Escape

by Anna Fienberg

  I had come into the city to do a reconnaissance of the Capitol Theatre because the following Monday I would be taking my class for their annual excursion. When you're about to enter a new environment, I've found it's best to rehearse it first, particularly when the happiness of thirty children is in your hands. I wanted to know exactly where the bus would stop, how long it would take to walk there, the location of the traffic lights, and the layout of the theatre.

  I had been teaching at Wanganella Public School for three and a half years, and this year we third grade teachers were told that we could each choose our own school excursion. The weight of the decision was quite crushing. I imagined all the children coming home to their parents – that is, providing I didn't lose any of them – complaining that their day out with me was the worst, most tedious excursion they'd ever been on. Their little faces would be pale with disappointment and the realisation that they would never get to have a grade three excursion – or this day – ever again.

  To be honest, the whole business of teaching, the responsibility of all those young minds, was exhausting. Sometimes I'd stand outside myself and look on, wondering what on earth that woman thought she was doing.

  Adult life seemed to be largely a mixture of boredom and terror. I'd gaze wistfully at the children playing their make-believe games, thinking the best part of being a child was that you were allowed to make yourself up. No one said 'don't be silly' or 'oh dear, you seem to have a mental problem' when you were four and being a mermaid, your legs tucked cunningly together into one limb of your mother's green wool tights.

  In kindergarten I'd wanted to grow mermaid tresses, but my mother said it wasn't practical – my hair was thick and untameable and she just didn't have time to comb it constantly. 'I'll do it,' I'd said. And I did. At eight it was long enough to plait and I learnt how to do a beehive and a bun and a French roll. Sometimes my mother and I played hairdressers in the kitchen and she let me massage her head and rearrange her hair. She had vibrant hair, I told her and really it was a crying shame that she didn't show it off more. She'd giggled; she liked 'vibrant', I could tell.

  But then my father stopped being a policeman and started bringing home the orphan children instead. This meant no one could be bothered to talk for even five minutes any more about French rolls or beehives. There were real live crying shames needing attention in our kitchen.

  Shame seemed to have attended most decisions in my life. It was like an unwanted guest who lingered too long. Still, when you were a teacher of grade three, decisions had to be made, and quickly. Eventually the possibilities for excursions were narrowed down to three – the zoo (fresh air and educational), volleyball on the beach (cheap and fun) or hiring bikes at Centennial Park, with a picnic. But what if it rained? And then I thought of myself at their age, my love of mermaid glitter and harem pants and Jean and Dean in The Magic Show.

  There had been notices in the theatre section of the newspaper for a couple of months about the Magic Masters coming to Sydney. From the ancient world the Magic Masters will bring mesmerising illusions combined with spectacular lighting effects guaranteed to keep audiences on the edge of their seats! There would be the Table of Death, the Domino Card Trick, Mysterious Fountain, the Slicer, Escape from the Straitjacket. I had fantasised about going myself – booking a ticket and maybe having a drink first at the fancy bar pictured in the paper – but knew it wouldn't happen in real life. I don't make plans like that just for me.

  Tentatively I brought up the possibility of the Magic Masters with my class, and they went wild. Literally! Jimmy Manson leapt up on his chair and danced, while Sam, who nowadays would be classified as having attention deficit disorder, ran around the room five times. I didn't stop him. His enthusiasm was life-giving. I was so pleased I could have run around with him. That's the lovely thing about children, they never behave differently from how they feel just to be polite. You always know where you are.

  It took a while to persuade the principal, because it was an expensive idea. But the theatre gave special concessions to schools, and the enthusiasm of the children lent me confidence. It wasn't a bit like asking for something for myself.

  I'd noticed that the Magic Masters' publicity blurb emphasised the art of escape. We hadn't touched on this branch of magic, but when I brought the newspaper clipping into school, the children seemed interested. They wanted to see pictures of the Slicer – would it be an enormous carving knife or a rotating spoked wheel coming at you like in a James Bond film? The idea of an escape from a straitjacket caused an awed silence. Jimmy Manson said his great-uncle had spent twenty years in one. As I read, the magic shows of my childhood slipped into my dreams. It was so tempting to fall gently into the tide, the water closing above me. But I knew the children would get so much more out of the day if they understood some of the mechanics behind the magic. And that meant that I had to. I was determined to stay conscious. This was supposed to be an educational excursion, after all.

  Once I started reading, it was easy to go on. I read late into the night. The idea of a person actually choosing to confront death is fascinating when you think about it, because everyone else seems to be doing their best to avoid it. The men I read about couldn't wait to hurl themselves off bridges, hang by chains from cliffs, be buried alive.

  Naturally I didn't talk about this with the children – mainly I concentrated on the principle of creating slack, strategies of misdirection, picklocks, shims and keys. The children did a project on an escape artist of their choice, and Bill Cooper wrapped himself up in rope in the same configuration as Houdini, working his way out of it in less than five minutes. Everyone was so excited, and when the principal saw how Bill had written it all up, with diagrams and photographs on a cardboard poster, he gave him a gold merit card to take home.

  I once told Clara how much my students seemed to enjoy studying magic with me and she said that's because they got to go home afterwards.

  That Saturday, after the music and the cafe, I'd almost arrived at the theatre before I realised I hadn't looked once where I was going. The whole point of this rehearsal had been missed. Idiot, said the voice, you can't stay conscious for five minutes. I trudged on, looking at my watch, trying to work out what time the bus had dropped me. I couldn't remember. At the cafe, time had stood still.

  How trite you are, said the voice. Trite but true. I hadn't even breathed while I'd watched that man. Afterwards, as I'd marched along, I'd had to gasp for oxygen as you do when you come up from underwater.

  The walls of the theatre were hung with large gold mirrors and velvet curtains. Just stepping inside this luxurious building would be a startling experience for the children of Wanganella Public. It should have been for me. It was like entering a palace. But I didn't deserve to be there. I felt flat, defeated by the voice.

  Dutifully I looked at the foyer and found the ticket box and the girls' and boys' toilets. I went up and down the marble stairs, entering the theatre by Door 2. The tiered seats rose in an endless semicircle around the stage. Greek statues and painted columns and medieval cupolas climbed toward the ceiling. Downstairs there was a glass case on the wall which, instead of a fire hydrant, enclosed a real straitjacket worn by an Insane Person in 1901. It looked menacing, like a warning. Billy Cooper will love this, I thought. But I still felt as if I were walking alongside myself. And then I saw the colour poster announcing the Magic Masters.

  The poster was life-size. I was staring into the eyes of the beautiful young man. I could feel the hair prickling on the back of my neck. My mouth went dry. It was him. The man from the cafe. His elegant hands, the ones I'd seen playing with sugar packets, rested on an upright sword. My breath ballooned in my chest. He was looking straight out of the picture, his Ancient Egyptian eyes following me. The other 'master' in the poster was the older man from the cafe.

  I couldn't believe it. I must have stood staring at the beautiful man for ten minutes, but I don't really know how long. Here, without fear of being caught, I cou
ld gaze upon him as if he were a magnificent landscape – a sunrise over a lake, dusk with black swans. One eyebrow was slightly raised, quizzical, as if he were sharing a joke but standing apart. His lips were generous, softening the line of his jaw. The voice was silenced in the face of perfection.

  I wanted to take him home. Quickly I went to the ticket box and asked if there were posters available. I explained I was bringing my class on Monday and we could hang the beautiful man on our wall. The girl at the ticket box laughed. I hadn't meant to say the beautiful bit, but she waved my fluster away, saying she knew exactly what I meant and she'd seen the show seven times and she didn't even dig magic that much. Just him, she said, Guido Leopardi. She loitered over his name as if she had a chocolate in her mouth and wanted to make it last. I felt such a spurt of anguish – not envy really, because I knew it would be impossible, a man like him – but the thought of all the other women he must have known was somehow agonising.

  The girl gave me two posters: one for myself and one for the classroom. She was really very kind. I wanted to ask her if she'd actually talked to him, but I didn't. I just thanked her and took the posters.

  *

  My heart was pounding as I burst out into the city streets. What if I went back to the cafe? I was thirsty – what was wrong with sitting alone in a cafe? I'd never done it but I had a book in my bag – Gerard Manley Hopkins' Poems, my favourite. You wouldn't look so strange or incomplete if you had a book at the table, would you? And then, if our eyes met, he might smile again, come over, drink something with me . . .

  I remembered how he'd leant against the wall, pursuing his own thoughts in company. It had been disturbing, but alluring too, the way he'd placed his own thoughts first, as if they were important. That made you feel he was important. And if a man like that chooses you, you've won a real prize.

  As I marched along I realised that I wasn't walking alongside myself any more. I was alive inside my skin. My legs felt strong and supple as they scissored through the crowd. A man hugging a heavy package looked over the top of it and smiled.

  Then I must have taken a wrong turning because I looked up and the narrow alley ahead was not familiar. Garbage was piled against a doorway. Your concentration better improve when you bring the children, the voice sneered. The smell of stale wine was strong. It gathered in the dark shady corners, brewing in the cracks of the footpath. I felt a familiar chill. This alley looked like the one where my father had had his accident. You could die in a place like this.

  When I came out on the main street, I had no idea whether to turn right or left .

  You're hopeless, said the voice, you've got the orienteering instincts of a lemming.

  Having no sense of direction is like being permanently stuck in a game of Blind Man's Bluff. My mother used to ask me which way we should go and whatever I said, she'd take the opposite route. It was usually the correct one. I did the same now and went left. Sure enough, after a few metres I recognised the shop selling bicycles. Best Bikes. The steel handlebars were glinting through the glass.

  Only two more blocks and I'd be at the cafe.

  No, no, no, said the voice. My steps grew slower. A dullness crept up my legs. What the hell did I think I was doing, going to this cafe? How ridiculous would I look, walking in there as if I expected something, as if this beautiful man with the brilliant future would want to talk to me?

  I could see the cafe now. No music. I stopped at the camping shop. There were two-man tents and those little gas stoves. In the glass I saw how my white Indian shirt flowed down from my breasts. I fingered the silver necklace around my neck, and the silver hoops in my ears flashed in the sunlight. How lucky I'd washed my hair that morning. It curled optimistically around my face.

  Well, I'm female at least, I told the window, and therefore I must possess all the necessary basic equipment. I smiled at myself in a winning way and walked right into the cafe before the voice could say a thing.

  He wasn't there. He'd gone. I looked at the table in the corner where he'd sat. Wiped clean. Not even a speck of ash remaining. It was as if he'd never existed. Dream or memory? Whatever – it was typical. Such a wave of tiredness swept over me, I could hardly stand.

  'Yez, signorina, what would you like?'

  The singing waiter looked at me expectantly. He seemed to think it was normal for a single person to be standing around in a cafe. So I sat down in the beautiful man's chair and ordered an iced coffee.

  'With cream?'

  I could drink ten now, with extra cream in all of them, and fail to be concerned about my hips. There was no one to notice, so why should I care? My legs had felt so young and powerful striding down the streets. Now they felt like those beanbags that everyone chucked around their living rooms instead of chairs.

  I got out my book of poems and riffled through. 'As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame . . .' Even glorious Hopkins failed to lift me. There were my self-important little red comments in the corners. 'You're defacing that book, Rachel,' my mother used to scold. 'But it's mine,' I'd say. She'd shake her head. 'Poems are for everyone. They should be shared. Not conquered.'

  The iced coffee came and I concentrated on the cold sweet liquid sliding down my throat. I could have put my head down on the table and gone to sleep forever. Only wake me if that prince comes back, I'd tell the waiter.

  On Sunday I put the poster on my wall with Blu-Tack. It was quite haunting the way the young man's eyes followed me everywhere. At night I took off my dress in front of him. I lowered one strap at a time, slowly over the shoulder, then undid the buttons at the front. He stared at me, devouring me with his eyes. That full bottom lip of his wanted to kiss mine. When my bra came off he could hardly contain himself. You could see him wanting to wrench himself from the wall, desperate to leap upon the free pale breasts swinging before him. He would cup them in his hands, nestle his head in between . . .

  It was hard to sleep with him watching me. But it was lovely, too, because it was company. Unconditional appreciation. Really, I told myself, it had worked out for the best. This was why girls put pin-up stars on their walls – they could have a luscious romance at a distance, without disappointment. Get a grip, said the voice. You're twenty-five.

  Chapter 4

  The rain started early in the morning, around four o'clock. I lay in bed, listening. It sounded silvery and soft , but enough to make the zoo or a picnic miserable. Magic had been the right decision after all. It was amazing. I smiled at the beautiful man in the dark.

  At ten o'clock, the children lined up outside the school to wait for the bus. They were all dressed in their yellow raincoats, and as they filed along like good little ducklings, the enormity of their trust smote me. I actually saw the word 'smote' in my mind because the feeling was so big it seemed biblical, what with the deep bruised sky about to declare the end of the world and the children's faces like beaming torches holding back the dark. And then thunder crashed as if the sky was falling, making us all jump, and we froze for a moment, deafened. Poor Sam, who was terrified of thunder, collapsed right there on the footpath and covered his head with his hands. I told the children to go ahead, get on the bus.

  Sam stayed right where he was. He was too heavy to lift so I crouched down too and he told me about thunder and how thunder meant lightning and you could get fried like an egg if it struck you. I told him what my father had always told me and when there was another flash of lightning we counted the seconds until the thunder. You're supposed to add 'and' between the seconds when you're counting but I left them out so there'd be more miles for Sam. We got up to twenty-seven before there was a crash of thunder. 'See,' I told him, 'that old lightning is twenty-seven miles away. Over in Woop Woop.' I made my voice low and silly saying woop and he giggled. Then we got on the bus.

  Sam wanted to sit beside me, and then on my lap so he could look out the window at the whooshing cars. I put my arms around his soft little tummy. He smelled like toast. You just have to listen to children, a
nd talk to them. Explain. When that happens and they understand, they are usually very reasonable.

  I wish I'd done that with Clara – listened more. Somehow, I never heard her as clearly as Sam Whitfield, or Jimmy Manson or Billy Cooper. I suppose my own feelings were so loud when I was with her, she was such a part of me, I never really caught what she said.

  By the time we got to the city, there was just a dull drizzle. We walked briskly in pairs, holding hands, along the city streets. I watched very carefully where we were going. I didn't think about Guido Leopardi's face for a moment. Or if I did, I stamped on it in two seconds without any ands in between.

  The children's gasping was audible as we entered the theatre. Catrina Rushmore pretended to be a princess doing a tour of her palace and talked in a high English voice to the girl next to her. They were all getting a bit noisy and wild and when Catrina told the usher to 'kaindly get her a cup of tea', I had to give them all a stern lecture. But they were so good, really, quietening down immediately – even Sam, who found it almost impossible to stay still. He bounced silently on his plush velvet seat.

  The stage manager came to tell us then that the Monday matinees were oriented towards schools and the extra treat of a backstage tour was offered. There was nearly another eruption but over the noise I agreed, thank you very much, as long as we could still get the bus we'd planned on. I also wanted to ask if a backstage tour meant we'd get to meet the magicians, but I didn't.

  Our class took up the entire second row, and our view of the stage was excellent. I leant across Jimmy and Billy and told everyone to watch carefully. Billy asked if we were going to see the young master or the old one or both, and I said I didn't know. I'd never thought of that – I had assumed they would perform together. But you didn't often see two magicians on stage, come to think of it. Disappointment dropped in my stomach. Knowing my luck, we'd get the older one for sure. Well, maybe it was just as well. If that was the case, Guido Leopardi would remain a distant star forever, and an appreciative companion. As the lights went down, I reminded the children near me to keep their eyes on the magician's hands, listen for strategies of misdirection beneath the patter, look at the places he seemed to deliberately ignore.