The Mimosa Tree (4 page)

Mum has put on a dressing-gown, the only one she owns and more suited to midwinter than the scorching heat of the morning. She hugs me tightly and kisses me on the cheeks, wiping sweat across my face. Felicia smiles antiseptically as she unlocks the car door for me. A Toyota Celica, I can't believe it. How embarrassing. Now everyone's going to think I'm a yuppie. Why can't she be driving a Datsun like a normal person? Felicia opens the car door and Via leans in, starts groping the sheepskin seat covers like they might start purring.

‘What a lovely car. Was it very
expensive?
' says Via, her ballooning bum wagging in the air.

‘I don't know, Mrs Grassi. Daddy bought it for me.'

‘Really?' says Via looking meaningfully at Mum. ‘Your
father
bought you this very nice,
expensive
car. He must love you very much.'

‘Oh yes. We're very close.'

Via makes her how-lovely face, which unfortunately looks more like she's suffering cramps. While they are all distracted, I slip into the passenger seat and put on my seatbelt before anyone can attempt to touch me again. I feel a slight sinking when my butt meets the sheepskin. Felicia finishes dishing out her two-cheek kisses, gets in and winds down her window so she can continue blowing kisses to everyone. I think I am going to be sick.

Felicia gives me a smile before dropping her glasses over her eyes and backing quickly out of our driveway. I don't say anything, and thankfully, for now, she seems content with just giving me the occasional beaming smile. This stuff doesn't impress me, it really doesn't, but everyone expects it to so
it becomes really important to me that she knows I am not impressed with it. The last thing I want is for Felicia to think I am in any way impressed by this flashy stuff she's so obviously normal with, so I keep my eyes on the road. The plan's working great until out of the corner of my eye I spot the stereo.
Alpine.
And I let myself look at it for a second, just a second, but that's enough. She's onto me.

‘You like music?'

‘I suppose.'

‘I
love
music. What bands do you like?'

‘You probably haven't heard any of them. They aren't very popular.'

‘Oh I love all music. I've got some bands you probably never heard of. I bet no one in this city has heard them.'

Alpine stereo. Graphic equalizer mounted under the dash. Surely you wouldn't go to all this trouble for Cyndi Lauper?

‘Really?' I say feeling hopeful, and she smiles, reaches down and pushes a tape into the deck. After a moment the music starts, and she is right. There is no way anyone in this city has ever heard of it. Nor would they want to.

‘You listen to Italian music?'

‘It's the latest pop music. It's what all the kids are listening to in Italy this year. Do you love it?' She leans into the window, tapping the beat on the car roof. And in contrast with everything else that is perfect and sweet about her, she sings like a toad. For this one dent in her faultlessness I have to smile. She smiles back, and I am temporarily blinded by the whiteness of her abundant teeth.

‘You love it, don't you?'

‘Um. Not really,' I say, because like my mother, I am a terrible liar and would just flash hot red if I tried. As it is, I'm feeling a little warm.

‘Oh, I'm sorry,' she says ejecting the tape immediately.

‘It's okay,' I say, feeling more than a bit guilty. ‘I just have unusual taste in music. That's all.'

Felicia leans over, taps the glove box and it falls open at my lap. ‘I have other stuff. Take a look.'

This makes me very nervous. A music collection is like a guidebook to someone's soul. It's a pretty big responsibility. Even if I like what I see, there is still the whole thing about the person having shown me their heart and it's just not something you can shrug off. Once they've shown it, you can't pretend like you haven't seen it.

‘Go on,' she says and smiles encouragingly.

That's how casual she is about it. I squint my eyes, as though that might help to soften the blow of what I'm looking at. My first impression isn't encouraging. Wham. The Thompson Twins. Huey Lewis and the News. Howard Jones. Oh God, Genesis. I want to slam it shut, but then I notice something a bit different.

‘What's this?' I say, shocked to find a Cramps album hidden amongst this collection of toxic plastic.

‘Oh God, how did that get in there? It's really bad!' She throws the tape into the backseat. ‘Hey, how about this one?' She rummages around the glove box blindly, like her hands can read, and finds the tape she wants. She pops the cover from it one-handed and slides it into the deck. She drops the cover on my lap, looking at me expectantly.

‘Lloyd Cole and the Commotions?'

‘“Perfect Skin”. It's one of my favourites at the moment.'

‘Yes,' I say, and I am a little bit stumped because actually, I like that song too.

I lean back in my seat, face out the window. Okay, so she's got one song, maybe one album that doesn't make me want to puke. It doesn't make us friends. Thanks to Lloyd Cole, the rest of the drive to uni isn't so bad. As long as I smile at her every time she looks at me and bop my head a little like I'm listening too, she's happy to just keep singing and driving, content that some kind of connection has been made.

When we get out of the car, the I've-showed-you-my-soul thing starts working against me immediately. Felicia wants me to meet her for lunch and, well, I'd be a big wanker if I turned her down now. So I say yes, and she gets excited, starts drawing me maps of the campus with big red arrows showing the way to the cafeteria. I see some goths staring at us and I'm mortified. I snatch the paper from her, shove it roughly into my pocket and get away as fast as I can.

‘Mira!' she calls after me.

‘What?' The goths are still watching.

‘Art building's that way,' and she points in the opposite direction to where I'm heading. ‘You want me to draw you another map?'

The goths start laughing. If it wasn't so embarrassing it could be legendary. Ignoring Felicia's map offer, I sling my backpack over my shoulder, drop my fringe over my eyes and walk as quickly as I feel safe enough doing while staring directly at the ground.

When I was twelve, I stood up in front of my class and told everyone I was going to be a painter when I grew up. As I looked out at my classmates and at my teacher perched against a child-sized desk, there was not a single face that looked sceptical. A few days later, when I told Via and Mum the same story, the feedback was less encouraging. This is what they said:

‘Ceilings,' said Via. ‘I hope you mean you're going to paint
ceilings,
because that's the only kind of painting that's going to put food on the table.
Understand?
'

‘Mira,' said Mum. ‘You have to be really good to be a painter.'

‘I'm the best in my class.' But the doubt was creeping in.

‘You see any jobs for painters in here?' said Via pushing the newspaper towards me.

‘I don't mean a painter. I mean an artist.'

‘Oh I'm so sorry. I didn't realise I was speaking to
Michelangelo.
'

‘Artists take drugs,' said Mum nervously.

‘Didn't you want to be a teacher once?'

‘I was four.'

‘Teacher is a good job,' said Mum hopefully. ‘When you work for the government you never have to worry.'

‘Forget it, Mum.'

‘But Mira,' she said eyes widening. ‘Artists take
drugs.
'

‘Not all artists take drugs, Mum!'

But she was doing that block thing that she does. When she gets an idea in her head, no matter how much you argue against it, it wouldn't matter if you got God to explain to her that she's wrong, she just won't budge.

Then, in an uncharacteristically diplomatic moment, Aunt
Via suggested I could be an art teacher.

‘Oh yes,' said Mum.

‘Yes, yes,' said Via.

‘No way,' said I.

‘Your cousin is a teacher.'

‘She works in childcare.'

‘They have
paints,
' said Via, leaning back satisfied. ‘Same thing you see? Yes, yes.
Art teacher.
It's a good job for you.'

‘Oh yes,' said Mum.

And just like that, without any further discussion everyone was happy. Everyone, that is, except me.

Not that it matters, because I haven't exactly turned out to be a great artist. Lately, the only thing I have drawn is my nuclear survival map, and you can't really call that art. I've been working on it secretly, usually at night after everyone has gone to bed, though sometimes I wonder why I bother. If Mum or Via saw it, they wouldn't know what it was for. My family, like the rest of the world, prefer to ignore the fact that nuclear war is inevitable. That's why I started the map: to try and figure out if there is somewhere safe I can run to when the bombs start coming down.

As I stand outside the art building, staring up at the concrete walls, I have a sinking feeling that Via and Mum are probably right: art teacher is the best I can hope for. Around me real art students shuffle by with their suitcase-sized folders full, I am sure, of serious and important art. Someone smiles at me and I immediately want to apologise, explain that I am just an education student and I'm only in their building for one insignificant unit;
Painting – Observation and Perception.
Eventually I go inside, keeping my head low and looking up only as much as is needed to avoid walking into the walls. It takes me a while but I find the entry to the studio classroom at the end of a long, vinyled hallway, designed it seems, for a short, medieval person. The studio door is red with a green handle. The word STUDIO has been collaged with the severed heads of paintbrushes, still clogged with paint. I push against the door, which has a lot less resistance than I expected. It swings open fast, slams against the inside wall, then swings back again so I have to brace my arm out to catch it. For a moment I only see light, the blinding effect of walking from a dark room into a well-lit one. Then, like the Tardis, the room opens up before me.

Inside, four students sit as far apart from each other as the room will allow them. They are perched at long, high tables, looking interested in everything except each other. Respectfully, I seat myself as far as possible from each of them. I look around at the room. The light, I now see, is spilling in from floor-to-ceiling windows that make up an entire side of the room. Above me, the ceiling domes to a central skylight, and heavy chains hold balloon-sized globes that seem unnecessary in this furnace of daylight. Walls are tacked with a mixture of sketches, paintings, notices to students and local gig posters.

As each student arrives, down-faced and timid, the ritual of finding places at a respectable distance to strangers continues. At some point, as the room fills up, it will be impossible not to sit next to someone, and so the random act of making friends begins. It depresses me how everyone behaves the same all the time. It depresses me that friendships can be forged by nothing more than random seating.

Then student number eight walks into the room.

Student-number-eight lets the door slam behind him and instead of shuffling to anonymity, pushes a long fringe from his eyes and looks at each of us in turn. He doesn't just glimpse, he actually looks, taking his time to check out the details. Squirming, I try to keep my eyes on my desk, avoid returning the gaze, but it's impossible not to want to watch him watching us.

Then he walks over and sits next to me.

And I don't mean at a respectful distance either, I mean right next to me, in the place that is usually reserved for that poor student who comes in late and has to sit in the only place left in the room. This is a bold and unusual move. I want to laugh out loud. From behind me, safely out of sight, I can feel the others studying us, waiting to see what connects us – and the joke is, there is nothing connecting us at all, other than this random movement by Student-number-eight. He's so close it's almost impossible for me to ignore him, but ignore him I do, and he shows no other interest in me. I sit tensely, like I am trying to suck myself smaller, caught between the giddiness of being chosen and the noose of unnatural closeness.

At some point a person who looks like they think they know everything stands before us and begins yabbering about negative space, perspective and interpretation. Things I am probably supposed to be listening to, but everything seems to wash around a small, focused tunnel featuring Student-number-eight. The lesson feels like it's over in minutes, but the wall clock assures me a full hour has passed. Students start
filing out of the classroom like cattle to the next prodding. I half expect him to say something to me, maybe goodbye, but Student-number-eight just grabs his pack and exits with the crowd. For the rest of the morning I watch doors expectantly, but he doesn't show again.

At midday, I head to the cafeteria without the help of Felicia's stupid map. I don't have to spend much time looking for her. Felicia is bopping up and down and waving at me from a table in the middle of the room like someone drowning. How long is it going to take her to work out that we are not going to be friends?

‘I saved you a seat,' she says and pats the chair next to her.

‘Thanks,' I say, and then take a different one instead. ‘Here is fine.'

‘Oh sure,' she says, and tries to look like she's cool with it. ‘So, how is your first day going?'

‘Fine.'

‘Meet anyone nice?'

‘I didn't speak to anyone. I'm going to get some lunch now,' I say and stand up.

‘Great!' she says and stands too. ‘I'm starving.'

Starving girl buys a salad and a black coffee, no sugar. I get a pie and a Coke. Between forkfuls she dabs at the corner of her mouth with a folded serviette. I have tomato sauce dribbling down my wrist and I make slurp noises through my straw. Felicia sips her coffee in small, soundless swallows. Every time I look at her she gives me a little smile. I want to scream why are you here? Why are you even talking to me?