The Mother Fault

by Kate Mildenhall

  Her hand goes to her face, touching the skin there, her cheek, the crevasse between her nose and lip. A sudden urge to vomit, shame or adrenaline or desire, all three. She swallows, holds it. Breathes. Ben, she thinks, and she conjures an image in her head. Thinks about his hand on the small of her back, how sometimes, if he wakes before her, he’ll touch his forehead to hers, let her sleep, strangely intimate. Ben. She tries to hold him steady in her head, wishes she were a lover from a past time with his black and white portrait in a tiny gold locket at her throat. Maybe then such things wouldn’t happen.

  The kids stir as she gets up off the bunk and pulls on a shirt. It’s her turn for the watch. She brushes her teeth, eyeing herself in the tiny scrap of mirror above the toilet. She only realises how hard she has brushed when she spits pink blood in the white mess of toothpaste. She wants a shower. To scrub herself hard. Thinks of medieval monks slicing their own backs as they flagellate themselves. She wonders the weight of transgressions at sea. This is why captains don’t like women on board.

  The light of sunrise is so kind, pale pinks and blue compared to the golden orange knowing of the end of a day. Nothing done yet to mark it.

  Nick is looking out to where the sun is rising up out of the sea. His eyes red-rimmed with fatigue.

  ‘Hey.’

  He turns at her voice and there is no start, no sudden awkward, shifting eyes.

  ‘My turn,’ she says.

  She takes the wheel, avoids touching his hand. He says they are on autopilot now, she just needs to watch. He tells her it’ll be smooth sailing. But if anything changes – the wind, something on the horizon, a boat on the nav – to wake him. He’ll leave the hatch up so she can just yell down and he’ll be there.

  ‘All good,’ she says.

  ‘You sleep okay?’

  She looks towards the sun, balanced now, the bottom of it skimming the surface of the horizon, light spilling over the water, over the two of them.

  ‘Not really.’

  He crosses back and leans towards her, sudden. She hears him breathe, like he is sucking her in.

  ‘First night,’ he says, pulling back. ‘It’ll be better tonight.’

  * * *

  For an hour or so it is just her. Eye on the navigator, on the mainsail, then out on the water. The sun is warm but not too hot yet, the sparkly throw of light where it catches the waves. Suddenly, beside the boat, something cleaving the water, dark. She starts, stands upright, heart pounding. Again. Dolphins! Two of them, three, god, six, more! Cutting the waves, leaping next to the boat.

  ‘Kids! Ess! Sam!’

  ‘You okay?’ she hears from Nick’s hatch.

  ‘Dolphins,’ she calls and she hears a quiet murmur, a half laugh.

  ‘Get up here, you two! Dolphins!’

  In a moment, the kids are at the top of the steps, crusty eyes blinking in the sun. ‘Where, Mum?’

  ‘Here, come here,’ she beckons with both hands, ‘look, see!’

  The kids kneel on the seats, leaning forward, wanting to clamber up on to the edge.

  ‘Careful!’

  ‘There’s so many!’

  The pod leap and dive. The sun glistens on the surface of the water so it is impossible to see where they will rise, leap, one after another. A break for a moment, a lull, and then there they are again, the kids calling, ‘Look! There! Mum!’

  ‘I need a picture! I can’t believe this! Aren’t they nearly gone? Mum! My screen!’ Essie yells, ‘Can you get it?’

  Sam puts out his hand to his sister. ‘It’s okay, Ess, just watch them.’

  Essie humphs, but turns back to the sea. Mim calls to them to be careful.

  But they don’t listen, or if they hear they choose not to respond. Essie holds on to the rail with one hand, stretches the other out over the waves, and the next time a great grey body cuts up out of the sea the water flicks up and sprays her hand and she laughs. Sam yells in delight. And he puts his arm out too, leaning further for he is littler and his arm can’t stretch like hers, and Mim is calling, ‘Careful, careful, hold on!’ but they are just laughing, dolphin-sprayed, sun-lit.

  * * *

  Afterwards Essie brings breakfast up on to deck for the three of them, balances the bowls and hands them to Sam at the top of the steps.

  ‘I’m not sure about the kettle, Mum.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’ll do it soon. Thank you, for doing this, this is really nice.’

  Essie tries to hide her smile. ‘You think they’ll come back, Mum?’

  ‘Maybe. It’s special, to have seen them. They’re pretty rare now. Maybe they’re coming back. Maybe it’s a good sign.’

  The muesli is good. She is hungrier than she realised. They all crunch and chew and watch the waves.

  ‘Did you wake up, last night?’ she asks, fleeting anxiety at the thought of what they might have heard. ‘You feel okay in your beds?’

  ‘It was kind of like being in a hammock,’ Essie says.

  ‘Yeah, or like one of those things that Aunty Jill put the baby in. That hangy cradle thing.’

  ‘Like a baby?’ Essie laughs.

  ‘Yeah.’ Sam sticks his chin out.

  ‘I felt like that too.’ Mim smiles at Sam. ‘When you two were babies,’ she says, ‘me or Dad carried you on us all the time, you liked the feel of us rocking. It was the only way you would sleep.’

  ‘What? All the time?’

  ‘Most of the time!’

  ‘What about when you had to go to the toilet?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Yuk!’

  ‘But if we put you down, on the big bed or in your cot, you would just cry and cry and cry.’

  ‘I remember you doing that, Sammy.’ Essie nudges her brother. ‘You were so loud!’

  ‘You did it too, Ess!’ Mim says, laughing. ‘You were worse. Sometimes we’d lay you down and then we’d slowly, slowly, drop to the floor and we’d crawl back out the door and we’d think that we’d made it, we’d look at each other and be ready to high five, quietly, so quietly, and then there’d be this noise, the start of your cry. You just knew we were leaving you and you wanted us all there together, in one space. So we’d bring you back out, wrap you up, sit on the couch with all the lights off and you’d fall asleep.’

  She remembers the bone-heavy exhaustion of it. The way she would hold Essie’s tiny body, and then Ben would prop her against his shoulder, his chin on the top of her head, so they would stay upright, so they wouldn’t smother their daughter in their sleep.

  ‘But how did you go to sleep?’ Essie says.

  ‘Sitting up. On the couch. Like that.’

  ‘That sucks.’

  ‘Yep. It did.’

  ‘Did you wish we were like other babies?’

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All babies cry, she thinks to herself, but not like you cried, Essie, my darling, my love. ‘I didn’t know any better,’ she says. ‘We didn’t know any better. We were new at it, we were just learning.’

  ‘You should have had your L plates!’ Sam says.

  ‘Yes,’ she says and laughs. She wonders whether Nick will have heard them talking. Kind of hopes he did. Kind of hopes he’s heard her talk about Ben. Her husband. Ben who she loves. Ben who is missing.

  She stands quickly and stretches, a great yawn escaping as she does. ‘We all need a shower.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in that stinky little shower.’

  ‘Why do we need one?’

  ‘What about we do it up here, on deck? Didn’t Nick say he sometimes did that?’

  ‘Do you know how to do it?’

  ‘Yeah. I reckon. You can help. Go and get your bathers on, if you want. Or don’t. It’s not like anyone is going to see.’

  Essie pulls a face. ‘Gross, Mum. You have to put yours on.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Cos Nick might see!’

  ‘He’s asleep.’

  ‘No, Mum.’ Her daughter’s face. Aghast at the thought.

 
‘Okay, okay.’ She laughs. ‘Here, Sammy,’ she passes him her bowl, ‘can you take these down for me?’

  She thinks about the breakfast scene played out at home. Always a rush. The coaxing and cajoling and grumpiness. The soundtrack to each morning – ‘I forgot’, ‘I need a red t-shirt for sports day’, ‘I don’t want cheese’ when cheese was good enough for yesterday, no socks, shoelace busted, forgotten reader. And then racing to not be late, in the car. God, I should make them walk, they’ll get fat and unhealthy. I’m a terrible mother. Tomorrow, tomorrow we are going to walk. And they never do. And then home, after the inane conversations with ten other mothers she pretends to not be like, I am not like them, but she is, they are, they are all one and the same, and all of them breaking away to their cars, ‘So much to do’, ‘Doesn’t stop, does it?’, ‘Oh well, now the madness begins’, ‘See you at pick-up’, desperate for their days to be weighty with task and significance. Busy, so busy. I know, right? And the muesli-crusted dishes in the sink, the quiet of it that she has so yearned for that now feels stale and full of all the things that did not used to be important, and now, for some reason, are.

  And the ticking minutes until Ben leaves, when he’s home. The way time is heavy with her inexplicable rage that he should go and she should stay.

  She hears the kids down below getting towels, and she looks out at the sea, feels the boat beneath her. She is steering a yacht. In the sea. On her own.

  * * *

  They fill the bucket with the desal water from the shower. Chuck in a kettle full of hot so that it’s warmish. She’s not sure about soap on the deck, the slip of it, so she gets Sam to bring up another towel. They each soap themselves with the little bottle of bodywash she’s got in her bag, and then dip a corner of the towel in the bucket, sponge it off. She sluices the kids, once each with a pour from the bucket when she thinks they’re de-soaped enough.

  The kids towel off, lie on the deck for a moment, blissfully sunscreen free for the two minutes she’ll let them.

  She slips her old bra off. Soaps under her arms. Sticks her hand down and washes herself. Keeps her knickers on, the kids will have a heart attack if they see. Grabs the bucket. Tips and pours.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What?’ She picks up the towel and holds it across her front. The sea damp of it, not crackly dry the way she likes.

  Essie is sitting up, her eyes wide with mortification. Mim turns to see Nick, shoulders and head up out of his hatch, leaning forward, grinning.

  ‘What’s the racket?’

  Ah, she’s so aware of herself. Towel crossed over her chest, too narrow to hide the mum-cut of her undies, the bristle of hair at her bikini line. God, how bad is it? The solid pale of her thighs in the glare.

  ‘Sorry. Shit, did we wake you? Sorry.’ She tries to wrap the towel around more of herself.

  ‘S’okay. I was awake. Need to check the position. Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, okay. Want me to do it?’

  ‘Nah, that’s okay.’ He looks at her intently now, still grinning. ‘You should probably get dressed.’

  Sam starts to giggle and then Essie can’t help herself and Nick shakes his head and smiles as he goes back under.

  ‘Don’t move,’ Essie says and disappears down the companionway, reappearing a moment later with her screen. She points it at Mim, who is finishing pulling her t-shirt over her head.

  ‘No!’ laughs Mim. ‘God, what do I even look like?’

  Essie takes a shot. ‘I haven’t got one of you yet.’ She takes another as Mim acquiesces, makes silly faces, a model pout then squished-up ugly face. ‘Anyway, you don’t care about that stuff.’

  Mim laughs. ‘Don’t know if I should take that as an insult or a compliment!’

  Sam is laughing too. Mim pulls him close and Essie takes them both. Then squishes in, flicks the screen, squeezes them all into the frame.

  ‘You look happy,’ she says to Mim as she swipes through the images. She stops on the one of the three of them, sun bright on the waves behind, their three faces caught in glorious laughter.

  ‘Just Dad missing,’ says Sam, and the moment is gone.

  * * *

  Later, as the afternoon burnishes, he looks at her. Smiles. Tells her she should sleep. ‘You’re going to need to do watch tonight.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’

  She feels loose. Dangerous. She feels seen again.

  ‘You need to sleep,’ he says. ‘You’ll have our lives in your hands, right? You can’t afford to be tired.’

  He’s smiling when he says it, but she understands she’s being told.

  ‘Kids, you need to do what Nick says, huh? Maybe come down into the cabin with me. You can watch –’

  ‘They don’t need screens.’

  A flicker of annoyance at his confidence.

  ‘Yeah, we’re okay,’ Essie says.

  ‘You gotta do exactly what Nick says. Okay?’

  Maybe she will just lie there and pretend to sleep so she can make sure. He’s clueless, really, around the kids.

  ‘You can come down any time, Ess, watch a movie or whatever. Okay?’

  They are transfixed by the fish they have caught, swimming in the bucket.

  ‘You two! Okay?’

  In bored unison they call back, and she heads down into the cabin. ‘Wake me in like two hours or something, I probably won’t be able to sleep anyway.’

  ‘Just try, have a rest. Close your eyes. And use my bed, then if the kids come down they won’t disturb you.’

  She cocks her head. ‘Thought your bed was off limits.’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Yeah right, thanks.’ She has to move immediately before he sees her blush.

  She ducks into his cabin. It is bright there, with the light through the hatch, but if she crawls up on the oddly shaped bed, she can tuck her head into the corner, in the shade. The hatch is propped open so she can hear the kids above, but the schlock of the underwater against the hull, too. She thinks about all the water beneath them and what makes them float. How deep is it, all that water? How easy would it be to sink? For the watery depths beneath them to open up and swallow the boat whole, not even ripples left on the surface.

  She rolls over, squints her eyes shut, pushes her face into the pillow, but it is all him. The pillow, the sheet. She rolls on to her back, takes a deep breath, but it’s like she’s caught the scent now, it’s everywhere.

  It is not the same as Ben.

  The smell of Ben is comfort and deodorant that is probably too young for him, but he doesn’t know these things, doesn’t take notice of them. Ben is onion sometimes, cut grass, the glass of red that he has after dinner. Sweat, but not sweat on skin, no longer such sexy sweat. His sweat is on clothes she has to wash and towels damp and pooled on the bathroom floor – that grim smell – damp soap and skin cells. Ben is the after stink of a shit even when he turns on the fan. She feels her lip curl.

  She knows it is chemical. That the scent of Ben used to do the same thing to her body, her brain, as the smell of Nick’s pillow, his sheet is doing to her now. She gets that. But it doesn’t undo it. Chemical reaction, the basic principle of consequence, of rules.

  She is wet. She keeps her eyes closed, tries not to imagine him crawling into the space beside her because right now, this moment, she would not do a thing to stop him.

  These thoughts are not useful. She conjures Ben. The way it was to sit with him, rubbing her feet on the couch. Knowing the spot that makes her groan with pain, but releases something deep in her tendons.

  She brings her body back from its feverishness. Dozes. Half in. Half out.

  * * *

  When she comes back up after an hour or so, Essie is rolling her foot over and around her soccer ball.

  ‘That a good idea, Ess?’

  She’s in the main deck, bounded on three sides by the flexiglass seats, and she knows what she’s doing, but still, it’s making Mim’s skin crawl.

  ‘It’s good for me, Mu
m. Sharpens my skill.’ She starts to kick the ball into the seat. ‘Hey, how would Nick sleep if we weren’t here?’

  She looks at her daughter, squints at the question.

  ‘Like, how long can he stay awake for?’

  ‘I don’t know. A long time? It’s not good for you, though. They have those signs, on the highway, you know, where they have the picture of what the road looks like through the eyes of a drunk person, and then what it looks like through the eyes of a tired person and it’s the same.’ She’s distracted by the thumping ball. ‘Can you stop?’

  Essie keeps kicking. ‘Like, can you just drift in the middle of the ocean?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘How long until we get there?’

  ‘To the island?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t know, I think Nick said we might be five or six days.’

  ‘And then we’ll see Dad.’

  ‘Not straight away, no.’

  ‘But soon.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I hope soon.’

  * * *

  They play Uno. Nick shakes his head and laughs when they ask if he wants to join in, but he makes his coffee slowly, she notices, staying down under with their banter. Sam has a mitt full of wildcards, and can’t contain his glee. Essie is exasperated that he can’t keep poker-faced.

  ‘You’ve got to be able to hide it, Sam.’

  ‘Hide what?’

  ‘I know you’ve got good cards cos of your face!’

  ‘You don’t know!’

  ‘I know exactly.’ Essie raises her eyebrows and smirks.

  ‘Hey,’ Mim warns, but she is smiling.

  ‘It’s stupid, Mum, he’ll never learn.’

  Mim can’t follow suit, picks up a card, sighs. ‘It takes a while to learn to be poker-faced, some adults can’t do it. Your dad’s not very good at it.’

  The air between them sharpens at the mention of who is missing.

  ‘Are you?’ Sam asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Essie. ‘Mum’s good at it.’

  Sam turns around to face Nick who is still leaning against the galley bench. ‘Sure you don’t want to play?’