Page 71 of The Art Lovers

‘I’ll have a Cisk, please,’ he said, opting for the local lager that he and his fellow pilots had drunk heartily during their downtime.

She returned a few minutes later with an ice-cold lager the colour of honey and slipped a chit underneath the ashtray he did not need, though he often felt embarrassed about that; it seemed every other man and even women smoked these days.

Taking the first sip, he gave a soft sigh of pleasure, revelling in the familiar, slightly bitter flavour cooling his throat. He wasn’t the only person drinking alcohol. Bright cocktails glinted in the sun on other tables, and he felt somehow restored to see people relaxing, laughing.

Peacetime and spring warmth. What a joy it was.

He hadn’t fully felt this pleasure at home. Sure, there had been plenty of celebration up and down the country, but there was also so much pain of loss. So many who’d almost made it home or who might have made it home if only peace had been declared a few months earlier. Even so, the country had collectively rejoiced that the years of war were behind it.

For Peter, it had simply been relief that there would be no more pilots to train and send to their death. He’d felt the loss of each keenly, often hearing about their demise weeks after they hadn’t returned from their flights. Some had died on their first mission, while others became more seasoned, but still they died. Some survived. What a lottery. He was part of it too, a survivor who had felt the love and support of a city cheering for his return to health. One of the lucky ones.

So many hadn’t had his luck. And he felt responsible.

Had he trained them sufficiently?

Had they had enough time to feel confident in the cockpit?

Had anyone given them a choice?

While the country was flinging hats in the air and having street parties, he had sat alone inside his family home, brooding over how many lives he felt responsible for. He could recall every German fighter pilot he’d bested and sent to their death, and he knew the name of every young gun he’d trained, could still see the gleam in their eyes that he’d had too.

It was a heavy burden and yet here, he realised, since arriving, he hadn’t felt that weight. For the first time since peace had been declared, his heart felt lighter. It was probably at least partly the luxurious feeling of freedom from his colourless marriage. But most of all it was a feeling of sudden weightlessness. The spring winds off the Mediterranean Sea had blown away years of dullness and delivered him back to a time and a place where he was that laughing version of himself. The person who smiled at everyone, who charmed everyone in his orbit, who had a bit of the devil in him, which had made him such a daring pilot, and who loved life… who actually participated in it.

He realised now, as he sipped the local beer in the shade and people-watched, that for the past dozen or so years he had allowed himself to be simply carried along with the tide of time.

But this special project had sort of stopped time – well, interrupted it at least – and woken him up from the sleepwalk of the past years. Now he had purpose, he had pleasure, he had excitement and a familiar but fresh climate to adjust to, and the chance to think, perhaps even plan for a better life when he finally returned home.

‘I love my work,’ he muttered beneath his breath, needing to say this aloud, even if it was unheard by anyone else. ‘But I need to love life too.’ He drained the glass. So here’s to a new life. New beginnings, he toasted privately, and sighed as he swallowed the last delicious, foamy drop.

‘Another one, sir?’ the waitress offered. She obviously kept a close eye on the patrons. Maybe her family owned the bar, or maybe she was paid based on the amount of alcohol she moved across the tables.

He smiled, finding a brightness he remembered having mislaid for years. ‘Why not? Thank you,’ he said, letting his warmth drift over her. She returned it with a coquettish smile of her own. She was younger than him, about thirty. Was that too young? Not that he was in the market for that sort of company just yet… but soon, perhaps.

She left him but was soon back, balancing another shimmering glass of Valletta’s finest, some of the foam dripping alluringly down the side of the glass. Another chit replaced the original.

‘Thank you,’ he said in Maltese.

‘You’re most welcome,’ she replied in her language, seemingly impressed that he spoke her tongue. She probably spoke his better than he spoke hers.