The Mimosa Tree (31 page)

I feel the tears begin to fall.

‘Are you okay, Mira?'

I try to answer him, but the tears become hiccups, and my words are washed down my throat in gaspy swallows of salt and snot. I nod, try to let him know I am okay, that these tears are joy but that joy is too close to sadness for me right now. I realise that all he must see is a girl who is drowning. He hushes me, pulls me in and holds my shaking body so that my sobs become our sobs.

‘It's going to be okay,' he says softly over my head. ‘Everything is going to be okay.' He pulls me down onto the mattress and I curl up into him. He does not let me go. He kisses me through my sobbing, and I am happy, so happy to be here with him but the sobs just keep on coming. I sob until the mattress is wet with tears and my lungs have tired of clenching.

I wake up suddenly. I have no idea what time it is. The curtain is closed, but I can see a halo of light around the edges, which suggests it is late in the morning. Or perhaps it is the afternoon already. It really doesn't matter. I've got nowhere to go and nothing to do. Harm is not beside me. I listen for him, but all I hear are the usual creaking sounds of walls warming up and the low rumble of distant traffic. The room smells of last night's wine and the air is stuffy with cigarettes and pot. I close my eyes and indulge in some fanciful memories of clean sheets and food that didn't come out of cans. But I can't dwell here too long, because I know that my remembering will soon lead me to places and losses I would rather forget.

‘That's enough,' I say to myself as I resolve to get up and clean this mess, but it doesn't translate to actual moving. My body feels limp, and my eyes are stinging. My mind is surrounded in wet fog that makes it hard to think. I pull the sheet over my face and fall into a light sleep. Sometime later I am woken by Harm's gentle bouncing on the mattress. I have barely opened my eyes before he leans over and kisses me. I do my best to kiss
him back, but my energy is lacking and I turn my face away, pretend to cough so that he has to stop.

‘Good morning,' he says brightly. ‘Sleep well?'

‘Like the dead,' I say. ‘I'm not warming up too quickly either.'

‘It's all this crying. You're like a faulty tap.'

‘I feel like a wrung sponge. I'm sorry. I guess I'm not much fun to be around at the moment.'

‘You're perfect,' he says and leans in to kiss me again. This time I manage to muster a little more enthusiasm.

‘I've brought you breakfast in bed,' he says. He presents me with an iced coffee and a steaming pie served on an old pizza box. Over this ‘tray' he has scattered a handful of blue flowers.

I smile. ‘You walked all the way to the deli? Just for me?'

He responds with a little bow but then adds, ‘Well, sort of. I ate mine on the way home.' He rolls a cigarette as he watches me eat. ‘I got us something else too. I ran into an old friend and he gave me a couple of these.' He reaches into his back pocket then puts whatever it is into his open palm. I lean over to take a closer look and see two small paper squares. They look like they have been cut roughly by hand and are stamped with the image of a mushroom cloud. I have no idea what they are, but just seeing that image puts me on edge.

‘What are they?' I say nervously.

‘They're called A-bombs,' says Harm. ‘Have you had acid before?'

‘LSD? That stuff makes you go crazy, doesn't it?'

‘Nah! Only if you do it wrong. It's all about setting up the right environment; feeling safe. We'll put on the candles, get the music going, make everything feel really mellow and it will
be incredible.' He leans his forehead into mine, opens his eyes wide and grins. ‘Trust me Mira. This is going to blow your mind.'

‘I don't know, Harm. I think this is a bad idea.'

He sighs, tucks the squares away into his wallet. ‘That's okay,' he says clearly disappointed. ‘I'm sure we can think of something else to do instead.'

‘Maybe you could have one? I could just watch.'

‘Nah,' he says starting to roll another cigarette. ‘It's no fun tripping on your own. We'll do it another day. When you're ready.'

I finish off the final mouthful of pie. Take a slurp from the cold iced coffee. The sound reverberates loudly in the echoey room; like a rumbling train. Harm watches me, smiling and smoking. He passes me a dirty T-shirt to wipe the dribbling gravy from my fingers. When a strand of hair falls in front of my eyes he reaches across and tucks it gently behind my ear.

‘All right,' I say finally. ‘Let's do it.'

Harm puts up his hands. ‘Hey, it's okay. We don't have to do the trips. I understand if you're scared. I was too, the first time.'

I snatch the wallet from his pocket and shove it into his hands. ‘Give me one.'

He shrugs in a well-if-you-insist kind of way and gently slides the LSD from his wallet. He pushes his finger onto one of the squares, holds it up to my eyes so that the mushroom cloud looms before me. I am reminded of lining up to accept those papery wafers they give you in church, only there is nothing inspiring or god-like about the image on this wafer. I look from it to Harm. His face is glowing with expectation.

‘Are you ready?' he says.

I try to focus on him rather than the mushroom cloud dancing before my eyes. ‘Okay,' I say and hope to God he hasn't noticed the squeak in my voice.

He places the paper into my mouth. Grinning, he takes the other square himself. ‘Hold it under your tongue for a minute before you swallow.'

‘I don't feel anything,' I say, hoping that maybe it won't work.

‘It takes a while to come on. We can have a drink while we wait, it will help us relax.' He kisses me before leaping off the bed. ‘I'll just run down to the bottle shop.'

‘You're leaving me? Now? I've just taken LSD!'

‘It's called acid. Don't say LSD. It makes you sound like a nerd. And relax, Mira. It will take at least half an hour before it comes on. I'll be back way before then. Okay?'

I force myself to nod.

‘Great. Remember, it's really important to relax. If you get too strung out you'll have a bad trip.'

‘What's a bad trip?' I say, but he's already out the door.

For a long time I just sit there, wondering what the hell just happened. I have taken a drug that I know nothing about. I feel completely normal, and yet in my stomach a little paper square is slowly dissolving and releasing its drug into my bloodstream. I feel like I have swallowed a time bomb.

Relax, I say to myself remembering Harm's warning about a bad trip. I lie down with my face to the wall, hugging myself and worrying about whether I am relaxed enough or not. I don't want to have a bad trip, whatever that means. God, I don't even know what the effects of this drug are! What am I supposed
to be looking out for? How will I know when it has started? Nervously, I monitor each twitch and tingle, wondering if it's a sign that the LSD is taking effect. Then I remember I have to be relaxed and I start worrying again.

I reach over and hit play on the stereo, and it's The Smith's ‘I Know It's Over'.

Oh God, this is not going well. I smack the stop button and get up and start pacing the room. My pacing takes me to the kitchen. My mouth is suddenly very dry. I turn on the tap to rinse a glass, hold my hand under the running water and wait for it to get hot, but it stays cold. It dawns on me that they may have finally cut off the gas. I check the stove and it isn't working either. I check the wall clock. Harm has been gone fifteen minutes. In another fifteen minutes I should start feeling the effects of the acid. Where is he? I start watching the clock, listening to the seconds count down and time seems to slow and stretch. My heart, on the other hand, feels like it's running a marathon. I pick up a shopping catalogue and uncover a cockroach. It's huge, like a six-legged horse wearing armour. I stamp my hand lightly on the table, hoping to hurry it on its way but this roach has not learnt to sense danger in human noises. It meanders slowly across the table, taking time out to see the sights and preen its long antennae.

Then it winks at me.

What?

I watch it carefully as it continues its journey, but it does not wink again. I think I watch it for a very long time, because when it finally disappears into a crack in the wall I have a weird feeling, like I've forgotten something important.

My mouth feels very dry.

As I step towards the sink, I notice that something is different about the floorboards. They seem to sag as I step, and the more I focus on the strangeness of it, the springier they get. By the time I have reached the sink I feel like I am walking across a trampoline.

Then I realise.

It's started.

Oh God, where is Harm? I tell myself to stay calm but it's too late. Every warning system in my body is going off. I'm like a building on fire. I'm used to feeling anxious. I'm an expert at panic, but this is different. Under my skin things are crawling, tickling, and air is puffing up into my throat, forcing me to yawn. I hold tightly to the bench, shuffle my way around the room until I reach the telephone. It feels cold in my hand, and I dial carefully, trying to focus on remembering the numbers instead of getting caught up in the purring sound it makes as the dial spins back.

‘Hello?' says Felicia, and though the phone is tight against my ear it feels like she is speaking from a long way away.

‘Help me, I've made a terrible mistake!'

‘Mira, what is it? Are you okay?'

‘I've taken something and it's changing things. Felicia, I'm scared.'

‘Where you are? I'll come and get you.'

Suddenly there's a series of loud popping sounds, and I spin around trying to work out where it's coming from. As I turn my head the room seems to blur. The popping seems to be coming from above, like someone is dropping pebbles on the
roof. The pops increase in number and frequency until they merge into a rumbling roar. It's only when a leak forms in the ceiling above me that I realise it's raining.

‘Mira? Mira!'

‘Felicia?' I push the phone harder into my ear, scrunch up my eyes so that I can focus on her tiny voice. I hear scattered words, but not enough to understand what she is saying. I shout the address down the phone, hoping she can hear me. ‘It's Harm's house!' I add. ‘The one that's falling apart!'

Water drips down my neck and spine like a long, cold worm. I drop the phone and run into the hallway, but the rain follows me. I run to the front door and as I reach for the handle the door swings open before I touch it. When I see Harm standing there I collapse into him with relief. He is wet and shivering but grinning excitedly. His pupils have grown to the size of lawn beetles and his usually pale skin has a purplish matt tinge, like over-moulded plasticine. I want to touch his face, to see if it is still flesh, but I am suddenly petrified of finding out he has indeed turned to plastic.

‘It's started,' he says.

‘I know!' I say, stepping aside as another leak opens above me. ‘Where have you been?'

He doesn't answer, just takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom.

More and more leaks are opening up. Water is spilling down around us but Harm doesn't seem to notice. Calmly, he begins to pack our clothes into a bag.

‘It's time to go, Mira.'

‘Yes,' I say marvelling at how connected we are. It's like we
are reading each other's minds! ‘I called Felicia. She's coming to get us.'

He looks up from his packing. After a moment of consideration, he slowly shakes his head. ‘There isn't enough time.' He rolls up my survival map and tucks this into the belt of his pants. ‘We can't wait for anyone. The best chance we've got is to get out of here as fast as we can. It's started, Mira.'

Suddenly, there is a loud crack. We turn towards the hallway in time to see a dust cloud explode through the door. It inflates slowly, like a giant, grey balloon. When it hits me the sensation is like being whipped with feathers. But when the dust enters my lungs I start coughing and gasping for air. I am incapacitated with fear, but Harm hooks an arm around my shoulder and pulls me out the back door.

‘What's happening?' I scream. ‘Why are the walls shaking?'

‘It's not safe here anymore,' he shouts trying to make himself heard above another, stronger sound this time, like the whirring sound of machinery gearing up. We fall down the step and into the weedy sand of the backyard. Above the house the great yellow arm of an excavator rises high into the sky. As the arm rises, the whirring sound gets louder and louder until suddenly it stops and the bucket crashes down onto the house. Heavy wooden beams split like matchsticks. Glass explodes from the windows like showers of glittering water. The arm pulls back towards itself taking with it walls, metal and sheets of roofing. It looks like a giant, house-eating monster.

‘They're knocking down the house!' I say. I am feeling hysterical, not sure whether to laugh or cry. ‘Harm, we could have been killed!'

‘Over there,' says Harm pointing to something behind me.

I spin around, but I only see the usual weedy dirt and scraggly bushes of our backyard. Harm continues to stare through the rain, obviously seeing something there that I can't. It occurs to me that he's actually gone mad; that the drug has caused him to lose his mind. And because I am struggling to keep a handle on things myself, the realisation that neither of us is in control is enough to tip me over the edge. I can feel my panic rising again, reaching new and electrifying peaks.

‘It's all right, Harm,' I say trying to sound reassuring, though I'm not sure whether it's for his benefit or mine. ‘Felicia will be here soon. We can hang out with her until this trip-thing passes, then we can go to my house. It's going to be okay.'

‘You can't go home,' he says rejecting my attempts to comfort him. ‘That's where it's coming from!' His eyes are wide, and his mouth is twitching at the sides. I realise with horror that he's not actually scared – he's having the time of his life. He points into the sky, but I still can't see what he is talking about. Exasperated, he turns my head. ‘Up there, Mira. The cloud is there.'

And suddenly I understand.

Towering high above the suburban roofline, black and bubbling and filling up the sky is a mushroom-shaped cloud. The sound of the excavator chomping on our house fades into insignificance and soon all I am aware of is the whooshing sound of blood in my ears. As the cloud grows into the sky, widening and stretching, so does my fear. Just as I always imagined it would, the dust seems to spill up and out from the stem, like a tiered fountain. The sky grows darker and the rain
gets heavier. Thunder cracks through the air. I am terrified and shivering with cold, but I cannot seem to move to save myself.