But the fermenting in his mind would return. You couldn’t breathe away being Archie Butler’s son, a man troubled to the core, whom Niall had been told he bore a strong physical resemblance to. And of course who Mr McInally always said he was like in character: lazy, a low achiever, and under his breath one day but loud enough for only Niall to hear, ‘the runt of the litter’. And why shouldyou be able to breathe that away? Genes were genes and one yoga class wouldn’t change the fundamentals of his personality. Okay, Niall would never be an abusive partner like Archie or sabotage his brother’s business, but if even one of those things Mr McInally said were true, then that preyed on his mind.
Carli, though. She had, gobsmackingly, offered to give him one-to-one yoga sessions to help him relax. She was an angel. Her well of kindness and understanding would run dry dating someone like him. She deserved so much better.
It didn’t stop him from wanting her, though. Of standing here in the shower ready to go for the second round in ten minutes whilst fantasising about her naked, taking him and taking him.
And taking him back.
‘One cup of cheer the fuck up.’ Sean lifted the coffee cup from the large Italian machine in his kitchen and placed it in front of Niall before busying himself with his own drink. It was 6.00 a.m. the following day and Niall had watched his younger brother buzzing around the room for the past ten minutes getting ready for their morning surf. Sean’s energy was infectious, but Niall had forgotten quite how much his brother had.
‘You like?’ asked Sean.
‘I’ve not even tasted it yet.’ Niall lifted the drink. ‘Mmm, delicious. I’m sure it would be even better with one of those on it.’ He watched, bemused, as Sean sprinkled chocolate powder through a stencil over the top of his coffee to produce the shape of a surfer on a board. ‘Presentfrom a girlfriend?’
Sean shrugged. ‘Nah, just a bit of fun. I bought it for the kids.’
‘Which kids?’
‘Dunno. If any of us have kids, it’s important there’s a surfer stencil for their hot chocolates. You’ve got to be prepared for these things.’ Sean chugged his coffee, easily swallowing back the surface artwork and possibly half the cup.
Niall took a little longer over his drink, jet lag and the cold morning making him more sluggish than usual. Eventually, though, wetsuits zipped up, they were on their way down to the beach for Niall’s first surf session in two years in the chilly Kinshore waters.
The first thing that struck Niall was how much quieter Kinshore Beach was than Manly Beach in Sydney. There, at seven, the water was speckled with surfers, bobbing on their boards, waiting for the morning rush of the next wave. Here, the surf was wild and intimidatingly cold and thus unbothered by human beings. The Kintyre water could curl and crash onto the shore without anyone attempting to conquer it. You had to really want to surf to give it a go here and most locals did not want it that much.
Niall did want it. This was what he had grown up on, from the age of six, when his dad had introduced him to this exhilarating sport that his older brothers were already obsessed with. It was the only thing he could truly lose himself in, where he was at one with what he was doing and forgot everything else. When he’d had a bad day at school, which was most days, after the bus dropped him off the waves were there. If he argued with his dad, he’d go to the beach and surf away the frustration. Sometimes Jimmy would even tell him to do that. Did his dad understand that on the crest of a wave, Niall wasn’t a failure, a let-down orNaughty Niall? He was a success, because surfing he could do, and he could do it bloody well.
Thank you, Dad. You gave me this lifeline that I can never be grateful enough for.
Of course, memories edged in. Of Rafe. He would have loved it here. Why, in all the years he’d known him, had Niall never insisted Rafe come to Kinshore? It was always a joke between them that Niall was an endurance surfer because he was Scottish. Sometimes he’d challenged that Rafe could never hack surfing in Scotland. Rafe had promised that one day he’d prove what he was made of, and Niall looked forward to that day, to introducing his best mate to his hometown. Rafe had met most of Niall’s siblings, when they visited Sydney, but the trip back here would have been the frosting on the cake.
You’ve got to enjoy it because he can’t.
It was hard, though, because why should he enjoy it when Rafe couldn’t?
Because he’d want you to.
‘You alright?’ Sean’s voice filtered in and Niall noticed they were already waist deep in the water and ready to paddle out.
‘Aye. Let’s do this.’ Niall ducked under an incoming wave – the cold tightening his chest – and paddled on through until they were out the back where the waters were calmer and their first morning wave was buried somewhere in the incipient swell gently rolling towards them.
Niall turned his board towards the village. All the stone houses were like dolls’ houses, the church spire like a pencil tip, the family distillery down the coast like a toy distillery he’d played with as a kid. The whole place seemed small and insignificant from out here, but it was mighty. It was inhis blood. It was home.
‘Good being home?’ Sean asked, as if reading his brother’s mind.
‘Aye.’ Niall angled his board towards the swell again. ‘Weird, but good.’
‘What’s weird about it?’
They could get interrupted by a wave at any point, but things were so calm right now that Niall was comfortable opening up a little.
‘Because I forgot that being home doesn’t only mean the good stuff, like seeing your family and being swept up in a giant hug of love. There’s the things you ran away from waiting to squeeze you in a fucking vice grip.’
‘Okaaay, heavy talk… What things?’
‘Och, stuff with Dad, me as a kid, the incident.’
Sean laughed. ‘You’re not still calling it that?’
Niall puffed out. ‘Aye. And seeing Carli’s brought it all front and centre. It’s so linked to our break-up that it’s in my face, in my ears, crawling through my brain.’
