The Mother Fault

by Kate Mildenhall

  But no Sam. No Essie.

  Chest seizing. Breath hammering against ribs.

  They were just here, right here in front of her.

  ‘Essie! Sam!’

  Fingers scrabbling at air, at t-shirts, at other people’s shoulders, hair, pulling, twisting.

  ‘Where are my kids?’ she screams.

  People turn, look away, one woman points, ‘Up the hill, up the hill,’ she calls and urges Mim on.

  But Mim cannot see her kids.

  They are gone.

  ‘Where are they, where are they, where are they?’ She careens in and out of the snaking column of people and vehicles and noise. Stops, hands to mouth. She heaves, splutters, heaves again, but there is nothing but dry coughs, emptiness.

  Look for his hair, blond hair, one lucid thought cutting through her panic. She runs again. And she can smell it, smell Sammy’s head, the piquant sweet at the end of the day, can feel the soft thread of it between her fingers.

  ‘Sammy!’ Her scream is hoarse now, but still she cannot see him. She pushes hard up the hill, her calves cramping, head reeling.

  Up ahead, where the road turns back up the mountain, a crowd is gathering on what looks like outdoor volleyball courts. There, there, they will be there.

  ‘Please, please, please,’ she murmurs, eyes darting above the heads, registering young people and mothers with children and men on bikes but not her children.

  She is stupid, stupid, stupid. She should never have let them out of her sight. She should never have been allowed to have them in the first place. She has always been unfit for this job. Since the beginning. This will be her punishment, to know, forever, that she lost them. It was her job to look after them and she lost them. She lost them. It is her fault. All of it. Heidi, Ben, she has broken everything.

  Hands on her knees, folded at the waist. She sucks in air, can’t get it past her chest, feels like a punctured vacuum.

  Someone pushes her, pulls her up. ‘This way, this way,’ they call and she is jostled back into the crowd. She twists to look behind her, perhaps they got lost and went back – of course, that is what she has always told them to do, Stay where you are. She must have gone past them. She begins to push back against the throng, fighting her way to the edge, to the cracked tiles of the shopfronts, where women are feverishly pulling down roller shutters, pushing piles of shoes, plastic buckets stacked high, back inside to keep them safe from whatever is coming.

  She can see the hotel doors, the man from reception, she yells out but her voice is lost in the mayhem. Running the last fifty metres, scanning the crowd, searching for that blond head that should be a beacon to her.

  But they are not there, not anywhere.

  The receptionist turns to her in surprise when she grabs him.

  ‘Have you seen my kids?’

  He shakes his head, eyes wide. ‘They are still inside?’ he asks, making to undo the lock. ‘But, I checked all the rooms.’

  ‘No, no, they were with me, I lost them in the crowd. I lost them.’

  He frowns. ‘They know it is a tsunami warning, they must go to higher ground?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she says, ‘they know, but I lost them.’ The side-splitting pain that curls her over again, to even have to speak the words.

  ‘They will be at the evacuation zone. Come, I will take you, we will be there quickly.’

  He motions for her to follow him to the neat line-up of motos and grabs a helmet from the back, handing it to her, straddling the bike and kicking the engine into life.

  ‘Please,’ he says, gesturing for her to get on behind him.

  But what if she misses them, what if she goes too fast and they pass each other, what if –?

  She jumps on the bike and he swings out into the madness. Leaning back as far as she can without throwing the balance, she darts her head left to right and back again. Calls their names over the noise of the engine. God, all these people, how far will a wave come, where will the water go, how high? An image, of a hospital room, stairs, panic, unable to walk – Jesus, Nick – but she can’t think of him, she can’t. The kids, she only has space for them. Nick will be okay, he’s always okay.

  The man accelerates, mounts a gutter and turns into a tiny lane, calling over his shoulder, ‘Quicker!’

  She grips his waist, sure she will leave bruises, the signature of her fear.

  He slows for a moment as they swerve around a hole, a puddle, then surges forward again, a steep incline, ducking under low hanging cables and then emerging into space, the volleyball courts, the crowd beginning to assemble. She is off the back of the bike before he has stopped.

  A lap of the perimeter, hoarse now from calling their names, inconceivable that they are not here, not waiting for her, not where they should be. God, she will kill them, she will never let them out of her sight again.

  Oh fuck. Oh god.

  In the centre of the space, a man in the khaki uniform of the army. She runs at him but stops herself from grabbing his arms.

  ‘Please,’ she says when he turns to face her, surprised, ‘my children are missing, somewhere here, in the crowd.’

  ‘False alarm,’ he says, offering her no more and turning away.

  ‘Sorry?’ she says.

  When he frowns at her, she asks again, ‘Please, my kids, they are lost.’

  ‘No tsunami, the warning system went off by accident. Computer error. That’s why the alarm has stopped. Wait until the crowd goes home, you will find your children.’

  The man from the hotel is beside her. ‘It is a false alarm, okay? Your children will be fine, we will find them.’

  There is no relief that her kids won’t be swallowed by a giant wave. She just wants them here, now, their flesh under hers, solid and safe.

  ‘They are not with your friend?’ the man asks.

  Mim looks at him blankly.

  ‘The woman who came to the hotel this morning?’

  Mim scrabbles in her bag for the phone. Call Raquel. Get Ben. He will find them. He will fix this.

  She dials the number on the screen, praying it will still work. Almost cries with relief when she hears the woman’s voice.

  ‘The kids are gone. You have to help. You have to get Ben.’

  Raquel is reluctant, nervous, asks again and again if Mim is sure, if she really has lost them.

  Mim wants to scream into the phone. ‘Please,’ she says, ‘please call him, tell him they’re gone, that he has to help me.’

  ‘Wait there. It’ll take me ten minutes.’

  * * *

  A shopping centre. Sam strapped to her chest, still so young that Mim is in the breast-leaking, sleepwalking zone. Essie slips from her, ducking under an arm and through a couple to see something glittering in a window. It is five seconds, that is all, and Mim feels herself rupture, glimpses the parallel dimension where children do not come home safe, where each morning holds the nightmare of remembering reality, of losing again. Essie’s face as she gripped her hands so tight, her nails dug into her daughter’s soft skin – Never do that again, do you hear me, don’t you let go of my hand. Instant remorse at Essie’s shock. Anger at the old woman who tutted at them; either she’d never known the feeling, or time must erase the fear.

  * * *

  A sheen of sweat on Raquel’s forehead when she arrives.

  ‘He’s coming. But don’t freak out when he comes. He has minders with him, and they’re armed.’

  Mim is walking in rapidly frantic circles. She is well beyond freaked. ‘Where is he? Where the fuck is he?’

  ‘Coming. He made them come. But they’re worried it’s a set-up.’

  ‘They’re his fucking kids!’

  ‘Just be careful. If they get spooked, anything could happen. I need that evidence to get the story out, to help finish what Ben started, to make it worth it.’

  ‘It isn’t worth it.’

  ‘You’ll find them.’

  ‘How? Where?’

  ‘He should be clos
e now. I told him to come here, to the evacuation area. Hiding in plain view.’

  ‘The officer said it was a false alarm. Computer error.’ Mim keeps scanning the crowd for Essie, Sam, and now Ben too.

  ‘It’d be easy enough to hack the system,’ Raquel says, ‘maybe someone needed a diversion for getting a dirty load off the docks.’

  Mim’s hand at her own neck, pulling in air. How fucking stupid is she? She murmurs, tries to say Raquel’s name.

  ‘What?’ Raquel turns.

  ‘They aren’t lost. They were taken.’ Certainty setting like concrete in her guts.

  ‘Mim!’

  And there he is. Thirty metres away. Like an illustration of a man she used to know. He is wearing a shirt she has never seen before and yet relief courses in her. Ben is here. Ben will fix this.

  He goes to move towards her, but is held back by a man beside him. There are two of them, tall, militaristic, each of them with a hand at his belt, and a weapon.

  Ben turns to them, appears to be talking, convincing; his hands splayed out as if to say, just wait, wait.

  She begins to run across the road, hears Raquel’s voice behind her, but fuck it, fuck them, this is her husband and the kids are gone and they must fix this.

  His hand is up now towards her, telling her to hold, to wait, and they are looking at each other and not at the white van which suddenly screeches up between them.

  Everything happens so fast.

  ‘Mum!’

  Sammy’s blond head at the window, Essie’s face beside him.

  ‘Sam!’

  And then two figures spilling from the back of the van, each extended at the arm with the flat black shine of a weapon.

  She is running at the van, at the window where she can see the children, their faces terrified, screaming for her.

  ‘Stop!’

  One of the figures, a stocky man, is pointing a gun at Ben; the other, a woman in black, at her.

  Time slows. She looks at Ben and he shakes his head. Don’t move, she almost hears him speak into her brain. The men, his protectors, have disappeared. Where are they now with their guns?

  The woman speaks. ‘You can make this really simple, Ben.’

  The accent is unmistakable, and even though they aren’t in uniform, it’s clear who they are. Who has sent them. The Department.

  There is a beast howling inside of Mim. ‘Give me my fucking kids back!’

  The woman smiles. ‘You can have them back. As soon as we get what we need.’

  The man who is pointing the gun at Ben speaks. ‘Him.’

  Mim thinks she might faint, sound muffles and warps in her ears as though she is underwater, as though she is drowning. Ben raises his hands and begins to walk towards the man.

  ‘Wait! Ben!’

  He stops and looks at her but she directs the next question to the woman. ‘How do I know you’ll let us walk away once you have him? How do I know we’ll be safe?’

  ‘Once we have him, we don’t need you or the kids. Although I wouldn’t suggest going home. Or contacting the embassy. At best, no one will believe what you have to say; at worst, we’ll decide we have to keep you quiet and your children will go to BestLife.’

  Behind the windows, Essie is pale, her arm around her little brother. Sam’s face is crumpled with fear. Can they hear?

  ‘The kids first,’ Mim says.

  The woman nods. Calls something back to the van, and the door slides open, the kids rush out holding each other, yelling for her.

  ‘One of you go to your mother,’ the woman says.

  Sam and Essie look at each other, then Essie pushes Sam.

  ‘Go to Mum!’ she yells and watches as her brother sprints across the space.

  Mim grabs him. High moan in the back of her throat. Trying not to smother her son as she grips him in her arms, keeps her eyes locked on her daughter, her fierce, brave daughter who is still standing next to the van, next to a woman with a gun.

  ‘You!’ the man yells, motioning for Ben to move forward.

  Ben looks at Mim, as if he has something to say. But there is nothing to be said.

  She nods and he raises his hands and walks towards them.

  ‘Slowly,’ the man calls, ‘keep your hands up.’

  But Ben rushes the last few steps and grabs Essie’s hands, folds her into him. The man is yelling, ‘Hey! Hey!’ Mim screams. The woman waves her gun, pulls Ben back.

  Essie clings to her father for a moment more, her face pressed against his chest.

  Sam squirms in Mim’s arms.

  Then Ben is pushing Essie away and she is flying across the asphalt towards Mim, her face already collapsing. Mim’s arms stretch out over Sammy’s head so she can grab her daughter and envelop her.

  She’s got them back. She presses their bodies into her own and looks up to see Ben being led into the back of the van, the two Department heavies pushing him in, so he is facing away from her.

  A blur of movement out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘No!’ she calls out before she even realises what she is seeing.

  Ben’s minders, the men who were protecting him, raising their arms in unison.

  The figures at the van turning, Ben’s face in profile.

  Two shots.

  The red bloom across his chest as he crumples at the knees. The woman yells, pressing her hands against the crimson spread.

  Knowing she must hold the kids’ faces at her chest. Knowing they must not see.

  Raquel’s voice, frantic, ‘You’ve got to go! Now, quick!’

  Raised voices over her shoulder, the army officers, attention she must escape.

  ‘Mum?’ Essie’s muffled voice, her chin scraping against Mim’s collarbone. ‘What was that, what’s happening?’

  And now Mim is saying it too, ‘We have to go, we have to go now,’ turning the kids around, protecting them with her body, urging them away, away from the van.

  ‘Dad!’ Sam screams, but Mim forces him forward.

  Raquel is beside her. ‘Get out of here. I can’t help you. Go!’

  As they race down the street, Mim can only nod at Raquel, watch her peel off and begin to disappear into the crowd.

  ‘Wait!’ Essie calls, pitching after the journalist. Mim cries out, but Essie runs to Raquel, clutches at the woman’s hand, shaking it once and then pulling away.

  Raquel looks down in astonishment, her fingers unclenching enough to reveal the slim black rectangle in her hand.

  Mim looks at her daughter, then back at Raquel, but she has already vanished into the crowd.

  ‘C’mon!’ Essie says, pulling at Mim.

  Don’t leave him, must leave him. She looks back once over her shoulder, but the van is already beginning to move. She must hide them. Get away. To the water, to the boat. The silver sea glints at the bottom of the hill.

  The sea.

  ‘Quick!’ Mim says, pointing to where a moto is parked at the edge of a lane. ‘There!’

  And before she can think, before she can question or worry or second-guess herself, she has straddled the bike, pulling Sam on in front of her and directing Essie to hang on behind and she is someone else, someone from before, someone who knows how to roll start a motorbike, steer it until the engine coughs. Someone who can get her children down a mountain, weaving through the crowd all the way to the harbour.

  27

  The water is only lukewarm and the detergent doesn’t soap up. It won’t clean the bowls properly, but she uses the moment to flick the rim of scum from beneath her thumbnail. It’s a little low, the sink, she wonders how he ever put up with it. There is a constant ache in the small of her back. Everywhere, actually. Her body feels ten years older, the way her knees crack with the constant balancing, the bruises on her hips, her elbows. The tap’s leaking too. She’ll add it to the list of questions when she calls him at the next harbour. It’s a long list.

  ‘You okay up there?’ She leans back and calls up through the hatch.

  �
�All good, Mum,’ Essie’s voice rings back, loud and clear and strong.

  She dries her hands on the damp tea towel, turns from the sink and reaches out to touch Sam’s hair. ‘Nearly finished?’

  The black lines of his drawing are intricate, careful. Figures running and flying, speech bubbles squished in above.

  ‘Which chapter are you up to?’

  Sam doesn’t look up. ‘Ninja Boy and the Storm Chasers.’

  ‘You want to show me?’

  Sam sighs. ‘It’s not ready yet.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘half hour, yeah, then bed.’

  She leaves him, bent over the paper, the tip of his tongue resting pinkly at the edge of his upper lip.

  ‘Mum?’ he says and she pauses on the first step. ‘Will there be a postbox at the next stop?’

  ‘I don’t know, maybe, why?’

  ‘I want to send this one to Dad, or maybe to Nan if we still haven’t got his address, can I?’

  She doesn’t turn around so he cannot see how she closes her eyes, stills.

  ‘Can I, Mum?’

  ‘We’ll see, my love.’

  And it is enough, for now, even though she knows it won’t stay that way.

  Raquel hasn’t been able to find out, either way, and maybe that’s for the best. Mim’s holding it at bay – the possibilities, the grief – just for a little while longer.

  She emerges on to the deck and to Essie at the helm. Her daughter’s hair flicks around her face in the breeze and she looks taller or older or like someone Mim might want to be when she grows up. Because even though these sailing aches make her feel older; inside, she feels eleven again. Fifteen. Twenty-five. As if the stratigraphy of the rest of her life has been ground back, worn away and her past is the utmost layer again. ‘How’s it going?’ she says as she moves to stand beside Essie.

  ‘Wind’s picked up a bit.’

  ‘That’s good, keep us under sail a little while longer.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Mim glances at the nav to check the coordinates. ‘It’s there, Ess, Turtle Island, that’s what we’re following –’

  ‘I don’t mean that.’