‘Do you know which floor has the education books?’ she says.
My blank stare matches the state of my brain.
She rolls her eyes, and I am beginning to wonder what it is about me that illicits this response from almost everyone I know. She leads me to a counter where she leans across to speak quietly to a like-wise quietly speaking person, and after a moment a hand gesture communicates the floor number we require. I follow her to the elevator.
She takes me over to a cubicle and forces me to empty the contents of my backpack on the desk. She is not even slightly amused by the amount of chocolate wrappers I need to pick out of the pile. She doesn’t even crack a smile when the stale crusts of a sandwich are uncovered under another sheet. Once I’ve picked all the rubbish out we get to work unfolding, or more accurately, un-scrunching paper to find my course outlines and identify what I need. Felicia pulls a pen and paper from her own bag and writes down all the titles we need to find. Her handwriting is small and neat, just as I expected. Fortunately, she doesn’t feel a need to dot her ‘i’ with a little circle or love heart. It’s brain-numbing work that personally, I would rather have left undone. After noting the readings of only two of my five classes I begin to appreciate my faith in denial.
‘How do you stay so calm?’ says Felicia, looking up from her list.
‘This is just how I do things,’ I say stuffing the sheets she has already gone through back into my bag.
She nods like she understands. ‘I always have to work so hard. You must be really smart.’
‘I don’t think it’s got anything to do with smart,’ I say, quickly filing an assignment description with a deep shove. ‘It’s more a matter of not caring.’
She looks up at me questioningly. ‘You don’t like to study?’
‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ I say, waving some crumbled sheets at her and she laughs.
‘But you did so well at school. Via tells me you were top of your class.’
I sigh as I remember high school. It was only a few months ago, but already it feels like years. ‘It was different at school. I just did what they told me to do.’ I shuffle through some more papers, my head swimming in information and deadlines for activities I don’t even understand the basics of.
‘It takes a while to get used to things here,’ she says.
‘I’m not really sure I want to.’
‘What do you mean?’ she says looking up from her writing.
I sit down at the table and brush some hair from my eyes. ‘Do you want to be a lawyer?’ I ask her, and just by the widening in her eyes I can already tell what the answer is going to be.
‘I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.’
‘Then you’re lucky.’
‘You don’t want to be a teacher?’
‘I’ve never really thought about it.’
She puts her pen down to give me her full attention. ‘Via told me you’ve wanted to be a teacher since you were little.’
‘Via says a lot of things. Most of them should be ignored.’
‘So you never wanted to be a teacher?’
‘Not really.’
‘What about art? Do you like that?’
‘I suppose. But what good is that?’ I take the papers from her hands and begin to shove everything back into my bag. ‘This is stupid. I’ll just have to get by without doing the readings.’
‘Oh come on, Mira,’ she says patting my hand. ‘It’s not that bad. You probably just have to spend the weekend reading.’ But she doesn’t try and stop me. ‘If you don’t like what you’re studying, why don’t you just quit? Take some time to think about what you really want to do?’
‘Yeah right!’ I laugh. ‘Have you met my family?’
‘You don’t think they would understand?’
‘I’m the first person in this blood line to make it to high school let alone university. I’d be safer telling them I’d killed the Pope.’
‘But if you really explained it to them, surely they would want you to do something you loved?’
‘Felicia, I don’t know what planet your parents are from, but on my parents’ planet, what I want is the least important thing in the world.’
I pick up my bag, walk towards the elevator and she follows silently. Once inside, she leans back against the wall and looks at me. ‘What would you do? If it was up to you and not your parents?’ she says.
She is looking at me hopefully, like she is sure there is an answer to this question. I let my fingers trace over an anti-nukes symbol carved into the elevator wall. What am I supposed to say? Ms Optimism is never going to appreciate the view that it’s just too painful to want or need anything from a future I don’t believe exists.
‘I think that’s the problem,’ I say, picking my words carefully. ‘I don’t really see the point in doing anything.’
She lets this go without comment, and we walk silently out of the elevator and out the library doors. The sounds and sights of the real world are an assault to my deadened senses and I blink tiredly against the sun.
Felicia touches me lightly on the shoulder. ‘It’s not hopeless, Mira.’
I shuffle my feet on the pavement. ‘Yeah, whatever. I’ll catch up somehow.’
‘I mean the world. There’s a lot of good things happening, a lot of reasons to believe that there is something to look forward to.’ She smiles. ‘You’ll find something you like to do.’
‘Sure,’ I say forcing myself to smile back. ‘I think it’s time for my next class.’
‘Of course. I’ll meet you at the car. Three o’clock?’
‘Thanks.’ And she gives me a final encouraging squeeze before turning and walking away.
I watch her click her way down the steps. When she is out of sight, I pick up my bag and start to head back down the main pathway towards the education building. Our talk is weighing heavily on me and I feel exhausted, like I’ve lost blood. Study I can’t stand, stupid family, looming Apocalypse; it all just gets too much sometimes. Felicia’s delusions about everything turning out fine might work for her but I’m not naive enough to be comforted by mere hope.
When I notice a gravel track that leads through a grove of golden trees I take it. I let myself drift along this new path, stepping over autumn leaves, following the sounds of birds to a lake with a wide, grassed clearing full of sunlight. I sit down, take a moment to suck it all in. All I can hear is the rustle of leaves and the frustrated leg rubbings of cicadas.
Now that I am here I can’t leave, and it’s not so much a decision but more an overwhelming lethargy. I feel a little guilty that Felicia is waiting for me, but I figure as long as I am back at the car on time she will never know, and everyone can go on thinking that things are exactly as they should be. I lean back on my elbows, and watch a family of ducks making their way to the water, quacking warnings to each other and casting worried looks in my direction. When they reach the muddy edge, the first duck quacks the others through before jumping in itself. Around me dried gum leaves lift and tumble, above me birds weave confused paths across the sky. I let my eyelids close against the hot sun and all the thoughts I would rather not be having.
‘You like ducks?’ says a voice at my shoulder, and I spin round, clutching at my chest like an Italian grandmother.
It’s Student-number-eight, from my painting class. Even with the sunglasses, there is no mistaking the hair and the trench coat, and that disturbing ability to look extremely comfortable in uncomfortable situations. I don’t know whether to sit up, or stay half reclined, as he leans over me, waiting for an answer to a question I have already forgotten.
‘Der- ucks,’ he says again, creating new syllables like he’s talking to a foreigner. ‘Do you like them?’
‘I’ve never eaten one,’ I say stupidly before realising it was a question of aesthetics not gastronomy. Curse my family and its constant focus on all things food! I’m ruined for normal society.
His lips pinch to the right in a half smile. ‘Are you
planning to? Should I warn these guys maybe?’ he says nodding over to the ducks now swimming happily on the lake.
Immediately I start remembering the day Via’s husband, Zito, caught a duck at our local pond. I can still picture it kicking as Zito held its head in a bucket of water, and then Via and Mum chatting happily in a cloud of steam as they plucked it clean. I remember the sick smell of boiled feathers and shudder.
‘They’re safe with me,’ I say finally.
‘I’m sure that’s a relief to them,’ he says sitting down. ‘Wouldn’t want to leave those ducklings orphaned.’
He pushes his fringe from his face then pulls a red tin from an inside pocket of his coat. Resting the tin on his knee, he takes out a pinch of very green looking tobacco and begins to roll it into a cigarette. ‘So you’re wagging?’
‘I guess.’
‘Nice day for it,’ he says, looking around. ‘Nice place for it.’
‘Are you wagging too?’
‘Nah. I’m on a break. I was sitting under a tree back there when I saw you go by. I watched you turn down this path,’ he says, pausing to lick his cigarette closed. He holds up the cigarette he has rolled and inspects it. It’s fat in the middle and thin at either end. He shrugs and puts it into another coat pocket without smoking it.
I stare at him, try to take in what he has said. ‘So you followed me?’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘I guess I did.’ He leans back on his hands and looks around appreciatively then lies down using his backpack as a pillow. ‘So who’s the preppie girl I’ve been seeing you with?’
‘What?’
‘The girl with the Celica. She doesn’t seem like your type.’
I go bright red. I can’t even pretend to hide it. Firstly, he’s so close, I don’t want to breathe because he will feel it; secondly, he has been following me, and thirdly, he has seen me in that stupid car with Princess Felicia.
‘She just drives me to school,’ I say quickly, and he laughs.
‘That’s cute.’
‘What?’ I say, scratching at my ear nervously.
‘You called it school.’
Damn my family again! Why can’t they learn to speak English properly instead of using these half-right words? He reaches into his coat and pulls out the cigarette he rolled earlier and a Zippo, which he lights with a flick of his fingers.
‘You smoke?’ he says, lighter poised and burning.
I have never smoked in my life but it’s impossible to admit this to him, so I just smile. He lights the end of his bulging cigarette. It flames like a candle before smouldering and ribboning white smoke. After a couple of deep inhalations, he offers it to me. Without pausing, I take a drag. I end up taking a much bigger lungful than first intended, and the smoke seers the back of my throat. My virgin lungs clench and splutter helplessly.
‘You all right?’ he says.
I nod because the smoke has seized up my vocal chords. I am beginning to feel a little strange.
‘Probably should have warned you. I like a strong mix.’ He takes another long drag himself before offering it to me again.
‘Mix?’ I rasp, then suddenly, stupidly, I realise I have just smoked marijuana. Here I was thinking how bad it was that I was going to have a cigarette! What is wrong with me? He keeps smoking, staring into the distance and looking perfectly relaxed. I sit rigidly still as I wait in terror for madness to engulf me. I never imagined I would become a drug addict so unwittingly. What am I going to tell my parents? Will I need to go to detox now? My jaw is clenched, and I can feel fear beginning to shake me.
Then he turns to me and takes his sunglasses off. As I gaze into his green, kohl-lined eyes, I am fuzzily, dreamily, meltingly hypnotised. I think I smile.
‘You look stoned,’ he whispers.
‘Do I?’ I say.
‘You’ve never smoked weed before have you?’
‘Nope.’ And I start to get the giggles.
‘So I’ve corrupted you,’ he says smiling. ‘You will forever remember me as the one that initiated you into a bad world.’ And he pretends like he is opening a door for me. ‘It’s a big responsibility you know.’
He offers me the cigarette again, and I take it. The next drag is a little easier, and it only takes a second for me to feel even fuzzier.
‘That’s better,’ he says smiling as he lies down on the grass, hands behind his head. ‘You’re a quick learner.’
‘Top of my class,’ I say lying down too, mainly because I am not sure I can stop myself from falling over. ‘At least, I used to be.’
‘Cool,’ he says, turning to look at me through long blades of grass. ‘I like a smart girl.’ And I turn away so he can’t see me blush.
My breathing is slow and shallow, and I feel elated. I laugh out loud when I realise how in just a matter of minutes I have gone from depressed to euphoric, and probably the happiest I have felt in my life. For a moment I think I understand what it must feel like to not have a single thing to worry about, and I am about to open my mouth and say so when I hear the familiar, dreadful rumble of a warplane flying overhead.
I sit up suddenly. It’s a bit silly, but I can’t help it. As soon as I hear one of those flying monsters I start to count in case it’s a sign that they’ve finally dropped a bomb and started the war. I suppose it’s like counting after you hear thunder, to see how close the lightning hit. The blast zone of a nuclear explosion is kilometres wide and I need to count to at least a minute before I know I’m clear. The roar is so loud I have trouble working out where the plane is. I whip my head around trying to locate it, but the drug has made my vision short and blurry, and my mind feels slow and clumsy and unable to think. The roar is getting louder, and I can almost feel it crushing in on me. I give up trying to find it and just push my hands into my eyes and brace myself for an explosion.
Twenty seconds.
Thirty seconds.
Forty seconds.
I feel something brush against my arm and jump in terror.
‘Hey,’ says Student-number-eight and I realise he is the one touching me. ‘They’re over there, see?’ He points up to the sky and suddenly I see them, three planes flying in formation. They are flying away from the city, towards the coast. ‘It looks like a training exercise.’
As soon as he says it I know he’s right. Three planes flying in formation over the ocean. Of course it’s just a training exercise. Just some young guns getting shown the ropes. There is no immediate danger.
He touches me lightly on the arm again. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Sorry,’ I say feeling like a complete idiot. ‘I have a thing. About the planes.’
He nods earnestly without a hint of mockery, then his hand moves from my arm to my cheek. His palm is warm and I am aware that now I am feeling a completely different kind of terror, though this one is harder to explain.
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he says, ‘but when I hear the planes I worry that it means the war has started.’ He laughs and drops his hand. ‘Crazy right?’
‘Not really,’ I say, and suddenly I am smiling again. I am staring and smiling like a dopey dog, and I know I must look demented but I can’t stop myself.
‘You know,’ he says lying back with his hands behind his head. ‘I read somewhere that we are the first generation to grow up believing that we don’t have a future, and that’s why we are all a bunch of underachieving, drug-taking misfits.’
‘I’ve never thought of it that way,’ I say as I lie down beside him. ‘But I think it makes a lot of sense.’
‘Well,’ he says turning on his side and beginning to roll another joint. ‘We better live up to our reputation.’ When he’s done we pass it to each other, smoking quietly until it’s finished. We don’t speak, but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. In fact, everything feels great. I stare with fascination at the eucalypts, awed by the way the leaves glitter and flutter like silvery butterflies. I close my eyes and immerse myself in the soft crackling of leaves being crunched between fingers. Afte
r what seems like a very long time I hear him speak.
‘I like your hair,’ he says, but so softly I am not sure.
I like your eyes, I think back to him.
He props himself up on one elbow, looks down at me with a serious look on his face. ‘But do you like ducks?’
‘Don’t know,’ I say, propping myself up to meet him. ‘I’ve never eaten one.’
And we fall back into the grass and laugh and laugh.
Suddenly, the family of ducks takes off from the water, flies over our heads. We gasp simultaneously. They are close enough to touch. He turns his head to look at me, wet grass tickling his chin.
‘My name is Hamish,’ he says. ‘But they call me Harm.’
‘My name is Mirabella,’ I say. ‘But you can call me Mira.’
***
Time passes slowly, quickly. I am not sure which. We talk about nothing, and understand everything. We merge ourselves with the air, and we fly our minds like kites for each other’s amusement. I have the most amazing afternoon of my life and as I lie here now, woolly-headed and face burning in the afternoon sun, I am having trouble remembering the precise point at which I fell asleep.
Harm is gone. I don’t feel stoned anymore but I am disoriented. I am so preoccupied by his wordless departure that it takes me a while to realise I am late, really late, for my lift home. I jump up and pull my backpack over my shoulder in one move and start to walk before I have actually oriented myself so that I turn an almost full circle before I’m going the right way. I start running. I am not sure what to expect, but feel enormous relief when I see Felicia standing in her meerkat manner by the car.
‘Where have you been?’ she says, rushing to meet me.
‘Thank God. I wasn’t sure you’d still be here.’
She picks some leaves from my hair, and I am suddenly aware of how I must look. ‘Mira, what have you been doing?’
‘Art project,’ I say, brushing brown grass clippings from my jeans. ‘Nature collage thing, you know.’
‘What happened to your face?’
‘What?’ I say, wiping my cheeks. There seems to be a little heat coming from them. I bend over to look at myself in the side mirror of the car and am horrified to see that I have sunburn on one side of my face.
The Mimosa Tree Page 7