‘Perfect.’ She smiled at him. ‘Where’s your car?’
‘Just around the corner.’
He had clearly parked it for maximum impact, and she stared goggle-eyed as he pointed out the gleaming vehicle.
‘Alfa Romeo RLSS,’ he said. ‘Italian. Easy to import to Malta. My uncle has lent it to me.’
She was gazing at the most elegant automobile she had ever seen.
‘It’s not painted. It’s polished metal,’ he said, and he walked round to open the passenger door for her.
She could tell he was pleased with her reaction, and she stepped up into the car and sank into a luxurious maroon leather seat.
‘What if it rains?’ she asked.
He glanced up at the seamless blue sky and laughed. ‘It won’t, but if it does, I lift the top.’
He sat in the driver’s seat and glanced at her. ‘Ready?’
She nodded.
‘Hold on to your hat.’
And she did.
They sped through the green and fertile landscape ripe with orchards and agricultural terraces, the dusty white road dipping and curving in front of them. She gazed at little fields and stony ground with low walls separating them, a breeze carrying the scent of wild herbs. And windmills on the outskirts of villages. She loved the windmills.
‘It’s a wonderful sight when the orange pickers are out in December,’ he said, ‘and the citrus scent in the air is amazing. I hope you’ll be here for it.’
They passed barefoot rural women wearing long skirts and blouses with pretty headscarves tied under their chins and carrying chickens in large baskets balanced on the heads. And now and again a cart pulled by a donkey. In one village a man in a hat with a brightly coloured scarf draped around his neck sat on a step playing a guitar.
‘We’re less than seventeen miles by ten you know,’ he said. ‘The ocean is never more than twenty minutes or so away.’
When they arrived at the western cliffs of Dingli, he parked the car close by and came round to open the doorfor her. She was utterly charmed by the way he looked at her, as if there was nobody else in the world he wanted to be with.
They walked towards the edge along the flat rocky top and marvelled at the sheer drop, the sapphire blue of the sea and the milky white foam as it rolled against the base of the cliffs.
‘Over eight hundred feet high,’ he said. ‘Dizzying, isn’t it?’
Delighted by it all, she listened to the gulls calling.
‘And that’s the Mediterranean.’
The view of the sea was spectacular. She was a city girl and although she had spent her summers in the Périgord in France, she was not accustomed to being beside the sea. The smell of the salt was strong and would remain in her hair later, she thought. He reached out to take off her hat, his hand softly grazing her cheeks.
‘It’ll blow off,’ he said and handed it to her.
He was right. She’d had to hold on to it during most of the car journey.
‘I like your hair,’ he said and smiled at her. ‘Very modern.’
They walked for a while just enjoying the day.
‘Look at all the yellow wildflowers,’ she said.
‘It’s always like this in spring. In the summer it’s the yellow of wild fennel and the sweet fragrant flowers of caper bushes. And when you walk it’s the aromatic scent of thyme you can smell drifting up around you. Look,’ he said, changing the subject and pointing at a tiny island. ‘That’s Filfla. Completely uninhabited.’
A fierce longing overcame her – the irresistible urge to stand right at the edge as if on the very line between life and certain death. She walked close, then even closer, daring to put herself to the test, and maybe Bobby too, by inching her toes just a tiny bit over the top of the cliff.
