Escape Read Free Page A

frequently. I just don't
seem capable of concentrating.
    For instance, I find it almost impossible to sit still and do my
work. The book I am contracted to write at the moment is entirely
different from my others – although because it's about magic, most
people wouldn't appreciate that. It's not about illusions, and how to
make them. I'm used to talking about misdirection, which is, of course,
the fundamental tool of illusion. I must have described a hundred
different ways for diverting attention to, say, the left hand – clicking
your fingers, pointing, making the shape of a bird – while the right
is busy with substitution, coins for feathers, an ace for a king. These
are practical steps, made simple for children. Now I have to write a
book for grown-ups, about four renowned magicians. I'll have to
research them, discover their inner motivations, bring them to life .
But I'm stuck at the very beginning, on Harry Houdini, the father
of escapology. Harry died at the age of fifty-two from a blow to the
stomach, which was a tragedy, but in a sense ensured his immortality.
He became a legend, never to be trapped by the slow constrictions of
old age like the rest of us. That is, the rest of us in the western world.
Just this morning at the library I read that the average life expectancy
in Zambia is thirty-seven. Isn't that the sort of thing a person ought to
be writing about?
    Magic is such a frilly thing, says Clara, a mere accessory to life
like a handbag – why don't you write about something important?
But I wouldn't know how to write about anything else. I wish I did.
I find Harry's life – and death – mesmerising. I just can't move on.
The book is a year late and every time I sit down at my desk I think
about running away – going to live somewhere else, somewhere
anonymous, a cold little mountain village maybe, like the one Guido
once wrote about. A place where no publishers would be waiting
for manuscripts, no eyes would settle on me as people rushed over
cobblestones with coats buttoned up against the cold, noses and
mouths forming triangles of ice in the pure, bitter air. Doreen says
it's normal at our age to want to escape the lives we've made for
ourselves. That's what holidays are for. I told her it's more like life
has settled around me, like dust on an ornament. If you stay still for
long enough, I said, the dust mats into a film that is impossible to
peel away.
    Weariness overwhelms me as I look at the pumpkin on the kitchen
bench. It's as big as a football. Organic. I'll be making soup for weeks.
I start chopping it up, to put in with the veal. My father loves baked
vegetables. He'd be a vegetarian if he could. Hates the thought of
those poor cows with their big dark eyes walking, trusting as children,
to slaughter. The eggplant, capsicum, mushrooms and tomatoes I'll
bake separately, as a ratatouille. That's Guido's favourite. Perhaps it will
lighten his mood and encourage him to be more loquacious at dinner.
    Guido is hovering in the doorway, munching crackers. He seems
to have abandoned his work for the moment.
    'Here,' I say, 'do you want to give me a hand? All these vegetables
have to go into the oven quickly. You could use the new classy knife,
you know, the one you admired the other day.' I offer it to him, twirling
it like a cheer-leading baton so the bright blue handle catches the light
in an appealing way. 'You could help me chop up the pumpkin – it
always makes my arm ache.'
    Guido frowns. He looks at the knife I push towards him. 'Mm,
okay, but I just 'ad a brilliant idea that I should write down before I
forget. Is about the slow tide of death, of death as a symbol rather than
the physical fact, what I intend is the death of self . . .'
    The phone on the kitchen wall rings. I reach for it but Guido is too
quick for me.
    ' Ciao bella! ' he says, sudden warmth suffusing his voice. ' Un
momento ,' and he lays the receiver carefully on the kitchen bench. 'I'll
take it in the bedroom,' he