At Bay Street, Bexley, I’m already sweating in the early morning of a third, consecutive summer scorcher – forecast to soar well past thirty degrees Celsius. My thoughts stretch across time and continents to St Julian’s where daily, I walked downhill from Swieqi, along Bay Street, to the crunchy sands of St George’s Bay.
The moment I step outside our home in Bexley, the thick, heat-saturated air wraps around me like a full-body embrace. Today, as we make our way along Bay Street towards Botany Bay, those memories of Malta feel closer than I expect. Another summer morning in Sydney, with dawn temperatures already over twenty degrees, and the day marching steadily toward the mid-thirties, I am transported back to our house on Triq is-Sirk in Swieqi. I recall the short walk to the bottom of our street where I would pause at the top of Bay Street, my already drenched blue T-shirt clinging to my back. There, sweating in the Maltese morning heat, I looked out over the familiar intersection, down to the Paceville nightclubs and the buildings of St Julian’s.
My wife nudges me, bringing me back to the top of Bay Street, Bexley. “Did you put sunscreen on that white skin of yours?” she teases, smiling as her sun-kissed arm nudges against mine. A stripe of caramel and vanilla, side by side. She smiles and welcomes the sun as it warms her olive skin. The heat hangs heavily in the air. The only movement comes from the swoosh of passing cars, their occupants cocooned in air-conditioned comfort. The black tar absorbs the sun’s intensity, but unlike in Malta, it hasn’t softened to a spongy pudding. My cap, protecting my scalp, has turned into a wet cloth that releases a steady drip. Sweat trickles from my soaked hair, across my cheeks and into my eyes. I swipe it away with one hand; a futile gesture.
In Bexley, the air lacks the signature scents of Malta – the hot stone, sunbaked concrete, and the oily tang of softening asphalt. Here, trees and green grass filter the air into something more neutral: the scent of a plain, dry cracker.
As we approach Botany Bay, through the heat haze, Sydney airport appears in the distance. Past the rows of brown Federation homes we continue, until they give way to tall, white apartment blocks. The skyline jaggedly rises and falls toward the sea. We pass cafés, restaurants, and shops – some bustling, others shuttered with “For Lease” signs. The waters of Botany Bay spread wide across the horizon. The narrow crescent of St George’s Bay, Malta, would fit into this bay fifty times over.
A throaty growl interrupts the hum of suburbia – a Ferrari prowls past, turning heads. It reminds me of the prestige cars parading slowly along the broken surface of Bay Street in St Julian’s, revving hard for attention as they turned to cruise up the hill for another parade lap. But here in Brighton-Le-Sands, Bay Street stretches down the hill from Bexley and ends abruptly at a set of traffic lights, something rare in Malta. Without a looping parade route, the Ferrari turns right, roars and disappears along the beach front road, its scream fading into the distance long after it has disappeared.
Doing laps on Bay Street St Julians; Prestige car growling down Bay Street Bexley
The sun now hangs over Mascot and the Kingsford Smith Airport, its rays threading through buildings, deepening the tan on my wife’s skin. Here, there’s no shimmering Hugo’s Hotel or towering Bay Centre and no Intercontinental casting a shadow over Bay Street, as it does in Malta. Instead, a tired Novotel and the Bayside Plaza overlook the intersection of Bay Street and The Grand Parade, Brighton-Le-Sands.
Coffee in hand, an iced for her and hot for me, we walk the last few hundred metres past the RSL club and the remaining Bay Street shops. Across the pedestrian path lies the smooth, soft sand of Botany Bay. It cushions the soles of my feet as I walk towards the water. People sprawl about on the broad stretch of sand along Botany Bay. Languages swirl and float through the air, a mix of Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Greek and English, just like the mix of accents from English-language students in Malta. But there is no need to jostle for space here, as you do on the narrow strip of grainy sand of St George’s Bay, squeezed into the rocky Malta coast. At St George’s Bay, people would be packed into its curve and their sought-after spaces guarded by other beachgoers, when they line up at the lone kiosk selling cold drinks and ftira.
Today, we’ve brought our own homemade food. After a swim in the cool, gentle waves, we unwrap our homemade ftira filled with tuna, capers and rich kunserva, tomato paste, all nestled in the dense bread. Improvised, but satisfying. A cold bottle of Cisk beer, discovered in a local liquor store, completes the picture. With the familiar yellow label clasped in my hand; the crisp amber liquid cools my core as the northwesterly wind, from the Australian desert interior, turns the air into a furnace.
Homemade Ftira in Malta; Cisk beer on the sands of Botany Bay; Crowd building on St George’s Bay; Watersports at Botany bay
Then, suddenly, the wind dies. The stillness breaks as a blast from the south, a frigid Antarctic gust, sweeps in dropping the temperature by ten degrees in minutes. The sweat on our skin turns to goosebumps.
The consecutive days of stifling Australian heat break in a moment. And with it, the memory of Malta’s endless Mediterranean summer is carried away on the southerly wind.
This article first appeared in the Maltese Journal, connecting the Diaspora, and has been edited. Thanks to Maria Stella Micallef for the picture of the Ftira from her kitchen.
