Page 73 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Seventy

That night and the following morning pass with a surreal air, almost as if I am dreaming.

Colours are heightened, and I feel as if I have lost a layer of myself somewhere, slipped off along with my gown last night, as Danny’s hands and mouth soared across the plains and valley of my body, as I felt every touch and emotion with new intensity.

Entwining my fingers in his hair and encouraging his kisses to travel further up my thighs, an idea he seemed only too happy to explore.

Parting is almost impossible. Our limbs seem determined to remain entangled, our fingers holding on to one another, forcing us to say goodbye again and again. But Danny can’t be late on base, and I have my own meeting to attend. Still, I cannot bear to let him go.

‘I won’t see you until tomorrow,’ I say.

‘I’ve always hated this war,’ he replies. ‘But never so much as now when it’s keeping me from you.’

We kiss again in the street, only stopping when a gaggle of children start to point, giggling and making smooching noises.

At last, we break apart, giving each other one last look, until Danny turns on his heels and jogs off in one direction.

Chasing the delighted children away with a sudden lion’s roar, I head in the other.

* * *

Mabel is waiting for me, sitting primly on one of the chairs outside the general’s office.

‘I didn’t know you were going to be here,’ I say.

‘I thought you might like a little company,’ Mabel tells me, patting the chair beside her.

‘Our friend the count is in custody. Things will likely be very serious for him. Of course, they should have taken him in months ago, just for the racketeering, but he was always so careful to stay out of sight. One ring would be broken down, then another would take its place. I can’t imagine he learnt anything of earth-shattering importance from Miss Grayson, but it doesn’t have to be earth-shattering, does it, for it to be treason?

’ She sighs. ‘It’s her I feel sorry for. Silly, foolish, feckless girl.’

‘They won’t . . .’ I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

‘Hang her? No, I shouldn’t think so, but she will serve a long time in prison. The best years of her life. It’s all rather heartbreaking.’

The general’s office door opens. ‘Ladies?’

* * *

After a brief debrief with the general, he seems happy to let me go, and I spend the afternoon at the Times office, drafting my article, listening to the radio and waiting for the familiar warning of raids, but none come.

The air outside is eerily quiet and still, like the close sultry hours before a storm.

‘They’re getting ready,’ Mabel says as the afternoon draws to a close. ‘When it comes, it will be ferocious.’

I file my copy with a feeling that, finally, I am back where I belong.

Stella and the children are still at the half-house when I get back from the Times that evening .

We all put our rations together and share them in a meal.

Sal and Stella want every detail of what happened at the dance.

David is delighted when Sal tells him I was a secret agent, and after dinner, he takes some old brown paper and a pencil stub and draws a comic in which I star.

Eventually, Stella takes the children home to their beds, and Sal and I get ready to say goodbye.

‘If this evening is my last here, then I’m grateful for my years here for all it cost me,’ Sal tells me. ‘I haven’t had my wife or my child with me these last thirty years, but I have had true friends and a family I love.’

* * *

The night is quiet and dark, the streets empty and silent.

We make our way down into the first and oldest level of the temple, just as we did before.

This time, I find and light the lamp easily, and we climb down until we reach the oracle chamber.

Lifting the lamp, I look up at the red-painted spirals on the stone ceilings and walls, not turning now, but still and serene. The temple is sleeping, dreaming of us.

‘I didn’t go right back where I was supposed to be,’ I tell Sal.

‘Be prepared for that. You told me you thought you were here to atone, and maybe you were right. It’s been a long time since you travelled, Sal, so be ready.

Anything might be waiting for you. You might make more than one stop before you get off where you want to be, and when you do, you need to hold on. ’

‘I’m not sure this will work,’ Sal says. ‘I am afraid, Maia – afraid that it won’t work, and afraid that it will.’

‘This is what you want, isn’t it?’ I ask him. ‘To rejoin Elena and your son?’

‘I think it is,’ Sal says cautiously, his tone hushed, ‘but is it what Elena wants? I can’t ask her, can I? What if I’m forcing something on her that she has learnt to live without? More than that – learnt to be happy without.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s a risk. It’s harder to go forwards than it is to go back.’

‘But if there’s a chance’ – Sal turns into the chamber – ‘then it must be taken.’

‘You know what to do,’ I say. ‘I’ll wait until you are gone.’

We embrace for a long moment. When he touches his hand to my cheek, he feels my tears.

‘I will miss you,’ I tell him when I finally let him go. ‘You are the closest thing to a father I have ever had.’

‘And I will miss you, Maia, my friend and compatriot in the strange lands we have found ourselves in, my daughter of the heart. You showed me the way when I couldn’t find it myself.’

And then, because goodbye still doesn’t feel like enough, we shake hands, smiling and crying all at once.

Picking up the lantern, I step back to the edge of the chamber and blow it out. The absence of light is immediate and complete, at least until my eyes adjust and I can pick out details in the scant moonlight that filters through from above.

Sal is self-conscious and uncertain at first. His song begins with a hymn, but gradually I hear it peel away from what is familiar and safe and spiral into the sound of his heart and soul. Slowly, the stone under my feet begins to vibrate and seems to glimmer and glow.

The darkness around Sal intensifies as his song does. His voice multiplies a thousand times, echoing and reverberating into a symphony of hope. The sound builds, becoming so loud I can’t believe the people in their houses can’t hear it or feel the shaking of the ground, and then . . .

He is gone.

The temple is silent and still, and Sal is gone. No sleeping remnant of him lies crumpled on the ground; no trace of him at all. Wherever he has gone, he has gone entirely.

Relighting the lamp, I walk over to where he was.

There is no sign of him and no way he could have exited the chamber without me seeing him – at least, no conventional way.

It seems foolish that having made this journey myself, I am finding what I just saw – or rather didn’t see – hard to believe.

In truth, I’d hoped to see an opening portal or moments of time encapsulated like raindrops cascading down.

But all there was was the song and then silence.

Perhaps that’s all there ever is.