Antonella Preto The Mimosa Tree (retail) (epub)

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.I push up from the table and the ceramic fruit bowl centrepiece rocks back and forth.‘I don’t care anyway.I couldn’t care less about it.’Mum sighs.She gets a little curve in her shoulders and scratches unconsciously at the scar in her breast.For a minute, all I can do is visualise knives cutting through flesh and the more I try and shake the pictures the more vivid they get.I rub my eyes against the images, but Mum seems to take this as me being tired.‘Finish your food and go to bed.You have school tomorrow.’‘University.’‘Of course, darling,’ and she pulls me into a squishy, garlic smelling hug.I sit down again, flick my pasta around the plate; make plough lines into the Parmesan.My stomach is still rumbling but I have lost my appetite.I kick the table, softly so no one can actually hear me, and go back to my room.It’s getting late and I am tired, but I know that this is when all the best music is on and I am determined to stay awake, at least for a few songs.If you want to know what the good stuff is then you have to stay up.If you’re only prepared to listen during the day, well, then you deserve to think Duran Duran or Genesis is the only music out there.When all the deadheads are sleeping, then you hear some wicked stuff.This is how I found Jonathan Richman and The Sisters of Mercy.I found The Triffids, and I found Joy Division.I found Bauhaus and I found The Smiths.You have to actually make an effort to get to the good stuff, they don’t just hand it to you on a platter.If you don’t take the time to look for it then you’ll never know it’s there.Imagine if you died never knowing anything other than Madonna? What a waste.Tonight it’s Echo and the Bunnymen, ‘The Killing Moon’.This is a song you need to get comfortable for so I slip into my pyjamas and I lie down on the bed.Closing my eyes against the darkness, I let the music haunt me.The words are so sad they are comforting and it makes me strangely happy lying here in the dark, this sound filling the space around me like breathable smoke.I suppose I should be thinking about university tomorrow.I suppose I should be worried about whether my bag is packed, or whether I will meet anyone interesting, or what I should be wearing, but I really just don’t care.Uni was never my idea, but I don’t get a choice in this stuff, it’s all up to Mum and Via and their crazy plans for my life.The only good thing about going to university is that I get to start all over again.I’ve decided already, I’m not going to get sucked into being friends with just anyone, just because they happen to sit next to me in the classroom.This time, I’m going to make sure I find people who think the same way as me so we can have meaningful conversations about important things.Leaving behind the deadheads, that’s the bit I am looking forward to.The rest of it I couldn’t care less about.To be truthful, if you asked me right now what I wanted to do with my life I couldn’t give you a proper answer.If anyone actually cared enough to ask me, I would say I want to sit around, eat food, listen to good music and just think.And sleep.God, some days, I could just sleep forever.I can feel sleep’s slippery tentacles pulling me down now actually, and the music getting softer like it’s moving away from me, but really, it’s me that’s going somewhere.Suddenly, I’m not so determined to fight it.Chapter 2It’s early, the sun barely up, and the house smells of coffee and sweat – my father’s breakfast legacy.The hallway is dark, hushed by thick carpet, but in my mother’s bedroom, where she lies snoring and moulded under the covers, there is a faint blush of sunlight against the walls.I make a show of getting into the bed; yawning loudly, sighing, bouncing the mattress, but Mum only catches her breath like she’s swallowed a fly, twitches her hand, then goes quickly back to snoring and dreams.I lie down beside her, propped into a half sitting position by pillows that smell like my father.I stare across her lifting belly to the mimosa tree outside the window.In winter, those branches are heavy with blooms and the window is exploding with woolly yellow clusters of flowers, each bud a tiny, simmering sun.But now, the mimosa tree provides a cooling greyish green shade that makes the entire room feel sleepy and soft.A gust of wind lifts the branches and the room flits between shadow and light.Mum wakes suddenly with a fart.I squeal and try to smother myself with the pillow and she laughs.She tickles me under the arms so that I have to let the pillow go, then she pulls it off my face to suffer the air with her.I turn and bury my face into the mattress and wait for the smell to clear.Mum stops laughing, then thinks about it and starts laughing again.She tries to muster another but, thankfully, it can’t be done.I lie down into her shoulder and she pulls her hands together across my chest so that I am completely wrapped in her hug.My head wobbles as she speaks.‘I had a dream,’ she says.‘Are we going to win the lotto?’Everyone around here is obsessed with divining lotto numbers from dreams [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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