Page 46 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Forty-Four

The next morning, Danny turns up on the doorstep.

‘How are you feeling?’ I say, coming to meet him.

‘Me?’ Danny shrugs. ‘I’m peachy keen. I’ve got a few hours off today, so, I thought I’d come and see if you’re free for that date we talked about the other day.’

He nods behind him, where sitting outside on the street is a clapped-out old motorbike that seems to be held together with wire and rust.

‘You suggested we go for a walk ,’ I say, eyeing the machine.

‘We will when we get there,’ Danny says. ‘And good!’

‘Good what?’ I ask.

‘You didn’t say it’s not a date!’ He smiles, pushing his cap back on his head.

‘Look, I traded in all my chocolate and cigarette rations for a quarter tank of gas and this bike for a day. I know we’re on this tiny dot in the middle of the sea, but I really want to get as far away from the war as I can, at least for a couple of hours. Don’t you?’

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I can see the traces of the worn and worried expression on his face, camouflaged by his tan and wide smile. His body language is open and confident, but there’s something else in his voice: a need. I find myself longing to answer it.

‘I do,’ I tell him. ‘I want to come with you.’

The expression in his sky-blue eyes is unreadable as he climbs onto the bike, the sleeves of his khaki shirt rolled up to reveal his strong brown forearms. ‘Get on the back and hold on tight.’

To say that swinging one leg over the bike in my yellow dress feels awkward is something of an understatement – to call the rear part of the bike a seat, even more so.

I have no choice but to move in closer to Danny.

My thighs press along the back of his. My breasts cinch into his back.

As my arms wrap around his ribcage, I feel his stomach muscles flex against my wrists, the warmth of his skin under the worn cotton of his shirt.

The urge to run my hands under his tattered shirt and over his skin is almost irresistible.

But I do resist, leaning my chin on his shoulder instead, so that his curls brush and tickle against my cheek.

Danny kicks the bike into action. There’s a roar of the engine; wheels spin, kicking up dust and gravel, and then we are in motion. It takes a concerted effort for me not to scream.

It’s too noisy to talk. For the first minute or so, I don’t even want to open my eyes.

The moment the bike accelerates, my arms tighten hard around Danny, and I press my cheek between his shoulder blades.

As we whip through the hot air, I am acutely aware of his body, how the muscles in his thighs and buttocks are tensed and taut, fitting tightly between my legs.

I prise one eye open and take a moment to get used to the wind full in my face, then open the other.

Danny leans into the twisting roads, and I lean with him.

The landscape streams past in rapidly unfurling ribbons of gold and turquoise.

I catch glimpses of people at the side of the road, some waving, children shouting, their cries carried away before the sound can reach us.

Is this a little like flying? Everything is warm: the breeze, the heat of his body, the sun on the back of my head, the rush of speed taking my breath away.

Closing my eyes again for a moment, I feel like I am flying, free of everything, even my flesh, soaring and speeding away from every bad thing – and I realise this moment is something perfect.

Finally, the bike slows and comes to a stop. Danny tilts it slightly, steadies us with his booted foot as he kicks down the prop.

I climb off first, a little unsteadily. My legs and arms are silted with dust, my hair tangled and thick with it. Danny turns off the engine and climbs off after me.

‘That was actually really . . . not as bad as I thought it would be,’ I say, batting dust off my dress as an excuse not to look him in the eye. I’m not sure it’s the heat that’s making my cheeks flush.

He nods, taking off his cap for a moment, running his fingers through his dark curls and repositioning it in exactly the same place.

‘Blows the cobwebs away, as my old ma would say,’ he says. ‘Well, welcome to Mellie ? a.’

When finally I take a proper look around where we’ve arrived, I see we’re in a beautiful village made up of traditional Maltese houses that line a series of gently scalloped bays. The dwellings climb leisurely up a steep hill, crowned at the top with a domed and towered church.

The colourful fishing boats, luzzus , are pulled up onto long, golden beaches or moored in the shallows. The sea is crystal clear and the brightest cyan blue, lapping gently against the boats, which rock and sway together on the tide with a comforting clank.

‘It’s so beautiful.’ I sigh. For a thousand reasons, none of which I can name, I feel calm. Tears roll down my cheeks. Embarrassed, I turn from Danny, wiping them away with the heels of my hands.

‘Sometimes it’s not until you take a breath,’ Danny says gently, ‘that you realise you’ve been up against it. It’s OK to cry – there’s a lot to cry about.’

‘Christina would say my stiff upper lip needs some reinforcing and blame my Maltese half for being overemotional. But that’s not right – my mum was English, and she’d cry at the drop of a hat. I once found her sobbing over a daisy she’d picked in a field, the mad old hippy.’

‘Hippy?’ Danny smiles. ‘That’s a new one on me.’

‘Oh, just a family joke,’ I say, brushing it away.

We begin to stroll slowly along the shoreline. The beach and front are busy: fishermen hauling in their catch, women gutting and salting the fish. Everything carries on as normal, at least in the snatches of time where there is space enough to pretend for a while.

‘Well, my ma is just the same as yours,’ Danny says. ‘When I told her I was running away to join the RAF, she cried for a week.’

‘It’s not exactly running away if you tell people in advance,’ I point out, with a small smile.

He laughs. ‘Well, you’d think, but the truth is: it was my second attempt, and I needed my birth certificate, so I had no choice but to tell her.’

‘What do you mean?’ I ask, glancing sideways at him.

He’s walking with his hands behind his back, holding his cap. His head is tipped forwards so that his curls fall over his eyes.

‘Well, I’d been trying be a fighter pilot since long before the war.

’ He chuckles. ‘I don’t know – I was sixteen, and I just figured that was my calling in life, you know?

I tried to join up with the Chinese and the French, but I was too young, so it was back home for this kid and another few years spraying crops and hauling cargo.

Then this shebang kicks off and I’m more than old enough to play a part.

No way I was going to wait for the Canadian Air Force to get its act together.

I wanted in with the RAF. I couldn’t figure how I’d get to England, though.

The passage cost more than I earnt in a year.

And then a pal of mine, he tells me that if I work on one of the merchant navy ships, I’ll get free passage and some wages.

Course, I’m supposed to work the voyage out and back, but I don’t concern myself with that detail.

My plan is, once we dock in Liverpool, to jump ship and make my way to the local airbase to sign up and save the world. ’

‘Wouldn’t you be in trouble for running out on the ship?’

‘Only if they caught me.’ He grins and looks about a decade younger.

As I watch, he relaxes. His shoulders settle, and that now familiar smile creeps back into his expression. He’s himself again, or at least the young man he was before this war got hold of him, full of energy and certainty.

‘So, I get my logbook, right, showing all my hours of flying – more than enough to join the RAF – and I work my guts out on that goddamn ship, and in three months, I’m in Liverpool.

Jump ship, easy as can be. Find a place to join up.

Danny Beauchamp is finally on his way! The CO looks at my logbooks and all my hundreds of hours, and he’s pleased as punch.

And he says, “Now all I need is your birth certificate.”’

‘You’d forgotten your birth certificate?’ I ask him, unable to stifle a laugh.

‘Sure had,’ he says. ‘I begged, I pleaded, but he was insistent we did things by the book. So, I turn on my tail and I run back to the ship, hoping like hell no one had noticed I’d gone, and luck was on my side for once.

Worked my way all the way back to Canada.

And that’s how I had to tell my ma that I was running away to join the RAF. ’

I’m wide-eyed. ‘You made the whole trip again?’

‘You bet I did, except this time when I jumped ship, the captain saw me and a policeman got hold of me. The crew’s coming after me, and this fat old bobby had me by the arm, and I say to him, “Please, sir, let me go – I’ve come all this way to fight for England.” And you know what?’

‘You got coshed on the head and made the whole trip again?’ I laugh.

‘He let me go, that bobby. I’m running off as fast as these skinny legs will carry me, and he shouts after me, “Good on yer, son!”’

It’s impossible not to laugh at his attempt at a Liverpudlian accent. Lost for a moment in our mirth, our eyes meet, and the laughter falters to a stop. It’s like when we see one another, we remember.

‘You really, really wanted to be a fighter pilot,’ I say after a beat of silence.

‘Sure did, still do. Up there, it’s the only time I feel like I’m really being me, if you know what I mean. All the noise falls away and it’s just me, the Spit and the angles.’

‘Do you mean angels?’ I ask, confused.

‘No, ma’am, I mean angles,’ he says. ‘That’s what this whole business is about: figuring out the angles. I taught myself watching the birds floating on the updraught, watching them dive for fish and prey. I knew all about the angles even before I set foot in a plane.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever really felt that way about anything,’ I say. ‘It must be nice to know you are born for something.’

Danny draws to a stop on an empty stretch of beach and kicks off his boots. He is still barefoot underneath.

‘If I could, I would knit you some socks,’ I tell him.

‘Knitting socks don’t seem so very like you, Maia Borg,’ he says. ‘Besides, I kinda got used to it now. Want to sit on the beach for a while?’

‘Yes.’ I nod, slipping off my battered shoes, and dance for a moment on the hot sand as my soles make the adjustment.

Danny pulls his tattered shirt over his head, revealing toned biceps and the ripple of dozens of small muscles in his back.

It must take a lot of physical strength to fly a Spitfire.

He flops back onto the sand, flinging his arms about his head.

His brown torso must have been burnt and tanned a hundred times by now, and I notice the white tide-mark that peeps just above the waistline of his shorts and stop myself from wondering how far that untanned stretch goes.

Not nearly as comfortable in my own skin, I opt for a spot in the shade of the boat, hugging my knees to my chest as I look out at the quiet bay.

Digging my toes into the sand, I lean my chin on my arms. Here is exactly where I want to be, and yet at the same time I would like to make myself invisible – to be with Danny, but not to be seen by him.

He is like some kind of god, a man at the peak of his beauty.

Next to him, I feel fat and ungainly, entirely unworthy to be in his company.

‘Everyone’s born to do something,’ Danny says, rolling onto his side to look at me.

His roving gaze coaxes me to uncurl a little, still uncertain that he can really want to look at me, when every bit of me is soft and pink, sunburnt and glistening with perspiration.

Leaning back on my hands, I twist towards him.

His eyes travel over my torso to the tips of my fingers.

With every millimetre of my body that his slow and lingering gaze takes in, I reveal a little more of myself to him in a deliciously long unspoken conversation.

‘You chose to be a journalist, right? Pretty bold move for a dame, if you don’t mind me saying so. Didn’t you choose it because you knew that was what you were born to do?’

‘No, not really,’ I admit. ‘It’s funny. Dad always knew what he was meant to be, and as for Mum, well – I’ve never met anyone as comfortable in her own skin as she was.

But me – I’ve always felt kind of aimless.

Kind of an outsider. Always like I’m drifting along like that tiny cloud up there.

And then one day, I found myself accidentally in the middle of a war, and I had the turn of phrase to make it into a report and that was that.

I’m good at it, but it never felt like a calling. Not like you and flying.’

‘I’m sure glad the wind blew you here, Stitches,’ Danny says, rolling onto his back. His hand drifts through the sand until his fingertips almost touch mine. ‘And I’m a little annoyed, too.’

‘Annoyed?’ I ask with a laugh.

‘I told you I wasn’t fixing to fall in love until this whole thing was done and dusted. Well, you upset that apple cart all right.’