The Mimosa Tree

by Antonella Preto

  ‘I am here,’ she says hiccuping through her tears. ‘Anytime, okay? Just call me when you need me.’

  I hang up.

  I hold the receiver down with both hands as though I am frightened it might leap up at me. I hear the vacuum cleaner switch off and hurry back to my bedroom and close the door before Via catches me. I listen to her steps down the hallway, pausing at my door, and I hold my breath and wait to see what she will do. After a moment, I hear her walk away again and I breathe out with relief. Lying down on my bare mattress, pulling my arms under my head, I close my eyes and hope to get a few more minutes of sleep and darkness before they come for me again.

  ***

  When I wake up the house is silent. For a brief moment I lie there and cherish the lack of shouting and cleaning noises. It feels late, and I wonder what convinced Via to leave me alone after all. Perhaps Siena spoke to her. Dad will be arriving home soon. I decide to wait in bed until I hear him. Maybe I can even get a little more sleep.

  Then the phone rings.

  Cursing, I haul myself out of bed. As I step out of my bedroom I trip over the bloody vacuum cleaner. I am sitting in the hallway, rubbing my wounds when the phone stops midring and I hear Via answer it.

  ‘Hallo?’ she says. ‘Who is calling please? Ham?’

  I get up and run to the kitchen. Via’s eyes narrow when she sees me.

  ‘She can’t talk now,’ she says and hangs up.

  ‘That was for me,’ I say feeling outraged.

  ‘Sit down,’ she says sitting down herself and butting out her cigarette into the overflowing ashtray. She slides out a new one and lights it up. The house is a mess, which means she has done no cleaning today. Has she just been sitting here smoking?

  ‘You can’t control who I talk to,’ I say crossing my arms and refusing to take a seat. ‘You’re not my mother, you can’t tell me what do.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she says slamming the table hard and making me jump. ‘I don’t care about some stupid boy. I have something important to talk to you about so sit down.’

  I sit down immediately. If something is more important than giving me the third degree about a boy then whatever she has to say must be really bad. We stare at each other across the table, smoke rising like a veil between us. Inside my anger is turning quickly to dread.

  ‘Do you remember your Nonna?’ she says, flicking more ash into the already full ashtray. It cartwheels down the pile and crumbles as it hits the table.

  ‘Not much. I remember the day she died.’

  She nods, and I can see by the curl in her lip that she is trying not to cry. She takes a long drag on her cigarette to suck back the tears.

  ‘That was fifteen years ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Siena was still a child, not much older than you. Sofia and I were married, we had our own homes. We decided that it would be best if Siena moved in with me.’

  Through the window I see Dad’s car coming slowly down the driveway. I look around the room, at the mess, at the ashtray full of cigarettes that Via has spent the afternoon smoking, and start to panic. He’s going to go ballistic when he sees the place. I know Via has heard him too, but she seems unfazed and determined to carry on with whatever it is she has to say to me.

  ‘But Siena didn’t want to leave. She cried and shouted and begged us to let her stay, but what could we do? She was still a child, we couldn’t leave her alone in that house. Who was going to look after her?’ She takes a long drag at her cigarette, places her hands flat on the table like she’s trying to steel herself through the next thing she needs to say. ‘We packed up her things, got her into the car. Then we sold the house. We all made the decision, your mother too, but because she came to live with me, I am the one she blamed for it. It was for her own good, we were trying to help her, but Siena said I had taken her home away and she hated me for it.’

  There are real tears in her eyes now, and her lip is not curling to stave them off. As she cries freely I feel a sudden lightening in my chest, like I have just dropped a very heavy stone that I have been carrying. I have never seen Via so defenceless before and for someone who prides herself on being strong at all times, I find it almost embarrassing to be looking at her, like I’ve caught her with her pants down. But it’s also refreshing. I hear the back door slide open and the sounds of my father’s boots coming towards us and I want to shout for him to go away because I know he’s going to make her hide again.

  ‘I loved your mother. My sister,’ she says, and her cheeks are glossy with tears. She cups both hands over her heart. ‘I miss her so much.’

  I look down at my lap. I feel my shoulders shaking, but my tears are caught in my throat. The well is dry and there is just nothing left to pump.

  ‘I know,’ I say.

  ‘Everything in this house reminds me of her,’ she says, looking around with a limp smile. ‘Some days I wish I could burn it down. Some days, I don’t want to leave.’ She takes my hands in hers. ‘It’s time for me to go. You don’t need me here anymore.’

  ‘Yes I do,’ I say but she shakes her head.

  ‘I am not going to make the same mistake twice.’ She picks up her handbag and walks to the door. ‘If you want to do this on your own then I am not going to stand in your way because I don’t want you to hate me too. It’s up to you and your father now. You know where I am if you need me again.’ And she walks out just as my father enters the room.

  ‘What the hell happened here?’ he says but I am unable to speak or look at him. Through the door I watch as Via walks slowly across the veranda and gets into Bambi without a backward glance. I am waiting for her to turn around and come back, and I can’t quite believe it when I see the car pull out of my driveway and disappear down the street. This is stupid, I think. She’s coming back, she’s going to ask me to put the coffee on, she’s going to yell at me and then finish the cleaning and I am going to stomp around the house being angry and sad. That’s how it works, that’s how it has always worked. Why does she want to change things now?

  ‘Mira. What the hell happened? Where is Via going?’ says Dad, turning me round to face him. He is covered in dust from work, and he smells like sweat and beer. In his face I see more wrinkles then I remember.

  ‘She’s going home,’ I say trying to look calm but behind my back my hands are gripping each other hard.

  ‘ Home? When is she coming back?’

  ‘She said she’s not coming back.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Mira? I don’t have time for your stupid games.’

  ‘I am not playing any games,’ I say, starting to get angry. ‘I said I didn’t want her here and she believed me, and now she is gone. We have to do this by ourselves now, that’s what she said.’

  Dad pushes his unwashed hair back from his face and looks around the room. He picks up the shirt that’s hanging on the back of the chair and pushes it into my chest.

  ‘Clean up this mess,’ he says. ‘And when you are done, you call Via and you apologise for whatever stupid thing you have said to her, and you ask her to come back here tomorrow, you understand?’

  My father is looming so close I can smell his bad breath and hear the way his nostrils wheeze as he breathes. It would be so easy, to do as he says, to call Via and go back to my room and hide under the covers and just yell at everyone. But Via has planted a seed in my mind. Could I do this on my own? Could I be in control of this house and what happens here? Is this what Siena means about us all adjusting to a new way of doing things?

  ‘I’m not going to do that, Dad.’

  ‘You will do what I tell you,’ he says sticking his face in mine. My hands are trembling but I know I will not turn away or back down.

  ‘Dad,’ I say, managing to keep my voice from quavering. ‘I think Via is right. We can do this without her. We have to do this without her, because it’s just us now and this is how it’s always going to be.’

  I start crying, but my father does not notice. His eyes have gone white
with rage and he turns around and punches the table so hard that a glass falls over and smashes on the floor.

  ‘It’s always so easy for you, isn’t it?’ he says, his mouth collecting spit at the corners like he’s gone mad. ‘You just open your mouth and say what you want, but do you even think about the rest of us? Do you even care what this is going to mean for me? You expect me to come home and cook and clean after I have been working all day?’

  ‘I can look after us,’ I say but my voice is soft and squeaking and I am not so sure anymore. ‘I want to look after us, and I can do this if you give me a chance.’

  ‘You are living in fairy land, Mira. I am sick of you being stupid and selfish all the time. Go to your room, I can’t even look at you.’ He gets himself a beer and goes to the lounge room to watch TV. I stand there, torn between cooking dinner so I can prove him wrong, and taking out every glass in the house and smashing it against the wall. Then I realise, he doesn’t want anything to change either. It’s so clear to me now what Siena was trying to say. He wants everything to keep going just like it was before, with no disturbance to his mind or his routine. He’s keeping the pain at bay by ignoring it. Keeping his head in his world of beer and his TV and just moving around doing the same old things like Mum has never left. Like she was never here. We all are, in our own way, and it kind of works. We talk and move and live like she is still taking up her role and her space, but there are holes everywhere, silences that she would usually fill, jobs that she would usually do, and we are falling into them. Our world is full of wounds and crevices that let the cold air in and make us miserable.

  That’s when I realise that I can’t do it anymore.

  If he isn’t going to help me change things then I can’t make it happen for us. I go to the kitchen, I find the money sugar bowl and I take everything in it and push it into my jeans pocket. I go to my room, not bothering to close the door or hide what I am doing because I know for sure now that my father isn’t really here – he’s hiding in a little quadrant of his brain where he feels safe. I pack my clothes and the sheets I threw into the wastebasket into my backpack. I pull out my survival map, roll it up and place it carefully in the outside pocket where it won’t get squashed. Then, while Dad is still watching TV and drinking his beloved beer, I step past him and out the front door without him even noticing.

  ***

  It’s late by the time I get to Harm’s house, and the porch light isn’t on. I walk carefully, making sure I don’t fall through any holes in the veranda. When I knock, the unlocked door swings open and I can hear music coming from Harm’s bedroom. I walk down the dark hallway, carefully stepping over the debris that I can only just see in the darkness. From under his bedroom door creeps a flickering light and I knock and wait but when I don’t hear anything I take a gamble and push the door open. There are several lit candles around the room, and the stereo is playing something haunting and epic that I don’t recognise. The combination gives me a sense of having walked into somewhere sacred. There is a half smoked cigarette still burning in the ashtray and I know that Harm can’t be far. I put my bag down and consider where to begin.

  Firstly, I draw the heavy, dusty curtains and push the window open to let in some fresh night air. Immediately, the room is invaded by a strong scent of jasmine. I stand at the window and breathe in deeply and watch the moon rise through the silhouetted branches of a nearby tree. I begin to sort through Harm’s clothes, folding what’s clean and putting it into a milk crate and making a pile of what’s dirty. I take the map out of my bag and roll it out carefully, and then using some tack from one of Harm’s posters, I stick it to the wall beside the bed. I take my fresh bedsheet and lay it out on Harm’s bare mattress. I’m still packing my own clothes into a milk crate when Harm walks into the room.

  ‘Wow,’ he says, laughing and going straight over to the bed and sitting down. ‘You should visit more often.’

  ‘Actually, I’m not just visiting. I was kind of hoping you would let me stay.’

  He looks up at me with his patented half smile. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I think so,’ I say and look down at my feet as the idea that he could say no only just occurs to me. ‘Would that be okay?’

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ he says, patting the bed for me to sit down. ‘That would be so cool. It’s getting pretty lonely here by myself.’

  I smile and sit down next to him, he does a little happy bounce then reaches for his cigarettes.

  ‘Did something happen at home?’ he says, looking up briefly from his rolling.

  ‘My aunt left, then I had a fight with my dad.’

  ‘Did he hit you?’

  ‘No!’ I say, shocked at the idea. ‘I just had to get out. It just doesn’t feel like home anymore.’

  ‘I know a lot of people with your problem,’ he says nodding. ‘They start off with a pretty good family, everyone’s happy and everything is kind of normal. Then something really bad happens which no one knows how to deal with, and it all just falls apart.’

  ‘That’s about right,’ I say, thinking he has summed up my story well. ‘Is that your story too?’

  ‘Nah. My family was shit to begin with. In a way it’s easier for people like me because there’s nothing to miss and nothing to go back to.’

  ‘I have nothing to go back to either.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘It’s four walls and a roof. What I need is a home.’

  The music stops suddenly and Harm gets up and starts rummaging through a box. He pulls things out as he searches, throwing them over his shoulder narrowly missing burning candles.

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Batteries. I have a new packet here somewhere.’

  ‘For the stereo? Why don’t you just plug it in?’

  ‘Wouldn’t do much good without electricity. It got cut off.’ He finds the packet, goes over to the stereo. He throws the old batteries out the window before putting in the new ones. ‘Place is being knocked down, remember?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say remembering what he told me weeks ago, and suddenly I realise that my time here really is limited. ‘When is that going to happen?’

  ‘I guess we’ll find out when we wake up and there are no walls around us.’ He grins, comes back over to the bed and starts to roll a cigarette. ‘So you think a dump like this could be a home?’

  ‘Well, at least this dump’s got someone I like in it.’

  I take his cigarette packet, pull out a paper and pinch some tobacco into it just as he has done. I struggle to get the rolling action right, and my cigarette comes out looking kind of lumpy but I put it in my mouth anyway.

  ‘You don’t smoke, remember?’

  ‘I feel like learning,’ I say, and he shrugs and finds his lighter. The end of my cigarette flames up, and I scream and pull it out of my mouth before my hair goes up with it. We laugh about this for a while, and then Harm helps me light it and get it burning properly.

  ‘Is it what you expected?’ he says as I cough a little on a drag.

  ‘Pretty much.’

  The smell, the taste, reminds me of Via. There’s a bit of home in this smell, I realise. Before I can dwell on it too much I take another drag and use the pain that it causes to banish looming thoughts that might lead to crying.

  Harm points to the map on the wall. ‘So what’s this?’

  ‘It’s my survival map. It’s so I can work out where to go when there’s a nuclear attack.’

  He leans over so he can see it better, and with a finger he traces the outlines of the cities, and the flow of rivers.

  ‘Cool. So where’s the safe place?’

  ‘I haven’t worked it out.’ The truth is this country is a weave of rivers and winds that can carry fallout for thousands of kilometres. I haven’t been able to find a place that isn’t somehow connected to anywhere else. Harm narrows his eyes as he concentrates on the map.

  ‘It doesn’t look promising,’ he says.

 
‘I know.’

  ‘Well,’ he smiles. ‘We can work on finding the safe place, but there’s no point having somewhere to go if you haven’t got the right supplies. You packed anything useful in that bag of yours?’

  I lean back so that I can get my hand into my jean pocket, and I pull out the wad of fifty-dollar notes.

  ‘I figure we can just buy whatever we need,’ I say and he nods.

  ‘I think that deserves a drink.’

  He reaches for the cask of wine beside the bed, finds a couple of glasses and fills them. He hands one to me, then raises his into the air.

  ‘To survival,’ he says.

  ‘To home,’ I say, and we take a drink.

  ‘So does anyone know where you are?’ he says finishing off his drink in one gulp then pouring another. ‘Do I need to be worried about angry Italian women raiding the house in the middle of the night and finding me asleep in my underwear?’

  I drag smoke into my mouth and breathe it out slowly as I think about this. There’s a chance that Siena could remember the address from the invite, but nobody else saw it, not even Felicia. And though Via dropped me off at the party that night she thinks I was at the oldies’ house down the road.

  ‘I doubt it,’ I say.

  ‘Are you going to call them and let them know where you are?’

  ‘Maybe. But I think I just want to disappear for a while first.’

  Harm gets up and blows out each candle. At first the room seems to be smothered in thick darkness, but slowly, as my eyes adjust to the moonlight, I can see clearly again.

  ‘Just do me a favour,’ he says coming back to the bed and lying down with his hands behind his head. ‘For the time you do stay with me, can we just pretend like it’s going to be forever so I don’t have to keep thinking about when you are going to leave?’ I lie down beside him and rest my head into his shoulder. Harm puts his arm across me and we hold each other tightly.

  ‘That will be easy,’ I say and I see him smile.