A Home in the Sun

by Sue Moorcroft

  Gently, slowly, she closed her eyes and listened to the crash of the waves and the boom of water falling back on itself, salt scenting the air. She remembered the feeling of being down there, finning along above the weed and rocks to the sand fields, brilliant fish darting away, octopus reversing into rocky crevices, red starfish prone on the bottom, the sun filtering into the water in diagonal bars and the Darth Vader sound of breathing loud in her ears.

  But she couldn’t make Giorgio emerge in the shape of a diving buddy.

  When her cup was empty, Judith paid then picked her way right down to where the water boiled inside the arm of rock and the sea was forced through a tiny fissure in spouting spray. The wind rattled in her ears. It was like standing on the edge of a cauldron. On a projecting rock stood a loan fisherman, his bait in a white plastic box at his feet. He glanced around and she saw it was Paul Vella, his skin glowing golden from the spray-laden breeze. ‘Pawlu’, the men called him. Giorgio had fished with him from a boat sometimes for the local big catch, lampuki. They’d thought it a great joke to cast near the baited floats laid out painstakingly by commercial fishermen, effectively intercepting their catch.

  Pawlu’s silver hair was damp. He raised a hand to her, then secured his rod and stepped back over the rocks.

  ‘Catch much, Paul?’ she called to him as he neared.

  His smile transformed his face. ‘Sure. Little silver fish, big red eyes. Vopi.’ He gave the Maltese name for mullet.

  ‘What are you using? Shrimp?’

  ‘No, just damp bread, smelly cheese, and patience.’ They gazed at the bubbling sea together for several moments. ‘You OK?’ he ventured.

  She nodded. She’d shared many a beer with Paul and the rest of his boat’s crew after they had returned from an excited day’s pursuit of yellowfin tuna or Mediterranean marlin. One of the funniest, sweetest men she’d ever met, he’d made her cry with laughter with his knack for telling stories; there was nothing he liked better than to have a crowd in stitches. Those laughter-filled days seemed a long time ago now, another lifetime. Another life. ‘I’m OK.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I came to remember Giorgio. But I can’t seem to feel close to him.’

  His eyes shone with compassion. ‘You find him somewhere, maybe not where you’re looking. I think of him today too, at Ghar Lapsi. A good man, Giorgio Zammit, and we always raise a drink to him on the boat.’

  She could imagine them, some of Giorgio’s many friends, joking in the sunshine over their rods and nets and noisome bait as they raised their cans of beer to Giorgio and fished from the little boat that lurched on the waves.

  He said, ‘It’s good to see you in Malta again. I remember you when I attend mass.’

  ‘You’re kind.’ She managed a smile at the thought that he was praying for her. ‘Give my love to your wife Massie. I hope she doesn’t mind cooking all those fish.’

  ‘You want some?’ He gestured towards his keep net, his mischievous eyes twinkling now. ‘Put them in your handbag. They stop wriggling by the time you get home.’

  The echo of his gentle humour helped her ignore aching knees as she climbed the steep rock steps back to the car.

  Once she’d driven back to Sliema, she left Raymond’s car in his parking space in the street behind the office but when she went to return the keys she could see Raymond through the large windows and he was talking to Richard and Adam, who was perched sideways on a desk. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned and strode away without letting any of them know she was back.

  A twenty-minute walk through the Sliema streets brought her to The Chalet, Ghar id-Dud, its pier-like skeleton still reaching into the sea and meeting the waves as it had done for decades, letting the sea gradually wear it away. Her hair writhed in the wind that blew on-shore, stinging her eyes as it obstructed her vision, and she zipped up her jacket.

  There was an even bigger sea on this side of the island than there had been at Ghar Lapsi, green rollers smashing angrily against the pilings. The waves submerged the surrounding rocks, spewing spray that rose high enough to be blown onto the promenade thirty feet above, one wave subsiding with a hiss of streaming water as the next roared over its head. It wasn’t calm enough for teenagers to leap joyfully from The Chalet today.

  Judith selected one of the green-painted benches furthest back, out of range of the spray, and sat down.

  It had begun here.

  Giorgio had materialised at her elbow one day to enjoy her fascination with the kids and their perilous descent into the sea. Then he’d started lingering to intercept her. She’d begun to watch for him. He’d enchanted his way into her heart with his brown-velvet eyes.

  But there was no sense of him here now.

  Back at Richard and Erminia’s house, Erminia had made kawlata, a thick stew of pork and sausages with vegetables. ‘Mm,’ said Judith, kissing her aunt. ‘My favourite.’

  Erminia twinkled. ‘Really? I had forgotten.’

  ‘Ha. She made it for you especially,’ said Richard, packing a generous portion into his rotund body, talking cheerfully about the day, the weather, the rough wind. Erminia chimed in occasionally with tales about their grandchildren.

  Adam ate quietly.

  Despite the gorgeous kawlata, Judith could scarcely eat at all. Her insides fluttered and her head ached. She’d got precisely nowhere today and was no nearer to knowing what to do about the crucifix.

  When the crockery had been cleared away, Adam thanked Erminia charmingly for the wonderful meal, then his eyes went to Judith. ‘Fancy a walk to the marina? I thought I’d get a look at those floating palaces.’

  She managed a quick smile. ‘I’m afraid I have to see someone and I think they’ll be coming home from work about seven.’ Maltese shops commonly stayed open into the early evening.

  His expression closed down. He turned away.

  She pressed the cool back of her hand against her aching forehead and touched his arm. ‘I could use some company, though.’

  After a moment, he smiled. ‘That would be me.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The house Judith led Adam to was set back slightly from the pavement and was packed tightly against its neighbours. It had one upstairs balcony and square windows with green shutters. A few stone steps led up to a front door of varnished wood and a longer flight went down to the basement. Judith had known on which street Johanna and Giorgio’s daughters lived and Erminia had discovered for her which house was theirs.

  Now, standing outside, heart thumping, Judith took a deep breath. Throughout her time with Giorgio, the figures of his estranged family had lurked in the shadows; part of Giorgio’s past that, she’d been shown quite plainly, didn’t concern her. But now she was about to make them real, give them faces and voices. Feelings.

  The wind was gusting, bringing the temperature down to one that was low for a Maltese May. In fact, it was quite like being back in Northamptonshire. Adam’s warm fingers slid around her chilly hand and she looked up to see concern in his eyes.

  ‘Don’t put yourself through this – you don’t have to,’ he said. ‘Why should you challenge these people who feel antipathy towards you? The time for that was when Giorgio was alive and there might have been some purpose to it. You can keep the crucifix – it was given to you – or send it to them by messenger. Or stuff it through the letterbox and run away! Whatever you feel is right.’

  ‘But I don’t know, that’s the point,’ she murmured. ‘I used to be certain about things. Giorgio was trapped in a state of separation; it was unfortunate and unfair but he’d parted from Johanna a long time before I came on the scene. That had been her decision, too. So far as I was concerned, we were blamelessly in love. When Cass gave me the crucifix, I took it as my due. It was a part of Giorgio when I needed a part of him most, he’d worn it every day and it was as if it represented his heart.’ She shivered. ‘But now … I’m not quite sure why I was so convinced I was due anything.’

  He pulled her lightly to him,
sharing his body heat. ‘Then take a little more thinking time,’ he suggested.

  She let herself sag against his tall, lithe body, closing her eyes and thinking how good it was to have contact with him. Then she straightened. It wasn’t common in Malta to get physical in the street. She raised her chin. ‘No, I have to do something about this. It’s a weight on my shoulders. Will you wait here for me?’

  When he nodded, she climbed slowly up to the front door. A small, thin woman in her mid-thirties answered the bell, her eyes turning to black pebbles the instant they lit on Judith. She made a show of looking down her nose. ‘Yes?’

  Judith pushed her hands into her pockets in case they began to shake. Facing her lover’s widow was less easy than she’d supposed it would be. ‘Johanna Zammit?’

  The slightest of nods.

  ‘I’m Judith McAllister. May I see Alexia, please?’

  After a long stare, Johanna turned away, shouting into the depths of the house in Maltese. Judith caught the words for ‘now’ and ‘woman’. Then a young woman, barely more than a girl, clattered down the stairs into the hall and stood, staring with hostility at Judith. She and her mother were very alike: slight and small, cheeks hollow, lips narrow and held in straight lines, hair glossy with chestnut lights.

  Judith began, ‘I’m—’

  ‘I know who you are,’ the young woman said.

  Judith swallowed. ‘You wrote to me—’

  ‘And you’ve brought to me my father’s crucifix? Thank you.’ The girl was icily polite.

  Slowly, Judith pulled the familiar weight from her pocket, the chain pooling in her palm.

  Alexia reached out – but Judith closed her hand.

  The young woman’s eyes flashed angrily. ‘My mother says I am to have it! You have no right.’ She made a move almost as if she were going to grasp Judith’s hand and prise it open.

  Judith thrust both her hands back into her pockets. Her voice shook. ‘I can see why your mother would like you to have it. But, of course, I must see the will, just to check in law who it belongs to.’

  ‘That is me.’ Johanna spoke suddenly. ‘As he left this house to me. Us.’ Then her eyes moved to a point behind Judith. ‘You have a … friend with you?’ Her voice was soft with scorn.

  Judith glanced around. Adam had moved closer, his hair blowing over his eyes, his brows straight lines of concern. Johanna’s tone contrived to make it sound as if Judith had, inappropriately, brought her new lover to this delicate meeting with her dead lover’s wife and child. It didn’t make her any more comfortable that, basically, it was what she’d done.

  ‘He’s …’ She searched for an explanation that wasn’t exactly a lie. ‘He’s my friend.’

  She turned to the Zammit ladies. ‘I’ll give the crucifix to the person it belongs to but you must agree that I need proof. What if Maria or Agnello or Saviour tell me it belongs to them?’

  Sharply, Johanna said, ‘It is not your business—’

  She broke off as a car pulled up outside and a girl in her mid-teens bundled out, calling thanks in Maltese and leaping for the front steps. Pulling up suddenly, she giggled as she realised she’d almost run full-tilt into a stranger. ‘Skuzi, madam.’

  ‘Ma gara xejn.’ It’s of no consequence. Judith managed a smile, moving aside to let the girl through.

  With a word of thanks, the girl darted indoors, past Johanna and Alexia. Then she turned to smile again.

  ‘Oh!’ The smile was replaced by surprise, realisation, curiosity as the identity of this evening visitor obviously dawned on her. But without the hostility of her mother and sister. ‘Oh …’ she breathed, again.

  ‘You must be Lydia?’ Judith’s heart clenched as she studied Giorgio’s youngest child; the laughing eyes and a smile that made people smile back, the round chin and wide cheekbones. The thick, black hair. Even the angle at which she held her head.

  For the first time since coming back, she felt Giorgio’s presence.

  Johanna rounded on her daughter with a flurry of Maltese; Judith caught ‘tard’, late, and ‘xoghol’, work. Probably she hadn’t done her homework today. With one last candid appraisal of the visitor, Lydia disappeared into the house.

  Judith gazed after her. Then she returned her attention to Johanna and Alexia. ‘No doubt you have a copy of the will? I expect it’s in Maltese but what I can’t understand myself I can certainly get translated by my aunt Erminia.’

  Johanna shrugged. ‘I don’t have it.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’ With a smile, Judith turned away.

  Walking down the street, she finally allowed herself to tremble. Adam took her into a bar on the corner of the street and bought her brandy, curving her hand around the balloon glass and helping her to lift it to her lips, his leg against hers, his arm along the back of her chair. She dropped her cheek against his shoulder. ‘That was horrible.’

  He said again, ‘You don’t have to put yourself through this. Cass gave you the cross as something to remember him by.’

  She groaned. ‘I’ve been thinking hard about that. It’s a romantic premise, but …’ Her voice was muffled by his jacket. ‘I have other things he bought me when we were together. A necklace, a picture. I’m afraid I may have had my share of Giorgio.’

  Beneath her cheek, his shoulder rose and fell on a sigh. ‘Difficult, hmm?’

  She pulled back to look into his face to see if she could decipher the feelings that went with that neutral response but Adam had carefully cleared his expression. She straightened up. ‘Let’s have a couple of drinks before going back to Richard’s.’

  The following day, Judith went on foot to see Cass. This time she went without Adam, knowing the conversation would flow better if she were alone. The wind had dropped and the sunshine on her shoulders felt good as she trod the bustling narrow pavements up to High Street, off Tower Road, the gracious area where Giorgio’s uncle and aunt lived. Both Maltese and English filled the air, along with the rumble of slow-moving traffic.

  Cass, when she saw it was Judith knocking at her highly polished door, looked as if she’d swallowed a scorpion.

  ‘Sorry,’ Judith offered, not particularly apologetically. ‘But I’m back.’ Today, she made no effort to embrace the older woman.

  They studied one another. It was the first time Judith had seen Cass without make-up, although her dress and sandals were as smart as ever. Running a smoothing hand over her neat chignon, Cass frowned and plunged into the conversation she obviously knew to be coming. ‘I should never have given it to you.’

  ‘I expect you’ve regretted it,’ Judith acknowledged carefully.

  Wariness was replaced by Cass’s wry smile, the one that Judith remembered from happy evenings in restaurants with Giorgio. ‘Many times. I was emotional but it was a stupid thing to do. I should have known that Maria would notice it was missing – she would count the tea leaves in the pack to make sure they’re all there, that one.’

  Judith relaxed at the warmer expression on Cass’s face. ‘Did you get into lots of trouble?’

  Cass rolled her eyes. ‘Enough.’ Her hand was hooked onto the door handle but she made no effort to invite Judith in. ‘Saviour was not pleased with me. He said I’d embarrassed him.’

  Judith was sorry to hear it. ‘How did he know it was you?’

  Cass flushed. ‘Once she realised it was missing, Maria talked of nothing else for weeks. Saviour began to notice how guilty I looked every time she began. He says he can read me like a book.’ She almost smiled at this last, as if quietly pleased.

  Judith shifted her position on the step, trying to peep past Cass’s shoulder to the tiled hall. ‘Is Saviour here?’

  The wary expression flashed back onto Cass’s face. ‘He’s working on his old car.’

  ‘I was hoping to see him.’

  A long hesitation, Cass’s dark eyes fixed on Judith’s face as if trying to read her mind. Then she stood back. ‘Please come in.’

  The house was beautiful. A pale-gre
y marble staircase swept upwards from the square hall past round windows. In the salott, the formal sitting room, the furniture was either heavy and polished or of painted wood. Two stuffed birds stared down from atop a cabinet and turquoise glass ornaments shone like the sea. Cass led her through the salott and then a central courtyard dotted with spiky palms, back into the house and through a formal dining room, then out again to a tall gate. Judith almost reeled from the gleaming grandeur of Cass and Saviour’s dwelling. It felt like a little palace. They must be pretty comfortably off.

  Once outside the gates, they approached a garage that seemed to have been built under the side of another house with a drive that was so steep it was almost unfeasible. The black-painted doors were concertina-folded inside against the white walls.

  A man was up to his elbows in the engine of an elderly white Mercedes, oil making black gloves on his hands and smearing his forehead. His clothes, old and baggy, were equally soiled, especially where his shirt strained to contain a belly that suggested a love of food. He didn’t seem a natural match for neat and polished Cass but he had the look of someone happy and absorbed in his task.

  Until he saw Judith.

  He stared for several moments, his hand unfaltering as it worked in the depths of the car engine. He awarded her a cautious nod and then shifted his gaze to look hard at his wife.

  Hoping she wasn’t dragging Cass into deeper trouble, Judith plunged straight in. ‘I’m Judith McAllister.’

  He nodded again, straightening, picking up a rag every bit as dirty as the hands he wiped with it, all without speaking.

  She held his gaze. ‘I’m looking for information. I’ve come to you because I believe you’re a man to give me an honest answer.’