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Valentina shuddered. ‘What did he mean by that?’

Robertu shrugged again. ‘He didn’t explain, but he gave me this strange smile. Honestly, he looked evil in that moment.’ He paused. ‘If you want, I can tell you a secret.’

‘About Lawrenz?’

‘Well, about our family, but it was Lawrenz who told me.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘You have to promise you’ll never repeat it to anyone – not your brothers and definitely not your parents.’

‘Why are you telling me?’

‘I really shouldn’t.’

‘Then don’t,’ she said, meaning it.

‘I want to. I’ve never told anyone.’

She waited. He seemed keen to unload the weight of the secret.

‘Lawrenz said he has seen my father hitting my mother.’

‘No,’ she said, frowning. ‘I don’t believe that.’

‘That’s what he told me. And it wasn’t just once. He said it used to happen a lot when I first came along. He was very young, but his memory is good and he described it all as though he was seeing it again vividly in his mind.’

Valentina was horrified. ‘Does it still happen?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen it myself. I can’t really believe it, but he does. He said it used to frighten him, but now he thinks it’s probably happening in everyone’s houses.’

‘I can assure you it doesn’t happen in ours,’ Valentina said, mortified.

That conversation had done it for her, solidified her view that she didn’t want to be married to someone so unpredictable. She didn’t want to be married at all! She found the idea unnerving, especially as she didn’t love him – or anyone – romantically.

Until now, of course.

Now she knew what love felt like, and it was with her whole heart, her mind, her soul. If she was ever going to marry someone, she wanted it to be like that. But according to her parents, the Falzon family was ideal for her to marry into, with their successful bars. She knew how to serve in a bar, to prepare food, and she knew Lawrenz, had grown up alongside him in Valletta. What more could she want? That was her father’s rationale, anyway.

In his mind it was a perfect match.

In her mind it was pure horror.

Again, she had the thought: if it had to be a Falzon, why couldn’t it be Robertu? At least she liked him. But she’d tried that approach recently with no success.

‘They want his older brother married first,’ her mother had counselled.

‘What does that matter?’

‘It does,’ Stella had replied with finality. ‘It’s not right.’

Surely Lawrenz couldn’t be her future. Valentina would have to find a way to change their mind. Her only hope was that the war’s effects might change her father’s plans for her.

Valentina was startled from her musings when the seemingly dead pilot suddenly let out an enormous cough, spluttering up water. He rolled off his stomach and to one side, still coughing, as onlookers gasped with surprise. Valentina felt her eyes welling with tears of relief; her prayers had been answered. A miracle had occurred, and her pilot was alive. Perhaps he would offer to marry her!

He lay on his back again and his eyes, she discovered now as they fluttered open, were the blue-grey of the sea that surrounded her home at sunset on a wintry day.

He gazed directly at her.