Escape

by Anna Fienberg

  Clara and I went to stay at my parents' place for a week. 'Mum offered to look after Clara while I catch up on some sleep,' I explained to Guido. 'It's just that I'm so exhausted and everything's getting on top of me.'

  'Who is getting on top?'

  'It's just an expression, you know—'

  'But is only one small baby and you don even work now. Why you need to go away?'

  'I don't know, I'm just, well, I don't know why . . . But I suppose, maybe, I get up three times a night and my day starts at 4.30 am and I'm too exhausted to think—'

  'You should sleep in, is absurd this early morning business. You must tell the baby to go back to sleep. I sleep well.'

  'That's good.' I scratched at a spot on the desk with the point of my key. 'I'll only stay a few days, a week at the most.'

  Guido said nothing as he walked out of the room.

  On Wednesday morning the phone rang at Cuthbert Street. 'You must come 'ome now,' said Guido. He sounded like an army sergeant barking orders. 'I do not eat and I 'ave no shirts clean. I ham the 'usband, and you are the wife, and I 'ave rights!'

  My father drove me home. He kept shaking his head, tears welling. He knew I didn't want to go home. It had been so nice staying in my old room, the room I'd slept in before the orphans came. Every morning my father had brought me coffee and sung to the baby. Then we'd lain on the bed, Clara and I, an island of peace. It was like the hospital. I love it here, I never want to go home! I tickled Clara on the inside of her plump little arms. I thought of nothing, lying there, except the smoothness of her skin. The howling wind had gone.

  Dad patted my knee while he drove, his other hand on the steering wheel. I tried to smile at him and feel the comfort of his love, but there was the glass, and the wind trapped behind it.

  When I got home, Guido told me to put the baby in the cot and come to his room.

  'But she's not sleepy, she's just woken up!' I said. 'She'll cry—'

  'Doesn't matter, she's a baby. They are supposed to cry.'

  He took my arm and pulled me into his room.

  'Take off your clothes.'

  He sat on the bed, crossing his legs. He lit up a cigarette.

  'Oh please, not now, we've just got home.'

  'Oh please,' he mimicked, in a strident high-pitched whine. He didn't sound like Guido. He sounded just like the voice.

  I pulled my jumper over my head. The torn maternity bra underneath wasn't very clean. From under my skirt I pulled off my pants. Maybe it wouldn't take long.

  'No, take off your skirt. I want to enjoy you.' But he didn't sound as if he would enjoy me. His voice was steel. He was like a stranger. A cold heartless stranger. How could I take my clothes off in front of a stranger?

  'No, please, my stomach is so floppy, it's huge. Soon I'll look better, I'll do sit-ups or something.'

  'Take it off .'

  I unzipped my skirt. It didn't slide to the floor because it was too tight. It just sat there, stuck around my hips.

  A loud wail came from the other room. My stomach clenched.

  'Oh, Guido, let's wait, it'll be much better tonight, it'll be more romantic. And dark.'

  'And you'll be asleep.'

  The wailing became desperate. Snorting now, spluttering. The mucus in her nose was getting caught in her throat. She sounded like the world was ending. She was so alone, suddenly in that room again without me. She wasn't used to it. How did she know I was ever coming back? How did babies know that?

  'Take it off !'

  I tugged at the skirt and my belly fell out, white, huge and dimpled. The stretch marks gleamed silver in the dull light coming in through the window. They looked like the slime trails left by snails along the garden path. What was the good of me?

  Guido's left eyebrow lift ed. His lip curled in distaste.

  'See, not very appetising,' I said quickly. 'So can I go now?'

  He said nothing. His eyes moved over my body slowly, his mouth thinning. 'You need to exercise after childbirth. You should go to a gym. Didn't they tell you that in 'ospital?'

  The crying was dreadful now – hard, rhythmic, distressed. I was so cold standing there with nothing on and I was snorting and crying just like the baby, tears hot on my cheeks.

  'Oh, stop your stupid crying – is that all you can ever do, cry like a child?'

  Then his voice changed suddenly to silk and he smoothed a place on the bed next to him. 'Come and sit beside me now, amore. Come on. We will 'ave an intelligent conversation for once, no? Let us talk about our marriage, what are your duties as a wife, to me, as well as a mother. All day, I talk to no one, is like living on an island by myself. Or in that place, 'ow is called, solitary confinement. I am left all alone. You should not leave your 'usband alone.'

  He stroked my leg, moving up my hip. The cries were becoming screams, as if the baby were being hurt. He moved his hand between my legs and tried to thrust his thumb inside me. I felt how dry I was, dry as my anxiety. It was a high still place, sterile like outer space, without oxygen.

  He clicked his tongue in irritation and pushed harder. Then he turned me over.

  'Get up on your knees.'

  I obeyed, watching my tears fall straight down onto the blue doona. They made two navy circles, widening like cells dividing.

  'Ti amo,' he said as he pushed himself into me.

  'I love you too,' I said, but for the first time, I wondered if it was true.

  The next morning when I woke, I went out to the kitchen. There was a piece of paper in the typewriter:

  She leaves me untouched like a dish unworthy

  A mountain resort in summer

  'Was that about me?' I asked when Guido awoke four hours later. I handed it to him with his coffee.

  One side of his mouth stretched sideways. His eyebrow rose. 'Not everything is about you, amore. This is a quote from Marini, which you would know if you read the references I pointed out to you.'

  I took extra care to make a nice dinner that night, and put on lipstick and washed my hair. Alone, I thought. He did say that, didn't he. I didn't dream it? He'd been lonely without me. A wife shouldn't let that happen. Ever. And he had no one else.

  For five nights in a row I cooked and read the references. But then Clara got a cold and made this dreadful rasping noise when she breathed. She cried all through dinner and the thread in my stomach pulled and the car alarm started and I ran to see my daughter.

  Maria called to remind me I was supposed to go back to work.

  'I can't, it's impossible!'

  It was always worrying now when Maria rang. She seemed to assume I was still the old Rachel who liked to natter on about music or current affairs, drink coffee in moody cafes with newspapers strewn about. I never talked to her for very long. There was Clara crying or the bottles to be sterilised or the vegetables to be cooked and divided up into little Tupperware portions for Clara's solids. And Guido tapping on the big oak desk, making that wind-up sign. 'You 'ave time to talk to your friends, but not me?' He said 'friends' the way he said 'peasants'. And most of all, there was the anxiety that festered like a disease under my skin. How could she ever understand that I spent my entire day just battling to control it, tame it like a savage animal barely kept on a leash? And now she was asking me to walk straight back into the outside world again, to deal with thirty children, and staff meetings and duties and responsibilities as if I were a whole, normal person.

  'No,' I said, 'not with the war.'

  'What?'

  'Just no, I can't, I couldn't cope. And anyway, there's no money for childcare.'

  'But couldn't Guido look after her? He's home all day, isn't he?'

  I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. How can you talk to someone who is so ignorant about the realities of life? Maria will have to get married and have a baby, I thought wearily, before we can really talk again. I couldn't be bothered explaining, and she wouldn't understand, anyway.

  'But what will you live on?'

  'We'll manage.
I saved a bit from maternity leave and Guido's working, kind of—'

  'Oh good, what's he doing?'

  'Writing poetry. It's really good, I'm sure he'll be published soon.'

  Maria snorted with laughter. 'Yeah, you can make really big money in the poetry scene!'

  I wanted to put down the phone. The sarcasm in her voice shredded me. You forgot to put the lemon into the osso bucco, said the voice, and it'll be too bland. Get off the phone.

  'Well, whatever,' Maria said into the silence, 'but you'll have to write another letter to the department. Don't resign, whatever you do, just apply for more leave without pay.'

  'Okay, thanks, Maria. I'd better go now. Bye!'

  We lived on pasta and rice and vegetables for another month until there was no money in the bank to pay the mortgage. I'd been quiet about my decision, or rather, my lack of it. If I didn't mention work, I thought vaguely, somehow it would go away. And there was so much to do at home. Guido was immersed in his poetry and hadn't been checking on our funds. But when the letter came from the department, asking me to make a further application for leave, he turned to me in surprise.

  'Why you are not going back to work? Most women make a family and a career. This is the modern world, no?

  It was true. I should be enjoying my choices.

  'You will enjoy it,' Guido went on. 'It would be good for you to get out of the house. You would 'ave to get dressed every morning like a normal person. No more with that old tracksuit. You look like a retired Romanian athlete. And we would not 'ave to eat pasta all the time.'

  I looked down at the caked egg on my sleeve. For a brief second I imagined what it would be like to wave Guido off in the morning, watch him make his jaunty way towards some kind of gainful employment. I pictured myself playing cubbies with Clara, making a delicious dinner in the afternoons, secure in the knowledge that the mortgage was soaking up a salary like a parched field under regular rain.

  'What about you?' I burst out. 'Isn't there something you could do seeing as I'm looking after Clara all day?'

  Guido stared at me. The silence grew. What a nag you are, said the voice. You'd better watch out or he'll forget why he married you.

  'I'm not the one with the career already made, cara,' he said evenly. 'Is not so easy for me. This is not my country.'

  And I didn't have a special talent, as he did. I started to sweat with guilt.

  'You know, you don 'ave to be just the 'ousewife for me, Rachel, cooking and cleaning all the time.' He laughed. 'Not that you do much of these things.'

  'But I do – I am the sole cook here, aren't I? I shop and make dinner every night. Who cooked last night, do you remember? Who washed down the kitchen and bathroom floor?'

  Guido raised an eyebrow. 'I don wan to waste time talking of such petty things. Is not interesting. You will see that you 'ave time to do all these tasks even when you work. You don take hours any more to prepare dinner. Scrambled eggs does not need a whole afternoon to cook, no?'

  'No,' I agreed.

  'No, and for me, simple food is okay. I've told you. All you need for a good meal is fresh ingredients in season. You must pay attention when you shop and then, vedi, is all okay.'

  But a one-course, quick meal was not okay for Guido. 'Is there more?' he would ask. His eyes were wide and hopeful, he even held the plate in his hands. I made bigger and bigger portions of pasta, so that second helpings were always available.

  'But is not good to eat like this,' he complained after he'd devoured a towering plate of spaghetti alla carbonara. 'Is all carbohydrate, with no protein. We will just grow fat, not nourished. In Italy, we 'ave a small plate of pasta first for entree, followed by a main course of meat or fish, with side dishes of vegetables. Then there is dessert, fruit, perhaps pears done in red wine. Is a good diet.'

  I went blank. How could you argue with that? With anything he said?

  I started to leave the table abruptly after dinner, returning to clear up later. Guido didn't like it. 'Even when you remain with me at the table,' he complained, 'is like you are not there at all.' Once he leapt up and paced the living room shouting, 'I need more than this! I am in prison! I cannot live like this!' It was frightening. He had a deep loud voice, and the vein in his forehead swelled, pulsing. I had to hold my eyes wide open so the water wouldn't spill.

  Crying is a form of weakness, said the voice.

  Beneath the fear, though, I could sympathise with what Guido was saying, I really could. When someone continually didn't acknowledge your existence, it was as if they disappeared you. A person could be vanished simply by being ignored, like a rabbit in a magic hat. When I used to watch Dean and Jean I'd always wondered what the rabbits or doves or ladies did while they were waiting to appear again after they'd been vanished. Did they spend the time checking to see that all their limbs were present and accounted for?

  After he'd shouted at me I resolved to try harder. When the watt le bird woke me now there was not only Mother Duty to be afraid of, but also Wifely Duty, the problem of how to Hide my Misery and the Spectre of Work. It was hard to know what to do about the misery. It wasn't like the bad magic mushrooms I'd eaten at fifteen. It wasn't a drug that would wear off . It was real life.

  I told Guido I would be returning to work 'soon' so we didn't need to talk about the issue any more. I tried to cover it up, putting other subjects on top of it in the same way that I hid the red wine stain on the tablecloth with the dinner plates. I don't know how much longer this would have gone on, this dark, bristling silence, if I hadn't got sick and Maria hadn't persisted.

  Chapter 13

  When the doctor diagnosed pneumonia I was so relieved. 'The exhaustion you are experiencing is a symptom of the infection,' he said. I didn't look at Guido, who was perched on the edge of his chair, his hands in his lap. He wouldn't have wanted any bare part of him to touch anything in that surgery, so afraid was he of catching germs. He hadn't wanted me to go to the doctor, but my mother had insisted. 'Look at her,' she said to Guido, 'you can hardly recognise her.' Guido had smirked at me. 'No, not without the padding,' and he'd touched my stomach fondly. Actually, it was more of a poke. We both watched his finger disappear into the loose folds of skin. Mum said she would look after the baby, so Guido had to take me. But he looked so unhappy as we parked the car. 'Sometimes a visit to the doctor makes you even more sick,' he said. 'You can catch germs just in the waiting room.' He tried to hold his breath the whole time we sat on the plastic chairs. He was good at that.

  'You need looking after,' said the doctor when he'd examined me. The way he looked at me, his bushy brows meeting in concern, made my eyes fill. His kindness made the sadness well up, and I had to keep swallowing. Oh, if I could take that doctor home with me. Imagine going home to him. I kept my eyes wide.

  'Does that mean I don't have to go back to work?' I said.

  'Not for a while,' he said. 'You've got to build up your strength.'

  Guido stood up. 'Thank you, doctor, that's what I keep telling her. Sleep more, eat better. She is so silly, never taking any rest, waking so early. She just needs to be sensible. Come on, Rachel, the doctor has many patients outside.'

  That same afternoon Maria visited. She had been at the Parliamo Italiano Institute because her father had needed some help from a translator in applying for a pension. While she was there, she'd heard two of the staff discussing the size of their Italian classes.

  'They need teachers for Italian there at the institute, as well as for private lessons. I mentioned that I knew somebody who was extremely well qualified. I hope you don't mind, Guido, but you seemed perfect for the job, with your classical education, and I know that you could both do with some extra money.'

  Extra!

  'Oh, thank you, Maria, that's such a relief, what great news!' I cried, jumping up and giving her a hug. 'Wouldn't that be ideal, Guido?'

  'It is an idea,' he said.

  After Maria had gone, Guido shook his head. 'That woman must not 'ave enough to do in
life, she 'as to interfere in ours. She is 'ow you say, bossy. That is a very masculine quality. Do you see she 'as a slight moustache? She should wax 'er top lip.'

  'But aren't you pleased with the idea? It really helps solve our problems, don't you think?'

  Guido shrugged. 'I suppose I must go and see this institute. But I will only take on three days a week. There must be time for my poetry. Does Maria 'ave a fidanzato?'

  'A boyfriend? No, not at the moment—'

  'I am not surprised.' He sniff ed. 'She will find it difficult, with those thick ankles of 'ers like a peasant.'

  So Guido went into the city to register with Parliamo Italiano. 'I will be going to the 'ouses of students,' he said when he came home. 'And I will do one day at the institute. But there must be time for my poetry.'

  'Yes, yes, of course,' I agreed, grateful. The pin hole of light expanded as I glimpsed an opening in the long caves of the coming days. 'And I will get work soon too, when I'm better . . .'

  'When?'

  'Oh, you know, as soon as I'm better . . .'

  Guido started the next week, on Monday. Oh, the relief of wandering into the living room, the sunlight falling, unbroken, in stripes across the carpet. I could stand there in the warmth, no one watching me. No one seeing how long I took to do things, no one criticising me for paying attention to the baby, the steriliser, the house. No one judging. Well, no one except the voice, of course.

  I grew to love inanimate objects. I stroked the fridge, patted the vacuum cleaner. They hummed along regardless of attention, impervious to my mistakes.

  The grocer in our suburb sold organic vegetables on Tuesdays so I made sure I stocked up each week. I pureed potato and pumpkin, peas and carrots, and divided the runny stuff into ten small plastic tubs. The colours swirled together like an artist's palette. I quite enjoyed looking at our provisions all lined up in a row in the freezer.

  'Can't you just give her those Heinz baby jars?' asked Maria, who dropped in after school when Guido was out. 'This must take you all day.'

  I didn't tell her that the thought of Clara's tummy full of organic carrot, steamed and pure with undiminished vitamin A, made me happy. I felt wholesome while I was cooking. A real mother. It was hard not to show my fury when I saw Guido taking out a tub for himself, adding rock salt and ground pepper, and eating it with a spoon for a snack. I thought guiltily how just a few months ago I might have enjoyed the idea of all those essential vitamins in his stomach.