‘Is that a Lee Enfield?’ said Freddie.
‘Might just as well be a goddamn broomstick for all the good it’s going to do him.’
The last of the bombers were making their runs now, dropping to four or five thousand feet before unloading over the airfields. Resistance was minimal, and they climbed safely away with a covey of fighters assigned to see them safely home. High above, all around, 109s blackened the sky like bees, keeping a wary guard. Their job done, the artillery all but spent, they would soon descend and begin picking over the carcass, making low-level attacks on targets of opportunity. If there was a time to be scared, now was it. Even a residential district like Sliema was fair game.
Knowing this, a few people started to drift below. Most stood their ground, though, eager to see how things would play out. Freddie made a drinks run downstairs. By the time he returned with their glasses the dockyards in Grand Harbour were under attack, the fighters rising into view behind Valletta like rocketing pheasants as they pulled up out of their dives. They couldn’t hope to inflict much real damage with their cannon and machine-gun fire, but they were making a point. He’d heard from Ralph that a 109 had even made a touch-and-go landing at Ta’ Qali the other day, rubbing their noses in it.
Today, pleasingly, this arrogance came at a price. A 109 banking over Fort St Elmo appeared to stagger, then its starboard wing dipped sharply and it spun away. There was no question of the pilot baling out at that height, and it hit the water, throwing up a white feather of spume near the harbour entrance.
‘Welcome to Malta, you sonofabitch,’ said Elliott darkly, as the cheers resounded around them.
Moments later, a couple of fighters swooped on Marsamxett Harbour from the direction of Floriana, flying tight down on the water, setting themselves for a strafing run at the submarine base on Manoel Island. There were no subs to be seen; they had recently taken to sitting out the daylight hours on the harbour bottom.
‘Macchis,’ said one of the young pilots.
He was right, they were Italian planes, blue Macchi 202s. If there was any doubt, the showman-like flourish with which they rolled away after releasing a couple of savage bursts of cannon fire settled the question of their nationality. The Italians were known, and mocked, for their aerobatic flair. Both aircraft made a second pass, their guns churning up the water in neat straight lines as they bore down on the base. They pulled away in a climbing turn to the left, making off to the north, skimming over the stepped rooftops of Sliema.
Their course brought them straight towards Villa Marija, the roar of their engines building quickly to a painful pitch, almost deafening, but not so loud that it drowned out the report of the first rifle shot. Or the second.
Max turned in time to see Vitorin Zammit fire off his third shot, in time to see a portion of the lead Macchi’s engine cowling fall away.
‘My God, I think he hit it,’ someone called.
He had not only hit it, he had done some damage. The Macchi’s engine coughed, clearing its throat, then coughed again, and again, misfiring badly now, a ribbon of black smoke snaking out behind it as it climbed towards St Julian’s.
‘Well, Holy Shit…’ said Elliott.
The trickle of smoke soon became a raging torrent and the Macchi started to lose height, falling well behind its companion.
‘Is it possible?’ Freddie asked incredulously.
‘Oh yes,’ replied Max.
A number of enemy fighters had been brought down over the airfields by rifle fire since the long-suffering ground crews had been issued with Lee Enfields—a gesture intended to boost their morale, no one had expected them to actually hit anything.
It came to Max quite suddenly what he had to do. He glanced over at Vitorin Zammit, who was staring in dumb disbelief at his handiwork, then he grabbed Pemberton by the arm and led him off through the crowd.
‘Where are we going?’ Pemberton asked.
‘To work.’
He lay stretched out on the mattress, naked, staring at the ceiling, the dancing shadows thrown by the small pepper-tin lamp.
He raised his arm and examined it in the flickering light, flexing his elbow, his wrist, his fingers, enjoying the silent articulation of the joints, the play of muscle and sinew beneath the skin.
He was proud of his hands. Men didn’t notice hands. Women did. His mother had. She had always praised him for his hands. Then again, kind words came easily to her, maybe too easily for the compliments to have any real value. She scattered them about her like a farmer spreading seed from a sack.
He saw her now as a young woman: the blue of her wide-set eyes, the arched eyebrows, dark and dense, which she refused to pluck as other women did because Father liked them just the way they were. Or so he said.
My, you’re looking handsome today.
I think that’s the best I’ve ever heard you play the piano.
The best day of my life? When I gave birth to you.
You’re the best boy in the world.
She came from parents with low intellectual horizons and she used words like ‘best’ a lot.
Maybe that’s what lay at the heart of everything. She had never felt worthy of the world in which she found herself, not worthy of the man who had taken her by the hand and led her into Eden. ‘See all this? This is my world, but now it is yours too.’
But Eden didn’t come cheap, she must have learned that early on, and she had chosen to repay cruelty with kindness. She was known for her kindness. It was what defined her in the eyes of others. No one was unworthy of her selfless ministrations.
He suspected now that some baser urge lay behind her behaviour: an instinct for survival. How could her husband possibly harm such a kind and decent person, such a good wife?
It hadn’t worked, but she had kept the faith. It was hard to respect her for it, but at least it showed a certain determination.
‘You’re the best boy in the world.’
He saw her now, ruffling his hair, smiling warmly down at him, her prominent incisors, the small white scar on her lower lip from the time Father had struck her with a shoe. And he saw what she was doing: one person looking to provide the love of two. The intentions had been good, if ultimately counter-productive. The more she had smothered him with maternal affection, the more Father had felt the need to counteract her ‘damned molly-coddling’ of him.
It was strange that she had never stopped heaping praise upon all and sundry, even after the accident, when there was no longer any need to do so. He also found it strange that she had never taken tweezers to those unruly eyebrows when she must surely have wanted to, when at last she could.
That’s what annoyed him most, he realized—that even when Father was gone, he had managed to live on in her.
He lowered his arm to the mattress and smiled at this thought, a smile of pleasant surprise. When was the last time he had cared enough about anything to be annoyed by it?
It made him feel almost human.
Freddie was almost an hour late for their meeting at the mortuary. When he finally appeared, reeking of iodine, from the bowels of the hospital building, he seemed surprised to find Max still waiting for him.
‘I thought you’d be gone.’
‘I heard