Page 43 of Never Tear Us Apart
Chapter Forty-One
The administration building is grand and ornate, presiding over the surrounding destruction with a kind of detached aloofness.
Sal seems confident in my papers, but still, my stomach knots in anxiety as we make our way up the steps to the entrance and inside.
To calm myself, I think of that other me, sleeping in Dr Gresch’s sleep lab.
Is she an empty vessel, or is she dreaming me?
Perhaps I am just a series of dreams, echoing across the universe. Perhaps we all are.
In the first room we are shown into, there are several women sitting at typewriters.
The mechanical noise of fingers hitting keys fills the room with an industrial symphony.
One noticeable exception is a young, fair-haired woman, who seems to have managed to keep up a certain level of glamour, despite shortages.
She sits with her fingers poised to type, but her blue eyes that gaze towards the window are somewhere else entirely.
I suppose you don’t always need to fall through a portal in reality to time-travel – her way is much better.
An older Englishwoman, probably an officer’s wife, notices me and Sal right away and clicks over to us with the air of someone used to giving orders.
It’s the British who seem to hold most of the positions of authority here.
The Maltese fight side by side with their allies, but I still get a sense they are very much considered lesser in the partnership.
It makes me bristle with injustice. If Sal feels it, though, he keeps it well hidden behind his gentle smile and perfect manners.
He is a natural diplomat – he’s had to learn to live incognito, not something that is easily done if you are prone to drawing attention to yourself, especially not in a country about the same size as the Isle of Wight.
‘Miss Maia Borg,’ Sal tells her, gesturing to me. ‘Come to me just recently – before that, she was staying with an aunt on the other side of the island. We have brought her papers and are presenting them as required.’
‘Thank you, Professor Borg.’ The woman glances up at him over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses as she examines the papers. ‘These seem to be in order. Please give me a moment to have them verified further. Take a seat.’
She glances at me, giving me a quick once-over before disappearing into an internal office.
‘What does that mean?’ I whisper to Sal, as I take a seat next to him. He looks down at my once-white tennis shoes with dismay. ‘Next, we must ask Miss Ratcliffe to find you presentable shoes,’ he says. ‘Perhaps I might yet find some in the house.’
‘I don’t want to wear a dead person’s shoes,’ I say.
‘No time for a sensitive disposition now, my dear,’ Sal says. ‘There is nothing on this island except for what we already had when the raids began. We must make do and mend.’
A door opens at the other end of the long room, and a tall woman enters.
I recognise her at once by her stride: the doctor, and she seems to be alone.
I’m not sure now is the perfect time to talk to her about Vittoria, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that sometimes second chances never come.
I step into her path. ‘Doctor.’
‘Maia. Awake – good. I was worried. You were in a dead faint and not coming round, not even with smelling salts. It is concerning.’
‘It’s fine,’ I tell her. ‘Normal for me. I didn’t want to waste your time, so I made Vittoria promise to get me back to Sal.’
‘Yes.’ Her expression is tight. ‘She was insistent, despite my direct orders to the contrary.’ A hint of a smile twitches her mouth. ‘I’ll be honest – I didn’t think she had it in her. Perhaps she will be a nurse one day after all.’
‘You’ll still train her?’
‘Of course.’ Now she seems rather offended. ‘But these dead faints – they are not normal, not for you or anyone. Come to the medical room. Let me check your blood pressure at least.’
‘I will,’ I agree readily, hoping to see another hint of her elusive smile before she goes, but it doesn’t return.
‘Good.’ She nods at Sal, walking into the room where I imagine my counterfeit papers are being examined under a spotlight. She doesn’t even knock.
A moment later, the superior woman re-emerges.
‘Thank you, Maia. Your papers are in order.’
‘Thank you,’ I say, taking them and getting ready to go.
‘You are also English?’
‘Yes,’ I say, glancing at Sal.
‘Your papers say you were born in Malta, but your accent . . . ?’
‘Oh, my father was Maltese,’ I say, ‘and I was born here, but after he died, my mother moved back to England. I grew up there, living with Mother until just before the war, when I came to stay with my aunt.’
I hope I’ve got that right. I don’t dare look at Sal in case I’ve missed anything.
The woman holds my gaze for a long second. ‘I see . . .’
‘You people!’ The doctor opens the door, her attention still turned into the room.
‘You think I can magic medicines and supplies from thin air? That I can make what little we have go any further? General, we treat your pilots with the greatest care and respect, and in return, you let our people suffer and die. You should be ashamed.’
She walks out, her eyes flashing. ‘You, why are you standing over my patient?’ she asks the superior woman. ‘Is she not sick enough for you? Would you like to injure her more with your haughty stare? Or perhaps you can find something that is of actual use to do?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ the woman asks, wonderfully affronted.
‘Come,’ the doctor tells me. ‘We are leaving.’
Without another word, Sal and I follow in her wake, as she mutters furiously under her breath.
‘Thank you, Doctor . . .’ I offer as I follow her.
‘I swear,’ she says as we come out of the building into the full force of the August heat.
‘The English – if they could, they would have let this island burn. Do they defend us because it is the right thing to do? No, but because they need to win something, somewhere, anywhere . And here we are, dying from dysentery, disease and starvation, while bombs fall all around us. Every single islander here is disposable to them. There must come a time when this island stands for its own self, for its own people, under its own sovereignty. And that time must be soon.’
‘Careful,’ Sal says, lowering his voice. ‘You don’t want to sound anti-British.’
‘I am anti-everyone who is not pro-Maltese!’ the doctor says at the top of her voice. ‘I love my home and my people, and it is for them I fight, and no one else.’ She paces back and forth, her hands on her hips, elbows bent back, her head bowed as she does her best to contain her feelings.
It’s then that I see her children waiting alone in a scant patch of shade, no sign of Vittoria. The boy, Qalbi, wrestles Eugenie in his arms, the big old-fashioned pram standing in the sun.
‘Wait there,’ she tells her son. ‘I have one more person to see.’
‘I’m thirsty, Mama,’ he calls.
‘I’ll be one minute.’ She waves him away.
The baby begins to kick and cry.
‘Hey there, kid,’ I say, glancing back at Sal, who follows me over. ‘Would you like me to hold the baby for a moment?’
‘She is my sister – my responsibility,’ the little boy tells me with huge solemn eyes. I get the feeling that he is repeating something he has heard a hundred times.
‘Where is Vittoria today?’
‘Sick.’ The kid struggles with the restless baby. ‘Mama sent her home.’
‘Here, let me hold Eugenie for a minute. You can keep an eye on me.’
He lets me take her with a look of relief.
‘Such a pretty girl,’ I say, hefting her onto my hip. She sticks a plump fist in my hair.
The kid looks at me like I’m crazy. ‘She looks like a great big potato,’ he exclaims. ‘I get thinner every day, but the baby gets fatter. Sometimes I think she eats me while I’m sleeping.’
‘More likely it’s your mum feeding her,’ I say, wondering how the doctor stays on her feet while trying to care for the island and nurse a baby. ‘Don’t think you need to worry about your sis eating you, Qalbi.’
‘Why do you call me that?’ The boy giggles. ‘Only Mama calls me that.’
‘Isn’t it your name?’ I ask.
‘No – it’s a thing that mamas say. It means “my heart”. You keep calling me your heart !’
The kid and Sal break into delighted laughter.
‘Oh!’ I laugh, too. ‘Well, I am quite fond of you. That will teach me to think I’m clever. So, what is your name then, kid?’
‘David Simon Saviour Michael Jeremy Borg,’ he tells me proudly, finishing with a flourish.
My blood stops dead in my veins. That overlong, grandiose name that I have been familiar with all my life. All I can think to say is: ‘Jeremy?’
‘My father liked the name Jeremy – it was his best friend’s name. He’s dead now. And so is Papa. My mama is called Stella, like a star. What’s your name?’
My mouth opens, but no words sound.
The proud, impressively terrifying doctor is Stella Borg. She is my grandmother – the woman who, Kathryn told me, will die the evening before the siege is broken.
And this sweet, funny little boy will grow up without her and go on to become my father.