The Mimosa Tree (6 page)

‘Be happy?' I suggest.

‘But how will she
live?
'

‘Don't be ridiculous, Sofia. Siena has no money problems.'

It's true. Siena is loaded. It wasn't always that way. When they first married, Siena and Robert were often broke, and I remember how Mum would buy Siena's groceries or shoes or whatever she desperately needed that week. Eventually, things settled down and they started getting ahead, and everyone relaxed. Then one day, Siena announced that Robert had invested their savings in a drive-in cinema. Everyone thought he was crazy; no one was going to the drive-ins any more, especially now that everyone could watch movies on VHS. There were tears and threats and late night phone calls and everyone expected things to end badly, but just the opposite happened – not only did the cinema do well, but a few years later property prices skyrocketed and he sold it for a huge amount of money. He invested that money in another business and made even more money. They've been loaded ever since. Robert stopped trying to hide that he thought he was better
than us. And we saw less and less of Siena.

‘Money, big house and no husband,' snorts Via. ‘Sounds to me like she's won the lotto.'

Mum puts a hand on Via's smoking hand so that it's trapped against the table. ‘Via, the money is
gone.
'

‘What are you talking about, Sofia?'

‘Robert!' she says. ‘He lost a lot of money in a business investment.'

‘How much money?'

Mum holds onto the table and leans in. ‘They have to sell the
house.
'

‘He lost the
house?
' says Via, and now they are clutching each other across the table, joined in mutual despair. A woman without a husband is one thing, but a woman without a
house?

‘She said she was going to a hotel,' says Mum. ‘A
hotel!
' And now she really starts crying. Mum has never been to a hotel in her life, but has watched enough movies to know that only criminals and adulterers stay at hotels.

‘Dear God!' says Via to the god in our ceiling. ‘Has it come to this? My sister in a
hotel?
' It seems Via has similar concerns about women in hotel rooms.

‘She could live here?' I say, hopefully. I can easily imagine Siena and me in my bedroom, eating Tim Tams and listening to the radio all night.

‘Yes, you could put her in the
roof,
' says Via.

‘We have no room,' agrees Mum.

‘I could move out, then she could have my room,' I suggest and I start to imagine what this would be like. A big house all to myself, pizza and two-minute noodles for every meal, my
stereo screaming beautiful music all day long and not a single broom, vacuum cleaner, sponge or dust buster to bother me.

‘All right,' says Via dropping her cigarette into her cup and it sizzles in the remaining slurp of coffee. ‘I will get her old room ready at my house.'

‘Oh Via, do you mean it?'

‘It's not forever, Sofia,' she says, walking to the sink and scrubbing furiously. ‘Siena must learn to look after herself. We can't keep saving her.'

‘Thank you, Via. Thank you.'

‘She can stay for a month. But that's it!
Three
months, Sofia. Understand? No more! No more than a
year,
okay?'

‘Thank you, Via,' says Mum. ‘
Thank
you.'

The three of us are quiet for a long time. Via leans back against the sink and pulls out another cigarette. At the table, Mum pleats the apron on her lap. I bite at my fingernails and look over at a photo frame of the three of them together, back in the village in Italy where they grew up in. Siena is a little girl, and her older sisters closer to young women. In the photo she is cradled between them, looking straight at the camera and smiling wildly while her sisters look down and smile at her. Mum has a hand held ready as if she thinks Siena might fall over. Via has a firm grasp on Siena's shoulder, pulling her up and back towards her. I look at Mum, realise she is watching me. She smiles, and I smile with her.

‘My
family,
' she says reaching over and pulling me up into a hug. ‘Together again.' And she grips me firmly with one arm while the other reaches out towards Via. Sighing, Via drops the dishcloth and comes over to join us at the table and then I'm
caught in the middle of them, squeezed between converging sobs, tears spiralling like rivers across my face. ‘My
sisters,
' says Mum, and the two of them cry until the ravioli are dry and the flyscreens have been returned to their windows.

The day my grandmother died, Siena took me by the hand and led me out to the garden. I was two, and my memories of that day are like a half formed puzzle. Siena later filled in the gaps for me, and the fragments sit in my memory like black and white pieces amongst colour. So now the memory looks like this: Mum and Via are inside my grandmother's house and they are making noises so grisly that I am frightened. I tug at Mum's skirt, and I cry in my baby way for her to stop it, to stop making that noise, but my mum does not see me. She howls and she beats her fists and she holds her head in her hands, and every time I see her eyes they are a sightless smudge of red and water. Then a hand, assured and gentle, takes mine and I let that hand lead me outside to where the howling gets dimmer and the light brighter. When I look up, it is my aunt Siena holding me. She sits me on her lap and she holds me gently while she cries in her lovely quiet way; in a way that does not frighten me.

Before Robert came along I saw Siena almost every day, when she shared her life with her sisters and they dragged me along with them everywhere they went. We were all so close and it's strange to realise that in the past year I have only seen her about three times and each of those times was a hurried,
hushed affair that left me feeling unsatisfied. Via and Mum warn me not to get my hopes up; that we don't know the whole story and that she may not stay for long. I know what they are saying, but I can't help it. I've got my hopes right up and I am looking forward to seeing her again. Maybe Via is too, because she arrives early to pick us up, and thankfully, even with the prohibitively tiny capacity of the Datsun, they do not reject my requests to go with them. Mum's mood is nervous, and Via's agitated. She taps at the table while Mum hurries to get Dad's coffee.

‘Forty years old,' says Dad heaping teaspoons of sugar into his steaming cup. ‘Does she think she can find another husband?'

‘What do you want her to do?' says Via, palms up and irritated. ‘She was not happy.'

‘
Happy?
Who is
happy?
Better to be married and unhappy, than happy and alone in this world.'

Mum smiles. She actually sees this as a compliment. ‘Young people do not understand. Marriage is about
sacrifice,
' she agrees.

‘I don't want to get married,' I say.

‘That's not going to be a problem,' says Via.

‘Good one,' says Dad with a snort.

Mum looks at me seriously.

‘You have to get married. To have children.'

‘I don't want children either.'

‘No
children?
' says Via. ‘Dear God, are you
that
heartless?'

‘She's just young,' says Mum trying to sound reassuring. ‘She doesn't understand yet how the world works.'

‘Look, the world's changed,' I say trying to keep my voice
steady but I'm feeling bugged. ‘Women don't have to get married and they don't have to have children anymore. We can do whatever we want.'

Everyone's eyes roll like clowns at a sideshow.

‘Don't fool yourself,' says Via. ‘The world is the same place it's always been. Smart or stupid, you will get married, you will have children, and you will cook and clean for them just like we do.'

‘Not me. My life is going to be different. No marriage and no kids, and definitely no cleaning. That's for sure.'

‘Then you are making a mistake,' says Dad pointing his finger at me. ‘A woman without children is not complete.' He pushes his cup away in disgust. ‘Get my lunch,' he says and Mum goes to the kitchen while Dad takes up his spot in front of the TV.

‘Siena doesn't have children,' I say to Via.

‘And look how that turned out. Your father is right. Becoming a mother is the greatest thing a woman can do. Now stop being stupid and get dressed. Siena is waiting.'

‘I am dressed,' I say and Via looks me up and down in disbelief.

‘Well at least brush your hair.'

‘I am dressed and I am brushed,' I say, and I fold my hands against my chest to show her I am not budging.

‘Are you
afraid
of looking attractive?'

‘I look fine,' I say, though it's hard to keep up the bravado.

‘You look like a, like a...' She pinches at the air as though the description she is looking for could be found there, then gives up. She swipes her hand under her chin to let me know she's done with me.

Mum comes back from the kitchen. She ruffles my hair, pinches my face firmly between her thumb and index finger.
‘Beautiful,'
she says and kisses me on the head.

‘Lunch is in the oven!' Mum shouts to Dad over the blaring TV and a single raised finger tells us that he has heard.

Via and Mum rush out the door, exchanging details of what they are planning to make for their husbands' dinners. I pause for a moment, still pissed off about no one taking me seriously. Have they even heard of women's liberation? I think when that wave went by they must have been eating gelato at the seaside kiosk.

‘I'll show you,' I say, loud enough only to be heard by a nearby cow figurine. ‘I'm going to show you all.' Then I hear Via start the car and I run out as fast as I can before they leave without me.

It takes an hour to get to the house that isn't Siena's house anymore, mainly because no one knows where we are going. Via and Mum argue the entire time about which way to go, and I am sure that we have probably been circling Siena's house for ages. It's been a while since any of us have come this way, and before that our visits were infrequent. Of course, it occurs to neither of them to look at a street map, and I know better than to suggest it.

‘These houses all look the same,' says Via.

‘So big,' says Mum straining to get a good look at the two-storey mansions that flank the street. ‘So much to
clean.
'

‘These people don't clean, Sofia. They have servants.'

‘Did Siena have servants?' I ask.

‘She must have,' says Mum. ‘If that's what everyone does around here.'

‘Is that the house?' says Via, pointing to a two-storey, peach coloured mansion. ‘I don't remember it being that colour,' says Mum helplessly.

‘What are those corkscrews?' I say, referring to four dementedly shaped conifers. ‘Siena wouldn't do that to a tree.'

‘Oh wait a minute, it's
this
one,' says Via, and then swings the car into the kerb so quickly that I slam against the door. She has pulled up beside a large ‘For Sale' sign which blocks Mum's view of the house.

Mum ducks and stretches to try and see around it. ‘Are you sure?'

But Via has already unhitched herself and is getting out of the car. ‘This is it,' she says, hands on hips and confident.

We stand together at the mouth of the long path that cuts through a perfectly manicured lawn to the house that could be Siena's. I have a nutty vision of us linking arms and skipping down the path like in
The Wizard of Oz. We're off to see the lost aunt, the wonderful lost aunt of Oz.

‘I'll wait here,' I say, worried that we have the wrong place.

‘Move it,' says Via, shoving me along the path towards the house.

Next door a sprinkler goes off across a bed of bursting white roses. This, for some reason, makes Mum nervous. ‘It's watering time,' she whispers.

‘We could come back later,' I suggest.

Via gives us both a warning glare. ‘What the hell are you talking about?'

‘I'm just saying it's very quiet here,' says Mum, hugging herself as she looks around the street. ‘Maybe they are all sleeping?'

‘I DON'T CARE IF THEY ARE
DEAD!
'

‘For God's sake, keep it down!' I say, sure that all around us eyes are watching from behind gold roped curtains. ‘You're drawing attention.'

Via eyes us both with contempt. ‘The problem with you two,' she says with a quick adjustment to her breasts, ‘is that you're easily
impressed.
' Then she turns and leads the way to what might be Siena's house. Mum and I follow sheepishly.

At the end of the path, white steps lead up to a breezy, white porch. Flanking a great mahogany door are two dead ferns, the only flaw in an otherwise perfect entrance. Mum seems to take this as a bad omen, and makes the sign of the cross as if to ward off the evil that killed the poor plants. Via presses the doorbell but it fails to emit the expected chime. She pushes again, waits a second, and then pushes again. I shuffle my feet. Mum looks like she is going to say something, but changes her mind and looks down at her shoes. Via clears her throat and puts her hands on her hips, staring forcefully at the door as if to threaten it open. She begins to raise her hand in a knock when there is a small click. The door glides open to reveal a dusty marble-tiled entrance scattered with packing boxes and loose clothing.

Then Siena steps out from behind the door.

For a moment we are frozen in place, our mouths gaping uselessly as our brains try to process the necessary information: cross-referencing, ticking boxes and double-checking, until we are all sure we are looking at the right person.

‘Hello,' says Siena. ‘Thanks for coming.'

‘Siena!' I say, pushing past Via and Mum to throw my arms
around her waist. The force of me makes her step back a little, and for a moment we are gasping and trying to keep our balance by grabbing at each other.