‘Oh my God. He’s such a wily old man.’
‘So?’
She laughed again. ‘What can I say but welcome to my boudoir.’
The sex was not the same as it had been with Bobby. It was sensitive, caring, and more careful. There was none of the wild animalistic passion and it was not driven by a deep-rooted desire to possess or the ravenous longing to become one being. But it was nice. Really nice. He clearly knew what he was doing and left her in no danger of becoming pregnant.
‘Tell me about you,’ she said, intrigued.
‘Well, Yvonne, my wife, she’s French. Taught me everything I know.’
‘You’re married?’
‘In name only. She didn’t like England, headed back to the sunlit lands of Provence after the war, taking our son with her. Her family are perfumiers and own lavender fields near Greoux-les-Bains in Provence, but my work … it’s in London.’
‘You must miss them.’
‘I miss my son.’
There was a short silence.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘I just need to say I don’t want any commitment. I don’t want a new man in my life. But I’m glad this happened. I didn’t know how much I missed being held.’
‘We all need to be held sometimes,’ he said rather sadly.
She swallowed hard, deliberating before she spoke again. ‘I’ve never told anyone this, not even Addison, butI was pregnant with Bobby’s child when he left. I was so upset and shocked by his disappearance I drank too much, and I lost the baby.’
He stroked her hand. ‘You poor girl.’
She blinked rapidly to hold back the tears spiking her eyelids. ‘It still hurts. I think it may have been my fault, you see. The miscarriage. I can’t stop blaming myself.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t your fault. Yvonne had one too and we read that a miscarriage tends to happen when there’s something not quite right with the foetus.’
‘If you’re right, that does make me feel a bit better.’
‘And it should. Don’t carry the weight of all that guilt. These things happen sometimes.’
She didn’t say but had noticed that his slight stammer had completely disappeared.
‘Look, if you ever feel like a change, I might be able to get you work in publishing. In London, of course, as a trainee. It can be enormous fun.’
He was so easy to be with, great to talk to and the way he gave her his complete attention meant she really felt heard. He wanted nothing from her except her presence and she felt the same way about him. And she began to see herself through his eyes. There would never be a romance but what if she were to take him up on his offer of finding her some work in London?
CHAPTER 37
Malta, December 1932
Over the ensuing two years Riva had carried on working for Addison, despite calls from Otto asking her to come back to Valletta to help him out and Gerry’s entreaties to decamp to London. But in 1932 Addison finished his second volume, swearing there would be no more, and Gerry returned to London for the final time. And Riva had reached a point where she could no longer ignore the rising danger for young women in Malta.
Both theNews of the Worldand theDaily Heraldprinted stories describing the ‘shameless’ music halls of Malta.‘English women lured to work in dens of iniquity’the headlines proclaimed, then went on to assert that with promises of inflated remuneration these innocent young girls were enticed abroad and away from the safety of English shores. They found themselves forced to live in filthy lodgings onscant wages and with not enough to eat. These ‘poor’ English girls were expected to entertain the sailors privately in so-called ‘homes’ which were nothing of the kind.‘Brothels’the headlines screamed.‘Nothing but brothels’. They also claimed that ‘prudish’ Maltese locals loathed the girls and threw rotten food at them in the street. With no money the girls found themselves imprisoned in a music hall industry that was really a cover for white slavery.
White slavery.
The words echoed around the world.
After the stories were repeated in theDaily Malta ChronicleOtto telephoned Riva and asked to meet.
He was still working for the pro-British newspaper, theTimes of Malta,and nodded at acquaintances as they were led to their table in the window of the British Hotel.
