‘Merde,’ he said simply, before opening the door and running down the beach towards the water.
15
I rushed out of the hut and on to the beach, where Antoine was racing towards the water. There were kids dragging surfboards into the waves, while others stood and watched from the sand.
Antoine was yelling in French.
I jogged after him and watched as the people in the water stopped what they were doing.
‘Sortez de l’eau!’ he shouted. Furious. As if there was an imminent shark attack or something. The groups on the beach just watched him and when the surfers didn’t listen, or maybe didn’t obey him quickly enough, he went into the water himself, up to his waist and screamed at them again.
They listened this time, and I watched as surfboards turned round one by one and they all paddled towards the shore.
I was about to go and see if Antoine was OK, but I was beaten to it by Sébastian, Delphine and Lili, who had surrounded him in the sea. Sébastian patted him on the shoulder and Lili hugged him from one side.
Antoine didn’t leave the water until everyone was on the sand. And they stood there and listened to him talk like he was the teacher of a disruptive class.
An awkward silence at the end of his speech filled the air with tension. Then Lili shouted, ‘Let’s party!’
They all walked back towards the bonfire, and I took my chance to talk to Antoine. He was just staring at the ocean when I reached him, taking deep breaths that seemed to synchronize in time with the tide. So I just stared out at the water too.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
He hesitated before speaking. Before even moving. Like he was stuck in some kind of trance.
‘The water. It is dangerous,’ he said, and I wasn’t even sure if it was to me. Eventually he turned to me. ‘You want to party?’ And he didn’t give me time to think of an answer, he just grabbed my hand, and we walked towards the bonfire.
The way he took my hand was gentle. Not tightly like I would have expected. His skin was rough, I assumed from years of feeling their way round surfboards, but his touch was soft, like he didn’t want to crush something delicate. And I didn’t pull away, even though Felix’s face filled my head and guilt pooled in my stomach. I liked it. And I didn’t want it to stop.
When we got to the bonfire, Sébastian greeted us, followed by Lili and Delphine. I saw Delphine glance at our hands before I pulled mine away, reaching up to push hair behind my ear.
‘Une bière, Margot?’ Sébastian handed me a can of beer. ‘I told you he wasle flic.’ Sébastian grinned at me and Antoine said something to him in French that made him laugh.
Delphine started talking to the group in French when Antoine stopped her. ‘We should all speak English.Pour notre invitée.’ He glanced at me as he said it and I smiled gratefully.I knew a bit of French, but it was too fast to catch and as soon as I’d managed to translate a word they’d moved on to something else.
Delphine rolled her eyes. ‘OK,’ she conceded.
We walked down the beach a bit. Not too far that we couldn’t feel the heat of the fire, but not too close that the singing drowned out our voices. Then Delphine and Lili dropped to the sand, leaning against each other comfortably. Sébastian sat beside them, then me, then Antoine, in a circle.
‘Alors, Margot. Tell us about you, have you wanted to learn to surf for a long time?’ Lili sipped on her can of beer and smiled at me. There was something warm about Lili, like an aura that drew you in and made you feel immediately welcome in her presence.
‘Oh, no. Not at all.’ And as soon as it came out of my mouth, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. Delphine made a noise, half laugh, half snort. Lili elbowed her. ‘I used to swim. Competitively,’ I said, trying to pull it back.
‘Ah, a swimmer,’ Sébastian said. ‘Antoine was a swimmer too.’ He nodded towards Antoine, who didn’t say anything.
‘Oh yeah?’ I looked at him to elaborate.
He didn’t, only saying, ‘Bastian, tell Margot about your first surf competition.’ Antoine grinned at Sébastian.
‘Oh no, Margot, you do not want to hear this. It will make you not want to surf at all.’ Sébastian put his face in his hands and shook his blonde head.
‘You have to tell me now,’ I pleaded.
‘OK, you win. The Biarritz Junior Open.’ He jumped up on to the sand in a surfer’s stance and Lili groaned. ‘The sun wasshining. The waves were perfect. I paddled my little arms out so hard.’ He made a paddling motion.
‘You have never been little.’ Delphine actually cracked a smile when she said this.
‘OK, I paddled my big eleven-year-old arms out with the confidence of Antoine. I was ready. The horn, it goes off and I see this perfect wave. The most beautiful wave you have ever seen. I got up, and I raise my arms in victory before I had even caught it, fell off backwards and knocked myself out with my board.’
