Page 109 of Never Tear Us Apart
All that races through my head as I hurry towards Stella’s bag, grabbing it in a single swoop and heading back. Perhaps the last awful attack won’t come now. Perhaps I have altered time just enough to stop that pilot turning back and deciding to finish off the job with one more pointlessly malicious attack.
I’m bearing down on them when I hear it.
The sound of the Messerschmitt screaming towards us seems to come out of nowhere, the open fire of its machine guns heading in a direct line to Stella and Danny with deadly accuracy.
I throw the bag at Stella, then fling myself over them. I shield them both with my body.
I don’t feel any pain.
Just the curious push and pull of the bullets tearing through me. The sensation of bones shattering, the gush and flow of hot blood.
The sound of the plane’s engines grows fainter. Mission complete.
I can’t hear what Stella is saying as she gently moves my body off hers. I can only see that her lips are moving. Her expression is stricken as she takes in my damage. I see her mouth my name over and over again; tears track paths through the grime and smoke that silt her face.
‘I’m sorry,’ I try to tell her. I’m sorry.
My hand reaches for Danny; his face turns to me. I feel the grip of his fingers as if mine hardly belong to me anymore.
‘You save him,’ I say to Stella. Even though all I can hear is the sound of ringing in my ears. I feel the words move in my mouth. ‘You swear you’ll save him.’
Stella nods.
‘Maia.’ When Danny says my name, I hear it in my heart. Our eyes meet. We tell each other a thousand sweet everythings in that one look. ‘Hold on. You hold on, you hear me? Don’t you die on me, Maia Borg. You promised you wouldn’t.’
Tears track down my face. I shake my head.
‘I’ll see you again one day,’ I whisper. ‘Just you wait and see.’
The sky overhead turns from velvet blue to dark, dark night. I see the first stars shining, and somehow, I know they are the very first stars that ever set the universe alight.
I’m going home at last.
Epilogue
Saturday 15thAugust 1992, 12.32 p.m.
I vowed I’d never come back to Malta, and I meant it, too. On that final day when I got posted to England, I was certain I never wanted to see this country ever again. Sure, it gave me a lot: the best friends I ever had, who taught me over and over what sacrifice means. The brightest and most beautiful moments of my life happened here, right under this perfect sky, memories that still shine so clear and in focus, even all these decades later when everything else seems faded and dull.
Malta gave me the love of my life.
But it was here I lost Maia, too. It was not so very far from where I am sitting right now that she died in my arms. God, I wanted to die with her. I begged to – I’m not ashamed to say it. But Stella told me she’d made a promise, and she wouldn’t let me. I hated Stella for a while for that. But only for a while.
Years came and went. Wars were won and lost. Eventually, I got too old to fly and went back to my own quiet corner of the world, where the sky’s so big you can dream yourself up there.
I tried to forget. There are some things, some faces, though, that will not be forgotten.
Maia Borg, I only knew you for a few days, but I have loved you always. Sometimes, I think I loved you before I wasborn, and I will continue to long after this old body of mine has turned to dust.
My bones creak, my heart grows ponderous, and my eyes are cloudy and dim. Sometimes words escape me, and this brain of mine is more and more lost in the clouds, in the high blue spaces, each and every day.
When some gal telephoned me and asked if I’d come back to Malta for the fiftieth anniversary, first I said, ‘No thank you, ma’am.’
Then they came back to me, so sudden and fresh and full of colour and heartache: the last words you said to me, Maia.
Then I knew. Deep in my heart, I knew that if I was ever going to see you again, it would be on Malta. So I came, fast as these bowed legs could carry me, took out that one drawing I made of you from where I keep it in my wallet, and I’ve got it right here – hoping, like the foolish, weak-minded old feller I am, that me and this drawing might act like runway lights, bringing you into land, my love. So here I am, sitting on this bench in the middle of all this fuss and nonsense, waiting for you, Stitches.
‘Flight Lieutenant Daniel Beauchamp,’ you say, sitting down next to me and taking my hand.
