The Beautiful Mother

by Katherine Scholes

  ‘And so . . .’ Diana prompted, ‘they fell in love?’

  Essie nodded. ‘Dad had to return to Sydney. As soon as he could, he got a position at the Tasmanian university. It took three years but he and Mum waited for each other. They got married and lived in Hobart. That’s where I was born. They had to wait for me, too.’ Essie smiled wryly, aware that she was parroting Arthur. This was how he talked about that era of his life: how he’d had to wait for a job, a bride, and then a daughter. ‘Dad went away to fight in the war – he was conscripted. When he came back he picked up his research again. I think my parents were happy. Dad worked very long hours, though. Mum must have been lonely sometimes. Every school holidays she used to take me to her family’s place on the coast. For some reason Dad didn’t like it, but she still went . . .’

  ‘Typical man,’ Diana said. ‘He wanted her to stay at home and look after him. Make his meals and sleep in his bed.’ A cynical smile quirked her lips. ‘That should have been a warning to her – about whose interests were always going to come first. Of course, she was trapped by then.’ Diana waved her hand towards Essie, trailing a wisp of smoke. ‘She had you.’

  Essie flinched at her words, her hand tightening on the arm of her chair.

  ‘Children can wreck your life, you know,’ Diana continued. ‘They tip everything out of balance.’ There was a short pause. She sniffed, then wiped the back of her hand under her nose. ‘When I got pregnant I decided not to go on with it. I didn’t want to take the risk.’

  Diana’s tone was calm; her face was impassive. She might have been mentioning the weather. In the taut silence that ensued, Essie felt an impulse to look down at Mara, as if the baby lying in her lap was somehow linked with the one that had never been born.

  There was a creak of canvas as Julia got to her feet. Her expression was one of ill-concealed shock. Essie couldn’t guess whether she was more disturbed about what Diana had done, or the fact that she’d talked about it so freely. Both would be unimaginable to her.

  Julia gestured towards the Dining Tent. ‘I believe it’s time to move inside.’

  Ian stood up as well, scraping back his chair – clearly eager to follow his mother’s lead and bring an end to the conversation. He glanced across to the kitchen as though willing Kefa to appear. He leaned to picked up his glass.

  Diana followed his example. ‘Oh, good! I’m starving. Lunch seems years ago.’

  Ian and Julia led their guest away from the fireplace. Essie heard Diana begin to talk about some event from the day. She sounded calm and relaxed, as if what she’d said only seconds ago was already forgotten, along with the rest of the conversation. She really did seem to act like a child, Essie thought, ruled by passing emotions that were there in the moment, then gone.

  Essie held Mara against her shoulder while she gathered up a muslin baby wrap that was draped over the back of her chair. She was ready to move, but she sat motionless, staring ahead. Diana’s opinions about Essie’s parents were misguided – but they were still unnerving. Essie couldn’t stop thinking of how Lorna had transformed so completely from the happy, attractive person in the swimsuit. She’d lost her beauty, her liveliness; she’d become a shadow of a person. Nevertheless, her husband had remained true to her. Essie remembered Arthur quoting his marriage vows.

  ‘For richer, for poorer . . . In sickness and in health . . .’

  He always sounded so sad, and full of regret.

  Why didn’t he take her back home?

  The question came to Essie so clearly, bluntly, it could have been asked by Diana. The answer was obvious. It would have been crazy for Arthur Holland to return to Tasmania. He had tenure at Cambridge University. He needed to remain in England, close to the great archaeological sites of Europe and the Middle East. He could have sacrificed his career, only to find that Lorna remained ill. No one knew the true cause of her problems. Perhaps they were genetic: inevitable, regardless of her circumstances.

  More questions tumbled through Essie’s head. Did Lorna try to go home for a holiday? Did she threaten to leave England for good, on her own? Surely she wanted to return to a place where she’d once been happy and well? She must have longed to be reunited with her own mother, and her siblings, cousins, aunties . . .

  But, as Diana had pointed out, she was trapped. She couldn’t take Essie away from her father. Her only choice would have been to leave her little girl behind on the other side of the world.

  Essie stared into the dead fire. She’d been fifteen years old when her mother died. She’d already become used to living without her. It was a relief not to have to think about Fulbourn Hospital any more, or to feel guilty about the long gaps between visits. The aching emptiness that she experienced was not exactly grief – or if it was, Essie knew it was not about the mother she’d lost, but the one she’d wanted to have. The comforting remarks people made about death being a blessed release felt true. Looking back now, Essie realised how young she’d been. She was so sure of her views, so clear on what she believed about her mother, and herself. Now she wondered if she’d understood anything at all . . .

  Essie drew Mara closer to her chest, resting her cheek on the baby’s head. She thought of Lorna, buried in a Cambridge churchyard. In summer, English birds perched on her headstone, pecking at insects in the lichen; in winter she was covered with snow. Lorna was trapped forever in a foreign country, stranded inland, far from the sea. A cold finger of regret poked at Essie’s heart. She wished she believed – like most Africans did – in the living presence of ancestor spirits. Then she could reach out to her mother and acknowledge the sacrifices she’d made. It might even be possible to imagine that the events of the future could somehow touch the past. That Essie – here, and now – could connect with Lorna. Not the sad, broken woman she had become, but the young diver smiling into the sun. The two women would be like friends who had just met. At the same time, they would know that Lorna was going to be Essie’s mother. And that one day Essie, too, would hold a baby in her arms.

  THIRTEEN

  Essie picked her way between boulders and piled stones, following an imaginary line across the hillside. Tommy was close at her heels, his hooves scraping on rocks as he found his footing. The midday sun was hot and she’d forgotten her neck scarf, so she pulled the band from her ponytail, letting her hair fall loose around her shoulders. The small rucksack on her back bounced with each step she took. From the corner of her eye she could see the silver flash of the whistle that was tied onto one of the pockets. Ian had given it to her when she was preparing to begin the fieldwork; if she got lost, she would be able to attract attention. Not that she was alone out here. Simon was moving along a parallel trajectory not far away from her. He hadn’t been in the area before but seemed to have a natural ability to read the landscape and find his bearings.

  Simon was carrying Mara in her sling. He steadied her with one hand as he jumped from rock to rock. In his other hand he carried a bow and quiver – a precaution against predators. He’d taken to leaving his shirt behind in the Land Rover. Bare from the waist up, he looked more like a nomadic tribesman than a member of the Magadi research team.

  He often talked to Mara as he walked – telling her stories or naming the things they could see. He and Essie had agreed it was good for her to hear the Hadza language as much as possible. It would help her learn to talk herself, when the time came. But when Essie was near enough to hear the soft, intimate tone, and the constant clicking that was so foreign to her ear, she found the sound unsettling. She felt left out of the world they shared. Not only that, she was reminded that when Mara eventually said her own first words, and then her first sentences, Essie would not be there to hear them. She had to remind herself to focus on her work, and not to think of the future. Fieldwork required a calm and steady mind.

  Patience was vital to the task as well. They’d already spent more than two weeks out in the foothills, searching for the cave. It hadn’t taken long to locate the Meeting Place, following
instructions Kisani had given Simon. The erosion stack was easy to identify, even though the top had been broken off, leaving only a squat rectangle of stone. Essie and Simon had studied the nearby terrain carefully but found nothing of interest.

  Since then, they’d been investigating the surrounding slopes, checking for clues to a hidden gully or some other place where the entrance to a cave might be concealed. Progress was slow, with little open country where it was possible to stride freely along – the foothills were a place where the sedimentary geology of the korongos met the volcanic rock of the slopes. Essie kept a good eye on where she was placing her feet. It would be all too easy to trip over and risk dropping the baby or to tread on a snake that was basking in the sun, warming its blood.

  With each step she took, Essie was aware that this was the territory where Robbie had gone missing so many years ago. She half expected to see some sign of the lost boy: a fragment of cloth faded almost to nothing; a wisp of hair; a shoelace. She found a bottle top and the remains of a box of matches, which may have been left by one of the searchers. But that was all.

  Every day the pair took a new sector and followed the same routine. They walked, then rested, then had lunch, then rested again. They took turns to carry Mara in the sling. Though she was still only small, it was tiring for one person to carry her all day. Not only that, it was a good opportunity to prevent Mara becoming too dependent on Essie.

  There had been times when Essie had noticed a wary look in the baby’s eyes, or an anxious expression on her face. It often went with a soft cry. Her hands would grip whatever she could reach, and then cling on tightly. In those moments Essie wondered what was going through Mara’s mind. Was it possible that, at some deep level, she remembered everything that had happened to her? The loss of the mother who had carried her, whose voice she would have heard from inside the womb. Then the loss of Giga, who had breastfed her for the first portion of her life. Giga’s touch, smell, voice must have become familiar. What had Mara thought and felt when she found herself alone with Essie? Did she see that the face looking down at her was the wrong colour? That the voice, the smell, and the long, straight hair – the same tone as the odd skin – were all foreign, too?

  When the rains came Mara would be around six months old, assuming the seasons followed their normal schedule. By then, Essie would have looked after her for far longer than anyone else. Then she, too, would disappear from the baby’s life. If Mara spent time with Simon each day, she would at least learn to feel safe with more than one person. And being with a man would help her reconnect with her grandfather, and other Hadza men too. Simon had confirmed for Essie how in their traditional life everyone, male and female, helped care for children. Women spent more time with the little ones, since it was easy to include them in food-gathering trips and impractical for them to be taken on a hunt with the men. But overall, the young were raised by the whole community. Although there was always a special bond between parent and child, it was said that once toddlers were weaned it was nearly impossible for an observer to tell which of them had been born to which mother and father.

  Such a society was hard for Essie to truly imagine. It was all the more reason why this time when Mara could be close to Simon was so valuable. He was a model for who she would become. Being away from the bustle of the camp had other advantages for Mara as well. It offered an interlude of peace and calm before the upheaval that was to come.

  Meanwhile, Mara obviously enjoyed spending her days looking out at the passing scenery. She was more relaxed and contented riding in the sling than she was when propped up in the pram or even sitting on Essie’s knee. She woke and slept seamlessly as if comforted by the rhythm of footsteps. She’d been at Magadi just over six weeks now – though it felt like so much longer. She’d grown taller and put on weight. Essie didn’t need the nursery scales or the growth chart to tell her this: Mara’s arms and legs were rounder and she’d outgrown the smallest of her clothes. These last few days the baby had also begun to gnaw at her fists. According to Complete Babycare, this was the first sign of teething. At three-and-a-half months old, the timing was right. Baraka had provided a piece of biltong for her to chew on. He claimed the salt in the dried meat was beneficial, too, in the unrelenting heat of the dry season – counteracting what was lost in sweat.

  The instant Mara became restless, the person carrying her came to a halt. They quickly released her from the sling and held her in a seated position so she could urinate onto the ground. Simon had suggested they not bother with nappies out here in the bush, and instead follow the example of African mothers. There were occasional accidents but this didn’t matter much – the baby was naked, but for her string of bird-shell beads, so there were no clothes to be changed. If Essie’s shirt or the sling had to be washed, there were still some small pools – remnants of the rainy reason – to be found in the hills. Anything that got wet dried quickly in the hot sun. With no nappies to consider, Essie only had to concentrate on what Mara needed to drink – the bottles of formula, and the extra boiled water to maintain good hydration. It was so much easier than being back at the camp.

  For the first hours of each day spent on the mountainside, Essie found that her mind constantly wandered. As she stepped from stone to stone, arms out to help her balance, she’d catch herself thinking of Carl Bergmann, guessing at where he might be: down at the lakeside taking photographs, or back at the Mission house, perhaps, checking his camera equipment. She imagined him working on the Gari la maji – sun glinting off tools laid out on the ground, a sheen of sweat on his brow, his cheek marked with engine oil. She wondered if he was lonely, all on his own. He appeared self-sufficient, but he seemed to like company as well . . . Essie would also picture what was going on back at Magadi Camp. The place was now buzzing with activity. Flights were arriving every morning delivering more equipment, more staff, more supplies. Ian and Diana virtually ran from one task to another as they set their ambitious plans in motion. Excavations were already taking place at four new sites, with more projects about to begin. Team leaders and managers had been employed, but Ian still liked to keep a close eye on everything. Meanwhile, Diana had made it clear she wanted to actually take part in some practical fieldwork. To Essie’s surprise she seemed genuinely committed to the hard labour that this entailed. Each day she returned home with telltale marks of dust on her clothes from lying on the ground, picking at the earth with a trowel and toothbrush. Julia was busy, too, though her pace was slower. She was engaged in training new staff to meet the high standards that the Lawrences expected.

  As time passed, Essie felt increasingly dislocated from them all. When she returned home she felt left out. Enquiries about her day, or about Mara, were fleeting. It was understandable – the work was the focus, and Essie was not involved. She found herself constantly torn between different emotions. On the one hand, she was more determined than ever to find the new cave site; it would be the thing that would draw her back into the centre of activity again. At the same time, though, she wasn’t looking forward to having to juggle Mara’s needs with the demands of new research – the very idea made her feel anxious.

  All these thoughts and concerns, intercut with memories and imaginings, clamoured for space in Essie’s head as she walked the foothills. But as each day wore on, morning reaching towards noon, she found their pull became less insistent. It was as if the steady rhythm of her step drummed them out, just as it lulled Mara to sleep and then shook her gently awake.

  By the time the sun sank into midafternoon, Essie’s mind was settled and calm. Then her senses turned outwards to the world around her. She noticed how the sun bounced, iridescent, off the sheered facets of stone shards. How brown-and-yellow butterflies hovered in flocks, the myriad tiny wings beating like panicked hearts. She passed desert rose plants with their stumpy succulent trunks. At the ends of the leafless branches were clusters of five-petalled flowers. They made bright splashes of flamingo pink.

  These things that Essie could s
ee were only the beginning. The visual field was a mesh laid over what she could smell, hear and feel – the green scent of a crushed plant, the whining buzz of a cricket, the rub of the rucksack straps against her shoulders.

  Sometimes she had the sense that there was no boundary between herself and the world around her. The realisation was tinged with fear – as if she might actually dissolve and disappear. But mostly it filled her with a sense of peace and timelessness. She forgot why they were here, walking in the shadow of Ol Doinyo Lengai. The search for the cave drifted into the periphery of her attention, as if the goal of the mission were less important than the long journey towards it.

  At the end of each workday, it became part of Essie and Simon’s routine to call in at the Mission house. It offered a cool haven after the hours spent outside, and Carl was always pleased to see them. His own workday was shorter than it should have been. So far, he’d seen no sign of courting behaviour among the flamingos – for some reason they were delaying initiating the elaborate rituals. He had made plenty of successful visits to the breeding island in the Gari la maji and taken photographs of the birds gathered there. But the goal of Frank Marlow’s Flamingo Project was to document the sequence of breeding – from courting adults to fledgling chicks. And so far, Carl had been unable to make a start.

  ‘They’ll begin any day now,’ he kept saying. He sounded optimistic but Essie knew how frustrating it must be for him, being ready to work, but forced to wait.