Escape (28 page)

'Do you?' I ask her.

'What?'

'Ask the butcher?'

She looks at me uncertainly. 'I think so,' she says. 'I don't
remember.' Her face has changed from pleased relief to bewilderment.

'Anyway, it only takes a minute!' I say heartily. 'Just for the two of
you. Dad's not home?'

'No,' she says, 'he went out to . . .' She turns away, padding toward
the sofa. 'I don't remember where he's gone,' she says, but so softly it's
hard to be sure I've heard correctly.

I wash the cutting board carefully, and my hands. The bacteria
from raw chicken is one of the most lethal kinds. Maybe I should have
told her to cook it for forty minutes. I hope Dad hasn't gone out to the
supermarket. I really should have rung first.
You're such a martyr with
all your shopping
, says the voice. 'Well,' I say, trying to be cheerful, 'I
better get home.'

'Yes, Clara will be waiting for her dinner.'

Fear closes my throat. This is a new descent. 'No,' I say carefully.
'Clara is in Italy. You remember that.'

'Oh, yes, of course. I must still be only half awake. Don't know
why I'm always so tired. Just can't seem to manage things. So, have you
heard from her lately?'

'Last week. Just an email. She doesn't go in for long letters. But
she's okay, going to school, learning Italian, I guess.'

'Good, good.' Mum settles herself on the sofa. 'You have to let
them go, don't you. But it can be so frustrating. They never seem to do
what they
should
with their lives. Such a waste.'

'Well,
I
think she's doing a brave thing.' I can feel my chin jutting
out like it used to when I was ten.

Mum closes her eyes. 'Yes, travelling will be good for her. Hard for
you, though. Being left by yourself with that awful man. Your father
will be home soon if you want to wait.'

I pick up my handbag. 'No, that's okay. Don't forget about the
chicken in the fridge. Forty minutes in the oven.'

'All right, darling. Thank you.'

I meet Dad coming up the path. 'Thai chicken, forty minutes in a
medium oven,' I tell him. Dad only knows how to cook toast. 'At 180
degrees.' In his hands are plastic bags. I peer into them. 'Oh no – I got
bread, marg and milk too.'

He nods. 'Sweetheart, there's no need for you to do that kind of
shopping. It'll be a waste. And I always get the specials. Why don't you
take it home?' I shake my head. He pats my shoulder. 'Thanks, anyway.
And the dinner sounds great. Can't wait! So how are
you
?' He searches
my face, shifting his packages from one hand to the other.

'Fine.' I look down at the path. There used to be black-eyed Susan
planted around the borders. Now there's just weeds, like my place. I'd
love to tell him that actually I'm not fine most of the time what with
my sliding sensations as if I'm going to faint and losing Clara and lately
I feel unhinged like an old door coming loose and all the things that
used to be stored behind it are going to break through, any minute, a
tsunami of old furniture that doesn't fit any more yet you can't throw it
away, but instead I say, 'Well, have a nice night.'

As I get back into the car I suddenly wish he had asked me how I
was with that same searching face, looking straight at me, when I was
ten and had to make that decision about Danny Shore, the one that
changed my life forever.

It's too late anyway and it's stupid to have regrets.
'Three thousand
American troops killed in Iraq,' tolls the car radio.
How many Iraqis?
asks my mother.
How many orphans?
asks my father.

I carry the packages down the hallway and start to unpack on
the kitchen bench.
You bought too much. There's just the two of you now
– only Clara eats Weet-Bix. What a waste.
As I bend to put away the
bananas, something grinds at the base of my skull. Small sparks shoot
up and the bench tilts at the corner of my eye. That'll be the tumour, I
think. I decide to stop putting away the groceries. Guido will have to
learn where everything is kept when I'm gone anyway.

I droop down the hall to my bedroom. On the way I pass Guido's
closed door. I stop and listen for a minute. Nothing. I knock and go in.
His room looks abandoned, as if a burglary has occurred. His pyjama
shirt lies on the floor. Undies draped over the chair. The computer
is still on, the green light on the hard drive winking, but the screen
has gone to sleep. He didn't used to be so untidy. He liked to have his
room under control, his shirts folded, his papers filed and stacked. Or
maybe it was me who liked his clothes in order. It was certainly me
who kept them that way. I haven't been into his room for ages. I glance
back at the open door and listen again for a second. Then I sit on his
ergonomic chair. I close my eyes, relieved and uneasy that he is not at
home.

Where is he? It's Friday, not a lesson day, surely. I get up and
wander out down the hall, into the kitchen, stare at the Hokkien
noodles and miso soup packets and rice crackers and soya bean snacks
and Weet-Bix that will all go to waste. The cork squares under my bare
soles are gritty. When we first changed the old lino for cork, I was so
happy. The cork shone honey gold when the sun beamed at it. I used
to polish it every week. Should I start dinner or not? Should I clean
the cork floor? I go back into Guido's room and pick up the dirty
clothes. I slide onto the chair again and sit in front of the computer.
Roget's Thesaurus
lies open next to the key pad. My hand hovers over
the mouse, lying docile on its smooth black pad. I press it and slowly
the blue light comes up on the screen, like a sunrise. I click the icon
'Guido' and a long narrow column of words appears. On Silvia's advice
he bought new soft ware to write his script. She says producers won't
even look at your work if the words aren't presented in the right format.
Guido enjoys using this soft ware, he says, because it provides a kind of
structure and form – it's like poetry, with the pause it leaves between
words, demanding that the reader participate, and imagine. Prose, he
said, can sprawl and become shapeless, spread out in the middle like
women as they age.

INT. HALLWAY FAMILY HOME – LATE AFTERNOON

Boy is hanging on to Mother's skirt, crying. He leaves chocolate
marks and mucus on the white linen. Boy's fingers stretch the skirt
across her stomach. Her swollen belly is visible underneath. She
holds him to her, her face wet. Father marches into the room. He
gives a grunt of disgust, looking at the pair of them, and roughly pulls
Boy's fingers away. He holds Boy and Mother apart.

FATHER

The taxi is waiting. Leave him alone. You make him weak.

MOTHER

I can't go. I can't leave him, you're a monster! Please, please!

FATHER

It's your own fault. Go!

Father grabs Mother's arm and pulls her towards the door. Boy
has hold of her skirt and is being pulled with her. His feet slide
across the marble. Father pushes Boy's hand away, pushes him
over. Then Father picks up the suitcases and shoves Mother out
the door.

EXT. STREET – LATE AFTERNOON

Boy watches from doorway as Father throws the suitcases into the
trunk of the taxi. Father leans in to talk to the driver. Laughs, lights
a cigarette. Boy runs down the steps and bangs on the window. His
fingers leave streaks on the glass. But Mother doesn't turn to look at
him. She stares straight ahead, her profile only in view.

EXT. FROZEN RIVER UNDER MOONLIGHT – NIGHT

Camera travels across unmoving ice surface of the water. The moon
makes a ladder of light reaching the shadows of the old bridge. Dive
under the water where there is movement – currents swirl and a fish
swims towards the light.

INT. BOY'S BEDROOM – AFTERNOON

Boy playing alone with lego, making a tower, dark coming down, time
change, Boy asleep on floor, still alone, tower smashed.

I scroll down but there's no more. I turn to the open page of
Roget
:
950 penitence, 951 impenitence, 952 atonement. Underneath
Roget
there is the corner of a picture with white serrated edges poking out.
I slide it out. The Colosseum at dusk, the first postcard Clara sent us
from her pensione in Rome.

'Clara!' I leap up. I forgot to check the letterbox as I came in.
Apart from that one postcard there've been three dutiful emails
from internet cafes, informing us of her safe arrival in Florence, her
introduction to the Centro, and the dormitory arrangements. Then
last week she rang. It was such a relief to hear her voice. I asked her to
send a letter, now that she was settled. 'Snail mail,' she laughed. 'I want
something I can hang on to,' I said. She was still Clara, alive on the
other side of the world. She sounded enthusiastic. I held the phone
to my ear long after she'd gone. Even the dial tone had something of
Clara still attached.

I run to the mailbox and rake through the glossy junk mail. There's
a Telstra bill, real estate enquiries, a bank statement. No postcard. I
go through everything again, just to make sure. A pale blue airmail
letter slips out from beneath the Freedom Furniture brochure. Now
don't get excited, I tell myself, it'll only be that old James Heartacher. I
deliberately place it at the bottom of the pile and take the letters back
into the house. If I peep at it before I enter the living room, I think,
bargaining with myself, it'll only be James, but if I wait, if I hold back,
it might just be Clara. I drop the bundle in a casual way onto the desk,
so the mail fans out. My eyes go straight to the pale blue, quick as iron
filings to a magnet. Clara's handwriting. I don't have to look at the
back to know. I give a little leap of excitement and knock my shin on
the coffee table. It stings, but distantly.

I go to get a glass of wine, the last of the pinot noir, delaying the
pleasure another few minutes. A
letter
, what a treat,
scores
of words to
relish, something of Clara's to hold in my hand! I fling myself on the
couch and put my feet on the glass coffee table. I don't even worry
about the sweat marks my heels will leave.

I devour the letter in a minute and a half. The clock in the kitchen
ticks. The fridge shudders then goes silent. I feel desolate. More bereft
than before. I read the letter again, slowly this time, making it last.

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Hi Mum and Dad,

I've been to Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo, the Bargello and
the Uffizi – I am forever changed! Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Da Vinci's
Adoration – I had to keep telling myself this is real and I haven't just fallen
asleep on an open page of 'Encyclopaedia of Renaissance Art'. Mum,
don't you think the Venus has something of Saraah? The blonde hair,
the love-heart face – isn't it amazing how alive and flirty she still looks,
Venus I mean, and yet she's more than 600 years old! Everything seems so
relevant and close here, just heartbeats away instead of centuries. I saved
the Academia and David for last. When I saw him, I nearly cried. He
towers over the space and conquers it completely. I stood for ages in the one
spot until someone banged into me with her handbag. He's amazing – all
five metres of him! I think David IS the Renaissance. After the Academy I
walked to the Piazza della Signoria and sat for a while. David (a copy!)
stands there too, looking out over the square with that kingly expresion,
reminding us who we COULD be.

You'd probably like Michelangelo's 'Four Prisoners' mum. The figures
were left unfinished – they're rithing in the stone, eternally trapped by it –
they look like Houdini or someone trying to escape from the tomb. Gives
me the creeps.

When I get to the end I try to think of Clara writing this in a cafe,
maybe in the Piazza della Signoria. The sun might be glittering on
the cobblestones, people strolling by in their best clothes. She might
be having a cappuccino with a
biscotto
, and the waiter may flirt with
her. I hope she doesn't have that horrible old cardigan on. She sounds
excited, curious, very much alive. I try not to think of her finishing the
letter and packing up her bag, only to discover that while she was lost
in contemplation her passport and wallet have been stolen and in a
frazzle of anxiety she steps off the kerb forgetting that Italians drive on
the wrong side of the road and that according to Guido red lights in
Italy are only a suggestion and she is hurled up into the air, fragile as a
bunch of sticks . . .

I get up and put on a jumper, taking the letter with me into the
bedroom.

I've met an American girl at school, Marisa Castello, who's really nice –
great sense of humour. She has Italian heritage too and wants to get into
aid work like me. She's interested in going to Tanzania – the education
and welfare standard there is relatively high, even though the government
is repressive. They need more teachers, urgently. But don't worry mum,
Marisa has travelled a lot and is very sensible. There are a lot of Africans
in Italy – at the markets they sell jewelery and carvings and stuff – their
clothes are so cool, long patterned caftans . . .

The front door bangs. Guido's step is quick and light up the hallway.

'Rachel?'

'In here! There's a letter from Clara.'

He sits down on my bed. A gust of cigarettes and something sweet,
mints or perfume. I sniff , trying to diagnose the different parts, and he
moves further down the bed, away.

'So, what does she say, our
piccola cara
? Are you going to show me
now or do I wait till next year?'

His hand quivers in the air. For all his stoic refusal to discuss
Clara's disappearance, he can hardly contain himself at her news. I
hand him the letter. He smiles as he reads, giving little gasps or grunts
as his eyes sweep down the page. When he's finished he sits holding
the fragile blue paper, staring at the wall opposite. His eyes have that
unlatched look, far away, inside.