Rosalie felt the tension leave her body for the first time since she left Paris.
The train had taken her through Switzerland and then on to Italy. All the way to Genoa she felt terrified she might be hauled off and arrested for stealing her mother’s jewels. The trains had been great until Rome but not nearly so advanced after that. With some trepidation she’d joined a train heading south swarming with people, chickens, and even goats. Children wailed, dogs barked and the women gossiped endlessly in rapid Italian. She tried to ignore them as rural Italy spread out before her – the gnarled wiry farmers bending over their work in the fields and the women clustered together, wearing black. The train rattled on, its closed windows trapping smoky, greasy air inside the carriage. Hence her relief when sheeventually found her way onto a ferry to Sicily and then to Malta. It was the furthest she’d ever been from home – but she was free.
Now, in the gardens overlooking the harbour, the sun was scorching and she really needed a hat. In the early morning, the sun had cast a gentle golden light on the baroque buildings of the town but at this point in the day everything seemed bleached of colour.
She felt the sweat dampening her dress. Her back. Her underarms. Even her eyelids. She spotted a bench in the shade of an umbrella pine tree and moved towards it but at the same time a young man wearing a straw hat and a bright blue shirt approached. He paused, and with a slight bow allowed her to proceed towards it ahead of him, though as soon as she sat down, he joined her.
‘Tourist?’ he asked, turning his face towards her.
She scrutinised this blonde, blue-eyed, well-groomed man then said, rather archly, ‘No. A dancer.’
Despite her tone, he smiled. ‘I see. And where do you dance?’
Not this again, she thought. ‘The Evening Star,’ she lied.
‘You’re not English.’
‘No.’
‘You sound, I don’t know, maybe French?’
‘You speak French?’ she asked.
‘A little, but I am English. We’re terrifically bad at languages.’
She snorted. ‘Because you are all too superior to learn.’
‘Oi,’ he said in mock dismay. ‘That’s not entirely fair.’
‘So what areyoudoing here?’
‘Visiting my uncle.’
‘So,youare the tourist.’
He tilted his head and smiled. He really had a lovely smile, she thought, and extremely white teeth.
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘I spent most of my summers here as a child. It’s a home from home.’
‘Where is home?’
‘Good old London.’
‘Ah. Well, I’m from Paris.’
‘Wonderful city.’
‘You’ve been there?’
He smiled again and his eyes lit up. ‘Oh yes. I love Paris. You must miss it.’
She shrugged, and knowing she could never ever go back home, felt again that pang of homesickness.
‘I could show you around here,’ he was saying. ‘I say, are you all right?’
‘I’m perfectly fine,’ she said, pulling herself together.
‘I was suggesting, if you like, I could show you around Malta, in your spare time of course. Mdina is a magical place with wonderful hidden palaces. Very ancient. Its walls are intact and there’s only one way in or out. You’ll like it.’
