Escape

by Anna Fienberg

  As the door closes behind him I run up the hall into the kitchen. I grab the kitchen stools, one, two, three, and hurl them to the floor. No, wood on cork doesn't make a big enough noise. The fury is a wind inside me, screaming, lifting things up, throwing them down, a poltergeist of rage. The wind whips the fire burning in my belly up my chest into my arms, I am a fire roaring into a storm, I will burn everything in my path, what can I destroy, lift , smash with these strong arms? That framed picture of Guido and me at our wedding, smash it on the floor, shards of broken glass screaming, I walk in it, good to feel the pain, fucking bastards fucking pain. I grab the metal pencil case that still holds Clara's coloured felt-tip pens and throw it at the wall. That's good, the crash is loud and the pens spray their rainbows into the air and clatter to the floor, a river of noise, what next? The china bowl that Maria gave me for our wedding, poor Maria who I never saw much of afterwards because fucking Guido was fucking jealous. I smash it to the floor, and the sound of my anger is good and loud, it exists, I exist! The crashing of that china bowl, the splintering into a million blue and white pieces is the sound of my rage. That is who I am, that is who I have become, that sound of rage is real and it is the sound of the voice breaking. Take that! I scream, and grind my heel into a sharp piece. I hurl myself into Guido's room, trailing footprints of blood that will never come out like dogs' paws left in wet cement and I slam open the drawers and take out those filthy papers and tear them into pieces. Take that! I scream and the wind fans and howls and bellows inside me until I'm no longer carnivorous soiled flesh but all glass and air and my head is a balloon floating off out the window into the sky above all earthly gravity-bound things.

  I sink on the kitchen floor like a corpse amid the glittering glass and china. I start to cry.

  Oh, boohoo, is that all you can do?

  'Fuck off !' I yell. 'Aren't you DEAD yet? I'll dance on your grave, I'll drink a whole bottle of whisky and dance all over your dead fucking face! Let me out!'

  I lie on the floor and forget about getting up. The cork is cold on my skin where my dress has risen up. I don't think. My mind is a pure deep lake, unmoving.

  The oven clock says 3.11 when I stand up and go into the bathroom. I run some warm water. I rinse my feet and sit on the edge, picking out the slivers. It takes a long time. Then I put socks on so I don't bleed into my slippers and get the dustpan and broom and start to sweep. I put the stools upright, pick up all the coloured pens and the bent-out-of-shape metal container and the glass from the framed photo and I am not sorry. I am not sorry that I was so destructive and broke that photo of our marriage. It was a miserable marriage and deathly and damaging for both of us and all the time Guido was an illusion I wanted to believe in. Poor Guido. Well, he's gone and the illusion is gone with him and maybe now I can be free.

  I listen for the voice's mocking tone. Come on, you arsehole, I think. I'm ready for you, I'm ready with my brick to smash you. Fuck off , I whisper, but I must have got in first because it hasn't made a sound. In the still cool air of early morning, the cork floor swept, the stools upright, a clean space on the mantelpiece where the photo used to be, there is no room for the voice, as I expand inside, oxygen filling my lungs, resuscitated. Only my feet keep me tethered to the ground, sliding around in my bloody socks.

  Chapter 28

  I wake to see tiny stars break open on my doona. I spread my fingers, watching the sun stripe my skin. There's no warmth in the sun yet. A quick light feeling in my chest lift s like a breeze. Will I run today, like every other day? The breezy feeling is unfamiliar. I stretch my legs wide under the white doona, my toes reaching the corners of the queen-size bed. The sheets are soft under my thighs. My legs scissor open and closed. I can move them where I want, there is space and freedom enough. The breezy feeling is hope, I remember it now from childhood. The time before the boys, or maybe even in the early days after the boys had arrived, when I still hoped they would go away. That I could still have something for myself.

  I won't go running this morning. I stay in bed with the stars of sunshine that eventually flatten out into long honey-coloured lines drawn over the doona. I get up to pee and make a cup of English breakfast tea. I make it with lots of milk and place two digestive biscuits on the saucer. There you are, I say aloud, you can have a treat.

  I go back to bed with my tea and watch the mulberry tree split the sunlight outside my window. As the breeze lift s leaves stir, shooting up a spray of gold over the wardrobe, the carpet, the bookshelves. I watch, absorbed. Beyond the tree, the pool winks and shines. I feel the sudden warmth of gratitude, of affection for that quenching body of water, for this house beaming with morning sun, for my parents who found it. 'We've done our best,' they said. A beautiful best, I think, with that automatic generosity of theirs, natural as breathing. I drink my tea, dunk the rough biscuit smooth and let it melt on my tongue. The flavour breaks out in my mouth like an explosion. Splinters of sunlight dance. When you get to sixty, Lena says, you'll only have half your tastebuds left . Well, enjoy them while you can, I say. There's tea and digestive biscuits and morning sun and the breeze and hope.

  Ciao Mamma,

  Wait till I tell you about the book club! The women arrived all together like an elegant army – at 4 o'clock, after their siesta – in high heels and silk scarves, even though they've just come to hang out at their friend's place! So much time is recquired in front of the mirror here – it's expected, obligatory even. Shoes a particular shade of brown to match the fleck in a woolen skirt, a necklace, the clasp earings, the eyeshadow. How do they do their scarves in that miraculous knot that looks barely tied but never falls out of place? At home I used to run up the shops in my daggy old tracksuit pyjamas, hair unbrushed. I did that just once here and Lucia caught me at the door with an expression of horror on her face. 'Ma non si fa cosi!' – One should not do like this!

  I made the caffé and brought out the torta di mela soon after the ladies arrived. Nerve-raking. Had to remember to use the formal 'lei' while hunting for the gender of nouns like tablecloth and napkin, while concentrating on not slopping the coffee in those tiny little cups of espresso. I cut the cake and gave everyone a plate and watched them through my hair. For at least an hour no one even picked up their fork they were so busy talking about the book! The cake didn't look right. It wasn't golden and moist like Lucia's. The apple slices poking out on top seemed soggy, not caramelised. What if it isn't cooked inside, I kept thinking. Why don't they just bloody well eat it? I was tempted to start mine but thought maybe it wasn't very polite.

  Then I noticed their voices were getting louder. The book lay on the coffee table and I picked it up. It was called L'Arte della Gioia – dark red cover, black and white photo of the author, Goliarda Sapienza. She's looking right at you, like Mantegna's Christ, but there's just her face and shoulders, piercing black eyes, a cigarette in her hand. I started to flip through the book and came to the photos of her at the back. They start with her as a child and finish with her at seventy, sitting on the floor, a chair knocked over, her legs straight out in front of her, hands upturned as if to say, that's me, that's all I can do, take it or leave it. I was shocked. I've never seen a picture of an old person like that. A WOMAN – the age of all the women in Lucia's living room, with its polite furniture and upright chairs. I looked at Goliarda then I looked at the women. So different – like comparing an elephant with a fish. And yet in the photo Goliarda has high heels on those sprawled legs, and you can spot the sheen of silk stockings. Amazing.

  A lady sitting near me was pointing her finger at the photo on the cover. Her finger was shaking. Certain words shot out at me clear as gunfire – 'assassina' and 'lesbica, egoista, morali'. Other women were nodding their heads.

  I put the book back down on the table. Lucia was trying to remonstrate with the women but she couldn't get a word in. I think it was Lucia who'd suggested it for the book club – I remember her saying she couldn't stop reading it one night and didn't turn the light out t
il dawn. Then she leant over to me and said 'the book wasn't published for thirty years – it was too shocking. A critic swore that as long as he was alive he'd never allow it to be published.' She shrugged. 'But the heroine, Modesta, was a partigiana, you know, a member of the underground fighting the Nazis.' No one was listening. She smiled resinedly around the room and that's when she took a bite of the cake. I watched her chew. She took a while. When she'd swallowed what was in her mouth she looked over at me and winked. 'Buono!' Thank christ.

  I was so busy checking out the effect of the cake I didn't notice the ladies had fallen silent. They were all looking at the woman with white hair opposite me. She sat straight-backed with the book in her hands. I realised that all the others dyed their hair in various shades from brown to blonde. This woman wore her hair short but layered to look naturally mussed, elegantly casual. Long thin face, high cheek bones. Aristocratic. Just bare skin and good bones, not much make-up. She must have once been a brunette because her brows are still dark, almost severe. And now she clutches the book tight in one hand and leans on the arm of the chair. She's using it to support herself, she's standing up. Her neck is all red. There's something about her face that pulls you in. I know what it is, her eyes are like Goliarda's, unafraid. You don't often see that in women. Gli occhi senza paura – eyes without fear.

  She opens the book and starts to read. She is riveting. Her voice is strong clear deep. She speaks slowly as if every word is heavy and important as gold and she has to lift each nugget with her full weight, keeping her back straight. It was like a spell she was casting and you could have heard a pin drop in the room and I had that feeling again that I get sometimes in the piazza, of being connected, of flying out of myself into the real world and being strung along a chain with all the other people and paintings and churches and pigeons roosting in the eaves and while she read the feeling kept spreading out and I just wanted her to keep speaking so I could keep feeling. It was frustrating too because I couldn't understand everything and I wanted to understand more than any other time since I've been here and I got hung up on that, but then somehow, I let go, ping! and I drift ed away, my mind just sort of lying there, floating on its back, trusting.

  She closed the book, saying something about how one can't have gioia – joy – without freedom, or freedom without possession of self. 'Modesta was a woman in complete possession of her self. Of her emotions and her body. She took orders from no one.' The woman stopped for a second and looked around the room. 'Can any of you say that?' She looked at each of the ladies, right into their eyes. She almost spat at the pointing woman, who looked down at the floor, smoothing the pleats on her skirt. But nothing would placate the standing woman. The more she spoke, the louder and angrier she got. Tears welled in her eyes but when Lucia touched her hand she brushed it angrily away. Then suddenly she put the book in her bag and marched out without even saying goodbye.

  'But that was my book!' Lucia said.

  'Pazienza,' said the pointing woman. 'Sophia was always difficult.'

  The women were quiet, studying their knees, but they soon started talking again and hoeing into the cake and wanting more coffee. They seemed to like the cake but I kept looking at Sophia's plate which was left untouched. Somehow I wished more than anything that she had tasted hers.

  I switch off the computer and get back into bed. I'm allowed! I listen to something classical on the radio, Puccini perhaps, and think about Clara. Her life is unfolding on the other side of the planet. She is far away but I feel connected to her. I'm not lonely any more in the spot inside where Clara lives. I can imagine her handing out coffee in Lucia's living room. Clara could work those notes up into a story, call it The Book Club. Perhaps I'll suggest that. Or maybe I'll just listen. I hope I can do that.

  Hope – it's not the same thing as illusion, is it? Hope is knowing where you are but imagining where you'd like to be. More like a goal than an expectation. You can't keep your feet on the ground when you're caught up in illusion. You can't keep possession of yourself.

  My mind travels towards Danny. I don't flinch. His face hovers above the white doona, wide blue eyes, bad teeth, anxious smile. But a smile. He's alive, a head waiter at one of the top hotels in Sydney. He wears a black bow tie and a smart black waistcoat. His teeth are stained but at least he has them all. He has to suffer bad-mannered, demanding customers like Jonny, but there are probably others who acknowledge his skill and dedication. He might enjoy the orderly bookings at the hotel and punctual people arriving and the multitude of gleaming clean surfaces, the shiny cutlery. He might make plans. Have hope. He's not lying under an old overcoat somewhere, murdered by a bad decision.

  When my tea is finished I find my notebook and pen on the bedside table. I'm going to make a plan of my own. Just a small one, for the next month. I will be lenient but firm, and not have Great Expectations. This fortnight, I write, I will type up Jonny Love's interview and finish him. I cross out 'finish him'. I won't do that – I won't tell about his wandering sock or his virulent misogyny or the withering way he treats people with less power than him or his preoccupation with his diet or his inability to hear anyone who lives outside the Love cone of silence. I won't write the furious speech I delivered to the hand basin in the hotel toilet. I'll stick to the subject – Magic and Jonny Love. I'll describe the Light from Nowhere, an exquisite illusion which I consider to embody the essence of magic. I'll do my best to convey the ambitious creativity of the show, which succeeded in imitating the cycle of life itself: the dark 'nowhere' before life, the birth of light, the blossoming of wonder, the mortal struggle against constraint and conformity culminating in the celebration of nature's wild miracles. It really was a brilliant piece of art, and a person could be forgiven, perhaps, for entertaining the illusion that the mind behind it must be as beautiful and wise as its product. Yes, Forgiven.

  Dearest Mum,

  You know what? I never had a chance.

  Turns out Roberto had a fiancée called Amanda who came from Australia. Broome, to be exact. She left him late last year and went home. Now I know why he wanted me, why he sort my company – he even tearfully explained it to me – I have the same accent as the beloved Amanda, come from the same country, even have red hair like her. No wonder he pounced on me. He was still in love, still mourning. Jesus it hurts. He never even saw me. He was only interested in the bits that made me like Amanda. Feel so betrayed, so invisible. After he told me he said, 'Why don't we make love?' He was completely bewildered when I said no. 'But it will make you feel better, we are still friends, no?'

  I let him take me home on his vespa. I couldn't face the bus. Marisa says it's good to have found out now, much better to know the truth now than months or years down the track and suddenly you're looking at someone completely different than the person you thought you knew. It's true, everyone pretends at first to be the person they think the other would like. For instance, I pretended I was fascinated by the Australian outback. I remember the story I made up about our family always going camping out in the wild. Makes me laugh now – dad, with all that insect life crawling into the tent! Can you imagine? He'd have had a heart attack. Un infarto!

  love from your sad Clara, x

  Oh, darling one. I wish I could reach my arms across the world to hug you. My dearest love. Remember, Clara, even if he is gone, you still have your feelings – look at you, you can feel love! You can turn inside out with it. And you'll feel it again. He hasn't taken it away with him – he hasn't taken your self. You can write about the russet hills, live inside them. You still have you and your beautiful words and your love. Think of Goliarda.

  Hi Mum,

  This morning I went down to the pannetteria and the alimentari, bought some stracchino and una ciabatt a which Lucia and I will have for lunch. The stracchino here is delicious, especially when eaten fresh. I remember how it used to stink out the fridge at home, and you said it smelled like sweaty feet. The trick is to eat it straight away. Fresher the better.


  Food is a great comfort isn't it. Roberto and I have broken up. Oh well, it will be a relief to stop doing all that reserch on outback Australia – I never want to go to Broome in my whole life – or use one! I must have put on 3 kilos this week. Lucia has been great – she suggested I go away for the weekend with Marisa, have a change of scene, so that's what we're going to do. We'll go to Pisa, and then she'll go up to check on her aunt.

  I see Roberto at school, which is awkward. He's always coming up to me after lessons, trying to talk to me. It's too painful to look at him. When the phone rings I tell him I'm busy cooking or cleaning or studying my verbi irregolari. He says I can do that with him. I tell him I'll ring back but I never do.

  I've decided I'm going to try to read L'Arte della Gioia – a book in Italian! It will take the whole year, but if I keep a dictionary with me it will be a rewarding project. Lucia agrees, says she's going to buy me my own copy so I can write words and their translation inside. She's helped me a lot with dad's poems too – sometimes I can't make out his writing, that loopy old-fashioned style he has, but Lucia must have been brought up with a similar style, because she reads it easily. There's one page where just a name is repeated over and over, written in different styles, like a kid practising his signature – Gianni Leone. That's his friend – the one who put the poems to music. But I think all the poems are Dad's because they have a similar tone and style. Where is he by the way? I don't like to ask you about him, but when he doesn't reply I wonder.

  At the pannetteria just now I saw the signora Sophia – you know, from the Book Club. Well, Sophia – the white-haired lady – had a hat on so I didn't recognise her at first. She was all rapped up with a scarf too, even though today it must be at least twenty-five degrees. 'Clara!' she called. It was so nice to hear my name. I went straight to her, about to take her hand but she said, 'Oh don't get too close, I think I'm getting the influenza. My bones ache.' She spoke to me in perfect English! It was such a shock, there was even a northern English accent. She laughed at my surprise and for a second she looked so much younger, like a cheeky kid. She said that actually she'd lived in England for most of her childhood, moving here when she was twelve. We stood there at the counter, holding our ciabatt e and cheese and salame all rapped in those imaculate packages and I found I was telling her about my decision to read L'Arte della Gioia and about Roberto and how awful it was to be deceived and how hard it is to not be seen by the person you love, to be just a filler-in for someone else. It was such a relief to speak in English and be understood by a person who was so much a part of this strange italian world but who could also cross over and stand where I was. Such a strange sensation.