Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea Read online

  The major took a long breath.

  “What you’re doing is cruel,” the doctor added.

  “What I’m doing is commonly known as a basic respect for humanity! This is the woman I love! You will not experiment on her, do you hear me?” the major yelled. “How can I possibly expect any of you to understand that? We have been through this again and again—”

  “And each blessed time I pray to God you’ll heed my advice. You have a peculiar respect and contempt for my professional opinion.”

  The major wiped his mouth and flung his napkin onto the table.

  “Henry,” the doctor began in a familiar tone, which made me think this was more than a professional relationship, “if you insist on caring for her yourself, then at the very least take her somewhere she can find peace. Somewhere with a temperate climate. Sea air, perhaps? Somewhere she can live housebound but with some semblance of tranquillity—which, in my learned opinion, would be with us in an institution in Epsom, especially equipped for women suffering from bad nerves. You are not able to deal with this alone. You and I know this more than anyone else.”

  “James, I’ve listened to what you have to say. My wife will not be committed. She is sick, yes, but she need not be incarcerated. She’s my wife, for heaven’s sake!”

  The major rose to his feet, slamming the table as he did so.

  The doctor rose to meet him. “We both want what’s best. I will do everything I can to support you, Henry, but it will not be easy.”

  The major nodded. His gaze bored into his hands.

  “I’ll give you a few days to think—then you’ll tell me what you’ve decided.”

  I opened the door for the doctor. “That’s quite alright, I’ll see myself out, thank you.”

  I heard the door close as I scraped the last few crumbs off the tablecloth. Adeline cried out. The major reached the stairs before I.

  “I’ll go, Santina, you finish here.”

  * * *

  The next few nights bent into a fragile routine. The major rose with Adeline, calmed her out of her night terrors, soothed the screams that tore me out of my own restless sleep, while I cradled her mewling baby, watching her mold into my arms as I fed her, then lulling her to sleep with swaying. Each feed bought me time to gaze at that tiny face, noticing the minuscule changes to the small pink mounds of her cheeks, an extra tuft of downy hair along her hairline, a second or two more of keeping her shiny slate eyes open. This temporary peace softened the house, till the next bout of unsettled cries of either mother or daughter reverberated, all the louder for the deafening quiet that encased us. Sometimes Elizabeth would rip Adeline out of her rest and make her shake with panic. Other nights Adeline wouldn’t sleep at all, but insisted on wandering the halls or walking up and down the stairs in continuous motion.

  The final night before the doctor returned to hear of Henry’s decision we found Adeline scrawling all over the walls. The pencil raced across the plaster, scrambling outpourings. The next day, as I tried my best to wash all the markings off I reread her stream of panic. She wrote about loving Elizabeth, of wanting to love her, of not being mad. The writing was jagged, void of punctuation. Reading her words in the cold light of day was more terrifying than watching the major try to tear her away from it in the dead of night, as she screeched at him to not set one finger upon her body or she would kill him. When the doctor arrived, the major was still asleep. I led him to the front room to wait.

  “How was the night, Santina?” the doctor asked, catching me a little off guard.

  “I’m not sure,” I lied, trying not to think about the red circles around Adeline’s eyes, or the withering panic the major tried to bury from me as he wrestled her back to bed.

  “How is Elizabeth?”

  “Hungry mostly,” I replied. My mind spun down the hall to the warmth of the kitchen where she slept in her rattan basket. I could sense she would wake soon to be fed. I would sit by the fire and the world would slip away, replaced by Elizabeth’s rhythmical suckling and an imperceptible smile I thought I could read in the peaceful slant of her closed eyes; the rise and fall of her swallows like wordless thanks.

  The doctor smiled. I nodded and left the room. After a while the major came down. I placed a tray of tea between them and poured, wishing the uncertainty of the household would swirl up into thin air like the Earl Grey steam.

  “And that’s your final decision then, Henry?”

  “I don’t change my mind, James, you know me better than that.”

  “I’m afraid I do.”

  “Thank you, Santina—that will be all.”

  I left the men, feeling like my life in London was once again an uncharted course, headed for the rocks.

  * * *

  That afternoon, while Adeline was sleeping, the major called me into his study. Something about the usual considered chaos felt jagged today. A few more books were left half opened, reams of abandoned words searching for their lost reader. Time had frayed since that night, forever an unfinished paragraph.

  “Santina, I must tell you something.”

  My stomach tightened.

  “I have decided my family must move away.”

  Memories of the New Piccadilly Café flickered before me, darker and sweatier than I remembered it. I nodded, furious about the tears clamping my throat.

  “I would dearly like you to come with us,” he said, straightening.

  Some hope after all, perhaps.

  “It is a big move. A different country, in fact.”

  My body refused to offer any reaction. I stood mute, looking as stupid as I felt.

  “Italy. I intend to return to the one town that has left the deepest impression on me since I first set foot there.”

  I held the expectant silence.

  “Positano.”

  He read my face quicker than I could recover my expression.

  “Yes, it is most likely a ridiculous shock to you, and I would understand entirely if it was the very place you would have no interest in returning to.”

  Any town on the globe but my own. He was rolling back the carpet to his city, hooking me back into the place I longed to leave like no other. My heart curled into a tight fist.

  “I am under no illusion that the very reason you came to this city was as a gateway to America. Now, while I’m in no position to influence you, I must express that your help has been invaluable the last month. I should like to extend your time with us by one year, and, whatever the situation at that point, I will, of course, honor my promise to arrange your papers for America. As planned. I don’t need an answer today, of course. Tomorrow will be fine.”

  He turned back to his desk. I nodded and left.

  The click of the lock felt like I was shutting much more than a door behind me.

  I tied a scarf around my head and left the house. My legs began marching downhill along Willow Road. I stormed past The White Bear, giving a perfunctory nod to the locals resting upon the wooden benches outside. I didn’t take the time to enjoy the Edwardian terraces this time, nor the cluster of powdery-colored homes, or the line stretching a little way down Flask Walk from the public baths where the poor families from the cottages on Streatley Place would take their weekly cleanse. Thoughts ricocheted in my mind, colliding for attention and answers. How on earth could I return home? It would be like an unfinished adventure, fleeing the dream that had brought me this far. I had become the third strand in the plait of this family’s drama. Perhaps it was the broken nights, the constant strain of having to cope with Adeline’s reliving of terrors only she could see, but I felt a sudden wave of claustrophobia followed by a great weight of tiredness, the like I hadn’t felt since my mother died.

  I crossed East Heath Road and found Adeline’s muddy path toward the ponds. The mixed pond was in view now, intrepid swimmers gliding through the glassy green, sending ripples across the surface. I was that net of duckweed, feeling the involuntary undulations rock me this way and that. The trees grew thicker and
the trail wound in deeper into the trees, narrowing through elder and yew. The trodden leafy paths were still cooked with summer, only the yellowing tinge to the tips of occasional leaves hinted at the relentless promise of autumn. What was the sense in defying the inevitable change? Would starting a new London life alone be surrendering to the diverted path or resisting it? Was this the freedom I’d been charmed by? An unknown world, unencumbered by family dramas, newborns’ demands? Now might be the very crossroads I needed to find the courage to start again.

  I bent down under a low-lying branch and sank onto a fallen trunk. For a moment my mind drew a misty silence. I heard the birds celebrate high up in the trees above me. Straws of light shafted onto my feet. I let the damp, sunny air cocoon my restless mind. Could I admit to myself that I had fallen in love with someone else’s child? That in the month-long care of this helpless human I had been consumed by the desire that she survive? That the first time her eyes focused on mine I was filled with the thrill of being the first human she had connected with? That the helplessness I felt in the face of Adeline’s catastrophic decline was plowed into making sure this motherless child was cared for? That I loved her on behalf of the major, who I could see found it all too painful to express his feelings toward the tiny babe? Selfish perhaps, this decadent desire to save.

  I was no one’s savior.

  I was the help.

  A month or two of going beyond my remit of service would not make me part of their family. And yet, if I could keep my head down for another year, then true freedom would be mine. Giving a little more of myself to this tiny child would be a small sacrifice for what I would receive in return. I could survive one more year of gazing into those tiny eyes, each day opening wider, each day seeing the world smudge toward focus. Would I deny myself that unquestioning delight as when our eyes locked for the first time? For the mere second or two while it lasted, she saw me. Not Santina Guida, the help. Not someone’s abandoned daughter. The flicker of infinity that sparkled there moved me. A bright silence ignited that fleeting, but unflinching gaze; a promise of renewal—where one dream dies, another, by necessity, is born.

  What was a year in Positano compared to a lifetime in the New World?

  Chapter 4

  On October 2, 1957, I accompanied the Crabtrees upon the Blue Star Line ship on a return to the Bay of Naples. I was a month shy of my twentieth birthday. The crystalline turquoise of my coast was not the salve I longed for after the relentless sea voyage. The water drew me back to the place I’d fought to escape for so much of my life, I was a hapless swimmer defeated by the undertow. The major and I had shared pitiful, snatched sleep between us. Adeline received tranquilizing medication throughout the crossing from southern France, administered with precision by the major, which, to our relief, appeared to have more effect than in London. It kept her frenetic outbursts at bay and dipped her into the waking sleep to which she had become accustomed. At least in this state the major was able to keep her relaxed, or some appearance of such. He even managed to bring her out onto deck a couple of times for fresh air, though it wasn’t long before the amount of people unsettled her, and the major was quick to retire back into their cabin before the situation grew out of hand.

  My job was to stay with Elizabeth at all times. It would be an understatement to say I was nervous at the prospect. I had no experience of looking after a small child, let alone at sea, where the unpredictability of travel felt all the more dangerous. I tried to reassure myself that there were always doctors on board, and, most likely, experienced mothers who might help should I need it. I worked myself into such a silent state of panic that when Elizabeth was relaxed and slept the best she had since birth it came as a great wave of relief. She adored the fresh air on deck, the hundreds of strange faces. Her tiny head twisted this way and that, trying to gather the details of everything around her, the different smells, sounds, and the musical soup of languages.

  Some people passed me and flashed sympathetic smiles, thinking I was her mother perhaps. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feeling a prickle of pride as they did so. And though she was not my own, each time I lifted her close to me, and described in detail all the things around us, the girl became ever more a part of me, in spite of the sting of defeat that curdled in my stomach as we approached land.

  The Blue Star Line ship eased into the wide bay. Shipping offices crowded the port. From the deck on this bright day I could see far into the bustling city, a mystical warren that was still a foreign land to me, and to the right, rising ancient and proud, the purple silhouette of Vesuvius. The wind caught the new tufts of Elizabeth’s strawberry blonde hair; her eyes blinked away the tears left by the sea breeze. My eyes glistened too as I pretended I didn’t feel like I was sinking back into my old life, retreating toward a familiar town at once unknown. Positano with an unpredictable Adeline would not be the town I left. Working for a family that might terminate my contract sooner than planned, like Mr. Benn and Mr. George had, would leave me more vulnerable than when I first fled. I wiped away my tears and with it smudged my roiling thoughts into silence.

  The major helped Adeline down the gangway, a patient arm hooked around hers, following her tentative lead. If she began to tense, he would stop, take her hand in his and kiss it gently, murmuring something in her ear that always seemed to soothe. I thought about all those nights I heard him with her. Once, I had been feeding Elizabeth in the nursery, and could hear him read poetry to Adeline until she relinquished to sleep. Those nights it seemed that his care was having great effect, for a day or two afterwards she would show small flickers of her old self, but then night would fall and the wakings and railings would flare up again. The doctors had repeated their insistent requests to place Adeline in an institution, to reinstate shock therapy, to treat her psychotic episode with the internment it required. He would hear none of it. One doctor had even suggested that the major put up Elizabeth for adoption in the circumstances. That night I had seen the extent of the major’s temper. I hoped I never would again.

  All the images of the past fitful months floated into my periphery with each step along the sun-dipped gangway. After we shuffled through customs with the throng, we were at long last welcomed by our taxi. The major insisted I sit in the front seat with Elizabeth so that he could stay beside Adeline at the back. I saw her turn to him. A whisper of a smile skimmed her lips. His hand squeezed hers a little tighter.

  Our road snaked through the cacophony of the port, the sea of visitors embarking on their voyages. We were at a convergence of conflicting shoals swimming toward new lives, some fleeing, others, like me, returning. How many of them felt like their homeland was a strange new world? Little by little the crowds gave way to the hills I hadn’t admitted I’d missed. We climbed toward the southern tip, curving in and out of the landscape till Sorrento opened up below us, clusters of pink, pale yellow, and spring blue homes rising from the gray stony cliffs, the Tyrrhenian turquoise limpid in the fattening midday sun.

  Onward we drove, a sleepy Elizabeth lulled into dreams by the engine, as we began the climb toward the narrowing coastal road. The vineyards plump with purple fruit crawled up and down the hillsides beside us, the lemon trees stretched out their branches to the sun, each fruit bursts of yellow in the golden light. Another sharp turn and the coast opened up to us, defiant rocks to our left rising from deep in the cerulean water beneath us. The view of my mountains unfolded like a concertina picture book with each new bend, till the entire range was in view, each further grand cliff edge painted lighter shades of gray in the blanching sun and beside it a mineral green sea. Here we were circling its edge, tiny people in a metal box, carving through, inconsequential, at its mercy. My home hadn’t missed me.

  The driver took a final bend. The cluster of Positano revealed itself. The houses were more colorful than I had remembered, clutching the cliff face like a scatter of shells left by the lingua di mare as we called it, the tongue of the sea, which sometimes even reached the stradone,
our main street, especially during the winter storms. My mind raced up my hills, perhaps my brother was somewhere amongst them still? Perhaps returning offered me more than the failure of my new life? Perhaps recoiling into this past was a chance to find some peace within it?

  The car pulled to a standstill at the foot of the Via Giovanni Marconi. The ascent to our new home would be on foot, up the staggered steps and narrow walkways. Several porters poised at the start of the stairs, two of them with donkeys saddled with empty baskets ready to carry our luggage. When Adeline saw the animals, she reached out her hand, but the major slipped his in hers before she could touch any of them. We climbed, silenced by our weariness and anticipation. The major’s steps were assured. It felt like he had been living here some time already.

  The alley narrowed, and a tired Elizabeth began a hungry rouse. We passed on behind several large villas, bougainvillea trailing down toward the cobbles, a smattering of twisted paper garlands of purple and fuchsia meeting the sandy stone below, snaking garlands of succulents twisting along the boundary garden walls toward the light, gnarled wisteria branches creeping along the backs of houses. The dusty air was toasted from the warmth of the day, stony and infused with the whisper of drying pine. The alley dipped now and passed under an archway, curved round toward more steps and then a second relentless incline. Our footsteps ricocheted against those thick back walls of the neighboring villas flanking the cobbles. At last, we reached the final dozen steps, uneven with age and passage. At the top loomed the cathedral doors of the Crabtrees’ new home. The major wrapped an arm around Adeline as her eyes widened to the sea view spreading out beneath us, blotting into the hazy horizon beyond Capri. Even Elizabeth quieted her hungry wails for a brief moment. We stood still, we four weary travelers, the sounds of the donkeys carrying our loads approaching with steady clops along the stony incline behind us.

  The major rang the bell. We waited. One of the two enormous doors opened.