The Mimosa Tree Read online

  Laughing, we turn the corner into our street. Any doubts that the demolition was real are dispelled as soon as I see the excavator parked on the verge outside our house. Its great arm is curled up under its nose and it looks peaceful, like it’s dozing after a hard day’s munching. The demolition must have stopped just after the storm started, because the house is only partially knocked down. The excavator has torn through the middle leaving the sides leaning but still standing. All that’s left of the demolished part is a tangle of split and broken roof timbers that look like a giant game of pick-up-sticks.

  Suddenly, there is a screeching of brakes and we turn around to see Felicia’s Celica skidding to a stop. She leaps out of the car and runs towards us.

  ‘Oh my God! Are you okay? I’m so sorry, Mira. I tried to come straight after you called but I couldn’t get out because of the storm. You had me so worried!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say cringing as what I said starts coming back to me. ‘I might have been a little overdramatic.’

  She gestures to the house. ‘From the looks of this I’d say you conveyed the urgency of your situation with a good deal of accuracy. What the hell happened?’

  ‘They started knocking it over,’ says Harm.

  ‘While we were still in it,’ I add. ‘We almost got killed.’

  Felicia looks aghast.

  ‘We went to the train station to get away from the nuclear explosion,’ says Harm.

  Felicia cocks her head to the side. ‘The what?’

  ‘I’ll explain later,’ I say waving my hand. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘It’s a good story actually,’ says Harm with a grin. ‘I think you’ll like it.’

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

  Felicia looks hopeful. ‘Home?’

  ‘Yeah, I can’t leave things like this. I’ve got to try and sort stuff out.’

  ‘And what about you?’ she says to Harm.

  ‘Back to my parents for a while. Until I can find somewhere else to live.’ He slides his arm around my waist and pulls me close. ‘Then maybe, when I’m all set up, I’ll call for you.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting,’ I say and then we kiss.

  ‘Oh God! I think I preferred it when you were weird and awkward with each other.’

  ‘You can talk,’ I say kicking lightly at her shin. ‘I’m just giving you back a little of your own medicine.’

  ‘So how is pizza-Einstein guy?’ says Harm with a grin.

  She looks shocked. ‘What have you been telling him?’

  ‘Nothing! Okay, well I may have mentioned a couple of things.’

  ‘Yeah right,’ she says. ‘Well it doesn’t matter anymore. I broke up with him.’

  ‘Really? What happened?’

  ‘He called me from Sydney, told me he was in love with someone else. Apparently he was sleeping with her the whole time I thought he was with me.’ She is smiling, trying to seem light with it, but she turns away and drops her sunglasses over her eyes. ‘Then his other girlfriend dumped him, so now he keeps calling me trying to get me back. He’s an arsehole and a stalker. I can really pick them, can’t I?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Felicia. He’s obviously a fool.’

  ‘Just what you thought all along, right? You don’t have to pretend, Mira. I know you’re probably glad that things turned out this way. Stupid thing is, if I’d listened to you in the first place I may not be feeling this crappy right now.’

  ‘Hey,’ I say putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m not glad at all. You’re a good person and you don’t deserve to be treated that way.’

  She looks from my hand to me. ‘Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been better, but I feel okay.’

  ‘I mean are you feeling okay because that’s the first time you’ve ever said something nice about me.’

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘Well, you know, you don’t give me much to work with.’

  She laughs and gives me a hug and I realise this is something else that’s new in our friendship. Not so much her hugging me, but me actually enjoying hugging her back.

  ‘So where to?’ she says dangling her car keys.

  ‘Let’s drop Harm off. I’ll call Via from there and warn her I’m coming. I don’t want to give her a heart attack by just showing up.’

  ‘Wait,’ Felicia says, pushing Harm and me together and turning us so that we have our backs to the house. ‘Say cheese.’ And before I know it I am blinded by the flash of her camera.

  ‘What did you bring that for?’ I say blinking my eyes.

  ‘Posterity.’

  I laugh. ‘I’m not sure there is much about this moment that is particularly valuable to future generations.’

  ‘You can’t judge the importance of these things when you’re in them, Mira. I’ll whip this photo out when we’re old and worn and you can tell me what you think then.’

  ‘Fine,’ I say, taking the camera from her. ‘But for an accurate record we need to have your face in this picture too.’ I pull us close together and hold the camera as far away as I can.

  ‘Okay, smile,’ I say, and with another flash I commit the three of us, and the demolished house, to history.

  ‘The most beautiful summer of my youth,’ I say remembering Mum’s seaside photo.

  ‘What?’ ask Felicia and Harm together.

  ‘Never mind,’ I say smiling. ‘Let’s just go home.’

  ***

  ‘You want me to come in with you?’ says Felicia as she pulls into my driveway.

  ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll be okay.’

  ‘All right, but call me if you need me. I can come over anytime.’

  ‘Thanks, Felicia, thanks for everything.’ I lean over and give her a hug and she starts laughing. ‘What?’ I say.

  ‘Sorry, it’s just going to take a while to get used to you actually hugging.’

  ‘Yeah well, it’s freaking me out too.’ I sigh and look at my house. ‘It’s so weird. Everything looks exactly the same. It’s just hard to believe she’s not in there.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mira. It must be really hard.’ And there is really nothing I can say. It is hard. It’s like the hardest thing in the world. We sit for a while quietly in the dark until I am ready to go in. I wait for her to drive away before walking slowly to the front door. The wind has picked up again, flapping the mimosa tree against Mum’s bedroom window. I vividly remember the days when Mum and I lay in bed and watched that tree do exactly what it is doing now. It’s funny how a memory can make you happy and sad at the same time. I watch for a while, imagining it’s not the wind whipping those branches, but the tree itself shaking seeds loose from their pods, spreading them far across the garden. I remember what Mum said to me about letting some of the seedlings grow this year.

  It’s a moonless, cloudy night, and the light from the kitchen window cuts across the dark veranda. I keep to the shadows, taking everything in and enjoying what I know is probably my last moment to myself for a while. It’s a strange feeling coming back after you’ve been away. Everything seems familiar, but I am noticing new things too, like the way dust has gathered in the mortar of the bricks, and how the curtains don’t reach all the way to the floor. The wind is icy, but I stand there shivering and for a moment I think I might change my mind and just walk away but then the door slides open and Siena slips outside.

  ‘Hey you!’ she says smiling and pulling me into a hug. ‘I thought I heard a car.’

  ‘Is Via here?’ I say, trying to look inside through a gap in the curtains.

  ‘She’s getting your room fixed up. She doesn’t know you’re here yet. I just wanted to say hello before she gets hold of you.’

  I smile. ‘The calm before the storm, right?’

  ‘Yes well, I’m sure you know what to expect.’ She holds me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, mostly. Some things could be better.’

  She nods. ‘I’m really happy you decided to come h
ome.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say, even though a big part of me still feels like running. But there’s no point going into any of that now.

  ‘SIENA! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?’ shouts Via from inside and suddenly the door slides open and she is standing there, mouth gaping open in shock. She has the look of a game show contestant when the panel slides away to reveal what they’ve won.

  ‘She’s here! She’s here!’ she screams and she grabs me by the shirt and pulls me into the house. I’ve spent a large part of the day cold and wet, and the warmth of the room is a bit of a shock. My eyes take time to adjust to the stark brightness too. It takes me a moment to realise that Dad is there, leaning up against the doorway to the TV room. He looks so different; paler and shorter than I remember him and I am surprised by how sad that makes me feel.

  ‘Are you okay?’ demands Via, twisting me this way and that like she’s checking for wounds.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

  ‘Good,’ she says and then whacks me across the head.

  ‘Ouch!’ I say rubbing at my temple. ‘What the hell was that for?’

  ‘For running away!’ she says. ‘You are a very bad girl! And this,’ she says pinching my ear, ‘is for not calling us and making us scared out of our brains. Don’t you ever do that again, understand?’

  ‘Okay! Okay!’ I shout. ‘Let me go!’

  She releases me, and I step back and put my arms up in case she decides to go for another attack, but instead she looks at me with such sorrow that I want to start slapping myself because I know that I am the one that has made her feel this way.

  ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ she says pulling me firmly into her bosom and though I am being suffocated by flab and linen, I don’t dare complain.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say but my words come out muffled. I slide my arm out from where it is wedged between us and reach as far around as I can to hug her back.

  ‘The chicken!’ she screams suddenly and pushes me away so fast I have to catch myself on the curtains to stop from falling over. She rushes to the kitchen, pulls open the oven door and disappears into an explosion of smoke. ‘Holy Christ! I can’t believe I burnt the chicken! See what you made me do?’

  As Via gets absorbed in trying to fix the dinner, Siena touches my shoulder, turns me around to face my father.

  ‘Here she is, Benito,’ she says softly. ‘Safe and sound.’

  I look at Dad and he stares at me from the other side of the room. He makes no move to come over to me, and for this I am grateful. I have no idea what to say and neither, it seems, does he.

  ‘Isn’t it great to have her back?’ says Siena smiling. ‘We’ve missed her so much, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Dad, and his voice sounds gravely, like someone who hasn’t spoken in days. ‘Yes, it’s good.’

  ‘Dinner’s ready!’ says Via and for once I am thankful for her blustering. ‘I’ve made your favourite,’ she says carrying a platter of roast chicken, potatoes and peas to the table. She has made enough food for about ten people and I assume this means she and Siena are staying, but with a stab of the heart I realise it’s a table set only for two. She has gone all out, using the best plates and the crystal like this is some special occasion, and I get this horrible feeling, like I am being set up for something. She places the food onto the table and spends a moment fussing with the arrangement. When everything is set to her satisfaction, she folds her apron across the back of a chair and picks up her handbag.

  ‘You’re going already?’ I say.

  Via taps at the watch on her wrist. ‘It’s late. And I think you and your father need some time to yourselves. I’ll be back tomorrow to see how you’re going, okay? Siena are you ready?’

  Siena nods and takes her place beside her sister. ‘Good night, you two. Get some rest, okay? You both need it. We’ll be back in the morning.’

  ‘You’d better be here!’ says Via shoving a podgy finger in my face. ‘If I come back and you’re gone I’m going to kill you. I mean it!’

  Then they slip through the door and Dad and I are alone. Their leaving seems to take some of the room’s warmth with it, and I can feel a cold breeze on my neck. I look at Dad, but he is head down and concentrating on serving up our food. He piles the plates up high, and when he’s done he motions for me to sit down. I pull my chair from the table and the scraping sound seems to echo in the room. We sit down together and stare at our plates, but neither of us makes a move to eat. After a long time, my father puts his palms on the table and looks at me.

  ‘I’m not very hungry,’ he says.

  ‘Me either.’

  He nods his head.

  ‘I think I’m just going to go to bed,’ I say standing up. I walk past him to the door.

  ‘Mira,’ he says, and I wait to hear what he has to say. ‘Thank you.’

  I turn around and Dad is looking at me with tears streaming down his cheeks, but before I can open my mouth to respond he wipes them away and walks towards the lounge room. He walks quickly, like he is trying to get away from me. I let him go. He switches on the TV, and I leave him to his misery and head quietly to my room.

  ***

  I am too wired for sleep. It’s been a big day, a big week, and know I need to give myself some time to wind down and relax. I sit on my bed and take a moment to look around my room. Everything is exactly as I left it. It’s the same pink, girly things I have always hated, but now it occurs to me that my mother bought these things for me, so in a way they are like messages from her about what kind of girl she dreamed I would be. I laugh out loud as I think about how different I turned out from what she imagined for me. She pictured lacy frocks, dances with handsome suitors and grandchildren behind white picket fences, but what did she get? Sullen, black-booted, antisocial me. If she was disappointed, she never let on.

  I look through my bookshelf for something to read and here I find another message from my mother; the copy of Little Women she made me read once. She loved this book and she wanted me to love it too. I know there are lessons in the story she wanted me to learn, lessons about how to be a woman in the world. She wanted to tell me something about life through these pages. Reflecting on it now, I am not sure Little Women gave me the guidance I needed, but I like that she cared enough to try. I scan the books for something else, but there is nothing new on my shelf. I have read everything so many times that all I need to do is run my hand along the spines to recall the stories. In a few short minutes I have read a library. At the end of the row of books I find an old sketchbook, and beside this a packet of broken chalks. It’s been a while since I have used either, and suddenly I feel like I want to.

  I settle down at my desk and stare at the blank piece of paper. My mind is awhirl with images but the most prominent, the one that seems to loom above all the others, is the black and bubbling mushroom cloud. I pick up the charcoal and very softly begin to draw the edges of the cloud, smudging them into shape. When I go to fill it in, however, I can’t seem to hold onto the chalk, can’t seem to finish this image with what should rightly be inside it. I open my fingers and the chalk tumbles onto the white carpet.

  Then I feel my mother’s hand in mine.

  I stare at my hand, wiggle my fingers and marvel at how it can look like mine but feel like hers. Maybe I’m just tired, or maybe it’s like Harm said, that some things you experience on acid can stay with you for weeks. Maybe this is where she’s always been most alive: in my heart and my mind and by looking inside myself I can feel her again because having her as my mother has shaped who I am. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is that my mother is back, and she has her hand in mine and suddenly the room doesn’t feel so cold. My hand, our hand, slides the bright yellow chalk from the packet. Carefully, slowly, we begin to draw. The small, repetitive strokes begin to take the form of a mimosa flower. Just one at first, and then more and more and more, until, instead of a cloud of smoky, radioactive fire and dust, I have a mushroom shaped explosion of millions of mimosa fl
owers, bursting up from the ground, tumbling and twirling in whirlpools of wind and suction, and filling my paper like tiny suns.

  By the time I have finished, I am surprised to see the real sun rising in my window. I look up from the page feeling like I have just lifted myself out of a hole. I am spent, satiated. Down the hallway I can hear my father starting to wake. I lie on my bed, listen to the sounds of the mattress springs squeaking under his weight, the grunting sound he makes when he swings his legs off the bed, then a loud, rumbling fart; the kind you make when you think no one is listening. I laugh and I imagine my mother laughing too.

  I reach over and turn on the radio, and it’s playing the exact right song: ‘This is the Day’ by The The. Every word seems to have been written just for me, and for this very moment. I hug my pillow and inside I feel my mother roll into me and begin to snore softly. There is no rush to get up. We can lie together for a while, just me and her, maybe have a little snooze. Because now I know that she could be gone in a flash, and while she is around I’m going to make sure I enjoy every second that we’ve got.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank Fremantle Press and my publisher and editor Cate Sutherland, who seemed to ‘get’ the book from the start and had all the right suggestions to make The Mimosa Tree much better than I imagined it could be.

  I would also like to acknowledge all those family members and friends who suffered through earlier drafts of the novel and cheered me on regardless. Also special thanks to Lisa Litjens who was the first person outside of my personal circle to read, love and edit the book. Her suggestions helped rescue the third part of the novel, and her absolute certainty that it would be published helped me believe it to.

  In particular I want to thank the love of my life, Stuart Durkin, who suffered more than most, and risked his life by being honest as well as encouraging. I may have written the book, but he was involved in every scene and every single word, as much a part of its vision as I was. Thank you, thank you. I really couldn’t have done it without your love, support and guidance. You’re a star.