The Deep Blue Sea for Beginners

by Luanne Rice

  In Newport, back when she and Taylor were apart, her mother had arranged an appointment to the board of the Bellevue Garden Society. The position was unpaid, but prestigious enough for the daughter of Edith Nicholson. Lyra had toured the historical mansion grounds with landscape designers, world-famous gardeners.

  Lyra had had to vet the designers’ credentials and references, oversee their designs. As they walked through rose bowers, topiary mazes, English country gardens, formal French jardins, Lyra longed to drop her notebook and pick up a shovel, dig and plant, get her hands dirty. She felt thwarted in her own desires. They started eating her up inside, like cancer. Some days she couldn’t get up, and she called in sick.

  As soon as Lyra and Taylor returned from their honeymoon, she started right at home: clearing land, planting flower and vegetable beds. Finding a place for Hermes. Then she got pregnant.

  One of every ten women suffers major depression during pregnancy; Lyra was that one. She read a checklist of symptoms some women had part of the time. She had all of them all of the time—sadness, constant sleeping, despair.

  She’d tried to blame the feelings on pregnancy, but the truth was, she’d had them for years. In Newport, with Alexander, she’d imagined that life with Taylor would change her. Before that, in Europe, she’d felt oppressed and bleak, overwhelmed by the meaningless of everything—until Capri.

  This place had opened her mind, given her a strange, magical hope. She’d been able to imagine herself living here, on the rocky shore, free of everyone else’s expectations for her. But pregnancy sent her crashing. Medication was risky for the baby, so she didn’t take it. And things got worse.

  Sketching now, Lyra drew the moon gate. Symbols were so important to a garden. She’d seen Pell’s mood change when they talked about Dorset, their pretend country. Her clear blue eyes, so bright when she’d looked at the telescope, had filled with darkness, sorrow.

  What was coming back to Pell? Did she remember all of it, or just the last part, after Lyra had finally gone to the hospital? Dorset was part of all that. It had come to be the week Lyra came home from McLean. She had planted the made-up place in Pell’s mind, so her daughter would have a place to go to, a place where she could always find Lyra, no matter what happened.

  “Mommy, will we always live here?” her six-year-old had asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lyra had said.

  The uncertain answer had bothered Pell. She’d looked up, frowning, from the kitchen table where she’d been coloring a picture of their house.

  “Where else would we go?” Pell had asked.

  Lyra was aware of Henrietta Miller listening behind them. She’d been especially vigilant about Lyra since wintertime, since the bridge and the hospital.

  “Sometimes people move,” Lyra had said.

  Pell laughed, shook her head. “No, Mommy. We’re staying here. I like our house.”

  “What made you ask if we’ll always stay?” Lyra asked.

  “‘Cause you were in the hospital,” Pell said. “You were gone for so long.”

  Lyra pictured Pell on the bridge. Sitting at the kitchen table, Lyra watched her daughter color and broke into a cold sweat. Miss Miller hovered close by in the laundry, washing the children’s clothes.

  “Are you better now?” Pell pressed.

  “Yes, honey,” Lyra said.

  “Because I missed you so much.”

  Lyra reached for the crayons. She poked through the box, picking out the colors she liked best, her eyes stinging. She thought of Taylor, the talk they’d had in the car on their way home from the airport, after she’d flown home from the hospital in Massachusetts.

  “I missed you,” Lyra said, clutching Pell’s hands.

  Miss Miller walked over to the table. She wore a white uniform, stretched tightly across her large bosom. Her brown hair was permed, the exact style of Queen Elizabeth’s. Lyra looked up at the woman who had raised her. Henrietta Miller knew Lyra better than her own mother. She understood what was going on; Lyra had explained to her the night before.

  “Shall I take Pell outside for a walk?” Henrietta asked as the washing machine chugged. But Pell hadn’t wanted her mother out of her sight since she’d come home from the hospital. As if she felt the ground shifting, the seismic change coming, she grabbed Lyra’s wrist.

  “No,” she said. “I’m staying to color with Mommy.”

  “Pell, you need sunshine,” Miss Miller said. “We shall walk to the park, and—”

  “Coloring with Mommy,” Pell said dangerously, and even Miss Miller knew to back off.

  That’s when Dorset began. Miss Miller went down the hall, to tidy up the nursery. Lyra had her crayons ready. Pell whipped a new sheet of paper off the pad. Lyra, using the green crayon, drew the outline.

  “What’s that?” Pell asked.

  “A beautiful country, just for us, where we’ll always be happy.”

  “And always be together!” Pell said, leaning over with a different, darker green crayon.

  “What will we call it?” Lyra asked.

  “Dorset,” Pell said. She’d learned her address and phone number, to tell the police in case she ever got lost. Her street was foremost in her mind, the place she lived, her family’s home.

  The map took three days to finish. During that time, Lyra would take Pell and Lucy through the yard on expeditions of Dorset. Their private country was filled with beauty and discoveries: purple flowers in the myrtle, a white-throated sparrow singing in a maple tree, an old stone walkway nearly covered over with grass.

  They’d take the telescope with them. Lyra had brought it with them to the bridge that frozen night; if Pell remembered, she didn’t let on. Walking in the yard with her mother and Lucy, they would take turns pressing their eyes to the lens, looking up at the ship’s weathervane, the bluebird house Taylor had nailed high up in the oak tree, a robin’s nest in the crook of a white pine.

  Lyra’s last night at home, there was a meteor shower. While Lucy slept, she took Pell outside at midnight, set up the telescope. They’d watched the shooting stars, and then Lyra had pointed out the constellations that had always inspired her. Pell felt everything her mother felt; sometimes it seemed they shared the same heart. She listened to Lyra’s story about the sky, spilled out one of her own.

  “They are for us, those stars,” Pell said. “They have our names on them. We see them fall, and where do they go?” Lyra opened her mouth to speak, but Pell went on. “They fly through the night, the longest journey any stars have ever made, and they are scared. The sky is so big, and what if they lose one another? And they do …”

  “Lose one another?” Lyra asked.

  Pell nodded, staring rapt at the sky. “They go apart. And they fall in different places. Other countries. And they go into the water, down under the sea. And I keep them.”

  “How do you keep them, Pell?”

  “In Dorset. On our map. The stars Lucy pasted to the paper. Those are the falling stars that lost one another in the sky.”

  “You have them?”

  Pell nodded, and Lyra saw tears glinting in the darkness. “I keep the lost stars, so when they’re ready to find one another again, they’ll know where to look. They’re on our map. I have them in Dorset.”

  Lyra had knelt on the ground to hug her. Pell had buried her face in her neck. Lyra had felt her daughter’s breath on her skin. She’d thought of that moment so many times after she left. She’d carried the feeling all this way, all these years. And somehow it had comforted her to think of Pell and Lucy with the map they’d made of their country, of Dorset; the map that held the lost stars.

  The map that no longer existed.

  Six

  The Villa Andria was set a step up the mountain from Lyra’s house, on a lush plateau overlooking the Bay of Naples. A loggia of columns, some dating back to Tiberius, were thickly overgrown with ivy and honeysuckle, and led to an airy white house, open to the sea and gardens, to the sky and clouds. Tonight it sp
arkled with candlelight and good conversation.

  Max had invited old friends from the island to dinner, to meet Pell. He seated Lyra at the far end of the table; seeing her with her daughter made him feel emotional, and he wanted to keep his feelings in check. He was a fool, and he knew it. He just wanted to be sure no one else did.

  Bella and Alonzo, the couple who had worked for him and Christina for many years, had prepared a meal of pasta, zucchini, and the bass Max, Rafaele, and Nicolas had caught earlier that day: ravioli alia caprese, zucchini sautéed, spigola cotta con rosmarino.

  As he looked around the table, Max felt the contentment that dinner with old friends and family always brought. Especially because, to his great surprise, Rafaele had decided to join the party. Bella filled the glasses with Fiano di Avellino, the good white wine of southern Italy. Max tried not to be too vigilant about Rafe, but he was quietly pleased to see his grandson ask Bella for sparkling water instead.

  “How lovely to have your daughter with us, Lyra,” said Amanda Drake, an American artist who had studied with Christina and had a studio in an old brick stable near the Piazzetta.

  “Yes,” Lyra said, gazing at Pell. “It’s wonderful.”

  Pell smiled. “Thank you for inviting me, Max. And for picking me up in Sorrento.”

  “Max makes the trip himself only for the most important visitors,” said Giovanni Restelli, a sculptor.

  “It was my pleasure,” Max said. “Your mother has thought of nothing else since she learned you were coming. It was the best gift of the entire winter, hearing of your plans.”

  “Well, a summer with her daughter,” said Renata Woodwell, Amanda’s partner, a poet and essayist also from the States. “No wonder!”

  “Ah, was it a surprise?” asked John Harriman, a British novelist who’d once worked in government service at 12 Downing Street and wanted everything in life to be a spy thriller.

  “I’d hoped to come last Christmas,” Pell said. “But I realized there wouldn’t be enough time. So I waited until summer vacation.”

  “And we have the whole summer together!” Lyra said.

  “You’ve kept your daughter away from us,” John said, scolding Lyra.

  “Pell,” Max said, “your mother talks about you and Lucy every day.”

  “Max, you’re like an old priest,” John said. “Hearing confessions.”

  “He’s the dearest friend,” Lyra said.

  “That sounds about as boring as an old priest,” John said, but his eyes were glinting, as if he’d seen straight into Max’s heart and clumsy desires.

  “How are you enjoying your first visit to Capri, my dear?” asked Stefan Corelli, a stage director based in Rome.

  “I’ve never seen such a magical place,” Pell said.

  “What do you love most so far?” Amanda asked.

  “Well, the cove,” Pell said. “The clear water, beautiful rocks, and starfish all around.” She gave Rafe a dazzling smile, and Max was pleased to see his grandson’s expression lighten.

  “‘Nature never did betray the heart that loved her,’” Max said.

  “Wordsworth,” Renata said, nodding.

  “Capri brings all kinds together,” John said, and Max wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the teenagers or something else. “But it’s not all outdoor activities, is it? There’s a world of the higher mind. Artists and intellectual misfits gravitate to our paradise. Turns one into a philosopher, doesn’t it? And let’s not forget Eros. One god who has definitely smiled on our island.”

  “I agree with Pell,” Stefan said. “Nature is so beautiful here. The sensations of being in the sea air, the water all around, sensuous and primal. If ever I were to stage The Tempest, I would imagine it set on Capri. Shakespeare must have traveled to our island to write the play. And he must have met you, Max.”

  “I’m old, but not that old!” Max said.

  “But you are Prospero,” Lyra said, affection in her eyes.

  “A weary, washed-up magician,” Max said, gazing at her.

  “I didn’t mean that,” she said. “Certainly not the ‘weary and washed-up’ part.”

  “We need a new play from you, Gardiner,” John said. “Perhaps you’ve been lacking material. That’s what you need—a big shake-up, so you can write your last masterpiece.”

  “Don’t say ‘last,’” Lyra said sharply. “He has plenty of time ahead of him.”

  “Listen to the lady” John said, pouring more wine into Max’s glass, a glint in his eye. “Get moving. I sense the muse is here tonight.”

  “The muse?” Pell asked.

  “Yes,” John said. “Max’s muse. She’s right here, isn’t she, Gardiner?”

  “In the air,” Max said. “On the night wind. My muse is a generous spirit.” He looked up, as if thanking the sky, hoping that John would shut the hell up.

  “Pell, your visit is just beginning,” said Amanda. “Just wait until Capri begins to reveal her secrets to you.”

  “Romans discovered Capri, you know,” Stefan said. “Caesar Augustus, no less. But it was his successor, Tiberius, who made Capri his home and sanctuary, his gloomy hermitage by the azure sea, to contemplate his tormented reign.”

  “Do you suppose Tiberius examined anything?” John said. “He came to indulge his pleasures. Orgies at the Blue Grotto, young participants slaughtered. He threw enemies off the cliff. Tiberius’s Leap, it’s called, Pell.”

  “The dark side of Capri,” Lyra said.

  “I don’t believe in Tiberius’s supposedly heinous acts,” Rafe said.

  Everyone at the table turned to look at him.

  “Why do you say that?” John asked.

  “Not just me,” Rafe said. “There are books that say Tiberius was a moral person, misunderstood.”

  “Sentimentalists say that,” John said, reaching for the wine, refilling glasses of those around him. Max watched Rafe cover his glass.

  “People make up stories,” Rafe said. “When they don’t understand someone. People like to think the worst of one another.”

  “Some accusations are valid,” John said. “Not everyone in life has pure intentions, much less actions.”

  “He made plenty of mistakes,” Rafe said, his eyes hot as he stared at John, “and he came here to ponder them.”

  “A good place to reflect,” Stefan agreed.

  Max nodded. He watched his grandson drain his glass of Pellegrino, saw Lyra staring at Rafe. Max loved them both, two people with shattered hearts and tortured consciences, and he thought it ironic and unspeakably sad that they couldn’t stand each other.

  Out the arched window, the sky turned purple and filled with stars. They blazed over the sea, cast Monte Solaro in deep silhouette.

  “Max, when did you come here?” Pell asked.

  “I arrived on Capri in 1966, when I was twenty-eight. I’d never found anyplace more inspiring.”

  “I can see why,” Pell said, smiling.

  “Max used that inspiration in all his plays,” Stefan said. “He’s one of the most brilliant playwrights of our time. I should know. I’ve directed his work, and they’ve all been hits.”

  “So you moved here to write?”

  “Yes,” Max said. “I came first, when I was young. I loved it so much, I wrote to Christina, an art student I’d met in London.”

  “She followed you here?” Pell asked.

  “Yes. She was a painter; we both loved the sun, and were fortunate to have freedom in our work. I built her a studio facing Monte Solaro; the view was so magnificent, I put my desk in there, beside her easel. We worked side by side for all those years. We sent our son to Eton, then Cambridge, but he’d always come back to the island. Capri captured all of our hearts.”

  “Your father?” Pell asked, turning to Rafe.

  Rafe nodded.

  “Yes, David. He married Violetta, a beautiful young woman who worked at Marina Piccola,” Max said.

  “One of the harbors on Capri,” Amanda explained to Pell.
“Near Renata’s and my house, next to Scoglio delle Sirene … Sirens’ Rock.”

  “I would love to see that,” Pell said, then turned to Rafe. “So your parents met here; do they still live in New York?”

  “My father does,” Rafe said.

  “Do they come here for the summer?”

  “It’s been some time,” Max said, answering for him. “Rafe’s mother died when he was young, and his father hasn’t been back….”

  “For the last two summers,” Rafe said, looking around the table, as if daring anyone to comment.

  “I’m sorry about your mother,” Pell said. “And grandmother.”

  Rafe didn’t reply. Max saw his grandson glowering at the mountain. No one else said a word.

  “David—Rafe’s father—will return here,” Max said. “Of that I am sure.”

  “I saw you fishing earlier,” Pell said, gesturing at the platter of spigola, as if sensing the subject needed changing. “Is this your day’s catch?”

  “It is, thanks to Rafe and Nicolas,” Max said.

  “I have been fishing with Max for thirty years,” Nicolas said, raising his glass of wine. His gold tooth flashed in a wide smile. “Every day I have off, I go out on the water with Max. He always brings me luck!”

  “This time Rafe brought the luck,” Max said, reaching across the table to clink with his grandson.

  The table fell silent again; perhaps it was the notion of “luck” in the same thought as “Rafe.”

  “He brought luck to the starfish, that’s for sure,” Pell said.

  “Ah, yes,” Max said. “Rafe, the lanciatore della Stella. The star-thrower.”

  “I can’t take credit,” Rafe said. “My dad taught me to save them.”

  “Nevertheless. Lanciatore della Stella,” Max said again, pushing back his chair. “The young man who throws stars. Shall we go outdoors, take our coffee on the terrace? Gaze upon the real stars and make wishes?”

  “Wishes sound good to me,” Pell said, rising along with Max. He glanced at Lyra, hoping she would join them. Then he linked his arms with Pell, and together they walked out the door, into the brilliant night.