The water is wide, I cannot get o'er & neither have I wings to fly…..
Birds.
Birds that leave the coast of Africa before it’s light to travel north towards their summer homes.
For some it may be their first journey, but others have been this way before. Leaving that great continent behind. The sweep of shoreline where the white ocean of sand meets the shining blue of the sea.
Il Maré Medittéranneo.
These last travellers are almost too late for this journey. A multitude of beaks, wings and tails. The morning light incandescent on the white, grey, black and electric blue of their feathers. Before the sun wakes from the water in the East, way out beyond the delta of the Nile, they rise up. The early morning thermals lifting them. Gaining height for their long descent to the coast that lies ahead.
Flying North.
So every year these millions of sparrows, starlings, cranes, geese, doves, swifts, martins, and ducks set out from Africa and, no matter what the current political crisis or economic situation, steer a course for their summer homes.
Imagine, if you were to follow one small group of swallows or a solitary martin along a line from the beach at Djabet el Moussad early on the morning of June 21st 1966, while the dawn is still fresh. Track them along a longitude o f 14 degrees 20 minutes East as they rise ever higher.
Imagine from the window of the plane how it would appear. The desert falling away behind. Small fragments of broken cirro-stratus white and distant below.
Then the sea. Indistinct in the early half light. Stretching from the horizon as you peer out your window. Sounds of engines throbbing in your ears. That sense of unreality that being in an aeroplane can induce. The impossibility of flight.
How the light grows from the East. Floods the vision with pink, yellow and red.
Below you still, the sea.
Il Maré.
La Mediterrané.
But for these birds there is no air conditioned pressurised cabin. No reclining seat with armrest comforts from which to view the journey.
Their wings must beat. Beat constantly. Catching what currents they can. Lifting them up and up to gain enough height to glide down to that far shore.
Then, only forty miles from the shore they left, as the sun continues its certain climb, with promises of midday heat to come, a furnace in the clear sky, is the sight of land.
There. On the horizon. A coastline. Cliffs. Bays. Waves breaking on rocks.
Some of them begin to descend. But others use the solar draft from this small outcrop of lime and sandstone to rise still higher.
Pause for a moment from your breakfast of corn flakes, poached eggs, toast and thin orange juice in paper cups on plastic trays or your early morning pick me up of gin and tonic, to look out across the wing.
Three islands. Their outlines broken and fragmented by an infinite assortment of creeks, inlets and coves. One large island lying north west to south east. A smaller at its northern tip and between them, almost invisible, a sandy dot with jewelled blue water in its mouth. Malta, Gozo and Comino. Their stone surfaces orange in the early light.
Those that fly higher will have to take their chances with the midday sun, the winds off the coast of Sicily and Southern Italy and the gastronomic appetites of the French. While others that glide down towards these ancient bumps from out the sea’s floor had better beware. At this time of year many of the walls that rise from the stony fields surrounded by cactuses and oleanders bear three letters in handwritten black or sometimes red paint
Reservato. Meaning: this rock is mine. Here I stand with my shotgun, peaked cap, stained brown with sweat, my bag slung over one shoulder with its bottle of Marsovin red wine and loaf of rough bread sliced in half with olive oil and tomato purée squeezed between. Here from early morning I wait for them as they begin their flight north again. Those I may have missed last year heading for their winter holidays may not be so lucky this time. Blasting them out of the sky.
“Osh ta Madonna. It will be sparrow and starling pie for supper tonight”
Bang bang. Bang bang.
Small feathered bodies that fall like manna from the sky.
Some are too tired to continue. For days they had waited in the sands outside Djabbet el Moussad with no food or water. Waiting for some signal, some perfect moment when they will fly together. And so they have, rising up with their brothers and sisters. But this is as far as they go. The hunters will not get these ones. They drop towards the coast. Exhaustion and dehydration have caught them in their fatal nets. Making it to the edge of the land before they gasp their last small breaths or falling into the sea’s embrace at the edge of Dingli cliffs.
From the armchair comfort of your seat on flight BE 237 from Tripoli to Naples you will not see these tiny tragedies. Moments of fluttering life and then…… over. But you might just catch a glimpse where the cliffs begin to rise at Malta’s southern most point of some regular stones. Upright near the water’s edge. Just passed under your starboard wing. Just there.
Quick. To the other side of the plane. Look out of the window. Now. Do you see their shadows on the rocky ground pointing westwards, lit by the light from the east?
Too late. You missed it. Never mind. Ask the stewardess for another drink or go back to reading your paper.
You missed it.
These stones have stood here facing the sea, gazing blind towards the far invisible dunes of Afdrica for as long as humans have lived in Europe.
They are the temple of Hagar Qim.
Quite a tourist attraction they’ve become. Though archaeologists disagree about who put them there and whether they ever were a temple. The most recent theory assigning them to a section of a giant cosmic clock composed of a circle of temples and underground shrines to the goddess round the island. Everyone agrees that they must be very old though there are disagreements of thousands of years about exactly how old. But there can be no disagreement that they face towards Africa. Looking back home perhaps.
That is as far as the consensus goes.
A road has been built to the site ending in front of two breeze block and limestone gateposts supporting a rusty wrought and corrugated iron gate next to the car park where taxis, buses and hired cars can park. A large enamel sign in black letters on a peeling white background announces in Maltese, French and English.
HAGAR QIM. PREHISTORIC TEMPLE.
Along with opening times and a timetable of buses to and from Valletta.
It’s a bit of a walk from the car park through the gate (which right now is closed) and down the path that leads to the main temple and the two smaller, as it says in the literature, “priests robbing chambers or separate areas of worship for women?”.
On this particular morning the tour buses, hired cars and taxis have yet to arrive. Though the sun is already causing small lizards to scuttle for shelter under rocks that look like they might have been part of the planet’s first crust, it is still early.
Later in the day the heat will shimmer over these rocks and flash unbearably bright on the water below at the edge of the cliffs. Now it is early morning and as those fortunate feathered ones (May the prophet speed their flight) rise high above the island, out of sight and range of buckshot, lead and “SHOOTRITE - Guaranteed to bring your prey down in one piece!”, the sound of a car can be heard coming down the narrow road to the gate of Hagar Qim.
Cut to long shot from gate revealing large Mercedes saloon approaching from the distance.
Probably built some time in the late 1940’s or early 50’s. Not unusual for taxis on this island where most, if not all, were made many miles away in the factory of Mercedes Benz. New models are the exception, their owners priding themselves on their ability to keep them going after 20 years or more of suspension juddering miles on the islands impossible roads.
Many of them are immaculately preserved, complete with column gear change and shrine to the Madonna festooned with fairy lights. Some even have an extra shrine to the Blessed Bleeding Heart of Our Saviour, or a couple of photos of the other King, Elvis, on the large shelf below the curved rear window. None of these icons guarantee that passengers will arrive safely at the end of their journey from Sliema to Senglea or Zejtun to Valletta. That option lies in the hands of the driver and his horn.
The most important single implement in any motorised form of transport on the island is the horn. For only by sounding it, as you hurtle down narrow roads, between high dry stone walls, blind to any traffic coming towards you, only by pressing your hand on that precious tool, can you ensure that others know you’re coming and, if they’re doing the same, you might know they’re coming.
But whether you can swerve out of each other’s way and avoid instant death in a head on collision may well be in the soft white hands of the Holy Virgin.
This particular taxi is dark green and is not sounding its horn. There is no need. The road to Hagar Qim, though bumpy and potholed, is dead straight between broken walls on either side with a view to the temple and sea beyond. At this early hour it is unlikely that any other vehicles would be coming from the temple that doesn’t “open” until 9.30am. It’s now just after eight. The taxi bumps and swerves as its driver tries to avoid the deep holes in the road.
Unfortunately nobody from the Department of Public Works & Transport had bothered to consider laying any sort of foundation when the new tarmac road to “the most important archaeological site on the island” had been laid a couple of years previously. At the time it had been more important to get it built as part of an exciting 5 year plan for major tourist development throughout the island.
Summer heat, winter rain and salt winds had quickly ensured that the experience of travelling on this particular historic roadway was similar to a journey by bike across the furrows of a newly ploughed field. Though the driver was trying, in spite of the dilapidated state of the suspension on his 108D Mercedes saloon, to make this part of the journey as smooth and gentle as possible due to the state of his single passenger, for whose health and well being he is extremely concerned.
Occasionally he glances in the rear view mirror, an unusual tactic for a Maltese driver. This is not to see if anyone behind is trying to overtake but to check if the condition of his fare has changed. She is slumped against the right hand door of the taxi. Eyes closed. Or so he assumes, for her dark glasses are too opaque to allow any sight of them.
The driver’s name is Morris. Morris Grech. Though no-one ever uses his surname. He is known simply as Morris, Morris the Driver. His most prominent feature is his nose. A tremendous extrusion on his face. His mother (may all the saints see she rests in peace) always insisted that he was born with a nose the same as every other young Maltese boy. This may well be true, but as long as anyone can recall Morris has had his nose.
Bulbous, pock marked, brown and beautiful. Set in a face of creases and lines broken by a smile of such radiance and friendship that those who know him are sure it is God’s recompense for the nose.
“Such a smile. And what he has he got to be happy for. A ta Madonna. The man would smile if you stole his taxi!!”
This is not true. There are many circumstances in which others would scowl, shout or resort to physical violence where he would smile and shrug his big shoulders. But the loss of his taxi would not be one of those. His gold filled and broken teeth, which show every time his face lights up with that smile, would more likely be grinding together.
These days his taxi was all he had.
“If only Maria hadn’t walked out on me like that…”
Another huge bump in the road jolts him into realising that he has arrived at his destination
Cut to mid close up of taxi stopping by entrance to car park.
The noise of the engine dying.
Silence slowly filled by distant sounds of shepherds calling their shoats, the tinkling of the bells round their necks, cicadas, waves on distant rocks.
“BFBS Malta on this Tuesday morning. 8.10 am precisely. Temperature expected to reach the low 90’s by midday. So all you folks planning a visit to Tigne beach or Golden Sands better slap on the sun oil and fall in the sea. This is Terry Moss taking you through till lunchtime with the best music on the island. Here it is, number one in the UK charts for the second week John, Paul, George and Ringo with…..”
Morris turns the car radio down slightly as the Beatles launch into Paperback Writer.
“Dear sir or madam won’t you read my book. Took me years to write won’t you take a look”
He turns round in his seat and speaks to his passenger.
“Lady we’re at the temple, but it doesn’t open for another hour. Hello…..Excuse me …..miss.. Are you all right?”
The figure in the back of the car moves. Pulls blonde hair off her face. Sits slowly upright from her slumped position against the door.
“Hagar Qim. This is it?”
Her voice hoarse and strained.
“Yes. This is it……. but are you sure you want to get out. You are not looking very well.”
His English is near perfect. A slight accent perhaps, but only the occasional phrasing would let you know that it is not his first language.
“Can you open the door for me please. It’s rather stiff.”
He gets out of the taxi and opens the driver’s side passenger door.
She almost falls out. Stands up just in time.
Blinding light on the face. Sunglasses must’ve come off. Try and stay upright. Hand with glasses held towards me.
“Thank you. They fell off. Which way is the temple?”
Morris points beyond the closed gates.
“There. Follow the path and down the steps. But I don’t think it’s a good idea miss. You are not well”.
For the first time he sees the blood. A long stain down her white windcheater. Dark brown on her red jeans. Her face as pale as the White Virgin at Mdina.
“I take you to the hospital. There is a lot of blood”
So quiet here. A slight hissing of wind through the rocks. Distant sounds of cicadas and crickets from the olive trees up the hill. The waves gently at the bottom of the…..Just fall asleep. Here in the shade. A moments rest and….
“Lady. The Blue Sisters Hospital. Is only ten minutes drive. I take you there now.”
A note of urgency in his voice. Real concern for her.
“No”
Blue…Sisters…Does he know my name?
“No”
Firmer this time.
No…. Blue. …Sisters.
She laughs suddenly and repeats it slowly out loud.
“No….Blue….Sisters”
Morris smiles with her. What a strange young woman. Was that a joke?
Of course. The hospital has a bad reputation amongst foreigners. Perhaps for good reason. The nuns who run it were not able to save his second child when he took her there with the whooping cough.
“I’m sorry, but we will pray for her soul my son.”
That had done it for him. Knocked what little belief he still had in holy mother church out of him for good. Sitting there, holding her small body, tears dripping onto her death mask face.
Maria had told him that he must have faith.
“If you’re not careful Morris Grech you’ll become a godless socialist and go to hell”
“Such a small and beautiful girl, why would God want to take her away from us. What had she done to displease him?” he had replied.
But still he kept smiling.
“Bighi then. The naval hospital. I take you there now. I will drive fast. Anyway you can’t go in. Look. The gate. It’s closed”
He was now anxious to get this young woman back in his taxi. She was swaying visibly and he sensed that she might be dying. Like little Doris.
Cut to close up of her face.
Dark glasses.
Shoulder length blonde hair tied back streaked with dust and sweat.
High cheekbones.
A tanned face, pale from loss of blood.
Lips with no lipstick. Tongue running along them trying to moisten them.
Gate. Closed. It’s not due to open for at least…..When? What time is it now? Am I too late or….too early perhaps? Ask him.
Morris watches her. Ready to catch her if she should fall. She seems disorientated. Looking at him. The taxi. Back up the road where the dust from their recent journey is beginning to settle, Turning to stare at the gate.
Then she laughs again.
“The gate. I thought you meant…..But of course not. How could you… You mean this gate. Yes you’re right. It is closed.”
He smiles. Relieved that at last he seems to have made contact with her.
“But it’s not a problem. Look”
She points towards the wall beyond the right hand gatepost. A dry-stone wall similar to thousands all over the island. A large cactus, covered in prickly pears, grows where the wall has collapsed. Fallen away from the road and tumbled down the hill, a heap of yellow and white stones. A new home for ants, spiders, snakes and bright eyed green lizards.
“I can climb over. I’ll be OK. Really. I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about me Mr…”
For the first time she really looks at him. Sees his face with its smile and that nose.
What am I thinking of. Another human caught in the net. What does he know about me? How did I come to be with him? A taxi…..The taxi driver. Saved my life. He’s the taxi driver.
A moment and she remembers every detail.
“Morris, miss. But you can’t go down there. Look how badly you are hurt.”
“Tell me. What time is it?”
An urgency in her voice that makes him look at his watch. A beautiful object that many mistake for a Rolex Oyster.
Beside his taxi his other great material pride and joy. Given to him in the early hours of a Sunday morning some years ago by a very drunk young English sailor. A fare he had picked up in Rabat and driven to the quayside at Grand Harbour. Though in a state of hazy consciousness and considerable inebriation the young man had told him a number of things about himself. His name was Kevin and he came from a city in the North of England on a river called the Tyne.
“I’m a Geordie me ye na. From Newcastle. Greatest city in the world. What a football team man. Bobbie Robson……..I’ve gorra get back on board me ship ye see. We’re sailin for Suez at six in the bloody morning………Me mam’s name’s Agnes and me da’s dead. ………Me auntie Catherine she’s really smart. Went to univarsity. Not like me and me brothers. Still could be worse I could be building boats in Wallsend instead of sailing round the world for the friggin queen’s own navy…… Is that Elvis on the radio. Howay turn it up man. Heartbreak Hotel. Fantastic.”
He had sung along. Out of tune.
Morris had smiled and nodded. Saying “Yes” and “No” in all the right places. You learned to do that when you drove taxis. Every accent in the British Isles had floated through his cab. From Cardiff to Glasgow to Londonderry via Clapham, Falmouth and Scarborough. Not that he knew where any of those places were, but the young men, lurching and laughing, often smelling of beer, cigarettes, cheap perfume and sex, would get into his taxi and tell him about home.
Families, girlfriends, dogs, streets and houses peering out at him from snapshots. A country he had never been to. He smiled politely as they refused the change he offered. They always gave him too much money when they arrived at Straight Street for a night of drinking and whoring or fell out in the early hours of the morning beside the perimeter fence of some military camp at Mtarfa, Dingli or Luqa.
Though more often than not their destination was the quayside and go-downs of Grand Harbour where the djhaisa men waited with their djhaisas, standing poised at the stern, rocking gently, with oars resting in the murky waters, ready to row the ratings, ensigns and petty officers back to HMS Victorious, Exeter or whatever collection of grey hulled warships waited in the soft rolling summer swell of the harbour for their shore leave quota returning to the bosom of Mother Navy.
The last twilight rays of Empire.
But in the early hours of that particular morning Kevin had confessed that he had no money left.
“Spent it all. It wasn’t really worth it man. She wouldn’t even let me…ye kna. Five quid for a quick hand job”
But her eyes. How they had flashed at him in the Second to None Bar. Her black hair and tight red dress promising such pleasure.
“Go on Kevin. She really fancies you. Ask her how much. Go on”
“Nah man. She’s probably got the clap anyway”
“Go on man. It’ll be allright. Use a johnny. Hey I really fancy her friend. What about you Josh, I reckon the blonde in the green sparkly thing could teach you a thing or two”
They had all laughed and she had looked at him. Straight up and down. Smiled at him too. God she was attractive ….and young. About the same age as him. How had she ended up on the game he wondered?
For a moment he had remembered the last time with his girlfriend back home. One cold night of warm and intimate passion against a wall on the way home from the pub with Carol and….the thought of it arousing him as he looked at the young girl across the smoke filled bar and….
Morris had told him it didn’t matter. They were nearly in Valletta anyway and there was no way he would turn Kevin out on the street for the military police to pick up. He had seen what they did to young drunken sailors on their sweeps through the Gut and the long snake of bars that stretched along the waterfront from Sliema through Gzira to Valletta.
The American shore patrols were the worst. Cracking skulls like they were peanut shells, but the Brits were almost as bad.
Kevin had insisted, in his drunken intensity, on giving Morris his watch. It had been impossible to refuse.
“Nah man. Really. You keep it and….tell you what….here’s me address”
This he had written, with difficulty, on the back of a photograph of his Aunt Catherine.
“You give me yours. Your address…House man….Where do you live?”
Morris had smiled, knowing better than to argue with a young drunken English sailor. Too many taxi drivers of his acquaintance had ended up in the Blue Sisters Hospital as a result of such disagreements. He had handed him his business card.
“Smashing. Now next time I’m here and on shore leave I’ll look ye up man. Give you what I owe you and you can let me have me watch back and if you’re ever in Newcassle….Tara man. I’d better go or I’ll miss the boat.”
“No really. It’s OK. You don’t need to…”
But Kevin had gone. Running along the jetty towards the djhaisa that was just pulling out laden with sailors.
A single long leap took him safely on board
For a moment the djhaisa rocked and was steadied by the expert strokes of the oarsman.
“Kev you idiot. You could have bleedin drowned us all”
"Ah shurrup Tony man. Have I got something to tell you. This tart I was with see…”
“ What, you Geordie pillock. Did she look like Kathy Kirby? Mine did and it wasn’t only the hair on her head that she dyed blonde…. I tell you…”
Kevin had turned for a moment from bragging and laughing with his friends to wave to Morris, leaning against his taxi, lighting the first cigarette of the day. The huge bulk of the Bastion Wall rising up behind him towards the Barracca Gardens hundreds of feet above, on the edge of this ancient city with the steel girders of the lift frame clinging to the wall, climbing down to the quayside glinting in the orange streetlights reflected off the early morning water of the Grand Harbour. A favourite jump for suicides.
He half raised his hand in acknowledgement, took a deep drag on the cigarette and then, for the first time, really looked at the watch. It had come as something of a shock to him to realise that it was no cheap imitation from some bazaar in Cairo or Singapore. He had never seen a watch like it.
A simple matt metallic surround and strap. Not quite opaque. Suggesting black, deep blue or silver grey. He couldn’t quite decide what colour it was. Felt cool to the touch, even in the oppressive sticky heat of an early Maltese summer morning. A couple of inches in diameter. The numerals were Roman, glowed white and green through a perfectly transparent face. The second hand swept smoothly round the dial. Inset in the main timepiece were numerous smaller dials, numbers, digits and symbols that were constantly changing like the control panels of some complex and sophisticated machine.
Morris had held it to his ear. Not a sound. No small knob to adjust it. A completely plain back of the same indeterminate colour as the rest of the body.
He had slowly smoked the rest of his cigarette, turning the timepiece over in his hand and looking out across the water towards the djhaisa bearing Kevin into the distance back to HMS Ark Royal and the Suez Canal.
The next day he had taken it to his cousin who ran a jewellers in Valletta just off Kingsway in one of the many narrow streets filled with tiny shops on the ground level. Above them four or five stories of apartments with dark green wooden shutters and yellow exteriors built of large sandstone blocks that kept the spacious interiors cool even in the baking heat of midsummer. Washing lines attached to the intricate cast iron balustrades round each minute balcony, strung across to their neighbours over the narrow streets below.
He knew that if anyone on the island could identify the timepiece it would be Victor.
Victor had to admit he was puzzled.
Recently he had come across a new sort of watch that ran on batteries. In the 1960s the great advance had been self-winding watches. The technology for producing miniature batteries and digital displays was just being developed by some clever guys somewhere in Japan. But this one – he couldn’t even open the back and as for all those dials and digits and…
“Some sort of Rolex I’d say Morris”
Not wanting to appear ignorant about a subject in which he was an acknowledged expert.
“Yes. An up to the minute Rolex Oyster. Unfortunately I haven’t got the right tools to get into it here but….Tell you what, as you’re my cousin I’ll give you a few pounds for it”
Morris had laughed and explained where he’d got it. He’d politely refused the offer as the young sailor might return for it one day. But Victor was welcome to borrow it for a while. See if he could find out more about it.
Victor had put it on his wrist, saying something about having another look at it when he got home where he claimed to have some special tools. Morris had been happy to let him keep it for the time being. If Kevin returned it would be easy enough to retrieve it
“A very unusual watch Morris. Leave it with me and I’ll have all the information you need next time we meet”
So they had parted, agreeing that they would meet soon for a beer and a chat. It had been too long since they had last found time to talk to each other.
But it had never happened. A few days later his cousin had drowned in a diving accident. Apart from watches, jewellery and his family, scuba diving was his great passion. In his late teens and early twenties he had been the All Malta Sub Aqua champion. Daring to go deeper than any of his fellow divers.
Morris had been to the funeral and the reception afterwards, where Victor’s distraught wife Jean had told him that when his body had been recovered at 200 feet the watch had been on his wrist, still working perfectly. She had insisted on returning it to Morris.
It was there, amongst relatives, tears, memories, prawn vol au vents, whisky and Cinzano biancos that he knew the watch was something special.
From then on he had worn it day and night. Never took it off. It kept perfect time. Didn’t gain or loose a second. People would admire it, ask him where he’d got it and laugh with him when he told them the story of Kevin the drunken English sailor. But as time passed, perfectly recorded by his chronometer, he had begun to think of it as his.
Sometimes when he lay in bed on a hot summer night, unable to sleep, he would gaze at its perfectly illuminated dials, numbers and symbols. Press it against his face and feel it’s surface cool as an iced glass of lager, Wonder who made it and how Kevin, a young rating from the Royal Navy had come to be in possession of such a wondrous thing.
He still carried the photo of Kevin’s Aunt Catherine in his wallet with his address on the back.
With his address on the back!
It was only at that moment, as the young woman asked him the time, that he remembered the photo and address.
Cut to close up of watch.
All those years and he’d never thought to write. To drop her a line. Just a postcard of the Grand Harbour would do.
“Dear Kevin’s aunt Catherine. You don’t know me, but your nephew left a watch with me some time ago and I was wondering…”
Why had he thought of it now? While this strange and beautiful woman gazed at him so intensely. If only he could see her eyes. Had he?
When her sunglasses fell off. He had seen them then. Incredibly blue. But the lenses on the sunglasses. Completely black. All he could see was the reflection of his face. But not cheap. Not like those they had recently been selling for 5 shillings and 6 pence on the stalls by Kingsgate. Something so deep about those mirrors. He could disappear into them. Just….
“Has it stopped working?”
The radio was still on and the Beatles were no longer playing Paperback Writer. It was Cilla Black singing “Anyone who had a Heart”.
“Oh no. It works perfectly.”
He smiles at her and has the strangest feeling that he should tell her about the watch and show her the photograph.
Time. You don’t need to know the time. The sun. Where’s the sun. Find it. Quick.
She turns away from him. Looking across the fallen wall she can see the path beyond, wild thyme, yellow fennel flowers, rock roses growing out of the twisted limestone falling away towards the sea. Above the horizon to her left is the sun.
Already well up in the sky. Almost too late. Hurry.
She turns back to Morris.
“Thank you”
Holds out her hand. What? What does she want?. He looks at it. Outstretched. She wants to shake hands with me. He takes it. A brief moment as they touch palms. So cold. Like the Mediterranean in December or January.
“Thank you. You got me here in time. How much do I owe you?”
“It’s OK. You don’t owe me anything. I want to ask you, miss, if…”
He was about to ask her if she had ever been to Newcastle, but she has already pressed a £5 note into his hand, turned away from him and is climbing over the wall. She does not look back. She is over the other side. From somewhere she has found a reserve of energy. She walks quickly down the path away from the gate towards the temple, framed against rock, sea and sky.
Morris watches her go. Standing by his taxi. The music drifting out the car on BFBS 273metres Long Wave.
“Anyone who had a heart, boom boom, would look at me, boom boom, and know that I love you, anyone who ever loved, boom boom….”
Slow pan up and zoom out to reveal whole scene.
Morris lighting a cigarette as he leans on the bonnet of his dark green Mercedes Benz
High shot, opening to include car park, walls, gate, path, and woman walking towards circle of stones.
Slow track in to follow her down.
The light grows brighter as the sun gains height.
Fast inter-cut shots of drops of blood on path and wall. Track back to small pool of blood at Morris’s feet.
He bends and puts the tip of a finger in the blood. He stands up and drags deeply on his cigarette letting the smoke drift out his nose. He walks across to the rusty gates and climbs on the wall to the right. She has disappeared from sight. The growing strength of the sun makes him squint.
He reaches into the breast pocket of his old light weight cotton jacket that might once have been white but is now an indeterminate pale yellow, takes out a pair of gold rimmed sunglasses and puts them on. He looks at his watch.
“And that was Cilla of course with “Anyone who had a Heart”. And this is Terry Moss of course letting you know that it’s exactly 8.30am on Tuesday June 21st 1966 on BFBS Malta. Mid-summers Day for those of you who care about these things.”
And now I’ve got a special request, our first of the day, an Elvis Presley number “Love me Tender”. A great song by the greatest singer alive today. Specially for you Susan from your husband David who just wants to say…..”
“Love me tender, love me true, never let me go, for my darling I love you….”
With the sound of the radio drifting across the car park and down towards Hagar Qim, the sun continues to rise. As it has done for millions of years. But today it’s light will shine through a small hole on the eastern face of one of the largest standing stones that make up the temple, through another behind it and through a third.
Only then, for approximately ten minutes every year, will its rays align with these three perfect circles and shine into the inner chamber of the temple to fall on a single slab of smooth, white stone.
As the shaft of light hits the stone surface and fragments into an almost unbearable spectrum of brightness so Yvette Blue, for that is the woman’s name, enters the inner chamber, and turns towards the source of the light.
She feels the intense heat of the sun on her face. She reaches inside her jacket and brings out a thin metal chain that usually hangs round her neck. At the end of the chain is a piece of irregular elliptical metal, a fingers length in diameter. She holds it up in front of her, in her left hand. It catches the sun.
For a millisecond the light is absorbed by the metal as if the sun had flickered. The chamber is momentarily plunged into total darkness. She closes her eyes and puts her right hand tightly over her sunglasses as the piece of metal turns the heat and light of the sun into a cone of brilliance, a luminous spectrum that pours over her.
Then she is gone, the outline of her body hanging for an instant in the rainbow of light and vanishing just as the rays catch the edge of the small circular hole in the standing stone on the west facing wall.
Within moments the chamber has returned to semi darkness, lit only by a shaft of sunlight through the entrance between the stone lintels supporting the enormous weight of the limestone slabs that make up its ceiling. It will remain in this gloom until the sun has completed her journey of 365 days, when once again this small room, with its musty scent of dry stone and human urine, will be filled with brilliance.
Cut to high shot of temple, car park and surrounding landscape with Morris in corner of shot on wall looking down towards the temple.
Slow pan and zoom out towards cliffs and sea in distance.
Slow zoom into azure Mediterranean sea.
Fade to blue.
.