Page 6

Here they came.

Those at the shore reached out to lift the slumped pilot from the boat onto dry land, where he flopped, lifeless, on the stone pavers, blood immediately staining it, life jacket enough to stop him from drowning but not to fully protect him, it seemed.

She heard mutters that he hadn’t made it, sighs of soft despair that another brave aviator, trying to protect their country, was gone. Valentina muscled her way through to the front as his leather helmet was pulled off, revealing hair that was plastered to his head with seawater and blood from a deep gash. She couldn’t make out his features, which were distorted by rivulets from his bleeding wound, but even so he looked like a perfectly sculpted statue.

Her Apollo. Golden, chiselled, heroic.

Someone felt for a pulse and they began pulling away his life jacket and then ripping open his uniform below to listen to his heart. Someone else started performing lifesaving resuscitation, lifting the pilot’s arms above his head to ‘open up his lungs’, and then they crossed his hands and pressed them to his tanned chest to expel air. They repeated this frequently, hoping to encourage him to breathe.

A woman took out her handkerchief. Valentina thought it was to dab at the tears she was crying on behalf of the dead airman, but instead the kindly soul used it to tend to the wound on his head.

Valentina followed suit, using the skirt of her cotton dress to wipe the man’s features as best she could. She would have some explaining to do to her mother, who worked so hard to keep her children’s clothes fresh, clean and ironed. As the airman’s face was revealed, Valentina felt her heart give a new and curious thump, so loud she wondered if others had heard it, but no one paid her any heed.

That thump continued, echoing in her ears, pounding at her temples, a loud percussion through her body. She swallowed on a dry throat as her gentle ministrations revealed his closed eyes with gold-tipped lashes that lay against his cheek. She would never know what possessed her, but she bent and kissed his blood-streaked forehead.

Women around her gasped. ‘Valentina Camilleri!’ one admonished her.

‘I’m thanking him from all of us for his bravery,’ Valentina lied, knowing with hot embarrassment that she had simply had to touch skin to skin. Besides, someone had to say goodbye to him properly. How sad for him to die without a parting kiss.

But for Valentina, it was so much more than a farewell. She already knew she was in love with the handsome pilot, even if he was dead.

He was hers. Hers from the moment he’d broken away from his group to fight solo… for the people of Valletta… for her.

This was a man she could marry, not a boy like Robertu, or his brother, who she didn’t entirely trust.

No. She knew love now. And she was in love with a pilot who’d given his last breath for her and her people. She reached to clutch his dead fingers in hers and cast a prayer for a miracle.

THREE

One of the doctors came scuttling down from the hospital, and Valentina figured it would be to officially pronounce the pilot dead.

She was still holding his large, cold hand in hers, refusing to be pushed out the way as the doctor approached, and she bent closer to study the fallen pilot. He must have been glorious in life, because even in this state he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. To see this rangy, slim-hipped, golden-haired man up close was exciting. What a tragedy to lose his life so young, when his bright hair was still thick. His eyes were shut, so she couldn’t tell their colour, but the lashes were long, like a tiny, fringed curtain that had closed on his life’s performance.

‘Turn him over. Put pressure on his back,’ came the doctor’s advice. It all felt conflicting to Valentina.

What she wanted to do was find a way to blow air into the drowned pilot’s lungs. The obvious way was through the mouth. She’d read or heard something about this and realised it would be the perfect excuse to kiss him repeatedly on the mouth. She was glad no one could hear these wicked thoughts of hers; if her mother knew, she might take off her sandal and smack her as she did Valentina’s brothers. If only her mother knew that boys didn’t interest Valentina all that much – they were mostly oafish with nothing of interest to say, or they were too sweet, like Robertu. But she was captivated by the foreigners, especially the pilots who came to the bar. They weren’t boys. They were men.

Oh, how her mother would carry on if Valentina ever admitted aloud how much she loved their cheerful bravado and their silly nicknames like Daffy or Bunty, their big smiles and fair-haired looks, their knowledge of life beyond this island and, above all, their freedom. She envied their masculinity because it gave them automatic rights. She didn’t want to be a man herself, but she wanted the same freedoms they had.

Valentina realised she was still holding the pilot’s large hand and she suddenly feared that someone would tell her mother she’d kissed him.

She hated that her father was talking to Emman Falzon about the long-planned marriage between his son, Lawrenz, and her. And now Robertu was telling her that the actual date was an open conversation in his home between his parents. Ugh, it was terrifying. She didn’t like Lawrenz; he was so moody. He could be charming, but it never lasted. He was certainly good-looking – she’d seen other girls noticing his brooding dark looks – but she’d grown up alongside him, even though he was two years older, and knew him too well. His moods often turned into a sulk and then cruelty, just as easily as they could turn into cheerfulness and smiles. She didn’t trust that capriciousness.

Valentina herself felt as though she woke in the same general mood each day. Of course something good or happy might make her smile, a jest could make her laugh and a criticism could make her self-conscious or defensive, but essentially she kept an even mood. Lawrenz, though, could be a different person from one day to the next. Sometimes he was incredibly kind to her and their peers, while other times he preferred the language of his fists to communicate, often getting into fights with his classmates.

Lawrenz had never struck her – he wouldn’t want to, because when they were younger she’d have belted him straight back – but what about when he was older and much stronger? That idea was daunting, because his father had a solid, powerful frame and Lawrenz was like him in many ways.

Valentina had begun to wonder if there was actually something wrong with Lawrenz. Given there was every likelihood he was to be her husband, she’d felt it was more than appropriate to speak to her mother about her concern one recent afternoon as she followed her mother along the tunnels on their way to get food.

‘Your father says he’s a good match for your feisty manner, Leni.’ Her mother was always ruled by what Valentina’s father determined, and he had determined that Lawrenz’s less pleasant characteristics were simply those of a boy growing into a man.

‘They’re all like this,’ her mother had echoed. ‘You know, all that swagger, showing off how tough they are. They have to do it.’

‘Why?’

Her mother looked at her, exasperated. ‘It’s the same in the animal world. The young males fight each other, and then they fight the older males.’

Valentina didn’t have to conjure her own exasperation; she was permanently in that frame of mind when it came to Lawrenz and their parents’ plans. ‘So you’re saying it’s nature’s way?’