The Mother Fault

by Kate Mildenhall

  Across the road, a police car slows as it trawls the lit part of the street. Without moving her head she watches as it passes opposite her, slowing to turn. They are not the Department, but they might as well be. Not as corrupt anymore, sure, but also just pawns of the state. At least their methods still seem old school, their standover tactics more Keystone cop and less Stasi. She ducks through the greasy plastic strips of the shop and feels a tightening in her back as she hides from view.

  When she steps back out onto the street ten minutes later, paper bags of chips and faux burgers in her hands, she sees the cop car hasn’t moved on, but is idling right outside the shop. A female officer is leaning up against the passenger door, and the other bloke, an older guy, bald and solid with his thumbs resting low on his hips, pelvis pitched forward, stands with his legs spread, blocking the path.

  ‘Feeding the family?’ the male cop says, nodding at the bags in Mim’s hand. The woman’s face is pleasant, but the man’s is blank.

  Mim smiles quickly, nods, keeps moving.

  ‘In town for long?’ he says, a little louder this time.

  She slows, looks back over her shoulder, smiles again. ‘Just overnight.’ She lifts the bags. ‘I’d better get this…’

  ‘Back to the kids?’

  The woman pushes herself slowly away from where she leans against the car and angles her body towards Mim. The man continues to stand side-on, arms folded, a throwaway line, perhaps, just keeping his eyes on his town. Or something else.

  Mim nods. ‘Hungry little buggers,’ she says and waves her hand, tries to leave.

  ‘How many you got?’

  She feels sweat beading behind her knees, under her breasts. She stops and turns around to face them directly.

  ‘Two,’ she says and drops the smile now.

  The woman speaks next. ‘You travelling alone with them?’

  A ute revs as it goes past, music blaring. The cops don’t turn around. The back of Mim’s neck ripples with tension.

  ‘No. With my bloke,’ she says and tries the pleasant face again. ‘Sorry, I should…’

  ‘Course.’ The man pulls his cheeks back in an attempt at a smile. ‘Can’t keep them waiting. Where you staying?’

  ‘Just the…’ Mim waves towards the end of the street. ‘The caravan park around the corner there, not sure of the…’

  ‘That’ll be the Golden Inn,’ the woman says.

  ‘Think so, yeah.’

  Mim turns to go. She sees the man pull a device from his belt. ‘Before you go – just conducting spot ID checks. Won’t take a minute.’

  Her spine locks. Sweat begins to thread down her calves.

  ‘Sorry?’

  He fingers something on the screen, doesn’t raise his eyes. ‘Week-long blitz across the whole state. You’d be surprised at how many people are attempting to evade fines, responsibilities.’

  Mim clamps her hand around the cardboard handles of the bag, lets her nails dig into her palm, the raised scar tissue there. ‘I’m not chipped,’ she says.

  The man lifts his head from the screen.

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Medical.’

  ‘You got your card?’

  She laughs, knows the sound is strangled. ‘Not on me, with the travel, you know, everything’s a bit of a mess.’

  The woman’s voice is curt. ‘Offence to travel without a card if you’re unchipped. Automatic data log to the Department.’

  ‘Oh, it’s back at the room. With all the stuff, just didn’t think…’

  The man holds her eyes. A colony of bats squeal above them as they come in to land on an old palm.

  ‘Why don’t we give you a lift back, then? We’ll make sure everything’s in order.’

  ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’ She smiles. Sweats.

  The radio on the woman’s belt crackles. She pulls it out, turns away and speaks into it. Mim cannot hear what she is saying. The man’s eyes slide away from Mim’s. She stands straighter, drops her free hand to the back pocket of her jeans, feels for the phone there. What message could she send to Nick? It’s getting darker. Could she run? She feels her pulse quicken at the thought. How quick could she go? To where? Through someone’s garden? Jump a fence. They’re coppers, they’d outrun her for sure. But what happens if they take her back to the cabin? When the kids open the door. When they realise there is no card.

  ‘Dave. DV in Aspen Street. Got to go.’ The woman flicks her head, moves around to the front of the car.

  The man’s face is part grimace, part smile. His eyes are dark shadows in the pissy glow from the streetlight.

  ‘Looks like we can’t give you that lift.’

  ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘Might drop by later to see that card. Golden Inn, you said?’

  ‘That’s it. Heading off early, you’ll excuse us if the lights are out.’ She tries for a laugh.

  ‘Best make sure you don’t head off before we see that card.’ He holds the device out. ‘Name?’

  Quick snort of breath through her nose.

  ‘Leah.’

  He scrawls, cocks his head.

  ‘Leah…?’

  ‘Mason. Leah Mason.’

  The sound of the car starting.

  ‘We’ll see you, Leah.’

  Mim nods, raises her hand as he steps back and turns to get into the passenger seat. She walks quickly. Turns the corner, gulps for air. Runs.

  * * *

  She locks the door behind her. Nick is sitting in the armchair next to the bed, the kids sprawled out there. They look up from the screen.

  ‘Took long enough!’ Sam says. ‘We’re starving!’

  It takes her a moment to speak. ‘We have to leave.’

  Essie sits up. ‘What?’

  ‘Now.’ And she finds the propulsion she needs. Dropping the bags of food, moving towards the packs spilling clothes and toothbrushes on the small desk.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Tension in Nick’s voice.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘We need to leave. We need to go now.’ She stuffs the packs. Turns when she realises no one else is moving. ‘NOW! The cops are coming to check our IDs.’

  Sam’s voice, almost squeaking with panic, ‘But where will we go?’

  ‘It’s okay, Sam, we’ll just keep going tonight.’

  Essie stands up. ‘I’m over the car!’

  ‘Not now, Essie. Get your stuff!’

  ‘Hang on, can you calm down, you sure you’re not overreacting?’ Nick has risen from the chair but isn’t moving yet.

  She pulls her wallet from the bag, grabs cash. Puts it on the desk and sticks the remote on top. ‘Yes, I’m fucking sure,’ she hisses. ‘Kids, move.’

  Sam’s face is changing colour. ‘I’m not going. I’m not. I’m not!’ Teeth gritted. Arms crossed. His little face fierce, unmoving.

  ‘Mum,’ Essie’s tone a warning note. She knows what happens when he goes. There’ll be no coming back from it. Full meltdown.

  ‘Get the stuff in the car,’ she says, hoping one of Nick or Essie will take the cue. She kneels with Sam.

  ‘I won’t,’ he is saying, screwing his eyes shut. ‘I’m not getting back in the car. I have a sore tummy.’ He is starting to cry, jagged breaths.

  Mim puts her hands on his shoulders, gentle, gentle like she might a horse who has spooked. It can go either way. ‘Sammy, Sammy, hey, hey,’ crooning, song-like. ‘It’s okay, Sammy, not for too much longer, my darling, you’ve done so well, hey, hey.’

  It doesn’t work.

  He shakes his head. Yells louder now to block out the sound of his mother calming him. ‘NONONONONONONONO!’

  ‘What the fuck?’ she hears Nick say as he comes back through the open door.

  Now Mim must hold her son. She lunges forward, hugs him tight around his torso, folding his arms in so they can’t flail and hit.

  ‘Nick, get the car going.’

  ‘Where are the keys?’ Nick flounders. ‘Can’t you shut h
im up!’

  ‘Don’t say that to him!’ Essie says, quick and loud.

  Calm this down, Mim thinks. Get him out, now. ‘It’s okay, Ess, he doesn’t get it.’

  ‘What the fuck don’t I get?’

  Essie pales at the sudden fury in him.

  Mim holds Sam, rocking him, running her hand over his face, partly to calm him, partly to mute his cries. ‘Just get in the car, please. Please. They could be here any second.’

  Nick shakes his head hard, glares at her.

  ‘Sammy, Sam, mate, I’m gonna put you in the car now, okay, we gotta go, Sam, we gotta see Dad.’ She starts to lift him and he arches his back, the back of his head knocking hard against her chin.

  ‘Fuck!’ She squeezes her eyes shut. Tears pool. She stops herself pressing her hands into his flesh in retaliation.

  Essie’s voice. ‘Sammy, look what I’ve gotcha.’ Mim opens her eyes. Essie is holding the red ninja mask. ‘You gotta be Ninja Boy to get us out of here, the baddies are coming.’

  Sam is quiet, Mim feels him still.

  A little voice. ‘Ninja Boy isn’t even real.’

  Essie grins. ‘He is tonight. And I’m your sidekick. And Mum. And him.’ She juts her chin to the side and Mim sees Nick hanging back in the doorway. Essie holds out her hand. ‘Come on. You gotta show us which way to go.’

  And Sam puts his hand up and takes his sister’s.

  Mim closes her eyes again in relief. Holds her chin. Slams the door shut behind them all.

  * * *

  Not until the lights of the town are out of sight in the rear-view mirror does she roll her shoulders back, let her breath hit the floor of her lungs.

  Nick is restless in the passenger seat. Pissed to be back in the car. Something about the way he is holding his shoulders reminds her of the boy she used to know.

  ‘That was pretty full on,’ he says quietly.

  She bites. ‘Be careful what you say around my kids.’

  He is taken aback. Rolls his eyes a bit. The teenager again.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says in a voice that says he is not. That she is overreacting. That this is her shit, not his.

  ‘I want Dad.’ Essie’s voice is blunt.

  Headlights, straight white line. All she can do is nod to her daughter to show she hears her, to show her she understands.

  13

  It is another eighteen hours before they will hit the outskirts of Darwin. The adrenaline keeps her awake but does not quell her temper. They are all tired. Shitty. Nick makes them turn the air con off overnight and by the time they stop for breakfast and fuel they are sweating and restless and foul. She makes them wait in the shade of a lone tree near the edge of the car park. Hands over a ridiculous amount of her stash for the fuel. Averts her eyes from the panel of screens behind the attendant.

  ‘How long to go?’ asks Sammy, and she will not answer. She does not want to know.

  Nick eases, softens. Angles the air-conditioning vents in her direction. Perhaps this is his apology. Why the fuck are words so hard for men?

  * * *

  The road. The road. The endless fucking road.

  Nick sits on one thirty. It had seemed hellishly fast when she first got behind the wheel and he urged her to give the accelerator a nudge. Now it feels sluggish. She likes it when he overtakes, though she hasn’t attempted a couple of road trains in a row, which he does with ease. Up here, when they pass oncoming traffic, he lifts his forefinger from the wheel in acknowledgement. The gesture is so nonchalant, so at ease, she finds it incredibly sexy. Her neck burns and she turns away, closes her eyes, pretends to doze.

  * * *

  Lush green regrowth on the squat burnt trees that line the highway. They’ve seen fire along the way, great brown smudges of smoke in the sky, the Parks utes lined up, the flicker of orange flame. The kids even take their eyes off the screens.

  ‘What are they doing that for?’ Sam asks.

  ‘Make it grow,’ says Nick. ‘Manage it.’

  ‘What, by burning it down?’

  Essie pipes up. ‘Mosaic burning. It’s how it’s been done for thousands of years.’

  Nick and Mim exchange a glance. A smile. It’s the first time Essie’s spoken in hours. Essie sees them.

  ‘We learnt about it at school,’ she says defensively.

  ‘S’good you’re learning about that stuff,’ Nick says. ‘I never did till I was a grown-up.’

  Essie hmmphs and mutters under her breath. ‘Maybe your generation should’ve asked more questions.’

  ‘What was that, Ess?’ Mim asks in amusement, but Essie has already disappeared into her screen, and she lets it go.

  * * *

  ‘Nearly there now,’ Nick says, under his breath as plains of estates appear on the horizon.

  ‘That BestLife?’ she asks quietly.

  He nods. ‘Yeah, some of it. Camps too. The dongas are for the climate refugees.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ she says as they get closer. ‘God, I didn’t realise how many.’ She can spot movement, clusters of people grouped under shade sails punctuating the sea of beige rectangles.

  ‘Just the offshore ones. The ones displaced from the flooded suburbs of Darwin, the locals, they’ve shifted them out on the east side. Nicer there.’

  ‘Us and them,’ she says, shaking her head.

  ‘Always.’ There is a jut to his chin and she is wary of what it means.

  She shrugs, lets the potential disagreement slide away. ‘I was thinking the kids and I’ll stay at a caravan park for a couple of nights. You know a good one?’

  ‘Nah,’ he says, ‘just stay at mine.’

  ‘Just thought you might want a break.’ She glances at the kids in the rear-vision mirror, says quieter, ‘From the kids, and everything.’

  He shrugs. ‘Easier at mine.’

  ‘I’ll give you the cash when we get there.’

  He nods. ‘That’d be good.’

  She wonders what kind of transaction this is. What hidden costs there might be ahead.

  * * *

  She is surprised by the pink flush of bougainvillea tumbling down the drainpipe on his porch. It seems showy against the heavy brick square of the house. The fence is wire at the front, tall tin to block out the neighbours at the side. It doesn’t feel like the kind of street that would have a Christmas party. A pile of rubbish – old fan, couch spewing its fluffy insides, a smashed screen – is heaped on the nature strip next door.

  She stretches, unfurling, bones cracking, muscles remembering the act of standing. ‘Grab your backpacks and your pillows at least,’ she stops the kids as they try to race each other to the front door.

  She ferries bags over the pebble path, stuccoed with weeds, to the concrete porch. The kids follow Nick inside, but she hovers, busying herself, uncertain about entering a space that is so his. She tries to imagine what Ben would do. Awkward, polite but blustery, he can’t pick up on other people’s stuff. A man of science, not intuition.

  Nick and the kids don’t re-emerge. She loops bags over her wrists and heads inside. It’s darker, stuffy with hot damp, a hint of mould.

  ‘On!’ she hears. ‘Turn on, you fucking prick.’ She hears the kids giggling, then Nick’s voice again. ‘Air con on!’

  It kicks in, the whirr of it. The hall opens out to the kitchen, all white tiles, Formica, a shitty print of a beach at sunset on the wall.

  ‘Network not working?’ she says to Nick.

  ‘Never fucking has, up here. Thank Christ. Still on the old system.’

  There’s a whoop as Sam calls out from the back, ‘Mum! Can we go in?’

  A pool glitters, an unreal blue. They’re still allowed them up here, treated sea water. Special legislation for anyone above 25 degrees of latitude. Extreme heat policy. The kids will be in heaven.

  She slides the door, dumps their gear in the spare room that Nick points to. Everything else will wait till tomorrow.

  * * *

  Before bed, she changes the dress
ings on their hands. They look good. Skin puckering, clean.

  ‘Leave the bandages off tonight, huh,’ she says, running her finger along the scars on both their hands. ‘Let them breathe.’

  ‘This is a good bed,’ says Sam, closing his eyes, smiling.

  ‘You sleep well, my loves, I’ll be in soon,’ she says and closes the door. Pulls it tight, so that it is four walls and a roof and a floor and a closed door, and her right outside. She wonders if there will be a time soon when she will feel she can let them be away from her. If she ever will again.

  Nick is sliding open the patio door as she comes back into the kitchen.

  He pulls out a joint, pre-rolled. ‘You want?’

  Him and Helen, both, cheeky little black marketeers. ‘Nah. I’m good. You go.’

  He nods and slips out through the sliding door. She sits there for a moment, feeling stupid, then she grabs a glass of water and slides the door across.

  He looks back over his shoulder. ‘Change your mind?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  He holds the joint back to her.

  Skirting the table, she sits with him on the bench. The patio is thrown with an orange glow from the streetlight round the side. The air here swims with moisture, so it’s warm and damp and the orange feels like it’s part of it, some strange tropical atmospheric condition.

  She takes the joint from him and for a second she wonders if she should. Remembers the swirling panic that used to engulf her, the terrible gap she would feel widening in her chest like she had just fallen outside of herself.

  But she also remembers not thinking.

  She takes a puff, draws it into her and feels fifteen again. The smoke scratches at her throat but she’s determined not to cough. Holds it in, hands it back. Slight fumble as their fingers work out who’s got it.

  She exhales, the smoke orange-tinged against the night. Imagining the cells in her body buzzing, realigning, remembering her other self, her younger self, the bolshy brave of her.

  ‘Did you like school?’ he asks. A question that slips out of the night and doesn’t feel out of place.