Escape (32 page)

Rita takes my hand and holds it. Her eyes are brimming. She gives
me a squeeze and warmth steals into me.

'Jesus Christ,' explodes Doreen, shaking her head at us, 'this is like
a funeral! How many years have I watched you being squished like a
bug under his shoe!'

'Well, but I miss—'

'You don't miss him, you feel free! You're just scared of it, like
someone who's been in an institution for twenty years. You'll soon
find out how good it is. Look at me – I go out when I like, grab Thai
takeaway and eat it in front of a DVD, pour myself a good red wine.
Now Saraah's moved out, I don't have to cook at all unless I feel like
it. The other night I went out with some women from work, it was
Angela's fortieth – we went to Retro—'

'What's that?' asks Lena.

'A nightclub, and the dancing was great! We danced for three
hours non-stop, we went
wild
! It's that place in the city with sixties,
seventies, eighties music on three different floors and a pole up the
centre like the one in
Fireman Sam
. We used to watch that show with
the kids, remember? You can slide down to get to each—'

'But that wouldn't work, surely,' says Lena. 'Structurally, if there's a
hole in the middle, the entire building would collapse.'

'Oh, always with the details,' Doreen waves her hand. 'It's not
real
, the pole, it's just there to give the idea. An
atmosphere
. That's all
you need. And anyway, you'll never believe this, but I actually
met
someone!'

'What was he like?' Lena asks.

'Oh tall, good-looking, Canadian. He had these huge calf muscles
from hiking. We did it on the kitchen table and afterwards he cooked
me eggs and baked beans. But now I've got cystitis, damn it. Why do
women always have to
pay
for it somehow or other?'

'Do you want some cranberry juice?' says Lena. 'Four out of ten
women get cystitis frequently from sustained sexual activity. You
should always pee straight after sex.'

'I
know
that,' sniff s Doreen, who is in charge of one hundred and
six nurses. 'Where's the cranberry juice?'

At home, the silence in the house is appalling. I try to think of all
the women I know who live alone, and those thousands of millions
I don't know. Doreen, Rita, Maria . . . The last time I saw her, Maria
declared she didn't believe in marriage any more, only the nomadic
life.

Yesterday when I walked up to the shops I tried to think how
lucky I am to live so close to all these amenities, that I have enough
money in my wallet to buy groceries, that I have my health, and live
in a peaceful country. I thought of Doreen buying her Thai takeaway
and Maria on her travels. They are happy and appreciate their luck.
They didn't lose a limb when they lost a husband, they don't hobble
anywhere. I felt the sun on my face as I stood outside the butcher's. It
was gentle, soothing like valium. Why can't I be like them?

When I got home with my one bread roll and milk carton and
packet of tea, Doreen rang to say that we must get ourselves organised.
The planet, and Rita, needed us. She said Rita had joined a new group
called Climate Coolers – The Hottest Women on the Planet. Rita
reckons that if we wait around for men to fix global warming, we'll all
fry. What did I think of the name, catchy, hey? Would I want to help
with the campaign? 'It's about reducing carbon emissions in our own
lives,' Doreen explained. 'We're aiming to get a million women to cut
a million tonnes of CO2. And that's just a start!' The text had been
written already, but perhaps, they thought, I could do some editing?
Doreen sounded energised herself, glowing with enthusiasm like one
of those low-carbon-emitting light bulbs the Climate Coolers were
promoting. She got me excited too, even though I worried I'd ever be
able to understand the complicated intricacies of carbon emission, let
alone clarify the idea for others. But I told her I'd like to help and we
agreed to speak again soon.

I was still standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil
when Rita rang. 'Doreen just told me!' she exclaimed. 'Oh Rachel,
I'm so glad you want to be involved.' Her voice had little gasps of
excitement in it. 'You never would have said yes before. I know,
because I wouldn't have either. But you'll see, it feels wonderful
when you can choose your own projects and use your own time how
you want and no one's making you feel guilty for neglecting them
or telling you that protecting the environment is bad economics or
asking where's my dinner or why haven't you washed those shirts
today? And it's so important – it's about our children's future, isn't it.
Look at this government, protecting the coal industry instead of our
grandchildren! Did you know, Australia is the biggest polluter per
capita in the world?'

I told her yes, I'd read that and been filled with shame. It was a
familiar emotion. 'Let's get together next week,' I suggested. 'And Lena
too, if she's interested?'

'Oh yes,' said Rita. 'Her publisher is doing a new book on carbon
emissions. Imagine – a million tonnes of CO2 is enough to fill 2.3
billion big wheelie bins.'

I didn't know quite what to do with that fact, but I tried to hold it
in my mind for a while before I went to lie down on the sofa.

The dark has thickened while I've been lying here. I've done this every
night for a month, throwing myself down like a towel.
Why don't
you throw IN the towel?
says the voice.
What's the point of you?
Good
moments pass straight through me like the radiator heat through the
fibro walls. I think about turning on the television news, something
I've done each night since Guido left , but I can't concentrate. I've
even switched to Clara's awful American sitcoms but I can't seem
to understand what's funny and on my worst nights all that canned
laughter seems directed at me.

So I lie on the sofa, looking at the screen in my mind, changing
channels. I'm trying to find a story that will make sense. Every morning
I wake on fire with fear, jolting into the day with the awareness that
something terrible has occurred.
Alone!
the voice reminds me.
Your
marriage has failed! The
silence is so thick I can hear my own breathing.
No one is alive in the next room wanting coffee, or breakfast, or more
cigarettes. No one knows if I am alive or dead.

Mum was up today. She was watering the indoor plants, the palm
and the maiden hair. She seemed almost content, humming as she
watched the water being absorbed, trickling out into the black ceramic
saucer. Just for a second, when I was telling her about reheating the pie
I'd made for her and Dad, she stopped and became still, looking lost
as if she didn't know where she was. '
Shepherd's
pie?' she said. 'Who's
Shepherd?' Then she seemed to recover and nodded knowingly,
giving a little laugh at herself, but in a compassionate way. I wondered
if having a foreign object in your heart might let you off the hook
somewhat. 'You're a person with a pacemaker now,' you could tell
yourself, 'so be gentle.'

Just before I left , my mother asked me how I was coping, so she
must have remembered about Guido. When she first heard the news
she said, 'Thank god!' just like Doreen, which annoyed me. Even my
father pretty quickly started to point out all the things I could do
with my life now that I was 'my own mistress'. What
is
that, a woman
who's gone to all the trouble of dressing up in black lacy panties
and a suspender belt with no one to admire her? But Dad was just
trying to be positive, so I didn't reply. I nodded and smiled and gave
unnecessary instructions about the dinner. Really, the ubiquity of this
ecstatic reaction to my separation is so painful – it makes me feel like a
person with a developmental disorder who has finally learnt to tie her
shoelaces.
It's only taken her twenty years
, I can just hear them saying.

And no one knows the worst of it. That when I come home I rush
at the answering machine like an alcoholic to the bottle. I press the
flashing red button before I throw off my shoes or have a much-needed
pee. Maybe Guido has rung, I hope wildly, maybe he's realised that
life without me is hollow and meaningless and colder than any winter
scene he could describe in his poems. Maybe he sees now that family
is just as important as literature and he's bought plane tickets for us
to go to Italy to visit our daughter. He wants to be with me forever.
He is transformed with love. I check the machine every hour or so,
even when I'm at home. I check it after I've been outside watering the
plants, or in the bathroom – maybe I didn't hear the phone ring, due
to the flush, the shower, the voice. Why did I push him away? Who
else in this world has ever touched me the way he has, given himself
to me, given me a child? What was it all for, all those years, if we stop
now? He told me he needed to come first with me, but did I help him
with his poetry after we were married?
No, you didn't make the effort,
you lazy bitch
.

I think of ringing him fifty times a day. But I'm too much of
a coward. I couldn't bear to hear the slam of his voice. The Door of
Death.

It's all right for women like Doreen and Maria. They return to
their own lives as if it's a good thing. They do it with joy, look forward
to having 'time to themselves'. But they don't have to return to being
me
. They don't have to return to the voice. Doreen just doesn't get it,
no matter what I say. She's always telling me what I should feel, like
Guido, like my mother. 'You should be pleased that you can change
that light bulb in the hall,' said Mum when I was eleven. 'You should
be excited that you understand how electricity works!' 'You should be
happy that you're married to me!' said Guido. 'You should be happy
now that you're free!' said Doreen. And in fact, I'm free AND I know
how to change a light bulb AND I'm financially independent AND I
have my health. But I'm not happy.

From the sofa I can see the moonlight shimmering on the pool.
The filter pump is still going, making the light twirl among the ripples.
I must have forgotten to turn the pump off this afternoon.
What an
environmental delinquent you are! Call yourself a Climate Cooler?
I get
up and trudge down the back stairs, reaching under the house for the
pump switch. Something hairy runs lightly over my hand, making me
jerk back with fright.

I thump down on the dirt. The ground is a cold shock and
tears loom. I want to howl about those hairy legs brushing against
my hand and how much I hate living with the voice and there's no
point to me being alive now that there's nobody to look after, and
everything is flat and shapeless and frightening and I don't think I
can stand another minute of this endless suburban lawn of myself
rolling out for all eternity, tidied at the edges to resemble normal
lawns but lying poisoned like something nuked, a half-life creature
clinging on until the darkness of space at the end of the universe
swallows us all.

The house next door is only two metres away and now that nice
family have come outside to eat dinner in the garden. They don't know
that on the other side of the fence there sits a middle-aged woman
sitting on the dirt crying about hairy legs.
Huntsman spiders can't hurt
you, they're just doing their job like you should be
. Simon says he wants to
fix the timer on the pump so I won't have to grope around in the dark
any more. He doesn't say if you weren't so forgetful you wouldn't have
to come out here at night, anyway. Or, you don't deserve a pool full of
precious water when seventy-five per cent of the world doesn't even
have a house with clean water to
drink
! He doesn't say it, but I bet he
thinks it, doesn't he? Simon, with his poor dead wife from Tanzania
and his politically active daughter. I bet he's seen real poverty.
Real
misery.

Simon has dropped in twice this week. He filled one of those
little test tubes with pool water to test for chlorine. He's like a doctor
with that pool, examining, running tests, medicating. He asks after my
mother. I ask if he wants a cup of tea. We don't normally sit down for
tea. We talk standing up. When there's a pause he says, 'Well, better
keep going', but then he asks another question about how my books
are going or the peculiar facts in them and he stands on the concrete
path a little longer.

'Guido's left me,' I told him on the second visit. He'd just been
saying, 'Well, better keep going.' Both his feet were already pointing
towards the gate but at my announcement his face swung around,
towards me. His neck went red.

'Do you want a cup of tea?' I asked.

We sat outside at the old wooden table beside the pool. It seemed
more fitting, casual, sitting near his line of work. It would be too
strange and formal inside.
You wouldn't dare, the house looks like a
hurricane hit it.

Well, he didn't
want
to come in. 'No, no, my dirty shoes . . . ' he
said vaguely when I gestured inside. But he seemed to want to know
about Guido. So I told him about Guido's film script and about his
poetry before that and the mosaics and his strategies for getting in
touch with his unconscious . . . I told him quite a lot, actually, probably
more than I ever have in all the time I've known him. I don't know
what came over me. Maybe it was his face, just listening, not saying
anything. 'Thanks for the tea,' he said, 'that's the best cup I've had all
day.' He pressed my arm when he left . 'If there's anything I can do.' His
fingers were warm.

It was only afterwards that I thought, my misery must be nothing
to his pain when his wife died. I should have asked him about that, or
at least referred to it humbly. But I didn't think of it.

It is almost completely dark in the living room now. A street light
comes on outside. I look at my legs in the dark, just shapes without
detail. Better that way. I have wrinkles even on my knees. Guido's olive
skin is smooth, only one small line between his brows. Maybe if I find
the courage to ring him and arrange to meet, I could tell him that I
want things to be different, that I've understood, finally, what he wants,
that we'll look at his script together, I understand how important it is
to him now, that I understand him.
Which you don't, of course, you're
just lying as usual because you're desperate.