Riva kept the outings brief while she gathered her courage to go farther afield. She had thought hearing people speak of her loss would make her feel worse. It hadn’t. In Villegaignon Street, just across the square from the cathedral, she stopped outside the Palazzo Santa Sofia, her favourite building and realised what a strong affinity she felt for Mdina and its people.
A silent woman in a silent city.
They were very private those who lived there, but some began leaving offerings at her door. More flowers, books, even a basket of fruit. They left little cards wishing her well and she had been so touched it made her cry.
Despite the kindness of strangers, grief continued to constrict her until her life became so small she felt she might disappear completely. So eventually, on a brilliantlysunny day, she braced herself, left the city walls and set off for the cliffs at Dingli. She forced herself to walk there, one foot in front of the other and, once there, she gazed at the luminescent multicoloured ocean and the haze of the empty horizon. Gazed and gazed until her eyes stung. She tasted salt on her tongue, felt the wind snatching her hair free from its clips, smelt the seaweed and remembered her first sight of the island back in 1925.
The girl she had been. Where was she now?
Grief had unleashed something wild inside her that she’d almost forgotten. It had been a different kind of wild back then and she longed for those irresistible carefree days. But this was where she was now, and she didn’t know what to do. The memories tipped and wobbled inside her, and she could do nothing but lift her arms in resignation and call out to the gods of the ocean.Tell me what to do.When the war ends.Tell me.
And the gods of the ocean did give her an answer, or so she liked to think.
By the time the war was over, she still hadn’t been up to Addison’s apartment. He had left the entire palace to her, but she had been too numb to care. Hadn’t been up there since the day the solicitor read the will, but now she unlocked the door and went inside, her heart in her mouth. Even after all this time it still faintly smelt of him. Cigars. Wine. Even flowers, lilies perhaps, that smelt of death. Addison’s butler was long gone, of course.
The apartment was dark, so she opened the shutters and threw open the windows for fresh air. Until that moment she hadn’t clearly known what to do with herloss, but then she went to Addison’s study, took out all his remaining work and contemplated it. The next day she returned and a few days after that; it took all her strength, but she phoned Gerry in London. Losing Bobby had felt like a grief that could have no end and that was right. Itshouldhave no end. It – and he – was a part of her, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t live her life.
‘I didn’t know if the phone lines would be working,’ she said when Gerry picked up.
‘It’s wonderful to hear your voice,’ he replied. ‘How are you, sweetheart?’
‘You know, one foot in front of the other.’
‘Are you eating?’
The kindness in his voice brought tears to her eyes.
‘I wish I could be there,’ he said. ‘Will you come to London? I can still help you find a job.’
‘It turns out I don’t need money. But actually, I have a different idea. Might you be interested in publishing a third and final volume of Addison’s work?’
She smiled when he replied. Gerry was thrilled and she could hear the excitement as his laughter spilled down the line.
‘Oh my dear girl. As soon as I can, I’ll be there,’ he added. ‘The very moment.’
‘No, I think I might come to you in London, after all. I could do with being away from here for a while. I’ll bring a case full of Addison’s work with me and get the rest shipped over.’
‘You have a recent passport?’
CHAPTER 50
Florence
Malta, 1946
Their passage home was still nine days away. Florence wished she knew at least something about Rosalie’s life that she could give her mother before she died. Before she died. The words went round and round in her head. Florence’s sleep had been dreadfully troubled because of what was happening to Claudette, of course, but something else was playing at the edge of her mind just out of reach. Something about Rosalie that she just couldn’t work out.
That evening she and Jack went out for a meal at the British Hotel and were seated at a table with a wonderful view of the harbour, the reflected lights from ships and boats sparkling in the water.
‘Like fairyland, isn’t it?’ Florence said and sighed. ‘But I just can’t relax.’
‘Try. It will do you good.’ He reached for her hand and gently squeezed it. Then, as she saw his green eyes shining as he smiled at her, something lit up in her mind and then exploded.
‘Oh my God!’ she gasped. ‘Oh my God.’
‘What?’
‘My mother told me Rosalie had blue eyes. How could I have forgotten? I was so shocked at seeing her, or rather seeing a dead body like that, it just didn’t sink in. All I could see was the red hair and the bracelet. But the woman in the mortuary … Jack, her eyes were brown, not blue.’
