Chapter 6 #2
She kept staring at her intently until Sinéad nodded seriously.
“Okay, I promise I will,” Sinéad reassured her.
I laughed along with Maura who was at my side; Ella really could take the dramatics to the next level sometimes.
We all plunged in and after about thirty minutes, I finally managed to stand on my board for three seconds before falling headfirst into the ice water again.
At this point my whole body was numb though, so I couldn’t feel anything anyway.
Sinéad, Orla, and Maura were all naturals at surfing, having done it numerous times over the years.
Sara, in typical Sara fashion, picked it up after about ten minutes like she did with almost anything sporty, and now I finally felt like I was getting the hang of things.
Ella was still refusing to try and transition from her knees to her feet, and as the waves were getting a little stronger, I didn’t really blame her either.
I was attempting to pull myself back on my board when I felt a sharp sting along the sole of my foot.
I gasped and whipped my foot in front of me to find pale yellow tentacles wrapped around the bridge of my left foot.
“FUCK,” I screamed, waving my foot trying to get the gross jellyshithead off me.
The pain was getting a lot worse and as I reached down to flick it off, I lost my grip on my board as a huge wave crashed over my head and pulled me under.
I finally shook the jellyfish off as I kicked for the surface, only to feel my board line wrapped around my legs from all my floundering.
I used my arms to propel myself up just as another wave crashed over my head.
I had drifted out much further than I realised when I first spotted the jellyfish and as I surfaced again, I could see I was at least a hundred metres from the group.
I stretched for my board in the constant battering of the waves that made me splutter, but my tangled legs stopped me from jumping back on.
Just as the edges of panic started to encroach on my mind, our instructor Mick arrived in front of me and grabbed my arms to pull me onto his board as we went under with another wave, but he kept a hold of me and got me on his board, twisted legs and all.
He laid me in front of him while he detangled the cord from around my legs.
“Are you alright, love? Have you swallowed any water?” he asked in a concerned voice while he quickly strapped my board to his foot with the now free line and powered his arms to take us back to shore.
His full body weight and bulbous belly rested along my back as he got us to the safety of the shallow water, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment.
“No, I think I’m grand, just got a bit of a shock.” He nodded as he jumped off the board and pulled me up with him. “It’s getting a little rough out there now anyway, so let’s leave it there for today, Sinéad, yeah?”
She nodded, her eyes on me as she strode over and held my shoulders. “Are you okay?” she asked, concern lining her eyes. The girls were all silent beside her and now the shock had worn off, I could feel the burning on my foot from the jellyfish sting.
“Ouch,” I started hopping on my other foot, pointing to the sting as Sara leaned in to look closer at my foot.
“Fuck, did you get stung?” Sinéad gasped, looking at the raised red welts along my foot. My eyes watered with the pain now. I nodded and bit my lip to keep the whimpers in.
“Did you see it?” Maura asked as she leaned down to look closer at my foot.
“Just its legs, they were yellow,” I hissed as she poked at my foot.
“That’s a lion’s mane jellyfish; they have the yellow tentacles,” Maura replied with a furrow in her brow.
“Right, there’s nothing for it, I’ll piss on you.” Sara nodded her head at the girls as Maura straightened.
“You will not piss on me! That’s not even fucking true!” I yelled as I still hopped on one foot to keep the weight off the sting.
“The whole thing is blistered Róisín, isn’t it better to find out if it’s true now if it’ll give you a bit of relief?” she answered as she started to zip down her wetsuit.
“Don’t you dare come near me Sara,” I warned, hopping away from her and behind Sinéad for protection as Ella let out a roar of laughter.
“Jesus, there’s no one pissing on you girl.
It’ll go down in a while and we’ll put fresh water on it at Sinéad’s.
But I just want to point out that a sixty-year-old man with a diet of Guinness, in a wetsuit, just had his face buried in your butthole while he rescued you from drowning…
AND you almost got pissed on. So, for me the weekend is complete, and I’ll come surfing anytime you want from now on Sinéad,” she grinned around the group.
Nice to see my near-death experience had her worried.
********
When Sinéad, Sara, and I finally tumbled home from what had been an incredible night out in Bray town, we snuggled up in blankets around the fire pit Betty had lit for us before she went to bed.
Sinéad’s ice blue eyes glowed from the flames as she prodded life back into the logs with a poker, tucking her long blonde hair out of harm's way from the sparking kindling. My body hurt from laughing so much all night, being a minion proved to be so much fun I would happily dress as one every day. And Sinéad and Sara doing a full duet remix of Jojo Siwa and Rubber Bandits’ ‘Horse Outside’ song would go down in a book of legends.
Ella had decided to stay on in the nightclub with Maura and Orla; she’d been doing the worm in her red Crayola crayon outfit in a dance off with some Brazilians when we’d made our exit.
Sara had been unusually quiet since we’d left the club, and I watched her out the corner of my eye now as she stared into the flames, her heavy sigh audible over the sound of waves crashing on the beach just over the dunes.
We hadn’t discussed the affair with Gary since she’d confessed it, and I’d kept my word and hadn’t mentioned it to the girls.
But right now, I knew it was Freya that was playing on her mind.
I’d met Sara’s older sister a dozen times over the years, she was wild, loud and fun, just like Sara.
Last year she had gotten engaged to her long-time boyfriend Ger after a year travelling the world together.
She’d settled down in their hometown just outside Galway city, and the updates we’d been getting from Sara were full steam ahead with wedding planning for next summer.
Freya wasn’t just a sister to her - they were best friends.
In a family of six, the Shannahans were all extremely close.
But Freya and Sara were Irish twins with only eleven months between them, and they acted like actual twins most of the time.
Sara’s Mom had said she was done when Freya came along and had the magic number of three kids.
But lo and behold, Freya was only two months when her mam was up the pole again, and Sara's Dad was promptly sent for the snip. .. or so the story went.
“What’s on your mind girl?” I asked her softly, pulling her from her stupor.
“They recommended a mastectomy today.” She deadpanned, as Sinéad and I leaned closer to her.
“Freya’s been inconsolable.” Sara dropped her face to her hands and started crying, and I gathered her up in my arms. Over the last three years, we’d been there for each other through thick and thin, and always proclaimed we were the sisters we chose for ourselves - especially when our own families annoyed us.
“Her boobs are as important to her as her own head, girls. You know she’s no arse,” she half joked to lighten the mood, and Sinéad snorted a laugh.
“Listen to me now, Sars - whether that girl has a monotit, none or gets extra ones, she will be drop dead gorgeous. And she’s a man utterly obsessed with her to remind her of that as well as you and the rest of your crowd.
I know it seems terrifying now, but she hasn’t even decided yet.
" She nodded as she straightened her shoulders and gave herself a shake.
“And while you’re being strong for Freya, we’ll be strong for you,” Sinéad murmured, as she pulled her into a half hug. “We’re the sisters we chose for each other, remember? We’ve got your back every step of the way.”
********
I woke up to banging on the bedroom window and opened my eyes blearily, forgetting where I was for a minute.
When I heard Sinéad mutter, “What the fuck is going on?” beside me, I remembered I was in her bed in Bray and felt like I’d just fallen asleep before the banging woke us up.
It started again and I darted up in bed, heart pounding.
We had only gone to bed about an hour ago and my eyes were still a little puffy from the crying fest at the fire pit with Sara as we’d sunk a few more cans of Coors than we should have.
“It’s me, let me in quick before I freeze my tits off,” we heard Ella’s voice hiss through the window.
Sinéad jumped up and rushed for her bedroom door but screeched when she caught sight of me.
I spun around in fright, expecting to see a ghost hovering behind me at the very least, but Sinéad gasped, “I forgot you were yellow,” as she opened the bedroom door.
I’d tried to get the body paint off my skin before bed, but trying to scrub it off while drunk was too big a task to accomplish tonight.
We could hear Sara’s snores rattling the door of the spare bedroom across the hallway as Sinéad swung the front door open to a bedraggled-looking Ella standing in front of us, wearing only one shoe and her Crayola hat on back to front.
“Holy shit, are you okay? What happened to you?” I might have been drunk, but Ella was two steps beyond shitfaced. I always knew the drunkey eyes on her, and as spiny as I felt right now, concern still kicked into overdrive because she looked like she’d been attacked.
“He stole my shoe,” she slurred as she limped in on one high heel.
“Who stole your shoe?” Sinéad demanded, having drastically sobered up at the sight of Ella. “Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?” Sinéad followed her with her voice rising in panic as Ella hobbled into the kitchen.
Ella looked at her like she was crazy. “No, why wouldsh you fay that.”
“Because you look like you’ve just been jumped, Ella. Now what the fuck happened to you!?” I whisper yelled at her, starting to lose patience waiting for answers while she acted like a drunken fool.
“I couldn’t remember the address to the house, but then he said he knew you, but I didn’t recognish the road, so I thought he was going to murder me.
I tried to jump out the car and he grabbed my foot and called me a crazshy bitch, and then shouted that I still owed him seven euro.
But I only had five euro in my purshe. And he stole my shoe.
I recognised the barn at your neighbour’s farm so I ran acrosh the field.
” She explained slowly as she slurred her words, like we were the unreasonable ones here.
“I couldn’t go back for my shoe becaush he was shouting at me that I was a lunatic.
I had to keep going, but then I fell into a dyke somewhere,” she murmured while sniffing her hair, from which I caught the gross smell of dyke water.
“But who the fuck was it, Ella? Was it an actual taxi you were in, or did someone pull you into a car or what?” Sinéad was still in investigative mode, but I’d already put the pieces together.
This dipshit had just done a runner on a proper taxi, broke herself up in the process, and in a town as small as Bray had probably left Sinéad with some very awkward explaining to do tomorrow.
After I’d managed to calm Sinéad down from the fright Ella had given her, all while Ella incredulously slurred to Sinéad about how dramatic she was, we shoved Ella into the shower to wash the stink of dyke off her.
As funny as it would be for Sara to wake up to that smell in the bed beside her, we couldn’t risk Betty’s sheets being ruined forever.
When Sinéad and I finally made it back to bed, wide awake thanks to Ella’s theatrics, we stayed talking until the sun started to rise as Sinéad listed all the places in the world she wanted to visit someday.