Page 84 of Never Tear Us Apart
‘Danny and I are just friends, you know,’ I lie badly, and she laughs.
‘You might think that, but everyone else who has seen the way you look at each other knows better.’
‘Well, I have nothing to wear, but I will come.’
‘I can see that, darling.’ Christina looks me up and down. ‘You come to mine, say around 6 p.m., and we’ll fix you upsomehow.’
‘All right,’ I say, unable to keep back a smile. ‘I’ll be there.’
‘Good,’ Christina replies as we arrive at her front door and she heads back into her lodgings. ‘It’s been ages since we’ve had a good romance to gossip about round here. We are all living for you and Danny to get on with it.’
Danny.
It seems like years since he and I swam in the warm waters of Mellieha, although here, it was only yesterday. In those few golden hours, there was more than one moment when it felt like something real and true was drawing us closer together – something so powerful that I would walk across universes to reach him.
Chapter Sixty-One
I am almost back at the half-house when I hear Stella’s voice calling urgently from the end of the street. When she sees me, she leaves David standing with the pram and runs towards me.
‘Come here – I need you!’
I run to meet her.
‘You weren’t at home,’ she tells me, a little breathless. ‘But you are here now – this is good. Come with me, this way. Hurry, hurry.’
Taking the handle of the pram, I trot after her, following her down one street and then another, until we come to a crossroads where dozens of people are gathered. Stella gestures at the remains of a hollowed-out house, damaged far worse than Sal’s. Its splintered floorboards jut out into the air like broken bones. A heavy oak bed has paused mid-slide towards a gaping drop onto the rubble below. The house groans and trembles over its wounds.
‘Hit in last night’s raid,’ Stella tells me, breathless. ‘The boy and his mother stayed at home; I don’t know why. Mother, dead. The boy, trapped. His leg must be amputated now if he is to have any chance to survive. We have to get him out before he is crushed, too.’
‘And you need me?’ I ask.
‘You are calm; you are unafraid. I need you,’ Stella tells me. ‘You agree?’
I accept the job with a single nod.
The scene is alive with action. Maltese, civilians and soldiers, off-duty airmen, working together to clear as much rubble as they can away from the gutted building: a chain of people moving as one to try to help clear the way to rescue the child. The irony in contrasting this act of community with the meaningless violence that rains down from the sky is sharply painful.
‘Stop!’ I hear Danny’s voice ring out, silencing the intense activity.
He stands on top of a pile of rubble, his cap on the back of his head, hands on his hips. Shorts, unlaced flight boots. His khaki shirtsleeves rolled up to his biceps. His head tilts as he listens intently to the sounds the house is making.
Now, all is quiet, and I can hear the soft sobs of a child. I feel a hand creep into mine and look down to see David at my side, his head leaning into my hip as he looks up at Danny, eyes wide with a kind of worship. Putting my arm around him, I hug him into my waist for a moment, kissing the top of his head.
‘We gotta stop moving rubble.’ Danny shakes his head. He doesn’t have to shout to be heard; his voice rings around what’s left of the tall buildings and narrow streets. ‘We move anything else and we risk bringing the building down. That beam up there is currently supporting what’s left of the roof, and it’s only hanging on by a thread.’
There’s a communal murmur that runs through the crowd as they look up. Each and every one of them has seen this scenario at least once before. The Maltese build their houses from the same rock the island is made of, and that has saved them from the horror of fire, but the threat of collapse is ever-present.
‘Everyone, stay still and quiet.’ He scrambles lightly down stones, and strides towards where Stella is waiting.
When he sees me, he pauses, catches his breath. In two steps, he’s at my side.
‘You’re back.’ He scoops me into his arms and holds me tight against him as I pull him close to me. Our embrace is only a few seconds long, but it charges me with courage. ‘I had the strangest feeling that you’d gone clean off the face of this earth and that I might never see you again. I didn’t like the thought of that, Maia.’
‘I didn’t go anywhere,’ I tell him cautiously, but it’s almost as if he knows.
‘I missed you anyway.’ He nods and takes a breath, then focuses in on Stella. ‘Doc? What do you need?’
‘Is the surgeon coming from Mtarfa?’ Stella asks.
