The Missing One (32 page)

‘Like what?'

‘OK. Well, when my mother came up here to do the whale-mapping project, where did she live?'

‘Oh. They lived on their boats, mainly. But then she bought the floathouse and … ' she stops. A blotchy redness spreads up her neck.

‘The what?' I almost shout it.

She clamps her mouth shut.

‘A floathouse? You said she bought a floathouse? What's a floathouse?'

I want to leap across the table and shake her.

‘Oh. Well. Your mother,' she shrugs and takes another swig, ‘lived for a while in a floathouse, much further north.' She tips the wine into her mouth, again, gulping it down.

‘Where?'

‘Oh, it's just a little chunk of land in the middle of
nowhere. Nothing there. Tiny, tiny community, like, maybe five other houses on the whole island. But orcas, year-round orcas, that's why she went.'

‘But I don't even know what a floathouse is!' My voice is almost a wail.

‘Well. It's a kind of houseboat: a house that's built on a floating platform of cedar logs. You can drag it to whatever location you want. The loggers used to live that way, nomadic, moving whole communities – schools, stores, houses – from job to job.' She waves her glass and then drains it. ‘Not that Elena was a nomad. She only wanted that place because of the orcas. She always said the island chose her, not the other way around.'

I lean over and pick up the wine bottle. It clinks against the rim of her glass as I pour her a generous amount. I notice that her hand is trembling as she pushes back her hair. She obviously minds that she has let slip about the floathouse, despite the bravado.

I try to wrestle the pieces of information into a shape: my mother dropped her PhD, shot up here to join some conservationists, lived on boats, photographed and recorded endangered whales. Then she bought a piece of land and a floating house – she must have felt that she belonged here. You don't buy land if you aren't planning to settle. Did she think she would live here for ever? If so, what about my father and his scholarship?

‘But wait – did my father come and live in this floathouse too?'

Her eyes go round and, startled, and she touches the
side of her head with her fingertips, then she breathes out through her nose. ‘Gray? Of course not. I told you – Gray was back in California at the university, he had his scholarship to finish up. And really, Kali, can you imagine Gray up here?' She gives an edgy, metallic laugh.

She's right. I can't imagine my father up here. But I can imagine my mother out there on that wild sea.

‘OK. Did something happen between my parents?'

‘What? Elena and Graham?'

‘Yes! My parents. Did they break up?'

‘OK.' She sighs. ‘Sure. They did break up, yes.'

‘For how long?'

‘Shit, Kali, I really can't remember – and honestly, this is ancient private stuff between them.' She leans back and holds up her hands. ‘Ask Gray.'

‘OK, yes, you're right. I'm going to – as soon as I get home. But just – just tell me this one thing. Where was the floathouse?'

‘Oh.' She waves a hand. ‘It's way further out … way up … '

She's using the present tense. ‘Susannah – are you telling me that my mother's house is still up there?'

She shoves back her chair and rises to her feet. She is a little unsteady and her hip knocks the table.

‘Is it still there, Susannah?'

‘Just forget it.' She looks down at me, then suddenly raises her voice, making me jump: ‘Just drop it!' She turns away and walks, slightly waveringly, towards the sink.

She has finished the bottle of wine. I don't move. I'm not
going to let a bit of drunken shouting stop me now. ‘The floathouse is still up there, isn't it, Susannah?'

The dogs scrabble off the floor and mill by her legs. Her back is to me and her shoulders are tight and broad. She drains her wine glass and rests both hands on the counter, swaying gently. I stare at her obstinate torso. Who is this person to decide what I should and shouldn't know about my own mother? Who is she to keep something like this from me?

‘Susannah.' I get up slowly. ‘Please don't walk away from me.'

She turns. Her cheekbones look more sunken, her eye sockets deeper. A snake-like vein bulges down the centre of her forehead. ‘Shit, Kali, you really need to let this go! This is ancient history. You have
no fucking idea
why you are here! In fact, you have no idea what's happening here at all. So, Kali my dear, I suggest you drop it.'

‘Everyone calls me Kal,' I say, through gritted teeth. ‘Not Kali. I told you that before. No one ever calls me Kali. I hate it. Only my mother ever called me that – usually when she was angry.'

‘Seriously? But Kali means—'

‘Yes, I know what it means: the Hindu goddess of death and destruction,' I say. ‘That's why I'm only – ever – Kal.'

‘Oh no, no, no?' She throws her chin up. ‘Seriously?' Then she looks at the ceiling, as if addressing my mother in the heavens. ‘You didn't even talk to her about your name? You didn't?' She gives a throaty laugh.

‘What do you mean?' I fight the urge to look up too. I grip
the chair back with both hands. I imagine picking it up and hurling it across the kitchen at her, the wood splintering against her muscular body.

‘Kali is the mother goddess – she's
Shakti
 – ultimate female power. She's the goddess of time and change. She's fierce – admittedly – some myths have her dancing on the corpses of demons she's slain, not realizing that her husband's body is among them. Huh? But she finds the infant Shiva on the battlefield, too, she stops slaying people and picks him up to protect him. She nurses him right there in battle, covered in blood. So no – Kali's not death – she's mother-power. She's protection, nurture, defiance. Your mother and I talked about this a lot.' She suddenly lowers her voice. ‘I was getting very into Hinduism at the time. We wanted a strong, fearless, warrior name. Ultimate female power – I mean, who wouldn't love a name like that?'

‘
You
loved my name? Are you telling me
you
named me?'

She touches a dog with her bare foot. ‘Yeah, I guess I did in a way.'

‘OK. This is actually getting quite weird.'

‘I guess I was more into Hinduism than Elena.' She waves a hand and laughs. ‘Look, it was California in the seventies. Everyone was a fucking Hindu. Everyone was everything! It was all about Eastern spirituality and mysticism. I went Sufi dancing at Big Sur, I chanted at Esalen, I studied the Bhagavad Gita – and the Koran – and the fucking I Ching, Kali.'

I stare at her. My mother never told me any of this. When I asked about my name, she just said she liked the sounds.

‘You do know I'm your godmother, don't you?' she says.

That's it. Now she really has gone too far. ‘No, you're really not.' I turn and walk away from her, back to the table. I stand behind it.

‘No, seriously, I am.' She saunters after me. ‘Though I guess I've been stripped of that title, huh?'

If she were my godmother, surely my parents would have thought to mention it.

Susannah leans a hand on the tabletop and stares at me, unblinking. ‘Elena didn't want you to be a scared person. We both liked the power of Kali. We wanted you to be fearless.'

‘Well, it didn't bloody work! I do not have ultimate female power and I am not fearless. Far from it. I was actually quite scared of
her
.' I realize this is sort of true. I was always a little bit afraid of my mother.

A laugh curdles from the back of her throat. ‘You were afraid of Elena?'

‘No. Yes. No! Sometimes. On some level. But I think maybe she was scared of me too. God, I really don't want to talk about this with you. Why am I talking about this with
you
?'

‘Well, I guess it was always going to be complicated.'

‘What? Why? Why should it have been complicated?'

‘Oh, never mind. Shit. It's late. I guess I've had a little too much to drink, huh?'

‘Why won't you tell me anything?'

‘OK. Now, listen, Kali.' She shoves her hair out of her face. ‘We've both suffered a terrible loss. We need to care for ourselves right now. We need to nurture ourselves, and heal.'

‘Kal!' I snap. ‘And what have you got to heal? You hadn't seen her in years!'

We stare at each other across the table. Then she takes a long breath. She blinks, slowly. ‘Wow,' she says. ‘Holy crap. Losing people is tiring.'

‘You lost my mother decades ago, Susannah.'

‘You know what? Neither of us has lost her, Kali. Because she isn't really gone, is she?' She leans both hands on the table. Her bone eyes are fixed on mine. She takes a long breath in through her nose, as if summoning my mother's spirit. ‘Don't you feel her with us? You must. You must surely sense her. She's right here, Kali. Right now. She's with us right now. Can't you feel her? Can't you? I know you can; she's here. She's in this room with us, right now.'

‘For Christ's sake, Susannah! You have to stop this! Stop this right now! My mother is bloody dead. I watched her die.'

‘Oh, you need to go to bed.' She waves a hand as if to dismiss me. ‘I guess we both do.'

‘What I need,' I grit my teeth, ‘is to know who my mother was.'

‘Actually, you really don't.' She straightens, hands on hips. She suddenly seems very tall and broad.

‘Yes, I do.'

‘You know what, Kali? The thing that really gets me right now is that this actually isn't about your mother at all. This isn't about you chasing down Elle's secrets. This is about you distracting yourself from the humiliation of a straying husband. Look at you!' The sinews in her neck stick out like wire and she seems to raise herself up and inflate, like a cobra. ‘You come here like a spoiled little girl with your questions – demanding answers, answers, answers. Instead of
caring for that baby boy you ignore him – you neglect him – and you sit there and fuck with my head. Shit!' She slaps one hand on the table and I jump. ‘I was wrong about you, you know? You are so much like her it hurts. It's agony to be in the same space as you. You're completely fucking single-minded – driven by intuition and impulse. You force me to dredge up all these things – things you can't even imagine; painful, awful memories – and you don't even understand why you're here. You don't have a fucking clue! This is not about you at all. So stop asking all these questions!'

‘Who are you to tell me what I'm here for?'

‘This is my house you're in right now, Kali, and believe me, I know why she sent you and it wasn't for this shit.'

‘What? Who sent me?' I stare at her. ‘What are you talking about? Nobody sent me here.'

She looks at me, unblinking.

‘Jesus Christ, Susannah. You know nothing about me!'

‘Oh Kali.' She shakes her head. Her voice is suddenly flat and hard. ‘I know
everything
about you.'

She spins away from me and stares out the French windows, at the cold blackness and the rain falling and falling onto the deck.

Our eyes meet in the glass, and for that second I see the demons lurking inside her. I don't know what psychodrama I've stumbled into here, but I need to get out of it. I need to leave.

I turn and I walk out of the kitchen, through the living room, not looking at that fat red orb, not looking at the dogs – though I know their amber eyes will be fixed on me. I
half expect her to thunder after me, hair flying, dogs baying by her side, but she doesn't.

Back in the room I shut the door. There is no lock.

I kneel by the bed where Finn is sleeping. Adrenalin is pumping through my body, making me hot and trembly. I try to slow my breathing down.

Finn is on his back, hands thrown up, surrendered, head to one side, lips slightly open. He is so beautiful and perfect, and so very little. He always seems to shrink when he's asleep, as if he is reverting to his baby state. I put a hand, very gently, on his stomach and feel it rise and fall beneath my palm, warm and tight under the soft quilt of his sleeping bag.

Susannah may be positively deranged, but there is also some truth in her accusations. She's right that this isn't just about my mother – I am running away and I'm scared. She's also right that I have not been the best mother lately. I didn't wedge the bedroom door open properly, I let him break that frame and cut himself, and I lost it over peas and a boiled egg. What she doesn't seem to understand is that there is nothing more important to me than Finn. But why do I care what she thinks of me? Tomorrow, we'll be gone. And we are certainly never coming back.

I stroke his head with my fingertips. Maybe this trip is unfair on him. The lack of routine and the strangeness can't be easy for him. But then I think about his utter delight at the squirrel today. And again, outside, this afternoon, stomping through puddles in his red wellies, grabbing things, poking sticks into mud, bashing rocks and laughing at his
own breath in the cold air. Finn is fine. There's more to life than routines. I'm not going to let Susannah undermine me. My child is perfectly happy.

And this is not just a distraction. This is real and important.

As I watch Finn sleep I realize that this is not over. My mother is where everything begins. She is what makes me who I am, the mother that I am. Like an orca matriarch, she is influencing absolutely everything. If I never know what happened to her up here then I will never be able to make sense of myself, and I will always be afraid – and running.

Susannah may think I am weak and distracted, but she's wrong. There is something in my mother's past that she knows. I can feel it, lurking like a burglar in the shadows. I will stay tomorrow because I have to get it out of her. We can get the last ferry of the day – I need to know what secret Susannah is protecting.