How did this HAPPEN, Rachel? the voice shrieks. You must either be so late that this is the next person's funeral or you are in the wrong church. Why don't you concentrate? How can you be so stupid, selfish, inconsiderate? Whatever will Maria say?
I close my eyes for a moment. I'm so sick of the voice. I turn to leave the queue, and the sliding feeling strikes, nearly tipping me over. I see eggs slipping off a plate, greasy gravy falling to the ground. Herman Munster takes my elbow, and asks if I'm all right.
I don't know what's happening. When I turn around my head seems to come later. The sliding starts behind my eyes and there's a bright scramble like loose change in a purse. I'm mesmerised, watching coins of light settle into old landscapes – the yellow kitchen I grew up in, the sofa that Danny clung to, Harry's pouting top lip. The slide ends in a wall of cloud and I'm stuck, blind: I can't move forwards or back. I just have to wait until I'm released.
I manage to murmur something, and the man drift s away. But I can't move. I find myself wondering how Houdini might have looked when he died. I see his face, fierce muscles relaxed, finally, in death. A terrible grief tears at my chest, making it hard to breathe.
Only once did Harry get stuck. I've always preferred not to think about it. But now I can't stop. In California he agreed to be buried alive, manacled in a coffin, under six feet of earth. It was only when he broke out of his manacles that he understood he was in a real grave. He'd spent a lifetime learning how to control his breathing. But this time it was different. He panicked. When he tried to call out, his mouth was stopped with dirt. Harry never let himself be buried again. He wrote later, in one revealing little sentence that I've never forgotten, 'the weight of the earth is killing'.
I read that piece early on, and never returned to it. I hated to think of Harry so vulnerable, sweating, digging in the dark like me, a small blind animal. I refused to picture him dead. He has been my one reliable source of joy all these years. I know this is strange, carrying around a private hero inside me, but I don't know what I ever would have done without him. Now, creeping away from the dead man who is not Maria's husband, all I can see is Harry. His eyes are blind. He is not dreaming. His wiry hair would be the only thing on his body still growing, there in the casket.
Guido marches in after dinner, when I'm settled cosily on the sofa with Foreign Correspondent and my chocolate treat. Shit, I can't help thinking, just my luck.
But Guido doesn't ask about the funeral. He barely says 'hello', rustling around in the fridge. He's whistling, his step unusually light. The whistling stops while he munches on something. From the kitchen he calls out, 'Silvia says the next month will be good for me. The new moon will bring exceptional creative energy, which means success and money are coming my way!'
'That's great!' I call back. Right now I'm grateful to the stars. I just couldn't have lied about the funeral, or told the truth, for that matter. As I get ready for bed, I wonder if it's too late to ring Maria. Of course it is, sneers the voice, you coward. Well, I'll ring Maria tomorrow morning, early, when Guido is asleep. I'll close the kitchen door and whisper, in respect for the dead. And then I'll go and do a big shop at Coles, as my penance.
The beige face of the shopping mall looms. As I drive round and round in a circle, trying to find a park, I make a mental list of the things I need for my parents' dinner: chicken, ginger, hoi sin sauce. Their fridge needs stocking up too, staple foods like margarine, bread, lite milk. I'll get that big pack of tasty cheese. Dad's always preferred the neat square slices of packaged cheese. He used to tell Clara it was perfect for melting under the 'gorilla'.
The supermarket is an overwhelming place, and the only way out is to make decisions. But the infinite choice of food turns me numb. Sometimes, looking for comfort, I imagine the shape of Harry. I usually put him in the fruit section, crouching behind the bananas. I can almost see him winking at me now, his chains shining in the harsh fluorescent light. He is naked except for the sign over his genitals saying $4.99 a kilo.
Later, as I haul the packages off the checkout counter, I glance back at the bananas. I feel regret, and a sense of loss. I can almost make him out, but he is fading. On the way to Cuthbert Street, the packages rocking around on the back seat of the car, I try to picture Harry's face. I hope the fruit doesn't get bruised – I should have knotted the plastic bags at the top. Stupid.
I knock loudly at the front door and wait, the bags dragging on my arms. There's a key in my bag so I use it. Both my parents have become a little deaf. When talking it's easier for them to hear if you sit near and look straight at them.
Mum is lying on the bed. Her eyes are closed and a book is open on her chest. I tiptoe over, reading the title upside down. The God Delusion. Dad isn't home. I creep into the kitchen and put the groceries away, careful not to bang the cupboard doors.
I've just cut up the chicken and plonked the pieces in the marinade when Mum comes up behind me, yawning. I jump, the dark sauce splashing against my skirt. Clumsy fool.
'What are you doing?' she asks, peering over my shoulder.
'Making Thai chicken. You'll just need to put this dish into the oven for thirty-five minutes, and boil some rice with it.'
'Oh, Rachel, you don't have to do that!' Her tone is surprised and pleased, as if I haven't done this before. As if I haven't come over twice a week for the last eighteen months and cooked dinner, leaving a couple of meals wrapped in plastic to freeze. Goldfish have a thirty-second memory span, Lena told me, that's why they never get bored. The view each time around the bowl is new for them. But Mum is probably just being polite.
I'm clearing up when I spot a chicken thigh lying left over on the bench. Damn, how could I not have seen it? I sigh, starting to cut it up to throw in with the rest.
'You know you can get the butcher to do that,' remarks Mum, watching me. 'Their knives are much sharper and they're quicker, more used to doing it.'
I stare at her. She's opening the fridge, seeing what else I brought. This is the woman who said we should bring our own chair to the hairdressers, in case there weren't enough for other people. And now she's telling me I should ask the butcher to cut up my own chicken dinner? I couldn't.
'Do you?' I ask her.
'What?'
'Ask the butcher?'
She looks at me uncertainly. 'I think so,' she says. 'I don't remember.' Her face has changed from pleased relief to bewilderment.
'Anyway, it only takes a minute!' I say heartily. 'Just for the two of you. Dad's not home?'
'No,' she says, 'he went out to . . .' She turns away, padding toward the sofa. 'I don't remember where he's gone,' she says, but so softly it's hard to be sure I've heard correctly.
I wash the cutting board carefully, and my hands. The bacteria from raw chicken is one of the most lethal kinds. Maybe I should have told her to cook it for forty minutes. I hope Dad hasn't gone out to the supermarket. I really should have rung first. You're such a martyr with all your shopping, says the voice. 'Well,' I say, trying to be cheerful, 'I better get home.'
'Yes, Clara will be waiting for her dinner.'
Fear closes my throat. This is a new descent. 'No,' I say carefully. 'Clara is in Italy. You remember that.'
'Oh, yes, of course. I must still be only half awake. Don't know why I'm always so tired. Just can't seem to manage things. So, have you heard from her lately?'
'Last week. Just an email. She doesn't go in for long letters. But she's okay, going to school, learning Italian, I guess.'
'Good, good.' Mum settles herself on the sofa. 'You have to let them go, don't you. But it can be so frustrating. They never seem to do what they should with their lives. Such a waste.'
'Well, I think she's doing a brave thing.' I can feel my chin jutting out like it used to when I was ten.
Mum closes her eyes. 'Yes, travelling will be good for her. Hard for you, though. Being left by yourself with that awful man. Your father will be home soon if you want to wait.'
I pick up my h
andbag. 'No, that's okay. Don't forget about the chicken in the fridge. Forty minutes in the oven.'
'All right, darling. Thank you.'
I meet Dad coming up the path. 'Thai chicken, forty minutes in a medium oven,' I tell him. Dad only knows how to cook toast. 'At 180 degrees.' In his hands are plastic bags. I peer into them. 'Oh no – I got bread, marg and milk too.'
He nods. 'Sweetheart, there's no need for you to do that kind of shopping. It'll be a waste. And I always get the specials. Why don't you take it home?' I shake my head. He pats my shoulder. 'Thanks, anyway. And the dinner sounds great. Can't wait! So how are you?' He searches my face, shifting his packages from one hand to the other.
'Fine.' I look down at the path. There used to be black-eyed Susan planted around the borders. Now there's just weeds, like my place. I'd love to tell him that actually I'm not fine most of the time what with my sliding sensations as if I'm going to faint and losing Clara and lately I feel unhinged like an old door coming loose and all the things that used to be stored behind it are going to break through, any minute, a tsunami of old furniture that doesn't fit any more yet you can't throw it away, but instead I say, 'Well, have a nice night.'
As I get back into the car I suddenly wish he had asked me how I was with that same searching face, looking straight at me, when I was ten and had to make that decision about Danny Shore, the one that changed my life forever.
It's too late anyway and it's stupid to have regrets. 'Three thousand American troops killed in Iraq,' tolls the car radio. How many Iraqis? asks my mother. How many orphans? asks my father.
I carry the packages down the hallway and start to unpack on the kitchen bench. You bought too much. There's just the two of you now – only Clara eats Weet-Bix. What a waste. As I bend to put away the bananas, something grinds at the base of my skull. Small sparks shoot up and the bench tilts at the corner of my eye. That'll be the tumour, I think. I decide to stop putting away the groceries. Guido will have to learn where everything is kept when I'm gone anyway.
I droop down the hall to my bedroom. On the way I pass Guido's closed door. I stop and listen for a minute. Nothing. I knock and go in. His room looks abandoned, as if a burglary has occurred. His pyjama shirt lies on the floor. Undies draped over the chair. The computer is still on, the green light on the hard drive winking, but the screen has gone to sleep. He didn't used to be so untidy. He liked to have his room under control, his shirts folded, his papers filed and stacked. Or maybe it was me who liked his clothes in order. It was certainly me who kept them that way. I haven't been into his room for ages. I glance back at the open door and listen again for a second. Then I sit on his ergonomic chair. I close my eyes, relieved and uneasy that he is not at home.
Where is he? It's Friday, not a lesson day, surely. I get up and wander out down the hall, into the kitchen, stare at the Hokkien noodles and miso soup packets and rice crackers and soya bean snacks and Weet-Bix that will all go to waste. The cork squares under my bare soles are gritty. When we first changed the old lino for cork, I was so happy. The cork shone honey gold when the sun beamed at it. I used to polish it every week. Should I start dinner or not? Should I clean the cork floor? I go back into Guido's room and pick up the dirty clothes. I slide onto the chair again and sit in front of the computer. Roget's Thesaurus lies open next to the key pad. My hand hovers over the mouse, lying docile on its smooth black pad. I press it and slowly the blue light comes up on the screen, like a sunrise. I click the icon 'Guido' and a long narrow column of words appears. On Silvia's advice he bought new soft ware to write his script. She says producers won't even look at your work if the words aren't presented in the right format. Guido enjoys using this soft ware, he says, because it provides a kind of structure and form – it's like poetry, with the pause it leaves between words, demanding that the reader participate, and imagine. Prose, he said, can sprawl and become shapeless, spread out in the middle like women as they age.
INT. HALLWAY FAMILY HOME – LATE AFTERNOON
Boy is hanging on to Mother's skirt, crying. He leaves chocolate marks and mucus on the white linen. Boy's fingers stretch the skirt across her stomach. Her swollen belly is visible underneath. She holds him to her, her face wet. Father marches into the room. He gives a grunt of disgust, looking at the pair of them, and roughly pulls Boy's fingers away. He holds Boy and Mother apart.
FATHER
The taxi is waiting. Leave him alone. You make him weak.
MOTHER
I can't go. I can't leave him, you're a monster! Please, please!
FATHER
It's your own fault. Go!
Father grabs Mother's arm and pulls her towards the door. Boy has hold of her skirt and is being pulled with her. His feet slide across the marble. Father pushes Boy's hand away, pushes him over. Then Father picks up the suitcases and shoves Mother out the door.
EXT. STREET – LATE AFTERNOON
Boy watches from doorway as Father throws the suitcases into the trunk of the taxi. Father leans in to talk to the driver. Laughs, lights a cigarette. Boy runs down the steps and bangs on the window. His fingers leave streaks on the glass. But Mother doesn't turn to look at him. She stares straight ahead, her profile only in view.
EXT. FROZEN RIVER UNDER MOONLIGHT – NIGHT
Camera travels across unmoving ice surface of the water. The moon makes a ladder of light reaching the shadows of the old bridge. Dive under the water where there is movement – currents swirl and a fish swims towards the light.
INT. BOY'S BEDROOM – AFTERNOON
Boy playing alone with lego, making a tower, dark coming down, time change, Boy asleep on floor, still alone, tower smashed.
I scroll down but there's no more. I turn to the open page of Roget: 950 penitence, 951 impenitence, 952 atonement. Underneath Roget there is the corner of a picture with white serrated edges poking out. I slide it out. The Colosseum at dusk, the first postcard Clara sent us from her pensione in Rome.
'Clara!' I leap up. I forgot to check the letterbox as I came in. Apart from that one postcard there've been three dutiful emails from internet cafes, informing us of her safe arrival in Florence, her introduction to the Centro, and the dormitory arrangements. Then last week she rang. It was such a relief to hear her voice. I asked her to send a letter, now that she was settled. 'Snail mail,' she laughed. 'I want something I can hang on to,' I said. She was still Clara, alive on the other side of the world. She sounded enthusiastic. I held the phone to my ear long after she'd gone. Even the dial tone had something of Clara still attached.
I run to the mailbox and rake through the glossy junk mail. There's a Telstra bill, real estate enquiries, a bank statement. No postcard. I go through everything again, just to make sure. A pale blue airmail letter slips out from beneath the Freedom Furniture brochure. Now don't get excited, I tell myself, it'll only be that old James Heartacher. I deliberately place it at the bottom of the pile and take the letters back into the house. If I peep at it before I enter the living room, I think, bargaining with myself, it'll only be James, but if I wait, if I hold back, it might just be Clara. I drop the bundle in a casual way onto the desk, so the mail fans out. My eyes go straight to the pale blue, quick as iron filings to a magnet. Clara's handwriting. I don't have to look at the back to know. I give a little leap of excitement and knock my shin on the coffee table. It stings, but distantly.
I go to get a glass of wine, the last of the pinot noir, delaying the pleasure another few minutes. A letter, what a treat, scores of words to relish, something of Clara's to hold in my hand! I fling myself on the couch and put my feet on the glass coffee table. I don't even worry about the sweat marks my heels will leave.
I devour the letter in a minute and a half. The clock in the kitchen ticks. The fridge shudders then goes silent. I feel desolate. More bereft than before. I read the letter again, slowly this time, making it last.
Sunday, April 9, 2006
Hi Mum and Dad,
I've been to Santa Maria del Fiore
, the Duomo, the Bargello and the Uffizi – I am forever changed! Botticelli's Birth of Venus, Da Vinci's Adoration – I had to keep telling myself this is real and I haven't just fallen asleep on an open page of 'Encyclopaedia of Renaissance Art'. Mum, don't you think the Venus has something of Saraah? The blonde hair, the love-heart face – isn't it amazing how alive and flirty she still looks, Venus I mean, and yet she's more than 600 years old! Everything seems so relevant and close here, just heartbeats away instead of centuries. I saved the Academia and David for last. When I saw him, I nearly cried. He towers over the space and conquers it completely. I stood for ages in the one spot until someone banged into me with her handbag. He's amazing – all five metres of him! I think David IS the Renaissance. After the Academy I walked to the Piazza della Signoria and sat for a while. David (a copy!) stands there too, looking out over the square with that kingly expresion, reminding us who we COULD be.
You'd probably like Michelangelo's 'Four Prisoners' mum. The figures were left unfinished – they're rithing in the stone, eternally trapped by it – they look like Houdini or someone trying to escape from the tomb. Gives me the creeps.
When I get to the end I try to think of Clara writing this in a cafe, maybe in the Piazza della Signoria. The sun might be glittering on the cobblestones, people strolling by in their best clothes. She might be having a cappuccino with a biscotto, and the waiter may flirt with her. I hope she doesn't have that horrible old cardigan on. She sounds excited, curious, very much alive. I try not to think of her finishing the letter and packing up her bag, only to discover that while she was lost in contemplation her passport and wallet have been stolen and in a frazzle of anxiety she steps off the kerb forgetting that Italians drive on the wrong side of the road and that according to Guido red lights in Italy are only a suggestion and she is hurled up into the air, fragile as a bunch of sticks . . .
Escape Page 27