Chapter Five
The rows of ageing RVs parked in the vast trailer park marked Imperial Beach as a budget seaside tourist destination, attracting a younger and more cosmopolitan crowd than genteel Coronado. The waterfront ran long and flat and stood open to the elements; as Isobel climbed out of the pickup she could feel the chill of the wind that blew in from the grey emptiness of the Pacific. Blistered low-rise vacation rental properties and a few tired-looking cafés and shops lined the beach road. A newly built boutique hotel with an incongruous lemon-coloured façade only served to exaggerate the drabness on either side.
Along the road stray paper, plastic, and other tourist debris swirled around in the afternoon breeze. They had parked opposite a wooden pier that reached out above the ocean, lined by Asian fishermen who idled away their day swishing their hooks out into the murky water and reeling out finger-sized silver fish like clockwork, their catches wriggling in the last throes of their short lives. Overhead, brown pelicans circled before screaming down headfirst into the water to secure a ready meal. IB, as the locals called it, offered the last habitation on the Californian coast before Mexico, a mile to the south, and a green and white border patrol vehicle stood at a high point just beyond the final dwelling, an unwelcome reminder of her night at the border.
“It’s a good time of day to learn,” said Ryan, undeterred by the bleak conditions. “The serious guys came and went hours ago, when the waves were at their biggest.” They were standing at the back of the Chevy as he weighed up what equipment to take.
“I don’t see any women out there,” said Isobel, feeling scant enthusiasm for the adventure ahead and showing even less.
“Hard to tell from here.” He passed her a wetsuit. “I borrowed this for you; hope you’re okay with that. You won’t be able to stay in the water long without it, and it gives some protection from stingers and stuff like that.”
“Stingers! Any sharks out there?”
“Only baby ones, nothing to worry about.”
“Other than the mother ones.”
“They caught Jaws a long time ago. I saw it in the movies, so it has to be true.” Isobel responded with a frown and planted her hands on her hips. “Just trust me, there are no sharks out there.” He pulled out a foam boogie board. “We’ll get you started on this, just so you get the feel of things. We’ll swim out together, and stay close to me, just do what I say and copy what I do.”
“Where do I change?” asked Isobel, measuring herself up against the neoprene suit.
“There’s a restroom this end of the pier, or you can do it here, alfresco style.”
Not wanting to seem a wimp, Isobel took the second option. She struggled out of her clothes and into her swimsuit with a towel as her only protection before yanking on the wetsuit, falling to the sand on her backside in the process.
“See, I said it would be fun.”
They swam out by the south side of the pier to where the line of surfers was bobbing around like a string of buoys. “This should do it,” said Ryan, acknowledging the other swimmers.
“That guy there has a helmet on,” said Isobel.
“Chill, he’s an accessory man, an amateur, probably never ridden a board before.”
“Unlike me, of course. You’re filling me with confidence.”
“Let’s see how we get on. If you can’t handle the boogie, we’ll leave the surfing lesson for another time.” Isobel pulled herself onto the foam board. “Okay, looking good. Now we just paddle out to those guys out there, and watch the waves and what everyone else is doing. We need to let the ankle snappers ride under us till we see a badass wave coming up. Then we launch ourselves forward, shout aloha, and paddle like fuck before it swallows us.”
“Got it, dude,” said Isobel.
“Here she comes,” said Ryan, as all along the line of surfers composure gave way to frantic activity.
The rushing water lifted Isobel high on the wave. She paddled with all her might alongside Ryan. Instinct and self-preservation caused her to grab the leading edge of the board and close her eyes. When she opened them to her surprise she found herself still gliding forward, thirty yards nearer the beach, the adrenaline coursing through her veins. As her momentum slowed she looked up, but saw no sign of Ryan. If anyone had shouted aloha, she hadn’t heard it.
“You were awesome, just awesome,” said Ryan, swimming up and dragging his boogie. “You’re a natural.”
They repeated the process a few more times until Ryan declared himself satisfied. Each time they caught a wave she managed to maintain her momentum longer than Ryan, which she knew to be a good sign. And although she guessed that he aborted his own run to make her feel good, the suspicion took nothing from her sense of achievement. She had feared making a fool of herself; even perhaps that Ryan’s motive leaned more toward showing off than having fun. Instead, it seemed he wanted to do everything he could to make her feel like the star of the show.
“You happy to give the board a try now?” he asked.
She nodded. “If you think I’m ready.”
Ryan selected a single board, the shortest of the three, from the Chevy. “We’ll just use the fun board; it’s perfect when there’s not too much of a swell. We can ride tandem till you’re sure you’re okay with it. If you want to quit at any time, just say so, but so far you’ve been off the wall.”
“Beginner’s luck, bro,” she said, at the limit of her surfer lingo.
“You want a helmet this time?”
“Have you got one?”
“Nope.”
“Thought so.”
They swam back and Ryan leashed the surfboard to his ankle. “Right, all we want to try and do is get you standing on the board as the wave is carrying it forward. We’re not going to try and ride along the barrel of the beast or anything fancy like you’ve seen on TV. Okay?”
“Yes sir,” she said, and gave a salute.
“When the wave comes we’re both going to be kneeling on the board. You just hold tight, I’ll be right behind looking out for you.”
“Looking at my backside, you mean.”
“That too. When I shout ‘Geronimo’, I want you to lift yourself up on one knee, then just stand up, keeping your body loose and relaxed, and try to go with the movement of the board. If you feel yourself falling, just bail off, throwing yourself as far from the board as you can.”
“Like you said, nothing to it.” After her success on the boogie came an immediate reality check. Standing up on a moving surfboard proved to be every bit as difficult as she feared. But with each fall she surfaced determined not to be beaten.
“Aloha,” she screamed as she made it from the Quasimodo posture to more or less upright. Ryan had already slipped the leash; he let himself fall off, leaving Isobel to ride the wave alone. “Aloha!” she shouted again before the board tipped and she crashed headlong into the water.
Ryan swam up, hugged and kissed her like she’d just saved him from death row, and if she could have done it she would have ripped his wetsuit off him right then and there. “Wow, didn’t you just go? You’re one hell of a surf bunny.”
“Can I go one more time?”
“Babe, what you did is as good as it gets. That’s the memory to take home with you.”
“You’re what I want to take home with me,” she said, clasping his waist with her thighs.
“Easy, babe,’” he said laughing, “you already crushed those ribs once today.”
Isobel ran to the restroom to change, leaving Ryan to dry off next to the Chevy. Salt matted her hair and she tied it in a ponytail. Her makeup had been washed off in the sea but she didn’t mind, and soon she skipped back along the boardwalk to find Ryan securing the boards.
“You ready for some hot coffee?” he asked.
They went to a kiosk at the beach end of the pier and sat outside with their drinks; Isobel laid out the picnic on a stone table. Juanita had made up a Mexican-style lunch with chicken burritos, nachos, with salsa and black bean dip.
“I meant what I said today about missing you,” she said.
“Me too.”
They had not talked seriously about their feelings since the night she had come back from over the border.
“I didn’t mean to break things off or anything, it’s just that a lot went off back in England and it’s just taking me longer to put it behind me than I thought it would.”
“You wanna fill me in some more about what happened, why you and your husband separated?”
“There’s nothing to tell, that you haven’t probably guessed, anyway. I betrayed Peter and someone I thought loved me betrayed me, so I got what I deserved. After fifteen years I was unfaithful and, bingo, my whole life, and Peter’s, is blown apart.”
Ryan furrowed his brow. “And you didn’t try and make up, give it a second chance?”
“If there had been kids I expect that’s what we’d have done, but if we had had kids I would never have looked outside my marriage. Even if I could have gone back on my terms, I knew I would be living a lie.”
“Like everyone else?”
His cynicism surprised her. “Maybe.”
“But now you’re having second thoughts? And you don’t want to get into another serious relationship?”
“Second thoughts about going back to Peter? No, and I’m not sure he’d have me back now.”
“And what about the guy you had the affair with?”
“He had a wife, so another reason I should’ve known better, but maybe the thought he had as much to lose as me made it seem less of a risk.” Her eyes glazed at the memory.
“You’ve got salsa running down your mouth,” he said, dabbing the side of her lips with his finger. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
She grabbed a napkin and wiped it across her chin. “It’s all such a mess. I sometimes wonder why you bother with me, with all those young actresses who must be chasing you.”
He caressed her cheek. “I bother with you because you’re someone special. Because of the way you make me feel. You’re beautiful, and you’re fun to be with.”
“And I’ve had a great day.” She kissed him. “Thank you.”
They lapsed into silence for a while, eating with their fingers. “Do you still see your ex-wife?” she asked.
He laughed. “Haven’t seen her in ten years. It only lasted nine months, Hollywood style.”
“So it wasn’t acrimonious, or anything? The divorce, I mean.”
“Other than that she screwed my boss the entire time we were married, no.”
Seagulls had gathered around them, hungry to share the meal. “We’ve picked a strange place for a heart to heart, don’t you think?” she thought out loud. “At the end of a rickety pier, with the vultures waiting to pounce.”
“You ready to go back?”
Isobel dipped a tortilla in guacamole and he took it and her fingers into his mouth and sucked the stray sauce from them. “I’m ready if you are,” she said.