Page 82 of Never Tear Us Apart
‘I know,’ Kathryn says. ‘And that’s why I believe you. And why I know you’re going to save our grandmother. But now I realise there’s more you need to know.’
‘Tell me everything.’ I fill my glass with wine and empty it at once. Something tells me I am going to need more than one drink to face what’s next.
‘Our grandmother was killed on the evening of 14thAugust 1942, around 8 p.m.,’ Kathryn begins, taking great care with the details she knows I want. ‘You probably know about Operation Pedestal?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ I say. ‘History was never my strong point.’
‘The Allies repeatedly tried to get several convoys of supplies to Malta, from Gibraltar. Food, parts, most crucially fuel, but they were never successful. The ships were sunk or turned back. The Axis always seemed to know they were coming. But when the US entered the war, Churchill saw a chance. Bigger ships, more fire power. One final push to save Malta before she fell to the Nazis: Operation Pedestal. There was a terrible price to pay for those brave souls who were part of the convoy – many lives lost, many ships sunk. But two ships survived, just, limping towards Valletta with hulls full of fuel and food. They finally made it into the harbour on 15thAugust. It was a turning point in the war for Malta, and it took on even more significance because 15thAugust is a feast day here: Santa Marija.
‘But the night before that, on 14thAugust, there was a fierce battle in the air. Axis air forces knew that time was running out to break Malta. Many were killed, and Stella was at Luqa, treating the wounded in a field hospital. A pilot was shot down right over the airbase. He crashed badly, his plane in flames, and it seemed like he couldn’t get out – he was about to be burnt alive.
‘Stella ran straight to him. She got there even before the ground crew could. He was unconscious. She hauled back the hood, dragged him out of the Spitfire with superhuman strength. Some say she knew him, that they were friends. But that’s just people talking. Stella was the kind of woman to risk her life for others no matter who they were. That was just who she was – a true hero, you know?
‘Anyway, she got him clear of the plane before the flames took hold, but the aircraft that shot him down came round again and mowed them both down with machine-gun fire. They both died. My mum and your father – they were there. Saw it all. Thank God Mum doesn’t remember any of it.’
In my core, I know the answer to the question I am going to ask her next, because it answers my own question, too. ‘Do you know the name of the pilot?’ I ask.
‘I do.’ Kathryn lowers her eyes, thinking for a long moment before sliding a small, flat, rectangular object out of the bag. ‘Quite a few of the pilots that were stationed here during the war kept diaries, and some of them have been published since. Not very widely – local presses mostly. So I thought I’d have a look around some bookshops today, while you were speaking to your father.’ She hands me a slim, hardback book, its boards faded with age. ‘Open it.’
‘I turn to the first page. Under the titleMalta Spitfireis a photograph of Danny Beauchamp. My Danny Beauchamp, clean and well-groomed, likely taken before he saw any service at all – but there he is, smiling back at me as if he can see me sitting here and he thinks I’m terribly foolish for falling in love with a man who died more than eighty years ago.
‘Hello, you,’ I say to his photograph, my eyes filling with tears.
When I turn the page, I see a sketch of a girl sitting on a beach, shy and hesitant. A drawing of me.
‘It was Danny, my Danny, who Stella was trying to save.’
‘Yes.’ Kathryn nods. ‘The way the history books record it now, they both die. And according to you, there’s an account that you die that night, too.’
‘That won’t happen. I’ve seen Danny as an old man, so I know there’s a version of the future where I succeed. It’s not set in stone; there is only now. But I know it’s possible. And if it’s possible, I have to make it real. I have to go. I have to gonow.’ I stand up. ‘There’s no time to waste. Can you get me in?’
‘I understand the urgency, I do.’ Kathryn reaches for my hand, gently tugging it so that I sit down again, drawingconcerned glances from our fellow diners as I do. ‘But it’s too early. I can get you in, but we have to wait for most of the staff to go home before we go back to the temple. At least another hour. And maybe this will be the last hour I will ever spend with my favourite cousin. So, please, let’s eat, let’s talk.’
Our lives are a series of nows, and it’s so rare to know when one now is the very last of its kind. So as the clock ticks on towards midnight, I forget about everything else except Kathryn, my cousin and friend, who believes that anything is possible in Malta.
Part Three
‘I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind.’
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Getting back into the hypogeum is much easier than it probably should be. Kathryn has all the entry codes and knows the security team like old friends. It’s a different shift from earlier, which is probably a good thing. They greet each other in Maltese, but still, I get the exchange of family news and standing jokes. She swiftly introduces me as her English cousin, waving her hand over me as if she is rather hoping they won’t notice me at all. In a way, I already feel like I’m not here – that this is just an empty husk standing here, smiling and laughing as she makes jokes and small talk, and that the essential part of me is already far away.
‘I’m just picking up some books I need for a lecture tomorrow,’ Kathryn tells them with an authoritative air that doesn’t invite scrutiny. ‘I’ll be ten minutes maximum!’
As Kathryn enters the security codes, I take my phone out of the tote bag that she gave me. I wasn’t planning on taking luggage, but I hope I can take the toys through. Not my phone, of course – that is staying here. But there is just one last thing I need to look up.
I search for serious road-traffic accidents in Milan in 1992. There’s not much – just a line in Italian in an archived newspaper article. Doing my best to commit it to memory, I close the app and turn off my phone, setting it down on the floor.
We are out of the reception building and into the first underground layer of the temple before I really understandwhat Kathryn is risking for me and my insane notions. If she gets caught smuggling her cousin into Malta’s great treasure after hours, then her career could be in ruins. It makes no sense that she is doing this for me, and yet here we are.
‘Maia, Maia,’ she repeats my name, clicking her fingers until I focus on her face. ‘You need to concentrate! It’s not every day I break into an ancient monument.’
‘Kathryn,’ I say, ‘we need to go back. This is crazy. I can’t let you get into trouble for me.’
‘I’m not doing this for you; you are doing it for me.’ She smiles, tears shining in her dark eyes. ‘I have loved these temples all my life, and I have longed to understand them – not just to make guesses or assumptions but toknow.Don’t you worry about me – I take after our grandmother; I will be fine. All I want you to do is prove me right.’
