Escape Read Online Free Page A

painful to confront.' And she drew her
eyebrows together, concerned. 'What is festering in there, Mum, in
your SOUL ?'
    I said that was interesting because what Freud described sounded
exactly like misdirection, as if our brains unconsciously misdirect our
own psyche! Then I told her how Houdini kept a shim in his sole, what
did she think of that, but she got irritated with me and stopped patting
my knee.
    After that first year, Clara never went back to university. I don't
really know why. She wasn't good at sticking at things. For another
year she worked at Love-in Lingerie with Saraah. Saraah is still there,
loving lingerie. Clara said Saraah would have worn her lilac bras and
apple-green G-strings on the outside of her clothes, like Superman,
if the manager had allowed it. I often wondered how Clara felt about
Saraah's long succession of boyfriends. Doreen told me if you lined
them up, head to toe, they'd fill a football field. She said that about the
large intestine, too.
    Oh, Clara. I can hear her teeth tapping. She started that habit
at fourteen, and for a while she did it almost every time I began a
conversation with her. Once, when I couldn't stand it any more – how
rude can you get, I shrilled, when I'm only trying to help you with
your homework? – she told me that I should try it, because tooth
tapping was a great technique for shutting someone out. If you do it
fast enough, she said, you can't hear anything but your own teeth.
    I take a deep breath. 'Look, Clara, I've done so many things wrong
– but it's just that now you're twenty-one I'd like to know that you can
make your way in the world. You know, that you've got some security,
that you have a passion, not just wandering through life but pursuing
something you really love, you know, some kind of goal.'
    'What, like Harry?' She flings a white nightie onto the bed. It
lands in my lap. 'He was dirt-poor for years, you told me so yourself.
Hung out in beer halls and dime museums with his poor wife, escaping
from handcuffs and things. They lived in squalor – it was all totally squalido .'
    She opens her eyes very wide, staring into mine. She holds them
like that deliberately, aggressively. Clara is good at confrontation,
eager to take in the full effect of her words. Squalido is one of Guido's
favourite words. He uses it to describe the state of the living room,
the knee-high grass in the backyard, the level of literary and cultural
debate in this country. It's all squalido .
    'And how weird was he?' she goes on, her voice rising. 'All that
performing he did with a punctured bowel. How sick in the head is
someone who has to keep getting up on stage when they're dying?
Night after night?'
    'Well,' I say, swallowing hard, 'he didn't know he was dying. And
anyway, that's what magicians do. They carry on with the show. The professional ones.' A swift wave of fury rises. 'Others just fade into
insignificance and slouch around in their pyjamas trying to get in
touch with their unconscious.'
    'What, you mean like Dad?' Clara drops the bra in her hand. Her
eyes are wild.
    'Oh, no, well, I didn't mean...It's just – oh Clara, your father was
magnetic on stage, you should have seen him. He held the audience in
the palm of his hand! He was dazzling, extraordinary! I just think...all
that talent wasted.'
    'Dad's a poet , Mum.' She shakes her head coolly, picking up the
bra, folding one cup into the other. 'See, that's your problem right
there. You've always confused the two, Houdini and Dad. In my
opinion you've given up on your husband and opted for a ghost
instead. Ghosts are much easier to live with – after all, you can walk
right through them.'
    'Yes, well, something went wrong somewhere, that's true.' I
close my eyes for a moment. I can feel the tears pricking. They come
suddenly, sharp as a shock, as they did when Clara was little.
    'Oh, Mum, it's just – I'm sick of you telling me who I should be .
What I should do .'
    Clara turns away and starts putting bras