Chapter Four
She stopped short, eyebrows lifting. ‘Sorry that you caused me needless embarrassment?’
‘I was thrown that you chose to cough your guts to people you’ve only just met, contrary to your usual habit of keeping things to yourself.’
She flushed. ‘I’ve only just met them in the flesh but we’ve been e-mailing for months.’
With an effort, he remembered that he was supposed to be apologising. ‘What I’m sorry for is sounding so melodramatic and bitter. It came out wrong. I’d realised from the way you made the introductions that you hadn’t explained our history. I meant to head her off but somehow it came out all drama queen.’
The faintest of smiles tugged at a corner of her mouth. ‘It was just your way of being nice?’
Reluctantly, he grinned. ‘I wouldn’t go as far as that. Let’s just say I wasn’t actively trying to piss you off.’
After a moment, she nodded. ‘OK. Thanks.’
He sighed. ‘Do you think it would be a plan to talk a few things out? If we’re stuck with each other we might as well try and make it as easy on ourselves as possible. I haven’t forgotten what you said about the sharks. I hope to swim with a few during my time here, but not when I’m sporting Elle-inflicted injuries.’
She actually looked alarmed. ‘Are there really sharks in the Med?’
‘Only a few, because they’ve been over-fished. There hasn’t been a shark attack in decades.’ He picked up his wallet and tucked it in the back pocket of his board shorts, trying not to read anything into the fact that she didn’t seem to care for the idea of him swimming with sharks. ‘Forget the sharks, let’s go get a drink on neutral ground. We can discuss the rules of engagement.’
Finally, her expression relaxed. ‘I could go for a glass of wine.’
They locked the boat and he led the way along to the promenade. As well as the shore moorings, boats were dotted right across the creek on swing moorings in the marine equivalent of a car park. Leisure craft in white and navy bobbed beside rowing boats. Fishing boats in traditional combinations of blue, yellow and red sported eyes on each side of their prows to ward off evil. On the other side of the creek craft nestled in cradles at Manoel Boatyard.
Elle looked content as she drank it all in. In an effort to have at least one conversation not filled with barbs, Lucas made like a tour guide. ‘Further along is where the ferries leave from. They sail round the island, around the harbours, or over to the sister islands of Gozo and Comino. You’ll be offered tickets every time you pass.’
‘I’d love to do some cruises. On a calm day.’ She tipped back her hat so that she could look at him under the brim.
His breath caught at the blueness of her eyes. ‘Are you going to have time for sightseeing?’ She’d mentioned something to do with a charity as well as working for the StJohns.
‘If I don’t, I’m going to be very upset. The whole idea of travel is to see stuff and enjoy it, so I intend to have a couple of days off every week. Simon told me to go on the open-top bus tours but that sounds really touristy.’
He stepped aside to let a family pass, her arm brushing his, warm and distracting. ‘But you do see a lot of the island in one day.’
The Ta’ Xbiex waterfront became the Sliema waterfront, and the heat of the afternoon radiated up around their bare ankles as they wove between statues and pocket gardens, kiosks and bus stops. When they reached the stand for the water taxi he bought two tickets.
She hovered. ‘Are we going somewhere?’
‘I thought we could buzz across to Valletta. See that cafe? It’s a nice place for a beer.’ He pointed across the water to a huddle of bright yellow umbrellas, the fortifications of Valletta rising like stone curtains behind.
Her eyes sparkled, lighter and brighter than the sea. ‘My first cruise.’
The Maltese skipper pulled the little white-hulled water taxi closer to the side, holding on to one of the struts of the yellow canopy. ‘Madam. Sinjur . Please board carefully.’
Lucas followed Elle as she negotiated two steps down into the bobbing craft and settled herself on the cushions of a bench seat at the back. Two passengers were seated already: tourists, looking pink and hot. A small Maltese family followed; the skipper clambered into the helm seat and a man emerged from the ticket stand to cast them off, calling to the skipper in Maltese.
With a rumble, the boat edged away from the quay, and then swooped around to face Valletta. The engine note rose as they began to accelerate, bouncing over the wake of a large cabin cruiser making its way down the deep channel.
The sun was still strong, drawing patterns on the water, prompting Lucas to put on his sunglasses. From behind their black lenses he could watch Elle as she took off her hat, turned her face towards their destination and let her blonde hair dance in the wind.
Her hair had only brushed her shoulders last time he’d seen her. Now it was long down her back and she had to catch it into a tail and hold on to it so that she could gaze at the pointed shape of Fort Manoel, like a stone ship about to plough the waves, as they left behind the jumble of modern buildings that was Sliema. Before them, the citadel of Valletta rose, its aged stone buildings studded by gallerija , the enclosed balconies common on the island.
It was only minutes before the boat turned to present itself to a different concrete dock and Elle swayed against him with the motion, her skin feeling hotter than the sun. With an apologetic glance, she edged away.
The road into Valletta rose steeply to the right, but they crossed to the cafe only a few yards away.
‘Every table with a sea view.’ Elle dropped into a chair beneath a yellow umbrella, raking her hair with her fingers until it ran like gold over one shoulder as she smiled at the young waiter who appeared at their table. He looked dazzled as he took their drinks order.
Elle’s gaze followed him as he crossed the road to the restaurant building. ‘They must have to carry trays across all the time.’
‘They do, but it’s a small road. It really just comes to the two restaurants here, a few boats and the water taxies and ferries.’
‘You seem to know your way around.’
‘I was here last year for several weeks, with Simon. As soon as I left I wanted to come back.’
In the shade she’d discarded her hat and sunglasses and he was able to see the shadow that crossed her face. ‘So we both want to be in Malta. You’re right that we need to talk about how we’re going to . . . c-coexist.’ She stumbled over the final word.
Live together he supplied, silently. They used to live together. He recalled the excitement of making the decision that she’d give up her flat and move into his house on the outskirts of Northampton. Getting used to her things around, buying a new bed because she’d joked that his old one was probably high mileage. He’d known she’d been joking but he’d changed the bed even though Elle didn’t seem to do jealousy. No, that was all Lucas’s thing.
And, fuck, it was still eating at him that she’d never really told him everything about Ricky.
Unreasonably nettled by the realisation, instead of opening a sensible discussion about how they were going to ‘coexist’, he heard himself demand, ‘Why were you always so weird over talking about your ex?’
Apprehension flitted into her eyes. ‘What’s he got to do with anything now?’ She laced her fingers together.
Lucas sat back as the waiter arrived with their drinks, realising he was in danger of sounding like a pillock. ‘Sorry. Nothing. It was just idle curiosity that I don’t have the right to indulge. I’ll shut up.’ But it was interesting that she’d reacted so warily.
To defuse the situation, he caught her up on the antics of his brother, Charlie, who she’d always loved, trying to make her laugh.
When she seemed to have uncoiled, he brought the conversation back around to his ideas of how they were going to share the boat — to have his or her own space. Live and let live. Be considerate.
‘And not be grouchy.’ She sent him a sidelong glance.
‘I’m never grouchy,’ he protested.
‘You were when I arrived.’
‘Apart from then.’ He dismissed the moment with a grin, glad to see her recovering her spirit.
‘When’s your — the woman you mentioned coming over?’
‘Kayleigh? I’m not certain, yet.’ He tried to conjure up Kayleigh in his imagination: her striking face, her straight dark red hair and her frequent smile with the tiny gap between her front teeth. ‘She makes her own plans. She’s not high-maintenance.’
He included the last line to see whether Elle would point out the iniquity of valuing this trait when he’d always protested Elle was low-maintenance to the point of shutting him out.
But Elle just treated him to a polite smile. ‘She sounds very capable.’
‘Yes, and she has a busy job to work around but she’s hoping to get a late booking at a Sliema hotel.’ Not that he’d actually asked Kayleigh the details of her schedule.
Elle’s eyes widened. ‘She’s not staying on the Shady Lady ?’
He was aware he’d made it sound that way when Elle’s obvious dismay at first seeing him had made him feel as if his insides, frozen for four years, had burst into flames but was able to say, truthfully, ‘She prefers a hotel.’
Picking up the menu cards, he passed one to her. ‘Hungry?’
They ate as the sun disappeared, the lights of Sliema beginning to glitter across the short stretch of water.
As they pushed away their plates, he released the question that had been jumping in his throat since she’d walked back into his life. ‘And how about you?’
She raised enquiring eyebrows, so blonde that they’d nearly disappeared in the cafe lights.
He took a draught of his beer. ‘Boyfriend,’ he said, casually. ‘Partner. Significant other. Husband.’
‘Oh.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Not right now. The last man I dated was a drummer in a band. We saw each other for a while.’
They lapsed into silence. To the right, past the mouth of the harbour to the open sea, Lucas could see lights from boats, pinpricks in the darkness as if a couple of the shining stars above them had slipped. He quashed an impulse to ask more about the drummer. How long was “a while”? Had she considered making a future with him? Had he made her happy?
Or had he driven her away with demands that she reveal herself, commit herself, yet signalled his own commitment with a marriage proposal that had come out more as pragmatism than love?
Had the drummer been as obsessed with Elle as Lucas had been? Had the end of the relationship cut caverns in his heart?
He stole a glance at her as she stared out across the water, her profile perfect, her body curvy and firm, her satin hair stirring in the breeze. Then he took a breath and moved the conversation back to safer ground. ‘How long do you think you’ll stay in Malta?’
Blinking, she turned back to him. ‘Four months is my initial commitment. I’m going to be working as a volunteer at the Nicholas Centre, a drop-in youth centre. I’ll be responsible for the internet cafe. Young people hang out there, of all ages and backgrounds.’ Suddenly animated, she pulled herself up in her chair, placing her elbows on the table. ‘I had plenty of IT skills but I had to take online courses in child protection and safeguarding. It made me realise what the Nicholas Centre is all about.’
He listened, intrigued. How different an Elle she was, now. The Elle he’d known had been very much on the fast track of a competitive post-graduate programme in an IT company, working hard, playing the game, living the corporate life. Giving to charity had been through sensibly Gift Aided money, not with time and effort.
‘So what happens after the four months?’
She spread her hands in a “who knows?” gesture. ‘I might find a way of staying. I might move somewhere new. I’ve only myself to please.’
‘What about your parents?’
Elle looked down and began to toy with a fork on the yellow tablecloth. ‘They split up, actually. Dad went off with a woman who’s quite a lot younger than him. Tania.’ She smiled, faintly. ‘She has two kids, both at university, and is a bit defensive in case I take up too much of Dad’s time or money. But, of course, that’s not an issue.’
He stared. ‘Your dad didn’t strike me as the kind who’d leave. How did your mum cope?’
A shadow crossed her face. ‘It was hard for her.’ She changed the subject. ‘So, you’re diving? What made you decide on such a completely new career?’
He accepted the change with grace. It probably wasn’t nice when your parents parted, no matter how good or bad your relationship with them. Elle’s parents had always seemed as unchanging as the rock the island was made of. ‘I started recreationally and just loved it. I worked my way through the courses to divemaster and diving was taking up more and more of my time, so I decided to make it my main job for a while. Simon’s got some graduate covering my job at Rose Wines for a year and then we’ll reassess.’
She listened in silence as he told her about his job at Dive Meddi in StJulian’s Bay, about Vern, the owner, and the other instructors, Lars and Polly, and the fellow divemasters, Brett and Harriet. He kept the conversation light and entertaining.
He didn’t say he’d had to get away from the vineyard because it turned out that there wasn’t much pleasure in living a dream alone.
* * *
Elle lay in bed and let herself explore how the middle of the night felt when you were on a boat in Malta. The water lapped and few vehicles still rumbled on the main road. The darkness was warm and complete. The sea was calm and the motion slight.
Just one sheet lay between her naked skin and the soft night air.
She’d had a long day and hadn’t slept well last night. Yet, here she was, staring into the darkness and thinking about Lucas asleep in the other cabin.
Why on earth had she told him about dating a drummer in a band? She hoped Lucas never found out that it had been a marching band, because she’d made Jamie sound like a rock star. It was sad that she’d actually wanted to spark Lucas’s jealousy, see that possessive expression in his eyes, the one she’d once known so well.
Sighing, she wondered about the unknown Kayleigh and Lucas’s smile when he spoke of her.
She brushed a tear from the corner of her eye.
Falling out of love was a lot harder than falling in it.