Summer on a Sunny Island

Up and down the steps nightlife lovers jostled beneath the welter of multicoloured lights, crossing from bar to club and back again. Promotion staff dished out cards that promised money off entry fees, drinks or specialised entertainment. Competing sound systems boomed from doorways.

At a nearby table, four women sipped cocktails. They looked Zach’s type. Bright, happy but not drunk, pretty but not obvious, ring fingers unadorned. When no men had arrived to join the group after a few minutes, one of the four – a cool blonde – let her gaze tangle with his, and Zach moved closer. She gave her name as Elsa and said she lived in Edinburgh. She asked him about restaurants in the Bay Street complex across the road. ‘I’m not taken by this street,’ she explained. ‘It’s seedy.’

‘That’s what I like about it,’ he told her solemnly. Her hair was long enough to blow against him and he enjoyed its silky tickle on his bare arm as she leaned closer to laugh. Her friends glanced at her and smiled but then returned to their own conversation.

Elsa had just begun telling him about her holiday when he glanced down the steps and caught sight of a group of young men. A profile illuminated by a flashing light distracted him. He shifted slightly to try and single out the face again.

There.

Luccio.

Twenty-year-old Luccio, a Sicilian, triggered protective feelings in Zach, who hated to see him in his present company, a group led by a little shit he seemed in awe of – Beppe. Zach hadn’t formed bonds with many people in Malta but he felt almost brotherly towards Luccio, who was on a youth support worker apprenticeship with Zach’s cousin Joseph at Nicholas Centre. Zach volunteered at the centre, a community youth facility, and Luccio was the staff member he was most often paired with to supervise games between the teenagers who came to the centre to hang out. Luccio didn’t seem much removed from the older children and he was always happy to carry on past his scheduled hours if a fun activity was in progress. Many of the kids came from less-moneyed homes and identified with Luccio. His parents had died when he was only sixteen and he’d had to leave Sicily for Malta when his aunt Teresa, who’d married a Maltese man, offered him a home in Sliema.

Still very young, he could definitely do with good people around him. Unfortunately, in the last year Luccio’s friendship group outside Nicholas Centre had changed and to Zach, who saw them hanging around Paceville, Beppe and his buddies didn’t look like good people. Beppe was the oldest and hardest; Luccio the youngest and most eager to please. Zach understood exactly how that combination could lead to manipulation.

Luccio’s aunt Teresa was concerned, Joseph had confided in Zach. Luccio had become reluctant to discuss his activities or hear criticism of his friends and seemed to be viewing her home like a hotel that never presented its bill. The more she tried to talk to him the more uncommunicative he became. Zach, who’d often worked with Luccio over the past eighteen months, could see the young man’s mood and attitude had changed.

Only half in the conversation with Elsa now, Zach finished his first pint and began on the second as he monitored the group fifteen or so steps below him. All of them were significantly younger than Zach’s thirty-two years. Beppe might be in his mid-twenties, he supposed, and the rest all younger. He noted the ‘friendly’ wrestling that was too rough to be friendly, despite accompanying laughter, plus the occasional ugly look from Beppe that turned Luccio’s expression apprehensive.

The ringleader.

The easily led youth.

It was uncomfortably familiar because, back in the day, Laine Fitzmaurice or ‘Fitzmo’ had been the ringleader and Zach the easily led youth. He could almost have written the script as he watched Beppe begin to bestow smiles and Luccio blossom in response, then Beppe grasped Luccio’s arm and murmured in his ear. Luccio, though he looked wide-eyed and unsure, eventually nodded.

Shit. Luccio was being put up to something.

Zach started forward, remembered Elsa and swung back long enough to mutter, ‘Sorry, I’ve seen someone I have to talk to.’ Elsa’s eyes widened in obvious affront but, with another apology, he turned away.

Still grasping his beer, Zach took the steps casually, glancing about with a show of aimlessness. Then he let his gaze fasten on his young friend and changed direction to clap him on the shoulder. ‘Hey, Luccio.’

Luccio jumped. ‘Oh. Hey, Zach.’

Zach turned to the group as if he was their friend of old. ‘I’m glad to see you guys. I’ve been feeling like Billy-no-mates tonight.’ He shook Beppe’s hand, knowing the value of paying lots of attention to the big shot. ‘Want a drink?’

From the scornful glances Beppe gave his buddies he obviously interpreted the offer as an attempt to ingratiate himself. He bent his gaze on Luccio then indicated Zach. ‘Maybe you should stay with your friend.’ He said ‘friend’ as if he meant ‘loser’. Beppe turned and headed inside and the rest of his group herded along.

‘But—’ Luccio gazed after his departing buddies.

Zach put his arm around Luccio’s shoulders. ‘We need something to soak up the beer. Let’s eat.’ Using ‘we’ was persuasive and inclusive language, Joseph had taught Zach.

Luccio frowned uneasily but he let Zach usher him up the steps towards Triq San G·org· and Paceville Pjazza. Bellowing over the sounds rocking out of bars, Zach tried to keep Luccio’s attention. ‘Think the teams promoted from the Championship will make it in the Premier League next year?’

Luccio, though usually an avid fan of British football, just shrugged.

Then, when they’d nearly reached the top of the steps, Zach caught sight of Rosa again. Oddly, as he was pretty sure those she knew in Malta was limited to the occupants of Ta’ Xbiex Terrace House, she seemed to be leading five or six laughing women in a dance along one of the steps, singing along as she wiggled and clapped. Then a swaying man, grinning foolishly, grabbed Rosa’s arm and said something with a leer. ‘Piss off!’ she snarled, glaring into his eyes. ‘Women make their own decisions about who they sleep with.’

‘Yeah!’ chorused a couple of the dancing women and one yanked Rosa’s arm from his grip.

Was it his night for rescuing people? Zach had almost forgotten Rosa while he interfered in whatever Beppe had had in mind for Luccio but he couldn’t stand by while some guy gave Rosa trouble. Hoping it wouldn’t get him into a ruckus that might catch the attention of the police, he changed course so he could loop an arm loosely around her, feeling her slight body recoil but then relax when she realised who he was. In a voice filled with bonhomie and beer he created a scenario she could easily fall in with. ‘Look, I’ve found my friend Luccio. We’re going to get something to eat. Why don’t you come along?’

After a last narrowing of her eyes at the swaying man, Rosa muttered, ‘OK,’ called a casual goodbye to the women she’d been dancing with and allowed herself to be steered away. Zach glanced back and saw the man make an obscene gesture in the direction of Rosa’s rear view. Luckily, Rosa didn’t see it and Zach thought the wisest course was to pretend he hadn’t either. He made the introductions and Luccio brightened enough to grin at Rosa. ‘You told him off.’

‘He deserved it.’ Rosa fell in beside the two men, her expression still stormy. ‘I appreciate your help there, Zach, but women shouldn’t need protection. Children need protection. Men need to understand when to back off and when they don’t it’s up to women to speak up.’

‘Completely agree,’ Zach put in peaceably as he led the party through the piazza and down to Spinola Bay where the restaurants were of the calm and civilised variety, pleased when Rosa went along. If she wished to continue to wander around late at night it was none of his business, yet he’d rather she didn’t. He agreed that women shouldn’t need protecting but as the elder brother of two sisters he was aware that her desire that certain men learn when to back off might prove optimistic.

Intuiting that Luccio wouldn’t appreciate the seafront restaurants bulging with middle-aged tourists he chose a small bar up Triq San Ġuzepp, another stepped street – though smaller and quieter – where a mainly Maltese clientele enjoyed the evening air. He grabbed the last empty table and, remembering he’d fibbed to Luccio that he needed to soak up beer, instructed his belly to forget it had already eaten this evening. He ordered a platter of flatbreads with dips. Rosa chose a chocolate cake and a glass of wine. Luccio ordered a burger and chips with a pint of Cisk. Zach ordered a pint too. He’d drunk enough alcohol but switching to lemonade didn’t seem the way to bond with Luccio.

While they ate Zach questioned his motives in separating Luccio from his mates. He’d felt compelled to do so but had it changed anything? Luccio was almost silent and Zach suspected he hadn’t endeared himself to his young friend.

Zach heaved a sigh. Who was he trying to save here? Luccio? Or himself?

Luccio’s phone alerted him to message after message and in between scoffing chips he tapped out replies, the downturned corners of his mouth suggesting that nothing he read made him happy. Then the phone rang and he surged to his feet, stepping away to take the call. His side of the conversation consisted of, ‘Yes, yes,’ and the occasional half-begun sentence.

When he’d finished he shoved his phone in his pocket, scowling, and returned to the table. ‘I must go.’

‘Must?’ queried Zach, softly. He ached to show Luccio that being sucked into the wrong crowd could end badly. He’d decided a while ago that he’d share his story with his young Sicilian friend when the time seemed right but he hadn’t bargained on having Rosa in the audience. ‘Luccio,’ he said before he could talk himself out of it, ‘I came out here because I got in trouble.’

Luccio’s gaze flew to Zach’s face. Zach didn’t look at Rosa to see how she took his pronouncement but ploughed on, encouraged that Luccio – wide-eyed – resumed his seat. ‘When I was eighteen my best mate moved away. I started hanging around with a guy called Laine Fitzmaurice – Fitzmo – who’d been two years ahead of me at school. He wasn’t a good influence. I didn’t see it, of course. I thought he and his friends were cool and we drank a lot. Dad’s attention was on coping with my mum because she was developing rheumatoid arthritis and as the eldest of the kids I was sort of catapulted into adult status. It went to my head and I acted like a twat.’

Luccio looked interested despite himself. ‘What did you do?’

Zach hoped he was going about things the right way. ‘I didn’t do much myself but I was there when the other guys did. Vandalism. Petty theft. Once, Fitzmo took a car and I piled in the back with the others. I kidded myself that it wasn’t a crime because I hadn’t stolen the car but that didn’t make it true.’ He took a moment to gather his thoughts. ‘We all felt it was important to please Fitzmo. When he wanted somewhere we could hang out and drink I was proud when I was the one to find a place. It was an empty building behind a shopping centre. We trashed it, smashing light fittings and stuff. It seemed like high spirits rather than actual crime.’

Luccio frowned but Zach was pretty sure it was with the effort of translating unfamiliar phrases like ‘high spirits’ more than judgement of Zach’s juvenile misdemeanours.

Zach pushed aside his beer and asked the waiter for coffee. Whether it was the alcohol or the story, he felt sick. ‘The youngest of our group was called Stuart,’ he continued. ‘Most of us were eighteen, Fitzmo was twenty, but Stuart was only sixteen and he hero-worshipped Fitzmo. One Saturday afternoon we were hanging out and drinking. Stuart had way too much and Fitzmo bullied him into punching a window to smash it. Stuart tried. But he was small and had to jump up to punch the glass. It smashed but a shard of it—’ he drew a long pointed shape in the air in case Luccio hadn’t before encountered the word shard ‘—caught him on the way down. Sliced into him. There was blood everywhere, spurting from Stuart’s wrist.’

His nausea threatened to choke him as he remembered the blood splattering on the concrete floor, Stuart clutching himself and slurring, ‘I’m hurt!’ in tones of almost comical surprise.

He had to swallow and when his coffee arrived he found he didn’t want it. ‘The others ran off,’ he explained. ‘Every one of them, including Fitzmo. Even fourteen years later I can’t believe they did that. Stuart was squirting blood and they left him. So I grabbed his arm—’ hot and slippery with blood ‘—and I dragged him out of the building and up the alley to the shopping centre where there was a pharmacy. The pharmacist got a tourniquet on Stuart to slow the bleeding while her assistant called the ambulance.’

Luccio’s brown eyes were wide and disbelieving. ‘You saved your friend’s life.’

Zach gave an angry snort of laughter. ‘That part wasn’t emphasised. The police arrived with the ambulance and they followed the trail of blood back to the building and found it all smashed up. Stuart and I admitted to being involved in causing the damage. I was eighteen so I got a fine and community service and it caused a tremendous row with my dad. Stuart got a supervision order. Fitzmo and our “friends” told me I was stupid for sticking around. They said, I should have rung the ambulance and run. When I asked why they hadn’t bothered with the ambulance part, just run, they tried to joke it off.’

He sipped his coffee because his throat was closing around the ball of emotion that had lodged there. ‘I saw Fitzmo and the others for what they were. So I cut them off.’

Luccio took a gulp from his beer. ‘But you were eighteen? That was a long time ago. You came out here early last year, no?’

‘I got in trouble again.’ Wearily, Zach rubbed his hand over his face, conscious of Rosa, having demolished her dessert, sitting statue-still. ‘Stuart was permanently affected by the accident. He had a couple of operations but his hand never worked properly and became a withered mess. He doesn’t have a job. He’s into alcohol and suffers mental illness. He hangs around town, looking so defeated. I tried to help but …’ He let his voice trail off. ‘Stuart took the money or clothes I gave him and swapped them for cider.’

He took a deep breath. Luccio seemed to be listening and maybe Zach’s excoriating confession was doing some good, even if Rosa’s silence felt like judgement. If there was any chance he could stop his young friend Luccio turning out like Stuart – or even like Zach himself – then it was worth exposing his messy past. ‘A couple of years ago I was in a pub in the centre of Redruth with some mates on a Friday night. I saw Fitzmo about six feet away and I should have left but I didn’t want a loser like him to have any impact on me. I’d kept my nose clean since the trouble twelve years earlier. I thought I could ignore him. But I’d had a few beers.’ His gaze fell on the almost untouched pint in front of him. ‘Stuart was there too. It was noisy but I could hear Fitzmo ridiculing him. Stuart kept trying to smile as if it was just teasing. Then Fitzmo grabbed Stuart’s bad hand, twisting it. He was hurting Stuart … and I saw red. I marched over and smacked Fitzmo right in his horrible, toxic mouth. I really lost it. Broke two of his teeth.’

Zach found himself flexing his hand as if he could once again feel the pain involved while Luccio gaped as if Zach had sprouted horns. ‘At first I thought Fitzmo would murder me,’ Zach continued. ‘He’d been brought up hard. He’d also spent a few years in jail and had come out even harder. Then his expression changed and he began cowering, pleading with me not to hit him again, clutching his face and groaning. And why? Because he’d seen police officers walk into the pub and they were on their way over to check out the disturbance. They collared me. Fitzmo knew how to construct a compensation claim and insisted the attack was unprovoked. He said to Stuart, “He hit me for no reason, didn’t he?”’

Luccio’s black eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair. ‘And …?’

Zach held his gaze. ‘Stuart said, “Yes,” and I was arrested. Fitzmo got a kick out of the whole thing, especially when I was charged, got community service and had to pay him a small amount of compensation.’

He paused, longing suddenly for his bed. Soul baring was exhausting.

‘So why come to Malta?’ Luccio was obviously engaged in the story. His hair caught the light from a nearby bar, threading his dark curls with red.

Zach groaned. ‘I hadn’t intended to advertise my problems to my family but Dad saw me collecting litter at the side of a main road with “Community Service” written on my back and nearly had a stroke. It soured our already difficult relationship. My grandmother suggested I come here to get me out of the firing line because Mum wasn’t coping with the animosity. She’s in constant physical pain and doesn’t deserve a war zone around her.’

Mentally, he compared the phone conversations he enjoyed with his mum, hearing about the little bit that happened in her life, her sweet, familiar voice telling him about his little sister Electra’s last call home from Thailand where she taught English or talking about Marci and Paige.

His dad? They texted. Hope all’s well with you. Tenants you got are working out well. Interesting to hear Dory talking about the same army primary school you went to. He didn’t make the effort to ring Steve and Steve didn’t ring him either.

He forced himself to complete his story, though it felt as if each word was being hacked out of him. ‘Fitzmo sent me a message that I didn’t hit as hard as his mum. When I didn’t react he sent another saying Stuart felt so bad about what had happened he’d taken an overdose and had to get pumped out. I went looking for Stuart in town and he was fine so Fitzmo was obviously trying to goad me, manipulate me. I realised I could be sucked in to dangerous situations again and decided to accept my grandmother’s offer.’

He could hardly look at Rosa. She must be thinking she’d been on a not-a-date with a hooligan but he couldn’t let that deter him from getting his point across. ‘Luccio, that guy Beppe, he’s as toxic as Fitzmo. I recognise his type. He’s a coward who controls and uses people.’

Luccio recoiled, glancing around as if worried someone would hear.

Zach leaned closer. ‘Just cut him off,’ he urged. ‘Avoid him. Find new friends. Believe me, when things go wrong you’ll turn around to look for him and he’ll have vanished.’

Luccio seemed to have no reply, gazing into the distance as he drank his beer. After a while, Zach used his app to book a cab. Luccio got in the back, though Zach had more than half-expected him to head back to Paceville. Zach joined him, leaving the front seat for Rosa. When they arrived at Luccio’s aunt’s house in Sliema, Luccio got out and Zach said, ‘You know where I am if you want me.’

Then, drained, he sat in the car for the final few minutes to Ta’ Xbiex Terrace House.

Once again he walked Rosa to her door. Insects danced in the yellow halos of light around the terrace lamps. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have spilled all that crap in front of you but I’m trying to help Luccio. He’s a good kid, a youth support worker at the centre where I volunteer and I hate to see him being lured off-track. You don’t have to worry that there’s a madman living upstairs. I just—’ He halted, defeated by the task of justifying himself; that he’d first been a young fool and then let himself be goaded into fury when he’d thought himself older and wiser.

She gazed at him, eyes solemn. ‘A saying Grandpa’s fond of is that someone is “more sinned against than sinning”. I think he’d say that about you. You saved your friend’s life when everyone else abandoned him and you stuck up for an underdog when you didn’t need to get involved. I think it was brave to try and let Luccio benefit from your bad experiences.’ A quick smile, then she was gone, into her apartment.

Zach was shocked how relieved he felt that Rosa wasn’t disappointed in him.

Chapter Three

In the morning, Rosa was surprised but pleased Dory didn’t question her about going out with Zach. Maybe she realised she’d been a little too busy on Rosa’s behalf?

Or maybe she was too focused on jumping into her little white car and driving Rosa to a fish restaurant in Marsaxlokk in the south of the island. Her career as a food writer had fallen into her lap after a reality TV show featured the school where she was cook and brought on its heels ‘The Cafeteria Cook’ books. Dory’s attention was firmly on being the best food writer she could be. ‘Being here for the summer is an ideal opportunity to gain a broad view of menus and the use of ingredients,’ she enthused as she cautiously sidled onto a teeming roundabout. ‘The resto we’re trying today looks authentically Maltese but Marsaxlokk draws a lot of tourists so the menu’s bound to reflect their tastes. Perhaps you can go online later and search out places off the tourist track?’

‘Sure,’ agreed Rosa, wincing as Dory put in a skull-jarring emergency stop to avoid a lorry lumbering out from a junction. She was glad when they hit quieter roads after a place called Paola, leaving built-up areas behind in favour of terraced farm fields separated by uneven dry stone walls. She pointed to cacti tumbling over the walls. ‘They look like a spiky green Mickey Mouse ears.’

Dory laughed. ‘Prickly pear. Ooh – idea! Can you grab my laptop from my bag and make a note to include a section in the new book on foraging for wild-growing foods like prickly pear, capers and wild asparagus?’

Note made, Rosa settled back to enjoy the ride, reading road signs for places like Zejtun and Ghaxaq and trying to say them aloud.

Dory tried to be helpful. ‘J’s sound like British y’s, gh’s are silent and x makes a sh or ch sound. I’m never sure about q’s. A Maltese man once told me they were “halfway between a k and a vomit”. But sometimes they seem to go silent altogether.’

At the restaurant, they ate outside gazing out at the pretty harbour of Marsaxlokk. Compact, high-prowed fishing boats, bluer than the sea and piped with red, green, brown, white and yellow, bobbed beside a quayside scattered with nets. Most of the boats had eyes painted or engraved on the prow. ‘Those traditionally guard the fishermen from evil,’ Dory explained, before moving on to what was preoccupying her – work on her new book The Cafeteria Cook Does the Mediterranean.

‘The traditional Mediterranean diet’s heavy on plant-based foods. Next comes fish, then chicken, and last and least of all, red meat and sweets. If you follow the right proportions you’ll be healthy and avoid weight gain. You find most touristy places serve British chips and Italian pasta more than Maltese food, though.’

The sunlight danced on the rippling waves between the fishing boats sheltered by the broad sweep of the bay. Tourists strolled between cafés or browsed shop windows and the sun relaxed Rosa’s shoulders as she let her mum chatter happily about her twin favourite topics of food and Malta.

A beautiful Maltese teenage girl brought menus and Dory pored over hers, discussing with the waitress whether the swordfish was farmed or wild. As it was wild she ordered it, followed by grilled, stuffed squid – klamari – with green herb sauce.

Before Rosa could open her mouth Dory continued. ‘Rosa, you don’t mind if I order for you, as it’s for research and a business expense? It gives me twice as many things to taste and I won’t order anything you don’t like.’ She returned to the waitress. ‘Parmigiana of aubergine with nut pesto and shrimp ravioli. Wine, Rosa? White? And still water, please.’

Rosa wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or resigned. Her mother had offered her a job as her personal assistant and kitchen porter for the recipe trials to be conducted at the apartment and was paying her pin money as well as covering her expenses. Her mum hadn’t stepped in and ordered her lunch. Her employer had, and for a purpose.