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‘Exactly!’ Danjel pulled a face to suggest that he must be nothing short of creaky. ‘I won’t know what to say to him.’

‘Yes, you will, because you are charming, and so is he. You’ll see. And you only have to stay for supper – then you can go to George’s. I’ve packed your bag, so please now pack your homework too. I’m only letting you stay for the night because you’re working on that project together.’ She checked her wristwatch. ‘Oh, Peter will be here any minute. Pilots are prompt! Come on, get your books and comb your hair, and I’ll check mine.’

He looked at her baffled. ‘Your hair?’

‘Is it all right?’

‘Why are you even asking?’

‘Well, I haven’t seen him in an age. I want to look nice.’

‘You’re beautiful. Papa just doesn’t ever say it. But you know you are.’

‘I don’t, my sweet boy. I never feel it.’

He hugged her. ‘You are the prettiest mother in the whole of Valletta. Everyone says so at school. And you look beautiful in this dress. I’ve never seen you wear it before.’

She blushed, smoothing the pale-pink polka-dot fabric. ‘I got this for my honeymoon,’ she said, but didn’t admit that she’d never got to wear it. If she had, then the first of many bruisings would have shown. Her dress did look lovely, even though it was a wartime dress and less fashionable than those worn by other women – a shirtwaist crossover that tied with a pink ribbon at her hip. Women now had buttons and belts on theirs, but still it was pretty.

Tonight she was wearing it for the man she had always loved, glad that she hadn’t put it on during the three miserable days of her honeymoon.

How far had she fallen that she had no sense of herself? It didn’t help that she always tied up her hair and she mostly wore shapeless clothes each day, not wanting to attract Lawrenz’s sexual attention, if she could help it. She also didn’t want to attract any appreciative glances or whistles from other men. Bitter experience had taught her that it made Lawrenz fly into a rage.

Valentina checked her watch again, feeling ridiculously anxious, and moved to her bedroom to look at her reflection. Her hair was tied back as usual, but in a fit of defiance she undid it, letting it fall loose. She’d washed it, so it was lustrous, and now she used a small clip to hold one side behind her ear. There’d been no time for fashionable pin curls, which she rarely bothered with. She could use a touch of lipstick, and she pinched at her cheeks, preferring not to put on any more make-up and risk Danjel looking at her strangely.

They both heard the knock at the door and met each other in the small hallway.

‘I’ll get it,’ Danjel offered. He seemed excited to have a visitor – any visitor, to their home – who wasn’t a Falzon.

She listened to him open the door, all but holding her breath.

Why was he holding his breath? Peter was feeling nervous, though he wasn’t sure why. He gripped the bottle of wine in his hand and deliberately exhaled.

When Valentina had been a child, he had found her easy to be around, and a pleasant distraction from the horrors of war; she had been so precocious, so direct, and so interested in history and art that he had focused on nurturing those passions in her.

But now she was all grown up. None of her sharp observation had fled with childhood, it seemed. She would let him get away with nothing, he was sure of it. Why did he feel he had something to hide from her?

Peter knocked tentatively on the door next to the bar. He cleared his throat while he waited, straightened his posture and rapped again in a more determined fashion. There was much water beneath the bridge and they were simply two friends reuniting over a meal.

The door opened to reveal the tall, good-looking lad he’d seen in the cathedral.

‘Hello, you must be Danjel?’ Peter held out a hand.

‘Yes.’ The boy looked a little shy but he shook Peter’s hand firmly. He possessed sparkling dark eyes that Peter remembered from his mother as a child.

‘I’m Peter Fox.’

‘The Spitfire pilot.’

‘One and the same. That was a long time ago, though. These days I’m an art historian.’

Danjel nodded. ‘Come in. We’re upstairs.’

Danjel led the way up to a modestly furnished but large apartment. The window shutters were open on a still late afternoon, trying to catch any breath of wind that tumbled its way up Republic Street.

And suddenly there she was, standing before him. He felt curiously unsure of himself, his breath catching in his throat at just how ethereally beautiful she was now, in her own environment, a pretty dress instead of her cleaning clothes. Her smile was tentative, but shyness was not a quality he remembered in her.

‘Valentina,’ he said finally. Hearing the amazement in his tone, he quickly caught himself and turned to Danjel. ‘I knew your mother when she wasn’t so much older than you. This is a bit of a shock, you see.’