by Sheila Burns
She acted on the spur of the moment, giving words to an idea which had actually come to her some days back in the night watches when she sat up guarding Cam. ‘You were actually looking for me on that plane?’ she asked him.
‘Not actually looking, but most certainly I ‒ I knew about you.’
‘How did you know?’
He shrugged those very lean shoulders. ‘It was part of my job to know about visitors to the island, visitors who could be of particular interest to us, and you happened to be one of them.’
‘But why me?’
‘Perhaps not for yourself, but for the reason that your stepfather was here.’
She turned to look at him. She had come to the point when she wanted some explanation, and did not know how to get it. How handsome he looked, with that flat hair which was almost like black satin against a skin which was the colour of magnolias in springtime. Against the black and magnolia, his mouth was surprisingly crimson, and again she thought of Oriental poppies which had grown in an old aunt’s garden, and of dark-red roses on the standard trees before that same house.
‘You are such a kind friend!’ she said, very gently. ‘Yet all the time you give me the rather horrid idea that, for some reason or other, you are spying on me! How did you discover that I was flying out to Valletta when I did not know it myself until I got home for my long leave? And in that particular plane, and at that particular moment?’
He brought a slender golden cigarette case out of his pocket, a beautifully made piece, with a crest on the plain gold, and brilliants which caught the sunshine, forming his initials. He said with a smile, ‘You force my hand, don’t you, Mandy?’
‘I would have thought that I was entitled to some explanation.’
‘Very well, then. If I trust you, then you also must trust me. Is that a compact between us?’
‘Of course.’
‘I love my island. I suppose all men who have been born here love the place dearly, and want to serve it. I serve it in the way that I know best, for all manner of things go on in Malta. The people are simple, a quiet peace-loving people, and they are courageous, and there is still some of the spirit of the pagan temples left here with them. Believe me when I say that there are still living sacrifices.’
She turned her face to him. ‘What do you mean?’
He was looking past her. Those deeply dark eyes of his were staring far out into the distance, with the perfume of the wild thyme blown about them, and somehow Mandy had the instinctive sense of help coming to herself from him. A dragonfly poised for a second on a thistle; she had never seen such a brilliant piece of iridescence before, and it stayed motionless for a moment. It was silver, amethyst, and emerald, all in one. Then it rose swiftly and had gone.
‘You followed me?’ she asked.
‘I did not actually follow you. I happened to be the man on duty, knew you were coming to the island, and for that reason became aware of you.’
‘And what was my crime?’ For suddenly Mandy knew that she felt angry. No man had the right to follow an entirely innocent person like this, surely?
‘You had committed no crime at all. Nobody ever thought that for a single moment, but you were connected with a chain of crimes which were going on here in the island.’
‘You mean Cam?’
He did not deny her. He said nothing, then he opened the cigarette case wide and offered it to her. She shook her head. ‘You don’t imagine for a moment that you might be wrong in what you feel about Cam? That he might not be the man you think he is, but did it to hide something which was entirely different?’
‘No, I don’t think any of it is a mistake.’ He sat back staring into the distance and there was a nostalgic look about the dark eyes as though he could hardly bear to speak of this. ‘I am in a very difficult position in some ways. Duty made me find you, and the moment that I did find you I realized that I ‒ I felt deeply for you. I wanted to shelter and to help you, realizing that you could be in some considerable difficulties, of the kind you did not understand. I do not suppose that you have ever met someone in the course of your own duty, someone who means an infinite amount to you? This is what has happened to me.’
She had not expected this.
There was no answer that she could make, and she sat with the colour flying into her face, and knew there was nothing she could do to stay it. She dared not look at him, lest he read in her eyes more than she could conceal. Maybe she had felt attracted to him herself, for he was utterly different from any other man she had seen. So fair-haired and blue-eyed herself, it could be that his darkness had particular appeal. She remembered as a child being told by an old nanny that love comes quicker with opposites.
She had become so used to surgeons in hospitals, to white coats passing to and fro as the young doctors went their rounds, or the students clustered round a bed. All of them seemed to have had an eye for a pretty nurse. It was in St Jeremy’s that she had learnt to be guarded and to hide her emotions, to look past a man, not at him, and to behave more as an automaton than as a living girl.
She had known that she must not let any of these young men mean a thing to her; Matron had been quite clear on this matter. Somehow the three years had made her proficient in avoiding flattery and flirtatious compliments, and stepping aside from admiration or silly compliments. She knew that what this man offered her was more than all this. There was a ringing sincerity of purpose about him as he sat beside her with a background of pagan temples, dark against the gold brilliance of the Maltese sun, and with the scent of wild thyme going and coming on the little light wind.
‘Please …?’ she said, very gently.
Without being aware of what he was actually doing, Luis had been picking wild thyme, and now he had a little bunch of it, which he pressed into her hand. His voice was emotional; somehow she knew that the moment meant everything to him.
‘Take the wild thyme, press it, and keep it for ever for me! Keep it as part of my island, perhaps part of myself, something that I would want to be part of my love for you,’ and his voice trembled a little, then he went on more quickly, ‘I suppose that I knew this would happen when I saw you standing in the air terminal in London. There was something different about you, and you were not the sort of girl whom I had expected. I knew that.’ He paused, and as she said nothing, went on again, but more quickly, ‘I knew I would love you even then.’
Before Mandy could stop herself, she had said, ‘I knew that, too,’ then was horrified with herself for saying it.
Maybe the atmosphere of the place was doing something to her. The crude temples were memorials to an age when men and women had died for love here; they could have been the romantic background of some of the world’s greatest love stories, if only one knew the truth. Perhaps one’s own is always the greatest love story, she thought.
She felt the quick clasp of his hand on hers, and knew that she could not resist the tenderness of his touch.
He said, more quickly, ‘Perhaps I have no right to talk to you, for my work ‒ it is unpaid work ‒ but the island holds me in very fast bondage. I know you do not believe me, but I am sure if you knew the truth you would want to believe me. I came to find you on that plane simply because of your stepfather.’
She told him the truth because she felt that this was the moment. ‘Please don’t think that I hold any brief for him.’
‘I know that. The point is that it makes me feel to be very guilty myself. I wonder if there is not something that you would like to tell me now? Something that I would keep as a confidence, and I promise you that I do keep my promises. I swear to that.’
She spoke in a low voice. ‘Mother went off on a cruise, and she met Cam on it. They got married before I even knew that anything was happening, and I had no idea what his job was.’
‘You know now?’
‘I know what he told me.’
‘Do not be too sure that what he said was true. He travels, you realize. Shall we just say that he is a traveller?’
She paused, then she began in a subdued voice, ‘Mother is desperately in love with him. I doubt if she knows much of him. Now I am terrified that she will come here and discover that there is something dreadful behind it all. For something is going on, and I don’t know what it is. You ‒ you know the man who calls himself Giuseppe?’
He turned and laughed. The laughter was like a gay music of his own, half ecstasy and all delight. ‘My sweet, there are hundreds of Giuseppes in this island. I presume you mean the hanger-on, the man who waits on your stepfather. If so, of course I know him. And, mind you, he is not the sort of chap a decent man would want you to know.’
‘And you know Max Jefferies?’
As she asked it she saw his eyes go cold. It was as though he had changed completely, stiffening, and for a moment he looked away, then turned to her again. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve met Max Jefferies?’
It was wisdom to speak the truth. ‘Yes, I do, though hardly. He came to the flat the other night when Cam was so desperately ill. How he survived that night I shall never know, for his heart is in a shocking condition. When it was so hot I went out on to the verandah, and there was a man in the patio. He said that his name was Max Jefferies, and that he was a friend of Cam’s who wanted to help.’
For a moment Luis did not speak; then he was stern. ‘Don’t ever let him into the flat, if you take my advice. Never answer questions that he asks, to jolt you into a disclosure. Tell him nothing.’
‘But who is he?’
‘That would be difficult to explain. He works on much the same sort of job as your stepfather, I would have said, in fact he could almost be a rival firm.’ She looked at him dismayed. Until he said this she had thought that possibly Luis knew that her stepfather was a secret agent. Now she was not sure. He said, ‘I think Jefferies is trying to make the most of your stepfather’s illness, and taking advantage of it.’
‘I did feel that there was more in this than met the eye,’ then, as he made no answer, ‘Please don’t think that I have anything to do with Cam’s job really. Mother married him; she is one of those impetuous women who act stupidly at times. She is rich, but there are things that money cannot buy, and perhaps she wanted love. I do hope she doesn’t come bolting out here.’
He paused a moment, then without actually looking at her he said, ‘Maybe you would like to know that already she’s busy and has been trying to get an air passage out here.’
‘How on earth do you know?’
‘Because it happens to be my job.’ From the distance there came the melodious sound of a goatherd singing in a deep throaty voice, as he guarded the grazing goats. The sound fitted into the picture. The temples with their dark ruins shadowed them, whilst a cypress tree drooped wearily with the heat. The sound of the goatboy singing was entrancing, and Luis put out a hand and took hers very kindly. ‘Trust me, do. I am trustworthy, you know. It’s getting hot here and stuffy. I always think that the temples attract the heat somehow. Let’s get along to Citta Veccia? It is the highest point in the island, and should be cooler.’
Mandy got up. Now that she rose, she had the impression that they had travelled a long way together, from home to the shade of the giant monolith, gaunt and ebon against the sky. She stood there rather helplessly, with Luis towering over her, and knew that until this moment she had not appreciated how much taller he was than she herself. He lifted her hand with a gracious gesture, and put it to his lips; they were warmly soft, somehow she knew that the touch inspired her with a sense of security and of trust.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
They walked back to the big trees under which the car was resting, and they got into it. It almost burnt like fire. Mandy felt there was some evil about the temples, something that she had not realized at the time, but now, when she came away from them, she was poignantly aware of it. Maybe Luis knew how she felt, for he said, ‘Don’t worry.’
‘It’s just that this seems to be such a very unreal place. I have never been anywhere like it before, and it scares me.’
‘It needn’t.’ He started the car. ‘Now off we go to Citta Veccia, also known as Notabile, to make things more difficult.’
‘I know of it. I believe the Contessa Lucinda lives there.’
He turned to her, leaning over the wheel. ‘What on earth do you know about Lucinda?’
‘I don’t know her. She sent wonderful fruit and flowers to Cam when she discovered that he was ill. She rings up and is very abrupt when I won’t let her talk to him. It makes him angry. He likes her, I gather. Anyway they seem to know one another fairly well.’
‘Do they now?’ For a moment the real Luis seemed to have disappeared, gone far from her, and in his place was a man with strangely penetrating eyes. He searched her with those eyes.
‘You’re angry?’ she asked, for she realised that for some unknown reason he had not liked the thought of Cam and Lucinda talking, or knowing each other so well. There must be a great deal going on behind the scenes which she did not understand. ‘Please?’ she asked, ‘couldn’t you tell me what is going on, and why you feel that it is so wrong? They are just friends, I gather.’
He jerked himself together, for he had seen how she felt about it. ‘There is nothing actually wrong. Your stepfather is entitled to his own friends, Lucinda to hers, but I’ll tell you about her. She is American, born in the south of France where she lived an odd life. She came out here as a girl, at a time when the RN was established here, and she was on that quest which rude people knew as being “fishing fleet”.’
‘And what is that?’
He lit a cigarette, drawing it out of the handsome case, and tapping it first. ‘A girl in search of a husband, as a fisherman hunts for fish. He puts down his best nets, then waits for the answer,’ and he laughed.
‘It isn’t very flattering,’ Mandy commented.
‘No, indeed.’
He went on to tell her more as they drove to the old capital together. Lucinda had come to Malta on this quest, and had worked it hard. She had married an ancient admiral, one would have thought a born bachelor, and nobody could imagine what he had seen in her. His reputation had been that of a confirmed bachelor, one of those men who never overlooks a mistake. But, as Luis said, he must have made the mistake of his life when he made Lucinda his lady. She had come from the lowest parts of New York, she had been nothing in France, but here she turned grand and wanted all the compliments. The old admiral had had a stroke (the island attributed it to an affair of Lucinda’s), but he died. From then on, she became fabulously rich and basked in it. None seemed to know where the money had come from, for the admiral when he retired had stayed on in Malta to save on income tax.
Now Lucinda lived in Casa Antonia which was beyond belief; she had fantastic gardens, the best in the island, and grew superb lemons in her lemon orchard. She liked people, especially rather peculiar people, and was a good hostess, but Luis told Mandy she could be treacherous, too. Those whom she took against had to look to their laurels, for she could be downright vicious when angry and had immense power here.
‘Apparently she liked Cam, for they got on awfully well together,’ Mandy said.
‘Then that is dangerous for all of us, but worth noting. Never mind, the fact that we know what is going on is something, and thank you for what you have told me.’
With the late afternoon, and Imtarfa barracks clearly outlined on the little bit of a hill, the atmosphere of the island became torpid and heavy. It was almost as though the heat pressed down on them like a cloud which was travelling low. The moving car made it slightly easier, but not as much as Mandy had hoped, and she sat back in it fanning herself.
They climbed into Citta Veccia, where the air did seem to be a trifle cooler, for which she thanked heaven. Just before they came into the thin little commercial street, Luis turned the car sharply right, through massively carved gates, and she saw before them a long avenue of cocoon-like cypresses.
They went up this avenue, then came to
a wilderness of flowers, blossoming profusely. She could smell the fragrance of honeysuckle, and saw azaleas blossoming in apricot and scarlet, and an enormous bush of dead-white ones, with the white of ice itself.
There was a shaven lawn alongside them, with a fountain at play on it, the hosepipes bringing fresh water to it. In the heat the sight of water in crystal droppings was entrancing, and Mandy felt the heat badly. She saw too the first really green grass that she had seen since her plane came down here.
The house was squarely cut as were all Maltese houses, with two little towers on it, etched in pearl against the very blue sky. Almost before they came to a standstill, the door opened and a Maltese man-servant appeared. He bowed low. Mandy saw the long hall behind him, which appeared to lead far away into the distance, and everywhere there were bowls of flowers. She saw shallow steps rising up into that distance, and knew that this place was far more extravagant than she had expected it to be; obviously Luis was very wealthy.
He took her indoors, to the far side of the house, which was deliciously cool, into a room whose tall windows looked out across the island. She stared at it, half desert in some places, then with contrasting fruitful valleys, and the land dotted by small square houses. The bells were ringing. She saw the fields of clover, sweetly pink and velvety, and thought how beautiful they were and how much she loved the look of this island.
‘The place has a very great personality,’ was what she said to him.
He had come to stand beside her, and he laid his hand gently on her shoulder, his face against her own.
‘This is my home,’ he whispered. ‘I inherited it, and value it, but what I shall do with it in the end I do not know. It could be a holiday home for poor children, for old soldiers or tired people, all those who love my island.’ He paused a moment, then went on more quickly. Out of the distance came the sound of a child crying. Mandy did not know why she noticed it so acutely.
‘You could marry,’ she said. She saw amongst the far trees the lovely tower of a small temple in the garden. It was pale pink marble, contrasting with the whiteness of other buildings in Malta, octagon-shaped, and she saw how beautifully it was carved and ornamented.
