“All those things you’re saying about me—selfish, ruthless—listen, if I hadn’t been like that, I would never have become a great surfer.”

She backed away, laughing, and her laugh shocked him—it was a hoot of defiance he’d not expected, and he raised his arms as though to deflect its mocking sound.

“You’re no bleeding way a great surfer,” she said. “Eddie was great. Kelly’s great. Garrett’s great. And you—you’re a good surfer. You told me you lost your endorsements a few years ago, when you stopped cooperating. You got lucky at Nazaré. Then you got lazy, and now you don’t surf at all. There are plenty of guys like you on the North Shore. Plenty in the world.”

“How many of them surfed big days at Waimea?”

She didn’t laugh this time to caution him. She whispered instead, saying, “The last time you surfed Waimea you got pushed under the wave. You nearly drowned.”

As though slapped by her, Sharkey sat down on the floor and held his head, seeing only a swirl of bubbles, the dimming light in the depths of the wave, a growing sense of helplessness as it darkened.

“No one knows you,” Olive said, unrelenting. “Though I know more than most people. And this man—the man you killed—all we know are the few facts of his life that anyone could find out on the Internet. A lot of them don’t fit together. Born in a kiss-me-arse town. Then the army. Then school and a business and a big speeding ticket. A ton of money. And the next thing we know is he’s riding a bike in the rain, drunk and stoned, just like you, at Waimea.”

Still holding his head, Sharkey said, “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry.”

“We don’t know this man—we really don’t know anything.” She knelt and embraced Sharkey, holding his head, consoling him in a way that killed his desire yet comforted him, more like a mother than a lover. “We need to know.”

“It was an accident,” Sharkey said, moaning, his mind still on the man on the bike in the rain.

“Think of what we don’t know,” Olive said, not scolding now but spirited, with a hint of promise, as though beginning a folktale. “The missing years. Between making a fortune on the mainland and ending up homeless in Hawaii.”

“Lots of stoners come from the mainland and end up on the beach here.”

“When did he come? Where did he live? What did he do here? Who did he know? What happened to all his money?” Still holding him, she let this sink in. “Maybe he was married. If so, did he have children, and where are they, and do they know he’s dead?”

Sharkey said, “Maybe he was like me. No wife. No kids.”