The Mother Fault

by Kate Mildenhall

  ‘Is this a hippy house?’ Sam whispers and Essie snorts.

  ‘Who lives here?’

  She idles the car. She only ever came here a couple of times. They preferred the anonymity of the beach, as far away as they could get from both of their families. Still, it strikes something in her, like the cells of her body are remembering themselves.

  If I look in the mirror now, I will be young again, she thinks.

  ‘A lady named Helen. I used to know her.’

  ‘Doesn’t that mean you still do?’

  A bit tattered, needs a paint job, but the roses, the roses she remembers. The heady perfume of them. Peeling a petal and placing the soft velvet of it on her lip. Heat and kicking the cracked pink paint of her big toenail in the dust while she waited for Nick to run back inside and grab a towel.

  ‘You can’t used to know someone,’ Sam is saying. ‘If you know someone, you always know them.’

  ‘But maybe you haven’t seen them for ages, dumb-brain.’

  She sighs. ‘Don’t call him that, Essie. Come on.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re going in.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You said we were going to the caravan park! With the pool!’

  ‘I want to say hello.’ And because, right now, this is the safest place she knows.

  The kids stand behind her as she gathers herself, knocks on the door. She turns around to smile, reassure them, or herself, while she waits.

  The door swings open, a short woman with shaggy dyed blonde hair and an oversized pale blue shirt over black leggings steps forward onto the portico as Mim steps back.

  ‘Hello there.’ She is all crinkly eyes and curious smile.

  ‘Hi, hi.’ Mim laughs nervously. ‘It’s Helen, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she draws out the word in surprise.

  Mim ploughs on. ‘I don’t know if you remember me, Mim Franklin I used to be, I mean, I’m Mim Elliot, I’m someone else now – we used to holiday…’ She trails off.

  Helen’s eyes widen. ‘Mim! Goodness me, what a blast from the past. The Franklins.’ She places both hands on Mim’s shoulders and pulls her in. ‘Come here and let me look at you!’

  She hears Sam giggle. Helen even smells the same, a floral perfume, an undertone of cigarettes, or perhaps that is just the memory trying to assert itself.

  Helen pulls back, clicks her tongue. ‘Goodness,’ she says again and flicks her eyes sideways. ‘These aren’t, they can’t be – look at you, so slim and two big kids!’

  Mim laughs, gestures to the kids. ‘Essie and Sammy.’

  ‘Sam,’ he corrects her.

  ‘Sorry, Essie and Sam – this is Helen.’

  ‘Well,’ Helen says and crosses her hands on her chest. ‘Come in, come in! You got time for a cuppa?’ She holds the door open, still talking, expecting them to follow and Mim shepherds the kids ahead of her.

  The house smells of tea rose and lemon dishwashing liquid and, faintly, of musk. Along the narrow hallway there are framed photographs and a hall table filled with shells and trophies of some sort. The kids are quiet as they follow Helen. Mim tries not to look for photos of Nick.

  ‘Now, what’ll it be? Juice for you two? I’ve got apple? Ribena? Keep it on hand for the littlies.’

  ‘You’ve got grandkids?’ Mim asks.

  ‘Three,’ Helen says and smiles indulgently. ‘Georgie’s little ones. A handful, delightful, but a handful. You’ll have to have a play – how long you in town?’

  Mim sidesteps the question. ‘Gosh, Georgie – she was only – what, ten? Last time I was here, I can’t even…’

  ‘You wait, my love,’ Helen says, shaking her head, ‘yours’ll do it to you, too. Now,’ she claps her hands, ‘for you, what’ll it be, tea? Coffee? Wine?’ She opens a cupboard and pulls down two glasses. ‘It’s past two, isn’t it?’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mim says, accepting the glass.

  ‘Sit! Make yourself at home. Don’t get so many visitors these days.’

  Mim pulls out the chairs for the kids and they sit at the green and white laminex table.

  ‘No, Nick’s given me none so far. He’s in town, though, at the moment. Divides his time between here and Darwin – checks in on his dad up there still. Doing up his dream boat. He tells me it’s a sounder investment to have a boat than a quarter acre these days, s’pose he’s right! I’ll give him a buzz, he’d be so chuffed to see you. How long are you staying? Where’ve you set up?’

  Mim feels a rocketing in her stomach. ‘Well, we haven’t yet… it was spur of the moment really, we’ve only just –’

  Helen jumps in. ‘Stay here!’

  Her face. Mim wonders how often she gets to see those grandkids. How much loneliness is settled in those lines.

  ‘No, Helen, oh no, that wasn’t my intention.’ But maybe it was. A little.

  ‘Be a pleasure to have you. I’ve got a kids’ room for you two there, bunk beds, you don’t mind sharing do you, love?’ Helen cups her hand around the back of Essie’s head as she asks her, a gesture Mim knows is too intimate for her daughter to handle usually, and yet, she does.

  Mim raises her glass. ‘Well, let’s have this drink, shall we, and see if you still want to insist once we’ve been here for an hour.’

  It would mean no dealing with ID. No using the cash. And it feels good in this house, cluttered with the stuff of family, homely in every way her own family home no longer feels to her. This place does not make her think of Ben. It is before. Her body isn’t cracking with the memory of him, the fear of what’s ahead.

  * * *

  Over their glass of sweet white they lay down the major dates of the last twenty-five years as though they are playing cards. Helen, then she, choosing the next for its connection to the last – marriages, births, deaths. Sam tugs at her jeans.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘you can go outside.’

  ‘Can I grab my ball from the car, Mum?’

  Helen laughs. ‘Oh, I have every ball you could want out there, honey!’

  Mim passes Essie the keys. ‘Ess is rather particular about her soccer ball.’

  ‘Are you just?’ Helen raises her eyebrows. ‘But what have you done there, love?’ Helen gestures and Essie seems to freeze, her bandaged hand in mid-air. Shit. She hasn’t worked it out yet, hasn’t concocted a story. Lying is so fucking complicated.

  ‘Oh, that,’ Mim says and Helen looks at her. Notices her hand too.

  ‘You too! What have you done to yourselves?’ She swivels now to see Sam’s hand too, just as he tries to shift it behind his back, his face wobbly with six-year-old guilt. Helen’s forehead creases in worry and she looks at Mim, waiting for her to explain.

  ‘We had some trouble with our implants. With the network upgrade back home. They had to adjust them.’

  ‘Goodness!’ Helen says, shaking her head. ‘Thought they just did all that with their little keyboards, thought you never had to feel a thing.’ She reaches out to Sam. ‘Is it sore, love? Do you need some Panadol?’

  Sam looks at Mim, eyes unsure.

  ‘Oh, he’s fine, aren’t you, Sam?’

  He pouts a little but nods.

  ‘Well, they’d better not go digging for mine, when they finally make it up here with the upgrade. Was bad enough when they put it in!’

  Mim scrabbles wildly in her mind to change the subject.

  Helen goes on. ‘Nick, he wasn’t having a bar of it. Refused one! Still does. Bit shifty that boy, like his old man, didn’t like the idea of it.’

  Things are shifting inside Mim in a way she can’t make sense of.

  She laughs and it sounds forced in her mind. ‘Ha, how’d he get away with that?’

  ‘Always finds ways and means that boy. I’ve found it’s better not to ask!’ And then Helen moves the subject away of her own accord, just when Mim could have lingered.

  ‘Now, you two going to show me your football skills, or what?’

  * * *

  They s
it in white plastic chairs on the patio and watch the kids boot the ball back and forth. Mim lets Helen’s words roll over her. The late afternoon sun is warm where they are, sheltered from the wind, and she feels she could be someone else. Some previous version of herself. The urgency of the past few days flickers at the edges of her brain, but she leaves it there. Tomorrow, she thinks. For now, we are here, safe. No one knows where we are.

  Helen is talking about Nick. ‘Restless feet, that boy. Always grand plans for adventures, and he does some of them, mind, takes off to places I can’t even find on a map. Comes down to visit me. Keeps an eye on his dad. He’s on dialysis now, in a home up there. Yes, my boy, always known his sea legs to be more steady than his ones on land, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You said he’s doing up a boat?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Helen takes another gulp. ‘Got his dad’s old one in Darwin. He’s put it on the market, needs some cash to do up this dream boat down here. He’s got his adventures all planned out. Now,’ she leans in, lowering her voice, ‘I was being polite not to ask before.’

  Mim looks at her expectantly, the flick, churn of her gut.

  ‘Your bloke not being with you, on this little family holiday, everything okay there?’

  Yes, you’re right, she thinks, normally you wouldn’t ask. Mim thinks about how she should play this. She feels so comfortable here, so at home, but she knows it’s dangerous. Thinks about Heidi’s words. You can’t trust anyone else.

  ‘You haven’t left him?’

  ‘God, no. No, Ben travels, for work. He’s in Indonesia right now.’ She stands up and stretches, turns her back on the kids. ‘He’s been held up. All a bit stressful, really. Kids are pretty sensitive about it.’

  Helen frowns in concentration.

  ‘We just needed to get out of town for a bit.’

  Helen nods slowly. ‘When’ll he be back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re not thinking of going over there?’

  She brushes the comment off. ‘God, no. Just can’t be at home. For a bit.’ She laughs dryly. ‘Couldn’t get to Indonesia even if I wanted to – they’ve taken my passport, our passports.’

  Helen frowns. ‘Department?’

  Mim shrugs, non-committal.

  Helen nods once, firm. ‘I’ll keep my nose out of it.’

  Mim smiles gratefully and Helen waves her hand, calling out, ‘Now, kids, what do you fancy for tea? I’ll nip down the shops.’

  * * *

  She hears the door, and comes out of the bathroom to greet Helen. Except it’s not her. It’s him. Nick.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi.’

  It is shocking, the way the memory and the now fit together. He is in work boots and blue jeans crusted at the bottom with mud, the denim at the knee almost white with wear. Grey t-shirt under blue and white flannel. He’s got a ponytail now. Close beard and his face, maybe that’s where he is holding the years, coastal with lines.

  She is aware now of him looking at her. Of what he is seeing.

  ‘Did your mum tell you we were here?’

  ‘Yeah, she called.’

  Mim hasn’t washed her clothes yet. No makeup. She realises she is holding her stomach in, feels stupid, breathes out, then holds it in again. It is written on her body, the years and the kids. Not so him.

  They both go to speak at the same time.

  ‘We didn’t mean to –’ she starts, feeling the need to explain her presence here. He lets her go on. ‘It’s really good to see your mum.’

  ‘She said you hadn’t changed a bit.’

  Mim laughs, a quick squawk, which she swallows back. ‘She was lying.’

  ‘I see what she means, though.’

  She walks to the window to check on the kids, just to be away from the moment.

  ‘You travelling?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Where you headed?’

  Where am I headed?

  ‘North,’ she says, ‘chasing the sun, same as everyone else.’

  ‘Must be strange coming back?’

  She thinks of the seawall. Sneaking out from the pub, Nick laughing beside her. The sea in the air and ears ringing in the quiet. The way she stepped out in front and he laughed and said, ‘What, you the local now?’ And she said, ‘I want to show you something.’ Stepping out, braver, turning and laughing. ‘What, doncha trust me?’ Feeling wild. Like she could be anyone.

  And the seawall, she had run her hands along it so many times, the rough catch of it on the pads of her fingers. Pebble dash, her dad said, made up of all these different little stones – black, grey, white, red, brown, some shiny, some dull, glittery quartz. Some time in the future she will be able to name them all. ‘Feel this,’ she says, and puts both her hands on the wall. She can hardly see him, just his eyes, his gleaming pale skin. He hesitates and she says, ‘C’mon, do it,’ and so he does, his pale hands next to hers, close but not touching, yet. And then she leans into the wall so her face is up close against it, and she giggles a bit, unsure now, but come too far. And she says, ‘Smell it,’ and takes a deep breath. He says, ‘What?’ She’s so close to him, she can smell him, feel the heat off him, turns to see him breathing in the smell of cold rock, salt, and then she says, ‘Lick it’. And just the words, she feels them go right through her, the vibration of him next to her, and he doesn’t make a sound, but moves his face back, waiting for her to do it first, and she does. In the faint light, her mouth open, tongue out, the tip of it just touching the rock and then, slowly, she licks the stones, the pebble dash, and then she closes her eyes, her mouth, tucks her lips, looks at him and says, ‘Your turn’. And she knows that in his head, he is saying, You crazy fuck, don’t lick the fucking wall, is this a joke? But she knows too, the way he has looked at her, that he will do anything now. The promise of what’s to come. He turns his head and closes his eyes and his tongue is quick, touching the rock and then drawing back in. She is shocked, pleased, and she puts her hand on the back of his neck and turns him around to face her. With one hand, she is flicking her hair back, exposing the skin at her neck and she’s guiding him down, right to the spot her collarbone juts out and she says, ‘Now here’. He puts his tongue out and he licks her skin there, and it is –

  And she says, ‘See?’ and he makes a sound and then stops. He is embarrassed. But she knows what he tastes, everything the other was not, warm and alive and soft, but she also knows what is the same, the same faint mineral taste, sweat and pheromones and something older, ancient – and she pulls his face up, just his eyes glowing in the dark, and there is no going back from there.

  * * *

  She swallows now. ‘Yeah. It is a bit strange,’ she says. ‘You think a place will have changed, you know, with so much time, but…’

  ‘It’s not that different.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She holds his gaze. ‘Not so much.’

  ‘Hellooo!’ Helen comes through the doorway laden with shopping bags.

  ‘Ah, thought you’d be here.’ She dumps the bags and goes to kiss Nick. ‘You’re staying, love, aren’t you.’

  It’s not a question, Mim can hear it in her voice, and Nick raises his eyes to Mim, to check, maybe.

  ‘Wasn’t going to, Mum, actually…’

  ‘Don’t be silly, of course you are. You can go and do whatever else afterwards. It’s curry!’ She begins unpacking the bags. ‘Besides. There’s thirty years for you two to catch up on.’

  They both make a sound, a nervous laugh, like they’re not really sure if that’s such a good idea.

  * * *

  It is odd that dinner feels so normal. There is a lot of passing – rice, and the curry, and yoghurt and naan bread that Helen’s pulled from a paper packet and heated on the stove and it is good. It’s all really good. And the round table, the smallness of it, so they are all, Sorry and Here you go and Let’s get that out of your way. And it feels full. There’s no gaping hole for Mim and the kids to comprehend because Ben co
uldn’t fit a chair at this table anyway.

  ‘Have you ever seen a tsunami?’ Sam looks at Nick.

  ‘Nah, mate, I haven’t.’

  Mim laughs and is shocked by the sound of it. ‘Sam is into that kind of stuff.’

  Sam frowns at her tone. ‘You would’ve if you lived in Japan. It’s not a silly question.’

  Essie leans into the table. ‘Sam’s a bit obsessed, if you hadn’t already figured.’

  ‘Got it,’ says Nick, and Essie flushes.

  A pain in Mim’s chest. Ben is not here. And she wants him to see his kids, being all funny and show-offy to this guy they’ve never met. And she wants to catch his eye across the table at the details, at Helen, who is like a caricature of herself, and she wants him to incline his head and raise his eyebrows at Nick, because he knows, he knows that this is the guy, her first, and he would find it funny and not intimidating and they would giggle about it in bed maybe, later, and have quiet sex, quiet staying over in someone else’s house sex. And she cannot. Is this it? Is this the moment when denial isn’t possible anymore? Inside her mouth the rice has turned to concrete and she can’t swallow at all, and she pushes back from the table, puts her hand up to say sorry, points to her throat.

  ‘Mum, you okay?’

  She nods, points to the bathroom. Her eyes are beginning to water.

  Helen is saying, ‘Just got something caught, I think.’

  She makes it to the bathroom, flips up the lid of the toilet. Spits, coughs, gets it all up and it’s out. She knows it’s out but she still can’t breathe and she can almost feel him, feel Ben’s hand on her back saying, Easy, easy now, you’re okay. She can hear him, he’s right here, and god, she lets go of the clench in her chest and then she breathes in and she thinks, I’m handing it all back to you, you just tell us how it’s going to be, just pack us up and take us home and then we’ll feel normal, feel home, and we’ll wonder what this was.

  But then she is breathing, and there’s rice floating in an oily slick in the toilet bowl and Sam saying, ‘You right, Mum?’