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Loves Me, Loves Me Not
The Malta Option
‘I want to talk!’
Alicia angled her white lacy hat against the glare of the sun. ‘We’re talking.’
‘Only because I followed you to Malta!’ Grant, unwisely for one who disliked hot countries, wasn’t wearing a hat. His dark hair lay damp against his forehead.
‘We could have talked when I was in England,’ she observed reasonably. She fixed her eyes on a bright orange bus chugging through lots of other orange buses and past the horse-drawn carriages called karozzini. Hordes of people milled around the Triton Fountain in the centre of the terminus and the air rang with voices.
The sun was a demon in Malta in July and no one with any sense stood out in it like this. She fanned herself with the big soft-cover book about the history of the Malta Railway. She’d bought it to read this afternoon in the gardens. She kept herself af loat financially at the moment by writing articles about Malta: travel, historical, profiles of Maltese opera singers and snooker players. Her father had been Maltese; she was fascinated by the rocky island, so it was a labour of love.
‘But you were having a hideous time,’ she allowed, softening.
He gazed down into the Great Ditch over the metal railings that edged the bridge to the city gate. Here and there shrubs had seeded themselves into crevices in the mighty ramparts of Valletta, the honey-coloured citadel. ‘What’s going on, Alicia? You’ve abandoned your life, your family, your friends. You’ve been here for weeks—how long before you come home?’
‘Months, probably. But I hope for even a year or two.’
The shadow of stubble hollowed his cheeks and his eyes were very blue. He clenched his fist. ‘A year? I’ve been wrapped up in myself, I know, but I thought you’d understand why. That you’d wait.’
Between them hung the memory of that ghastly day when everything had changed, when he’d arrived at her door, red-eyed and desperate. ‘The doctors say Robbie hasn’t got long. It’s just a matter of time.’
Even now, she wanted to stroke his face, to kiss the sad lines from his mouth. Place her cheek against the hardness of his chest and hear his heart beat. ‘I did understand! I do. Having to watch Rob—you must’ve been out of your mind with grief when the diagnosis was leukaemia. I realise it became impossible for you to leave as you’d promised. I waited as long as I could.’
Grant touched the hot skin of her arm. ‘When Rob died I was in hell. In a black place inside myself. Michelle and me didn’t even pretend that the marriage was worth saving once he’d gone.’ His voice shook. ‘But I wasn’t ready to let myself be happy with you. I needed time.’
‘Of course!’ Alicia sighed. But time could be so elusive.
She wished desperately that she was alone in the air-conditioned apartment she rented in Sliema, across Marsamxett Harbour. If she began to cry here, with him, she’d never stop. Her arms would wind around him; she’d press herself against the warmth of his body and plead with him to stay with her for the rest of her life. Time! It seemed so simple to him, to let time heal.
But she mustn’t cry! Instead, she shoved her book under his nose. ‘Did you know a railway used to run right here? Under the city? Under our feet? It came out in Freedom Square, by The Opera House.’
He flinched. ‘A railway?’
She scrabbled through the pages of old photographs. ‘Right here! Look, below us, on the floor of the ditch, you see that platform and the railings—that was the station! Amazing, isn’t it? It ran underground from here and came out in Floriana by another big gateway, the Portes des Bombes, about a kilometre away. Look at this photo, look at the city gate. You can see it’s the same place, can’t you? Even if it’s eighty years since the railway shut down.’ Her voice was shrill. She sounded like a phoney. But at least she wasn’t crying.
Slowly, he glanced from the photograph to the ditch, to the gate and back to the page. ‘Yes. I suppose you’re right. It’s the same place.’
‘Isn’t it fascinating? Steam trains beneath the rock. There must’ve been ventilation shafts everywhere. I think it’s extraordinary.’
He wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘I suppose it looks romantic in the black and white photos, all those upright old guys in suits and hats and women in the black costume—’
‘The faldetta. Also called the ghonella. It was the traditional costume—’
He shoved the book into her bag. ‘Alicia! Really, it’s not extraordinary. Few things are! The railway was part of everyday life then, and the remains are part of the scenery now. That tunnel down there has been turned into a garage. The platform is just an empty block of stone.’
She wriggled her hands free. ‘I think it’s extraordinary, the way the remnants have survived. I’m going down to look at it.’
He called after her. ‘It’s just a piece of rock! The island’s made of the stuff!’
She halted suddenly, seeing it through his eyes. An abandoned platform and a couple of blocked off tunnels. Anger rose inside her like a swarm of bees. ‘Well, I’ll show you something that is extraordinary, then!’
She marched away through the teeming bus station, threading through queues at the kiosks for fig rolls with their fragrance of oil and honey, following the foot of another level of fortifications.
He came up behind her. ‘This is madness in this heat, Alicia. Let’s go somewhere cool. We must talk. I need to make you understand what I went through.’
But she did! Her heart had broken for him and once she’d thought she would wait forever. Funny how forever had changed.
She led him down a zigzag path with a battered signpost to the Lascaris War Rooms. ‘It will be cool in here. This little tunnel is cut right from the rock, look, and it goes down and down.’ Their footfalls echoed down the hewn steps as they descended through the tunnels, emerging here and there into the fresh air, only to turn and enter another level. At the entrance to the war rooms she paid for them both in euros and they were given small cassette players to provide a commentary. ‘It’s a complex of rocky cells that housed the military operations command for naval movement in the Mediterranean during the Second World War.’
Every time Grant tried to speak, Alicia jumped in with a fascinating fact. ‘This was actually Montgomery’s office.’ She showed him a tiny chamber with a tin desk and filing cabinet. ‘And the next was Eisenhower’s. They could look over into the operations room below and see where their ships were on that enormous map.’ Mannequins garbed in dated woollen uniforms representing the service personnel of more than sixty years before stared glassily at the chart.
‘I see.’ He remained one pace behind, his cassette player clutched, unused, in his hands as she drifted from room to room, up and down stairs.
They reached the end of the tour and handed back the hardware. ‘So, wasn’t that an extraordinary place?’ she demanded.
He shrugged.
They climbed back up through the network of tunnels and, finally, the zigzag path. Alicia rushed them along like tourists from a cruise ship, trying to devour the city in an afternoon. ‘We’re really close to the Upper Barracca Gardens, here—you’ll never have seen a view like it.’
He’d stopped trying to talk and she was glad. His hurt was so much easier to deal with when he wasn’t wringing her heart with his words. They sweated their way up to the gardens and he strode beside her, surly as a bear, fidgeting while she bought bottles of ice-cold water. She took him to the viewing rail at which other tourists hung, oohing and aahing at the beauty and magnificence of Grand Harbour below them with its five creeks of clear blue sea dancing blindingly in the sunshine, the wakes of every vessel, from tiny motorboats to cruise liners, crisscrossing the waves. ‘There,’ she breathed. ‘How about that? The extraordinary only takes a little looking for.’
Even Grant in a black mood couldn’t quite ignore the majesty of Grand Harbour. He watched the boats and gazed at the cities on the other shore and let the breeze ruffle his hair, sipping from the bottle of cold water. She settled beside him at the railings.
Without warning, he dipped his head and kissed her with cold, watery lips.
‘No!’ She jumped back. And then, seeing his hurt, ‘Grant, I’m sorry—’
‘It’s OK. I get it. I shouldn’t have just turned up here.’ He was already walking away, defeat in the slope of his shoulders.
She turned back to the view, the sea and the boats and the buildings melting together as her eyes filled. Better to let him go. Better in the long run. Fishing tissues from her bag with shaking hands, she blew her nose, hard.
And, because her heart was breaking, she murmured, ‘Grant, darling, it’s only because I’m ill!’ But she was careful to say it only under her breath.
Then, suddenly, his hand was on her arm. ‘What?’ He spun her to face him. ‘What do you mean, ill?’
Heart pounding, she shook her head, unable to speak through a throat rigid with sobs. She hadn’t meant him to hear. Had she?
‘How ill?’ He uncapped her bottle of water and lifted it to her mouth.
‘Pretty ill,’ she managed. She brushed his hair out of his eyes tenderly. ‘Too ill.’
Despite the heat of the day, he was white, not red like so many of the laughing, smiling tourists clicking away at the panorama and each other. ‘I can’t play guessing games. Not about illness. Please tell me.’
She sighed. ‘It started with a lump.’ She indicated her breast, the time bomb she carried under her T-shirt, the nightmare in her bra, the enemy. ‘Breast cancer. Like Mum. Like Ginny.’
They took the ferry back to Sliema and trailed up the hill in silence. Dust gathered itchily between her bare toes. Once, he put his arm around her to prevent her from being bustled from the narrow pavement, but mainly they walked through the streets without touching.
Her apartment was small but comfortable with a shower room, a lounge with a kitchen at one end and a bedroom. She didn’t have much with her: summer clothes, some books, her laptop and MP3 player. She didn’t need much. She spent a lot of her time reading books about the history or rattling off on a bus to visit catacombs, the hypogeum, the cliffs, the churches, to drink Marsovin wine or eat pastizzi. She hadn’t told any of her Maltese relatives that she was here. She needed time alone.
She brought iced water to him on the blue leather sofa.
He put it down untouched. ‘You’ve seen doctors?’
‘Doctors. Consultants. I’ve had the scans and the biopsy.’
With a groan he pulled her down against his body. ‘God, Alicia! Why you? Why now? I can’t believe it.’
Despite her intentions, she allowed herself to remain in his arms. A few precious minutes! To sag against him, take comfort from his sweet familiarity. ‘You know that so much is hereditary. My mother died of breast cancer and my sister—’ She swallowed. ‘Ginny is dying.’
His arms tightened and she enjoyed the sensation of captivity, the weight, the heat, even though it burned to have her breast flattened against his ribcage. He curled himself around her and kissed her hair, her temples. His hands smoothed her back. She closed her eyes and breathed him in, even his faint smell of fresh sweat. Grant. Her lover. Her love.
‘You’ve had so much to go through alone. But after Robbie—’
She pressed still closer. ‘I knew I couldn’t drop anything else on you after Robbie. I saw the way you shied away from any detail about Ginny’s cancer. But I’d gone through every scan and therapy and operation with her so there was a certain comfort in there being no nasty surprises. I coped. I’ll continue to cope.’
‘My poor darling.’ He made a little space so that he could study her chest. ‘Which…?’
‘The right.’
Tentatively, he touched it through her white T-shirt. Then slid his fingers gently through the scoop neck to run his fingertips across her flesh, making her shiver.
Relief took ten years from his face. ‘No mastectomy?’
She smiled, although her heart wrenched. ‘No, darling.’
‘Did radiotherapy do the trick? I guess you haven’t had chemo.’ He stroked her hair, plaited back from her face and little curls frizzing around her face from the heat.
She took his hand and kissed it. She could lie to him. He wouldn’t realise straight away.
They could have time together. A little oasis of pleasure and love. A week. Two weeks. She might even return with him to England for a while and keep up the pretence for precious months.
But she loved him too much for that. ‘I’ve had no treatment.’
His movements stilled. Panic flashed into his eyes. ‘I thought it was the sooner the better? Isn’t that what they said to Ginny? She had radiotherapy to shrink the tumour and—’
‘And then a double mastectomy,’ she finished for him. ‘And more radio. And chemo. And she went on Tamoxifen to keep the cancer at bay. But up it popped in her neck and they dug it out there. And now it’s on her lung and she’s having more chemo. She’s lost her hair again. But—’ she took a deep breath ‘—I don’t have the same kind of cancer as her. I have IBC. Inflammatory Breast Cancer.’
He was shaking. She could feel him thrumming as if he were an idling car. Sweat oozed into the creases of his fingers. In his eyes she saw the same despair as when he’d known there was no hope for Robbie. ‘Is that an OK form of breast cancer?’
She shook her head.
He cleared his throat. Sweat popped up across his cheeks. ‘So why aren’t you having treatment?’
She kissed him again. It might be the last time.
She couldn’t look him in the eyes. ‘Because there’s no point.’
His hands clenched around hers until she thought her fingers would splinter. ‘No point?’
Tears left prickly little trails on her cheeks as they plopped in quick succession onto her chest. The words hurt her throat as she forced them out. ‘IBC is rare. It’s all the bad things, Grant! Aggressive, fast-growing, invasive! So I’ve refused treatment.’
‘But chemo—’
‘Chemotherapy’s oversold. It’ll slow things down a bit but at what cost? You’ve seen Ginny! Losing her hair, can’t keep anything down, exhausted, sleeping twenty hours a day!’
Suddenly he was shouting, right in her face, lips drawn up like an animal’s. ‘You can’t refuse treatment! You don’t know how much time they can give you unless you let them try!’
And she was shouting back. ‘I am refusing treatment, I have refused treatment! Because I’ve watched my sister die by degrees over the last three years while they cut things off her and out of her. Yes, she’s had three years but how much of that has she spent being miserable? It was the same for Mum! At least, this way, I’ll enjoy some of what I’ve got left!’
His eyes blazed with pain. ‘I can’t let you die.’
‘You can’t do anything else.’ She lifted his hands and kissed them rapidly, desperately. ‘I’m not alone, others choose this. It’s a gentler way, Grant. They call it the South of France Option. I just made it the Malta Option because I’m happy here.’
He lurched to his feet. ‘So you’re going to do nothing?’
Her heart was hammering. ‘Not quite nothing. I’ve got an exercise plan to keep me strong. I swim and walk every day, I eat loads of fruit and avoid dairy. I bought some drinks through the Internet that have had amazing results in a few cases.’
His voice dropped. ‘You’re not telling me you’re fighting aggressive breast cancer with herbal tea?’
Exhausted, she let her head drop back. ‘It’s about as much use as anything else.’
Slowly, he backed away.
‘So I’m supposed to just watch you die?’
Fresh tears squeezed out from beneath her lids. ‘I came here so no one has to watch.’
Then he’d backed right across the room and was at the door to the apartment. The door opened and he stepped through it.
She didn’t even watch him leave. He’d watched his child die and he wouldn’t be able to see her go, too. She understood. She understood!
Her tears dried and she watched the sunlight fade from the day, listening to the rumbles and hoots of the traffic on Tower Road and voices on the stairs as other, happier people came and went.
It was midnight. And a tapping at the door.
‘It’s me.’ His voice was low.
She’d been reading in bed in a white nightshirt, too tired to sleep. She let him in. He was a good man and it would rip at his conscience if she made him leave without saying goodbye.
He took her delicately in his arms, stroking her rippled hair back from her face.
‘Is there pain?’
She nodded. ‘Some.’
His fingers moved to her top button and flicked it open. ‘I’ll rearrange my work so that I can stay with you.’ Two more buttons. His hands were unsteady.
Her heart leapt but still she tested him with a protest. ‘You had so much time off last year for Robbie!’
A fourth button and a fifth. He pushed the shirt from her shoulders. It slid, slowly, down her arms. Baring her to his gaze. ‘You’re beautiful. I love you. I’ll do whatever it takes. Just let me stay.’
Hope soared. ‘We could go home to England; you don’t like Malta! The heat—’
‘—is not important. If the Malta Option is what you want and all I’ve got left of you, then that’s what I’ll take.’ He stooped and touched a kiss like a butterfly to her breast. The one that was red and swollen and ridged.
The tears began again. But she was not entirely sad. They’d have to talk about the sensible stuff and the bad stuff. But not yet. First they were going to enjoy what they had.
‘You’re a wonderful man.’ She put her cheek against his collarbone and let herself enjoy the thud of his heart where their bodies touched. ‘Truly. I always find something extraordinary in Malta.’
Victoria Connelly
Victoria Connelly grew up in Norfolk and now lives in London with her artist husband. She has written all her life and has had great success with her magical romances in Germany. The first—about a group of tiny guardian angels—has been made into a film. Her first novel published in the UK, Molly’s Millions, is a romantic comedy about a lottery winner who gives it all away in true Robin Hood style. She also writes for children. Find out more at www.victoriaconnelly.com
Mummies and Daddies
The Egyptian rooms of The British Museum are my favourite place to sketch.
I usually start in the galleries where the colossal statues stare down at the hordes of tourists, their stone eyes seeming to see everybody at once.
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with all things Egyptian. There was something about the shapes of the hieroglyphs and the graceful figures from their ancient tombs that fired my imagination at school. That’s when I started drawing my own pharaohs and mummies and writing stories about them. Ever since I discovered the collection at the British Museum, I’ve visited at every opportunity. It’s a constant source of inspiration for the books I now write and illustrate.
And here I am again, collecting last minute notes and sketches for a children’s book, climbing the west stairs towards my favourite haunt. I remember how much Matt used to hate me coming here.
‘You spend more time with those mummies than you do with me!’ he’d shout. I never tried explaining my fascination with the mummies to him because he’d never understand. As far as Matt could see, my books were just a nice little hobby. He didn’t even bother to look at them when they were published. I’m glad I never dedicated one to him.
Walking through Early Mesopotamia, I remember the last time Matt shouted and me—calmly and quietly—telling him, ‘Please be out of my flat by the time the British Museum closes. That’s eight-thirty on a Thursday,’ I’d added, ducking to avoid the football he’d thrown. I wouldn’t miss those lying around the flat, I’d thought as I left, seeking sanctuary in the Egyptian galleries for the hours until my home was my own again.
That was three months ago and I still can’t believe that I fell for him. How ridiculously optimistic love can be sometimes. We were so different and yet I’d always thought it would work out somehow. But I was Egypt and he was Everton.
As I enter the Egyptian rooms, I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s always such a welcome sight and it’s busy today, which is fun for me because I’m a great people-watcher. I get my sketchbook out and make a start. At first, I focus on the cabinets filled with mummies but I inevitably find myself drawn to the tourists. There’s a young couple with their arms around each other’s waists, moving as one through the room; a young mother with a toddler and her pale face and red eyes tell me she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep for some time; and then there’s a father with his young son—and I can’t help noticing how handsome the father is. And he has the cutest smile I’ve seen in a long time.
I watch them. The father’s taking time to explain things to his son. He points out the colours, the materials—the blazing golds and rich lapis lazulis and, like most of the other tourists I’ve watched over the years, they’re taking great pleasure in spotting the familiar figures: there’s Horus the falcon-headed god, and Anubis with his jackal head.
I continue watching the father as he calmly answers each of his son’s questions, quickly scanning the cards in front of the objects and hastily gaining the information his son wants.
‘What’s that?’ the son asks, pointing into one of the cabinets.
‘Er—’ the father falters ‘—that’s a shabti.’
‘What’s a shabby?’
‘Well—’ his eyes quickly dart for information ‘—it’s a little model in the shape of a mummy that was thought to come to life after death. They were used as servants. The more you had buried with you, the better.’
The son looks absolutely fascinated and I look across at the brilliant blue shabti, turquoise like a summer sky, and wish I had a team at home to help me with the chores, which always get left in favour of my drawing.
The father and son move to another exhibit—the cabinet with the fabulous golden mummies. They stand in front of the largest, with its long ebony hair and huge almond-shaped eyes rimmed with black. Her passive face stares into eternity and she is almost smiling, but not quite. She reminds me of the Mona Lisa—there’s that sort of peace about her. She’s one of my favourites.
‘Look at the gold!’ the father says.
I smile. It’s obvious to me that this is their first visit and they’re both as captivated by the mummy as I was when I first saw her. The boy’s mouth has dropped open into a wide ‘o’ and the father’s eyes have gone quite round with wonder. And I suddenly realise that I’m drawing them both. My pencil is flying across the page: the father’s kind, open face and his wavy, slightly wild hair, and the boy’s sparkling eyes and his inability to stand still for longer than three seconds.
Once my sketch is more or less complete, I move through to the next room, where I know there’s a bench near the mummy known as Ginger. I sit down, glad to have the weight off my feet for a while. This room’s much bigger and lighter, less oppressive than its neighbours but no less crowded. My eyes travel—inevitably—towards Ginger—the body of an ancient man who’s been naturally mummified in the desert sands. He always pulls in the crowds.
Today, he attracts the father and his son I’ve been sketching.
‘Hello,’ the father says as he spies a seat next to me. ‘Mind if I sit here?’
I look up from my sketchbook, disarmed by his cute smile. ‘Not at all.’
We look around the room together as his son stands, fascinated, by Ginger.
‘You know, I could come here every day,’ the father says suddenly and I smile. ‘Couldn’t you?’
I bite my lip, not daring to tell him that I almost do. ‘It’s one of my favourite places,’ I say instead.
