Escape (36 page)

Oh mum, so many bad things have happened since I've been away!
Should I come home? I don't feel right about this. Being away, having
adventures when you are all alone and worried and sad. And I'm not
so happy just now anyway. The other day I dropped a whole carton of
fresh eggs that a lady from a farm gave us and the sticky mess slid under
the fridge as well as all over the floor and even though I've wiped it a
thousand times our feet still make that schtuk sound when you lift your
souls off the floor. La signora hasn't said anything about it, but I think it's
annoying her. And then can you believe it, I locked us out of the house!
We'd gone shopping together so she could show me a shop with these
special ingredients she wanted, and she thought I'd taken my keys and so
did I – but I hadn't! What a fucking airhead! She's probably wondering
right now what on earth she's done bringing this person into her home and
how can she get me out of it. And I'm not doing so well in Italian, feel like
a dunce in this new class. Marisa has gone away for a week, too. I miss her.
Maybe I've had enough now anyway – I know I've been greedy and selfish
being away when nan is sick and you are going through this painful time.
I know I never stick to things – only eggy floors! I'm sorry I said that thing
at our Last Supper. Don't know what to do, but think I will come home.
My heart is with you mum

love and love,

Clara xxx

Dearest girl, DON'T come back! I'm fine. There's no need to worry
about Dad and me. It's good for Dad to have this space to work and
it's probably good for me. Clara, I haven't known how to explain this
to you and I didn't want to worry you either. Dad has moved to Silvia's
apartment like he says, so yes, we have separated, that's the truth of it.
I don't know if it's forever or not. I'm taking each day as it comes. It is
different, being alone, but I've taken up new habits, like running. I am
alone, but not lonely.

Don't worry about the eggs, I've done that a hundred times and
I'm sure the signora has too. She's probably worrying about whether she
should get the curtains washed for the book club ladies and what she will
serve for lunch and will they approve. We often think people's moods are
our fault when really it has nothing to do with us at all. As for the lock –
well, I won't say it! Except that can happen to anyone as well.

I'm getting on with the book, and soon I'll be finished my last
magician, who's coming to Sydney for a show. So you see, no need to
worry about me – or nan and pop. They're going well. Nan seems to
have more energy, and yesterday she was even reading aloud from the
newspaper about our crummy new industrial relations laws while I
made chicken curry. She reckons the prime minister is a borderline
sociopath and should be tried for war crimes. She made a very
convincing, cogent argument. And she wasn't even puff ed. AND she
didn't mention a single event in the passato remoto. So listen, everything
is good and I want you to know that the idea of you over there having
adventures and being free to be YOU is a source of happiness and
inspiration to me. So you keep going, girl!

Love and love,

Mum OOOXXX

I read back the email –
Don't come home
. I mean it. Just for a moment,
I am flooded with light.

Thanks Mum, it sounds like you are okay, that's so great! And you know
what, I was so rapped up in being negative in that last email I didn't tell
you what happened after the lock thingy. Well, we were waiting for the
locksmith and I was hunting in my bag for a bobby pin or nail file or
something and I discovered a pro-lok pick stuck in the lining of my purse
– I couldn't remember putting it there – it must have dropped out of that
tool set you gave me. So I thought I might as well use it. Lucia looked at
me nervusly – as if I was crazy, or a criminal. But I persisted! It was a
pin tumbler lock, 6 pin, fairly standard thank Christ. But I was swetting.
It took me a long time. I remembered how frustration can result in a loss
of picking feel so I took deep breaths and told Lucia she might like to go
and sit in the neighbour's apartment while I worked. The cylinders had
those damn tight tolerances which made it long and difficult but Mum
how GOOD did I feel when that lock clicked open! Anyway, I called
Lucia and then crawled upstairs to send you that miserable email. But
when I went back down to help put away the things, she asked me what
I had been doing with such an instrument in my bag and did I know I'd
just saved her 150 Euro? So I told her about you and your books and
my weird childhood of insane muff s and chain escapes and torture cribs
and lock picking and she was fascinated. Her eyes got bigger and bigger
and she said she couldn't wait to tell the ladies at the book club. Then she
confessed that she was really obsesed about those ladies coming around
because they're so picky about etiket and houseproud and all. The thing
she said that really pleased me was how safe she felt now with me around,
what with my streetwise lock picking skills, and now she had someone
'competente' to rely on. Isn't that incredible? Me, COMPETENTE!
I repeated it over and over to myself in bed that night and I got so happy
that I couldn't sleep, so I had to keep lifting cylinders inside plugs to calm
myself.

I smile at Clara's words. How good to hear her happiness.

Hi Mum,

How's the book going? Marisa is still away. She's gone to visit her
aunt in Venice – she thought she'd only be a few days but her aunty is
pretty sick. I miss her a lot – I guess I'm a bit lonely. It's strange being in
a world where no one knew me before the age of 21. Sometimes I wonder
who I am when there's no one to tell me who I was. I have to make myself
up each day. Back home I couldn't wait for the freedom of that – of being
anonimus. But its scary sometimes. Sounds so spoilt but some days are
like huge empty warehouses that I have to fill. And there's no one to tell me
how or with what.

Today I took my notebook to the Boboli gardens – so soulful there late
afternoon, quiet, just the pale marble statues, running fountains, lovers in
the grass. The magnolias are blooming. Walking home in the twilight, a
guy rode past on his vespa. He waved at me and smiled – such an electric
smile – he gave me a shock! I only realised after that it was Roberto my
teacher. That smile made such a difference to the day. Funny what little
you need, really.

God it's nice how generous Italian men are with their compliments.
Often, just walking down a street, you can feel like a movie star with all
the whistles and compliments and they never seem to expect anything
back – they don't get angry or miff ed if you don't respond, they just
leave this trail of lovely fading glitter at your back as you move out of
sight. Anyway, in the gardens, I was thinking about travel and routine
and the difference between them. I was thinking that while we are
locked into routine there's the illusion of safety. But when there's a
change, and you make a leap, you get a glimpse of the abiss yawning
below. Now I hardly ever feel safe, and death or failure or taking the
wrong turn seems so much more likely. Makes me think of Houdini and
his 'penalty of failure'. Travelling wakes you up. Anyway, I'm raving
aren't I. Don't worry, marisa will be back soon and I'll try to pore the
spillover onto her.

Lots of love,

Me xx

P.S. I hope it's okay that I tell you these things. It feels bad while I'm
writing them but good afterwards. It's a relief to tell. I hope you don't mind
and it doesn't worry you and there are so many good days, remember!
But sometimes it feels like an achievement just to be happy. Like when I'm
miserable I'm failing in the exam of life.

Mum,

Going stir-crazy in this apartment – I'm SO longing to hear some
loud music, a band you have to shout over, anything to get me out of my
head. Last night I went to a restaurant, a little place near the bridge.
Had veal marsala and potato in rosemary and a glass of Dolcetto. It was
delicious but hard to relax. I tried to take invisible bites, as if the food was
disappearing by itself. Why do women eating alone look so shockingly
greedy? Or do we just think that? Have you done it yet Mum? Men eating
alone with their newspapers somehow manage to look purely functional
and economic, refuelling themselves for the work ahead.

I used to think when I got to live in another country where no one
knew me, I could be anyone I wanted. No offence! But now I think that
being alone makes you long to be incredibly normal. You so DON'T want
to stand out. But I seem to wear my foreigness like a badge. 'Signorina,
where do you come from?' I just want to blend in, my aloneness feels like a
disease, like a lump always sticking out of my head.

Marisa's still away. Maybe these first months are the hardest. I've been
thinking of writing some stories about travelling. It'll be like talking to
myself, only it'll look more normal!

Hope you're well and working okay, love to nan and pop,

Clara xx

Dear Clara,

What a good idea to write! Have I told you how much I enjoy your
letters? Well I do. And no, I haven't eaten out alone, I just eat junk food
at the computer – wouldn't mind some of that Dolcetto though! But
don't go copying me! I think your restaurant dinners sound like fabulous
adventures, and good for your female soul!

Lots of love from your admiring Mamma xxoo

Ciao Mamma,

Marisa's back and we went out into the country, to San Galgano – a
medieval church, bellissima! It was Lucia who suggested it – 'take a picnic,
make the most of these crystal days of spring'. Giorni di cristallo – why
does everything in Italian sound so much more promising? It's like, in the
act of translating, the word suddenly springs out at you new and shiny and
you see it as if for the first time.

The church has only half a roof left , open to the sky. We lay on its
carpet of grass and ate bread and cheese and drank chianti and dozed
in the pale sunshine streaming into the church. It's so good being with
Marisa again and afterwards when we walked home from the station we
laughed hysterically about nothing and mimicked each other's accents and
abandoned our 'let's look Italian and speak properly' routine, shrieking
and laughing like any other loud tourist crowding the footpath.

Oh mum, what is it about being here – I feel more myself than I ever
have, yet I don't know any more who I am! It's as if I'm walking in a
dream I had when very young – forgotten but esential like my bones or the
roots of my teeth and sometimes it's almost there on my lips, the shape of
it, but it never lasts. It leaves a trace, though, a change. I feel changed. It's
so strange and magnificent here.

Clara x

Hey Mum,

Guess what – Roberto asked me OUT!! Isn't life spectacular? xx

When I get into bed now, I try to imagine Clara in her spectacular life.
I see her strolling through the Boboli Gardens, grass rolling on either
side, limbless sculptures watching, mute. Guido must have walked
down that path, been a lover in the grass, or a snake.

When he rang yesterday he said, 'I have a motorbike.'

'But how?' I said stupidly. I heard a sigh.

'I used that thing called money, as most people do.'

'But where from,
our
savings account?'

'Yes, and why not? You are using the house we bought, not me!
That money is half mine, more than half! I am only telling you so you
don get a surprise and get angry when you go to the bank. And Silvia
contributes, she likes to buy me things. Is fantastic.'

'But you don't know how to ride!' I protest. 'You'll kill yourself!'

'I rode one for years, a vespa in Italy – all the
ragazzini
do
that. What do you think, that I didn't have a life before I came to
Australia?'

'But we never even let Clara have a bicycle because of the big hill
in our street. All that speed gathering under her wheels before she had
a chance to learn how to ride . . . ' I made an effort. 'But how are you?'

'My script is going very well. Silvia is . . .
wonderful
. She is very
intelligent, helping me unblock. She says I should do writing exercise
each day before I begin my script. Is like limbering up before a
marathon, doing stretches or breathing, to get the thoughts flowing.
She sets me little exercises, with random topics like "the sea" but
this doesn't 'ave to be the actual sea you are describing. It could be
whatever the sea makes you think of, maybe chaos or drowning. Then
there are the exercises about memory, real or imagined. Is wonderful.
They free you up, you 'ave to let go of the editor in your head, which
is ironic, I tell Silvia, because she is a script editor,
my
editor—'

I hold the phone five inches away from my ear. Every few
seconds I bring it closer to hear if he has finished but his voice is still
going. That voice hurts so much, full of wonder for the wonderful
Silvia. I want to reach down the phone and smash it, smash his
happy excited face and Silvia's pressed right up against it, being
wonderful.

'I do the exercises from the point of view of my main character,
you see, the man in the script. Is so revealing, is like going straight
to the heart of this other person inside, straight to his pulse. Writing
from the perspective of third person is even more liberating, like the
freedom I used to get at Carnivale in Venice, wearing a mask. You
see the mask is not an illusion, is more a representation of the inner
person, the
real
person—'

I hold the phone away again. Who does he think I am? Does he
see me at all? Has he ever? Now his voice has stopped I say, 'How
wonderful
! I notice you told Clara about our separation and you didn't
bother to tell me first.'

'Clara is translating my poems. Her Italian is improving, she is
doing well at school. Is all going well, everything. No need to worry.'

'Well yes, but she's been up and down. Being alone hasn't been so
easy for her . . .'

'Why you always pick up the negative? Is natural that she reflects
on 'er life, she is a person who thinks. Is good this quality, no? You
want a daughter who
doesn't
think?'

'And what happened to your rage about your intelligent daughter
doing such a lowly job as a cleaner? Doesn't it bother you any more?'

'See, you are doing it again. Everything changes, Rachel.
Everything passes. These events move through us like water, like the
sun, we must not hang on to them. You are becoming sour—'

'Like the lemon. I know. Listen, Guido, I'm falling apart here – the
sliding feeling in my brain is sending me mad—'

'I 'ave to go now, Rachel. I will come round soon for the rest of
my books and other things. Remember, is nothing these feelings, is
all in the mind. Everything passes. You must learn to detach. Oh, and
those white shirts in my wardrobe – I've got an appointment with the
producer and some business people so you make sure the shirts are
clean and ironed? White suits me best with my dark hair. You know,
is unusual that I 'ave no grey yet, and my hair is not even thin. I am
feeling very fit. Silvia says I am in my prime which is good because
she is fifteen years younger than me but her friends say we look the
same age! Is very important this meeting. No, don wish me luck, is a
curse,
malocchio
. Is just another event in the universe that I must not
get attached to, Silvia reminds me.'

When I hang up the phone I go into his room to have another
look at those shirts. They smell clean, perhaps just need some fresh
air flowing through them. I take them out and hang them up in the
doorway. My urge to see Guido and tell him how things could be
different and that we could live a new wonderful life together has
evaporated completely with the sound of his voice. I stand with the
shirts in my hand. There is the illusion of Guido, I think suddenly, and
the reality of Guido. Why do I carefully hang up these shirts instead of
ripping them into rags or using them to wipe my arse?

The two drawers under Guido's desk are locked. I don't know why he
bothered. Maybe he thought I'd be too polite to go that extra step and
flex my lock-picking skills. He doesn't know about my transformation.
That werewolves lose any shred of good manners when the sun goes
down and they open a bottle of red. Most probably he didn't think
about me at all, my politeness or lack of it or any skills I might possess.
In the top drawer there are some papers, an old postcard of Piazza della
Signoria. Under the papers there is a photo of Guido I haven't seen
before. He is young, twenty perhaps? Clara's age. He is leaning against
a stone wall, green vines curling behind him, his head thrown back,
eyes half open, a lazy smile tilts his mouth. He's holding a yellow rose,
it's a little bruised, wilted as if someone's been lying on it. He looks
relaxed, satisfied, as if he's just had sex . . . An old familiar feeling twists
up through my belly. It's like a finger, probing, tickling, reminding me.
There is still the question. It flicks at the wonder of this person, so
exotic, alluring. The old longing starts, for the mystery of him. Why
can't he speak to me as he does to Silvia? I close my eyes. I think of
the Bohemian Torture Crib to which Jonny Love will chain himself
here in Sydney. I am condemned to lie on the rack, strapped to my
memories. But there's no money or glory in it for me.

I sift through the papers in Guido's drawers. I have no compunction
about doing this. He is like a history project that I have to research, the
deadline falling when he comes to take everything away, all signs that
he ever existed. He will take everything and I will have nothing. I find
another photograph, of a baby in a mother's arms – it must be Guido,
black button eyes, face snuggled into his mother's neck. His mother.
Same dark eyes, fine features, hair in a beehive, swept up off that
slim neck, beautiful. Another photo – a small boy with skinny knees
holds his mother's hand on a lawn, a hedge running straight as a ruler
behind. The woman is smiling but you can see the smile is strained,
stretched. The boy is frowning into the camera. His mouth is slightly
open, showing the chipped front tooth. Guido said it happened when
he fell off a horse. This is the first time I've seen photos of Guido's
boyhood, his family. When he's already gone.

In the second drawer I find more papers. Diagrams with names
and arrows. A mind map, as I used to ask my grade three to do, with
characters' names inside circles, and arrows connecting them to events,
other characters, showing relationships. Mother, Father, Boy, Nun . . .
I riffle through a wad of typed notes in Italian, stapled together. In
the margin there are scribbled comments in red pen. Someone else's
handwriting, not Guido's, and written in English.
Yes, this is where the
energy is!
and
powerful, nauseating, oh this is good and nasty!
How can
something be nauseating, and good?
Alienation, yes, keep writing the
hard stuff , like Hemingway said
. The words run vertically up the margin,
tumbling over the page with 'wonderful' enthusiasm.

I find a page in English. The font is different, in Arial Narrow.
Silvia's translation? I glance at the door. He didn't say when he'd be
coming. It couldn't be now, he's in the city with Silvia, but sweaty
panic breaks out on my skin.

Luca remembers his mother. He remembers a time when he was very
small, three perhaps, when they lay on the big white bed together.
His father had gone to work. Furioso. His father was always angry.
Luca didn't know why this was so. Luca crept into the bed where
his mother lay. She didn't get up to dress or straighten the house or
prepare for the lunch. She put her arm under his neck and pulled him
close. He was happy and the room filled with a gold light. He laid his
head on her chest and leant into her. He could hear her heart beating
under her soft nightgown. Her skin was warm, the bed was warm
from her body. She read him a story. Pinocchio. She giggled with him
at Pinocchio's long nose. She talked to him in English. Sometimes
she did that. He liked her English voice. It was a private language,
made just for him. She didn't use it with his father, or anyone else he
knew. Just him and herself. Special. That morning she said, 'Poor
Pinocchio, it's not fair, that ugly long nose just because of a few little
lies. We all lie sometimes, don't we?'

Luca remembers being upstairs in his room, alone. He sits on
the floor listening. There is the sound of his mother banging dishes
down in the kitchen. There are squares of sunlight lying on the orange
rug like puzzle pieces. A loud crash, as if something has broken on
the kitchen floor. He goes to the door and calls 'Mamma?' but there
is no answer.

In the late afternoon, the squares of sunlight on his floor have
vanished. The room is grey. He is not calling for his mother any more,
he is surrounded by pieces of lego, towers and soldiers and bridges.
He is making up worlds and smashing them down – whole armies,
he makes the Boom! Boom! Whoosh! little bombs of sound through
his teeth, angry explosions. Someone calls him from downstairs for
dinner, but he doesn't answer. He is absorbed in his war. He falls
asleep among the lego men, a tiny plastic cannon under his cheek,
making a deep impression.

Luca remembers his mother going away. 'I won't be gone
for long,' she said, with that little smile. But she had told him that
everyone lies like Pinocchio.

He had learnt to swim by the time she came back. There had
been a summer at Liguria and a winter. He had learnt to float on
his back, far out near the buoy on the horizon. While he floated he
watched the clouds and thought about nothing. When she came
back, she was thin. Her chest had gone. Her stomach went in instead
of out. She was straight like a ruled line. She didn't want to read to
him, even look at him. He was invisible. He felt lonely in the same
room with her. When he spoke to her she didn't bend down to him.
She talked over his head.

Once, when he passed her bedroom he saw her standing naked.
She was brushing her hair, looking into the big gold mirror. He saw
a purple scar across her belly, and the black curly hairs reaching up
to it. She was stroking it, half-smiling. He was revolted and excited
and deeply happy that something had hurt his mother very badly.
He dreamt of the scar and the man who did it for years after that.
Sometimes he was the man. Sometimes he was his mother.

Luca remembers when he first met his wife. English white skin,
hair like fire. He liked running his fingers under her hair, feeling her
scalp. Her hair was wild, but it obeyed his fingers. She looked at him
with adoration, as if she was at church. She was in love with him but
he was not in love with her. She said he would always come first in her
life and that she would look after him. She did not know how to cook
so he showed her how to make the pasta al dente, to bake pepperoni
and peel the skins, capponata, simple fresh dishes. Every evening
she served the spaghetti too soft and too sweet and every evening
he told her the right way. She apologised but the next night was
always the same mistake. She was eager to please but incapable of
it. She was like the spaniel his mother kept with its long blonde hair
and slavish eyes. She wagged her tail and apologised and lay on her
back for him but she had nothing inside her. Sometimes, when he
was on top of her, he watched the clouds in his mind and thought of
nothing as if he were floating on that sea in Liguria.

Sometimes he imagined other women. He turned her on her
back and she offered up her arse like a sacrifice. He could do
anything to her. She was resigned, a martyr. But she was like all the
other women he had known. She said he would come first and then
she betrayed him.

He did not know what love was until he met Silvia.

I put the papers back in the drawer. My hands are shaking. A wave of
nausea sweeps me and I run down the hall to the toilet. Vomit burns in
my throat, red wine, rice crackers and green disgusting bile.
Disgustoso
.
Twenty years of a lie.
You've only got yourself to blame.

Today is Belmore High School. Three sessions, $770 dollars, including
GST. I'll take the exploding wallet and that new trick with the sword.
It's a dramatic illusion, perfect for teenage boys. The sword appears to
stab right through the arm and out the other side. Baudelaire gave me
some new fake blood that tastes metallic and salty, just like the real
thing. Blood, sex. I won't think about it. I don't have to.

The clock radio says I should get up. A car bomb overnight killed
twenty-one people in Baghdad, eight of them children. The kids of
Baghdad wouldn't enjoy my illusion. There's enough real blood shed
every day. What the hell am I doing? It's early, but I get up because
I have a long way to go. I don't want to lie here in bed anyway, in the
musty sheets which haven't been changed since Guido left . Nearly
three months. But he was never in love with me. I get up and put
on my shoes and run out the door. Run run run, see Jane run. The
icy winter air stings my legs. I look down and see I'm running in my
nightie. I don't care. No one will notice because middle-aged women
are invisible. And there's nothing inside me. It is so quiet, the sun just
coming up. The leaves of the paperbark tree hardly stir. The lawns
glisten with dew. My shoes are loud on the road, slap slap slap, slapped
in the face, twenty years of slapping.
You are the idiot for holding your
face there
, says the voice. I was in a holding pattern.