The Mimosa Tree (13 page)

All the way to the front door I expect to see Mum come out and greet me, but she doesn't. And another weird thing: there's no smell of things cooking. Still, I'm not overly concerned, more curious really. That is until I open the door and find Siena seated at the table waiting for me and Mum nowhere in sight. That's when I start hearing those A-bombs dropping.

‘Hello darling,' says Siena motioning for me to sit down.

‘Where is Mum?'

‘She's fine. She's a bit tired and having a lie-down. Are you hungry?'

‘I'm going to say hello to Mum,' I say and start to walk away but she lunges forward to grab my arm.

Though she is keeping her face calm and smiling, her grip is firm. ‘She's sleeping.'

‘She won't mind,' I say trying to wriggle from her grip.

‘Mirabella. Your mother has had a hard day. It's better if you just let her sleep.' She's trying to look reassuring but, as usual, when I hear my full name I am on full alert.

‘Stop it. You are
scaring
her,' says Via stepping into the room.

She unwraps Siena's fingers from my arm and pulls me into a mothball-smelling hug, and now I am really worried. When she's done suffocating me in her bosom, she tilts my face up so that I am looking into her eyes.

‘Your mother is
fine.
The doctors think she just needs a bit more rest, that's all. You go and say hello a bit later, okay?'

‘There is something you should know, Mira,' says Siena, but Via interrupts her immediately, puts her hand up like she's stopping traffic.

‘What you should
know,
' Via says, pushing me out of the room. ‘Is that I'm going to make you some nice lasagne for dinner. Now go do your homework and I will call you when it's ready.'

‘What's wrong?' I say resisting Via's pushes. ‘Is Mum sick?'

‘I said she's
fine.
'

‘Please, Via,' says Siena. ‘She has a right to know.'

Via looks angry, but there is no way I am leaving this room until I find out what's going on and she knows it. She sighs, pulls a cigarette from her sleeve and sits down at the table. Behind my back my hands are rubbing nervously, but I keep my expression strong in case they decide to baby me again.

‘There is a problem,' says Via. ‘But it's nothing we haven't dealt with before.'

Siena comes over and holds me by the shoulders. ‘The cancer has come back. It's in her bones.'

I get this strange feeling, like cold water splashing over my back and my brain feels soggy and soft. ‘That is why her back has been hurting,' I say.

Siena nods. Via continues smoking and staring at the
burning end of her cigarette like she is making it smoulder with her thoughts.

‘So they will just fix her again, right?' I say.

‘They are going to try, Mira,' says Siena.

‘It's not really a big deal, is it? I mean, they have medicines now, and chemo and radiology just keeps getting better.' I say, starting to feel a little excited. ‘She can do all that stuff. She's going to be fine, right? Just like before.'

‘We will do everything, Mira,' says Siena. ‘Anything there is that can help her we are going to find it and do it. I promise you.'

She smiles and gives me a hug, but I am having trouble accepting it. I feel all jumpy inside, and I have a real urge to just bolt out of this room and away from everyone. Siena somehow senses this because she lets me go, but as soon as she steps away I want her back but I don't know how to tell her.

‘I have study to do,' I say turning to leave the room.

‘Mirabella,' says Via as I reach the doorway and I stop to listen without turning around. ‘You don't have to worry about your mother. She is
strong.
Nothing changes.
Everything as before.
She can't fight if we are all falling apart and acting stupid. You understand?'

‘Okay,' I say.

I hear her light up another cigarette and walk over to me. She puts a hand on my shoulder and smoke circles my head like a snake. I wait for her to say something reassuring.

‘Clean your bloody bedroom,' she says, giving my shoulder a painful squeeze. ‘It looks like a
bomb
has hit it. I tell you, if my daughter kept her room like that, well, you know what I would
do to her.' And she pushes me out of the room.

At my bedroom door, I pause to look down the hallway to my mother's room. I can hear her snoring and usually I would think nothing of running in there and jumping up and down on that bed to wake her but now that she is sick I know I can't go in there. Inside my room I pull the blinds against the afternoon sun and lie down on my bed. I listen to Via clunking things around the kitchen and try to imagine it's Mum in there but the sounds are all wrong and they have none of the finesse of my mother at work.

I turn on the radio and I take out Harm's party invite. I run my finger across the words –
I want you to come.
Instead of making me smile the whole thing starts to make me really angry as I realise that now Mum's got cancer again, nobody's going to care whether I get to go to a party or not. Throwing it onto my dresser, I kneel down and slide my survival map out from under the bed. There's a thin coat of dust on it, and I feel guilty for neglecting it. I blow away the dust and reach for the red pen on my desk. With the map balanced on my leg I start filling in the city circles. When I finish I touch the circle representing my city and the wet ink smudges wide, expanding the city boundaries by at least eight kilometers. This fresh show of blood reminds me that my nuclear survival map is still very much alive. There is more work to do, more river systems to be drawn in, new targets to be identified. I am thinking about this and staring at the red ink stain on my finger when Siena slips quietly into the room.

‘Class project?' she says, and I nod, because I can't trust myself to make a ‘yes' sound convincing. She looks at the map
again, twists her head to the side as though it might help her make sense of it. I think she's going to ask me more about it but she doesn't.

‘How is uni?' she says sitting down beside me.

‘Okay.'

‘I don't see you studying much.'

‘You're not here all the time, so you wouldn't know.'

She nods. ‘I'm going to be around a lot more. So is Via.'

‘To see if I'm studying?'

‘To help out. Your mother is going to need a lot of rest.'

‘I really have to finish my project now.'

She nods, pats my knee reassuringly. ‘I just wanted you to know that I am here for you.'

‘I'll be fine,' I say and my fingers scratch nervously at the lacy bits of my bedspread.

Siena puts her hand over them, leans in closer. ‘Via doesn't want us to talk about what's happening. She thinks it's the best way of staying strong. I think sometimes it might help to get things out.' She begins to stroke my hand. ‘If you ever feel that way, then you can come and talk to me, okay? Is there something I can do for you, Mira? Anything you want to ask me?'

Inside I can feel a million thoughts scrambling to get out but I feel uncomfortable just listening to Siena let alone speaking anything out loud. I just have to say no and she will go away and all this will be over, but the word just won't come out. I take a deep breath and decide that it can't hurt to let just one of these thoughts escape. I lean across the bed to the dresser, pick up the invite to Harm's party and hand it to her. She looks
at it then nods, gets up and goes to the door.

‘I'll see what I can do,' she says, and then closes the door quietly behind her.

For a while I just sit there, listening to her and Via talking in the kitchen. I have no idea what they are saying but it makes me very nervous thinking that they may be discussing me right now. I look down at my bedspread and see that I have smudged red ink all over it. Via is right. My room is a complete mess. I pull the bedspread off and shove it deep into my wardrobe. I kick a few clothes and lolly wrappers under my bed, then pull the pile of stuff on my desk into an open drawer and shut it away.

Outside my room the vacuum cleaner roars into life, and I realise with horror that the sound has prompted me to begin a count.
It's not a plane, It's not a plane
I tell myself, but it's too late, because my body has gone into full alert. With shaking hands I pick up my map and carry it over to the desk.

‘Just finish it,' I say out loud and I make myself sit down and concentrate. I surprise myself by getting deeply absorbed and I work fast, almost manically until it's finished.

Mum is sitting up in my bed. Her pink nightie has fallen open and I am shocked because instead of her usual doughy rolls of fat, I can see all her rib bones. I am embarrassed because my bedroom is so messy and I know this is making her unhappy. I start to clean up, picking up plates, pulling sheets of wrapping paper from under the bed, herding cockroaches the size of cats into the corner where they grumble but don't move.

‘I'll fix everything,' I say checking to make sure she is not leaving. ‘You don't have to worry about me anymore.'

‘I'm hungry,' she says, and her outstretched arms cast mimosa branch shadows across the walls.

I run through the house looking for food, picking up plates only to find the food has already been eaten. Then I remember that the orchard in the fridge is in full bloom. To get in I have to step over the plastic vegetable drawers, but instead of the crispness of green lawn against my bare feet, it's a squelch of rotting fruit. I walk over to an apple tree, but when I reach for the fruit it withers and dies before I can touch it. I run from tree to tree but the same thing happens, and soon I am lost in a
forest of fruit trees I can't touch, waist-high in flies and rotten muck.

‘I'm hungry,' I hear Mum cry and I look up to see her rising above the canopy, growing and expanding until she has completely taken over the sky. Her image begins to grey, like someone is turning down the colour setting on the TV, but her eyes remain sea-green, sad and focused directly on me. I hide my face in my hands, unable to look at her. For the first time in my life those eyes are making me afraid. I feel my tears begin to spill through the spaces between my fingers, and around me I can hear my mother begin to cry too. Her thunderous sobs shake the earth.

‘I'm sorry I can't find you any food,' I wail, and now her tears are falling over me, hardening into glass balls the size of oranges, that spill down my throat and muffle my screams.

I wake up to the sound of Mum banging around in the kitchen. It's early and the dawn light is making my walls blush. I pull the blanket up to my chin and close my eyes. I've been waiting for a moment to catch Mum alone but the dream has left me unsettled and I just can't seem to get out of bed. It's been a week since I gave Siena the party invite, and no one has even mentioned it yet. The problem is that Via and Siena haven't left Mum's side since the diagnosis, and I know better than to ask while they are around and risk decision by committee. With only days to go I am getting a little antsy and I am starting to think I need to ask Mum myself. Recognising that this may be my only chance, I rub my eyes and kick my legs out of the blankets. I walk resolutely into the kitchen, determined to ask Mum if I can go to the party but when I get there I realise she
is in a pretty bad mood. Mum is breathing hard as she carries a stack of dishes. Her neck and chest are red with the effort. She bends over to open a cupboard and the plates slide forward dangerously.

‘Can I help?' I say, shielding my eyes against the light.

‘I can
manage,
' she says swiping at me when I leap over to help her. ‘I'm not dead yet.'

‘Whatever,' I say throwing my hands up in surrender. There is no point talking to her about anything when she's like this. I'm obviously destined to never have a social life outside of this damned family. I open the fridge and stare into it, half expecting to see an orchard beyond the glad-wrapped leftovers. Mum comes over and slams the fridge shut. She reaches past me to the counter and hands me a plate with two slices of cold, thickly spread Vegemite toast. Normally I would protest loudly at such a blatant disregard for standards, but given her mood I let it go. I lean against the wall, munch around the corners of my toast and try to keep out of her way. She examines a glass by holding it up to the light. She spits on it then lifts her nightgown to give it a firm polish before returning it to the cupboard.

‘Via said to leave the dishes for her,' I say concerned that she is going to ignore everyone's advice and keep trying to do everything herself.

‘Via has her own house to take care of,' says Mum through clenched teeth. ‘I will take care of mine.'

I pick up a tea towel and go over to the dish rack, but before I can even pick up a fork, Mum has snatched the towel from my hands.

‘So now you love cleaning, do you?'

‘I am just trying to help.'

‘Seventeen years I've managed without your help and I don't need it now. Go get ready for school.'

‘I'm not going.'

‘I'm not in the mood for games, Mira.'

‘I'm not playing any,' I say stepping back in case she decides to go for the slap. ‘I've told Felicia not to come. I am going to the clinic with you.'

She stomps her foot like an angry child, and I am taken aback by the absence of her usual embarrassed shyness. Mum looks angry and frustrated and a little scary. With a huff, she walks away and leans onto the sink. Under normal circumstances I would go and hug her, but her mannerisms are all wrong and I am in unfamiliar territory. I stay back.

‘Mira,' she says finally and though her voice is strained, it is more like its usual self. ‘Get me a chair.'

‘Your back?' I say, but I am already moving.

I put the chair down behind her and she leans on my arm as she sits down. She is dangerously close to crying so I don't say anything more. Pretending like it's the most normal thing in the world, I leave her sitting in her chair in the middle of the kitchen and get the coffee percolator ready for Via's imminent arrival.

‘Help me up,' she says after a while.

I take her arms and pull her up from the chair. She lets go of me slowly, testing to see how things feel before trusting her own feet. I hold my arms out beside her just in case but she pats me reassuringly on the shoulder. She walks over to the cupboard.

‘We can drop you at school on the way,' she says, wincing as she reaches for the coffee cups.

‘There's no time. Your appointment is in an hour.'

‘I don't want you missing school for me,' she says trying to sound firm, but I can tell she's lost her puff.

I cross my arms and stare at her.

‘This is the
last
time.'

‘Sure.'

‘I mean it Mira. You have important things to do now. Don't waste your time on me.'

I go take a shower and by the time I am ready Siena and Via have arrived and are sipping coffee at the kitchen table. Mum has changed into her best shirt, the one with the tight collar, which means she will be tugging at it all day. When I walk into the room they go quiet and still, like I have just walked in on something I wasn't supposed to hear. Via's eyebrows are raised just a little too high as she smokes and flicks through the newspaper. Siena pretends to be absorbed in a spot-on a distant wall, and Mum smiles a little too enthusiastically.

‘What?' I say.

‘Hmm?' says Mum.

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Nothing,' says Mum.

‘Garlic,' says Siena at the same time and they look at each other.

‘Garlic,' says Mum.

‘Right,' I say. I shake my head at them, sit down and help myself to some coffee but the pot is empty.

‘Leave it,' says Via before I can even think about getting
myself another. ‘It's time to go.'

She looks me up and down and shakes her head but decides to let my displeasing appearance go for the day. I put on my sunglasses and follow them out. There is very little of the usual banter as we walk funeral-procession-like to the car.

Siena and I climb into the back of Bambi and Via locks the front seats against us. I have to scrunch up, knees to chin to fit into the tiny space behind Via's seat. Siena, on the other hand, folds in easily and only needs to lean her knees to the side. I click on my seatbelt and it sits snugly against my hips. I watch as Siena struggles to get the two ends of her belt together.

‘Looks like Via's finally fattening you up,' I joke, expecting Siena to laugh but instead she opens her eyes wide and struggles to keep herself composed. She shakes the seatbelt off and turns away from me. ‘It's just the straps,' I say unclipping myself and leaning over to loosen them. ‘The kids have probably been playing with them.'

‘Sorry,' she says buckling up. ‘I'm not thinking straight today.'

Outside, Via starts yelling at Mum. ‘You will hurt yourself!' she says as Mum hangs painfully from the car roof trying to lower herself into the Datsun.

‘I can do it by
myself,
' says Mum just before she lets go and falls into her seat with a gasp. She lifts the hem of her dress and uses it to wipe the sweat from her brow. Looking smug, she folds her arms and gives Via an I-told-you-I-can-do-it look.

Via smiles and pulls a cigarette out. She holds it between her teeth as she speaks. ‘Where is your
bag?
' she says to my mother who immediately starts patting down her chest as though it may be hiding somewhere in her clothes.

Smirking, Via steps aside to reveal Mum's handbag sitting on the driveway about a metre away. She invites my mother to lean over and pick it up. Mum folds her arms and looks away with a huff. Snickering, Via picks it up, throws it into Mum's lap then slams the door shut. She sucks her cigarette alight as she squeezes herself behind the wheel. Her seat bulges back and grazes at my knees.

‘One thing for sure,' says Via as she reverses down the driveway. ‘That bone cancer isn't affecting your skull. Your head is as hard as ever.'

And, like a bomb has detonated in her mouth, she laughs through her cigarette and blasts us in a cloud of smoke.

In the radiology clinic, I watch as they lay my mother on a padded metal slab and prepare to zap her with radiation. Mum has a war going on in her body, and this machine is about to nuke the shit out of the bad guys. They have drawn blue lines on her that mark the target area, but like any war it won't be just the bad guys that get hurt. The attacks will destroy healthy cells along with the cancer cells and I know from the last time that this will leave her feeling sore and sick.

Every war has innocent casualties.

Mum stares upwards, her lips drawn down at the sides and her jaw clenched. Her hands are knotted together across her belly and the radiographer takes them and places them to her side. She turns her head to look at him, panicking as he speaks to her. Siena acts quickly to interpret, explaining what he wants
her to do, soothing her with long, soft strokes to her arms.

‘Keep still,' she says to my mother who, careful to do exactly what she is told, blinks her eyes instead of nodding.

When he is ready to start the machine we are asked to leave. As we enter the waiting room, Via, who is smoking in the outside courtyard, knocks loudly against the glass window to get our attention. She is leaning forward with her hand shielding her eyes and nose slightly bent against the window. Behind her is a dead palm tree and from where I am sitting the brown fronds look like a pair of very sad wings.

‘Everything okay?' she shouts and everyone in the waiting room turns to look at her.

‘Yes,' says Siena nodding but speaking at a normal volume which Via cannot hear. ‘You are a complete idiot.'

Via smiles and gives us a thumbs-up. She draws another cigarette from her handbag and puffs away. Siena and I sit down and the lady beside us smiles welcomingly. You can tell she is a cancer patient because she is wearing a scarf to hide her hair loss and she is so thin she looks two-dimensional. It occurs to me that if you put a scarf on Siena you could easily mistake her for being a patient here too.

‘You want one of these magazines, Siena?' I say, dangling a selection of them like a limp, glossy fan. She chooses
Everyday Gourmet,
a food magazine that, as far as I can tell, features very large pictures of tiny serves of food. I keep
Womanly
for myself and begin to flick through pages of models and celebrities that never fail to make me feel inadequate. I close the magazine and throw it to the table in disgust.

‘Vapid women with sticky-out ribs and big breasts,' I say
when Siena looks at me questioningly. ‘I think women look better when they have a bit of flesh on them, don't you reckon?'

She smiles and goes back to studying her recipes, and I wonder if she has been trying to live on those button-sized portions they show in that magazine. That would certainly explain why she is wasting away.

Via enters the waiting room smelling of smoke, her rubber-soled sandals smacking heavily against the polished concrete floor. Looking very angry, she holds up a packet of cigarettes before crushing it in her fist then throwing it into a wicker basket in the corner. ‘They don't sell cigarettes here and I've run out.'

Siena throws her head back and rubs her forehead like she's getting a headache. ‘That's a toy box,' she says pointing to the cigarette packet that's now sitting in the arms of an eyeless teddy bear. ‘And you do realise you are in a hospital? A
cancer
hospital?'

Via collapses onto the seat next to Siena, causing several people at the far end of the row to jump in the air. An old lady holds onto her wig. ‘Look,' she says handing Siena a folded newspaper page. ‘I found this.'

Via points to the article she wants us to read. The headline reads ‘Our Lady of Rock Quarry Lake'. There's a photo of a man taking a bite out of a cream-filled lamington, as someone pours water over his head from an old pickle jar. In the background people are crowding to fill jars and buckets with the water from the lake. I scan through the article and work out pretty quickly what it's about. Apparently a vision of the Virgin Mary led this guy to the abandoned limestone quarry
and asked him to drink the water. Then,
whammo!
His diabetes was cured. Now hundreds are travelling to the lake seeking their own cures.