The Mother Fault

by Kate Mildenhall

  ‘Miriam?’ The voice muffled through the wood. ‘I need to speak with you. It’s Raquel Yu.’

  Raquel Yu? The journalist. Here. Outside her room.

  When she pulls back the door, the woman who stands there is short, compact; her upper arms tight with the grooves and dips of someone who works out. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Hard to tell how old she is, thirty maybe. Malaysian background, maybe.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Raquel says quietly and inclines her head towards the room.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Please,’ Raquel says, ‘let me come in and we can talk.’

  Mim steps aside, letting Raquel past. She smells freshly showered and Mim runs her tongue across her front teeth.

  ‘The kids are asleep,’ she says and Raquel nods, moving towards the window, away from the beds.

  ‘You’re all okay?’

  Mim scoffs, shakes her head once. ‘How do you define “okay”?’

  ‘Any leads on Ben?’

  ‘Have you?’ Mim is struggling to understand how the journo on the other end of her messages has materialised in front of her. Now. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  Raquel is brisk. ‘Got in last night. A couple of hours ago I got a message from our cyber team confirming a window of time we can contact Ben.’

  ‘He’s alive?’

  ‘If it’s him, and we reckon it is, then yes, he’s alive.’

  He’s alive.

  And she doesn’t realise how great her fear was, that this would not be so, until she lets the relief wash through her. It thrums in her body, unlocking her knees so that she must put her hand out to the windowsill to steady herself.

  ‘I had a flag on the location,’ Raquel says. ‘We found a bunch of hits indicating an asset was to be extracted from here. Given the rumours out of Golden Arc about the explosion, I figured it was worth a trip.’

  Asset.

  Extracted.

  What the fuck is this? What has he done? If he’s alive why hasn’t he contacted her?

  She looks at Raquel in the pale light seeping in through the curtain.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  Raquel looks at her squarely. ‘Your husband has something of great value. Information, evidence, I don’t know. This is my chance to get at it before he, and whatever he knows, disappears again. We don’t know who it is – the UN, a terrorist org, a company, another government – but if I don’t get the story out now, it may never get out at all.’

  ‘Why is this so important to you? How the fuck can you find my husband when the fucking Department can’t?’

  ‘Maybe they’re here already, I don’t know, that’s why we need to act fast. Their cyber teams are likely to be working on the same comms data we discovered.’ She pauses, runs her index fingers under her eyes as if to wake herself up. ‘I’ve been working on this story for six years, Mim. Golden Arc needs to be shut down. It doesn’t matter how many stories get out about environmental devastation or the displacement of local landowners or government corruption or health impacts on children – at best it’s a tiny story in independent presses that gets a few hits; at worst it never gets published, and a source ends up with their house burned to the ground or their head kicked in, or dead. No one gives a fuck, Mim, unless it’s a big old conspiracy that threatens geopolitical stability in an entire fucking region.’

  Mim feels sick. ‘That’s what you’re hoping for?’

  Raquel does not flinch. ‘Hope isn’t the word I’d use. But yes, it would help.’

  ‘Have you called the number?’

  Raquel shakes her head. ‘The pattern they picked up shows the window on this number is for ten minutes at six am. And maybe it’s not him, or someone else will pick up, or they’ll cut us off immediately. But he’s more likely to stay on the line if he hears your voice.’

  Mim’s jaw aches from gritting her teeth, and she releases them, letting her chin drop and feeling the blood rush back.

  ‘What if we put him in danger by calling? What if they’re tracking him and then they come and find me? The kids?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Raquel says, stepping towards Mim as though she is approaching a skittish animal. ‘But the way I see it, we’ve both travelled a long way to find him. You’ve risked your life – your kids’ lives. It’s got to be worth a shot, right? And you are my best shot at getting him to talk.’

  Mim turns to look at the sleeping forms of her children. She shakes her head. She has run out of trust. Of hope. After all of these days, these kilometres, that she would suddenly have this opportunity handed to her. It’s too unbearably easy to be true.

  ‘You came here to find him, Mim. One call. If it’s not him, if you hear something going down, you hang up. What have you got to lose?’

  Mim walks to the window, hooking a finger in the curtain to draw it back slightly. The city is waking up, the street below filling with people and bikes and bells; she wishes she were out there, away from the choices she has to make.

  ‘Mum?’ Her daughter’s sleepy voice, muffled by the sheet.

  ‘Can the kids talk?’ Mim says, quick and low, before she turns around.

  ‘Just to say hello,’ Raquel says, nodding. ‘We haven’t got much time.’

  * * *

  Sam needs no convincing to wake up once he hears the word ‘Dad’. It is only slightly troubling to Mim that neither of them baulks at the stranger in their room, and once Mim has explained that Raquel is there to help, they both shrug and make space for her on the edge of the bed.

  Raquel checks the time again. ‘Here,’ she says, handing Mim a small square of a phone and an earpod. ‘I’ve put in the number. Remember, you haven’t got long. Your Department agents, they could already be here, on his trail – and yours.’ Tenderly, Raquel tucks back Essie’s hair to place a small white pod in her ear, then neatly inserts a final one for herself.

  Essie turns to Mim, her hand at her ear. ‘We get to talk to Dad?’

  Mim breathes, smiles. ‘Yes. Yes, but just, you don’t have long. Just to say hello. Don’t tell him where we are – the hotel, the boat, anything like that. It’s really important,’ Mim says. ‘To keep him safe. To keep us safe.’

  Essie and Sam nod.

  ‘We can run interference for five minutes, that’s it,’ Raquel says, ‘after that we risk them picking us up. One of those minutes is mine.’ She looks up from the screen. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Now.’

  Mim cannot press the button.

  ‘You okay?’ Raquel asks, briskly. ‘There isn’t time.’

  ‘Want me to do it, Mum?’ Essie takes the phone, presses the green icon, hands it back.

  A long tone. Repeated. She frowns, shakes her head at Raquel, then a click. A voice. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Who is this?’

  His voice. Opening up that crack inside of her. Everything before. Everything since.

  ‘It’s you.’

  ‘Mim?’

  The relief of it. ‘Yes, yes, it’s me, we’re here.’

  ‘Here? Jesus, Mim. The kids? Why are you here, where –?’

  Essie has her hand to her ear. ‘Dad!’

  ‘You there, Essie? Sam?’ he says, fast, frantic.

  ‘We’re here, Dad,’ Essie says.

  ‘Dad!’ Sam yells, pressing his face up against Essie’s so he can hear the tinny voice through the pod.

  Essie begins to cry.

  ‘Where are you?’ Ben asks, voice splitting with panic.

  ‘In a hotel,’ Sam yells, ‘on the island.’

  Essie hisses at him, ‘Sam, shh.’

  ‘Quick, you two,’ Mim urges, ‘you’ll see him soon, let me talk.’

  ‘Dad? Love you, Dad.’

  ‘Love you, Essie, love you, Sammy.’

  Mim’s throat tightens as she hears him begin to cry.

  ‘Here,’ she says, gently scooping the pod from Essie’s ear and moving away as she protests.

  ‘Ben,’ Mim says. ‘
Where are you?’

  There is silence for a moment. ‘I can’t,’ he says.

  ‘We’re here now, we can come for you, it doesn’t matter what’s happened.’

  Silence.

  ‘Ben?’

  She hears him breathe.

  ‘I fucked up.’

  ‘Why didn’t you let us know where you were? God, Ben. What have you done?’

  There is quiet. The seconds tick.

  ‘They say there was an explosion? Are you hurt?’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice, Mim.’

  ‘What?’

  And then, like he will burst with it, the words all jangle and tumble over each other. ‘I was trying to buy some time. To get word out. The rebels – locals against the mine – they’d tried to get me to help them before – I had a contact – it wasn’t meant to blow like that – no one was meant to get hurt.’ His voice breaks.

  ‘What do you mean, Ben? What did you do, where are you now?’

  Quieter now, calm. ‘I found something no one was meant to see, plans for the mine. I realised what they were doing.’

  She waits. Feels like her neck will snap with the tension.

  ‘Post-extraction plans. The final project phase is being run by GeoTech for the Department. Meant to be a clean-up, environmental rehab, only it’s not. The plans showed more tunnelling. Enormous cavities, deep under the mine. A huge network.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s for storage. Burial.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Nuclear waste.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re dumping all that fucking nuclear waste they couldn’t bury at home.’

  ‘But that’s fucking insane, it’s on a fault line. The disposal theory never held.’

  ‘The plans are clear, Mim.’

  ‘But, even if it worked, it could be catastrophic, the risk, the fault line could blow. It would –’

  ‘Destroy the entire region.’

  Mim is suddenly aware of the sound of Raquel breathing fast. ‘But why?’ She can’t make sense of it.

  ‘Security measure? Insurance? If shit goes down in China, Russia, anywhere fucking north of us…’

  ‘But it could take out us as well,’ she murmurs.

  Ben scoffs. ‘Well, only the top half – it’s a well-calculated risk.’

  Raquel points to her phone, rotates her hands, urging Mim to move quickly.

  ‘Where are you? Near the mine? You said someone was hurt?’

  ‘We needed time, to get the plans out. I managed to get a copy, but then, they said it wasn’t enough.’ Ben halts, a moment of silence.

  ‘Ben! We don’t have much time!’

  ‘The organisation we contacted, they wanted more than the evidence, wanted to be clear whose side we were on. It was only meant to blow one rig, block the tunnel –’ His voice has risen, but it drops again. ‘I miscalculated. Didn’t realise how destructive it would be.’

  She waits.

  Almost a whisper. ‘It killed three people.’

  You killed three people.

  But there is no time. ‘How did you get away? Where are you, Ben?’

  ‘It was too big, I was knocked out. One of the rebels dragged me out of there, hid me in the village. Five days before I woke up. When I tried your number, it was disconnected. You were gone. And by then, it was too dangerous anyway. The plan was already in place. I couldn’t risk it.’

  Complete stillness in the hotel room. Raquel, rigid with listening, the kids’ faces as they try and read her own.

  ‘We had no idea where you were,’ she says blankly.

  Silence.

  She wants to hurt him.

  ‘Did you think about us?’

  ‘Every day,’ he says. ‘Every minute of every fucking day.’

  ‘Before! Before, Ben.’ She feels the heat rise in her. ‘Did you think about what would happen when the Department found out what you’d done? When they listed you as a terrorist, charged you with treason? What would happen to us?’

  She hears him start to weep. ‘I had to do something. There was no time, I had this one chance, to do something,’ he says.

  She interrupts him. ‘Do you know what it has been like? Can you even fucking imagine?’ She raises her voice now. ‘I’ve brought our kids across the fucking ocean to find you!’ She is crying now, furious weeping.

  Essie is beside her, takes the earpod back, gentle but sure. ‘We nearly drowned, Dad,’ Mim hears her daughter say through the line. ‘We didn’t know where you were. Mum didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’ he is saying. ‘I fucked up.’

  Mim thinks about the sway of the boat beneath her feet, the slip of it in the storm, how she steadied, how she held her nerve. She didn’t fall.

  Raquel’s hand on her wrist. ‘I need to talk to him.’

  Mim takes the pod from Essie as she speaks. ‘We are coming to get you,’ she says.

  ‘You can’t.’ Finality in his voice.

  ‘Why not?’ she says.

  ‘I’m getting out. I can’t take you with me. They’re extracting me tonight.’

  Raquel is holding out her hand, but Mim shakes her head.

  ‘Extracting you to where?’

  ‘Europe, somewhere, they won’t say. To keep me safe, then once the investigation is done, they say I can send for you and the kids, new identities, twenty-four-hour security, a new life.’

  But she has stopped listening.

  Her voice is loud and surprising. ‘Fuck you!’ She’s going to choke on it, her anger, tears. ‘We came so far, Ben. We’ve come so fucking far. We risked everything. The kids could’ve been killed.’

  She rips the pod from her ear, cannot bear to hear his voice any longer. Raquel moves away, her voice quiet and sure. Mim turns to her children, their faces white with shock, and takes them in her arms, shhing their questions, so it doesn’t have to be real. Not yet.

  26

  Raquel has her hand on Mim’s shoulder. Her mouth is moving, but Mim cannot make sense of what she is saying. She shakes her head until Raquel grips her firmly.

  ‘The Department could be here already. Go to the airport. You got a phone?’

  Mim nods and Raquel rummages in her bag, handing Mim a card.

  ‘Here’s a new SIM. He’s going to share the files with me. That’s smart – they’re his insurance. I’m only here until I receive them, then I’m gone. Another hour, maybe. Give me the phone so I can put in the number.’

  Mim nods as she reaches for the phone, inserts the new SIM, feels like she is on autopilot.

  Raquel grabs it quickly, thumbs flying over the keys. ‘They will be looking for you,’ she says, shouldering her bag and heading for the door, her eyes flashing already with the enormity of the story she has.

  Mim watches her leave and tries to jigsaw the moments of the last hour together so that they make sense. They don’t seem to fit.

  Extraction.

  Nuclear burial.

  Europe.

  Ben’s voice.

  * * *

  Essie sits beside her with a glass of water, smoothing her hand back and forth over the stubbled flesh of Mim’s knee. Sam has his back curled against hers, his face, fleshy with crying, is hidden in the sheets and she can hear from his breathing that he is sucking his thumb.

  Anger has burned her out and there is nothing left. They came all this way for nothing. Risked it all. Did he really think he was going to change anything? Make any fucking difference at all? That his heroics would close the mine, that he’d run through the jungle like a movie star and save the world by the closing credits?

  Yes, she too would be livid if she’d unearthed the plans. The difference was she didn’t have time to be a hero, because she was doing school drop-off instead. Because she was responsible for two children. But wasn’t he, too? A new wave of fury pulses through her guts and she stands up to loose the adrenaline before she screams.
<
br />   Ben may be safe, but Mim and the kids are not.

  ‘Fuck you!’ Mim hisses, spitting the words at the window. Fuck you!

  ‘What are we going to do now?’ Essie says.

  An alarm begins to clang.

  Mim looks out the window, trying to work out where the sound is coming from, outside or somewhere inside the hotel? It’s an old-fashioned sort of a ring – klang-klang-klang-klang – perhaps it is the hotel’s fire alarm? But then she notices people pouring into the street below.

  Sam sits up behind her. ‘What’s that, Mum?’

  Underneath now, horns, sirens, a cacophony of warning.

  ‘Mum?’ Essie says, ‘Mum?’

  ‘Must be a drill,’ Mim murmurs but the people scattering on the street below do not look like the organised calm of people following a drill. They look panicked. Streaming out of doors and through the lane next to the hotel, out into the street and up the hill.

  Up the hill.

  You’re fucking kidding me.

  ‘Tsunami alarm!’ she says, turning to pull them up from the bed. ‘Quick! Go!’

  Sam screams and Essie is moving, pushing her brother. Mim grabs the backpack, knows the cash is there, the phone – that’s all that matters.

  ‘Go! Go!’ she yells behind them as they charge down the stairs, voices shouting, ‘Evacuate! Evacuate!’

  ‘Hold his hand, Ess!’ Mim calls as they race through the front doors and are swept into a crowd of people jostling and calling, motos, a Bemo, all moving up the street towards higher ground. The noise is outrageous – the sirens, voices, a buzz of pings and music as people hold their devices up, filming, looking wildly around them.

  She looks back to see the crowd below them, moving en masse up and away from the sea which still looks eerily calm, gleaming its silver petroleum sheen under the clouded sky. So many people.

  ‘Keep going!’ she shouts as she turns back, and realises she has lost sight of the kids for a moment.

  ‘Shit,’ she says under her breath. They know to stay close, especially in a crowd, and this is pure chaos. She pushes ahead, ready to grab them both back and demand they hold her hands if they can’t stick together.

  But they are not just ahead.

  ‘Sam! Essie!’

  Heads, bodies, shoulders, colours, bikes, backpacks, faces turning, moving, running.