The incident I am about to write about took place recently on a supposedly public beach.

A tourist arrived with his family and asked the beach-boy to provide an umbrella, which he said he wanted for just one hour.

He asked how much it would cost him to use the umbrella for one hour, but he was told that there was only one rate – for the day.

The tourist agreed to take the umbrella anyway. As he was about to leave, one hour later, he heard a lady who had two children with her ask for an umbrella, and he offered his to her. “After all,” he told her, “I paid for the day.”

When the beach-boy saw the woman accept the offer and start putting her things under this umbrella, he turned up, asking for money. The tourist was still there, and he insisted that he had paid for the umbrella “for the day” and he was entitled to offer it to anyone else. At first, the beach-boy did not accept this, but after a few minutes of arguing, he said it was ok for the lady to continue using the umbrella “for free”.

The tourist left. A few minutes later, the beach-boy went up to the lady and demanded that she pay for the umbrella, which she did.

I was watching all this from under my own umbrella a few metres away, and couldn’t help feeling ashamed of being Maltese.

P. Camilleri

Sliema