Escape (46 page)

'For god's sake just go round and see the guy,' advises Doreen.
'Why is it always life and death with you?'

'I don't know, it's just the way I am.'

'You always care so much what other people think. Look, at our
age, does it really matter if you make a fool of yourself? There are more
important things, surely! I always sleep well because if anything is
worrying me I decide to think about something else when I get into
bed. That's what you should do. You just have to decide.'

I look at Doreen with wonder. We are sitting at an outdoor
restaurant nestling in the heart of a nursery. Wood carvings and palm
trees and little bridges over streams weave a naturalistic atmosphere, a
manageable jungle. There is the faint sound of trickling water, Balinese
string music. A slight drizzle has begun, making me glad we're seated
near one of those outside kerosene heaters. Such a cosy invention.

Rita and Lena meet us at the table. 'What are you talking about?
Sleeping?' asks Rita before she's even sat down. 'I have such trouble
lately, waking up in the middle of the night wanting to pee, then
worrying about all the things I didn't do that day and whether I'll be
alone all my life, and what if my children have to look after me, which
I wouldn't want, and unstoppable climate change, and should I just
go grey or maybe bleach first
then
go light brown or dark blond? I
know some things are more important than others but at three in the
morning everything just strings along one after the other—'

'Did you know,' says Lena, 'that every hour you sleep less than the
required eight shortens your life by a year?'

Rita gives an angry snort. 'Shit, that's a great thing to tell
insomniacs – you'll turn us all into hysterectomies.'

'Hysterics?' suggests Doreen.

'No, that word, meaning worrying too much about your health.'

'Hypochondriacs!' I say, triumphant.

'Yes!' cries Rita. 'God, lately I take so long trying to find the right
word, I just go for the nearest thing. Do you think I'm going mad? My
mind is so full of carbon emissions and percentages, it's hard to see
anything else. Thanks by the way for those last pages, Rachel, they
were great.'

'I think we should just go with it,' I say cautiously. 'The other day
when I was at the chemist's I asked where they kept their daughters –
instead of dental floss! It just slipped out, but everyone laughed, so I
did too.'

'Yeah, I'm for anything that makes the shopping more fun,' says
Doreen.

'But what about this sleeping thing?' Rita interrupts. 'I remember
my mother telling me no one ever died from losing a night's sleep and
that used to comfort me.' She turns to Lena with a cross frown. 'And
now you're telling me it's not true.'

'Well, why don't you just masturbate?' says Lena. 'Works for me
every time, have you tried that?'

She looks up to see the waiter at the table, about to pour the wine.
His cheeks redden, and he gives a tentative grin.

Doreen grins back at him. 'Does it work for you?' She kindly
doesn't wait for an answer. 'Let's have some wine. Lovely! You're
talking nonsense, anyway Lena, because as soon as you get a good
night's sleep, your body makes up for those lost hours. You forgot that
bit. Hey, Rachel, my Saraah wants to talk to you about something.
She's going to give you a ring.'

'Oh good, what is it? Is she okay?'

'Fine, just something she wants to ask you. She's so happy in
this course she's started, did I tell you? Design, at Sydney TAFE. Her
interests have broadened at last from underwear to the clothes you
put on
top
. She has to study art, too, and furniture design, sculpture.
I'm so glad she's found something she likes, that will give her a
future
,
too, I hope . . . You know, I think of all those years I slaved for her to
get to uni, paying for extra maths tuition, science. And she just wanted
to hang around in her underwear and be admired!'

'You sound like your mother,' says Lena.

'You've never met my mother.' Doreen takes a sip of wine. 'You
do wonder, though, whether feminism has changed things much. At
least, as much as we'd hoped.'

'Oh, that's ridiculous, of course it has,' sniff s Lena. 'You're just
taking these enormous changes for granted. Back then we had to do
away with the whole sex bunny routine—'

'Well, I don't know, look at this hairless obsession now,' says Rita.
'The other day I discovered that my daughter shaves her pubic hair, as
well as her legs!'

Lena laughed. 'It's not only women who do that – in Ancient
Egypt priests used to pluck every hair on their body, including their
eyelashes!'

Really, I think as I tuck into my duck with noodles, it's just like
the early days, talking over each other, saying what we feel, being
who we are. I tell them about Jonny and his sock and how I walked
away instead of surrendering and Lena cries 'Good for you!' and they
all toast me very loudly as if I'd just got married or won the lottery.
Then Doreen says there's a new book out called
Why Do I Have to Get
Married, I Did Nothing Wrong!
and Rita chokes on her salmon.

Funny, I always thought Italy would be about men,
wrote Clara,
but
seems in a way it's more about women
. I look around at my friends and
smile.
Or about the woman I am.
Amazing that Clara is learning such
things, so young.

Hi Mum,

I want to ask you something. Well, before I do, I'll have to tell you
about my latest visit to Sophia. The doctor's been to see her and given her
antibiotics and she's definitely on the mend. I brought bread and milk
and a nice pasticcio from the rosticceria to heat up for her lunch. She was
still in bed when I arrived but she looked much better. She asked me into
her room because it was warmer in there and we sat talking for a bit. On
the bed there were papers strewn, and a couple of magazines. There were
also some exercise books, old-looking, faded, a bit dog-eared. She saw me
looking at them and she stacked them up and put the newspapers over
them. She said she'd get dressed now so I left the room and waited for her
in the living room. While I waited I looked around at her paintings, and a
photo on the mantelpiece – there was a pale, freckled, brown-haired boy,
standing in a sunny garden. He was holding a camelia and smiling into the
camera. 'Who is this?' I ask when she comes into the room.

'My son. He lives in England.' Her chin trembles and she purses her
lips to stop it. 'He's such a good boy. Almost too good. I worry about him.
See that over there, framed in black – that's his degree. See all the letters
after his name? He became a doctor, then a psychiatrist. I'm sure he's a
good one, but dio mio, he's so ernest, oh he's exhausting, always trying to
work things out, as if life is a puzzle and you just have to find the pieces
and put them together to get the whole picture. But everyone's pieces are
different, everyone's picture, even if you are from the same family. He's been
trying for so long to put the pieces together. Trying far too long. But you
can't tell him.'

Why does he live in England?

He grew up there

What?

Oh it's difficult to explain. I cannot

What's his name, your son in England?

James Heartacher.

This is what I wanted to ask you, mum. Isn't there a person that
writes to Dad called James Heartacher? Didn't you mention it at my last
supper?

'Hi, Rachel, is it too early, were you asleep?'

'No, well a bit—'

'Like a bit pregnant? Sorry, it's what Mum always says, boring isn't
it. Shall I ring back later? It's just, I couldn't wait.'

Saraah. She's always been so direct. Probably due to her mother
being a nurse. There's the mother at fault again. But I like her directness,
always have.

'No, I'm sitting up now. It's so good to hear from you, Saraah. How
are you? Oh god,
you're
not a bit . . .?'

'No, not a chance! I've been good at that since I was fifteen. No,
what I wanted was to invite you to my twenty-first birthday.'

'Oh Saraah, how lovely, of course – why, I'd love to!'

'But there's a catch. Will you be the magician at my party?'

'Pardon?'

'Do a magic act. You know, maybe an escape with those fab
handcuffs of yours or any new tricks you have. Just a short spot, but
exotic, you know?'

'But Saraah, it's your twenty-first, not your ninth birthday. Why
would you want—'

'Because it's cool. And different. Especially a
woman
doing it.
And Rachel, you were a big part of my childhood. Remember Clara's
chain escape in Year 6? I was so jealous, I always thought she was so
lucky—'

'Clara would beg to disagree!'

'Oh, we take for granted what we've always had. That's what Greg
says, my boyfriend. I guess that's why he keeps threatening to leave,
make me see what it's like without him. He asked me to marry him,
you know. As if! I mean, I'm only twenty-one! He wanted to get
engaged at my party, like a double celebration. You know, get the key
and tie the knot—'

'Instead, you want an escape act.'

'Well, yeah, that's right. Oh, I don't know, but what I
do
know is
that you made me feel anything was possible when you did magic. You
were, like, my role model.'

'Even when I tied myself to the birdcage?'

'Oh, that was so funny, yeah, even then, because it was like a
lightning strike, or, I don't know, a giraffe appearing in the middle of
suburbia. You know, so unexpected. And I knew you'd rescue yourself
somehow, anyway. You always did. Come on, I want to give my friends
a thrill. A real live magician!'

'You're on. And Saraah? Thanks for the vote of confidence. I can't
tell you how much it means.'

After I put the phone down I slither back under the doona. I close
my eyes but stars are zinging under my lids. My heart is racing. It's just
a party, I tell myself. But my toes curl under the sheets. A
role
model.

I fling out of bed and dance towards the shower. I want to go out,
share this wonderful feeling. I'm going to be the magician, not the
assistant. Even just for a day. Like Clara, maybe I can reinvent myself,
maybe it's not too late. As the water gushes down my face I try to
think about reinventing and magic and Saraah, and not about James
Heartacher. I want the water to wash him away.

Ever since I read that email of Clara's, I've haven't slept well.
My daughter's stories are like a gripping serial that started out as
something very far away and now have come much too close. There's
a stab of dread every time I think of that name, Heartacher. It's like
having perpetual indigestion, something I'm trying to swallow that
keeps coming up. I told Clara yes, there was someone with that name
writing to her dad. I moved on quickly then, telling her about her nan
and my book – I tried to write about normal life. I'm trying Doreen's
method, just ignoring it, thinking of other things. But it isn't working.
How do you turn your mind off as if it's a tap? Drip, drip,
flood
?

Yesterday I passed the pool shop and went in to buy chlorine. I saw
the young man with the swearing problem. He was outside unloading
heavy containers of chemicals from a van. 'You were looking for that
Simon guy, right?' he said, stopping to lean against the side. 'Well, he
rang in sick this morning. Says he's got the flu. Won't be in for a couple
of days.'

I thanked him and came home. That will be a good reason to drop
in tomorrow. 'I heard you were sick,' I can say. 'Just wanted to see if
there's anything I can do. If I can be useful.'

Mum, just writing this now I can feel the hair standing up on the back of
my neck. I went to visit Sophia this morning and she was in her nightie, in
bed. She's still got a nasty cough. I didn't want her to get up and dressed
because of me so I asked if I could just sit on her bed and chat. She didn't
seem to mind – she seemed happy. I went to make coffee and that's when
I saw this photo. I don't know why I hadn't seen it before. It was on top of
the bookshelf, a silver-framed photo of a boy around 12 or 13, standing
with a man who looks like his father. The man was dressed in hunting
gear, a feathered cap on his head, one hand on the boy's shoulder and a
dead rabbit dangling from the other. A gun was leaning against the white
stone wall at their backs. But it was the boy more than anything that
stopped my heart. Big dark eyes, armond-shaped, staring straight at the
camera. Defiant. A sulky half grin showing a chipped front tooth, dark
brows, the left raised in mock supiriority. It was as if the photo had been
taken just after an argument. The father had a similar expression, slightly
weary.

Sophia came to stand behind me then. I jumped! She picked up the
photo and made a kind of tsk! tsk! noise with her tongue.

Mum, imagine Dad at thirteen. Try. That photo was him. Well, the
spitting image of him. I felt so sure. It twisted my guts. My heart literally
stopped for a second. I looked at Sophia. I looked at the boy in the photo.
He's got her eyes.

Who's that I asked, pointing to the boy. But I already knew.

My son, she said.

What's his name?

Gianni. She started to cough again, and her eyes swam with tears.

I don't think I'll go to see Simon today. I feel too shaky just now. My
head is too full.

Years ago Clara said she wanted to go to Italy to see where her
father grew up. Perhaps she needed to make the place real for herself. I
can understand that. Guido didn't paint his childhood for her the way
some fathers do, recounting small boyhood incidents while she sat
on his knee. I remember telling Clara when she was two that Guido
seemed to have flown down from another planet – not a trace of
family but such exotic suits. He'd even packed a velvet smoking jacket!
So perhaps it was my fault she'd believed that under those cream silk
shirts and Italian shoes her father was a god, like Zeus, who came from
gold-etched Disney clouds. Sometimes, at night, she'd creep up from
behind and grab him, hopefully in the act of transforming. She was
convinced those brownish stains on his fingers were not tobacco at all,
but scorch marks from his fiery travel through space.

I always thought Clara might have an empty space inside her
where her father should be. Or maybe that was me. It's so hard to tell.
I'm not good at boundaries, either. All I know is, I tried to fill in those
gaps with me, but it wasn't enough.

Dearest Clara,

It must be so strange for you, having these feelings. All I can say is, I
share your confusion. I don't know if it's right to say this to you but I've
always felt sad that Dad didn't talk more to you about his childhood,
about himself. He is a difficult person to know, but I suppose that's just
his way. It must have been very painful for him, with his mother dying
so young. Hard to talk about. He was only six, remember. It probably
marked his whole life. But that's made it hard for you, too.

I'm sending you hugs and I think of you always,
your loving mamma x

Hi mum - yes, I know Dad's mother died when he was six. It was a terrible
tragedy. I know that, and I always thought that was why he is the way he
is. I haven't written to him about this. I know it might hurt him, bring up
old woonds. And these are only my own weird wonderings. I'm just telling
you about all this because I figure you're not so emotionally involved –
I mean with this side of the world.

I asked Lucia about the photo – I couldn't help it – surely you can
see why!? I didn't want to be nosy, I said, but I had such an urge to
know more about the boy. Lucia knew the photo I meant, with the man
and the rabbit and the gun. All she could tell me was that yes, it was
her son, but Sophia had never talked about her family very much. 'It's
strange,' said Lucia, 'I would count Sophia as one of my best friends,
but we don't talk very intimately as most women do. Sophia likes to
talk more about ideas and philosophy – she seems to get sustenance
from that the way other people receive warmth from a hug or an
intimate confession.'

I asked if the son from Australia keeps in touch with his mother but
Lucia said no, not that she's aware of. There was some trouble in Rome
when he left Italy, something to do with the Red Brigade but Sophia only
mentioned it once, years ago. 'From what I remember,' she said, 'it didn't
sound as if the son – Gianni – was politically involved. But any publicity
about it wouldn't have looked good for the father's career so he helped
bundle Gianni out of the country.'

I wondered aloud about why, as the mother, Sophia wouldn't have
tried to contact him, or why he didn't return after it all died down, or what
must be wrong between them for all these years of silence to have gone on,
or maybe Gianni isn't alive any longer – but Lucia just raised her hands
and said, 'Families!' She had never liked to pry – 'You don't ask people
about things that cause hurt, do you,' she said. And she looked at me
reprovingly, so I stopped asking anything more.

But what do you think, mum? At least the other brother is still
around, even if he does live in England. Lucia says he rings once a week,
so that's something. Now I'm going to go and study my verbi irregolari . . .
seems everything in this life lately is irregular. You can't even count on
verbs any more.

But you should have seen that photo, mum.

Tell me what you THINK!

love, Clara x