Escape

by Anna Fienberg

  We stopped to look at the leaves of bushes as we walked. A small well of elation still lay in my chest. Shattering, I whispered. It had been a good word, hadn't it?

  Chapter 14

  The first book I was commissioned to write was called All About Ants. Just the pictures of them in the encyclopaedia, swarming uncontrollably over picnics, rocks, dead animals, made me feel swamped. So many ants, such tiny bodies stuff ed with so much information, what to leave in and what to leave out? At first I thought everything should go in, just in case. Imagine if children sat down to read all about ants and their parents asked them a really basic fact that everyone (except me) considered essential, and it wasn't there in the book? Ants, it seemed, were indefatigable, guarding their eggs, defending the nest, finding and storing food, their abdomens swelling rhythmically like tiny balloons as they filled with nectar. Even when I tried not to think about them they lurked everywhere – in the dishwasher, the oven, between the toys, busy.

  For days I sat at the big oak desk in a panic, trying to focus. Then I called Lena. 'I can't do it,' I told her. 'All this research – organising it – I can't concentrate. I've never been able to!'

  'But you had to concentrate when you had Clara,' Lena pointed out. 'If it's about Clara, you're able to block everything else out. I've seen you!'

  Lena was right. When I fed Clara, I made sure I clucked and distracted her enough so she drank the required amount. I counted the eggs poured into the spinach tart, the sterilising crystals for the bottles, made the spoonfuls of formula level with a knife. Once I had the baby, I knew I had to stay conscious. She only had one mother after all, and even if I was as panicked as hell, there was no one, surely, who loved her more.

  I thought of these things I had achieved when I sat down to read about ants on the brown leather chair at the library. You can do it, I told myself. The voice sniggered but I ignored it. Clara lay next to me in her carry cot, with her red rattle and dummy. I read a whole chapter before she began to cry. I got up and walked with her around the library – I'd brought the pouch – and whispered to her about ants. She seemed to like them. I did too. At home I read more, in the bathroom, in bed, while I was cooking. Ants were fascinating. Each one was a small miracle, with their military discipline and self sacrifice. To survive the long dry seasons they stored water and food like monks. After a while I realised that reading about ants and then writing about them was immensely calming.

  This is the way I began: I wrote the facts down as if I were making a list. Like numbers, the facts made patterns when put together in certain arrangements. And you couldn't argue with a fact, or take responsibility for its existence. A fact was a fact, its reality as indisputable as a brick.

  As soon as I'd finished All About Ants, the publisher asked for All About Bees. The clean order of a hive, I found, was as soothing as valium. Every bit of a bee was important – the worker bee was so conscientious that even when it wasn't on duty, it produced royal jelly in its head, which was fed to larvae destined to become queens. And queens laid 1500 eggs a day! As I used a fact, I crossed it off . I strung a story together with the facts much the same way I used to string a necklace with beads.

  I grew to adore them all – my facts. They stayed where I put them, didn't make demands or object. Even alone, they were powerful: just one single fact could resonate like a symbol, signalling a world. A series of facts could take you on a longer journey, as dependably as any other form of metaphorical transport – fiction or film. A simple listing of facts brought me the universe.

  Guido seemed pleased by my immersion in non-fiction. He liked the three-thousand-dollar advance for Ants, and the increase to four with Bees. He didn't talk any more of my return to full-time work. He didn't know that some days, when he was out teaching people to speak Italian, I was sitting on my bed, paralysed. He saw me instead at night, working at the big oak desk with four or five full-colour plated books spread out before me, my exercise book dark with scribbled notes. Sometimes he patted my head bent over my books as he walked by. He seemed most content when I was busy. 'Brava,' he said once, approvingly, when I showed him how much I had written. And I did work well in the evenings, with Clara sleeping cosily in my bed.

  Some days he and I hardly said a word to each other. I told myself this was better than the demands for stimulating companionship, which I hadn't seemed able to supply. At night, when I'd finished working I sat fixed to the chair, dreading the walk down the hall to my bedroom. Guido's door would be closed. I didn't know whether I wanted him to open it or not.

  Sometimes I did walk down the hall and knock. Only if there was that line of light underneath, lying like a thin gold pencil. When I opened the door, the line expanded into a clean arc of light, as precisely as if drawn by a compass. At the apex of the triangle there would be Guido at his desk, leaning with his hand on his cheek.

  But there was a night, when I'd moved on to All About Flies, that I ran down the hall and burst in. The fly facts were so incredible, I had to share them. 'Listen to this!' I cried. 'There are these male dance flies that are absolutely extraordinary. I think they should have their own chapter. Do you know what they do?'

  'No,' Guido sighed, 'but I'm sure you'll tell me.'

  'Okay.' I looked down at the book. 'Well, at the beginning of a courtship the male dance flies always present their partners with a tasty insect wrapped in silk – this gift is supposed to keep the female occupied during mating, so you know, she won't attack the male. But some males cheat, and when their females unwrap the silk, they discover there is nothing inside! Can you believe it? Those cheating bastards?'

  'I suppose, if you say it is true.'

  I looked at Guido. A small smile lift ed the corners of his mouth. I shift ed my weight from one foot to the other. He glanced back at the papers on his desk.

  'But isn't that amazing? I spluttered. 'You know, it's all about creating illusions, isn't it, pretending in order to get something you want, like magic and misdirection, and even the insect world do it . . .'

  'You should just concentrate on the facts, Rachel,' said Guido. His voice was like cold tea. He shuddered. 'Ugh, flies. They grow from maggots, no?'

  Occasionally when I knocked on the door Guido turned off the light and took me to his bed. I could only feel, not see. Each touch of his fingers on my neck, nipple, in the pleat between my legs was a surprise, amplified by the dark. While I lay there I thought about mole crickets, and how the male's underground burrow acts like a loudspeaker, so its song of courtship can be heard miles away. Guido could have been anyone in the darkness and so could I. There was no courtship song. I wondered if he was stroking my neck, or the neck of someone he was imagining. Perhaps he was vanishing me and in my place was Jean in her harem pants glinting with sequins, rolled down to her ankles. Is that why he liked the dark now? Sometimes he fell asleep before he was finished. 'Too tired,' he murmured. I lay there a while longer, feeling the warmth of his back.

  I decided not to tell him any more about the mole crickets or even the astonishing flowerpot snake, which was blind and lived in the dark as well, becoming enormously widespread because of one astounding fact: the females could breed on their own. 'There are absolutely no male flowerpot snakes,' I read in one book, 'because they are no longer necessary.' I didn't think Guido would like that fact and after a while, when his breathing was deep, I tiptoed back to my room, to little Clara curled up like a bud in my bed.

  With each new phase of Clara's development, further possibilities of devastation and danger emerged. As she progressed from rolling over to crawling, to sleeping even less in the afternoons, I found it almost impossible to write during the day. The newsreel in my head changed: she no longer fell from windows but choked to death on small objects instead. Every morning I had to child-proof the house, picking up stray buttons, safety pins, caps, knobs, anything small enough to be swallowed by a curious baby. Clara would follow me, moving at an incredible pace on her bottom, her hands supporting her weight. Often
I had to race her to find the object first. It was nerve-racking. But whenever she did find one of these dangerous objects, she inspected it soberly and handed it straight to me. 'Mama!' she said one day, holding out a bobby pin with enthusiastic expansiveness, crowing with delight.

  'Thank you!' I cried, and I hugged her and tickled her and couldn't stop touching her smooth little arms and the toasty top of her head and the silk soles of her feet. Mamma! She laughed and laughed until she got hiccups, and I had to ring Doreen, who said to give her a sudden bad fright, that always fixes it. Luckily, by the time I'd put down the phone, the hiccups had gone and Clara was happily sweeping the floor again like a metal detector over a sand dune.

  Clara loved rock music. When 'Mustang Sally' came on she'd start clapping her hands and stomping her feet, raising her arms to be picked up. I'd turn up the stereo and we'd whirl around the living room, with Clara's hot spurt of breath in my ear, shouting bum bum in the chorus. I loved the music, too; it made me feel brave, as if we were on a road trip, just her and me, our hands held across the gears.

  Sometimes the music was too loud, too early, and Guido would emerge from his room, his face crumpling into a frown. 'What is this NOISE! You are not considerate of me,' he complained. But he'd smile at Clara and swoop her up to dance on his shoulders. I couldn't look when he did that – wasn't she too high up? I could see too clearly what would happen to her if he miscalculated, and she fell.

  But he wouldn't ever miscalculate, would he? Guido who'd juggled sticks of fire? 'I think that's maybe a bit too high,' I said once, softly, seeing her legs wobble, hoping in a way that he wouldn't hear. But he did.

  'You think I take risks with my daughter?' His voice was steely. He put her down and she started to cry. 'You don't have faith in me?'

  'No, no, it's just that you're not used to . . . she seems so high up, I don't know if she can balance—'

  His left eyebrow rose as he stared at me. 'You just want 'er all to yourself,' he said as he turned away. 'I go out for breakfast, don worry.'

  After I'd worked my way through the insect world, the publisher commissioned me to write a new series of books called 'What Disease is That?' When I told the Friday women, Doreen and Lena looked at each other and howled.

  'How will we bear it?' cried Lena.

  'Save me!' wailed Doreen. She was laughing and snorting so much, I thought she might need a sudden bad fright to get her breathing again.

  'Mummy, save Dory!' cried Clara.

  But I had already collapsed on the sofa, infected by the general hysteria.

  I tried to keep laughing as I moved through bacteria and fungi and the life-cycles of parasites, but it was hard. After a few weeks I was convinced that Clara had the beginnings of meningococcal, viral pneumonia, scabies, diphtheria . . . I felt as if my brain was a laboratory, breeding possibilities of disaster. Could you get cancer of the pancreas just by thinking about it? I developed mouth ulcers that I'd never had before, but the doctor said it was just stress. He tentatively suggested that I needn't make quite so many visits but rather just give things a few days, unless I was really alarmed. He pointed out that it was a little unusual and probably unnecessary to see your GP more than once a week unless you were managing a chronic illness.

  Things improved when I began a new series, 'Great Medical Cures'. The first book was the most optimistic I had yet done. Often I went around during the day feeling that something wonderful was about to happen, because together with Madame Curie, I was about to discover the X-ray. I'd look at Clara putting a piece of fluff -covered banana that had dropped on the floor into her mouth and think, well, there are cures for that!

  We went to the zoo, the Powerhouse Museum, to the art gallery. It was absorbing and entirely fulfilling going out with Clara, observing her little face light up at some exhibit, or more spectacularly, at the chocolate ice-cream we always ate afterwards. She was such an enthusiastic companion, and she only wanted to be with me. On those good afternoons, Clara happy, both of us brimming with milkshake and information about the world, I felt full again, alive inside the way I had when I was pregnant. I knew what I was for. Once, after Saraah's birthday party, Clara took my face in her hands and said, 'You are my present, Mummy.'

  With so many outings and conversations, I was late for the first time for a deadline. I didn't realise how late until I received a phone call from the publisher, reminding me. Unfortunately, Guido took the call. I don't know why Mary had to tell him, but he was probably charming and inquisitive, as he considered her our patron and deliverer from evil petty matters of money. His voice is also deep and alluring and mysterious as dark toffee. He's nice to strangers he admires. I probably wouldn't have ever told him I was late – in the past year I'd begun to hide things, keep secrets about myself and my days, the way I did as a teenager when I took periods off school or stayed out too late in boys' cars.

  'Why are you late with your book, Rachel?' he asked. He was tapping the desk with a ruler. 'Your publisher is very concerned. Is not good. Your payment will be delayed and they may think you are not so reliable. Maybe they give the next series of books to someone else.'

  I stared at the carpet. There was a layer of fluff at least an inch thick. I had been neglecting the vacuuming as well. 'I've done a lot of books for them by now,' I told him. 'Schools are taking class sets, I mean, they know they can rely—'

  'Well not this time, it is clear. You only need once to make a mistake and people remember forever. Imagine if I had missed one firestick when I was juggling?'

  I dug my shoe into the carpet. Beige fluff covered the toe entirely. I quickly stepped on it, patting it down.

  'Well?' he repeated, his voice peremptory like a school principal. 'Why are you late?' I almost expected him to ask for a note from my parents. I hadn't told him about my outings with Clara. I don't know why. I just felt the impulse to close up after a happy day out, the way Venus flytraps snap shut if you prod them.

  'Don't know,' I mumbled, my face going red. How could I say that I had been too happy with Clara, that I'd felt for the first time in my life that maybe I could be a good mother. Or at least, that I might learn how to be.

  His eyes bored into mine. He was like Madame Curie with her X-ray machine. 'I think you 'ave been too distracted at 'ome. Now Clara is older, she takes up more of your time. She must go to school.'

  'What do you mean, she's barely two!' Fear twanged through my chest, making my voice screechy and thin. 'She's not allowed to go to school yet!'

  Guido sighed. 'No, I don mean primary school, oh this maladetta language, what is it? The school before the main school, you know, 'ow is it called?'

  'Day care,' I said dully.

  'Yes, that's it. You must do this for Clara. It would be good for 'er to get out of the 'ouse, she is always indoors with you. She is a bright child, she needs this stimulation, and then you can concentrate on your job. Good, you will find out tomorrow about this day care.'

  'It's not that easy to just book in, there are places reserved, you know—'

  'Why 'ave you not looked into this? You are the native 'ere, I do not know about such things. You must start looking tomorrow.'

  'Yes, all right, maybe for just a day or two a week.'

  'No, you must do for five days, otherwise you will not be able to work with continuity. In Italy children go to school for six days, Saturday included.'

  'But they come home for lunch, the afternoons—'

  'Oh well,' he smiled, 'it never did me any 'arm. You ask anyone – your friends, your parents, they will all agree. Porca miseria, Rachel, it is time!'

  It was true. And everyone I knew did agree with Guido. Maria, all the Friday women, my mother and father. So why did it feel so wrong? I thought how I'd felt just yesterday, breezy almost, walking hand-in-hand with Clara back from the beach, with our little pile of shells and a fish skeleton and a bottle of sand that we were going to use to make a diorama. I'd felt finally I was getting somewhere, even with my terrible sense of d
irection. I was so happy with Clara, I wasn't frightened all the time any more, I felt I had something to give her, even if it was just this overwhelming love and interest in what went on inside her. Sure, there were times when I felt trapped, bored, frustrated. But we were getting somewhere, weren't we?

  Maybe I could just work a little harder at night, ask Clara to look at her books for an hour in the afternoons while I read mine?

  'But that's not fair to Clara,' said my mother. 'Why should she be deprived of company, solitary hours while you work? It's impossible anyway not to be distracted with a little one around. There's a good day care place opened up in Tryon Street, have you noticed the signs? I'll go and investigate.'

  So Clara went to day care which opened from eight in the morning and closed at six at night.

  'I don't need that long!' I told Guido, who thought we should avail ourselves of all the time that was on offer, particularly as there was no cost saving for fewer hours. 'I just can't write for ten hours a day – I can't concentrate that long.'

  'No?' said Guido pityingly, his eyebrow arched. 'Is all practice. You keep pushing yourself a little more each day, and you will see the progress you make.'

  It suddenly occurred to me that Guido didn't know at all any more how I felt about anything. Because you don't tell him, said the voice. You keep secrets like a little kid. But if he had known, would he have cared? I looked at him standing at the doorway of the kitchen, leaning elegantly against the wall. He wore his pale pink cotton shirt with the charcoal trousers that I'd ironed at the weekend. It was hard to get that central crease just right – too much iron and the crease shrieked at you, too little and the line wandered into vagueness, smudging the first time he sat down. Underneath the charcoal pants were his boxer shorts. These had to be ironed as well, being cotton, a natural fibre that tended to chafe, he said, if allowed to crease. He looked back at me. His eyes were cool. He looked at me the way he looked out the window.