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They moved past the city gates, where an area was being prepared for a new fountain that was heralded to become a key landmark at the entrance to the city. Until recently, it had essentially been a pile of rubble, what was left of a seventeenth-century triangular fortification called St Madeleine’s Lunette. This area was now a busy bus terminus and served as a hub for transport to and from the city.

They reached the pick-up point, and she noted a couple of other mothers had come to see off their boys too, so she didn’t feel so conspicuous. Valentina realised she was carrying Danjel’s small holdall. ‘Here, you’d better take this,’ she called to him as he kicked the football deftly to his friend. Danjel approached and took his bag.

‘You be safe,’ she said, kissing his head, rather than giving him the long, heartfelt hug she wanted to. ‘Play brilliantly!’

He grinned. ‘Bye, Mama. See you later.’

And then he was gone, disappearing into the circle of boys being herded onto the bus by one of their coaches. She didn’t wait to wave them off, much as she wanted to, but turned and walked back around the square to the city’s gates to re-enter Valletta.

FOURTEEN

Valentina headed towards St John’s Co-Cathedral, where she was allowed by her controlling husband to work. He permitted this only for the money, and because she worked in isolation, not as part of a team, no male supervisors; otherwise he’d have her clearing tables and cleaning at the bar for nothing.

When she arrived, she went to the storeroom where her cleaning supplies were kept and tied an apron over her simple dress to begin her work. She still couldn’t believe that they’d come to this arrangement. It had taken so much, including the final strength of her dying father, who had stayed alive long enough to exact the promise from both Valentina’s miserable husband and his father, Emman, though neither was comfortable with the plan. For Valentina, though, it was her only escape. Other than her love for Danjel, she had nothing else in her life. It had been the least her father could do; she knew her parents had seen her distress from the moment she was officially married to Lawrenz. Maybe they’d hoped it would pass or that she might get used to life as a Falzon. Or just finally accept and stop fighting it.

The evening before the marriage ceremony, in a flood of tears, she had pleaded with them again to let her out of this merciless contract they’d made. On an evening that should have been joyful, they were all upset – angry, frustrated and fearful in turn. Even Matteo had turned to their parents in her support, but they simply promised her that the marriage would mean a good life for her and her children. The Falzons were prosperous, they repeated, and she would benefit. Money, it was always about money.

There had been no one else to appeal to. Just an aisle to walk down and be handed over to another family.

Her parents meant well, she knew that. But she couldn’t make them see that she preferred poverty and to remain childless to what a life as Lawrenz’s wife promised.

The first night of their marriage – the wedding night – her husband had come to his new bride’s bed drunk. He’d had no care for her naivety or potential pain; no heed for her fear of being with a man for the first time. He had pushed her down onto the bed, nearly ripping the silken nightdress that had been a present from her mother. He’d squeezed her breasts until they ached, and then with no words, just grunts into the silence, he’d forced himself on her, ignoring how her eyes glistened with helpless tears, until he finally sounded a guttural sigh.

‘There you are, Leni. I told you I’d be your first. I’ll also be your last.’ He’d laughed at the spotting of blood as he moved away from her, saying, ‘Good, though I never doubted it. You’re mine now.’ He reached for a nearby glass and gulped more wine before falling asleep in a haze of alcohol.

She’d got up immediately, limping to the bathroom to bathe herself, washing the tender parts of her that no man had ever previously touched. But she’d had no choice but to go back to bed. She’d curled up like a child, placing her hands between her knees as she turned away to weep into the pillow. He was heedless of her presence, snoring loudly. She didn’t care. She’d encourage him to get drunk every night if it might save her.

This was the first of many similar nights that came and went with his moods. While she would never call him tender, he sometimes found some affection for her – certainly in the early years of their marriage – and he’d sometimes cry like an infant at the marks he’d inflicted on her body. And somehow she found not forgiveness – there was none in her heart – but tolerance. That was the only word she had for him. She tolerated him because she had to – in her city, in her religion, there was no way out of a marriage once vows were taken. But she did feel anxiety that whatever tormented him, whatever lies and delusions he entertained about her, would get worse. She hoped that by comforting him, she might send the demons back to wherever it was they hid… for a while anyway, until they came back and overwhelmed him – and her – again.

What else could she do?

Report him.

He seemed to have no control over his moods, his violence, or his need for alcohol that only encouraged the dark thoughts and the paranoia they brought with them.

Valentina soon learned how to force her body to relax into the brutality when it occurred, because to tense or brace only made it worse. She taught herself to disappear in her mind, blocking out the sounds and the scent of Lawrenz and going instead to places that felt safe and wonderful.

The bottom of the sea.

The embrace of her grandmother.

The imaginary arms of Flight Lieutenant Peter Fox.

The cathedral, of course, and the work of Caravaggio.

These days she knew the cathedral and its oratory so well. She had visited it most days since she had first seen the Caravaggio artwork with Peter, all those years ago, and now she knew every spot of light on that canvas, every stroke of darkness, every expression on the faces, to the point where she felt she knew each character like her own family – why they were there, what they wanted, how they felt. She had studied it until she imagined there couldn’t be more to know about it, and yet she was sure that if she sat across from the artist, he would tell her so many aspects she hadn’t yet considered.

She had kept Peter’s book on Caravaggio close over the years until it was dog-eared and battered, reading it cover to cover many times. And she had borrowed others from the library, even asking her brother to send what he could find on art history from Canada, where he’d had the good fortune to emigrate. She had kept up her studies.

Learning was her escape.

Not only did she now know every inch of the cathedral and its stories but she now knew as much as anyone could about the life, times and work of Caravaggio. She knew all of the paintings attributed to him, and those of artists who painted in a similar manner. She dreamed of one day being able to view other Caravaggio originals for herself, hanging on some gallery’s wall. Many of them were in Italy, not so far away – geographically, at least. Was it so far-fetched to imagine that one day she might travel there to see these artworks for herself?

She needed to. It was a promise to herself – her and Danjel. Through her conversations, he too was now helplessly absorbing knowledge of the tormented painter.

Caravaggio echoed her own despair in so many of his paintings. While he did paint some serene scenes, for the most part his themes did not seem to be particularly restful or happy. His depictions often felt full of threat or misery, just like his wretched life that was coloured by jail, violence and death. His paintings were intense and raw, and his masterful play between light and dark reflected the hope and shadows of her own world. On one side was her sun-drenched memory of childhood, of Peter Fox falling out of the sky into her life, and the arrival of Danjel. On the other was the dark abyss of her insufferable marriage to Lawrenz.

And so she felt a kinship to this artist who painted such masterpieces in the seventeenth century, brought into her life through the friendship of Peter Fox. In spite of the artist’s dark life and often dark subjects, he was now her lifeline. Without Caravaggio to keep her interested, there would only be Danjel. And without either of them, she might as well walk into the sea.