‘The Admiral’s son!’
Marija had blinked uncomprehendingly at the other woman.
‘Peter!’ Rosa had gesticulated painfully, jabbing an arm towards the window. A thick lace drape was hung across the old tall window for the sake of the patients’ modesty. ‘Your Peter!’
‘Peter Christopher is not my anything, sister,’ Marija had protested before she had made sense of what her sister-in-law had actually said to her. ‘Where is Peter?’ She had belatedly inquired, sudden consternation furrowing her brow.
‘He’s in the piazza talking to that nice Mister Hannay!’
Marija had guided Rosa to the treatment couch and made absolutely certain that her sister wasn’t about to fall off it before she turned and swallowing hard, pulled back a corner of the curtain and sneaked a look down into St Paul’s Square.
Her heart had almost stopped, and then palpitated insanely.
She had stepped back as if a serpent had reared up in front of her.
Three times she had gone down to the Sliema waterfront and gazed across the Creek at the sleek destroyer. Her Peter had been on that ship. She had hoped to catch a glimpse of him again, but he had been invisible although men walked and clambered over the decks and superstructure constantly. Last night she had seen the welding arcs burning like stars in the near distance, sparks flying in the night. Other destroyers had eased back into the anchorage in the last day. HMS Scorpion flying the Leader’s Pennant, and HMS Aisne, immaculate and complete in every way that HMS Talavera, her war-torn sister ship, was not. Marija had felt so guilty slipping away, staring across the waters when she ought to be on duty at the hospital Mdina or comforting her Mama at home in Sliema. It was one thing for her father to tell her that her Mama had her aunts to watch over her, and that her brother Joe was keeping their spirits up, but her place was…
Where exactly was her place now?
She’d thought her place was to wait for Peter; to explore that indefinable thing which had grown between them over the years, hoping it developed into something so unlikely as to be beyond her girlish dreams. She’d never expected him to come to Malta and sweep her off her feet, to bowl her over with talk of love. But she had hoped he’d be her friend and her companion, a solace in every way he wanted to be, and she to him in whatever ways she was able. Marriage and children had never really figured, but in Peter Christopher she had invested her faith in the future and now all that seemed spoiled, broken and beyond repair. Her elder brother had destroyed the life she’d thought she was living; smashed a hole in it as big as the one in the side of HMS Torquay that bomb had torn two months ago. Like that helpless ship, her hopes and dreams had foundered. If she could have found it in herself she would have hated Samuel; the trouble was that she felt only pity. Pity for him and a bottomless pit of shame for what he had done.
And now Peter was standing not twenty feet from her talking to Admiral Christopher’s flag lieutenant, Alan Hannay!
‘Well, what are you waiting for, sister?’ Rosa had demanded. It was the first time her beaten and demoralised sister-in-law had found her old self, a hint of the proud young woman who had been to the best schools, and never wanted for anything in her privileged upbringing by her wealthy landowning, Old Maltese family.
Marija had stared at her in confusion.
Since Jim Siddall’s death Rosa had opened her soul to her, and she had reciprocated. Rosa had recounted nights when Samuel would toss and turn in bed, cry out in the night, talk insensibly as if he was having a conversation with a mad man. In retrospect she was convinced that some small part of her dead husband had recoiled against the monstrous things he had done, and the murder of so many people. Marija had spoken to Rosa about her childhood injuries, the long journey to becoming the person she had become and how, through even the worst times, Peter Christopher had been her strength.
‘You love that boy!’ Rosa had hissed. ‘What are you thinking of? He’s outside in the piazza! Do something, sister!’
Still Marija had hesitated.
What of her pride?
What of the dishonour she would carry with her like a shroud forever?
How could she face the man she’d spurned thus far?
What must he think of her?
After all these years and after what he had been through in the last couple of months; whatever must he think of her for spurning him so cruelly?
Her feet were rooted to the floor.
‘Go sister!”
Suddenly, she had been stumbling and rushing, unsteadily down the stone steps to the ground floor. She had burst out into the watery sunshine of the winter morning.
But Peter had gone!
She’d panicked, desperately looked around.
Peter was walking with Alan Hannay, they seemed deep in conversation.
Marija opened her mouth to call; no sound came forth. She waved at the retreating backs of the two men. People in the piazza gave her odd looks: What was the young woman in the pale blue nursing uniform doing?
The footing within the Citadel — old uneven cobbles — was particularly treacherous for her; not a problem normally because she would walk at her own pace. Attempting to hurry within the Citadel she always ended up her throwing out her arms to maintain her balance as if she was a tight-rope walker in a high wind, or stepping so close to the high walls that she could at any moment extend an arm to stop herself taking a tumble.
However, the two men were striding out, in a moment they would have turned the corner out of St Paul’s Square into Villegaignon Street.
‘Peter!’ She called, hardly a sound escaping her dry throat.
She was panicking now.
Losing sight of the two men she began to run.
Marija Calleja hadn’t run since that day that German bomb had entombed her and her little brother, Joe, in the cellar in Birgu on that terrible afternoon in 1942. In her dreams she often imagined running across a road, a field, down a beach into the sea; but she’d never actually run since that day when she had dragged her infant brother into the illusory shelter of that dreadful place of death. They had been literally snatched off the street by neighbours, taken inside as the first deafening explosions tore through the surrounding buildings…
That was the last time Marija had tried to run.
Until today, over twenty years later…
She had been running before she knew what she was doing.
Her feet seemed to be flying.
And then she was flying…
‘Marija, sweetheart!’ Margo Seiffert had repeated, worriedly. That was odd because nothing ever really worried Margo.
Why am I lying on the ground?
Marija had blinked at her mentor and friend, the woman whom her own Mama called ‘your second Mama’ with sincere sisterly fondness and adoration. She realised her face was wet, sticky and she felt a little nauseas. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick. She must have blacked out for a few seconds because strong arms were carrying her inside the hospital the next time she slipped into and out of consciousness. Shortly afterwards, she had been very, very sick. Mostly on herself.
That was yesterday.
Even though she hadn’t been sick since last night, this morning Margo and women who she had previously regarded as friends, had steadfastly refused to allow her to get out of bed, other than to pay closely supervised but necessary calls of nature.