Page 23 of Never Tear Us Apart
‘I mean you and me,’ Kathryn says. ‘But yes, our grandmother, too. I’m amazed you don’t know about her – you are so like her, both of you with a thousand times more courage than most.’
‘Dad didn’t like to talk about her,’ I say. ‘And also, he didn’t like to talk to me, so, you know . . . I have quite a few gaps. I know only that she died young.’
‘So tragic, poor Grandmama. Such a tragic loss. I think it broke your father’s heart for good.’ Kathryn presses her lips together in disapproval. ‘Even so, it’s important to know where you come from.’
‘Tell me about Gran, then?’ I prompt.
Kathryn thinks for a moment. ‘Read the book I gave you first,’ she says. ‘I never knew her, of course. And Mum was just a baby when Gran was killed. All I know about her comes from family lore and stories handed down. They provide wonderful colour. But the book is impartial, and I think you will be impressed and amazed, if not a little sad.’
‘Only you would refuse to spoiler the story of my own grandmother.’ I laugh. ‘At least tell me why she died so young.’
‘Oh, she was killed by enemy gunfire,’ Kathryn says. ‘The day before the siege was broken. The tide turned, the next day. She might have been safe. It breaks your heart.’
‘This is why I don’t have any faith,’ I tell her. ‘If there is a God, he is cruel.’
‘You don’t need to adhere to a religion to find something to have faith in,’ Kathryn says, dropping more ice into my drink. ‘I do have faith in something greater than us, but maybe it doesn’t have to be more than that we exist. I’d rather pay homage to those ancient women, who knew nothing of Christ but understood the skies and seasons well enoughto guide the people who depended on such things through when to plant a crop, when to take in a harvest.’ She shrugs. ‘But that’s just me.’
‘I like your version of faith,’ I say. ‘I was raised a heathen. My mum believed in . . . well, in fairies, mostly, though sometimes I wonder if that side of her – the mystical and slightly mad side – was really her or the tumour all along.’
‘Your mother was just who she was,’ Kathryn says. ‘I remember her at your parents’ wedding – well, handfasting ceremony, she called it. They got married in a clearing in a forest, and she had bare feet and daisies in her hair. That was your mum through and through. A lump of gristle in her head couldn’t change that.’
Kathryn’s words are full of warmth and comfort, but I’m not sure I can completely believe them, even if I wanted to.
‘And my dad believes in nothing at all.’
‘I like the sound of your mother.’ Kathryn smiles. ‘You must miss her.’
‘I do, I do, I do.’ There is nothing to add to that constant acknowledgement that is never far out of reach.
I take a sip of the ginger ale and wish it had whisky in it. It’s hard to imagine the faces of people I never knew or feel the pang of their absence. But my dad must have felt that loss keenly. I have never thought to put him in context before, and it shifts something in my heart. Perhaps there is a reason he is as he is, after all.
There’s something else weaving a subtle chill into the evening – something about Malta that scares me. It’s a kind of pull, an almost physical tug that started the moment I got off the plane: a longing I have never known before but for something I can’t identify.
It’s almost like I’m pining for something or someone. But I don’t know what or who. Like I’m missing a lover I havenever known. I can’t explain it exactly. I only know that it makes me feel vulnerable, somehow – open to loss, when I’ve been so very careful to make sure that I have nothing to lose.
‘Well, it’s late, and I have two lectures to give tomorrow,’ she says. ‘So, I’m off to bed. Will you be OK?’
‘I am a bit nervous about the whole sleeping thing,’ I confess. ‘It suddenly feels like an unknown state.’
‘Well, it is, I suppose.’ Kathryn thinks for a moment. ‘We can never know for sure what was truly on the minds of ancient peoples, but there is a strong case for the theory that they saw dreams as portals – ways to travel to the stars, to visit their ancestors and to communicate with the universe in the form of their gods. Perhaps they felt dreams were like horses, riding through the sky. Try to think of it that way. Like an adventure.’
‘I won’t, if you don’t mind. I prefer to choose my own adventures. I’m just going to hope for my usual dream of not having done enough work to pass my exams – or a classic zombie apocalypse.’
‘Well.’ Kathryn gives my shoulders a brief hug. ‘Come to meet me, for lunch tomorrow? I have the afternoon off. I can take you to the knights’ city of Mdina – the Silent City, it’s often called. You’ll love it.’
‘Yes, please.’ I smile enthusiastically, but in my gut, I have a premonition. Something’s coming.
* * *
Once Kathryn is in bed, I dawdle on the balcony for as long as I can, until the air carries a hint of cool and my eyes are tired and long to close. I procrastinate over going to bed, cleaning my teeth for a little too long, deciding to brush every tangle out of my freshly washed hair, and then takea second shower before starting the process all over again. I have a sense that I want to feel completely clean, to have washed away every last trace of my unnerving wartime dream.
Finally, I am sitting up in the guest bed, leaning back against the pillows.
Malta: The George Cross Island at Warlies innocuously on my lap.
Honestly, what kind of a woman am I, to fear a book – a history book, too? Picking it up, I flick through to the central section of photographs again. There is Christina, just as I dreamt her, beautiful and bold, even after years of war and starvation. This image must have taken root in my mind. That makes perfect sense. I turn the pages, looking at images of the harbour on fire, the opera house destroyed.
My eyes catch on a group photo, not posed but candid. A crashed aircraft smokes in the background; there’s a bus and a large group of passengers have climbed off to see the destruction. In the foreground, a very grimy pilot stands with his hands on his hips, looking down at something, maybe a map, that someone is showing him. Around him, there’s a straggled group of bystanders, all smiling. There’s a lot of text under the photo printed very small, but the nameDanny ‘Champ’ Beauchampis in bold. I peer at him, trying to get a sense of the man I met in my dreams, but the image feels exactly like what it is: a document from long ago that has all but lost its meaning.
