Escape

by Anna Fienberg

  Maurizio laughed, throwing up his hands. 'Ecco! There is always drama in our country.' He glanced at Guido. 'Some universities were taken over by students—'

  'But I returned to you, didn't I?' said Guido.

  'Yes, just three weeks before I was due for Australia! I just had to have faith that you would. But it was not restful, ragazzo. You know, Rachel,' he turned to me, grinning, 'it was his birthday and he appeared at my window at midnight like an archangel.' Maurizio rolled his eyes at me. 'Well, an angel who'd drunk too much grappa.'

  'More like a devil,' grinned Guido.

  'Or a wizard,' I added, excited at the idea. I felt about the same age as my grade three pupils, so dazzled was I to be sitting in the company of two splendido magicians from Italy.

  'Clara may have described him that way. Un mago,' mused Maurizio. 'I had a pretty good idea he'd be back. So I kept that place in my contract for him. Every young man needs a journey to take his own measure.' Maurizio winked at Guido. 'I knew you were coming before you did.'

  'You must 'ave the gift of reading the future,' said Guido slyly. 'Even the great 'Oudini could not do that.'

  Maurizio raised his wine. 'I'm just a good judge of character, Guido, that is all.' He held Guido's gaze levelly, watching him over the top of the glass.

  'Or, I suited your plans very well,' teased Guido, 'and you suited mine.'

  Maurizio gave him a lazy smile, and the waiter came to collect our plates.

  I sat back and watched the two men talking. After a while, they slipped into Italian like swimmers into a summer sea. I was content to look and dream and imagine myself far away – in Porto Fino perhaps, or what was that other famous place, Capri, where women walked around only in bikinis and diamond necklaces?

  Guido must have said something amusing then because Maurizio gave one of his generous laughs and flung back his head. Maurizio's voice reminded me of the Italian song from the cafe. He had been all over the world, lived in England as well as America. I imagined this was the reason his accent was much softer than Guido's. And yet Guido's English was extraordinarily good. When dessert came – a lemon sorbet, tart but invigorating – I asked Guido how it was possible for him to be so fluent. Surely not the result of high school lessons?

  'My mother spoke English to me when I was a bambino,' was all he offered.

  I squirmed in the silence that trailed afterwards. I wanted to ask if she was English by birth or just enthusiastic about his acquiring another language. At teacher's college they'd told us that small children soak up different languages as easily as little sponges. But I didn't like to pursue the question. His face had folded up.

  I sat and drank my first espresso coffee from a doll-size cup and gazed at Guido. It was hard not to reach out and touch his hand, or his leg, jiggling to some private rhythm there under the table. His eyes were so dark in the dusky light, his skin pearled by the lamps lit under the canvas awning. I sat on and listened, the Italian billowing around me like music, and wondered when he was going to kiss me.

  Maurizio got up from the table, and whispered something to Guido.

  'Yes, yes,' Guido said impatiently, 'I won't be late. You go on, I will not be long. I just want to see Rachel on 'er train.'

  Maurizio nodded approvingly and bent down to peck my cheek. 'Ciao bella,' he said, his beard tickling, 'we see each other soon.'

  As soon as Maurizio had started on his way, Guido got up and pulled me over to the stone wall against the sea. Without a word he took my face in both his hands and looked straight into my eyes. 'Rachel,' he murmured, the way you'd say 'love' or 'precious'. His fingers touched my forehead, my cheeks, my lips.

  Then he had his arms around me and his mouth, oh god almighty, his mouth. I breathed him in, something sweet, toothpaste, cigarettes, perfume. The shock of another person on your flesh. His tongue pushed into my mouth, insisting. I leant into him, my arms around his neck. Then he licked under my top lip, gently, just flicking it, such an intimate gesture and I felt a sharp stab in the centre of me that flew all the way up to my throat. I gasped, floating into him, I wanted to go on tasting him, be carried like something without will on his tide. We stayed like that, our mouths together, for a long time.

  I knew, when he finally pulled away, saying he must go back to the theatre, that I wanted to stand like that always, with no space between our bodies, breathing the same air.

  Chapter 6

  After Guido kissed me against the sea wall of Sydney Harbour, I moved around like a sleepwalker. I felt just one impulse, and that was to be near him. The world in Cuthbert Street faded, becoming barely audible. My father asked whether I had wax in my ears as he did when I was fourteen.

  I'd arranged to meet Guido the following week, on the Wednesday, after his matinee. But at a quarter past three that day, Robert Sanford fell off the monkey bars. He lay stunned on the wood-chipped playground, too shocked to make a sound. You could see at a glance his arm was broken. A bone stuck out sideways, like a shard of drift wood.

  Guido was walking away from the ticket box as I rushed into the theatre.

  'I thought you were not coming,' he said, frowning.

  I explained about Robert Sanford and how he wouldn't let go of my skirt till his mother arrived.

  Guido nodded. 'You are responsible, looking after people. Is good in a woman. Maybe you look after me, eh?' He laughed lightly and took my arm. 'So, where do you wan to go?'

  The pub was noisy and smoky, all tinkling glass and loud laughs after work, people busy relieving themselves of responsibility. We walked up stained carpeted stairs to another room at the back where a brick-paved floor was open to the sky. A stainless steel barbecue ran the length of the room, dividing the space in half.

  We looked around for a place to sit. Bursts of laughter shot from the tables like gunfire. A smell of meat turning into charcoal rose in dark clouds. We found a table in the corner near a pot of frangipani, away from the smoke. Guido suggested we buy a bottle of wine, perhaps the one we had tasted the other night with Maurizio. He went to the bar to get it while I waited at the table.

  Two girls tottered into the courtyard on heels like stilts and stared over at him, giggling and whispering. Guido seemed to tower over everyone else with his beauty, like Gulliver on that island of Lilliputians. I had the familiar feeling of wishing there was another person, an understudy maybe, who could fill in for me on this important night – she would do everything right and then I could sort of slip in later, seamlessly, when the first real date was over.

  When he came back, the room changed. I realised that I'd thought he might never return. Why would he?

  As he sat down, Guido plucked a frangipani flower and gave it to me. I glanced around quickly. No one had seen. I felt I should tell Guido that you weren't supposed to take the flowers, just look at them. If everyone behaved like Guido, there'd be no flowers left . That's what I would have told grade three. Oh, you're such a killjoy, said the voice.

  I buried my nose in the petals, right down to the yellow centre. I could smell fresh rain and a sweetness that made my mouth water. We sat and sipped our wine. His throat rose slim and tanned from the open neck of his shirt. I wanted to run my finger over the delicate bones at the base, trace the shadowy hollows towards his shoulders. He was vulnerable and powerful at the same time. You could see the muscles in his arms pulling under his shirt. Imagine feeling them against your skin. Holding you.

  'Pardon?'

  The outside of him was so distracting; it was all I could do to take in his surface, let alone try to understand what he was saying.

  'Where do you grow up?'

  'Same place I live now,' I said. 'I was even born there, on my mother's bed. I'm still there, living at home.'

  I must have pulled a face because he said, 'What is bad? You are young and you 'ave no 'usband, I think!'

  'No,' I laughed too loudly. 'No, yes, well – most people my age have moved out of home by now. I suppose I feel ashamed about it.' I smirked self-co
nsciously, taking a gulp of wine.

  If I'd had my own flat I could have asked him home afterwards. We could have drunk wine and kissed on my sofa, just the two of us. He stared into his glass. The silence between us filled with other people's voices. I felt suddenly as if I had no more in common with him than they did. As if we were all commuters who just happened to be on the same train – although everyone else seemed to know where they were going better than I did.

  'In Italy is not like this,' Guido said finally. 'Sons and daughters usually stay at 'ome until they are married. Some sons they are still living at 'ome in their thirties. Is normal.'

  He smiled at me. I smiled back. Suddenly I wondered if the silences were long because he was having difficulty understanding my fast fumbled English. Perhaps half the time he was just trying to hang on, to sort out what was being said. To encourage him, I asked him about Assisi, the last house he had lived in with his aunt Clara.

  That had been the right question because I was rewarded with a bigger smile. By now I recognised that particular expression, soft and reflective, especially reserved for his zia.

  'Assisi is built on the side of a mountain – is dramatic, like an ancient creature clinging there. But is very old, from the time of the Etruschi. I remember funny things, little things. The church bell ringing so early on Sunday mornings. If you don wan to wake up you learn to find a place for this sound in your dreams. I miss the ringing of the bell, is strange. But Zia Clara, she was always awake at dawn.'

  I touched Guido's fingers. 'Tell me more about Clara,' I said.

  He shrugged. 'There is not so much to tell. Is a pity the short time I 'ad with 'er.' He leant forward suddenly, his elbows on the table. 'But the times we talked, I am knowing she can see things behind the world. Things that most people cannot see. Sometimes this makes 'er mad, or sad. But Clara, she made me interested in being alive again.' Guido looked straight into my eyes. 'I do no talk like this with many people. But I can trust you, I think. You are a good person, like Zia Clara.'

  I tried to look straight back at him, to show him how good and honest I could be but I felt my eyes betray me. I looked down, overwhelmed with pleasure and fear. I thought of dogs and their dumb love and how they can't look their masters in the eye for more than a second. Perhaps it is too much for them too.

  Guido sighed and poured another glass of wine. 'When she talked the life was like poetry. Nothing was purely itself - the wind, the sea, the hills - there was another meaning inside. Clara was una creativa, she did not just believe what everyone else did. People laughed at 'er as they do at all new ideas, but they are not laughing at Galileo after his death, no? Clara encouraged me to listen to myself, even if I seemed crazy. This is a valuable gift , no?'

  I nodded. 'She was like a mother to you,' I said softly.

  Guido snapped back into his chair as if he'd been hit. 'No.' His voice was sharp. 'She was very different to my mother. Mia madre just did what men told 'er to do.'

  He lit a cigarette and smoked it down to the butt , saying nothing. Oh how I wanted to be like Clara, but instead, deep in my black heart, I knew I was more like his madre. I tried to catch his eye, to think of something light or amusing to say. Nothing. The line between his eyes was ferocious. I felt cut off , crossed out like a wrong answer.

  I poured another glass of wine and drank it. If we didn't eat soon, the whole night might blur and go dark and I would find myself lying alone, under the table. It didn't occur to me to get up and order dinner. I was paralysed by my mistake, pinned to the seat.

  I finished the glass. Still we said nothing. How could two people sit side by side, not even breathing in time together? Guido glanced about him. Nothing he saw made the frown disappear. I wished I could recover quickly like other people did. You see it happen all the time on television: people get over betrayals like adultery in just half an hour – twenty minutes without the ads.

  'I like these frangipani trees,' said Guido. 'In Italy, in the city, we live mostly in apartments. But there is the piazza where you can meet people. Is good, not lonely.'

  I nodded. But I have always felt uneasy about city streets, especially late at night. In narrow dark roads I smell alcohol and fear even when there are neither.

  Guido pinched my cheek. 'You frown. But you must smile! You are pretty when you smile.'

  'My father had a bad accident in the city,' I said. 'When I was a child. I guess it's hard to leave it behind.'

  Guido looked up. I liked his arrested gaze of concern.

  'He was walking home, just finished his beat. That was his job, patrolling the streets. Dad was a policeman.'

  Guido's eyebrow shot up. 'Like carabinieri? With uniform and gun?'

  'Yes. But he's retired now.'

  Guido looked relieved. His eyebrow relaxed. 'Go on.'

  'Well, it happened at night, in an alleyway. There was a girl, and a man holding her against the wall. They could have been lovers, you know, just having a . . . But when Dad got closer he glimpsed two, three other men behind them.' I swallowed. 'I still get goosebumps when I think of it.'

  'I understand.' Guido rested his chin on his hand. His eyes were big. Such beautiful eyes. I wanted them to stay fixed on me.

  'The girl was screaming, and Dad shouted Stop! but one guy started running straight at Dad, reaching inside his jacket – firing at him! So what could Dad do? There was nothing else he could do—'

  'Your father used his gun?'

  'Yes. Dad pulled the trigger. He thought he was going to be killed.'

  'So is all right. Your father, he survived.'

  'Yes, but he was hurt. And it was not all right. The guy my father shot – it was a boy, Bruce Coleville – this young kid who worked at our local hardware store.' I felt my eyes fill. 'Bruce was only seventeen. I don't know where he got his gun, probably from his brother – he'd just come out of jail. For months afterwards the brother would shout at Dad from across the street, 'Murderer! Fucking pig!' My throat closed up.

  Guido sighed. 'Beh, is all finished now. Your father, 'e is a trained policeman. This kind of thing, is all in the line of duty. You must think of something else now.' He looked about him.

  Dad's hip had been shattered by Bruce's bullet, and he lay in plaster in the Prince of Wales hospital for five weeks. When he came home he was a different man. He wept constantly, like a tap someone had forgotten to turn off . Mum's face grew sharp and brittle. She seemed especially sharp with me and I wished more than ever that I had a sister. I wanted to whisper with someone, giggle, yell, anything to explode the tension in the house. Mostly, I wanted to talk about Dad without him being there. I just couldn't understand how someone could keep crying like that.

  After a month, it seemed to me that my father was shrinking. His chest was hollow-looking, as if he'd been spooned out. You could see his ribs all lined up like bars on a jail. And water ran out of his eyes sideways onto the pillow when he was lying down. Maybe, I thought, my father was leaking. Some women, when they were carrying their babies, swelled up with fluid like dried apricots in water. Deborah said her own feet, when she was carrying me, were as fat as toads. Perhaps, I thought, this wetness was part of Dad's disease. The TV news gave me a lot of information about sickness. There was malaria from the air, dysentery from the water, spiders as big as dinner plates, little worms that could eat the skin off your feet.

  'Rachel, I am angry.'

  I bit my lip. God, what had I done to annoy him? Then I understood. 'Hungry?'

  'Sì, 'angry.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'it would be a good idea to eat.' I nodded enthusiastically, thinking that food would ground me, but the movement of my head made the room spin. When I closed my eyes, I felt I was floating.

  'I might just need to sit still for a moment,' I whispered to Guido. 'I'm a cheap drunk.'

  'That's good!' Guido grinned and patted his wallet lying on the table.

  The menu for dinner was written in white chalk on a big blackboard above our heads. There was steak and s
teak – T-bone, rump, fillet and sausages. You had to go and choose a piece of meat and cook it yourself on the barbecue.

  'You choose,' said Guido. 'I am not use to this method.'

  My hands shook a little as I picked up the tongs. Guido remained seated at our table, watching. Making decisions was not my best thing. Hopeless at cooking, anyway. I didn't do much of it, still being the daughter of the house, I suppose.

  In the end I chose what I thought was rump. Rump had no bone and I didn't want to have to gnaw anything in front of him.

  'Is like an old boot, no?' Guido laughed as he put his fork down. The meat was tough. I'd obviously cooked it too long. At least he laughed. I had absolutely no appetite, being so filled with feelings.

  'Have some salad,' I suggested. 'It's quite nice.'

  He picked up the pale vegetables on his fork. 'What is this?'

  'Coleslaw. Shredded cabbage with mayonnaise and carrot and stuff .'

  He nodded, but I noticed he only ate a small square about the size of a matchbox. I pushed the rolls and butter towards him and he ate three. Funny how he didn't touch the butter – for me that was the best part. I always slathered it on, great generous pillows of it. In Italy, perhaps, they didn't use butter like this. I learnt later to buy ciabatt a for Guido, those long crusty loaves as flat as the sole of your shoe, and to cut them diagonally into thin pieces, dipped into virgin olive oil.

  The bread must have settled my stomach because all the inanimate objects stayed put and the room didn't float any more when I closed my eyes. In fact everything was rather soft , almost benign.

  Guido pushed his plate away with a sigh.

  'I'm sorry about that,' I said, shamefaced. 'I'm not used to cooking on a barbecue.' Guido looked surprised, so I explained that our family didn't go in for those kinds of social gatherings. 'Dad resigned from the police force just three months after his accident.' Too ill, I'd heard my mother whisper on the phone. 'And then he started work at a boys' refuge. Helped in the kitchen, talked with the kids and their counsellors. Sometimes he took children to school and picked them up afterwards. And then he began bringing them home.'