The Mimosa Tree (32 page)

I start to count.

When Harm pulls me to my feet I don't resist. He leads me through a neighbour's yard before reaching the street. The rain is so heavy that water has started to pool along the sides of the road. There are signs of general panic all around us. I see a man in his pyjamas tying tarps over loose building materials in his front yard. As he struggles with his giant, flapping, blue bird he keeps checking over his shoulder at the cloud. Through the wind and rain I hear a mother calling desperately for her children to come inside. As we hurry along the footpath, huddled into each other against the wind and rain, we are almost bowled over by a woman with a pram futilely trying to protect her screaming baby. She gives us a frightened look and gestures to the looming cloud.

‘Harm,' I say tugging at his arm. ‘We have to find shelter. We shouldn't be out here.'

‘No. We have to get as far away as we can first.'

‘But where are we going?'

‘To the safe place.'

Oh God. He's talking about the map. My map.

‘Harm. I don't think there is a safe place. Everything is too connected; you take out one piece and all the others fall.'

‘We'll head for the train station,' he says. ‘We can decide where to go from there.'

‘Wait!' I say. ‘Slow down.' I try to pull my hand away, but he grips it tighter and with a quick movement he has me locked against his side. My feet are moving, they are touching the
ground, but somehow he is carrying me. I can't see where I am going through the rain, but it doesn't matter because I am not choosing the direction. Harm is holding me so tightly that I have become part of his body. I have no choice but to follow. I glance back to the cloud. It's still there; bloating, churning and haemorrhaging into the sky, but it seems to have grown wider and lost some of its distinct mushroom shape. Everywhere I look the sky is turning into a boiling mass of grey and black.

I turn away from the cloud just in time to be walloped in the face by the low-hanging branch of a tree. It feels like I have leaves and flowers in my mouth and across my face. I spit and wipe at my cheeks, and when I look down at my fingers I see they are covered in mimosa flowers. They are all over my hands and clothes, exploding through the veil of rain like tiny yellow fireworks.

Suddenly, I am back home in my kitchen.

Mum is at the sink washing dishes. She is humming, and I am standing behind her, as close as I can be without touching. I am vibrating softly to her humming. The kitchen is warm, it smells like butter and garlic. The walls glow yellow in the sun. I want to touch her, but I am afraid I will break the spell. I am afraid that she will be taken from me again.

The sound of squealing car tyres snaps me back to the street.

Harm takes us on a mad dash across a four-lane intersection. The traffic lights are out, and cars are banked up on all sides. Desperate motorists push into any available space, and everywhere horns are blaring. He manages to manoeuvre us safely to the other side, but the effort leaves me breathless and I fall to my knees on the pavement, struggling to calm down.
Harm stands with his back to me, hands on hips, staring at the passing train that is blocking our passage to the railway station. His outline seems to smudge as the train moves past him.

The train sounds like my mother humming.

‘Harm,' I say as something occurs to me. ‘Is this real?'

But he ignores me.

I leave him and go back to my mother's kitchen.

My mother is at the sink, and I am inching closer to her. I try to get as close as I can without actually making contact. I am a whisper away, feeling her warmth, smelling her, remembering the softness of her skin. I hold back for as long as I can but finally I am unable to resist.

I put my hand on her shoulder, and she disappears.

I fall forward onto the sink, through the space where she was standing. I am crying. Sobbing. Feeling my loss all over again. I look down at my hands which seem to be holding the weight of my pain. They ache. They are my hands, but they don't feel like my hands anymore. They feel calloused. There is a burn on my thumb that I can feel without seeing. I spread my fingers out and wiggle them and though they are not touching I can feel the plump edges rubbing against each other. On my ring finger I can feel the cold tightness of a gold band.

And then I realise.

I have stepped into her.

I am seeing my hands, but feeling hers. She is still humming but not around me, she's inside me now. We are together, she is alive in my body, in a safe place where she will never die or grow old.

She comes with me to the street.

Together we look back to the cloud that has tormented me for so many years. My skin is prickling with cold, but my heart is warm. My mother says, Look Mira. What a beautiful cloud. Have you ever seen something so amazing? And suddenly I am not afraid of it anymore.

‘Come on, Mira,' says Harm. ‘It's time to go.'

I stand and face him. I am smiling. Inside me I can still feel my mother's warmth.

‘No, Harm. I'm not going.'

‘But it's not safe here anymore.'

‘Maybe, but I can't just leave,' I say thinking of Siena and Via. Of Marco and Sera and Felicia. ‘What about our families and friends? Who is going to make sure they are safe?'

‘I don't care what happens to anyone else.'

I scrunch up my eyes. I'm not crazy about my family but that doesn't mean I want them dead. I want them to listen to me more, I want them to back off and let me make my own decisions. I wish they were smarter about my world and could show me better how to live in it, but I don't hate them.

‘Harm,' I say again. ‘It's time to go home.'

Harm reaches out, but I put my hands behind my back and step away from him. He looks like I've stabbed him. His eyes are wide, and I can see the cloud reflected in his oversized pupils. He is a boy trying not to cry, and the mother in me wants to reach out to him, to take away his pain. I feel terrible, but I know that this is the right thing to do.

‘We're going to die,' he says looking past me to the cloud.

I shake my head. ‘It's not real. It's just a cloud. It was always just a cloud.'

‘It's a warning,' he says, unwilling to let the game end. ‘A sign.'

‘Harm, it's a storm cloud. It's a sign that it's going to
rain.
'

He is breathing so quickly I can see his chest rising and falling through his shirt. For a while I think he is just overcome with emotion, and I wait for him to be able to say what he needs to say. But when I hear him begin to wheeze I realise he is having an asthma attack.

‘Oh fuck,' I say pulling the bag from his shoulder and letting it drop to the ground between us. ‘Where's your pump?'

I feel blindly in the bag for the Ventolin pump. I finally locate it in the inside pocket of his jacket, but as I grab it I dislodge the map. The wind flips and tumbles it and we watch as the rain begins to smudge the colours and soften the edges of the paper.

‘The map,' he wheezes. ‘Get your map.'

‘Let it go,' I say. ‘We don't need it anymore.'

And suddenly the map blows towards the tracks and under the wheels of the passing train. Then Harm stops wheezing. In fact, he stops making any sounds at all because he isn't actually breathing. He drops back on his elbows as I push the pump to his lips and begin to squirt the Ventolin into his mouth until he starts wheezing again, and then begins to breathe. I hold him to my chest as he cries. And I smile as I realise my mother is holding him too.

‘It's going to be okay,' I say into his hair. ‘Everything is going to be okay. I'm taking us home.'

Harm's attack has snapped me out of the trip and it's a strange feeling; like stepping out of a movie theatre into daylight. He leans into my side as I guide us across the tracks, through the wind and rain and towards the terminal building. He is weak after his attack, and it's a struggle to hold him up but I don't let go. We slip in through the doors just as it starts to hail. It pelts down like a shower of rocks, and when the doors close behind us the sounds just stop like someone has turned off a tap.

We find a bench and huddle together for warmth, creating a sizeable puddle around us. We look like we have been beaten then drowned. Harm's pants are muddy and torn at the leg. His tangled hair is plastered to his face like strands of yellow liquorice. I have a long tear in my shirt, twigs in my hair and blue flowers over my head and shoulders like sprinkles on a cupcake. I laugh.

‘What?' says Harm.

‘These flowers,' I say rubbing them through my fingers in fascination. ‘I was sure they were yellow, and round and furry like flowers from a mimosa tree,' I say.

‘Part of the hallucination,' he says picking petals from my hair.

I smile. ‘A good part,' I say. ‘How are you feeling, Harm?'

‘Like I've been through a war.'

I grin. ‘But you survived right?'

‘With everything but my pride,' he says.

‘So how long does this stuff last?' I say, fascinated by how my fingers seem to grow comet tails as I wave them through the air.

‘I think we're over the worst of it now. It's hard to say, but
I think we should stop feeling the effects completely in few hours.'

‘All of them?' I say, checking to see if my mother's hands are still in mine. They are, but softer; just a light touch.

‘Sometimes the things you see or understand on the trip stay with you for weeks. I'm sorry, Mira. I had no idea it would be that strong. That was scary, even for me. This trip was different from the ones I've taken before. Usually they last a bit longer but feel a lot less intense.'

‘It was explosive,' I say. ‘I guess that's why they call them A-bombs. You were right, it really blew my mind.'

‘I'm the guy, remember? The one that's here to corrupt you. It's my job to keep opening up those doors,' Harm says with a sweep of his arm.

‘I think you just blew them off their hinges,' I smile. ‘I hope you don't mind, but I think I'll be leaving all the doors closed for a while.'

He nods sincerely. ‘That is a wise decision.'

‘I'm still having trouble working out what was real and what wasn't. Like the house. Did they really knock it down or was that part of the hallucination?'

‘I have no bloody idea. I guess we'll find out once the storm passes.'

I reach over and smooth his fringe. ‘Thank you, Harm,' I say.

He scoffs. ‘For almost killing you?'

‘For letting me stay. For braving the storm.'

I put my head onto his shoulder and Harm plays gently with my hair. ‘Are you still going home?'

I look up into his green eyes. ‘Yes.'

He nods like he understands, but he looks away, pretends to get distracted by something across the room. ‘So, you hungry?' he says reaching down to pick up the bag with our food supplies. He tears it open, pulls out cans of baked beans, precooked meat-pie filling and condensed milk.

‘Um, not really.'

‘That's good,' he says throwing the cans back into the bag. ‘Because I forgot the can opener.'

We roll around on the bench in hysterics until a security guard comes over and tells us to behave ourselves. For the rest of the afternoon we just hang around the station, enjoying the now greatly diminished effects of the acid. But as the drug slowly leaches from my system, so does that wonderful feeling of being close to Mum. With each passing minute I feel her slipping away from me again, and the more she slips, the tighter I cling to Harm. But my need for him doesn't scare me anymore, because now I know for sure that he is clinging to me too.

By late afternoon the storm has blown over, and Harm and I step outside for the first time in hours. The air smells like freshly cut grass and the streets are glassy and flickering with headlights. It's still raining; a mere spray of moisture that wets the surface of our clothes and hair without penetrating. We are walking back to the house, wondering if the demolition was real. We amble hand in hand, awed by the devastation caused by the storm. There are fallen branches everywhere and so many leaves that I am surprised the trees have any left. We see a jacaranda split in half and fallen across the street. Golf ball sized hail has shattered car windscreens. Everywhere water is still running like creeks along roadsides, and in a low-lying section it's pooled knee-high.

‘I'm starting to think that whole war thing wasn't a hallucination,' says Harm, shaking his head in disbelief as we walk past a piece of roof sheeting wrapped around a tree trunk.

‘It's like we've just stepped out of the bunker,' I agree. ‘I'm glad we got to the train station before it really started coming down.'

Harm nods. ‘You know, it's probably a good thing that excavator showed up when it did. I don't think the house would have held up against that storm. At least it forced us to get out of there.'

I put my arm around his waist and snuggle into his side. ‘Harm, where are you going to go?'

‘Back to my parents' house I suppose.'

‘But they're horrible.'

‘True, but at least they're not here right now. Maybe I can find somewhere to live before they come back.'

I hold Harm's hand tighter. Neither of us is looking forward to going home. I know it's what I need to do, but when I think about how it will be, just me and my father alone in that house without my mother to hold us together, I feel sick. I've lived with my father my whole life, but it feels like I am going home to a stranger. In some ways it's simple for Harm, knowing that he won't or can't work things out with his parents; there is comfort in knowing exactly where you stand, even if where you're standing feels exactly like shit. I'm not sure I will ever be able to untangle myself so easily from my family, especially not while Via and Siena are around. And while Harm has the freedom to make his own choices, I'll probably always have to consider everything I do against what they want for me, or how it's going to make them feel. Does that mean I will never get to know how it feels to be truly me?

‘Check out the headline,' says Harm, pointing over at the deli window. The newspaper billboard sheet has been torn and dampened by the storm but the writing is still clear: ‘Superpowers sign treaty to cut nuclear arsenals'.

‘I don't believe it,' I say.

‘They signed the treaty! They're going to get rid of the bombs.'

‘I guess the war really is over,' I say but I am having trouble smiling.

‘Hey,' says Harm, squeezing my hand and pulling me out of my thoughts. ‘We had fun, right?'

‘Sure,' I say. ‘You know, in between all the crying.'

He nods. ‘Yeah. That apocalyptic stuff was a bit scary too, but you know, before that it was pretty cool.'

Laughing, we turn the corner into our street. Any doubts that the demolition was real are dispelled as soon as I see the excavator parked on the verge outside our house. Its great arm is curled up under its nose and it looks peaceful, like it's dozing after a hard day's munching. The demolition must have stopped just after the storm started, because the house is only partially knocked down. The excavator has torn through the middle leaving the sides leaning but still standing. All that's left of the demolished part is a tangle of split and broken roof timbers that look like a giant game of pick-up-sticks.

Suddenly, there is a screeching of brakes and we turn around to see Felicia's Celica skidding to a stop. She leaps out of the car and runs towards us.

‘Oh my God! Are you okay? I'm so sorry, Mira. I tried to come straight after you called but I couldn't get out because of the storm. You had me so worried!'

‘Sorry,' I say cringing as what I said starts coming back to me. ‘I might have been a little overdramatic.'

She gestures to the house. ‘From the looks of this I'd say you conveyed the urgency of your situation with a good deal of
accuracy. What the hell happened?'

‘They started knocking it over,' says Harm.

‘While we were still in it,' I add. ‘We almost got killed.'

Felicia looks aghast.

‘We went to the train station to get away from the nuclear explosion,' says Harm.

Felicia cocks her head to the side. ‘The what?'

‘I'll explain later,' I say waving my hand. ‘It's a long story.'

‘It's a good story actually,' says Harm with a grin. ‘I think you'll like it.'

‘Come on, let's get out of here.'

Felicia looks hopeful. ‘Home?'

‘Yeah, I can't leave things like this. I've got to try and sort stuff out.'

‘And what about you?' she says to Harm.

‘Back to my parents for a while. Until I can find somewhere else to live.' He slides his arm around my waist and pulls me close. ‘Then maybe, when I'm all set up, I'll call for you.'

‘I'll be waiting,' I say and then we kiss.

‘Oh God! I think I preferred it when you were weird and awkward with each other.'

‘You can talk,' I say kicking lightly at her shin. ‘I'm just giving you back a little of your own medicine.'

‘So how is pizza-Einstein guy?' says Harm with a grin.

She looks shocked. ‘What have you been telling him?'

‘Nothing! Okay, well I may have mentioned a couple of things.'

‘Yeah right,' she says. ‘Well it doesn't matter anymore. I broke up with him.'

‘Really? What happened?'

‘He called me from Sydney, told me he was in love with someone else. Apparently he was sleeping with her the whole time I thought he was with me.' She is smiling, trying to seem light with it, but she turns away and drops her sunglasses over her eyes. ‘Then his other girlfriend dumped him, so now he keeps calling me trying to get me back. He's an arsehole and a stalker. I can really pick them, can't I?'

‘I'm sorry, Felicia. He's obviously a fool.'

‘Just what you thought all along, right? You don't have to pretend, Mira. I know you're probably glad that things turned out this way. Stupid thing is, if I'd listened to you in the first place I may not be feeling this crappy right now.'

‘Hey,' I say putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I'm not glad at all. You're a good person and you don't deserve to be treated that way.'

She looks from my hand to me. ‘Are you feeling all right?'

‘Well, I've been better, but I feel okay.'

‘I mean are you feeling okay because that's the first time you've ever said something nice about me.'

‘Really?' I say. ‘Well, you know, you don't give me much to work with.'

She laughs and gives me a hug and I realise this is something else that's new in our friendship. Not so much her hugging me, but me actually enjoying hugging her back.

‘So where to?' she says dangling her car keys.

‘Let's drop Harm off. I'll call Via from there and warn her I'm coming. I don't want to give her a heart attack by just showing up.'

‘Wait,' Felicia says, pushing Harm and me together and turning us so that we have our backs to the house. ‘Say cheese.' And before I know it I am blinded by the flash of her camera.

‘What did you bring that for?' I say blinking my eyes.

‘Posterity.'

I laugh. ‘I'm not sure there is much about this moment that is particularly valuable to future generations.'

‘You can't judge the importance of these things when you're in them, Mira. I'll whip this photo out when we're old and worn and you can tell me what you think then.'

‘Fine,' I say, taking the camera from her. ‘But for an accurate record we need to have your face in this picture too.' I pull us close together and hold the camera as far away as I can.

‘Okay, smile,' I say, and with another flash I commit the three of us, and the demolished house, to history.

‘The most beautiful summer of my youth,' I say remembering Mum's seaside photo.

‘What?' ask Felicia and Harm together.

‘Never mind,' I say smiling. ‘Let's just go home.'

‘You want me to come in with you?' says Felicia as she pulls into my driveway.

‘Thanks, but I think I'll be okay.'

‘All right, but call me if you need me. I can come over anytime.'

‘Thanks, Felicia, thanks for everything.' I lean over and give her a hug and she starts laughing. ‘What?' I say.

‘Sorry, it's just going to take a while to get used to you actually hugging.'

‘Yeah well, it's freaking me out too.' I sigh and look at my house. ‘It's so weird. Everything looks exactly the same. It's just hard to believe she's not in there.'

‘I'm so sorry, Mira. It must be really hard.' And there is really nothing I can say. It is hard. It's like the hardest thing in the world. We sit for a while quietly in the dark until I am ready to go in. I wait for her to drive away before walking slowly to the front door. The wind has picked up again, flapping the mimosa tree against Mum's bedroom window. I vividly remember the days when Mum and I lay in bed and watched that tree do exactly what it is doing now. It's funny how a memory can make you happy and sad at the same time. I watch for a while, imagining it's not the wind whipping those branches, but the tree itself shaking seeds loose from their pods, spreading them far across the garden. I remember what Mum said to me about letting some of the seedlings grow this year.

It's a moonless, cloudy night, and the light from the kitchen window cuts across the dark veranda. I keep to the shadows, taking everything in and enjoying what I know is probably my last moment to myself for a while. It's a strange feeling coming back after you've been away. Everything seems familiar, but I am noticing new things too, like the way dust has gathered in the mortar of the bricks, and how the curtains don't reach all the way to the floor. The wind is icy, but I stand there shivering and for a moment I think I might change my mind and just walk away but then the door slides open and Siena slips outside.

‘Hey you!' she says smiling and pulling me into a hug. ‘I thought I heard a car.'

‘Is Via here?' I say, trying to look inside through a gap in the curtains.

‘She's getting your room fixed up. She doesn't know you're here yet. I just wanted to say hello before she gets hold of you.'

I smile. ‘The calm before the storm, right?'

‘Yes well, I'm sure you know what to expect.' She holds me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes. ‘Are you okay?'

‘Yeah. I mean, mostly. Some things could be better.'

She nods. ‘I'm really happy you decided to come home.'

‘Me too,' I say, even though a big part of me still feels like running. But there's no point going into any of that now.

‘SIENA! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?' shouts Via from inside and suddenly the door slides open and she is standing there, mouth gaping open in shock. She has the look of a game show contestant when the panel slides away to reveal what they've won.

‘She's here! She's here!' she screams and she grabs me by the shirt and pulls me into the house. I've spent a large part of the day cold and wet, and the warmth of the room is a bit of a shock. My eyes take time to adjust to the stark brightness too. It takes me a moment to realise that Dad is there, leaning up against the doorway to the TV room. He looks so different; paler and shorter than I remember him and I am surprised by how sad that makes me feel.

‘Are you okay?' demands Via, twisting me this way and that like she's checking for wounds.

‘Yeah, I'm fine.'

‘Good,' she says and then whacks me across the head.

‘Ouch!' I say rubbing at my temple. ‘What the hell was that for?'

‘For running away!' she says. ‘You are a very bad girl! And
this,
' she says pinching my ear, ‘is for not calling us and making us scared out of our brains. Don't you ever do that again,
understand?
'

‘Okay! Okay!' I shout. ‘Let me go!'

She releases me, and I step back and put my arms up in case she decides to go for another attack, but instead she looks at me with such sorrow that I want to start slapping myself because I know that I am the one that has made her feel this way.

‘I thought I'd lost you,' she says pulling me firmly into her bosom and though I am being suffocated by flab and linen, I don't dare complain.

‘I'm sorry,' I say but my words come out muffled. I slide my arm out from where it is wedged between us and reach as far around as I can to hug her back.

‘The chicken!' she screams suddenly and pushes me away so fast I have to catch myself on the curtains to stop from falling over. She rushes to the kitchen, pulls open the oven door and disappears into an explosion of smoke. ‘Holy Christ! I can't believe I burnt the chicken! See what you made me do?'

As Via gets absorbed in trying to fix the dinner, Siena touches my shoulder, turns me around to face my father.

‘Here she is, Benito,' she says softly. ‘Safe and sound.'

I look at Dad and he stares at me from the other side of the room. He makes no move to come over to me, and for this I
am grateful. I have no idea what to say and neither, it seems, does he.

‘Isn't it great to have her back?' says Siena smiling. ‘We've missed her so much, haven't we?'

‘Yes,' says Dad, and his voice sounds gravely, like someone who hasn't spoken in days. ‘Yes, it's good.'

‘Dinner's ready!' says Via and for once I am thankful for her blustering. ‘I've made your favourite,' she says carrying a platter of roast chicken, potatoes and peas to the table. She has made enough food for about ten people and I assume this means she and Siena are staying, but with a stab of the heart I realise it's a table set only for two. She has gone all out, using the best plates and the crystal like this is some special occasion, and I get this horrible feeling, like I am being set up for something. She places the food onto the table and spends a moment fussing with the arrangement. When everything is set to her satisfaction, she folds her apron across the back of a chair and picks up her handbag.