Chapter 18
Riva slipped on a yellow cotton dress that made the most of her curvaceous figure and grabbed her high heels and straw hat before climbing down into a dghaisa and setting off for Valletta.
At the dinner, Bobby had wheedled her address out of Lottie and had written to invite her to meet him in the gardens as before.
She was in an especially good mood. Her week at work had gone well, although she’d wondered about the age of some of the girls working in the club.
Some looked barely sixteen and many of them spoke hardly any English.
She had already spent several afternoons sitting peacefully in the shade of the Lower Barrakka Gardens, either reading or watching the shimmering Mediterranean and the vessels entering and leaving the port.
She loved the little sailing boats painted blue, green and red, and when she asked, she was told they were from Gozo.
Today, however, she headed for the cranky old lift that would take her up to the upper gardens and Bobby.
As she stepped out of the lift, she saw him before he spotted her, and she stood for a moment to stare.
He wore no hat and his blonde hair looked almost white in the searing sunshine.
He turned, as if feeling her eyes on his back, and waved.
She walked across and stood before him, suddenly shy, yet feeling – again – that this man was going to have a huge impact on her life. Somehow.
‘Hello,’ she said.
He kissed her on the cheek.
Riva had always sensed things before they happened, although she didn’t necessarily believe her own imaginings. And today everything was exactly as it should be. He was here, she was here. What more could there be?
‘Thought we’d have lunch with my uncle,’ he said as he took her hand. ‘In Mdina.’
‘All right,’ she said, but hadn’t expected that. She would have preferred a day alone with Bobby.
‘How about a drive to the Dingli cliffs before lunch?’
‘Perfect.’ She smiled at him. ‘Where’s your car?’
‘Just around the corner.’
He had clearly parked it for maximum impact, and she stared goggle-eyed as he pointed out the gleaming vehicle.
‘Alfa Romeo RLSS,’ he said. ‘Italian. Easy to import to Malta. My uncle has lent it to me.’
She was gazing at the most elegant automobile she had ever seen.
‘It’s not painted. It’s polished metal,’ he said, and he walked round to open the passenger door for her.
She could tell he was pleased with her reaction, and she stepped up into the car and sank into a luxurious maroon leather seat.
‘What if it rains?’ she asked.
He glanced up at the seamless blue sky and laughed. ‘It won’t, but if it does, I lift the top.’
He sat in the driver’s seat and glanced at her. ‘Ready?’
She nodded.
‘Hold on to your hat.’
And she did.
They sped through the green and fertile landscape ripe with orchards and agricultural terraces, the dusty white road dipping and curving in front of them.
She gazed at little fields and stony ground with low walls separating them, a breeze carrying the scent of wild herbs.
And windmills on the outskirts of villages. She loved the windmills.
‘It’s a wonderful sight when the orange pickers are out in December,’ he said, ‘and the citrus scent in the air is amazing. I hope you’ll be here for it.’
They passed barefoot rural women wearing long skirts and blouses with pretty headscarves tied under their chins and carrying chickens in large baskets balanced on the heads.
And now and again a cart pulled by a donkey.
In one village a man in a hat with a brightly coloured scarf draped around his neck sat on a step playing a guitar.
‘We’re less than seventeen miles by ten you know,’ he said. ‘The ocean is never more than twenty minutes or so away.’
When they arrived at the western cliffs of Dingli, he parked the car close by and came round to open the door for her. She was utterly charmed by the way he looked at her, as if there was nobody else in the world he wanted to be with.
They walked towards the edge along the flat rocky top and marvelled at the sheer drop, the sapphire blue of the sea and the milky white foam as it rolled against the base of the cliffs.
‘Over eight hundred feet high,’ he said. ‘Dizzying, isn’t it?’
Delighted by it all, she listened to the gulls calling.
‘And that’s the Mediterranean.’
The view of the sea was spectacular. She was a city girl and although she had spent her summers in the Périgord in France, she was not accustomed to being beside the sea.
The smell of the salt was strong and would remain in her hair later, she thought.
He reached out to take off her hat, his hand softly grazing her cheeks.
‘It’ll blow off,’ he said and handed it to her.
He was right. She’d had to hold on to it during most of the car journey.
‘I like your hair,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘Very modern.’
They walked for a while just enjoying the day.
‘Look at all the yellow wildflowers,’ she said.
‘It’s always like this in spring. In the summer it’s the yellow of wild fennel and the sweet fragrant flowers of caper bushes.
And when you walk it’s the aromatic scent of thyme you can smell drifting up around you.
Look,’ he said, changing the subject and pointing at a tiny island.
‘That’s Filfla. Completely uninhabited.’
A fierce longing overcame her – the irresistible urge to stand right at the edge as if on the very line between life and certain death. She walked close, then even closer, daring to put herself to the test, and maybe Bobby too, by inching her toes just a tiny bit over the top of the cliff.
He quickly came up behind her and with an arm around her waist pulled her back. ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ he said. ‘The cliff can crumble.’
She rotated her body so she could look at him.
She remembered how she’d longed for a more exciting world.
Well, now she’d found it. And Bobby was going to be at the heart of it.
He bent towards her and very gently kissed her on the mouth.
He pulled back from her, but feeling sultry with heat and desire, she threaded her fingers into his hair and drew his head towards her again.
Moments later, he was kissing her more deeply and she was digging her nails into his back urging him on.
She pressed her hips against his, feeling the strength of what was unfolding between them.
‘Oh God,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘What are you doing to me?’
He stroked the back of her neck and nuzzled her hair.
‘What about your uncle?’ she reminded him breathlessly.
‘Oh damnation. I’d forgotten.’
‘There’s always next time.’
‘Would you like there to be?’
She laughed. ‘What do you think?’
She patted his hair down where she’d messed it up. It felt strangely more intimate than the kiss and then he took her hand and walked her back to the car.
When they approached the fortified city of Mdina – rising above the fields and perched on a large hilltop above centuries-old bastions and a solid bed of rock – the high golden walls looked majestic but also a little unnerving.
A medieval city, with its domes and towers and cupolas – utterly unspoilt, and completely unassailable.
When she asked Bobby about it, he told her it had existed in some form since Roman times and that it had been Malta’s first capital city.
‘It’s mainly Maltese nobility who live here.’
‘Is your uncle Maltese?’
‘No.’
‘So how come he’s living here?’
‘He married Filomena, a Maltese woman. She died, I’m afraid, so now the place his. It’s a seventeenth-century building. Quite beautiful. Of course, there are a few British here too.’
He drove through the massive stone gateway and parked, then they walked around the shady curving streets for a little while.
Riva stared open-mouthed at what he called palazzi.
These imposing houses lined the narrow cobbled streets in every direction, their shutters closed, their magnificent doorways bolted. Everything she saw said ‘keep out’.
‘The Silent City, they call it.’ He lifted his hand and pointed at the stunning baroque architecture all around them.
She stopped walking to listen. All she could hear was the wind.
‘I’d get lost here on my own.’
‘Yes. It’s labyrinthine. After the Knights of the Order of St John arrived it stopped being the capital. They needed to be closer to their ships. And now the British administration is focused mainly in Valletta too.’
He stopped walking and removed an iron key from his pocket.
‘This is it?’ She gazed up at the immense double door and the two heavy brass lion’s head door knockers.
He nodded.
‘Gosh. It looks like a fortress.’
He slid the key into the lock, turned it and then pushed open one side of the huge creaking door. It was dark inside, and it took a while for her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. He crossed the large hall and into another one, this one vaulted, full of shadows and odd shafts of sunlight.
‘We need to cross the courtyard.’
They passed along a corridor and an arched gallery and then went outside to an internal courtyard surrounded by honey-coloured stone walls. She stopped to look around and breathe in the scent of early jasmine.
Climbing plants crept up the walls and others cascaded from a gallery lined with decorative iron railings running around three sides of the next floor up.
‘What a gorgeous garden,’ she said, looking at the stone tubs full of lilies.
‘Fig tree over there,’ he said, nodding towards a tree in the corner. ‘The best figs you’ll find anywhere in the world. And there, two orange trees.’
She heard the trickle of water and saw a fountain, not in the centre as you might expect, but falling from three decorative spouts into a stone trough up against a wall.
‘Water sprites,’ he said, seeing her looking. ‘The spouts.’
She took a long breath and let it out slowly. ‘So,’ she said.
‘So,’ he replied. ‘Ready to meet the old boy?’