Swell (36 page)

Cain struggled under his grip. Jason smiled gratefully and shook the Hawaiian’s hand. I pressed my hands together and prayed when Munroe faced the surfers and said –
‘Shall we take a vote? All in favour of Jason Cross being reinstated please raise your hand.’

Chuck fidgeted beside me, his hand jangling the change in his pocket. Slowly the French surfers raised their hands, followed by the South Africans and the Australians. Cain grimaced when the Californians and then the Floridians followed suit. When the Hawaiians then raised their arms, he slammed his hand against his chest and let out a deep cry. When Waipahe, who had obviously been struggling to follow the debate, raised his hand, Cain yanked it down and punched him full in the face.

‘The vote is passed,’ Munroe announced, the relief audible in his voice. ‘Jason Cross will surf in a special five-man heat.’

I cheered and hugged first Chuck and then Ricky who smiled sheepishly.

‘Isn’t that fantastic, Ricky?’

Ricky bowed his head.

‘Yeah,’ he croaked, ‘great.’

I felt a hand on my shoulder and Jason spun me around.

‘We did it,’ he cried, pulling me off my feet and into his arms.

‘You did it,’ I laughed, sliding down his body and placing my feet between his.

The rest of the surfers were filtering out of the room and the Press vied for the scoop at the door.

Jason glanced over his shoulder and with his hands still around my waist, pressed his forehead lightly against mine.

‘Cain did it,’ he smiled. ‘I didn’t have to say anything. He talked them into supporting me with his big mouth. That guy does not know when to shut up.’

‘Likewise,’ Cain hissed behind Jason’s back.

Jason let go of me and I stepped back against the wall when I saw the expression of hatred on Cain’s face, which turned his handsome features as frightening as one of his ugly Tiger Sharks. He jutted out his chin.

‘You think you beat me, huh? You and your’ – he jerked his head at me – ‘interfering bitch here.’

Jason raised his arm in front of me like a barricade.

‘I’ve warned you, Cain, you leave her out of this. Like you should have left Rory out of this.’

A smile flashed across Cain’s lips.

‘Yeah, was it worth it?’

‘Worth what?’

Jason swallowed hard. His face moved closer to Cain’s.

‘Worth sacrificing your friend’s life for your own cause?’ Cain seethed.

Jason clenched his fists.

‘How fucking dare you?’

I began to slide towards the door. I could hear Chuck’s voice like a loudhailer outside celebrating the small victory and I suspected I would be in need of back up.

‘You let your friend die for you, Brah,’ Cain carried on, driven by the anger of having every one of his peers turn against him. ‘You sacrificed him so you could get what you wanted and then when it went wrong you used him as your sympathy vote.’

‘You evil bastard.’

Jason’s breathing was heavy. I reached out for the door handle.

‘You want this title so much you would do anything,’ Cain spat, ‘just like me. You’re just like me, Brah, you just won’t admit it to yourself.’

‘I am nothing like you, you said it yourself.’

Jason grabbed Cain’s T-shirt at the chest. Cain laughed in his face.

‘Oh yeah you’re like me except at the end of this day I will still be the world champion and all this will have been for nothing. Your friend will have died for nothing. Hey, Brah, try not to think about him when you’re catching waves in the place he died.’

I burst out of the door when Cain’s horrible laughter filled the room.

‘Chuck, Ricky, I need your help. Quick!’

The sounds of fists hitting skin and bone escaped from the doorway.

‘Quickly, they’re killing each other.’

Chuck had to physically drag Ricky into the room and slam the door shut to keep out the Press whose ears had pricked up at the word ‘killing’.

Jason had Cain on the floor and his hand was pressed against his throat.

‘Jason, no!’ I cried. ‘Stop it, don’t do this.’

Jason’s face was emotionless. He stared at Cain and squeezed tighter. A gurgle escaped from Cain’s throat and he struggled to release Jason’s steely grasp.

Chuck dived at the pair and released Jason’s grip only to receive a hefty punch to the nose when Cain struggled free. Chuck fell backwards onto the floor and hit his head. He groaned in pain. I shouted at Ricky to get between the two surfers who were too strong for me to separate, but Ricky was rooted to the spot.

‘You’re a bloody cowboy’ – I grabbed his arm – ‘do whatever it is cowboys do. Don’t just stand there like a useless lump.’

‘I can’t,’ he sighed.

I groaned in exasperation and rushed to prise Jason’s hands from Cain whom he now held up against the wall. Jason was like a robot programmed to kill and nothing I said or did succeeded in interrupting his mission.

‘Jason, he’s not worth it, please.’

‘Maybe not,’ he answered mechanically, ‘but Mike is worth it and Rory was worth it. This punk deserves everything he gets.’

Just as Cain’s face turned a dangerous shade of red, he swung his arm and caught Jason on the side of the face. Jason let go and reeled backwards clutching his eye. I screamed and the next thing I knew, they were back wrestling on the ground. One moment Cain was on top punching Jason as if he were a soft pillow, the next Jason had the edge and he was pummelling Cain as if kneading dough.

‘Help your son, Ricky,’ I pleaded, ‘stop this please.’

Chuck was unsteady on his feet and stumbled towards the door to prevent the photographers entering. They could smell a valuable shot a mile away.

‘You sent my brother to jail and the only other brother I had in my life, you sent to his death. I’m gonna kill you,’ Jason hissed.

Cain cried out when Jason’s hands squeezed his throat. I felt a chill of fear and any sense of victory following the surfer vote was erased. Jason was about to lose everything, not just his world title.

‘That’s enough. Let go of him, son,’ Ricky said with chilling calmness.

Jason looked up at Ricky and hesitated long enough to let Cain get the upper hand. Cain scrambled to his feet. Jason followed. Cain swung his arm and Jason ducked.
Cain’s fist connected with Ricky’s hat, which fell to the floor. Ricky ran a hand through his hair and slowly raised his head. Mid-swing Cain’s other fist stopped in the air as if someone had pressed pause. He stared open-mouthed at Ricky. Jason looked from one to other in confusion.

‘You,’ Cain gasped.

His arms dropped lifelessly against his sides.

I stared first at Cain who looked as if he had been mortally wounded. My eyes then moved to Ricky and then to Jason. My hand shot up to my mouth. Instantly I saw what had been nagging at my conscience all along. If Cain was the yin, the black, and Jason was the yang, the white, Ricky was the combination of the two. His body was as lean as Cain’s but as defined as Jason’s. His eyes were a mottled marble of black and silver. The webbed feet all three of them had and the nerve that flickered in their cheeks. The incredible natural surfing ability that surpassed every other surfer who had ever existed in the world and was as rare as if it was indeed the product of genetics. Cain’s shaved head that probably concealed a shock of blond hair he thought that would have hindered his acceptance in a Hawaiian gang. I had looked into the eyes of all three at close proximity and felt an uneasy sense of déjà-vu and now I knew why.

‘You didn’t lose your only other brother, Jason,’ he said sadly, ‘you’re looking at him.’

Cain cried out and Jason fell backwards in shock. Ricky stood between the world’s two best surfers and hung his head like a prisoner resigned to his sentence.

‘Your younger brother didn’t die, Jason. I gave him away when your mother died because I couldn’t face looking into the eyes of the child that had stolen her from me.’

‘No.’

Cain bit hard on his lip and tears welled up in those very eyes.

‘I know it was not your fault, son,’ said Ricky, ‘but the mind does weird things when you lose someone you truly love.’

Now that I could understand.

‘I can’t believe this,’ Jason stuttered.

‘You know from experience that love hurts but look what hatred does. It just creates more hatred. Don’t let that hatred destroy you. It destroys the very soul of life if you let it.’

Cain and Jason were speechless, as was Chuck, which was the first time since I had met him.

‘Holy crap, this is radical shit,’ he mumbled eventually, leaning back against the door nursing a split lip.

‘You boys are natural surfers, you have soul. I’m sorry for the lies and deceit but twenty years had passed before I knew it’ – Ricky looked sadly at Cain – ‘I always followed your life, boy. I never forgot you. I sent you a photo. Did you get it?’

Cain nodded mechanically. He had suddenly changed from an angry warrior into a lost child. I felt a surprising surge of sympathy towards him. Jason may not have had the most luxurious of childhoods but at least he had roots. Cain had been sent away from his brothers through no fault of his own and had gone on to unwittingly destroy one and become the fierce rival of the other. I wondered how different his life would have been if he could have grown up surfing with Jason by his side.

‘That’s why’ – Ricky turned to Jason – ‘I never came to watch you because I knew I would meet Cain. I knew I would see both of you so close yet so far apart and it would kill me.’

I screwed up my eyes as one might do when waiting for a balloon to pop but there was no explosion. There was nothing except a stunned silence that engulfed us all.

It was the booming voice of Rock O’Rafferty over the P.A. system that broke the spell.

‘The contest is about to re-start, ladies and gentlemen and I am happy to announce the reinstatement of Jason Cross.’

A huge cheer erupted from outside the room.

‘Maybe we will get the showdown we all hoped for after all and I would like to bet, ladies and gentlemen, that this will be the biggest showdown yet.’

‘Ironic,’ Chuck tittered to himself, ‘I like it.’

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

There was no time for questions and recriminations. Minutes after finding out they were the closest of blood relations just as they were about to spill that blood, Jason and Cain had to walk out of the room to face their fans, the Press and each other in the most important contest of their lives. Jason had fought to surf the contest and could not delay the proceedings any longer. I suspected neither Jason nor Cain quite knew how to handle the bombshell Ricky had just dropped on them. Surfing a challenging wave like Pipeline where the mind had to be completely focused on the task offered escapism from dwelling on reality. It was nevertheless the ultimate test of their professionalism.

Pipeline was at its dramatic best. By the time we returned to the beach the left-hand barrel was a sheer glass tunnel of noisily churning, fast flowing water. The ‘morning sickness’ created by early morning winds that unsettled the shape of the waves had passed and Pipeline was putting on a show for the crowd of thousands on the beach and millions around the world.

Chuck, Ricky and I helped Wyatt, Izel and Ben down to the high tide line on the beach where they made a camp for the day. They were determined to stay as close to the action as possible and all three were sporting caps they had designed at home with JC13 scrawled across the front. Ricky stayed with them. He had avoided watching his sons in person throughout their careers and, although I was sure he felt tempted to run from the confrontations that would undoubtedly occur after the final, he fulfilled his duty to stay and support. Whom he was cheering for I did not dare ask.

I had been concerned Jason would run out of steam after the extreme events of the day and the previous weeks but when he took to the water it was as if he was operating on autopilot. He surfed every heat with a perfection that surpassed any of his performances throughout the year. His surfing was both fluid and aggressive as if he was throwing every emotion he had into a melting pot to create a recipe for the ultimate surfer. He was focused and careful not to make the kind of mistake that had cost his best friend his life, but he was also powerful and confident. Jason was completely absorbed in the task and, as a result, the spectators and the judges were in awe of his performance. He scored perfect ten after perfect ten. Rory’s memory could not have been honoured to a greater degree.

Cain, however, was clearly struggling to pigeonhole the life-changing information he had just received in order to concentrate on his technique. He made costly mistakes and scraped through heats by the skin of his pure white teeth, often relying on his adversaries to make mistakes. Luckily for him, Cain’s reputation as a fierce competitor preceded him and was enough to make the other surfers nervous. By the time they had realised Cain was not at his usual best, the heat was almost over and Cain had done enough to proceed. At the end of a close-run semi-final, Cain stepped out of the water, dropped his board on the sand and bent over to rest his hands on his knees. Fans crowded around him, jostling for autographs and kisses. I strained my neck to see and caught sight of Cain just as his legs crumpled and he fell heavily onto the sand.

‘Cain Ohana’s in trouble!’ Rock shouted to the lifeguards but by the time they reached him with a stretcher, Cain was back on his feet.

He refused assistance and marched determinedly up the beach as if he had been sent to single-handedly invade a nation.

‘Man, that guy doesn’t know what to do with himself,’ Chuck whistled, cracking open a beer.

Her offered me the bottle.

‘No thanks.’

My stomach twisted nervously. Jason was set to face Cain in the final and we all knew what Cain was capable of when he was angry. I just wanted it all to be over.

‘Be careful, Jason.’

Jason turned to me with his board under his arm and smiled. We were the only two people left in the garden while Chuck and Oli played a game of who could make the loudest and most important sounding telephone calls in the house.