The Mother Fault Read online

  There was some unease, of course, there always is. But, how could anyone argue?

  It wasn’t until later that the gates to those estates became one way. And by then it was too late.

  * * *

  Her head spins slightly when she stands.

  ‘Lights out, OMNI.’

  ‘You are still in the kitchen zone.’

  ‘Lights out.’

  ‘As directed.’

  The lights fade to dark around her, punctuated by the green and white glow of her networked kitchen. She stands at the bench, wondering where her husband is, trying to remember to breathe.

  * * *

  In the morning the school traffic is heavy and Mim is on edge as she waits to find a gap. She has two days before the kids expect Ben home. She suggests casually that there might be a delay.

  ‘But can we call him?’ Sam asks from the back.

  She hedges. ‘We’ll try after school, huh?’ Essie catches her eye in the rear-vision mirror, but Mim looks away. Tries to remember the last conversation she had with Ben but still can’t make out any specifics. They all feel the same when Ben is away, the space behind him, even when it’s a cramped comms room, seems to expand infinitely. After they sign off she can’t help but imagine him, standing, stretching, walking away, back to work, his brain, the pulse of it all, to quiet perhaps, to solitude even. She accelerates, pulling out to get into a tight space. She cranes her neck to see what the hold-up is, but there is only the line of cars ahead, the smooth contours of all the hybrids. Keeping up with the Joneses is a competitive sport in this neighbourhood.

  ‘Maybe there’s an accident?’ Sam says.

  The familiar flash of lights in the mirror.

  They all stare out the window as the grey SUV rushes past on the kerb, siren wailing, followed by the white van emblazoned with the block green font of the BestLife logo.

  ‘What do you reckon it is?’ Essie says, her voice low, even though Mim and Ben have been so careful not to scare them. Children always know.

  ‘Must just be someone who needs some help,’ Mim says.

  Essie grunts, unconvinced, and slides back in her seat.

  The BestLife squad don’t even try to block the view as the traffic slows past the scene and the commuters rubberneck. High visibility is part of their effectiveness these days. So effective in its messaging and consequent public compliance, in fact, that they hardly even bother with the farce of the judicial system anymore.

  A man is on the ground, his hands already cuffed behind him. He does not look especially dishevelled, although it’s been a long time since she saw anyone looking that way. And even though they are already painting over it, the graffiti is still easy to read. Wide and pink across the concrete wall: RESIST!

  Sam sounds the word out. ‘What do you reckon it means, Mum? Resist what?’

  ‘He’s probably not well, darling,’ she says, the words bitter, traitorous, in her mouth. She is glad they cannot see what she sees when she looks back in the rear-vision – the medic moving in, the flop of the man’s body as they drag it into the van.

  It is better this way. She and Ben had decided together that the kids did not need to know the details of the society they were growing up in. Not yet. Did not need the specifics of what BestLife had become or how it operated or how their uncle had come to die under their watch. Essie could not even remember him. But fear has its own signature, and even with their careful sidestepping, the kids know, joke in the playground – You’ll be sent to BestLife – understand that something is being hidden from them, and they want to dig it up but keep their eyes closed at the same time.

  The graffiti will be gone by the time she drives home.

  All the same, she’ll know it is there. Underneath.

  Resist.

  That’s what her brother Michael had once said, too.

  * * *

  Arriving at the school, she swipes to get through to the drop zone, watches the kids tousle in the line to hold their palms to the security pad as they enter the grounds. They run from there and they don’t look back. She sees Essie point towards some of Sam’s friends, the way she touches her little brother’s shoulder before he runs off to join them.

  Michael used to do that for her. Her eldest brother Steve never did. But Michael, just two years older than Mim, and gentle, so gentle (Soft as the inside of a strawberry Freddo, she once heard her dad say, not kindly) that his own eyes might glisten if she ran to him, crying at recess, with scrapes and tales and squashed sandwiches. The way the protective shadow of his arm enclosed her closest friend Heidi too. Until later, when they’d had to turn around and protect him.

  She shakes her head, trying to loosen these images of her brother. There is no time for this now. For pain and guilt and what-ifs. For the treacherous voice whispering that she is a coward, that she has let his death go unremarked, that she has not stood up, that she has been found wanting.

  The screen on the dash lights up. Incoming call. Unidentified. She answers quickly, hope high in her chest.

  ‘Miriam Elliot?’ A woman’s voice.

  She slumps back in the seat. ‘Yes?’

  ‘My name is Raquel Yu, I’m a journalist with The Advocate.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t –’ Mim goes to end the call.

  ‘I’m an Australian based in Canada,’ the woman continues, undaunted. ‘The Advocate is an independent news organisation peopled by correspondents from around the globe and funded by citizens who want the truth.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m in the middle of something. If you’re looking for donations –’

  ‘No, no.’ She laughs. ‘It’s not that, although if you’re offering…’

  Mim grits her teeth, annoyed at her inability to just hang up. ‘Sorry, I really have to go.’

  ‘I’m actually after your husband, Ben? Are you able to give me his contact details?’

  She startles at Ben’s name. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘I’m currently looking at the Golden Arc project and the unprecedented Chinese–Australian collaboration on the mine. I’m keen to speak to Ben about his work there with GeoTech?’

  Mim doesn’t speak.

  ‘Are you there, Miriam? Have I got that right, GeoTech is his employer?’

  ‘Mim,’ she says, ‘and yes, GeoTech, but he’s not…’ She thinks that perhaps if she doesn’t say the words they can continue to exist somewhere else, a place of parallel possibilities. She wants to refuse the reality of them.

  ‘He’s not working there anymore?’

  ‘He’s missing.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘They called me yesterday. He’s gone missing from the mine site.’

  ‘Oh, god, sorry, is that…?’

  Mim’s voice is tight. ‘Probably nothing to worry about, I’ll get him to call you when he gets in touch. Ben’s not one to give up a chance to get his face in the news.’ She attempts to laugh but the sound does not work.

  The woman says she’ll send all the contact details, apologises for calling at this time. She had no idea, she says.

  ‘It’s fine,’ says Mim, but her stomach flips over as she hangs up. Why is a journalist poking around the Golden Arc project? The international controversy was all over years ago once China acquired the island. And the domestic row was over before it began. ‘Unprecedented investment opportunity for Australia.’ Everything was unprecedented by then anyway. Keen to speak about Ben’s work there – but what was so special about Ben’s work? Mim rakes back through the messages, the conversations, that last video call in her mind. Had he seemed more stressed? Secretive? The calls were always monitored so it’s not like he could have told her if anything was wrong. She shakes her head, separates the two events in her mind. She is conflating them for nothing. Coincidence that the woman called today, that’s all. Strange and unsettling, but nothing more.

  Ben will be home. Ben will be home and everything will go back to normal.

  2

  There is a grey Departme
nt SUV parked outside her house. She brakes suddenly, breathes, then guides her car into the garage, buying herself time to calm down before she greets them.

  ‘Mrs Elliot?’

  ‘I said I didn’t need a visit.’

  The woman’s face is pleasant, not pretty. She ignores Mim. ‘Okay if we come inside?’

  Mim sees Kevin across the road peering around the edge of his curtain.

  ‘Of course,’ Mim says and swipes them in.

  * * *

  She makes them tea. Alexis and Ian. Ian introduces them, is obviously the soft to Alexis’s hard.

  He takes the cup and thanks her. ‘How are you feeling? What a shock, huh?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose, it just, it hasn’t really sunk in.’

  ‘Of course. And the children, how are they taking it?’

  Alexis has a screen out, tapping, but keeping her eyes on Mim. Warm and wary. It’s a well-rehearsed look.

  ‘I haven’t told them yet, Ben isn’t due home for another couple of days, I’m just waiting for some more information, I mean, is that what you – can you tell me something more?’

  Ian sighs, smiles almost sadly. ‘Not at the moment, but what we can do is work with you to put in place a bit of a plan for the next little bit.’

  ‘A plan?’ Mim furrows her brow. ‘To find him?’

  ‘That’s not our area. We leave that to the professionals, don’t we?’ He looks at Alexis and she nods.

  ‘Sorry, what is your area?’

  ‘We’re in Asset Protection.’

  ‘Right.’ What’s the asset? she wonders.

  ‘So, it’s our job to make sure you and your kids aren’t hassled by media and are given a chance to tell your side of the story, if and when that’s appropriate. We look at all the options available to you and advise you on the best way forward.’

  ‘The best way forward?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘For who – me? For Ben? The best way forward is to find Ben, right?’ She pushes her hands across the table in agitation. ‘Sorry, I don’t understand why there is anything else that needs doing right now.’

  ‘Obviously we want to find your husband, Mrs Elliot, and the Department are doing everything they can to make that happen.’

  ‘But,’ Alexis says, ‘in the meantime, it’s our job to leverage public interest for the best case scenario.’

  ‘As in putting the story out to help find him?’

  ‘More nuanced than that. We’ve got a whole team of experts working behind the scenes on stories like this every day.’

  Ian presses his fingertips together as if to accentuate the seriousness of the situation and Mim feels like laughing at his theatrics.

  ‘If word gets out,’ he says, ‘you’ll have the media all over you. No one’s made contact with you?’

  Mim thinks about the call register on her system. Raquel.

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘why would they? How could anyone know?’

  He smiles. All teeth. ‘We just want what’s best for everyone.’

  Alexis hands the tablet to Mim. ‘So there’s just a couple of things we need you to sign.’ She points with the stylus: ‘Just here and here.’

  Mim takes the pen but Alexis keeps talking, leaving no space for questions.

  ‘These are the terms and conditions outlining our requirements of you while we manage this case. Basic things – exclusivity with media outlets, image permissions, approval of narrative etcetera, all really standard clauses.’

  ‘Can I take a minute?’ Mim gestures to the screen. She wants to read it, to try to understand, but Alexis is still talking and Ian has taken out another screen.

  ‘We’ll just ask you a few questions to build a better picture of the case.’

  ‘While you’re skimming through that.’

  Mim glances up, back down. ‘Sure,’ she says.

  ‘Has Ben got any family, friends, acquaintances he might be with in the region?’

  She looks up. ‘In Indo? No, I don’t… no.’

  ‘He’s a regular visitor to the area with work. He’s never led you to believe he visits anyone?’

  ‘No.’ Frustration flickers now. ‘I just said that. He works at the mine, he does his job, he comes home. He would tell me if he was visiting someone. He wouldn’t –’ she searches for the word to articulate it, ‘scare me like this.’

  They both smile at her. ‘Of course,’ Alexis says.

  ‘Why, where do you think…’ she trails off.

  Alexis and Ian exchange a glance designed for her to see.

  Ian takes a gentle tone. ‘Look, we don’t normally tell people classified information, but in your case, we see no reason not to, it’s just that –’

  ‘Sometimes –’

  ‘Rarely –’

  Alexis delivers the blow. ‘When we have cases of FIFO workers going AWOL, it’s often because of indiscretions.’

  Mim cannot read the words on the screen now, she just frowns in confusion.

  ‘Marital indiscretions. Often with local women.’ Ian lowers his voice despite the fact that there is no one else in the room. Mim would laugh if she wasn’t so floored by the suggestion.

  ‘You think he’s left me?’

  They both rush to shake their heads.

  ‘No, we don’t think that.’

  ‘At all.’

  ‘Not at all, in this case.’

  But she cannot concentrate now. They’ve planted a fucking seed and they’re watching to see if it’ll take.

  ‘So, just so we’re on the same page, you’ve not told anyone as yet?’

  ‘No,’ she says.

  Alexis performs a sad face. ‘Not even family?’

  ‘I don’t want to alarm them yet.’

  ‘Wise move.’ Ian is nodding. ‘You seem to be handling this all really well, Mrs Elliot. Can we call you Mim?’

  She nods. Checks the time. Wants them out.

  Ian goes on. ‘Know that we are one hundred per cent behind you. We have a range of support options for you, if you feel you need?’

  ‘Like?’ Mim asks, thinking a food delivery service wouldn’t go astray right now.

  ‘For instance,’ Alexis says slowly, ‘we can arrange care for the children during this stressful time.’

  A nanny, even better. ‘So you’d send someone out?’

  Alexis smiles. ‘It’s a residential service, actually. Temporary accommodation in one of our facilities.’

  ‘In a BestLife?’ Mim tries to keep her voice level. Wants to scream.

  ‘As I said, it’s one of a range of support measures you have available to you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, evenly, ‘I’ll let you know.’

  Ian gestures to a highlighted box on the screen in front of her and she signs her name with her index finger, skim reading as fast as she can through the dense wording. ‘And here,’ he says, flicking through the screens while Alexis continues to talk.

  ‘And the final thing is just that we ask you to remain at this address until we’ve resolved the matter.’

  Ian adds, with a smile, ‘Just so it’s easy for all of our teams to get in touch with you at short notice.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Part of that protocol is handing over your passport for the duration of the matter, really simple, no hassle, we just hang on to them, update yours and the children’s chips, and then put it all back to normal at the end, when it’s done.’

  Mim nods but doesn’t move. Brain moving slowly now.

  ‘So…’ he looks at her expectantly.

  ‘We’ll take those now, thanks, Mrs Elliot,’ Alexis says firmly.

  The passports are in a leather document wallet in the safe at the back of the study. She had laughed at Ben when he said he was getting one.

  ‘What do we need a safe for?’ she’d said.

  ‘Everyone has one.’

  ‘Bullshit!’

  ‘Well, I think it’s a good idea.’

  She had mocked him as he set i
t up. ‘What are you going to put in there, huh? Your gun, our piles of cash?’

  ‘Piss off,’ he’d said and laughed. She’d let him sort the little pile, hard copies of their wills, the passports, the marriage certificate, the deeds for the house. Hacking being what it was now, there was a move back to storing the originals.

  ‘At least all the important stuff is in one place,’ he’d said when he was done.

  She’d kissed him then. ‘You’re a fool, Benjamin Elliot,’ she’d said.

  He’d kissed her back, quick and hot, and they broke away laughing when Essie walked in and squealed.

  Now she doesn’t know where Ben is, and she is opening the safe he bought to keep things secure, and she is going to hand over her passport and those of her children, and in every single part of her this does not feel right, but what is there to do?

  Refuse? Run? Pretend she doesn’t know where the passports are?

  Like they said, it’s not as if she’s planning on using them.

  ‘Any problems, Mrs Elliot?’

  ‘No, all good,’ she calls back.

  She watches them leave with the passports, with her signature.

  You are a fool, she thinks.

  * * *

  After school, she sits on the bench at the edge of the soccer field and watches Essie drill the ball up and down with her squad. Sam does flips on the small playground with one of the other little brothers, but Mim has moved herself away from the other parents. She feels brittle. The small talk could snap her into pieces.

  She is unnerved by the Department visit. There is too much that doesn’t add up. A scratch in her mind, snippets of Ben’s voice, coming out into the kitchen late one night and seeing him there, in front of his screen, his head in his hands. That time, last month, he got ridiculously drunk, then angry, then maudlin, lamenting the weakness of his own dad, long gone.