldn’t bear it.
I couldn’t let them feel the way I did right now, like something precious had been taken away from me.
The next morning, I was at the beach early. Before six. I was dying to get into the water. To feel it again, the freedom of being on the board. To forget yesterday. The perfect day that had been turned on its head by the realization that nobody was ever the way they seemed.
When I got there, Antoine was outside the surf hut wearing his black rash vest and when he caught sight of me, he chucked a T-shirt in my direction. I walked behind the hut to get changed.
‘You did not want to watch your sisters yesterday after all?’ Antoine called.
‘I was in Saint-Jean-de-Luz yesterday,’ I said, then emerged from behind the hut. Antoine was waxing a surfboard. I stood over him, watching the muscles in his back move underneath his top with each scrub of the wax on the board.
‘Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Nice town. You were there alone?’ he asked, still not looking up at me.
‘I went with a friend.’ I didn’t want to talk about it.
Antoine jumped on to his board and looked at me, up and down, the way I’d got so used to.
‘Nice Lycra,’ he said, stroking my shoulder with a finger. And I wished that he hadn’t, because I didn’t want to feel like every single nerve ending in my body was alive, exposed and defenceless.
‘Bon. Today we will learn the bottom turn,’ he said, then pulled me on to his board as he moved on to the sand and my breath caught in my throat.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘It is, how do you say, the building block for everything in surfing. When you drop down the face of the wave, you get speed. Then you use that speed. OK, show me your stance.’ He walked around me on the sand.
I moved into the surfer stance, bringing my mind back to the beach.
‘Bon. Now you need to put your weight on your back foot, press down, look where you want to go and let your shoulders lead.’ Antoine was behind me now, hands on my shoulders, turning them towards the water and I had to stop from closing my eyes.
‘And now you must get low. Knees bent.’ Then Antoine took my arm and traced his fingers down to my hand, which he placed on the sand. ‘This hand. It can touch the water. It gives you control.’
‘I got it,’ I said frustratedly. I was desperate to get into the water and clear my head.
‘Oh yes?’ Antoine laughed, but it was a nice laugh.
‘Yeah,’ I said, jumping off the board and going to the rack to look for the one I used yesterday. I found it and pulled it out. ‘Can we go in the water now?’
‘Bien s?r,’ he said, and waved me on to lead the way.
The sun was rising, and the water glittered as we walked in together. We stopped for a moment, looking out at the other surfers.
‘It really is beautiful,’ I said.
‘Beauty can still be dangerous,’ he mused, and I looked at him, but he was just staring at the water.
I pulled my board in and jumped on, followed by Antoine on his.
We swam out and turned to face the shore.
‘Show me,’ Antoine challenged, and I could feel my jaw set in determination.
I waited for the right wave, then just went for it.
I wasn’t in the mood to hang back or be hesitant.
I popped up, bent low, felt the speed and leaned on my back foot.
I looked towards the waves and let my shoulders rotate.
And it felt natural, letting my hand drop back and touching the water.
I couldn’t hear anything except the rush of the water and my heartbeat in my ears.
Adrenaline shot through my veins as the board responded to each and every tiny movement I made.
And it wasn’t until I’d finished, until I’d emerged from the wave still standing, that I heard Antoine.
‘Margot!’ I let myself fall into the water, exhilarated, and when I surfaced, Antoine was looking at me with a smile that matched mine. He sat on his board, legs either side of it, and pushed his hand through his hair. ‘That was … It was like a textbook. Like you have been surfing for years.’
His shock made me laugh. Pride filled my chest
‘You are sure you have not been practising in secret, Princesse?’
‘No practice. But I felt it. Like the board was a part of me.’ I stroked the board that floated beside me. ‘I haven’t felt like that since … well, it’s been a really long time.’
We did it again, and again, and again. And by the end of the lesson, I was exhausted. We walked our boards up the sand to the surf shack and Antoine took it from me.
‘I think you are done with this board. I will find you a more responsive one.’ Antoine walked over to the rack, pulled out a white one, and handed it to me. ‘This was my first board, a hard board. Use it and get a feel for it.’
‘Thanks so much!’ I grinned, and I think I shocked him with my enthusiasm because he laughed.
‘You will be back soon?’ he asked. ‘With your sisters?’
I looked at him and smiled.