Chapter 1
Niall
Sydney, Australia
Six months ago, everything that made sense in Niall Butler’s life had gone surfing and never come back. Niall stood on the warm Sydney sand and stared out to sea. Those words encapsulated his feelings perfectly. His life was somewhere out there on the deep Australian blue, far beyond the breakers crashing onto the shoreline.
‘You alright?’ Troy, Niall’s co-surf instructor for the day, asked. ‘It’s six months today, isn’t it? Since Rafe…’
‘What? Aye, it is.’ Niall hadn’t expected nineteen-year-old Troy to know that today marked the six-month anniversary of Niall’s best friend and business partner going into cardiac arrest on the shoreline half an hour into a morning surf. Six months since Niall had leaned over Rafe’s body, surfboard strap still wrapped around his ankle, trying with each compression to get his blood pumping again, to bring back the Rafe who’d been laughing and joking by his side less than half an hour previous. To bring back the man who had become his anchor, his Aussie brother, the friend whobrought out the best in Niall when he thought there was nothing good to bring out.
It was hard to conceive of the surf school in terms of himself alone now.
Niall had somehow assumed today’s memories of Rafe were private in his own mind. It was naïve of him to think his grief wasn’t written all over his face. And remiss to forget that Troy wasn’t still the inward-looking teenager who had come toWave Hellosurf school five years ago. He was a formidable young man with spirit and insight: one reason Niall had paid for his surf lifesaving training and now employed him as a full-time surf coach. Troy had gone from setting fire to rubbish bins and shoplifting to a competent surfer in a year and now a surf lifesaver. At thirty-three, Niall wasn’t quite old enough to be Troy’s father, but he was proud of him.
‘Anyway!’ Niall did what he was good at – moving on with things and pretending it was all fine. ‘Let’s get these guys surfing.’ He waved over the motley group of underwhelmed teenagers who were clasping their foam learner boards and squinting into the midday sun.
‘Go surfing, no cry, That’s my motto.’ Niall offered this bon mot to the teens, already knowing he’d have to work far harder to impress them. ‘Bob Marley, no?’ he added. ‘“No Woman, No Cry”?’ It rarely landed but he peddled it out for his own amusement and, more recently, to see if he could make himself believe it again. ‘Anyway, guys, trust me when I say there’s nothing that can’t be made better by sliding down the barrel of a six-foot wave, whether the Australian sun’s burning down on your shoulders, or the Scottish rain is battering the sea. It’s one of the biggest rushes you can get in life.’
‘You’ve never been laid then?’ Dylan, a wiry fourteen-year-old with a face that looked like he’d already lived a thousand lifetimes, jibed.
Niall twisted his lip. It wasn’t the first time since he’d been teaching at-risk teenagers to surf that he’d been given cheek like this.
‘I’ve lived, Dylan, and I can tell you surfing is up there, okay?’
‘Is this going to be hard?’
‘Pretty hard, but it’s worth it. Anything worth doing is hard work.’
‘Like women?’
Niall laughed. ‘Yeah, like women. Look, you’ll love surfing, Dylan. Trust me.’
Dylan curled his lip and kicked the bottom of the longboard.
‘Hey, bit of respect for the equipment, please.’
‘Sorry, mate, I can’t understand your accent.’ The boy grinned at Niall, cheeky orange freckles scattered across his nose, blue eyes sparkling with challenge. Niall, seeing something of his younger self staring back at him, met Dylan with gritty, but good-humoured, resolve.
‘First up, Dylan, I’m not your mate. I’m your surf coach. Secondly, if you want to be a gallus wee wido then I can find you some work to do in the office with someone Australian. That way you won’t have any communication difficulties or problems with the Scottish accent. What do you reckon? You want to do some filing with Audrey while I teach your mates – who seem to understand me fine – to surf?’
‘I didn’t get half of that,’ said Dylan, ‘but nah. I’m good.’
Niall smiled inwardly. He was all bluster, this kid. He’d be eating out of Niall’s hand in no time.
‘Okay, surfing it is then. Come on, Troy’s alreadyshown you how to jump up on your boards, so let’s head into the water and get you guys catching some waves.’
‘Fine!’ Dylan stomped into the shallows, splashing hard as he walked out to meet the waves he had no idea were about to tame him, unaware that he looked like a small child by comparison. Waves were non-negotiable. You could give all the backchat you liked but the ocean lived by its own rules, and you had to learn to read it, understand it and work with it, if you wanted to get anything out of surfing. And usually, once these kids had got a taste of catching a wave, they wanted more.
‘Another gallus wee convert ready to have his mind blown.’ Niall grinned at Troy.
‘Gallus?’ Troy screwed up his face in mock confusion. ‘Sorry, mate, I can’t understand your accent.’
Three hours later and Niall was almost hoarse from shouting to the teens to ‘paddle’ or ‘get up’ or stop wasting their energy talking and focus on tuning into the ocean. He recognised the enthusiasm and invigoration from the session in Troy’s flushed features. He would be leaving things in capable hands.
‘When is it you fly out to Scotland?’ Troy asked as they walked back up to the surf school HQ.
‘Tuesday,’ said Niall. ‘You’re Brad’s second in command while I’m away, okay?’
