The Mother Fault

by Kate Mildenhall

  Quiet schlock of the water, the purr of the engine.

  ‘Hey.’ Hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She nods. Looks at him, his face in shadow, body backlit by the moon.

  ‘They won’t come. It’s too early.’

  ‘Just trying to get you to the doctor.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Lights ahead, dotting the shoreline. Would be almost impossible without the moon.

  ‘Should we turn off our lights?’

  ‘No. But you see anyone coming and you go below.’

  ‘But you can’t…’

  ‘I’ll have to.’

  ‘That the town?’ She points to where there is a little cluster of lights trailing back up the mountain from the shore. ‘Nick?’

  He has lain back, eyes closed.

  ‘Nick! Is this where I come in?’

  ‘Think so.’

  ‘How close can I go?’

  ‘Watch the numbers.’

  She looks at the depth sounder.

  ‘How far?’

  ‘If it gets to fifteen metres, you’ve gone too far.’

  ‘It’s eighteen.’

  ‘Soon. Drop the throttle back. Slow.’

  She has only seen him do it. The boat feels enormous under her, unwieldy but so sensitive. She is navigating what she cannot see, the vault of water and rock and crevasse beneath her, the shadows hiding in the water ahead, old fishing boats floating close, the black corpse of a tree, rock, chain, tangled ropes and mooring lines, the drowned beaches of the island, the skeleton of a submerged wharf. She can only do it by feel, by careful, breath-holding movement, inching forward till the numbers add up.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Anchor.’

  ‘How?’

  He swallows. A couple of times, like his mouth is full of sand. She passes him her bottle of water.

  ‘Nick, how? This is the depth, here.’

  ‘Stop the motor.’

  She flicks the switch and the quiet storms in.

  ‘At the front. I can –’ He pulls himself up, but he is all gritted teeth and no power. ‘Fuuuuck!’ he hisses.

  ‘Just tell me.’

  ‘Unhook. Let the winch go. Don’t try and hold the rope. It’ll take you over.’

  She repeats it to herself. Steps out of the cockpit and balances around the edge. She can see better from here, with the sails and the ropes and the shoreline so close now. They must be less than one hundred metres out. She watches for movement on the shore but there is none. She is sweating, can feel the humidity rising out of the jungle just there in front of her. Can smell the green of it, laced through with all the notes – spice, diesel, foetid water – that tell her she is far away from home.

  She looks down at the complication of steel and hook and rope, and grits her teeth that she did not ask to learn when she had the chance. She was so willing to be saved. We fall for that, she thinks. How we fall.

  The light from her head torch isn’t great, not enough sun to power it today, but she doesn’t want to put the deck light on. Imagines someone sitting on shore, watching her clumsy attempts. All the people who might be registering their arrival. She needs to be quick. Needs to get them onto land.

  She leans down and unties the hitch holding the ropes in place. The steel of the anchor is heavy. She thinks she can hear Nick calling from the cockpit, but she ignores him. Pulls it out of its spot, positions her feet so her weight is spread evenly. She tries to think logically. Is there a side it should go on? Does she throw it, or let it go gently? How bad can she mess it up? Don’t try and hold it, he’d said, it’ll take you over. Get a grip, she says to herself, you sailed this thing through a storm, you can drop the fucking anchor.

  When she looks over the side, the light from the torch makes the water green and opaque. A cluster of water bottles and coloured plastic bags, a stretch of palm, is lapping up against the boat. God, she hopes the kids don’t have to get in the water.

  The chain is looped in a great coil, she checks her feet are clear, moves her hand slightly, the anchor so heavy she can feel the pull in her shoulder. She twists her body, practising the arc it will make through the air when she heaves it over. Counts down. Do it. Heaves back, waits until the last moment, feels the knuckles of her spine crunch, protest, and then it’s over. Kickle, kickle, kickle, the loops of chain whisper and spit as they unwind. It feels like it takes forever, the loops of chain disappearing beneath the surface. She holds her breath as she waits for it to stop, sink in the mud, hold them there.

  The sound stops. She looks over the edge, the chain disappearing into the water. Her hands are slick with the humidity as she locks it down, switches off her head torch, lets her eyes adjust to the quick darkness, the slow luminosity of the moon.

  ‘Did you tie it off?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Nick, it’s done. Tell me where the pump is for the dinghy.’

  ‘Under the bench there. Clicks into the generator at the nav desk.’ His breath is heavy at the end. She touches the back of her hand to his head. So hot.

  * * *

  It takes her an hour. Untying the ropes that hold the dinghy to the deck. Unwinding the leads for the air compressor, finding the spots to attach. Essie wakes up when she turns it on, the tinny buzz alien in the quiet.

  ‘Mum, what is it?’

  ‘It’s okay, Ess. Just getting the dinghy sorted. Go back to sleep.’

  In the half-light from the desk, Mim sees her daughter sit up. ‘Have we stopped? Are we here?’

  ‘Yep. I’ll wake you up when we need to go.’

  ‘I’m awake now, Mum. I can help.’

  ‘I’m nearly done.’

  Essie lies back and rolls on her side and Mim feels instant regret. She keeps confusing the things she should be protecting them from.

  * * *

  She wrestles the fat dinghy over to the side and checks the rope is knotted firmly. The moon is lower now and it’s throwing white light on the water. If anyone is watching they will see her as clear as day. She feels so close now, but there are still so many things that can go wrong. Get to shore. Get Nick to the doctor. These are her priorities.

  Then Ben.

  Ben will be next.

  The dinghy hits the water, she pulls the rope to get it facing the right direction and walks it around to the stern. She remembers how unsteady she was that first day, certain she’d stumble to the edge and tip straight over. Now her bare feet are sure as she edges her hips past the poles of the canopy, jumps down and ties the rope off at the back. She’s not going to put the outboard on, too loud. It’s only one hundred metres into the shore, they could swim it if they had to, but Nick, that water. And the gear. She doesn’t know when they’ll come back to the boat. She keeps leaving places behind without ceremony. It’s protective, she tells herself, but she wonders if she is failing to compute.

  She’s packed the kids’ backpacks, and hers. Shoved some clean stuff of Nick’s into a bag. Deodorant. Toothbrush. Found all his paperwork in its old leather pouch. It felt intimate. After everything, pulling open his drawer and seeing the t-shirts folded there, so unexpected, as though she had seen something she shouldn’t. The soft underskin of him. For a moment, she is back there, skin and stars, and she puts her hand out to lean against the bed. Steady now, she thinks.

  * * *

  ‘Need my passport. The Indo cash.’ Nick’s eyes are half-open in the semi-dark. He is looking at the packs in her hand.

  ‘I’ve got it. Your leather pouch, yeah?’

  ‘More cash. In the first book on the shelf.’

  ‘But I don’t have any more.’ Quick panic, wonders if any of the cards will work. Can’t use them. They’ll pick her up in a second.

  ‘I’ve got some US dollars.’

  ‘I can’t use yours.’

  ‘You can owe me.’ He pauses. ‘Your stuff. Bring it or hide it.’

  * * *

  She gives Essie the bag she wa
s going to leave, tells her to find everything that is theirs. Nothing can be left. She flicks through the first book on the shelf, finds the wad of bills there, tucks them into the pocket of her windbreaker, zips it up. Maybe they won’t come back to the boat. Maybe this is it. Would he stay, to bring them home? She tries to imagine Ben on board. Feels sick with shame. Not now.

  ‘Getting light,’ Nick calls from upstairs.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’ Mim says to Essie.

  ‘Still on the toilet. He’s got a pain.’

  ‘Finish that bag, and grab some muesli bars, yeah? We’ve got to go.’

  She’s had all night. But this is how it always rolls, she knows, the last bit of panic before you go.

  ‘Sammy, mate.’ She knocks on the narrow door. ‘You okay?’

  She waits.

  ‘No. I can’t do a poo. My tummy hurts.’

  ‘Just stay there a bit. I’ll let you know when we have to go. Okay?’

  He takes it all in, keeps the smile up, then his body starts to betray him. She knows this, and yet she forgets. She remembers the last term at kinder, when some little shit had started to pinch him, just under the seam of his shorts, or his t-shirt, so the teachers couldn’t see the red mark. Every day. He’d explained the bruises away for a bit. It was only when his constipation gave him cramps that made him howl in pain that he finally told her. She feels a flush of shame as she remembers how she’d hissed at the other mother at drop-off, the look of surprise, the realisation that they were the same, really.

  She grabs six bottles of water from the store under the floor, stuffs a couple of boxes of protein bars in her bag. Essie is up in the cockpit, looking out towards the shore. She points to a couple of spots of light, moving through the trees above the shoreline.

  ‘Look,’ she says, ‘someone’s awake.’

  Sam’s head appears in the companionway.

  ‘Success?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘You’ll be right.’

  She wants to haul him into her and hug him, let him snuggle right in, the way he used to. She wants to protect him forever.

  ‘You reckon you can help me row?’

  His eyes light up. ‘Sure.’

  * * *

  They nearly go over, as she tries to help Nick in. He barks at her and so she steps back, and the kids lean out, and the dinghy dips and sways.

  ‘Stay still!’ Nick shouts, and in the light from the torches she sees Sam’s face fall.

  She does not help Nick again. She can see the tension in his jaw, holding it in until he can’t anymore and he groans. Moonlight shines on the trails of sweat on his face. He is in a bad way. But she can’t think of that now.

  ‘Okay. Ess, Sammy, you share, huh? When one of you gets tired.’

  Essie scoffs. ‘It’s not that far, Mum.’

  ‘Well, I want you both to get a go.’

  ‘I’m first.’ Sam, clutching at the oar.

  ‘Bull you are, I am.’

  ‘Stop!’ Nick yells. ‘Essie goes first.’

  They are all pulled up short by his transformation. She tries to think of an equivalent for the pain, surely it’s not as bad as childbirth? But she knows she was out of her own head then. A snarling demon. Would have bitten the midwife on the neck to stop her coming close if she’d had the energy.

  ‘Ess, just hold there for a minute while I turn us around.’

  It’s awkward. The water so heavy but nebulous against the oar, she can’t get purchase to turn them smoothly. Water splashes up as she puts the oar in at an odd angle and Sam squeals, ‘You got me wet!’

  ‘Sorry. Go, Ess, on that side, that’s it.’

  She watches Essie’s back, how straight she sits, the muscle she is putting into it. The shadows on the shore become clearer as they make their slow, splashing way in. The upturned hulls of the long fishing boats, a crumbling concrete wall set back off the beach. An old shelter, just uprights and palm fronds for a roof. Behind that, the darker shadows of tall palms and squatter trees with fat leaves. The glint of glass and moonlight on tin in a row of shacks set back in the jungle.

  Nick angles his face back so she can hear him. ‘Check the depth.’

  She looks over the side, sees only the moonlight reflected, the swirl of bubbles in the wake of her oar. She hesitates for a moment then realises what he means, shoves the oar down towards the bottom, until her hand is in the water and she can feel it make contact.

  ‘You gotta jump out soon,’ he says.

  Of course she does. It’s mild enough, but she thinks of that line of rubbish up against the hull, thinks of the other couple of boats that are moored, thinks of piss and shit and diesel and sludge.

  ‘Just go easy now, Ess, hand over to Sammy.’

  ‘He won’t be able to do it, Mum.’

  ‘Give it here.’ Nick takes the oar, digs it hard down and holds them there.

  Mim doesn’t say a word.

  ‘There’ll be concrete, sharp bits,’ Nick says. ‘Careful. Keep your thongs on.’ His voice is hard.

  She gets one leg over, can’t reach the bottom, water is warm, an oily film to it. She slides down, wet all the way up to her bum. Under her thongs, it is uneven, smooth rock and sharp, she hopes she doesn’t cut herself, feels her way slowly, pulling the dinghy behind her.

  ‘Not too far.’

  ‘How are you gonna get in? You can’t get your foot wet.’

  ‘Do the kids first.’

  She turns to Sam. ‘Okay you first, Sammy.’ She can carry him still. She loops the end of the rope around her wrist so the dinghy doesn’t float away, steadies Sam as he stands.

  ‘Give me a bag too, Ess.’

  With the bag on one shoulder, she hoists Sam onto her hip and he shuffles, crablike, round to her back as she wades through the shallows and deposits him on the shore.

  ‘You stay there with the bag and I’ll bring the others in.’

  Essie is already halfway out when she gets back, Nick still holding the oar in place.

  ‘Careful, Ess,’ she says, and then to Nick, ‘we’ll pull you right up.’

  ‘You can’t, you’ll rip a hole in the dinghy.’

  She shakes her head. ‘It’s not bad, there’s a clear path.’

  ‘Essie, can you?’ She turns to her daughter, shows her the handhold, and they begin to pull the dinghy into shore.

  Behind them, she hears Nick mutter, and when she turns to check on him, she can see the tension in his shoulders, the furious shame in his face. That he should be pulled into shore by them. She is almost ashamed at the perverse pleasure she feels.

  At the edge of the water, he slips his good leg over, and she has to rush back to help, take his weight. He leans into her even as he tells her he’s fine, he can do it by himself.

  Together, she and Essie lift the dinghy over the rubble at the tideline and tie it off next to the fishing boats.

  The sky is getting pale now, the moonlight fading into that predawn blue. There is a rooster crowing.

  They sit on the beach. Nick resting against a low concrete wall, eyes shut against the pain, Sam perched on his bag, Essie close beside her. She is rocking slightly, a fluidity to the rocks and sand beneath her and she’s not sure how long that will last, but she’s not on the water anymore. It’s another sovereign land, solid, rock to sand and back down to bedrock. They have made it. Not drowned. Not stopped by border control. They are here. She has got them here. And with the touch of the earth, she is brought back to her purpose: Ben. The niggle in her guts at the thought of everything that has happened out there, at sea. She pushes it down.

  ‘Okay,’ she says, as the morning light cracks the sky. ‘Let’s find a way into town.’

  23

  As the morning begins to heat, the smell of the earth seeps up through the dirt, the cracked edge of the bitumen road, the open drains rich with putrid water. The four of them wobble as they pick their way across the rocky cusp of the beach, the earth strangely static beneath their feet. The kids h
ave gone quiet as the roosters ratchet up their chaotic chorus. A useful quiet, but unnerving, as though they have only now realised the craziness of where they are, what they are doing. They stick close to her. She thinks of ducklings, winged by a mother duck. Nick says to look out for the first taxi, a Bemo, a minivan that will take them into the city. They don’t wait long, bunched on the corner, before they hear an engine and Mim steps out onto the road to wave the small green van down.

  The driver grins widely when Mim pokes her head through the window.

  ‘City,’ she says, and the man nods, says something Mim cannot understand, and then laughs along with the passengers in the back.

  Mim has to push the kids on through the open side door ahead of her and the women in the back make room, shuffling up with their laps full of plastic bags. She waits behind Nick, hands steadying him as he pulls himself in. The kids sit on the low bench opposite. Nick has to duck his head, the roof is so low. She is aware of the grotty bandage on his foot, but he does not pull it back in or try to hide it.

  A woman peeling a green orange and eating the segments, tuts and shakes her head and points at Nick’s foot.

  ‘Yes,’ Mim says. ‘Doctor?’

  The woman nods, spits pips over the edge of her teeth, speaks loudly to the driver. There is talk back and forth, and Mim nods, trying to work it out.

  Sam’s eyes dart everywhere, his mouth slightly open. Essie rounds her shoulders in, aware of their oddness, the fact that they don’t belong here. Mim sees the sweat on her upper lip. The smell of the combined body odour in the rising heat.

  There are five women, and one of them is drinking something out of a plastic bag with a straw, holding the little handles over two fingers. Bright plastic flowers and cards with foreign words and pictures are stuck above the windscreen and all along the dashboard. The smell is hot and sweet food and spice and sweat. As they round the corner there is the sea again, the silver grey spill of it. If they look back they can see the boat, the Sandfly. A lurch in her stomach, it seems so small already as the van climbs higher on the narrow road. Spotted through the jungle are the jagged edges of tin and plastic and tile, the ways in which the locals have clung their lives to the mountain, carved out spots for themselves. As they get closer to the city the foreignness of it flares in her: the rubbish sweepers, the tsunami warning signs, the lines of shops selling engines, bikes, plastics, cigarettes, with signs for Bintang and mobile phones. The clusters of cameras on poles, black and all-seeing under the spaghetti chaos of wires, are familiar. Instinctively, she ducks her head.