Page 77 of Never Tear Us Apart

Chapter Seventy-Four

Danny comes to the house early the next morning.

‘Wrangled an hour or two off to see you before the next big show later,’ he explains when I let him in.

‘You must be tired,’ I tell him.

‘Not yet. Tomorrow, when all this is over and those boats have steamed into harbour, then I’ll be tired. One last push, Maia. We get the fuel and the food, and the siege is over. The war might go on, but things will get a hell of a lot better round here.’

‘And what are your orders?’ I ask him.

‘Well, I can’t tell you exactly, but you can assume I’ll be up there trying to pick off the bombers while the Axis pilots try to pick me off.’

‘And if you get hit, you eject, right?’ I say.

‘Maia,’ Danny says. ‘Why all the questions now?’

‘Humour me?’ I ask him. ‘It makes me feel better to understand all the steps.’

‘If I’m hit, and there’s no chance of landing the Spit, then I’ll eject. But if I can get her down, I will. Ejecting right into the middle of an air battle and a gunfight ain’t always the best idea.’

‘So you’d try to land at the airfield?’

‘That’s the best way, if I can reach it. They got fire crews, ambulances, doctors.’

‘And, say you land, but it’s like the other day, and you can’t open your cockpit, and this time for some reason, you can’t kick your way out, what then?’

‘The erks will get me out,’ Danny says calmly.

‘There’s an emergency catch right on top of the hood – looks like two screws.

You pull it up, and it releases the canopy.

Then they’ll cut my belts and haul me out.

They are pros, these guys, Maia. It’s all been thought through, I promise you, right down to the last detail. ’

‘Right down to the last detail,’ I repeat.

‘And what about you, when it all kicks off? You’ll get to the shelter, right?’

‘Yes,’ I lie. ‘I’ll be safe.’

‘Good.’ He smiles at me. ‘I have to go back, Stitches.’

‘Already?’

Our arms wind around each other.

‘We will see each other again,’ Danny promises me. ‘I know it. So you believe it, you hear me?’

‘I do,’ I tell him. ‘I do.’

We kiss, and in that kiss, there is a lifetime – decades of the lives we long to live together, bound and sealed with the vows our bodies make.

‘Stay alive,’ Danny whispers as he lets me go.

‘Stay alive,’ I tell him.

He smiles, and then he’s gone.

* * *

After Danny leaves – and it takes every fibre of courage I have in my bones to let him go – Sal and I wait, the only two people in the world who know exactly what we are waiting for.

It feels like there should be a lot to say, but we are mostly silent.

We sit side by side, my hand in his, waiting for the hour to arrive, the time when we need to leave to meet our fates.

Neither of us needs to say that the other has saved them, given them a family when they’d given up hope of one.

Neither of us needs to say that we don’t want the other to go – that we want each other to change our minds and stay alive. Both of us know we can’t do that.

Sal watches the clock standing in the hall, and he must have decided the time is right. He hands me a letter in an envelope.

‘This is for you to read tomorrow,’ he says firmly. Getting up, he places half a dozen more on the table.

‘To my friends. There is one each for Christina and Stella – make sure they get them.’ He smiles. ‘Don’t worry. I haven’t mentioned that I know I’m going to die tonight.’

‘Sal.’ I stand up, rushing to hug him.

‘Now,’ he says. ‘Now, now. We will not make a fuss, Maia. We think we know what will happen tonight, but we have already changed so much, so we will go to our fates as travellers to a new land. And, you know, whatever befalls us, I am certain that we will see each other again in another life at another time. Perhaps we will not know it or even recognise each other, but I do believe that in some part of our minds, we will know we have always been friends. I trust in that above all else. You have given me that faith.’

‘You have given it to me, too,’ I tell him.

‘Then we are ready,’ he says. ‘No goodbyes.’

‘No goodbyes,’ I reply.

* * *

We are outside the school, waiting for the children to arrive as the siren sounds, exactly when we knew it would, screaming out into the hot evening, summoning us to shelters and tunnels. All day I have been restless, pacing back and forth, waiting for it all to begin.

We spring up and head for the door together, pausing outside as people hurry around, scuttling as fast as they can to safety.

‘See you again,’ Sal says, taking my hand.

‘You will,’ I promise.

‘Sal.’ Stella is running towards me, pushing the pram with one hand and leading David by the other.

‘Take the children, pease? I have to go to Ta’ Qali.

There was an oil explosion on the field.

It was hit by a shell – no one saw it coming.

There are some serious burns. I need as much help as I can get. They’ve sent a jeep.’

‘Of course,’ Sal says, hugging Stella. ‘They will be safe with me.’

We hear the sound of the first wave of bombers droning louder as a jeep screeches to a stop.

‘Let me come with you,’ I follow Stella to the car.

‘No.’ She turns to look at me her hand on the vehicle. ‘Not today. You must stay safe, Maia. You are my hope.’

‘But…’

The jeep screeches away before I can argue.

For one fraction of a second, I am helpless. Then I know what I have to do. I run after Stella, right towards death.