Escape
Authors: Anna Fienberg
Anna Fienberg has written more than forty well-loved books for
children and young adults. Since her first Children's Book Council
of Australia award for
The Magnificent Nose and Other Marvels
, she
has gone on to win many others, including the 1993 Victorian
Premier's Prize for
Ariel, Zed and the Secret of Life
and the CBCA
Honour Award for
Borrowed Light
(selected as a 2001 American
Library Association Best Book for Young Adults). Her ever-popular
'Tashi' series has been translated into nineteen languages. She lives
in Sydney.
Escape
is her first book for adults.
Anna Fienberg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the
Australian Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Escape
ePub ISBN 9781864714463
Kindle ISBN 9781864716900
A Bantam book
Published by Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au
First published by Bantam in 2009
Copyright © Anna Fienberg 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any
person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory
exceptions provisions of the Australian
Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by
any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Random House Australia.
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at
www.randomhouse.com.au/offices
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry
Fienberg, Anna.
Escape.
ISBN 978 1 86325 668 1 (pbk).
A823.3
Cover design: debbieclementdesign.com
Cover image: Getty Images
Typeset in Arno Pro 12.5/16 pt
Printed and bound by Griffin Press, South Australia
Random House Australia uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable
products and made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The logging and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Between light and shade there is an intermediate state,
something twofold, belonging to both, resembling a light
shadow or a dark light. This it is that you must seek, for it holds
the secret of perfect beauty.
Leonardo da Vinci
In memory of Goliarda Sapienza
The Last Supper
I used to think time was endless, easy to spend, cheap as socks. Now I
know better.
It's five o'clock already, and when I pull up outside my house, I
know this evening will be a disaster. The plastic bags stuff ed with
veal, capsicum, eggplant, spring onions, mushrooms, champagne and
dinner rolls cut into my arms as I haul them out of the car and up the
stone path. They'll leave angry red marks, like slashes, just below my
elbow. Twenty years ago the marks would have vanished in seconds.
Now it takes ages. But that isn't what I'm worried about.
No, what I'm worried about right now is how late it is and I haven't
even started on the dinner. My mother and father will be arriving in
an hour for Clara's Last Supper, and I've only just bought the ingredients.
The house is a mess, with little balls of fluff whirling around the
cork floor like tiny twisters from those flat treeless plains that have lost
all their topsoil due to ruthless deforestation and there's something
rotting in the fridge. Every time it's opened a dead animal smell seeps
out, reminding me of the aroma accompanying the rat which died in
the cupboard beneath the laundry sink. Or maybe it's just the stracchino.
At the front door I consider knocking instead of putting the five
bags down on the dirty doorstep while I use the key. But there'd only
be the wait while my husband ignores the first knock, hoping whoever
it is will go away, then the wave of irritation as he opens the door, fails
to greet me, and trudges back down the hall
senza
even one plastic
bag.
Each time I looked at Guido when we first married, I felt faint
with love. Now I often think I might faint with rage. 'Perhaps I'll get
cancer,' I said hopefully to Doreen the other day, describing my sliding
sensations. 'If I got cancer, I wouldn't have to make any decisions,
about anything.'
'You should come down to the oncology department,' Doreen
snapped, 'and see what
real
cancer does to you. Maybe then you'd
appreciate your options.'
I've known Doreen since our children were little but lately I think
she's losing patience with me. It's a shame, because she is the only
person I can talk to about the gathering chaos.
I am a walking shame. A good woman would never complain about
the weight of nourishing food she is carrying home to her family. She
would be grateful. I had to switch off the television last night, unable
to watch another swollen-bellied child with stick legs looking at me
as I ate the four squares of dark chocolate I'd been looking forward to
since lunchtime.
And you're not even happy
, chided the voice.
And now I'll be late putting the veal on to roast. I wish there
was
such a thing as a magic broom. Tonight should be a joyous night.
Celebratory. But just the thought of Clara's going away makes my
stomach turn over. When she made her shock announcement, only
seven weeks ago, so many feelings rose up in my throat that I had to
stand still until everything settled, like a bottle of fizzy drink that's
been shaken up.
I've never liked surprises, at least not unless they were the magic
kind. My favourite television show when I was eight was full of them –
startling, miraculous surprises, suggesting anything was possible. Dean
was the handsome magician and Jean was his assistant. In the world of
magic the man always gave the orders, but I didn't care about all that
back then. I was just fascinated by Jean's shiny orange harem pants and
sequinned bra. When you're a grown-up, my mother used to say, you
have to concentrate and understand the process of things – you can't
just go around full of easy belief and wonder all the time. But as a child,
I could drift right into the television. Sometimes I didn't even feel the
ground beneath me, or hear the dinner sounds in the kitchen. I didn't
have to think about anything uncomfortable, like people who were
born less fortunate than me. The men and women on TV could look
after themselves. Even Jean, regularly sawn in half, vanished by Dean,
locked in trunks and pierced by long swords, always returned smiling.
She had a beautiful smile, bright red and luscious. I'd flirt with Dean,
tossing my pretend long hair like Jean's, as I sat on the couch sipping
cocoa from my special white cup reserved for
The Magic Show
.
Normally, I'm not the kind of person who likes to sit around
trawling through scenes from the past. I'm too busy doing research for
my magic manuals, trying to get a chapter written, cooking, shopping,
cleaning the kitchen. I can never sit down to work in the morning
unless the sink is spotless and gleaming. I polish the indoor plants, buy
organic vegetables, give the postman and the pest man nice presents
at Christmas. I am (nearly) always polite, and consider others first.
It's just that lately, I don't seem to be quite in control. Memories gush
in, overwhelming me, like the sudden floods occurring with climate
change. And now there's the fear that something wild will leap out of
my mouth, a frog instead of a pearl.
For many years I've written about magic for children:
How to
Make Magic with Science
,
Bewitch Your Friends with Chemistry
,
A Full
Evening of Magic Escapes
. In the
Escape
series, which is my specialty,
I explode the mysteries of manacles, chains, thumb ties, straitjackets.
My daughter says if a person were to judge my mental state by the
number of hours I've spent with my nose in escape manuals, they'd
think I ought to
stay
in one of my straitjackets, never to be released.
Clara tends towards sarcasm, which is, as I've told her, the lowest form
of humour. Harry Houdini, the king of escape, had absolutely no sense
of humour about his work. Neither, I suppose, do I.
This morning I should have gone straight to the library and then
done the shopping. I knew that. But to get to the library I have to drive
practically right past my favourite shop. Hey Presto sells magic – tricks,
light effects, escapology equipment – and it's run by a man called
Baudelaire who has a marvellous French accent as smooth as wine
even though he has never been to France and actually comes from
Newcastle. Every inch of his forearms is covered in tattoos, mainly of
naked women having incredible sex with trees, dragons, demons and
centaurs, but the rest of him is always extremely polite and restrained.
Baudelaire never bothers me, he lets me wander free to peer along
the shelves, turning the magic tricks over and over. When he's got
anything new in, he usually shows me. Last week he had an exploding
wallet – it was fabulous. I bought it straight away because a) it wasn't
expensive and b) I knew the children I visit at schools would love it.
What a show starter – it's ingenious! It looks like a normal leather
wallet, quite elegant, but inside there's a secret metal compartment
with a chamber containing a flammable polycarbon. When you open
it, the lighting mechanism is triggered and flames leap up in a most
dramatic and satisfying way.
I tried it out at the fish shop the next day, where there was a crowd
of kids buying chips. After the shopkeeper had wrapped my salmon I
went to pay him, holding the wallet close so no one could look over
the top. You should have heard them when I opened it! Screaming
with surprise and delight, they leaped back. I laughed and snapped it
shut, extinguishing the oxygen and killing the flames. Everyone was
dumbfounded, standing around with their mouths open. Little Sean
from next door had a fit of nervous giggles. I was so carried away, I
forgot to pay. I only realised this when I got home, so I had to go all
the way back.
Typical
, said the voice.
You always stuff it up
.
Five minutes at Baudelaire's can help me get through a whole day.
I wish I hadn't spent quite so long there this morning, though. I'm like
an alcoholic with a drink – just one quick look, I tell myself, that's all
I'll need. But it's never enough.
I ease the shopping bags off my arm and unlock the front door.
Stomping down the hall, I plonk the groceries on the nearest surface,
which is the big oak desk where Guido is working. Little bits of paper
spray up like confetti and settle in different patterns across the table.
'
Uffa
, what are you doing?' Guido shouts. 'You've destroyed the
natural order!'
Guido's 'mosaic' poetry. For most of the day Guido has been
sitting in the silence of the house, writing words on scraps of paper,
sometimes whole sentences, then randomly throwing them together.
The unconscious will be present in these random combinations, he
says. Silvia, his 'talented' Italian student, told him so. She claims he
will be able to contact his deepest self by following this process.
I bend down to pick up one of the scraps. 'She opens her mouth
and there is a lid over mine,' it says. I suppose he had to do something
new. After the first couple of poetry books, which enjoyed great critical
acclaim, there seemed to be not much call for Leopardi poetry. Three
more volumes were published but now the first book is out of print.
'Is the trouble with this country,' Guido told his publisher, Sandra
Farfalle, 'is so shallow. There is no commitment, no tradition, always
they must try something new, as if being new is everything, fantastic!
Where is the slow cooking of ideas, references to history and culture
that are traced to find meaning? In this country, Umberto Eco is out of
print!' But she remained unmoved, even when he dedicated a whole
book to her. She explained that in the real world, almost no one can
live off poetry. Even the best-known poets' books are published in
the hundreds, not thousands. She wishes it weren't so too, but it is. So
he increased his number of students instead, which, it seemed to me,
made him happier as well as wealthier.
'You are very late with the shopping,' Guido says, moving the bags
of groceries carefully onto the kitchen bench. Grains of dirt and leaf
from the doorstep speckle the tabletop.
'Yes,
I
was working too, at the library. I didn't realise the time.'
I didn't tell him the real reason I was running late. Or how my
heart had lift ed this morning at Baudelaire's as I spied the lovely
leather restraints and straitjackets and rows of shiny tools. If only
I could spend my entire life mooching around in a place like that, I
bet the sliding sensations would cease. What I had been looking for
was a going-away present for Clara. But then Baudelaire came over
and dragged out a Bohemian Torture Crib that had just come in and I
got distracted. It really was a powerful-looking piece of equipment – a
two-metre-high board shaped like a casket lid. Once the performer is
standing against the board, chains are threaded across, locking him in.
You have to obtain slack in order to get out.
Guido is sorting his pieces of paper into a neat pile in the middle
of the table. I wonder what he'll do now, close his eyes and drop them
in a random unconscious manner perhaps, like that game of Pick-up-Sticks
I used to play with Clara when she was little. Only we didn't
have to sort out the meaning of the pattern, just pick up one stick at
a time without touching another. Although Clara didn't know it, this
delicate game was excellent training for her fine motor skills, used in
so many activities, including lock picking.
In high school Clara preferred to do her homework at this very
table, radio blaring, so that she was near the kitchen as I cooked dinner
– she used to love chewing on diced carrots that were going into the
stir-fry, even rings of raw onion and slivers of garlic. 'I like
intense
flavours,' she announced once. 'That's the kind of person I am.' My
heart stings at the memory. Tomorrow, this time, she will be gone.
'That plumber was sniffing around again today,' Guido said.
'Yes, I asked him to fix the toilet.'
'Can't he do that
outside
?'
I sigh as I go into the kitchen to unpack the groceries. Guido hates
'strangers' entering the house, always thinking handymen are casing
the joint, preparing for a later invasion. 'The tap in the kitchen is
loose too, but I forgot to tell him,' I say. 'I don't suppose you did?' No
answer. I call more loudly through the archway. 'I gather Clara is still
at Saraah's? Has she finished her packing?'
Guido gives a short bark of a laugh. 'Clara tells me that when
Saraah went overseas, 'er mother gave 'er an excellent suitcase.
Proprio
bella
. Such a useful gift . But Clara doesn't own a suitcase like this, so
she 'as to go to 'er friend to
borrow
it.'
I turn on the oven and start stuffing the veal with knobs of garlic
and rosemary. Guido doesn't even
like
Doreen or her mothering. I've
never heard him say one positive thing about her or the way she's so
heroically brought up her daughter all alone. I think of the gift I'd ended
up buying at Baudelaire's this morning and a brief guilty pang shoots
through me – would Clara really
want
to take this to Italy? But the
gleaming little tool set, with its six picklocks, pair of tension wrenches
and pert array of shims, had proved too tempting. I'd planned to give
them to Clara tonight at dinner, but I was so excited by my purchases
that I slipped home quickly to wrap them, and found sleepy Clara just
getting out of bed.
'Come and see what I've got for you!' I said before I could stop
myself, and patted a spot on the sofa next to me. As she slumped down,
I placed the tools carefully in her lap. We both looked at the leather
case, bristling with sharp hooked instruments, nestled between her
knees.
'You mightn't think so now,' I said quickly, 'but this set could come
in handy, what with all that kidnapping in Italy.' I reminded her that
back in her father's time, there'd been a lot of kidnapping going on. The
Red Brigade went in for that sort of thing, stealing the children of the
wealthy, or members of the right-wing government, and demanding
enormous ransoms. Back in 1972, the prime minister, Aldo Moro,
was abducted and locked away in some old house in the country for
months, then finally murdered. If he'd had lock-picking skills, the
shape of history might have been different. And then of course there
was the Mafia. They did a lot of locking up and throwing away the key,
too.
