Air (17 page)

When we arrived at the media launch, I discovered that the Fontainebleau Hotel was a vast waterfront structure lit up like the
Titanic
.

The noise of the party the music, the voices could be heard from two blocks away.

We got out of the car and Zeke gave the keys to a young man in livery, who drove it off somewhere to park it.

“I just have to call Kelly back,” I said to Zeke. Our names were ticked off the guest list by a softly spoken young woman in a black lace minidress and we walked along the red carpet and down the stairs into the glittering lobby, whose enormous chandelier I felt sure must have been designed by a man with issues. The lobby was crammed with people and every one of them was dressed impeccably; the heels of their shoes tapping out privilege on sparkling quartz floors.

“OK. I'm gonna go join Anders. Come find us when you're done.”

I went outside, past a woman wearing a metal cage skirt, which was also a champagne fountain, and came face to face with Saskia, who was looking incredible in a tiny gold dress that made her legs seem endless.

“Hi,” I said.

“I'm really not in the mood for this, Iris,” she replied, giving me one of her cool stares.

“I didn't do any drugs.”

“But you were going to, weren't you? If I hadn't walked in. You know, when I withdrew from the Billabong competition so you could take my place, I believed I was doing the right thing. The decent thing. And I thought this opportunity would make you and Zeke happy.”

“It did! I appreciate it so much, Sas. I really do.”

“I simply don't believe that, Iris.”

“Look, maybe we can talk properly tonight?”

“When I'm ready to talk, I'll phone you. Until then, I'd appreciate it if you left me alone.”

“Well, you have to interview me after my contest heats on Saturday.”

“Marvelous. I'll certainly look forward to that. Have a nice night.”

Her tone sounded a lot like the one you'd expect from someone telling a former friend to “have a nice life.”

“Sas, I'm sorry!” But she had already walked away.

I took off my shoes and sat down on the edge of the hotel's pool, dangling my feet into the warm water. Nobody else was doing this, but I didn't much care. If there is a pool, I am going to stick my feet in it at the very least, no question.

Kelly picked up the phone.

“Sorry. Was getting the washing off the line. I totally forgot about it, and had to go out in the dark, because it rains every bloody night.”

I thought of her little back garden and for a second I was standing in it, the washing basket between us. I thought of the double hammock, where we'd wasted so many afternoons, staring up at the fairy lights in the cherry tree as we put the world to rights, or threw pebbles over the head of the little gold Buddha that the elderly woman next door called unlucky for no reason we could fathom. Water fights we'd had in that garden, picnics, dance-offs.

“Hey, guess what? I'm at a party and Cameron Diaz and Chris Hemsworth are here somewhere.”

“Cool! Get photos. So, are you alone now?” she asked me, her voice nervous.

“Yes. What's going on, Kel? How come you're still awake? Has Garrett done something?”

“Garrett? No. Well, nothing worth mentioning. You know what he's like. Bit of a moron at the best of times.” I found myself nodding at this. Garrett was the sort of person who always appeared to be mildly inebriated, even when he was stone-cold sober. “I, um, I talked to Daniel.”

“Daniel?” I heard the tone of my voice shoot up. Kelly despised Daniel for cheating on me with my friend Cass, and she would never talk to him unless she absolutely had to.

“Yeah. I know, shocking, right? But he's trying to get a message to you. He says he can't get through on your phone it won't even ring.”

Because I'd added his number to my phone's block list.

“Plus, he says you've deleted him from Facebook and aren't answering emails.”

All of my emails from Daniel were diverted to a folder called “Do Not Read This Shit,” and I never, ever looked in there, not even when I was hammered. Not even when I was miserable and wanted to wind myself into more misery.

I didn't dare tell Kelly I'd called him from South Beach.

“What kind of message?”

“It's about Zeke.”

“Ha. Should've known. Well, I don't really give a toss what Daniel says about Zeke. He's probably just making stuff up to cause trouble.”

“No, it's not like that. He says someone's written an article about Zeke that's gonna break soon.”

Oh God, I thought. This is why. This is why those journalists were acting that way on the beach. Zeke was on their hit list.

“So what?” I said. “Zeke has loads of articles written about him.” This was true. In the time since I'd been seeing Zeke, his press coverage had rocketed. He wasn't quite on the same level as the likes of John John Florence and Sebastian Zietz, but he was getting there.

“Not like this one. This one's not complimentary. Have you heard of a reporter called Mitch Jacobs?”

“I don't think so.”

Could he have been the guy on the beach? Had he said his name? I didn't remember. Whatever was happening, I didn't
want Kelly to be involved. She had enough going on in her own life, what with all her coursework and exams, without taking on my problems.

“Kel, don't stress about it. Haters gonna hate. No big deal.”

“I dunno. I think it could be serious. Daniel said people in the surf forums are already talking about it and the piece hasn't even dropped yet.”

“So some journo writes a bitchy article. Who cares?”

I desperately wanted Kelly to stop talking about this.

“The article's called ‘Methsurfing.'”

“Oh, crap.”

Zeke had a history with meth. It was hidden history, so the journalist must have got to someone close to Zeke. Offered them money to talk.

“I don't know for sure that it's about Zeke because apparently the names are changed. But the story's about a young pro-surfer from Hawaii called get this ‘Zach Fletcher.'”

Zeke Francis to Zach Fletcher wasn't much of a leap.

“Daniel's sure about this?”

“He seems pretty sure, yeah.”

“Kel . . .”

“Daniel Penhaligon is an asshole, don't get me wrong, but I can tell when he's full of shit,” Kelly said.

“Lovely image, mate. Thanks for that.”

“What are you gonna do, Iris?”

“Dunno. I don't want to mess with Zeke's head. I've been doing enough of that lately as it is. He has to do well tonight, and in his next contest.”

So much of surfing was psychological. A surfer's head game was probably the most important element of their performance. Distractions almost always meant defeat.

And Zeke's surfing was already all over the place. At contests he was either placing in the top two and standing on the podium, or burning out in the first round, due to some stupid error. The commentators were starting to call him a streaky surfer, saying sometimes he was really on and sometimes he was really off; speculating that it came down to how he was feeling emotionally. The name Streaky Zeke was starting to be a thing.

His place on the following year's tour was pretty secure, as he was fifteenth on the board, but many more mistakes and he'd be in the danger zone.

“So you're just going to say nothing?”

“It could be some other surfer. I don't wanna get Zeke all freaked out for no good reason. Maybe Daniel's got it wrong.”

Kelly cleared her throat. “Do you think you should ring him?”

“Daniel?”

“Yeah.”

I couldn't tell Kelly I'd already called him. I didn't even want to remember it myself.

“I don't think I can. Not after the way we left things—”

“Oh, bugger,” Kelly said, sounding panicky and cutting me off. “Bloody Garrett's chucking stones at my window. That boy's got some cracking timing. I've gotta go, mate. Good luck with your heats.”

“Don't tell Garrett, will you, Kel?” I said, but she'd already hung up.

When I looked up, Anders was looking down at me.

“Citizen Fox,” he said. “Why do you look like the Hulk just drop-kicked your hamster?”

“Good to see you too, Anders.”

Standing next to him was an attractive woman in her thirties, wearing a sequined playsuit and leather gladiator sandals that snaked up around perfectly white ankles. Her nose had a sprinkling of freckles and her mousy hair hung in a fashionably messy bob.

Even Anders looked smart; for once he wasn't dressed like a teenager. The T-shirt he'd been wearing the last time I saw him had depicted a male surfer surrounded by topless girls, with the slogan:
If it swells, ride it
, which surely took the prize for Most Irritating T-Shirt 2015.

I wondered if he'd heard any of my conversation with Kelly.

“Nice work in Santa Cruz. You're starting to relax. Something to write home about at last.”

“Yeah, it took me a while to get over the stage fright. Hi,” I said, looking at the woman and waiting to be introduced. She held out her hand to me.

“Nice to meet you,” she said. She had an Australian accent.

“Selina here is a documentary filmmaker,” Anders said, winking, for reasons I didn't yet understand. “She made the eco-surf movie about the dolphin drives. Selina, this is Iris. She's from Cornwall.”

I'd seen the film. It was good, if harrowing. It won awards on the indie circuit, a fact I knew because years ago I'd liked its Facebook page and my news feed still got the updates.

“I loved that film,” I said.

“Oh. Thank you very much.” She looked really embarrassed and I wondered how with those four words I'd somehow managed to say the wrong thing.

“I really did,” I said, in case my voice had made it sound as if I was being sarcastic.

She smiled. “It's always so weird to meet people who have seen it. And that was always the aim don't get me wrong to have the movie out there, but now it is out there in the big wide world, it has its own life. Sometimes I forget it's even mine, or worry that I'll never again be able to make something successful. Classic case of Impostor Syndrome, I guess.”

“Impostor Syndrome?” Anders frowned.

Even though I'd never heard that term before, I could guess what it meant, because I felt it too. Every single day.

“Nothing you'd ever suffer from, Anders . . .” Her eyebrows flicked up for a second and I could tell she disliked his arrogance. “So, where's Zeke?”

“He's around somewhere, looking for you, Anders. And getting a drink probably.”

“Selina and Zeke go way back,” Anders said.

Was he trying to suggest that Selina and Zeke had been in a relationship? She was obviously really talented and she seemed nice, but she was at least twice his age.

Zeke appeared, his arm wrapping around my shoulders.

“Good GOD, Zeke!” Anders said. “What the fuck have you done to your hair?”

“Yeah, I thought it was time for a change.”

Anders was staring as if Zeke had arrived at the party with something unspeakable smeared across his forehead.

“You've just reduced your future net worth by thirty percent,” Anders said, pursing his lips. “I hope you realize that.”

“It's just hair, Anders. It'll grow. Hey, I'm so glad you guys met,” Zeke said, smiling at Selina. “Selina is one of my favorite people in the world. Did you see her film, Iris? It
changed the world
. Selina, this is my girlfriend, Iris.”

It was awkward, because Anders had already sort of introduced us, but not quite, in that he hadn't told Selina what I did for a living, so I heard myself saying, “I'm a pro-surfer too.” Words that always made me feel stupidly self-conscious.

“You know, Iris, I'm planning a documentary based around the pro-surf teen scene. Maybe you could do some surfing for us, if you're interested.”

“Really? Wow, I'd be honored.”

“And you're coming to the Faroe Islands next spring? We'd love to have you with us. Zeke's committed to two weeks.”

I didn't think I could handle seeing a load of pilot whales get stabbed to death and not being able to help in any way. I'd have nightmares about it for the rest of my life, and I was already having enough nightmares.

“I'll try.”

“Iris has been to loads of our meetings she's totally coming.”

“It's important,” Selina said, “to be there, to observe and document.”

Selina left and Zeke said, “Hold on, Selina. I'll walk with you.
Gotta take a leak
,” he murmured in my direction, making a split second of eye contact. “Back in a sec.”

Anders and I stood there awkwardly. I thought about the phone call with Kelly and wondered whether I should let him know what she'd told me. Anders treated me like a little kid at the best of times, so I knew he might not take what I had to say seriously, but if something was going on, he was probably the best person to find out the details and do whatever needed to be done to get it under control.

I watched a pelican fly a track across the hotel grounds, and said, “Um, I might need to talk to you about something.”

“Do
not
tell me you're pregnant,” he said, eyes to the sky. “Just do not.”

“Jesus, Anders. Course not. I wish people would stop thinking that.”

“What then?”

“I've heard that there might be an article coming out. About Zeke.”

“I should hope so too, the number of press releases I've sent out this past month.”

“No, I mean some sort of drugs-investigation article.”

“Where are you getting this?”

“Someone back home . . .”

“The shit-for-brains no-neck who stabbed Zeke?”

As descriptions went, it was fairly accurate, but it still irritated me to hear Anders say it.

“Daniel, yes.”

“What could that little turd possibly know about anything?”

“He saw a rumor on a forum.”

Anders paused, running the odds. “Right. Did it ever occur to you that your delightful ex-boyfriend might be trying to stir up trouble? Spreading rumors to knock Zeke off his game right before this media launch, where he could very well gain tens of thousands of dollars in new sponsorship?”

That had occurred to me; of course it had.

“Maybe, but I don't think that's what's happening.”

“I must say I'm surprised you're even in touch with that waste of space.”

Anders seemed to have developed a serious loathing for Daniel and something about his insults made my skin prickle. It was one thing for Zeke to have a go at Daniel, because that was justified, given their history, but I really didn't appreciate Anders doing it.

“I'm not in touch with him. Kelly saw him, and she reckons he's for real.”

“And Kelly is?”

“Brown hair, big smile. She was at the Headland Hotel party. You spoke to her, remember?”

Anders shrugged, then stared at me hard, trying to work out if any of this was worth taking seriously.

“I'll make some inquiries. In the meantime, say nothing and I mean nothing about this to Zeke. You hear me, Iris?”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

“Because I just have one point to make here: Zeke is not in good shape. Whatever's happening between you two, it's messing with his head.”

Whatever problems Zeke and me had were private. Since when had Zeke been talking to Anders about our relationship?

Before I could find a way to ask, Anders continued, “I'm worried Zeke might be . . . leaving firm ground.”

“So you think he
is
taking drugs?”

“That's not what I said, and I don't want those words put in my mouth. But, since you're the best placed, I need you to watch him. Treat him like a toddler, by which I mean do not, under any circumstances, allow him to wander off. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, course. I wasn't intending to ditch him, Anders. He is my boyfriend.”

“You have to be one-hundred-per-cent on the ball this evening, you hear? Because I know that boy, and something is not right with him. I need him on his A-game.”

“Zeke's always on his A-game.”

Anders stared at me, trying to work out if I was taking the mick. I wasn't though. When it came to his work obligations, Zeke always tried his best. I'd never seen him deliberately let anyone down. But maybe, I thought, Anders had other experiences.