“It’s magnificent!” I said.
“You should see it at night, actually,” he went on. “From where we are standing, all the lights in the ceiling of the living room—there are 360 of them—light up like little stars, and reflected in the glass, they stretch out as far as the lights from the city towers.” He seemed to take a boyish pleasure in his own work and my evident admiration. “Come and have a better look.”
We descended a couple of steps into the living room, to a very elegant off-white sofa flanked by cream leather Barcelona chairs. At one side of the room was a huge marble fireplace which soared to the ceiling. Behind was the outside wall of the old house, its original red brick now whitewashed to suit its new environs in the addition of glass and steel. Most of the furnishings were antique white, and everything was done on a grand scale. Despite the proportions, however, the feeling was one of calm and contemplation, a kind of pure space.
“Would you like a tour of the house before we get down to work?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied.
The rest of the house was also lovely, the main living spaces complemented by a palette of honey, cream, and buttermilk. Wooden floors were the color of pale straw, covered in some places with antique carpets, their colors worn to the same golden hues.
The dining room was spectacular. It also had a view of the ravine. But in a departure from the colors in the rest of the house, it featured a black lacquered table that reflected the myriad lights from a chandelier, designed by Galea himself, he assured me, which caught the light in hundreds of pieces of crystal, then burnished it and threw it back in sparkling starburst patterns on the wall, the table, and the floor.
The upstairs hallway was the upscale equivalent of a trophy room, decorated with framed drawings of some of the buildings he had designed and was famous for. Galea had attained a point in his career where he was always referred to as the award-winning architect, never just the architect, and here it was easy to see why. I recognized a town hall that had won an international competition in Milan, a grand public space in Riyadh, a concert hall in Australia. It was all very grand. Next to these were photographs of Galea accepting various prizes and hobnobbing with assorted famous people—politicians, movie stars, and the like. He pointed each of them out to me with obvious pleasure, like a little boy boasting about his exploits in the schoolyard.
After the tour was over and my genuine exclamations of admiration expressed and accepted, Galea got down to business and showed me the plans for the house in Malta. His drawings already incorporated the furniture he’d purchased the day before. “There’s one shipment of furniture already there, and some Oriental carpets I picked up last time I was working in Turkey. Marilyn knows what furniture is to go from here. She has the list. And we have a tight deadline. I’ll be there a week from Friday or Saturday.”
“I’ll get it done, Mr. Galea. And we appreciate the business,” I said.
“Good,” he said. “Now I must run. I have a meeting with the board of directors of an oil company. I’ll be adding a new dimension to the skyline of Toronto soon.” He smiled.
Marilyn Galea and I walked him to the front door. By this time he appeared to be in a bit of a hurry, but not so much that he couldn’t stop to flirt. “I haven’t mentioned how lovely you look this morning,” he said to me as he took my arm. “I feel so much more confident my gathering in Malta will go well now that you have taken the house in hand.” He started to go out the door, holding my arm until the very last moment.
“Martin,” Marilyn said quietly. He looked back. She was holding his briefcase and his sunglasses.
He grinned at her. “What would I do without you, my love?” he said, his arm briefly circling her waist, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “My guardian angel,” he said, turning to me. “I’d be lost without her.”
Then with a boyish grin and a wave, he was gone. Marilyn’s face softened as she watched him go.
It would have been a touching gesture had it not been for the fact that on his way out he brushed past me in a certain way. It is always edifying to be in the presence of greatness, but it is unfortunate that some of those who possess it are really revolting people. I turned my attention to his wife. If she had noticed the incident, she didn’t mention it “You have an absolutely beautiful home, Mrs. Galea— Marilyn. You must be very proud of it.”
“My husband is an exceptional designer, I know. But it is the colors I love the most,” she replied. “They remind me of Italy, of Florence. It is one of my favorite places in all the world. It is where I learned to love architecture, and I suppose set the stage for my life with Martin. When I told him that, he said he chose the colors for me,” she said.
Then I got down to work, Marilyn very obligingly and competently helping me by taking down the measurements as I called them out. There were five pieces of furniture ranging from a huge mahogany sideboard to a large armoire that were to be consolidated with the shipment from the shop. Most of them were in the front of the house, not far from the door. I measured each one of them, estimated their weight to help Dave out, and then marked each with a yellow sticker with my initials on it to make sure there would be no mistake when Dave’s men arrived to get the furniture. I was going on ahead to Malta, and Marilyn had pointed out to me that while the maid was home every day except Wednesdays, her day off, she and Martin were normally out during the day.
“I go to my club, every day, once I’ve gotten the house organized. I love it there. Do you know it? The Rosedale Women’s Club downtown,” she said, naming a very swank women’s club that I had taken out a trial membership in a couple of years earlier during a period of forced inactivity shortly after my divorce.
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, getting fit in the company of women only. But after subjecting my somewhat zaftig figure and my grey jogging sweats to the scrutiny of women whose tights and headbands actually matched their leotards, and whose main topic of conversation seemed to focus on the latest color of nail polish, I had returned to my solitary morning jog. I was surprised that an obviously intelligent but shy woman like Marilyn Galea would be a member of such a club, but perhaps she was more gregarious in other people’s company, or more likely she was simply to the manor born, which I was not.
I changed the subject. “Tell me more about your husband,” I said. “He mentioned he is going back to his roots with this house in Malta. Is that where he is from originally?”
“Yes, it is. Galea is a very common Maltese name. He was born in the town of Mellieha on the main island. His family was not well-off—his father had a little shop in the town. But Martin, Martin was born ambitious, I think. He and a friend of his talked their way into the international school in Malta and charmed their way into the homes of the international set. The principal of the school recognized his talent and helped him get a scholarship in architecture at the University of Toronto—Canada and Malta continue to have ties because of the old British Commonwealth connection.”
“Are his parents still living there?”
“No. Both of them died several years ago. Before I met him.”
“Have you seen the house?” I asked.
“Not yet,” she replied. “I’ve never been to Malta. I’m looking forward to it, to seeing where Martin comes from, the village where he grew up. He doesn’t talk about it much.”
“Will I see you there then?”
“No. This is a business trip. Martin is going to Rome for a couple of days to see to a project he’s working on there, then he goes on to Malta. You know Martin.” She smiled. “Always looking for the next big commission. He’s gotten back in touch with a boyhood friend of his, who’s also done very well for himself in the interim, and who hopefully will see that Martin gets connected to all the right people in Malta. Martin is entertaining some people as soon as he gets there. I’m not at liberty to say whom. But here, come and have a coffee with me in the kitchen. Would you like an espresso or a cappuccino?” she said, changing the subject abruptly.