This is a story set in Malta and Europe in the near future. In the form of a letter from a mother to her daughter Maddy, it shows a family trying to navigate the crisis in the region caused by a rapidly warming climate.

See previous chapters in the story and read a note by the story's author.

That’s when we had our second meeting at the farmhouse.

Tom and I had moved back there with Mum and Dad by then… safety in numbers, I guess. Mum had called us to the meeting, asked us all to be there by 1900 hours. It was still and airless, the end of a sticky day. There was a white heat haze over everything, the beginnings of an angry red sunset over the hills of Girgenti.

I have such a clear memory of us all sitting round the table that day. Mum looked stylish in big shades, an old Counting Crows concert T-shirt and faded jeans. Dad looked as scruffy as usual in his gardening clothes, his beard going through a particularly wild phase. Tom, 17 by then, was rocking skinny jeans and a white T-shirt. Mohammed and Salvatore just looked uncomfortable to be there. 

We had started keeping a shotgun on the table, which Dad would hold up whenever anyone in the road outside climbed the rubble walls to look over. There had been an incident the day before when we heard a group of people talking in hushed whispers in the street outside; Dad had actually let off a shot to let them know that we were there, and that we were armed. 

Mum had nearly killed him.

The two of them had obviously discussed things between themselves before the meeting, but for once they hadn’t been able to come to a joint decision before talking to us. 

Mum wanted us to cut our losses and try to get out of Malta before things got even worse; Dad wanted to dig in, make a go of it on the farm. 

In the end it was decided that Mum, Tom and I would sail up north to a friend of Dad’s not far from Rome and send back word once we got there. He would stay at the farmhouse and try to keep things going, at least for a few months. 

That way, if things settled down, we would have somewhere to return to. If, instead, the situation continued to deteriorate, he would try and join us wherever we were. 

Mohammed and Salvatore decided to stay with him.

Mum wanted us to cut our losses and try to get out of Malta before things got even worse

It was a messy discussion. No one really wanted us to split up, but there was a certain logic in trying to keep our options open in this way. 

It took us just three days to get everything together and leave. 

Although we were only 17 and 20 at the time, both Tom and I were good, experienced sailors, and the family had a 35 foot sailing boat we had once sailed for fun on the weekends. Tom and Mohammed took the shotgun and went and camped on the boat after the meeting until we were ready to go - protecting it, and preparing it for the trip ahead at the same time.

*       *       *

We left at 0500. 

I’ll never forget the tense car ride out to the berth on Manoel Island. Dad was driving, the dawn breaking around us to reveal burnt out cars on the Gżira Strand, barricaded shops and houses, and a scared young family cowering on a bench in Ta’ Xbiex, nowhere to go. The transformation from just a few days previously was stark.

There were burnt out cars on the Gżira Strand. Photo: Jonathan Borg

When we eventually started to motor out of port, a couple ran out of a nearby building and started begging us to stop and take them with us. Back on shore Dad called out to them and held up the gun. He didn’t point it at them, but it was painful to see their sudden, unexpected hope instantly doused and replaced by weary defeat. 

That was the last time I ever saw Dad. 

You’ve probably realised by now, dear Maddy, that I’m not very good at talking about feelings; but even I still can’t believe we were so casual about it. 

No one wanted to make a big fuss; we were all trying to act like this was just temporary. But I would do anything to have the chance to do things differently, or even, at the very least, to say our goodbyes properly.

It was a horrible moment for Mum and Dad; you could tell they were pretty broken by it all. They felt worry, guilt, a sense of failure that they couldn’t shield us from all this ugliness. 

As for Tom and I? 

If I’m honest, after all the worry, after all the nastiness we had seen overtaking Malta over many years, it was a relief to be moving, to be looking for somewhere new. We were tense, but we were also excited. 

Despite the evidence all around us that we shouldn’t be... we were hopeful.

Part six of We are not angry enough will appear on Thursday, January 27. See previous chapters in the story and read a note by the story's author.