The Mimosa Tree

by Antonella Preto

  Mum doesn’t look any happier, but she allows Via to drag her out the door. I lean back against the wall and wait until I hear the car leaving. Then, when I am sure they are gone and not coming back, I run into my room. I scan my tape collection nervously, eager not to waste this rare moment of alone time with the wrong choice of music. I finally settle on Born Sandy Devotional by The Triffids. I push the tape into the deck then flop face down onto my bed and wait for the music to emerge over the hiss of the tape. I am not disappointed. From the first song I am floating in deep water, far away from the shore with just seagulls keeping me company. I listen to it over and over, rising only when I need to turn the tape.

  When they get back from their shopping a few hours later, Via notices creases on my face from lying on the pillow and asks me what I have been doing.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say.

  ‘I can see that,’ she says motioning to the stack of unwashed plates on the sink.

  Mum hands me a fat salami and cheese roll and a can of Coke before starting to unload the bags of shopping. Before leaving, Via makes a final plea for me to fix up my hair.

  ‘What are the other children going to say when they see you?’

  ‘Students. And I don’t care.’

  Via shakes her head. ‘I’ll be back in the morning,’ she says leaning over to give Mum a kiss on the cheek. ‘To take your miserable daughter to school.’

  ‘Stop calling it school. It sounds like I’m three.’

  ‘Oh I’m being so sorry,’ says Via, wrinkling her nose, holding a little finger out like she’s got a cup of tea in her hand. ‘I am meaning to say university.’ That she is speaking in English again is bad enough, but now she has to try and speak it with a posh English accent. She thinks she is funny, but really, she is just pathetic.

  Via finally folds and tucks herself into Bambi; her dirty-orange Datsun 120Y. Bambi strains under her weight, though the several tons of shopping bags in the passenger seat are doing a good job of balancing things out. She beeps the horn and waves as the car gurgles down the street, spluttering smoke and leaking oil like it’s flatulent and incontinent.

  ‘Look at this mess,’ says Mum, back in the kitchen and shifting things around in the pantry to make room for the box of canned tomatoes she has bought.

  I munch on my roll as I watch her. ‘Why’d you get so many?’

  ‘On special. Forty cents each.’ She scratches her cheek while still holding a can. ‘You think I should have got more?’

  ‘I think you’ve got enough.’ Enough to survive a twenty-year nuclear winter. ‘So what’s for dinner anyway?’ I say, looking forward to eating again even though I’m only halfway through my salami and cheese roll.

  ‘Pasta.’

  ‘All this food, how come we only ever eat pasta?’

  ‘You want meat pies and tomato sauce?’ she says, shaking her head in sympathy for all the poor Australian kids that she is convinced are fed nothing else.

  ‘How about kangaroo tail soup?’ I say, because there’s nothing more amazing than my mother’s face when surprised.

  ‘That’s a food? They eat that?’

  ‘They’re a weird mob,’ I say and take the pasta pot from the dish rack. I turn on the tap and the water pipes groan and thump so loudly I’m afraid the walls will come down. Mum turns on the radio, slides the dial to the Italian station, and pretty soon the room is humming with one of the old tunes. She starts to get a bit of a sway in her step as she moves from the plastic bags to the fridge, to the bench, to the cupboard. It’s only a matter of time before the mood gets her and she...

  ‘Hey!’

  Mum sings as she dances me around. She has a firm grip around my waist, her feet move deftly, while my own drag and double shuffle to keep up. She holds my hand at cheek height and uses my arm as a steering device, pushing, pulling and leaning on it to get me to go the right way.

  ‘Young people today do not understand what real dancing is,’ she says as she swoops under my raised arm.

  ‘It’s just not the same,’ I agree.

  ‘I know when you’re laughing at me. One day you’ll be sorry you gave your mother such a hard time.’ She pulls me close so that our stomachs are touching then she bends me back into a dip, which has me knees bent, bum down and hand groping desperately to the floor for balance. I slide out from her arms and land heavily on my arse. I start laughing. Mum just leaves me there and goes back to the sink in disgust. She slides a knife from the drawer and begins chopping onions.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, sliding the radio back to its original station, and thankfully it’s playing something decent. ‘Now you have to try it my way.’ I wait to make sure she is watching, then I start jumping around the kitchen, spinning with my arms in the air and singing loudly to demonstrate how we do things these days.

  ‘You call that dancing?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And where does the boy stand?’

  ‘What boy?’ I stop and look around like I’ve lost something.

  Mum checks that God is still hanging about the ceiling and watching all this.

  ‘Your generation understands nothing of romance.’

  ‘I didn’t think I was allowed to understand romance.’

  ‘Shut up and set the table.’

  I do what I am told, for a change, then hang around the kitchen getting in her way until I hear Dad’s car coming up the driveway. The car door slams, then after a moment I hear his boots clunking up the back steps. There’s a tinny clink as he drops an empty beer can into the outside bin, the rattling sound of the sliding door opening, then the thud of his workbag on the tiled floor. Inside he shuffles in socked feet to the toilet and, as always, he grunts like it hurts before the house is ringing with the sound of his long, loud piss. These are my father’s noises, I have listened to them my whole life and they have never changed. I sit down at the kitchen table and watch Mum playing with her pots and pans, filling the room with hungry smells.

  ‘Bloody hot,’ says Dad appearing in the doorway. His blue work singlet is tight across his bulging belly and there are tufts of hair bristling from his armpits, like he’s got a couple of kittens stashed in there. Other than the beer gut, he’s lean, scrawny even, with rounded biceps that remind me of Popeye. His face is always set in a contemptuous snarl. He wipes his sweaty face with the shirt he’s holding, then drops it on the floor before opening the fridge. ‘Where’s the bloody beer?’ he says, pushing around packages of food.

  Mum shakes her hands dry then goes over and reaches in around him, instantly producing the can he’s looking for. He takes it without comment and she goes back to the sink and starts on the parmesan cheese. Her arms jiggle as she grates.

  Dad watches her with his eyebrow raised, then after a moment he says, ‘I don’t understand why three people need so much food.’

  ‘It’s for the party,’ says Mum apologetically and defiantly, the way she does with him.

  ‘What party?’

  ‘My birthday.’

  He opens the beer and it fizzes and splutters to life.

  ‘Don’t you think I deserve a nice birthday?’ she says and her grating picks up pace.

  He throws his arms out wide and bows his head slightly, mockingly. ‘Nothing but the best, for my darling.’ Then he sniggers to himself through a swig of beer.

  ‘Oh shut up,’ says Mum, throwing the remaining hunk of cheese into its Tupperware tub. ‘Would it kill you to show you care for me every now and then?’ With a grunt she picks up the pot of boiling pasta and carries it to the sink.

  Dad puts down his beer and reaches into his back pocket. He leans forward to get his hand into the tight spot, his eyes narrowed and focused on Mum who is ignoring him as she pours the boiling water into the colander. He pulls out his wallet and slams it onto the kitchen counter. ‘You think I don’t care?’ he says prodding the wallet with his index finger. ‘This empty wallet says I am pretty bloody caring.’

  Mum leans forward onto the sink, while s
team from the draining pasta rises up and around her. ‘You see? That’s why everyone thinks you’re cheap.’

  There’s a flinch, but you have to be trained to see it.

  ‘You’re mad,’ he says.

  ‘You’re the mad one,’ says Mum, and there is an unmistakeable bump in her voice, then sure enough, her shoulders start to bounce up and down as she lets out little sobs.

  Dad curses silently and runs his fingers through his hair leaving trails of black where they wipe off the dust. ‘For fuck’s sake, Sofia!’ he says shaking his can and sloshing beer everywhere. He’s got foam dribbling down his fist. ‘I’ve been working all bloody day. What are you crying about?’

  Mum spins round to look at him. ‘Don’t you want me to be happy?’ she pleads. ‘You love your money more than me!’ Then she’s back staring into the sink, marble-sized tears falling into the steaming pasta.

  Dad makes a deep noise, like a rumbling fart under a blanket. His face looks constipated, and he is turning from side to side like he doesn’t know which way to go. Finally, he takes two stomping steps towards her, and throws his hands up.

  ‘I give you everything!’

  ‘I’m just trying to keep everyone happy!’

  ‘I work like a slave for this family! All I ask for is a few lousy beers and some food on the table!’

  ‘You expect me to serve sausages at my party!’

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you? I haven’t said anything about bloody sausages! Sofia! Why are you crying?’

  ‘Leave her alone!’ I say and I lean up against Mum’s back like a shield. Dad is looking like he could kill the both of us but I stay there, stare him in the eye even though my knees are melting.

  ‘Get out of the way, Mira,’ he snarls.

  ‘No! You’re being an arsehole.’

  His eyes open wide and he raises his arm, his hand splayed like a baseball mitt. I watch it hang there, looming in my face, swelling as though someone is inflating it, but then he lets it drop back to his side and it returns to its normal size. I breathe an inaudible sigh of relief; hold onto my mother’s skirt behind my back.

  ‘I don’t understand anything,’ says my father grimly. ‘Doesn’t matter what I do, no one is ever bloody happy.’ He waves his hand as he turns to walk away. ‘You’re both bloody mad.’ He curses all the way to the lounge room where he switches on the TV, and sinks with a thud into the deep armchair.

  I turn around, give Mum a hug around the shoulders. ‘He’s an idiot,’ I say, but instead of a hug back, I get shaken off.

  ‘You shouldn’t talk to your father that way,’ she says, just like that, like now I’m the bad one! She uses a tea towel to wipe her face, and it leaves smudges of red sauce on her cheek. ‘Go sit down at the table. Dinner is ready.’

  I want to cry and scream at once. I want to tell her that I don’t understand. I want to ask her what the hell just happened, and why does it happen all the time. I want to say I hate him and I hate this and that I want more, different, better. I want her to explain why we are all just pretending like we will never die, and why we go around acting like the world is such a great place. And all of it comes welling up from my chest, bursting and burning at my throat, but this is what comes out:

  ‘I hate pasta.’

  I run out of the room, slamming every door I can, burying myself deeper in silence until I can’t hear him muttering to himself, or Mum crying, or that damned TV. Lying on my bed I jam my head under the pillow and listen to the sound of anger pulsing through my ears.

  ***

  Mum knocks on the door and begs me to come out but I am not leaving this room until that man is in bed. When I hear the TV switch off I jump up and lean my ear against the door, knowing it’s only a matter of minutes now before he’s finally out of my way for another day. I slide down to the floor, ear pressed firmly against the cold wood, and I listen to his long grunting piss, the toilet flush and then his footsteps passing my bedroom door. There is the familiar creak of the bed as he collapses onto it and finally, the staggered, hiccuping snores of someone who can’t keep his airways open. I let myself out.

  In the kitchen Mum is dropping empty beer cans in the bin. When she hears me come in she reaches across the bench for the monster serving of pasta she has put aside for me. I take it and go sit at the kitchen table and she brings me a can of Coke. I pick up my fork; hold it above the plate as she waits expectantly for me to take my first bite.

  ‘Any cheese?’ I say and she breaks into a smile, grabs both my cheeks in her palms and squeezes tight.

  ‘That’s my girl.’

  And I swear she does a little skip on the way to the fridge. She sits with me again, piles parmesan on top of my pasta and I start to eat. I’m starving.

  For a long time we don’t speak. She just sits there, watching me, occasionally stroking my cheek or brushing my fringe from my eyes and I am happy. Just happy to be here with her in the kitchen. I could just sit here all my life.

  Hell, we’ve got enough pasta.

  ‘He loves us, Mira,’ she says and the moment is ruined. I don’t like it when she talks about him. Most of the time it’s like she’s talking about someone else; not that drunken snorer at the end of the hallway. ‘Everything he does, he does for us. We are all he’s got, do you understand? He is hard, but he loves us.’

  This is such crap. He doesn’t love us! The only thing he cares about is his beer and his TV, and she knows it as well as I do. I wriggle in my chair, drop my head so that my fringe falls forward, do everything to show her that she should just stop talking about him because I am not listening, but it doesn’t work.

  ‘He’s very proud of you,’ she says, sweeping her finger lightly across the back of my hand.

  ‘Mum, stop making things up for him,’ I say pushing my plate away. ‘I don’t need you to.’

  ‘It’s the truth. Mira, your father loves you very much.’

  ‘Oh really? So he told you this?’

  ‘He doesn’t need to say it, Mira. He is your father. He loves you and he is proud of you. Of course he is.’

  ‘You know,’ I say, and I am trying to be really casual here but when I get angry I can’t help it, I start crying. I push up from the table and the ceramic fruit bowl centrepiece rocks back and forth. ‘I don’t care anyway. I couldn’t care less about it.’

  Mum sighs. She gets a little curve in her shoulders and scratches unconsciously at the scar in her breast. For a minute, all I can do is visualise knives cutting through flesh and the more I try and shake the pictures the more vivid they get. I rub my eyes against the images, but Mum seems to take this as me being tired.

  ‘Finish your food and go to bed. You have school tomorrow.’

  ‘University.’

  ‘Of course, darling,’ and she pulls me into a squishy, garlic smelling hug.

  I sit down again, flick my pasta around the plate; make plough lines into the Parmesan. My stomach is still rumbling but I have lost my appetite. I kick the table, softly so no one can actually hear me, and go back to my room. It’s getting late and I am tired, but I know that this is when all the best music is on and I am determined to stay awake, at least for a few songs. If you want to know what the good stuff is then you have to stay up. If you’re only prepared to listen during the day, well, then you deserve to think Duran Duran or Genesis is the only music out there. When all the deadheads are sleeping, then you hear some wicked stuff. This is how I found Jonathan Richman and The Sisters of Mercy. I found The Triffids, and I found Joy Division. I found Bauhaus and I found The Smiths. You have to actually make an effort to get to the good stuff, they don’t just hand it to you on a platter. If you don’t take the time to look for it then you’ll never know it’s there. Imagine if you died never knowing anything other than Madonna? What a waste. Tonight it’s Echo and the Bunnymen, ‘The Killing Moon’. This is a song you need to get comfortable for so I slip into my pyjamas and I lie down on the bed. Closing my eyes against the darkness, I let the music
haunt me. The words are so sad they are comforting and it makes me strangely happy lying here in the dark, this sound filling the space around me like breathable smoke.

  I suppose I should be thinking about university tomorrow. I suppose I should be worried about whether my bag is packed, or whether I will meet anyone interesting, or what I should be wearing, but I really just don’t care. Uni was never my idea, but I don’t get a choice in this stuff, it’s all up to Mum and Via and their crazy plans for my life. The only good thing about going to university is that I get to start all over again. I’ve decided already, I’m not going to get sucked into being friends with just anyone, just because they happen to sit next to me in the classroom. This time, I’m going to make sure I find people who think the same way as me so we can have meaningful conversations about important things. Leaving behind the deadheads, that’s the bit I am looking forward to. The rest of it I couldn’t care less about. To be truthful, if you asked me right now what I wanted to do with my life I couldn’t give you a proper answer. If anyone actually cared enough to ask me, I would say I want to sit around, eat food, listen to good music and just think. And sleep. God, some days, I could just sleep forever. I can feel sleep’s slippery tentacles pulling me down now actually, and the music getting softer like it’s moving away from me, but really, it’s me that’s going somewhere. Suddenly, I’m not so determined to fight it.

  Chapter 2

  It’s early, the sun barely up, and the house smells of coffee and sweat – my father’s breakfast legacy. The hallway is dark, hushed by thick carpet, but in my mother’s bedroom, where she lies snoring and moulded under the covers, there is a faint blush of sunlight against the walls.

  I make a show of getting into the bed; yawning loudly, sighing, bouncing the mattress, but Mum only catches her breath like she’s swallowed a fly, twitches her hand, then goes quickly back to snoring and dreams. I lie down beside her, propped into a half sitting position by pillows that smell like my father. I stare across her lifting belly to the mimosa tree outside the window. In winter, those branches are heavy with blooms and the window is exploding with woolly yellow clusters of flowers, each bud a tiny, simmering sun. But now, the mimosa tree provides a cooling greyish green shade that makes the entire room feel sleepy and soft. A gust of wind lifts the branches and the room flits between shadow and light.