Out the back the locals were buzzing: Gordo was in the waves! The four-time state champ and Cnut paddled past him, grizzling about how they’d just had to pinch a two-wave set off a cluster of hungry youngsters; they gave Gordon a down-to-business nod. Tonsure Man issued him a horn sign and set off for his special spot, north of the peak, the sneaky left-hander that would break when a set came with more east in it. Japan Ned flashed his high-beam teeth. Dog, erect on his paddleboard as if walking on water, was too preoccupied with domination to give Gordon more than a terse we’ll-talk-about-this-later glance.

Gordon was sitting on his board, still waveless after twenty minutes, when Firie Sam paddled back after ripping the lip out of a six-foot right-hander running all the way to the front of the BSLSC. There was no need for comment on the likelihood that Gordon wouldn’t have the stamina or hunger, not to mention the rudeness, to drop in and pinch a wave off the pack. His return to the water wasn’t about surfing; it was about information.

Sam had knocked at Gordon’s door in the pre-dawn and harangued him out of bed, bustled him into his wetsuit, pushed him into the Boardroom, manhandled him from The Lodge to the sea on the promise of ‘I need to talk to you and there’s only one place I can do it’. Now they were out here, Sam was avoiding the subject, as if worried that to speak might drive Gordon back into hiding and deprive him of this all-time day. Or maybe Sam needed to surf more than he needed to talk.

‘Why were you sleeping downstairs?’ Sam asked, sitting on his board and catching his breath after six duck-dives paddling out.

‘Carl’s moved into the bunk room. None of me, Ben or Lou want to share with him so we’re all on floors in the other rooms.’

‘Leonie’s room?’

‘Verboten.’

‘Happy families, eh.’

‘Don’t I know it. Here’s another for you if you’re cheeky.’

Backlit by the sun, a steepling wall came through, breaking too wide for the mass of surfers close to the point but finding Sam in perfect position, as he often was. They called it experience, they called it luck, they called it judgement. Gordon called it time: Sam spent so many hours out here, it was statistically certain that he would get good waves, as long as he had the arms to paddle. But to endow him with magical wave-attracting powers made a better story.

‘That was worth it for the look on Dog’s face,’ Gordon said when Sam paddled back out.

‘Happy you’re back on the horse?’ Sam said, pushing up on his board and rubbing his right shoulder.

‘Happy to get out of the house.’

‘I noticed. You look like shit, by the way. Do you sleep at all now?’