I've always been terrified to look further than that. She sat over him,
cross-legged in the big bed and touched him, exploring him with her
hands, touching his lips and the lobes of his ears, smoothing the thick
dark curve of his eyebrows, the little black mole on his cheek, and
exclaiming at each new discovery.
She touched him when they walked, reaching for his hand, pressing her
hip against him when they stood, on the beach sitting between his spread
knees and leaning back against his chest, her head tucked into his
shoulder - it was as if she needed constant physical assurance of his
presence.
When they sat astride their boards, waiting far out beyond the
three-mile reef for the set of the wave, she reached across to touch his
shoulder, balancing the board under her like a skilled horsewoman, the
two of them close and spiritually isolated from the loose assembly of
thirty or forty surf -riders strung out along the line of the long set.
This far out, the shore was a low dark green rind, above the shaded
green and limpid blues of the water. In the blue distance, the
mountains were blue on the blue of the sky and above them, the
thunderheads piled dazzling silver, tall and arrogant enough to dwarf
the very earth.
This must be the most beautiful land in the world, she said, moving her
board so that her knee lay against his thigh.
Because you are here, he told her.
Under them, the green water breathed like a living thing, rising and
falling, the swells long and glassy, sliding away towards the land.
Growing impatient, one of the inexperienced riders would move to catch a
bad swell, kneeling on the board and paddling with both hands, coming up
unsteadily on to his feet and then toppling and falling as the water
left him, and the taunts and friendly catcalls of his peers greeted him
as he surfaced, grinning sheepishly, and crawled back on to his board.
Then the ripple of excitement, and a voice calling, A three set! the
boards quickly rearranging themselves, sculled by cupped bare hands,
spacing out for running room, the riders peering back eagerly over their
dark burned shoulders, laughing and kidding each other as the wave set
bumped up on the horizon, still four miles out at sea, but big enough so
that they could count the individual swells that made up the set.
Running at fifty miles an hour, the swells took nearly five minutes,
from the moment when they were sighted, to reach the line, and during
that time Samantha. had a little ritual of preparation, First, she
hoisted the bottom of her bikini which had usually slipped down to
expose a pair of dimples and a little of the deep cleft of her buttocks,
then she tightened her top hamper, pulling open the brassiere of her
costume and cupping each breast in turn, settling it firmly in its
sheath of thin green cloth, grinning at Nick as she did it.
You're not supposed to watch. I know, it's bad for my heart. Then she
plucked out a pair of hairpins and held them in her mouth as she twisted
the wrist-thick plait of hair tighter until it hung down between her
shoulder blades and pinned back the wisps over her ears.
All set? he called, and she nodded and answered, Ride three? The third
