More Stories from my window

Stories from my window
Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta

Washing up in Malta is about travel, coming of age, mothers and daughters.  The lives of two women, Jessica and Grace, unfold across a century of change.  Their particular journeys take them through Scotland, England, Germany, Africa, Bahamas and Australia.  Through it all, the place that punctuates their lives as a marker of home is the tiny island of Malta, at the centre of the Mediterranean Sea.   Grace begins her journey here and Jessica completes the circle by returning to Malta towards the end of her life.  In between, Grace and Jessica hear different drums.  Their lives share common rights of passage and the love of one man, but they each have their own way of dealing with the challenges of their times.  Just as Malta struggles to find a path towards independence, Jessica and Grace also find their own way through the competing demands of the world around them.

This is the text that appears on the back cover of Washing up in Malta.  The view at the top was taken on Boxing day but the same view with a different mood and time of day appears on the back cover as well.  Place is important in my writing and in the way I live.  Here is a quote from the linking strand of the book which uses my experiences of renovating my flat in Valletta.  This text started life as a poem that I posted a year or more ago on this blog.

From my window, the twin breakwaters of Grand Harbour embrace me like the arms of a final lover.  I feel the pulse of Valletta snuggled at my back, breathing softly in my ear.  He speaks to me, this city built by gentlemen for gentlemen, this city of straight, masculine lines and defensive bastions, this city of baroque excess.

I am part of the softer, rounded shapes of the goddess temples, more ancient than the knights' city, trampled by the knights' religion, reborn in Valletta chapels as virgin mother and martyred saint.

Yet his soft breathing enchants me and his encircling arms merge with my own arms.  Red and green candles flicker in my hands guiding ships to the safe harbour that has become my own haven.

I woke this morning before dawn and watched the lights on the harbour walls winking as a small cargo ship left port.  The wind is rising and white caps are forming outside the walls.  On the horizon to the East, the lights of oil tankers moored on Hurd bank are lined up like an invading fleet.  The reason they are there is never quite explained - they are waiting for wold oil prices to rise; they are undertaking some chemical cleansing process that leaves a toxic sludge; they are waiting to unload their cargo.