Summer on a Sunny Island

Though her meal wasn’t what she’d have selected, it was delicious. And it was fun, tasting each other’s meals and discussing the ingredients. ‘Mm, isn’t the orange with the swordfish unusual?’ Dory mused. ‘I wonder how it would be with blood orange? I love Maltese blood oranges.’

‘Would readers be able to buy them in the UK?’ Rosa took another forkful, this time without sauce to get the flavour of the fish.

‘Not sure. Can you check British supermarkets online?’

By the end of the meal, Rosa had documents open on the laptop on the tasting, jobs to-do and research to carry out.

She was on her second glass of wine before her mum – sneakily – got in the enquiry Rosa had expected earlier. ‘How did the date with Zach go?’

‘We ate together and then he showed me the nightlife in Paceville. It wasn’t a date and I told him it wasn’t.’ Rosa watched tourists meandering by the sea while she batted flies away from her face. She didn’t tell her mother about Zach’s troubles because he was entitled to choose with whom he shared his secrets. Rosa had lain awake last night thinking about the story he’d told Luccio to show him what could come of getting in with the wrong crowd and concluded he was too hard on himself. Most people who got in scrapes would try to forget them and hope everyone else did too. ‘There look to be a few market stalls further up the road. Shall we have a look?’

‘I want to get back and experiment in the kitchen,’ returned Dory impatiently. Then, refusing to accept the change of subject: ‘Zach seems a nice man. And handsome!’ She took Rosa’s hand, wearing an earnest expression. ‘Don’t you think a lovely summer romance will cheer you up?’

‘Do you mean an affair?’ Rosa grinned.

‘I said “romance”,’ Dory protested, though with a distinct twinkle. ‘A nice man can really take your mind off an old flame.’

Although she knew Dory wasn’t purposely being dismissive, Rosa felt she had to say, ‘When a five-year relationship goes wrong, even if it’s my fault, it’s OK for me to be upset. Saying I’ll get over my “old flame” with a “lovely summer romance” and a “nice man” is optimistic.’ Marcus’s face swam into her mind’s eye. His anger when she’d wrongly accused him. What he’d done next …

Dory looked contrite. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry if I sounded flip.’

Any tension forgotten, they drove home chatting about the flat-roofed buildings around them and spiky vegetation at the roadside, an open-topped tourist bus, the domes and cupolas of distant churches, the elegance of palm trees, a small horse trotting smartly before a cart – in fact anything but Rosa’s personal life. Presently, Rosa let Dory do the talking. She’d forgotten her sunglasses and her head was aching. The sky was so blue, the sun beating on the square-cut limestone houses and dazzling her. The car’s air conditioning was inadequate and seemed to emit dust that she could taste. She was about to suggest that when they got home they swim off the rocks in the beautiful turquoise sea across the road from their apartment when Dory broke in, ‘We’ll try that nut pesto sauce when we get back while the flavour’s fresh in my memory.’

Oh, yes, she was still at work. Rosa closed her eyes, regretting the second glass of wine.

Once home, she took two paracetamol, changed out of the summer dress she’d worn for lunch and into shorts, washed her hands and opened her laptop, creating a document for the recipe trial while Dory went out onto the terrace to pick handfuls of basil and parsley that somehow seemed to smell of sunshine.

‘We’ll make four batches,’ Dory said, returning briskly. ‘One with walnuts, one with pine nuts, one with a combination of the two and one without nuts for comparison purposes.’

Rosa, who’d grown up cooking with Dory, washed the herbs and patted them dry while Dory toasted the walnuts and garlic. Then, Rosa gazed through the window at the terrace and the towering wall behind it. If she craned her neck she could see, probably twenty feet above, another large house. Maltese builders definitely understood how to work with the contours of the island but even the stone cut into big blocks instead of the red bricks of Liggers Moor in Yorkshire felt alien to Rosa.

Dory might have slipped back into her childhood home like a favourite pair of slippers but Rosa hadn’t lived anywhere but England. As amazing as Malta was, she hadn’t expected to feel homesick. She wiped her forehead – still aching – and switched on the air conditioning. Malta was hot. There were lots of insects, too many cars and endless construction going on. Maybe she’d been rash saying she’d stay till October.

At least the nightlife seemed vibrant. OK, discovering Zach at street level when he’d already escorted her back to the apartment had been awkward but sharing a cab with him had turned out to be a good stepping stone to discovering what kind of thing she’d do with herself in this tiny country for months on end. She already missed her friends in dance class at the gym and the pubs and clubs of her home town … though not her one-time friend Chellice.

‘Can you grate the parmesan?’ called Dory, interrupting Rosa’s thoughts.

‘Coming right up.’ Rosa found the grater and as her arm made the mechanical movements she chided herself for her low spirits. Hardly been in Malta two minutes and homesick? For England or for … Marcus? She did miss Marcus, even if he’d changed from the steady, smiling man she’d once known to a disillusioned, discontented thirty-something with a problem.

She didn’t want to miss him, because too much trust had been lost for their relationship to ever recover – even leaving aside the question of whether Chellice had maintained Rosa’s friendship only so she could draw Marcus into her web like a sultry, curvaceous spider with a fly. Marcus denied it, of course. Rosa had met Chellice first at someone’s hen night, he pointed out. They’d become friends. It was coincidence that when Rosa invited Chellice for dinner Marcus had discovered they’d had crafting in common. Marcus turned and carved wood while Chellice practised Kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery using lacquer dusted with powdered gold or silver to create shiny veins.

Later, they joined forces to form a part-time business, Spun Gold, which now had a website and shops on Etsy and Notonthehighstreet. But Rosa had come to believe that though Marcus’s ambition for Spun Gold might genuinely have been to make it successful enough to let him quit his hated day job … Chellice used the business as a reason to spend time with Marcus.

Rosa also missed her job at Blackthorn’s youth centre. She’d begun her leave of absence less than two weeks ago but she missed the role, her colleagues – especially her boss Georgine – and the kids. She missed weekend raft races or camping trips and schmoozing companies to donate equipment like mountain bikes then creating a Blackthorn’s cycling event.

When Rosa had taken over improving Blackthorn’s social media channels, social-media savvy Chellice had seemed happy to coach her. Had it been to keep Rosa occupied while Marcus devoted time to Spun Gold? The thought made her sick. She’d thought their friendship real.

Now, like a child touching a candle to see if it was hot, in a break between taking notes, loading the dishwasher and whizzing things in the food processor, Rosa peeked at Chellice’s blog and Instagram. Both proved to be full of Kintsugi and woodcraft for sale.

The blog, Chellice Reviews Life, demonstrated the sardonic humour her audience lapped up. She reviewed her journey to work, her own performance on a YouTube vid or the day’s weather. Instagram got a one-star review because it didn’t allow links in posts and Brexit minus one. Marcus got five stars for being ‘the best biz-buddy in the universe and doing all the driving to fairs and markets. Read my review of Marcus’s radio interview here.’

A sweat of anger broke out on Rosa’s brow. Her memory of Marcus’s local radio appearance was fresh and raw. At a craft fair he’d made the connection with a radio presenter, eagerly taking up an invitation to join her on her chat show. His motivation might have been to grab opportunities to mention Spun Gold but instead he’d kicked around more shit than a dung beetle, all of it rolling in Rosa’s direction with devastating effect.

Dory’s voice came from behind her, sympathetic but still making Rosa jump. ‘Oh, Rosa, are you trying to get news of Marcus? I’ve trivialised your feelings about him, haven’t I?’ She dropped two dishes of pesto on the counter with a clatter and her arms, warm and soft, gave Rosa a big hug.

Rosa tried to laugh. ‘I know you were glad to see the back of him.’ She returned the hug as if she were a little girl again.

‘I’m sorry. You know I’m prone to expecting the worst of men.’ Dory’s eyes were guilty.

Rosa felt guilty in her turn. Dory was the best of mothers. Rosa had had a settled childhood only because Dory had been self-sufficient and able to give Rosa a double dose of love to make up for the shortcomings of Rosa’s dad, Glenn. He’d contributed little, financially or emotionally. When Rosa had been old enough to understand, Dory had explained how she’d been ambushed by Glenn’s complete lack of engagement with his child. ‘They’d call it Attachment Disorder now but at the time we called him a crap dad.’

And Rosa had long ago overheard Dory telling a friend that Glenn had been revolted by Dory’s pregnant body, disgusted by the process of birth and frightened by Dory’s post-birth bodily functions and what he referred to as ‘a shitty baby’. It had stuck with her.

She scarcely saw Glenn now but Rosa remembered all too well him dismissing opportunities to attend school plays as ‘not my thing’ and never taking Rosa out. When he’d visited her at home a couple of times a year she’d treated him like one of her mother’s friends, someone who asked vague but polite questions to which she gave vague but polite answers. By the age of seven, Rosa had realised her dad was not like most other dads and when she reached her mid-teens his visits had faded away along with even infrequent attempts at paying child support.

His parents had barely seemed to notice her either, apart from small cheques for birthdays and Christmases, so maybe his lack of parental instinct was learned.

Luckily, Rosa had had Dory’s parents living in Liggers Moor to shower her with love and also, living only an hour away in south Lincolnshire, Dory’s sister – Aunt Lizzy – with her husband – Uncle Eddie – and three boisterous sons.

Straightforward, capable, jolly, hardworking Dory had fulfilled all other roles.

What Rosa and Dory had learned from Glenn was not to rely on men. Probably that’s why Marcus’s increasing self-orientation had eventually got to Rosa. It had all begun with online gambling and his losses affecting their disposable income. He’d changed. Rosa had been judgy. She admitted it. She’d had experience of an unreliable man from which to judge. So Marcus had promised never to gamble again …

‘Are you homesick?’ Dory asked suddenly, jolting Rosa back to the conversation.

She answered unguardedly. ‘A bit.’

I’ll pay your fare back to England if I you want to go.’ Dory’s voice shook. ‘I thought it was such a fantastic way of solving a few issues for you that I didn’t stop to consider that it was my dream to have an extended stay here, not yours.’

She sounded so woeful that Rosa’s heart gave a huge squeeze. Dory had been generous and Rosa hadn’t given Malta a chance. ‘I know it’s paradise to you but it seems strange at the moment. Maybe when I know it better—’

‘I’ve scarcely given you a moment to enjoy it,’ Dory declared, looking ever guiltier. ‘Let’s clear up and then we’ll have a few days off so I can show you more of this gorgeous island. We’ll wander by the sea, eat in cafés, take a boat into Grand Harbour, go to Valletta – be touristy.’

‘That sounds great. And I’d love to swim. The sea looks glorious.’ Rosa beamed, feeling better immediately. ‘But we haven’t done the tasting of the pesto.’

At that second a knock fell on the apartment door and a woman’s voice called, ‘Hello?’

Dory snatched the door open. ‘Hello, Marci. And hello, Paige! This is lovely. Come in and meet my daughter, Rosa.’

‘Hello,’ echoed Rosa, welcoming their visitors in. Marci was a rounded woman with similar dark glossy hair to Zach but worn in a long bob. Four-year-old Paige, who shouted, ‘Hello, hello!’ and beamed happily, was much more chestnutty.

‘Can you spare a few minutes?’ Dory demanded, not giving Marci a chance to say why she and Paige had called. ‘We were just going to do a pesto tasting. And,’ she added, seeing Paige looking unimpressed, ‘I made pudina last night, so we can taste that too.’

Marci looked uncertain. ‘Are you sure—’

‘Pudina is cake! I had it in Valletta with Uncle Zach.’ Paige bounced on her toes, the end of her French plait bouncing with her. ‘Yes, please.’

‘Then let’s sit on the terrace.’ Dory ushered them all outside. ‘Oh, look, there’s Zach working in the garden.’ She raised her voice. ‘Zach! We’re going to taste pesto and pudina.’

Zach’s voice floated back. ‘In the same mouthful?’

Dory laughed. ‘Not unless you want to. Rosa, if you can take the pesto and get people drinks then I’ll slice bread and get the pudina from the fridge.’

Soon the five were gathered around the patio table, the adults sampling different batches of pesto on flat bread while Paige went straight for pudina on the grounds that pesto was green and looked yucky. The pesto with walnuts was pronounced the favourite of Zach, Rosa and Dory but Marci liked the mix of walnut and pine nut.

Zach seemed relaxed and apart from murmuring to Rosa, ‘Don’t think Dory’s trying to fix us up this time,’ didn’t refer to yesterday evening.

Rosa laughed and turned to Marci, intending to draw her out in view of what Zach had said about his sister not having made friends on the island. Marci was a bit reserved but Rosa warmed to her when she rolled her eyes in the direction of her brother and said, ‘The pesto’s lovely but I actually came to apologise that Zach has tried to stick you with me for the reunion on Sunday.’

Rosa answered frankly. ‘I’d be glad to have someone to talk to when Mum’s yakking on to the other army kids about the good old days.’

‘Are we all going together? That will be lovely! And I shall be swapping fascinating stories about my childhood, not yakking on,’ Dory put in with mock indignation, cutting pudina into bite-sized squares. Paige was taking the pudina tasting ultra-seriously, carefully nibbling the traditional one with mixed dried fruit and glacé cherries, then the one with fresh figs and finally the one made with fresh dates.

‘So, what’s in pudina?’ queried Zach, trying a piece. ‘I’ve eaten it in Caffe Cordina in Valletta. Is it a very Maltese cake?’

‘I’ve only come across it on Maltese recipe sites.’ Dory made sure everybody had pudina from each batch. ‘It’s like bread pudding with a chocolate topping. It contains traditional cake ingredients like fruit, sugar, chocolate and milk but instead of flour it has bread. I’m experimenting to find the healthiest version with less sugar and different fruit.’

Under cover of this conversation Rosa said to Marci quietly, ‘If you’re not comfortable coming to the reunion with us, don’t feel you have to.’ She thought from a twitch of Zach’s head that he was listening in, but he didn’t interrupt.

Marci wrinkled her nose. ‘I promised Dad I’d go but I feel … odd.’

Though she nodded as if she understood, Rosa rolled the word around in her mind. Odd as in unfamiliar? Odd as in panic attack pending? The odd one out? Asking might be awkward.

Zach turned to regard his sister, his dark eyes serious. ‘Would you prefer me to go instead, Marci? I could, if that’s what you want. But Dad asked you and I’d be happy to babysit Paige.’

Marci made a face. ‘That’s just Dad being Dad. I assumed you were staying away because he didn’t ask you.’

Zach gave a grin that suggested he wasn’t going to argue with that conclusion. ‘If you’d like me to go instead, I will. I’ll take pics to send back to him and chat to a few people and then it’ll be done.’

Marci mulled that over. ‘Can’t we all go? It’s a buffet lunch in a restaurant garden in Mdina so Paige wouldn’t have to sit still for hours.’

Paige cried, ‘Yay! I want to go to lunch. Will there be cake? Can I wear my best dress?’

At the same time, Dory chimed in. ‘That’s a great idea. I’ll message the organisers with the new numbers.’ She commandeered Rosa’s laptop to log onto the Barracks Brats Facebook group.

Marci, looking over her shoulder, became interested in photos posted on the group of grinning school kids of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies. Winter uniforms were trousers for boys and gymslips for girls, worn with shirts and ties. In summer boys wore shorts and open-necked shirts, the girls summer dresses, all sand coloured and looking slightly military. Backdrops of prickly pears, palm trees, spiky agaves and flat-roofed buildings were recognisably Malta, though today’s towns had become very high-rise and crowded in comparison.

Paige, presumably seeing her mother otherwise occupied, backed up to Zach, shoving her hair out of her eyes. ‘My plait’s coming down, Uncle Zach. Can you do it, please?’

Rosa felt her eyebrows shoot up. ‘You can do a French plait?’

Zach grinned lazily. ‘Is that disbelief I hear in your voice?’

‘Watching with interest,’ she responded affably.

‘He can,’ Paige assured her, holding still while Zach pulled the elastic out of the bottom of the plait and teased it apart before combing it with his fingers. Beginning with three locks from the top of the small head before him, he pulled in sections from each side in turn to weave deftly until he got to Paige’s downy little neck, then he plaited normally to the bottom, between her shoulder blades. ‘Marci taught me,’ he informed Rosa smugly.

‘Impressive. But can you do Dutch?’ she asked. Then flushed because ‘can you do Dutch’ sounded like something from an erotic novel.

Judging by the gleam that sprang into Zach’s eyes his mind must have run along a similar track, though he answered gravely. ‘I don’t know what that is. Maybe you could show me?’

‘What’s Dutch?’ Paige demanded.

Rosa gave the little girl her attention so she didn’t have to look at Zach. ‘It’s similar to a French plait but the plait’s raised up.’

‘I want one!’ Paige switched allegiance and presented her back to Rosa.

Rosa quickly unravelled Zach’s handiwork and began the plait anew. ‘All you do is weave each strand under instead of over. Then the braid stands proud.’

‘I’ll have to practise,’ he said solemnly, and took a photo of the back of Paige’s head so his niece could inspect the result.

Under cover of Paige clamouring for Marci and Dory to pause their conversation and admire her Dutch plait, Zach tilted his head closer to Rosa’s. ‘I hope you don’t mind me joining you at the reunion lunch?’ He gave the ghost of a smile. ‘It’s not as if it’s a date.’

She found herself laughing. ‘Let’s hope my mother understands that! Of course I’m happy for us all to go together. It’s nice to have friends here in Malta.’

Then Marci joined the conversation with the perennial ‘What will you wear?’ As Rosa talked summer dresses with Marci, she could hear Zach chatting to Dory about Malta’s post-World War II history and the tunnels under Valletta.

Marci, obviously hearing too, nodded in Zach’s direction, stretched out in his chair. ‘He’s developed a big interest in Maltese history. I think it’s his way of trying to find himself.’

Zach caught the comment and shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m the only one looking.’

Rosa laughed, though, after hearing his story last night, she wondered if there was a spark of snark in his answer. ‘Maybe I’ll start trying to find myself too,’ she said. It would be better than feeling lost.

Chapter Four

Over the next four days, Dory devoted herself to encouraging Rosa to fall in love with Malta.

They ambled to Sliema along what Dory referred to as The Strand, though it said Triq ix-Xatt on the map – the seafront road, dotted with graceful palm trees. They strolled the hilly streets of narrow pavements and busy roads, browsed the shops and ate in bustling pavement cafés. Rosa got her head around Sliema being situated on a promontory so having a coastline that on one side looked over the calm waters of Marsamxett Harbour, past Manoel Island to the ramparts, golden buildings, balconies, domes, spires, lookouts and towers that was the capital city Valletta. On the other it faced the open ocean and she could gaze along towards the towers and hotels of St Julian’s Bay, which encompassed Paceville.

They crossed Marsamxett Harbour to Valletta on the tubby white catamaran ferry, a journey of a few minutes over the sparkling blue sea, yachts, tourist boats and ferries manoeuvring around each other and leaving behind them a cat’s cradle of white wakes. After queuing with a hundred others to leave the ferry they puffed towards the centre of the city up streets so steep that Sliema’s seemed gentle in comparison. The narrow pavements, in the Maltese way, occasionally turned into stairs and, in fact, so did whole streets. Most of the buildings were traditional limestone that glowed in the heat of the day, many heavily carved into graceful ornamentation around windows or coats of arms on parapets. The enclosed balconies known as ‘galleriji’ were painted in green and red. Rosa craned to inspect a frontage towering several storeys above. ‘A gallerija is like a cross between a balcony and a bay window.’ Dignified statues met them on street corners. The air was filled with the sounds of engines in low gear, chattering voices and church bells.

Some streets were broad, others narrow, many opened into squares set with open-air cafés, parasols in cream, green or burgundy hoisted against the sun. When they reached the part of Republic Street that was both pedestrianised and fairly level, they paused to catch their breath. Dory panted, ‘Let’s begin with me showing you my favourite view in all the world.’ They crossed the little city in a few minutes, some streets offering shade but others only dazzling sunlight and Dory steered Rosa to the Upper Barrakka Gardens. Entering through a gated arch, Rosa paused. ‘It’s beautiful!’

A simple but graceful fountain danced in the centre, circled by flowerbeds and benches. Following one of the geometrically laid-out paths they passed through two rows of graceful arches.

Then they stepped onto a terrace so high above a harbour that they were actually looking down on massive moored cruise ships.

‘Wow,’ Rosa breathed, trying to drink in the vista before her. The afternoon sun bounced on the cerulean sea upon which boats of every size drew white criss-cross wakes: industrial-looking vessels with battered red hulls and grey deck cranes, tiny motor boats, blue freighters and bobbing tug boats. From tankers to cruise ships, water taxis to ferries, Grand Harbour teemed with nautical life from the breakwater and lighthouse at the mouth of the harbour to an expansive dockyard area in a creek opposite where they stood.

‘This is Grand Harbour,’ Dory announced impressively. ‘Valletta’s built on a peninsula, like Sliema, with Manoel Island between. On a map they look like arms curving around a fish. Over the other side—’ she gestured towards the area across Grand Harbour ‘—are the Three Cities, also known as the Cottonera area.’

‘Wow,’ Rosa repeated inadequately. The harbour was magnificent. Vibrant. Surrounded by reminders of Valletta’s history. On a saluting battery below them stood a row of cannons; watchtowers hung from the massive sloping curtain walls protecting the city, tunnels disappearing into them here and there. Dory went into tourist guide mode, pointing to a soaring modern silver structure. ‘There’s the Upper Barrakka Lift, which carries passengers between these gardens and Valletta Waterfront, where the big ships moor.’ She pointed across the harbour. ‘That’s Fort St Angelo, there’s Fort St Michael, and the naval museum that was Bighi Hospital when I was a kid. I went there when I broke my nose, and Aunt Lizzy had to go when she trod on a harpoon someone had left out.’ She went on, spouting far too much information for Rosa to absorb, though she recognised some of the places Dory and Zach had talked about: the War HQ Tunnels, Lascaris War Rooms, Fort Rinella.