by Sheila Burns
At this moment they saw him coming along the verandah, walking carefully in the shade. He looked tall and lean, a man wearing close silk shorts and shirt. The sun shimmered on a religious medallion which dangled from his neck (something she gave him perhaps, Mandy told herself), then she dismissed that idea. The abbot waved to him and he came quicker.
‘So you two have had a talk?’ he said.
‘A most interesting talk,’ said the older man.
‘And you have been telling Mandy all my sins?’
‘Not all of them, my dear boy, you may have too many for me,’ and he laughed. He had the light eager laughter of a much younger man. ‘She admires our garden, and our flowers, now fading in the heat. Let us go inside and have some food. I heard the bell a few minutes ago. I arranged it in my own sitting-room, for I did not think that you would like to eat in the refectory as you usually do, Luis? It gets very hot there.’
They went indoors.
Wherever they went the strong shadow of faith seemed to involve them. They walked down the corridor, past the refectory where the brothers were eating, and on to the small room where she gathered the abbot himself entertained when he had company. There was a scrubbed wooden table with no cloth on it, ebon-handled knives and prongs, and thick beer glasses. The food was spread on wooden platters with steel trays to them, and there was a huge dish of cheese of all kinds in the centre. The salad was fresh from the garden and very good. How they ever grew such salad in this heat she could not think.
Beyond the room where they sat so happily she saw the stark cell in which the abbot slept every night of his life, and would sleep until the time came that he died there. It was like a little prison. The stone walls had nothing on them save one plain wooden crucifix beside his bed. The bed was hard.
Men died in office here, and she wondered who nursed them when that hour came, though she knew that a little cemetery of remembrance lay beyond the walls, where the brothers rested for ever.
There was a great serenity about this place. She got the feeling that here one could never be angry for very long; that here, harshness could not prevail, even if their lives were stripped of frivolities and of fun.
She sat there with the food and she was remembering the soft rose-pink temple amongst the dark foliage in Luis’s garden. She could not help thinking of the young wife who rested there for ever. There was no sepulchre to her, just the soft topaz dome of that temple, and she was sure that it stood in a bed of flowers.
She remembered the agonized scream she had heard and should have recognized. She had known that it was a child, but Luis had been almost casual over it. If only he had told her then, she thought; if only he had told her himself, but he hadn’t done. She was half resentful, and half bewildered by it.
Maybe what he was feeling for her was the passing flirtation, the momentary affair, which comes to so many men and then they sheer off to pastures new. But she could not think that of him. Not of Luis, she thought almost indignantly. Already that thought had the power to hurt her. She shrank from that. Already any idea of parting with him was a pain right through the heart.
It should never have come this far; she should have recognized the danger earlier, but he had made her so happy.
When you love a man and are a girl like Mandy, maybe the thing you want most from another is the fact that he trusts you. She wished he had told her about his wife, and about the boy. Was this why he was so quiet at times? Or was it that he could not bring himself to tell her, but shrank away from it? There are, she realised, points in life which hurt so much that one cannot break the silence with which precaution has hedged them. Was this what it had been with Luis?
She was aware of confusion within her, something which blinded her. Seeing Luis as a man who had suffered, changed him, the man who had lost his wife under perhaps the most harrowing circumstances of all and whose son was hopelessly ill.
‘This is all terrible for him,’ she said later when they were alone together, she and the abbot.
‘But Luis always had great courage. He has done so much for this island, and is loved by everybody in Malta. We all owe him a debt which we can never fully repay.’
‘He is very unselfish,’ she said.
‘His son will never grow up, perhaps in a way this is a good thing, though one can become extraordinarily devoted to a sick child, and the hurt is intense.’
She asked, ‘What is there that I can do to help him?’ Above everything she wanted to reach out a hand to Luis, and make life easier for him, but what was there that she could do?
‘Wait till the opportunity comes to you.’ The abbot’s grey eyes were far away and in them was that faith which is everlasting. ‘That will be the hour when you can help, when he tells you his story himself. It will come, but none must force it. When he tells you, then you will know what is best to do for him and to bring him comfort.’
‘But I am leaving the island so soon.’
He looked at her for a moment and Mandy felt that those calm grey eyes could pierce her very heart. He thought of it, then he said in that low voice. ‘He can always follow you if he wishes, for his work takes him all over the world. His life is here today and gone tomorrow whilst he has this job.’
‘What is his job?’
He looked at her in a puzzled way. ‘You mean that you don’t know. Then it is hardly for me to tell you, but it is for good.’
She knew that it would be quite useless to try to force him. His silence was inviolable, and he would tell nothing that he thought was wrong, for apparently this was something that was secret. She hesitated. Because she was deeply disappointed, she made a last attempt to confide in this man.
‘I admire him so much, I like him immensely, and he has been kind to me, yet I ‒ I haven’t the slightest idea of what his work is.’
‘He will tell you when he wishes you to know,’ he said, then very politely, in that unhurried way of his which was so attractive, ‘Shall we join the others?’
Mandy felt that he was no longer a stranger, and she went with him back to the convent itself. Luis was a man whom you could not ask questions of, she felt, and she thought again of that sharp scream that had come when she was in his casa. She thought of that exquisite little temple in the garden, and she had drawn his attention to her admiration of it. Surely that would have been the time for him to have told her about it?
But Luis could be silent as the grave, and she shrank from the thought of forcing that silence. Maybe life at St Jeremy’s had had much to recommend it, for it went along on a fairly even keel, and ever since she had come out here to Malta things had been happening. Event followed event in a strange and difficult way. She thought suddenly, and with longing, of the sound of footsteps on the highly polished corridors, and the noise of the lift door opening as the operation patients came and went. She thought of the innumerable routines which at the time she had thought to be so sickening, and to which she now looked back, as being something in the nature of security. Richard Tate’s happy face coming round the corner of a door, and his always amiable ‘Haloo’.
By contrast she knew that here in Malta itself there was danger, something was going on which made her horribly unsure, afraid, and at moments, almost unhappy.
Yet on the other hand she was enchanted with the wildness of part of the island, the prickly pears and those dusty fig trees; the towns with their houses, and the Indian shops for ever with an eye open for tourists. The island was romantic. It was strangely different from anything that she had ever known before, and she felt that when she left it, she would never return here again. I’ve got to love it whilst I am here, she told herself, and knew that the abbot understood much of what she felt.
As they walked back to the convent together, he said, ‘Life is often far better than you would expect. Problems solve themselves. Always remember that when you get really anxious.’
They could hear the sound of singing from the chapel, and there was something that was infinitely soothing a
bout the voices. They went into the corridor with the statues in the niches and on to the little office where the abbot usually received people. It was a room unlike the others in the convent, for it had quite a Victorian flavour, with easy chairs and soft cushions contrasting with the barrenness of the rest of the furniture.
‘Some refreshment?’ he suggested, and Luis was waiting there for them.
On the table was a tray with the wine that the monks made so admirably. He and Luis talked of old times, apparently he had been visiting the convent ever since he was a boy, and their friendship was firmly established. They talked longer than Mandy had anticipated, and she became a little anxious for Cam.
‘I ought to be getting back,’ she said at last.
The really hot day was beginning, and when they went outside to the waiting car, the place seemed to be like a furnace.
‘It’s terribly hot, Luis.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
‘You’ve lived here all your life and don’t feel it like strangers do.’
‘All my life,’ and he smiled.
‘Have you never felt very lonely here?’
He paused a moment as they rounded a corner of the drive, and he turned to wave a last farewell to the tall abbot who was still waving to them; then they went on, and were out of sight.
‘Have you never been lonely in Malta?’ she asked him again.
‘I do a lot of work for the island. Work is a very great help to me, and makes life easier, you know,’ and then, ‘No, I am not alone.’
She had wanted to force this, wondering if he would tell her of the wife who had died, and the poor little son so hopelessly ill in his casa, but somehow she felt too tired. It was the heat, she imagined. It was the first time in her life that she was confronted with fierce heat, and she found it difficult to bear. She mopped a wet forehead and he saw it.
‘We’d better get you home quickly. It’s altogether too much for you,’ he said, and went faster to make a wind, which would be cooling, but out here even the winds seemed to be hot.
‘Thanks. That’s better!’
‘Tonight, when the heat of the day is over, do come and sup with me? We have got so much to talk about.’
‘I know, but somehow we don’t come down to facts, do we?’
‘We shall, you know.’ For a single moment it seemed that he revealed his real self, and she wondered if he were waiting for the moment when he could talk, or if he would ever keep silent the story of the wife who had died, and the boy who was so ill. Comfortingly, he said, ‘Give yourself time in life, Mandy, remembering that most of us hurry living too much, then we get nowhere and do nothing.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
She saw the great dome of Musta ahead of them, and realized that they were travelling very fast indeed.
He touched her hand, his own like velvet. ‘Bear with me, my sweet, for life is hard to some of us, and there are times when it is not easy to reveal ourselves. There are moments when I find life utterly insupportable, that is the truth; it is something I want you not to forget.’
It seemed for a second that she saw the heart of this man, the heart itself, and instantly knew that it bled. Was he one of those people who take trouble so deeply that they cannot forget it, and dare not speak of it?
‘I’ll wait,’ she said.
They came past Florian gardens, and approached the town itself. The white houses were startlingly clear, and their whiteness hurt, so that she could feel her eyeballs stinging with it. The heat did not only come down upon them, but rose up, too. They turned down the side street and came to a stop by the flats.
‘Tonight?’ he said, and she nodded.
‘Tonight,’ she promised him.
Chapter Eight
The house was cooler, probably that was because the fans were working hard, whilst outside there was no air at all.
She had the vague apprehension that things were working to a head as she went into the sitting-room. She must have been very quiet coming in as she had done, for now she heard the sound of angry voices. The noise came from Cam’s bedroom. He was speaking himself, and she knew that he must be having a row with someone, which was the very last thing that she would want.
She hurried.
It is very seldom that a nurse hurries, for calm is part of her training, but this time she almost ran. She burst open the door of his room. Cam was propped up in bed; she saw immediately that the pillows were far too high for him, and could not think how he had managed this. Beside him Giuseppe stood gesticulating.
She went in, and shut the door behind her.
‘Be quiet!’ she said, and both of them stopped, amazed by the authority of her voice. ‘What is happening?’ and she went over to Cam. ‘You must not sit up so high,’ and she removed a large pillow, lowering him gently. ‘Lie down lower, or you will be ill again.’
His colour was bad, she could see, his eyes still blazing with fury, and his hands trembling. She turned at once to Giuseppe.
‘You must leave us at once!’
He did not move. She finished arranging things for Cam, and then went round to the other side of the bed where Giuseppe was standing.
‘You must go at once! Surely you realize the patient is very ill, and you are distressing him?’
Giuseppe did not move. ‘I not go wi’zout the moneys,’ he said firmly and grinned, showing hideous teeth that were stained yellow-brown, and broken here and there.
‘Come back when the patient is better; then he will pay whatever is owing.’
She put out a hand to take his arm and escort him to the open window and through it to the verandah beyond. He must have come this way, she thought. He would not go. Growling with anger, he flashed a knife out of his sleeve. This was something that Mandy had not expected, and she did not know how it was she stopped herself from screaming.
‘This man cheat me. He owe me much moneys.’
‘He is too ill to be worried now. You must see this, and if you go on upsetting him you’ll get nothing.’ She was proud of herself in that her voice did not flinch, and she was not showing the horror that she felt. She remembered Tutor Sister saying that when in distress keeping calm had the greatest staying power of all. Perhaps keeping calm would work now. ‘Please go away,’ she said. ‘Staying here can only make him worse, and not hurry your own cause for a moment.’
‘I want moneys.’
‘How much?’
He named such a fantastic sum that she could not believe it was true, but contrived to give no sign of what she felt. ‘When the doctor has been and he is better, I’ll talk about it, but nothing can be done now.’
‘I did bring the packets.’
‘Yes, I know. You come back tomorrow?’
His eyes grew shrewd with cunning. ‘If I go, you tell the policemans, I come back and policemans watch for me.’
‘I do not know the police,’ she said, still calmly.
He sneered at that, and the knife flashed in his hand. She wished beyond everything that he would put it away.
He was muttering in Maltese to himself, and she was convinced that what he said was hateful. She glanced at Cam and saw that he was unconscious. He would not have heard a single word of what was going on, for now he had used up his energy and had collapsed amongst the pillows.
‘Look! My patient is ill, he needs me. You must go,’ she said quite sharply.
He pushed the knife back up his sleeve; how he kept it there she could not think. She walked with him to the verandah, unable to believe that he was actually going, but he did go. He climbed over the stone balustrade, pausing to shake his fist at her just before he dropped down into the patio itself. Then he had gone. She went inside and locked the windows. She felt faint with horror, and drew wet curtains that Carmina had watered with a can to keep the heat out of the room.
She went back to Cam’s side. His pulse was bad, and she rang for the doctor to come. She laid him more comfortably; his strength seemed to have been sapped o
ut of him and he appeared utterly exhausted and only half aware of what was going on about him.
Dr Mallea wanted to know what had been happening, and Mandy told him what she could. This man had brought a package to the flat and had expected to be paid for it. So far, she gathered, he had not been paid because Cam was too ill to be bothered about it. What did she do?
Dr Mallea held little brief for Giuseppe. He insisted that someone apply to the police to keep the man away even if this sent him to detention. She spoke of the knife which had flashed out, and saw that it did not surprise the doctor.
‘These men behave badly. They lose their heads most easily,’ was what he said as he went on preparing a sedative. He came out into the hall with her afterwards. ‘As soon as it is possible you must fly back with the patient,’ he told her. ‘There are far too many difficulties here. He must return.’
‘I am worried because my mother may fly out at any moment.’
‘Could she not take him home?’
‘I ‒ I’m not sure.’
She knew that whilst they stayed they would be open to this undercurrent and they must get Cam away, but Mandy could not imagine her mother accepting the responsibility of flying Cam back alone, for she was far too fond of herself for that. One thing was certain, at all costs he must go!
‘There would be much arrangement,’ Dr Mallea said. ‘The mother take him and you have the leetle holiday?’
‘I don’t suppose anything quite so nice will happen.’
She wondered what he knew about the Secret Service. Probably nothing, for these are people who do not advertise themselves. Whilst they stayed in the island Cam would be ever open to trouble, with Giuseppe after him, and also there was Max Jefferies, whom Mandy distrusted most of all.
‘You have the little rest,’ Dr Mallea suggested.
She did have ‘the little rest’. Until she had come to Malta she had never appreciated the joy of the siesta, with fans purring softly, the heat shut out, and the sweet soft smell of flowers in the room with her. She understood now that the siesta could make her feel like a new girl, and she went to lie down, falling asleep immediately, and dreaming that she was back in the sweet convent with the very tall and thin old abbot. He was the man whom anyone could trust, she thought.
