Page 12

They lived in two underground rooms. They were fortunate; their ‘cave’ was spacious by comparison to many others, but then there were three children to sleep on rough bedding on the hard floors. They made one room a communal bedroom for the family. The other was general living space that included the tiny cooking area with their precious kerosene stove. Some families hunted for wood for cooking, but there was always the threat of suffocation. Her mother generously allowed other women to use the portable stove’s controllable flame for safe food preparation too. Everyone feared fire or smoke inhalation underground.

She helped tidy their living space alongside her mother, in a sullen mood.

Where they now lived underground was always damp, always smelled ripe with the odours of bodies, of not quite dry clothes, of the ghastly latrines that were little more than buckets behind curtains in the dugouts… and of fear. The smoke from spluttering candles placed in small coves gouged out of the walls made her cough, and she longed to be outside again, or at least helping her father in the bar. Some shops, bars and restaurants were allowed to open three days a week, but most could barely afford to open their doors for that small amount of time, when once it had been six days a week.

‘Is it true we’re not serving any sort of food any more?’ Valentina asked. They were mostly existing on meagre rations, drinking minestra, which was known as widow’s soup.

‘I can barely make pastizzi for us to eat right now, let alone for patrons. No, it’s just alcohol now, Leni, and perhaps some olives.’

‘So what will you do?’

Her mother shrugged. ‘I’ll clean glasses, keep the bar tidy and clean for your father. And I’ll keep us clean and fed as best I can. I might take in some laundry.’

‘And me?’

‘Who knows when school will open again? Until then you can help with any laundry I can take on, and you can clear and wash glasses at the bar for us.’

She didn’t let her mother hear the sigh that escaped her. The threat of stopping school permanently brought intense alarm, but she had the good sense of mind to say nothing right now while emotions were high. Perhaps her pilot could speak to her parents and let them know how important her study was for the future.

Art will set you free.

She’d liked that.

‘Will you come with me to visit the pilot?’ she asked her mother now.

‘No. But you have my permission to check on him in a couple of days, and make sure you have him come and visit your father’s bar. We need every bit of business we can get from the foreigners. He can bring his friends too.’

‘Can I go now?’

‘You can run some errands for me. I want you first to go to Mrs Zammit and…’ Valentina heard the words, knowing what was expected, but barely focused on them. It was the usual. Take this, fetch that, pass on this. A wave of her mother’s hand signalled that Valentina could leave, now clutching various notes. And in her mind, a memorised message.

Valentina fled the tunnels with relief, leaving behind the coughs, the raised voices of people’s frustrations in crammed situations, the cries of babies and the unpleasant smells of people having to live cheek by jowl. She ran from the suffocating dust that collected everywhere, especially after each air raid that shook the earth when bombs were dropped. She would do her mother’s errands, but she had one of her own now too.

FOUR

Flight Lieutenant Peter Fox was beginning to feel the full effects of his bale-out. Adding to his misery was the thought of his trusty Spitfire. It had burned and crashed somewhere into the sea in a fiery farewell that lit the sky above him as he fell slowly through the air, suspended from his parachute.

He now fully appreciated the importance of his life jacket, the one that he and his fellow pilots often moaned about because it felt uncomfortable and tended to be in the way. But it had saved his life, keeping him afloat when he’d hit the water unconscious. The next thing he remembered was two pairs of hands reaching out to haul him into a boat. There he had drifted in and out of awareness, the sun piercing his gaze when his eyes fluttered open, all the time the murmur of men’s voices and the slap of water against the rocking boat’s sides.

His most vivid memory, apart from that moment when he’d tilted the plane, knowing it was bale or die, was of the huge, earnest eyes of an intense child who had stared at him with such concerned concentration that he couldn’t help but smile… and then wink, if his memory served him right. It shocked him that he’d been so playful in the least playful moment of his life. Certainly his new existence as an RAF pilot had taught him to loosen up from his usual manner. It had interrupted his career as lecturer on the history of art, specialising in the work of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. But what a prize, to be posted to Valletta, where one of the artist’s most famous paintings hung. He had written to his boss, who had replied with envy, about his proximity; although frankly, no one in their right minds would want this job.

And yet enough of them were based here.

Each day that he flew, he knew it could so easily be his last; they all did. For some reason this didn’t bother him. Somehow he was happier flying into danger than he’d ever been at home; life in England couldn’t begin to touch the excitement he felt when the siren went off and it was time to meet the enemy.

He didn’t dwell on the survival rate, which some clever clogs had mooted was perhaps just over two weeks in these conditions. There was no point at all pondering that statistic. One careless decision, one error in skill or one moment pushing the plane too hard meant death, but he’d now defied death and survived its lure here in Malta for a month. He’d already been in a frightening number of aerial dogfights, but this was the first he’d lost. Not through recklessness, but because of the skill of his opponent, he had to admit. He’d realised very quickly that he was in the presence of a powerful talent and it was going to take every trick in his book to outsmart the German… maybe it was one of the legendary aces? Or maybe he had won simply by refusing to die.

His Spitfire, though, had paid the price.

Peter sighed and shifted his weight in the hospital bed where he lay, regretting it instantly. His body was six-foot-four of pain; he imagined all the bruises finding one another, coalescing into one ever-purpling contusion, harmonising into one overarching song of agony. Then there was the throb of broken bones; this was a mournful drumbeat, the sort that follows a funeral or marks an army marching to war.

His ankle had turned out to be the least of his injuries – badly sprained, but it would heal fast once the swelling began to go down. A dislocated shoulder, broken ribs and two fractured fingers, however, would keep him out of the air. How had all that happened? He frowned, squinting out of the window of his small room. Ah. It wasn’t hitting the water, which had been reasonably gentle. It was during the bale-out that he’d sustained those injuries, first smashing awkwardly against the side of the cockpit as he released its locks, and then he had deliberately tilted the plane to help himself fall out. He recalled hitting his head against the side too, cutting it badly enough that the blood flow ensured he could see nothing of his descent.

He’d asked the doctor, already knowing the answer.

‘You won’t be flying anytime soon,’ was the honest response.

But Peter had no intention of lying in a hospital bed for very much longer. Besides, he didn’t like that he’d been given the special treatment of his own room. They were embarrassing him with their extra care and fuss, and he didn’t want the locals grumbling. He wasn’t one for such attention.