The Beautiful Mother

by Scholes, Katherine

  ‘I went to see Julia, but she was asleep.’ He turned to face Essie. ‘It’s your fault, you know – that she’s upset.’

  Essie’s eyes widened with outrage as she took in his words. She’d put on her nightdress, but had been sitting up, waiting for the report on Julia. Now, her hands gripped her knees. Her lips were drawn tight.

  ‘This is about your family – your parents,’ she burst out. ‘Don’t try and blame me.’ Essie swallowed, shocked by her own reaction. But she couldn’t stop. It was as if all the words she’d bitten back – ever since she’d first arrived here – had mounted up inside her and were now erupting. ‘And it’s not just about Mirella, by the way. It’s Robbie. You both act as if he never existed. No one even mentions his name. Having Mara here brings up the past – I understand that. But Robbie disappeared a long time ago. It’s time to face up to what happened.’

  Ian’s hand froze, halfway through removing his shoe. ‘We have dealt with the death of my brother. Maybe not in the way others would. But it has worked for us.’

  Essie just looked at him. Anything she said would be a mistake, she was sure. But still, she couldn’t stop. ‘No, it hasn’t. Not for Julia, anyway. It’s all catching up with her. Can’t you see that?’

  Tiny muscles flinched around Ian’s clenched jaw. ‘We were fine. We were short of funds for a while – but aside from that, everything was good. Until you brought that baby here.’

  He pointed across at Mara, who was tucked up in her cot. The jab of his finger underlined his cold words. He made the word ‘baby’ sound like a curse. Essie followed his gaze. Mara’s face was lit from the side by a hurricane lantern hanging nearby. Essie took in the rounded contours of her cheeks, the curve of her forehead. She looked so innocent, trusting.

  Suddenly Essie was on her feet, sweeping her into her arms. Without another word she strode towards the door. She headed for the nursery, Rudie trailing after her. The moon had yet to rise and she was careful not to stumble in the dark. As she picked her away along the path, she listened for footsteps behind her. Surely Ian would realise he’d been unfair and come after her? But she heard nothing except the usual night noises, accompanied by the faint burble of a transistor radio, travelling all the way over from the Palace on the still night air.

  In the nursery she settled Mara in the bassinet. She placed a teddy, a rag doll and the grey plush elephant in there too – ranged around the baby’s head so that she’d see them watching over her when she woke in the morning. After rocking her back to sleep, Essie climbed into the guest bed. She lay awake, listening again. Maybe Ian would still come. If he did, she decided, she’d refuse to return to their tent; he could join her here, in this room that was a testament to Mara’s place in her life.

  An hour passed, maybe two. The double bed felt wide and empty. Essie pictured Mara not far away – the baby’s body a small island of warmth. Finally, she got up and moved her into the bed. Mara barely stirred as she was laid down, set a bit apart in case Essie rolled over.

  Reaching across, Essie gently stroked the little hand that rested in the space between them. With her thumb she drew small circles on the wrinkled palm, round and round and round. Eventually she lulled herself to sleep.

  FIFTEEN

  Essie opened her eyes, staring into the shadowy gloom. It was still night-time. She rolled automatically towards the side of the bed, ready to attend to Mara before Ian was woken. For a few seconds she was confused: in the meagre moonlight she could see only a patch of sisal matting where the fossil-crate cot should be. Then she remembered – she was not in her own bedroom. She turned to the other half of the mattress. Mara was lying there, a dark shape against the white sheets. She was deeply asleep, arms thrown up beside her head, snuffling a little as she breathed. Whatever had caused Essie to wake, it had not been her.

  A breeze blew in through the gauze window, stirring the mobile above the change table. Essie could just pick out the shapes of the moon and the cow. As she watched them turning slowly on their strings, the events of the evening came back to her. Suddenly she was wide-awake. The smouldering remains of the anger that had driven her to move in here last night flared up again. It didn’t take long, though – as she replayed the sequence of events – for outrage to ebb away into regret. She wished she’d just let Ian’s words flow past her. In the morning, she would have to repair the situation – apologise for overreacting. Ian would be polite, but deliberately cool. Essie would fall into her role of being talkative and bright, trying to fill the loaded quiet. She would be on tenterhooks from the moment she arrived at the Dining Tent until she got the chance to escape to the foothills.

  It was a pattern she knew well. She rarely challenged Ian on anything – she only even contemplated it when she was certain she had a good case, and then she rehearsed her speech beforehand, just to make sure. Yet anything she said that could be construed as criticism led inevitably to conflict – and she always ended up feeling that she was the one who’d been unreasonable, unfair, unfeeling . . . However serious the original issue had been, the distress of the argument seemed much worse.

  Essie tried to fall back to sleep. She worked on relaxing her body and banishing thoughts from her head. But as she lay still she noticed a strange whistling sound. It was elusive: when she focused on it, the noise blended with the foreground buzz of insects and the croaking of frogs over in the camp waterhole. She lifted her head, listening intently.

  The sound became louder. Then it was joined by something else – a rhythmic thrumming in the air. Throwing back the sheet, she parted the net and climbed out of bed. Quietly, so as not to disturb Mara, she unzipped the tent door. Rudie followed her outside, his snout raised to sniff the air.

  She looked up into the night sky. In the soft light of a half moon, thousands of flamingos were on the wing. They formed a wide ribbon, clustered together as if following a busy highway across the skies. Coming from the direction of the lake, they streamed over Magadi Gorge before wheeling away to the north. Though Essie had seen this mass migration happening before, it still seemed too extraordinary to be real.

  The birds flew low, almost hugging the horizon. The pattern of dark shapes was set against the slate-grey backdrop of a clear sky streaked with wispy cloud. The birds’ bodies formed straight lines from their heads to the ends of their feet. Wings flapped with a slow, steady beat. In the half dark the pink plumage had turned grey; the deeper reds were almost black.

  Aside from the strange sounds that must have woken Essie – whispering into her subconscious – the birds were unnervingly quiet. This was normal, she knew. Often, on the night the flamingos arrived at Magadi, no one in the camp happened to wake up and witness the event. The word would go around some time the following morning. Ndege wamekuja! The birds have come! It was the same story when they departed. As she strained her ears into the night Essie remembered that Carl had once told her about the soft whistling noises she could hear. He named them ‘night calls’. Passed from one bird to another, they were intended to keep the flocks together and share warnings of danger. Even knowing all this, though, Essie couldn’t shake the sense that the flamingos were stealing away from Magadi in secret. They hadn’t even waited, as they always did, to travel by the light of a full moon.

  Essie wondered if Carl was awake, watching the birds fly away. She could imagine the disappointment falling over him like a heavy fog. Whatever the reason for the mass exodus, it had one clear meaning for him: the Flamingo Project was now over, before it had even begun.

  As Essie stood there gazing up, a tiny shape drifted down towards her. She followed the path of a downy feather, turning in slow spirals. It landed not far from where she stood – a curl of pink, resting on the stony ground.

  The headlights were long fingers of yellow, feeling their way over the terrain. Essie leaned forward, watching the track. On the seat beside her, Mara lay in the carrycot staring up through the windscreen. She was wide-eyed and alert as if even at this young age she felt the t
aste of an unexpected adventure. Rudie was in the rear of the Land Rover, his head resting over the back of Essie’s seat. Sitting beside him was Tommy. He’d woken up as Essie was creeping past his enclosure. He’d made so much noise butting his head against the gate that she’d had to run back and get him. Now, as she drove, she looked across to the horizon. There was a hint of light there that did not belong to the moon. She had lost time being delayed by Tommy, as well as preparing bottles for Mara; sunrise was not far away.

  Soon, the residents of Magadi Camp would begin to stir. She pictured Diana in a silky nightgown, lying in the wide soft bed shrouded with lace-edged mosquito nets. She saw Julia in her narrow cot, lying straight and still, eyes closed against the memory of the previous evening. In the staff camp the Africans would be leaving their army stretchers, heading to the pools for a wash. Last of all, Essie thought of Ian – waking up alone in their bed. His first concern would be how he was going to explain that his wife had spent the night in the nursery; there were no secrets in the camp. He could use the excuse of an unsettled baby. However, it would not be long before someone let him know that Essie, Mara, the dog and the gazelle were all absent from the camp, and that one of the Land Rovers was gone. Then the note Essie had scrawled and left in the nursery would be handed to him.

  I’ve gone for a drive.

  The brief message was all Essie could think of as she’d hurried to leave. She knew it made no sense: nobody at Magadi went driving – wasting fuel – for fun. Ian would conclude that she was still angry and had decided to punish him by disappearing. He’d be surprised – and very annoyed. Her absence at breakfast would be impossible to explain casually away. And he already had Julia to deal with, plus a guest to think of as well.

  Essie steered into the space in front of the Mission house and brought the Land Rover to a halt. Then she sat still, her fingers grasping the ignition key. Tension brewed inside her. She could not imagine how she was going to explain, later on, why she had come here. It would mean admitting that her connection with the photographer had gone way beyond what had been asked of her. She’d have to confess that she and Carl Bergmann had become friends. She feared that when she did this, Ian would somehow be able to see inside her. He’d know about the swim in the waterhole. He’d know how, in Carl’s presence, Essie found herself observing all the small details of the man’s face, his body, the way he spoke. What Ian wouldn’t see, perhaps, was the way Carl helped Essie with Mara. How he shared her enjoyment of the baby. How his conversations, ranging beyond the topic of his work, caught her interest. Essie would honestly be able to say that this trip was the first time she’d deliberately visited Carl without being in the company of Simon – but that was not going to prevent Ian being shocked, jealous, angry.

  Essie pushed aside thoughts of Ian as she climbed out of the Land Rover. She paused to breathe in the marshy smell of the lake. Flamingos were still passing overhead but the flocks were smaller, forming a threadbare swathe of dusky pink. After picking up Mara, she held the rear door open for Tommy and Rudie to jump out. Then she headed for the path that led down the side of the house.

  Soon she was crunching her way over the gravel, treading carefully in the gloom. She turned her focus to what she was going to say to Carl. She hadn’t come here just to make sure he knew the birds were leaving – after all, he couldn’t do anything to stop them. She wanted to offer him comfort and support as he faced the bad news for his project. When she’d been back at the camp watching the birds fly overhead, it had seemed obvious – urgent – that she should head to the Mission house. But now she doubted herself. She and Carl had only met a short time ago, yet she’d rushed to his side like a lifelong friend.

  Glancing up at a window she saw a glimmer of lantern light – Carl must already have been woken by the birds. She walked on, rounding the rear corner of the building. Then she came to a halt. In front of her was the boxy shape of the jeep. Peering into the dimness she could see that its open back was loaded with gear. The vehicle had been packed hastily. Large and small containers were jumbled together, and loose objects just tossed in. A few clothes that looked as if they’d been grabbed from the washing line were lying on top. Essie turned towards the verandah. Light spilled from the open back door. The silver camera cases were visible, standing in a line in the hallway.

  Essie stared mutely as the meaning of the scene sank in. She’d realised that the birds’ disappearance meant Carl’s work here was now done. But she’d assumed he would spend some time packing, winding up the project. The Gari la maji was still down at the lake, after all, and hides were dotted around the shore. Carl was meant to have been here for at least another month or longer. Collapsed into a few moments, Essie revisited some of the times they’d shared. Then, she thought of all the things they still had plans to do. Simon was going to guide them to a place called the Shifting Sands that the Hadza hunters knew. The strange dunes that moved from place to place were formed from black sand containing magnetic particles. If you threw a handful into the air, the grains formed into clumps before falling to the ground . . .

  Carl walked outside. He was wearing his usual faded shorts and shirt, his feet bare. His dress didn’t convey a mood of relaxation now, though; it just matched the tired look on his face. He stood near the verandah steps looking up at the sky. His lips were parted, as if he still couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Essie approached him, scuffing the gravel with her boots to announce her presence.

  Carl turned to her, his eyes widening with surprise. Then he smiled. ‘Essie! You’re here!’ He took a step towards her.

  As Essie smiled back, she glanced up at the birds passing overhead. She knew she should be saying something about them flying away – but that was no longer in the forefront of her mind. Instead she gestured at the jeep, and then the boxes in the hallway. ‘You’re leaving.’ Her throat clamped on the words, tangling the sounds.

  ‘I have to follow the birds,’ Carl said. ‘They might still breed, somewhere else.’

  Essie nodded silently. Of course – it made sense. There could still be a chance to salvage the Flamingo Project. ‘You’re going now – straightaway?’

  ‘I’ve got to get over to Serengeti and use the radio. I’ll get better transmission there. I need to speak to people up north, across the border. When I know where the birds have settled, I’ll drive straight there. I won’t be coming back here first.’ Regret was evident in Carl’s voice, and in the way he stood with his hands hanging helplessly at his sides.

  A look travelled across the space between them. It seemed to thicken in the air like the dust of the Shifting Sands. Essie could barely breathe. In that instant she saw herself swinging her legs up into Carl’s jeep, settling back into the seat. She heard the roar of the engine, racing across the plains. She wasn’t thinking about Ian, or Julia, or the camp. She wasn’t even thinking about Mara, and the return of Nandamara. It was a vision freed from the constraints of reality. Anything was possible.

  Then she felt the familiar nudge of Tommy’s bony head against her knee. The interruption was enough to break the spell. Essie walked on, up the steps to the verandah.

  ‘Thank you for coming.’ Carl said. ‘I was going to stop at the camp and say goodbye.’ He looked almost shy for a second. ‘I was thinking of you, during the night. I wanted you to be awake too – and know what was going on . . .’ He smiled wryly at his own words. What difference could it make, whether Essie knew or not?

  But it did, Essie understood. It would have made him feel less alone.

  Carl gestured at the sky, which still held only a hint of the coming dawn. ‘There’s time for a cup of tea.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Essie said. ‘I’d love one.’

  The exchange was so ordinary that it released the tension. Carl put out his arms to take Mara. Essie watched him look fondly into the baby’s face, his head pulled back, chin tucked into his neck. ‘What about you, little one? Are you coming inside?’

  Essie followed him along the h
all. She saw more equipment ready to be loaded into the jeep. In the sitting room a jam jar of fresh flowers still stood on the windowsill. They’d wilt and fade there, she thought, with no one to see it happen.

  When they reached the kitchen, Essie took Mara back from Carl. As he fossicked in a box for a teapot and mugs, she looked around the room. There, in the corner, was the kerosene fridge where the baby’s bottles had sometimes been stored. Beside it was the gas camping stove where only a few days ago Carl had made Scottish griddle cakes, following a secret recipe from his grandmother. There were the two chairs, and the little table.

  ‘But what about all this stuff?’ she asked, as if domestic items might somehow be able to stand in the way of the departure.

  ‘The Marlow Trust can send someone to deal with it, and collect the Gari. I don’t have the time.’

  ‘What will Frank think?’ Essie asked. She’d almost forgotten about him being the financial backer of Carl’s work – over at the camp, Diana’s husband was never mentioned; her old life now seemed completely irrelevant.

  ‘He’s involved in some new venture in the Amazon. I doubt he’s lying awake worrying about my project.’ Carl was quiet for a moment. ‘I’m sorry it has to be so rushed – saying goodbye.’

  ‘I understand . . .’ Essie’s voice petered out. She knew Carl had no choice but to leave. But she wanted to shout a protest.

  You’re my friend. I need you.

  We need you . . .

  She took a breath, getting a grip on herself. She nodded in the direction of the lake. ‘What happened? Why did they just leave?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Carl replied. ‘There was one year I heard about when they came here and then flew off. The rains ended late and the level of the lake was too high. The island was flooded. They nested on the shoreline of another soda lake over in Kenya, just for that one season. But what’s just happened tonight is completely different. The birds were settled in here. You saw – the conditions were perfect.’