Escape (19 page)

The crying got worse.

Every morning a wattle bird shrieked me awake at 4 am. It was
like a siren, signalling catastrophe. That shriek meant I had to
take up position on the front line. I was armed now, bristling with
Strategies, but how was I to know which were the right ones? It was
like being stuck in my dream, condemned to observe and suffer,
and never act.

I wish the magnificent feeling had stayed and the anxiety hadn't
crept in. The anxiety was like monsters in the night, carving up my
peace, and always their dark, pointed questions. Why is she crying?
Why won't she settle, where is your milk? They let themselves in slyly
when we took the baby home and I was alone. Then they cruised around
like gangsters, taking over the place. Home invaders come to stay.

How absurd can you get?
said the voice.
Do something
.

But it never said what.

There had never been a more terrible sound in the world. It meant
there was a little person in pain right next to you. Someone who
couldn't make themselves understood. How did people hear a child
crying and just go on with their conversation, as if there was no war
going on?

'For heaven's sake, it's just the baby's way of telling you she wants
something,' said Doreen. 'It's really just like anything else – there's a
problem and you try out a number of different strategies to solve it.'

'But what if none of them work?'

'Something works eventually, you know it does,' said Doreen.
I heard her sigh, too. So I didn't protest that even if a strategy was
successful for half an hour, the crying started again, and the house
didn't feel like a house any more but as if we were both trapped
in this long black tunnel like caves under the sea, and we would be
condemned forever to make our way through them, just the baby and
me, scuttling along in the dark like beetles with never the hope of any
light at the end. I didn't say that. I got up and made Doreen a cup of
tea instead. I was so grateful she was there.

'Why don't you ask your mother for help with the crying?' said
Doreen.

'Oh yes, that's a good idea.' Privately, I thought my mother had
had enough crying in her life. There had been the distressed orphans
with their drunken fathers and drugged-out mothers, their broken
bones and spirits and their endless, shattering needs. And then there
was my father. I didn't want to bring more tears and anxiety into my
mother's house.

But my parents did valiantly come to visit and hold the baby.
They brought provisions and kindness and the good ordinary smell of
Ajax. Mum put down her bunch of keys with the enamelled red peace
sign on the big oak desk. The keys looked so comforting lying there,
certain. I was so fond of those keys – they looked as if they had come
to stay.

I breathed deeper when my parents sat on the brown couch
next to me. My milk would flow, sometimes it would even spurt
and make wet circles on my blouse and I would make the most of it
and fetch the baby, nuzzling myself into her. Sometimes she actually
smiled. She would lie on my knees and smile at me, at my mother. But
then sometimes I would watch them bringing out the pie for lunch
or putting the milk in the fridge and there'd be the strange sense of
unreality and the vertigo. It was like looking at a movie with benign
characters doing reassuring lovely things but knowing that after two
hours it would finish and they would disappear. I felt as if I was behind
glass. My breath made Rorschach shapes on the cold surface and I
tapped and tapped but no one could hear. My poor baby was trapped
behind the glass too, through no fault of her own. Just because she
happened to be my baby.

Guido usually went out when my parents came. He said he was
'leaving me in good hands' and off he'd go to get the milk or the bread.
But sometimes he came home without them.

When I visited my parents in Cuthbert Street the baby cried
much less. Sometimes she even went to sleep. If she cried when she
woke I'd swoop her up and take her out to the garden. I'd pace up and
down, swinging her lightly from side to side, singing a rhyme. I tried
to make my voice merry and confident, as if I knew what I was doing.
Because what, after all, did I have to be so afraid of? There were no
wild drunken fathers waiting for us back home with a length of garden
hose in their hands. My husband was a reasonable, stable man who
would never harm me.
You're damn lucky
, said the voice,
and not a little
spoilt compared to so many other women in the world! Wouldn't a woman
in Zambia swap places with you in a second!

But my anxiety seemed to make Guido angry. Sometimes it was
he, now, who set off the car alarm inside me. 'What are you doing?'
he'd snap. 'Stop that frown on your face, fold those nappies later, the
baby's asleep, come here.'

Now he wanted me to read his poems. And the sources of his
references. He wanted me to sit for hours, absorbed by his words and
what he was thinking. But I couldn't concentrate. I didn't have time.
And the alarm turned into an air raid siren.

Just before I went to sleep at night, I'd think, now there is time. It
was only early in the evening after all. Some people were probably just
starting dinner. But it felt to me like the middle of the night. There was
something else, too. Something besides the tiredness that stopped me
going out into the kitchen and putting my arms around Guido. There
was the hard little lump of resentment lodged in my chest, in the place
where my curiosity and excitement used to be.

In the fourth month my milk dried up like a puddle in the sun. When
I took Clara to the baby health centre, the nurse told me she had lost
weight. Could my baby actually be starving?

I was advised to put Clara on a bottle.
What did you expect?
said the voice.
You can't breastfeed like a real woman. Think of all the
antibodies she'll miss out on. You'll be depriving her of the best start in life.
She'll always be the weaker one in the pack, just like you
.

I wrote to the Education Department and told them I needed
more leave. If I'd been busy before, now it seemed I had ten times as
many things to do.

Guido didn't smile fondly when I measured the formula
scientifically, as he had in the past when I was cooking. He just clicked
his teeth with irritation and said, 'Will we have dinner next year?' But
at least the formula was something I had control over. If I took enough
time, concentrated properly, sterilised and cleaned, Clara would get
enough food. And no matter how high my level of anxiety soared, it
would make no difference to her diet. There would always be milk, and
its supply would not be affected by how I was feeling. My baby would
no longer be poisoned by my panic, and surely that was a positive.

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.