Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea

by Sara Alexander

  “Well, ladies, I’ll let you alone with your twenty years to catch up on. It’s good to see you, Rosalia. Santina—I’m sorry if I upset you before. It was a little selfish, yes. I hope you’ll accept this apology? Don’t answer now.”

  He turned to leave, then spun back toward us, his eyes alight with a mischief it was hard to admit I’d missed. “I spoke to the major’s daughter before. She and Martha have their hearts set on a trip out to sea over the next few days. Salvatore’s idea. He knows his Papà will never say no to taking our yacht out for a ride.”

  He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his age slipping away with each gesture. “That’s enough from me—never did learn when to stop.”

  I didn’t reply. Rosalia didn’t fill the gap either.

  He left.

  We watched the shadows lengthen, moon rise, stars etch little glimmers of hope in the sky. In the darkness, we traced our years apart, linking the dots with darting lines, constellations of anecdotes that sparked off in welcome tangents. Then we slipped into comfortable silence till a clatter of voices caught our attention.

  I reached the front door and opened it. Maddalena was beside Paolino’s son Salvatore, his eyes slit, gazing across at her with mischief. Elizabeth stood before me, trying to block my view. Her eyes were glassy with alcohol, the fumes of which puffed toward me on her breath. She flicked a lock from her face, the waves more erratic than usual, then brushed past me.

  Chapter 29

  In the hush of the villa I sat upon my section of the terrace beyond my bedroom. The milky moon struck the water with languid ripples. Adeline’s room lay abandoned above me. My eye flitted back to the corner where Elizabeth’s bed once stood, where I had sensed her every shift, murmur, anticipating her needs.

  I cried then.

  A recurring ache. A child is time, before your eyes it charges through space, conscious and unconscious, refracting your own life toward you, while to them you remain unmoveable, unchanged, the elder, the fixed point from which they can spin away, an axis that will anchor them against their will. Adeline scored this emptiness I’d kept locked away. The loneliness and despair that led to her death forced me to reflect on my own. Now I faced a string of missed connections throughout my life; a recipe cooked out of order, misread, half remembered, improvised without skill. The ingredients demanded attention; my lost daughter, my lost lover, my lost brother. I couldn’t sense what would remedy this unavoidable sense of displacement. I was floating offshore with the current lapping me farther away.

  What sort of life could Positano possibly offer me now?

  * * *

  I did everything I thought possible to avoid joining the proposed party at sea. I knew Rosalia wanted to stay in town with her mother, and I was happy to join her—but Elizabeth would hear none of it. When she stood beside Maddalena that morning and the two of them begged me to join, I couldn’t refuse. To spend a day beside them, on the water, was too beautiful a chance to walk away from. Besides, they were a force, each on their own, and together they were like that scirocco which left Paolino’s frame of mind askew and most likely several others in town if my years in Positano had taught me anything. These young women powered through the house, unstoppable, shifting everything within it, including the major and me.

  I stepped out onto the terrace with a basket of fruit. Elizabeth had her arms woven around the major’s neck.

  “You’re finally listening to sense, Daddy!” she exclaimed, kissing him with a skittish pout. His face softened. He caught my eye. Seeing his daughter in such a light, loving mood, it was as if a great weight had been lifted from him. His shirt buttons were undone a few more than usual and his white linen shirt reflected the light onto his face with a youthful bounce.

  “Daddy is coming with us too! Can you believe it, Santina? He’s actually leaving the prison for once. Would you like us to cover you in a sheet while we walk down so no one sees you?” Her laughter frothed out. He was delighted she was happy; her sarcasm was left ignored.

  We met Paolino, Martha, and Salvatore by the main bay, Spiaggia Grande. Martha charged across the shale to us and planted polite kisses upon our cheeks. I watched the major relinquish to her lead, though I knew he felt uncomfortable with the enforced physical contact expected in our corner of the world and which foreign visitors usually took to with great aplomb. Paolino was dressed like a skipper, a beam of white against the azure. Salvatore jumped onto the jetty and made an unsurprising beeline for Maddalena, all too willing for his attention, and the three youngsters followed, stepping on board.

  The yacht was pristine, with a glossy deck and a generous amount of space for passengers to lounge both at the bow and the stern. Paolino stepped down onto the jetty and shook the major’s hand. “Signore, I’m so glad you finally come onto my pride and joy, sì? Come, please!” He stretched out his other hand and helped him aboard. By the padded canvas seats at the stern, there was a huge bucket of ice and inside two glass bottles of fresh lemonade beside a plate of pastries; Paolino’s palace upon the water. I quashed the sensation that these thoughtful touches were more for my benefit than the major’s, especially when Paolino tossed me a provocative smile from the helm, which I brushed off with a roll of my eyes. It made him chuckle. A few minutes later we left the bay, sailing in the direction of Capri.

  The water grew darker, sapphire blue replacing the shimmering turquoise. The white spray lapped up the edges of the yacht as Paolino and his son moved with well-rehearsed ease, shifting beneath the sails, steering farther away from Positano. It was a beautiful dance, father and son swaying in turn at the helm. They doted on one another. Fatherhood suited Paolino well. He would have liked more children. I knew he longed for a house full of noise. We’d dreamed up our gaggle sometimes, on our Sunday afternoons, colorful pictures of a band of children, fearless girls, sensitive boys, brave souls who would stand by their mamma and papà, shaping their slice of Positano into an idyll where they lacked for nothing, not food nor love. The memory slumped like a heap of stringless marionettes. I tore my gaze away, and looked back toward the shore. The people on Fornillo beach were minute-colored specks of tourism now.

  “Please! Mangia! Today we celebrate life, Signore!” Paolino called out.

  Martha’s face spread into a freckled grin. She pulled the rim of her wide straw hat a little lower over her eyes and reached the plate out to the major. He took a small lemon puff and she poured him a glass of lemonade. Upon the bow, Maddalena and Elizabeth had already stripped to their bikinis, their white skin set off by the dark blue around them. With each bump of the waves below, they squealed like children. Elizabeth turned back toward us at the far end of the yacht. “Isn’t this heaven, Daddy?!”

  He smiled, lifting his hat and giving it a slow fan over his face.

  Martha nodded toward the two beauties lying in the sun with a compelling lack of self-consciousness. “I’m so glad you came, Henry, Paolino was most insistent we do this. As was my son. I think we can imagine why, can’t you?”

  “This is perfection. Adeline adored the water too,” he replied, looking out toward the jutting rocks, prehistoric nubs of volcanic eruptions, and took a deeper breath. “Quite fitting to be here today. It is as glorious a day as you could wish. I could burst into song!” He laughed at himself, as Martha’s face widened into a dazzling grin. “I had hoped that living surrounded by such musical people I would have inherited some measure of their talent,” the major continued, looking more relaxed in new company than I’d ever seen him, “but alack, no, I shall leave it to Paolino, yes?” He waved up to the captain. “To burst into song at the breathtaking beauty around us, yes? But I’m sure you’re used to that sort of thing, Martha.”

  “When we were young, perhaps!” she cooed, with her gentle Canadian lilt, a slit of sadness, which disappeared as quickly as it surfaced. “We lost my mother when I was about Elizabeth’s age. I wish my father had been so eloquent about her as you are about Adeline. I’m sure it would have helped him—
and me—a great deal. I didn’t think you necessarily needed a day out at sea, but my husband does love to force feed. It’s really a wonder I’m not the size of a house!” She laughed a little too loudly.

  The major caught my eye. I felt at once trapped. Unsure whether I was partaking in the conversation or whether Martha assumed, as the help, I ought to remain mute. It was hard to express our relationship beyond the villa walls. Within, we had a delicate understanding of our quotidian rhythms, a pleasure in an unspoken, effortless compatibility. But beyond, we were an awkward pair. I felt a keen sense of outsiders projecting their versions of what we ought to be upon us, even if today they were unaware our grown child on board had spun us off axis.

  “Who wants to swim?” Salvatore called out.

  “Sì, grazie!” Elizabeth yelled back.

  “Just up here I’ll set anchor!” Paolino called out.

  “He loves to come here, Henry,” Martha explained, as if the beauty of our surroundings needed qualifying. “It’s where he proposed.” She smoothed her linen sundress. “Now we’ve both shared a little, yes? You can feel quite at ease, Henry.” She chuckled. The major mirrored her. I wondered how much she enjoyed receiving the undivided attention of a distinguished, handsome English gentleman.

  A little farther on, where several rocks jutted toward the sky and Capri floated in the near distance, Paolino dropped anchor. Emerald waters lapped up to the edge of the boat. The two girls walked along the edge and plunged into the deep, shooting up for air, their faces lit with delight. Salvatore dove in after them, then his mother, her delicate alabaster frame slicing into the water with grace. The major stood up and let his linen shirt drop to the floor and followed, cutting into the sea without a splash. The laughing heads bobbed in the water, cleansing away the sorrow of the week. I watched Maddalena lie back and allow the water to lull her to the surface. Her eyes closed with bliss. Then she pivoted back to vertical, peddling the water. “Santina! Will you come in with us?”

  I laughed. “I wasn’t planning to!”

  “Yes, Santina!” the major called, flicking his hair away from his face, sending rivulets splattering behind him. “It would be sinful not to, it’s glorious!”

  Just then Paolino swept past me and took a flying jump into the water to shrieks from the others. White spray lifted up into the sun. Before I allowed myself to stall, I too stepped out of my sundress and dove in. The cold bubbled up my sides, shooting me to the surface. There we floated, breathless with laughter, the dancing water reflected in our eyes. The major looked like the man I’d met in that parlor in Hampstead all those years ago. Till now, he had always insisted on private swims. No one had ever accompanied him. It was strange to see him half naked, dappled with sunlight alongside the youngsters. His body was sinewy, taut with an energy that belied his years.

  “Not so long ago, Santina and I snuck around these caves, no?” Paolino cackled.

  I joined his laughter, upended by this unusual collection of people, stripped of normality by the leveling water, undulating in the shadow of those monumental cliffs. I pretended not to note the major’s expression. Nor Martha’s.

  “When we were children, yes! And the only yacht you got your mucky hands on was a rowboat that belonged to an uncle!” I replied, feeling the pressure of the cold upon my chest, sweeping away the stinging pictures of Marco in the caves and Paolino’s feeble accusations from yesterday. That morning I wanted to allow myself unadulterated happiness, I wanted to mimic the girls’ abandon.

  “We will be hungry after our swim, no?” Paolino asked, gliding back toward the yacht. “Come, Santina, you help me with the pasta, yes?”

  It wasn’t a question. He had already hauled himself up the ladder. By the time I’d reached him in the galley, he had a deep skillet of tomatoes melting with crushed garlic, a pile of fresh fish and shrimp beside it, already cleaned and ready to be tipped in for a zuppa di pesce.

  “This smells amazing, Paolino.”

  “You won’t let me make love to you with words, so . . .”

  For a moment the light slit in through the round window. It caught the rich chestnut of his eyes. We could have been youngsters again, give or take the odd line. His grin was unchanged. The events of the past few days were a free fall through memories, like marine knots tied in haste, unraveling, slipping out of their ill-practiced grip.

  “Some people don’t change, no?” I asked, matching his grin. I wanted him to know that his clumsy flirtation neither intimidated nor affected me.

  I wrapped my towel tighter around my middle and threw two packets of linguine into the simmering salted water upon the two-ring gas stove and gave them a twirl. He tipped the seafood into the skillet and coated it with the deepening red sauce. We slipped into silence, percussed only by the rhythmic clangs of the pan and the gentle clatter of the shells brushing against one another. Beneath us, the boat rocked upon the gentle waves, our kitchen a shifting space, lulled by the water. I watched his deft hands chop the parsley at great speed, cup a fistful in his hand, and sprinkle it over the zuppa. He zigzagged a spray of white wine and the steam rose up in a fragrant whoosh. He turned to me. “It’s wonderful to cook with you.”

  “You’re not as clumsy as I thought,” I replied, acquiescing to the simple pleasure of the moment. There was nothing wrong in what we were doing. A moment’s complicit intimacy in the tiny galley, surrounded by our sea, and the distant chatter of the swimmers, our real lives just beyond the round glass. Then a pang of sorrow; this was the life we forfeited. From the moment he left after breaking our engagement, I shifted all my feelings into a tiny compartment of my mind. He joked about my cloister, but it had been my choice alone, and I had made peace with it. My celibate life had a delicious purity and simplicity to it. Not void of pleasure but uncluttered, meditative, healthy. Now Maddalena had stepped back into my view, a part of me long forgotten was awoken with a brutality that excited and terrified me.

  “You saw the way Martha looked at the soldier?” he asked without taking his eyes off the pan. “You think that’s a woman in love with me? She’s always known my heart has belonged to someone else.” He gave the pan several flicks with his wrist. The fish were sent up into the air and back down into the salty broth.

  The sides of the narrow galley inched closer.

  “I’m not a words man like him. I’ve cooked this today so you will feel my love. It’s the only way I know.”

  I could have pushed him for answers that day he left the villa. I clammed up instead. Now all these shunted relationships pounded at my heart, and I wondered if I had the courage or passion left to revisit them or give them the love and attention they had deserved all along. Was I old enough now to let someone in at last? Had I been alone enough to feel whole?

  He gave the pan another shake. The shells opened a little more.

  Perhaps I was.

  Martha poked her dripping head below deck. “Oh dear Lord, that smells divine, darling! Grazie mille!” She swung back up to the group.

  I lifted a stem of linguine out of the water and tasted it. It was perfect. I reached past Paolino for a cloth to wrap around the metal handle of the heavy pot. I turned off the heat, gave the pot a heave. He swung in behind me and wrapped his hands around mine. I could have elbowed him back, snorted a witty retort to make him laugh, or move a little farther forward so I couldn’t feel his breath on my neck. But I didn’t. I let the ribbon of heat unfurl a ripple down my spine. We tipped the pan toward the colander placed inside a large rectangular plastic bowl. We stood there letting the steam swirl up and over our faces. His chest moving against my back with the light rise and fall of his breath. I had forgotten the weight of him, it was a sip of velvety cacao before sugar has been added, bittersweet, indulgent, almost irresistible.

  Salvatore’s steps split us apart, just in time for him to appear, dripping and buoyant. Paolino took the colander and tipped the linguine into the saucepan. With every turn, time wound forward to the present, clock hands twisting
me out of our past with reluctant revolutions. His boy left with the pan in hand. I lifted the ceramic bowls from the counter where Paolino had stacked them. He stepped before me.

  “I know you feel it too, Santina,” he said, his voice a murmur, his expression softening. I wasn’t being pursued. We met in that narrow gap between guilt and innocent pleasure, an underwater space; deep enough to be surrounded but close enough to the surface so that shafts of sunshine could cut through the blue.

  I forced myself to leave the galley for the table by the stern. The major rose at the top rung of the ladder. The sun cut shadows across the definition of his muscles, rippling beneath his fair skin. The water trickled down the length of his torso. He brushed his hair off his face and lit with a smile. I had never seen him so alive, his eyes the exact same shade as the cerulean sea.

  “Santina, something smells beyond wonderful!” He laughed then, surprised by this great wave of happiness. Like his daughters he was at once a beam of energy. The boundaries I’d been used to seeing at the villa had sunk away into the water. Gone were his angular movements. Something about this day at sea had loosened everything about him, as if an artist had scuffed the sharp outlines of his portrait with fast charcoal-dusted fingers.

  We sat around the table at the stern, twisting Paolino’s declaration of love around hungry forks. Maddalena’s nose was dotted with freckles from the sun. Elizabeth looked pink. Salvatore inched close to Maddalena, jet-black hair scraped off his face, his bronzed skin a deeper shade of olive.

  “Do you like Papà’s pasta, sir?” Salvatore asked, his English dancing with a tinge of Canadian lilt and Italian vowels.

  “It is the best pasta I have tasted at sea. But I have to be careful, you understand, the best cook in town is sat opposite me.” He looked directly at me, fixing me with a youthful grin. I thought back to Adeline on the terrace describing her subjects’ colors. At that moment she would have seen the rich bronze reds and oranges of her husband. She might have splayed him with slashed yellow, or violet even.