Sign of the Cross (13 page)

Spike looked up, apprehensive.

‘If you could script it. Make it how you wanted.’

He straightened his cutlery, which the owner took as a cue to swoop. ‘
Grazzi
,’ Zahra said in Maltese as he collected their plates. Spike assumed this would mark the end of her line of questioning, but she was still looking at him intently across the table. He sighed. ‘God, I don’t know, Zahra. Same as most people, I suppose. A reasonable amount of happiness. Health and well-being for friends and family. World peace. Why, what do you want?’

Zahra smiled. ‘I knew you wouldn’t answer properly.’

‘It’s not a very interesting question. You play the hand you’re dealt. It’s like asking what colour you want the sun to be apart from yellow.’

‘The sun’s a million different colours.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t.’

The owner returned, pad in hand. Spike raised an eyebrow, and Zahra spoke again in Maltese; a moment later the owner reappeared with an unlabelled bottle and two ice-filled tumblers. After cracking off the top, he retreated, leaving the bottle between them.

‘Looks promising.’

‘Same old Spike,’ Zahra said. ‘Get the booze in when your father’s not around.’

Spike decided to ignore that. Reaching for the bottle, he felt her hand touch his, the skin as smooth and warm as he remembered. ‘Uh-uh,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to buy a shot.’

‘I was hoping to pick up the tab.’

‘Not money. Answers. One answer buys you one shot.’ The smile found her eyes but her tone was sharp.

‘You’ve got to let me try some first,’ he said, feeling her squeeze his knuckles. ‘Check out the exchange rate.’

She took the bottle with her other hand and poured out a syrupy drop of liquid. Over the ice cubes, it changed from golden to a lurid purple. He put it to his lips: sweet cough medicine with a hint of earthiness. ‘Delicious.’

‘Liar.’

He waited for the burning in his oesophagus to ease. ‘Potent.’

‘The truth at last.’

The owner had given up on them now, cashing up at a window table with a strongbox and a bottle of Cisk beer open before him.

‘Well?’ Spike said. ‘Fire away.’

‘Same question. Your life. If you could script it.’

‘Can I bring people back from the dead?’ Spike asked with a throwaway laugh.

‘Sadly not.’

Out to sea, fifty painted pairs of eyes stared back. ‘Peter Galliano and I . . . you remember Peter? We’d structure a hedge fund in Gib which went nuclear. In return, we’d get a small percentage of the profits . . . nothing major, just enough to refurbish the house in Chicardo’s and employ a full-time nurse for my dad. A governess type with a love of Italian literature who would mysteriously melt under his charm and fall in love with him.’

‘So you wouldn’t have to worry about him.’

‘Do I get a drink for that?’

Zahra raised the bottle, then put it down. ‘But what about
your
life?’

‘Me?’ Spike said. ‘I’d buy one of those old Genoese houses on the eastern side of the Rock. Just above the beach in Catalan Bay: wrought-iron balcony, white-painted facade. Then every summer I’d pick a Mediterranean country and spend two months exploring. I’d do the occasional piece of lawyering, pro bono, just to keep my hand in.’ He shrugged. ‘And that would be it.’

Zahra poured out two purple fingers, which Spike gratefully knocked back. When he looked up again, he caught a flash of disappointment on her face. ‘So all this happens alone?’ she said.

‘That’s a separate question.’

She refreshed his glass, then placed her palm on the top.

‘I forgot you were a stickler for the rules . . . No, not necessarily. But there’s a risk if it’s with someone else.’

‘Why?’

She kept her hand on his glass.

‘Something could go wrong. You could get . . . stuck.’

‘Stuck? Interesting choice of word. What about children?’

‘What about them?’

She poured out a drop more.

‘The world’s overcrowded enough as it is,’ Spike said. ‘It’s hardly crying out for more Sanguinettis.’ He drained his glass, then gave his head a shake, feeling his eyeballs rattle in their sockets like marbles. ‘But enough of me. One drink, one question. The common market.’

Zahra let him fill up her glass; remembering she was relatively new to alcohol, he showed some restraint. ‘What do you want?’ he said.

She planted her elbows on the table, resting her delicate chin on her hands. ‘I’d meet someone. Fall in love. Earn enough money to be comfortable. Have a baby, two maybe. Bring them up speaking English and Arabic, then, when they were old enough, take them to Morocco to see my parents’ graves. That’s about it.’ She sipped her drink; it was unclear if the sheen in her eyes came from the booze. ‘Maybe some bookshelves,’ she added, smiling.

‘On their own?’

She blushed. ‘A house with bookshelves. And a view of the sea. Yes, that would be good.’

The owner re-emerged.

‘Thank the Lord,’ Spike muttered. ‘Do you want me to . . .?’

‘I bring machine.’

Spike topped up both glasses. Half the bottle was gone. ‘Last question,’ he said. ‘Why did you leave Gib?’

‘You’ve already answered that.’

‘Have I?’ He sensed her eyes searching his face, but could not drag his own up to meet them.

‘There is hotel bar on next corner,’ the owner said, proffering the Visa machine.

‘We could grab another drink,’ Spike suggested.

‘Or a cab back to Valletta,’ Zahra said, glancing down at her wristwatch as Spike tapped in his pin and paid.

11

The flat, boxy roof of the Duncan Guest House gave a vaguely North African feel. It stood in the lee of yet another church, a few yards shy of the harbourside. The terrace was closed for the night, chairs on tables; Spike held open the door for Zahra and they entered the lobby bar.

A well-oiled elderly couple sat with guidebooks and Irish coffees beneath a faded scuba-diving poster advertising the Blue Lagoon. At the desk, the receptionist checked the time, then heroically mustered a smile.

‘We wondered if we could order a taxi,’ Zahra said.

‘They have to come from Valletta,’ the receptionist replied. ‘Twenty minutes.’

‘Perfect,’ Spike said. ‘We can order a drink while we wait. Zahra?’

‘Mineral water.’

‘Two of those, please. And some ice.’

The receptionist glanced down at the bottle of
bajtra
in Spike’s hand, then dipped into the fridge below the bar.

Zahra chose a table a few seats away from the elderly couple. Spike positioned himself beside her, placing the bottle of
bajtra
by the chair leg.

‘In Malta, nothing is ever more than twenty minutes away,’ Zahra said.

The couple smiled over; Spike gave a nod back, then ran a hand through his hair, feeling it already dampening in the stuffy heat of the bar. They sat for a moment in silence.

‘Were you close to your uncle and aunt?’ Zahra said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Teresa told me she hadn’t seen you in years.’

‘Jesus,’ Spike muttered. ‘You’re really going for it tonight.’

The barman brought over a bottle of water and two glasses. When he was gone, Spike picked up the
bajtra
and poured a purple slug into each, topping up with a nominal dash of water, then taking a long slow sip. ‘I suppose it was my fault, really,’ he said at last. ‘After my mother died, my uncle and aunt came over to Gib for the funeral. David said something to me about my dad. Suggested he was in some way responsible for her death. That he should have looked out for her more, cut off the booze, something along those lines. This from David Mifsud, who never visited, barely phoned . . .’ Spike looked up. ‘Enough?’

‘Do you miss your mother?’

He downed his drink.

‘Do you think she’d be happy with how you’ve turned out?’

He poured another glass. ‘By the time she died she was so depressed she genuinely believed we’d be better off without her. But if she was back to her old self . . . Maybe.’

‘What wouldn’t she like about you?’

Spike cast his mind back. ‘I think she worried I didn’t take life seriously enough. Just sailed through, took the easy road, never questioned things. “You have to make
some
positive contribution to the world,” she used to say, “however minor.” So these days, I try and ask questions. Do the right thing.’

‘Was that why you helped me in Morocco? Because it was the right thing?’ Her face was fixed on his. He felt like a child again, unexpectedly berated for saying something flippant. He tried to measure his answer, then gave up. ‘I felt excited when I was with you.’

‘And?’

‘That alarmed me.’

‘Why?’

The phone was ringing at the desk. ‘Taxi’s coming,’ the receptionist called over.

Their eyes locked. ‘I think you’re scared,’ Zahra said. ‘You don’t want to take a risk because it hurts to be left.’

His voice was sharp now: ‘Spare me the psychobabble, Zahra.’

The couple gestured goodnight as they picked up their guidebooks and hobbled through the inner door.

‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ Zahra said.

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Why?’

‘Well . . . look at you. Your mother dies in childbirth. Your father is murdered. The rest of your family never wants to see you again because you cost them their livelihoods. You’ve experienced more abandonment than I’ll ever know. But you’re not scared of opening up, or taking a risk. Bereavement doesn’t close a person off. It’s too simplistic.’

‘You think I’m not tempted to push people away? That I don’t have to make an effort to trust people?’

Spike half stood for Zahra as she headed to the Ladies, then went to reception and paid. A clatter came from the corridor, followed by the low murmur of voices. Spike followed the sound and saw Zahra crouching to pick up some guidebooks the old couple had dropped. She said something as she rose and the couple laughed. She held open the door for them to go up to their rooms; as soon as they were gone, her face fell, heavy with sadness.

‘Zahra?’

She turned, and he placed his hands on her shoulders, putting his mouth to hers. At first she resisted, but then the tension seemed to drain from her body. Her lips were soft and warm.

‘Your taxi . . .’ came a voice. ‘Oh.’

12

They lay opposite one another on their sides. The room gave onto the harbourside, street lamps gleaming through half-open curtains. The occasional passing car arced headlights over the ceiling.

Spike had the palm of one hand beneath Zahra’s neck; with the other, he traced the contours of her body: shoulder blade, ribcage, hip. The smooth brown skin of her thigh and calf. On their return journey, his fingers dipped to the two small dimples he remembered above her buttocks.

She reached for his chest. He felt his groin stir again as she stroked the corrugated muscles of his stomach. ‘You remember our first night in the desert?’ she said.

‘In the cave?’

‘I wanted to be with you then.’ She drew a fingertip up the dark line of hair that grew above his navel.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Spike said.

Zahra’s mouth turned down a little. ‘You don’t have to say that.’

He edged closer to her across the mattress. ‘Will you give me another chance?’

She smiled, then pulled him towards her.

13

Spike walked along the harbourfront, swinging a paper bag of pastries in one hand. The fishing boats –
luzzi
, Zahra had called them – creaked in the morning breeze. Stopping beside the jetty, he watched a fisherman and his son sorting their night-time catch into polystyrene trays. Though fresh, the fish were twisted, rigor mortis having set in as they’d suffocated in the nets. One still clung to life – a red mullet – and flipped in the tray, small mouth gaping, single yellow eye staring upwards. The father turned to Spike, a cigarette clenched between his front teeth. He gave Spike a wink, then looked away.

On the hillside behind rose the striped chimney stacks of what looked like a power station. Perhaps that was why this fishing village remained relatively undeveloped. ‘Morning,’ the receptionist said with a smile as Spike entered the hotel.

Spike smiled back, then bounded up the stairs to their first-floor room. Zahra was still asleep, one arm tossed on the pillow above her head like a swooning actress. Her small, tanned breasts were almost visible above the line of the sheets.

Spike closed the door carefully, but she stirred. He caught the stale but fragrant smell of lazy mornings of old.

‘I brought us some breakfast,’ Spike said, moving to the table beneath the window. Using the paper bag as a plate, he laid out four freshly baked rolls. ‘It’s gorgeous out there. Feels like spring.’