Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  Now, as she woke in the morning and as her new memories came back, she knew it was only a dream. Yet the sense of a great loss of something remained. It was a something she must find. But she knew she could only reach it through this dream and this dream caused her terror.

  Her children were now stirring. So she washed and fed them then dressed them for church. As she was getting ready to leave her house she heard a roar of something which was flying overhead. David rushed to the window, pointing, making a sound for some unintelligible word. She realised he was trying to say, helicopter, helicopter. She glimpsed it flying away.

  She felt sharp disappointment. She had invited the pilot, Vic, to church to hear her music and she thought he would come. He had not said he would come but his demeanour suggested it. Yet he was already taking off and leaving, so he would not be there. The colour in her mind faded back to grey.

  Chapter 6 - The Choir

  Vic went for an early morning walk in the dawn to still his impatience to see Jane again. He found his mind had given a new identity to this person, the name she wore. Perhaps she was Susan still, but his mind had begun to call her Jane. As he walked he found the surrounding bush with its screeching parrots and the thump of kangaroos, which hopped nervously away as he came into shooting range, helped soothe his jangling nerves. This was like how he felt at the outset of a new romance. He thought of this woman as a blank canvass waiting for the painting to be drawn.

  As he walked past the petrol station and shop on his way back to town he could see a light on in her cottage and hear little children noises. It gave him an inner glow of anticipation. He went back to his room and packed up his things and found some breakfast which he ate. As he had nothing more to do he decided to go to his helicopter and do the pre-flight checks. He worked his way through the list. As he did he noticed a small gathering of black bodies, first three then four and soon there were eight. They were watching him with bright eyes and questions.

  He found pleasure in their enthusiasm, like when he too was a child at stations around Alice Springs, remembering these magic machines come and go. With this came the memory of his first ever helicopter ride as a child of eight, around the age of this little gang. He remembered the way the world below had unfolded, as if seen through the eyes of a bird, a new picture seen from the helicopter that took him into the sky.

  He looked at his watch. He had full fuel, more than enough to get to Normanton where he would top up. He had half an hour free before it was time to go to the church. He would treat these kids to the same treat he had been given all those years ago.

  “Anyone want to go for a ride?”

  All nodded furiously. He separated them into three groups, two groups of three smaller children and one group of two larger ones. He told them they all had to stay together where he could see them, only those coming for a ride could come closer. He loaded the first three and started up, going skywards with a cloud of dust. Five minutes a trip gave him time to fly over the houses, sweep down along the creek for a mile before coming around over a small hill behind the yards and setting down again. He swapped the children and did it twice more. He checked his watch, realizing he would have to hurry to get to the other end of the town in time for church.

  He remembered there was a clear area just next to the church. It would be faster to fly there and it would also speed up his departure. As he came over he saw the figure of a woman with two small children walking along the road, coming towards him, a hundred yards away. He landed and walked to meet them. The greeting was a big smile from one big and two little faces.

  Jane looked at him seriously and said, “When I heard your helicopter take off before I thought you had decided not to wait, I am so glad you are still here.”

  He shook his head, “No, I just took a few of my local admirers for a joy flight. If you have time I hoped you might come for a quick one too before church begins.”

  Her face came alive as she nodded. He brought them over and showed them their seats, strapping David in tight with a belt in the middle while Jane held Annie on her lap. Then he looked across to her asking if she was set. Her face was tense but she gave him a mouthed, “Yes.”

  He pulled a straight up climb until they reached a couple hundred feet, the helicopter effortlessly soaring in the cool morning air. He looked across, she was wide eyed with enthusiasm, so like that day more than two years ago when he had soared skywards with Susan and Mark. Just for this instant he had an unshakeable belief that it really was her. He looked at them all questioningly and asked, “Ready?”

  “For what?” she asked.

  “For the thrill of your life,” he said.

  She nodded; eyes serious.

  With a flick of his hand he turned the helicopter sideways and plunged towards the ground, like a falcon diving. As the ground rushed towards them he dialled on the power, using all his mustering trick skill to zoom amongst the trees as if chasing a bull. As he raced forward, skimming the ground he pulled the stick up, using power and speed to pull hard into the sky. He felt the weight in his stomach. Then down amongst the trees again as he wove his way along the creek before breaking skyward to come back around over the town and land smoothly alongside the church.

  She was breathless and flushed. The children were clapping their hands. He worried he may have scared her. She turned him, eyes glisteningly bright and oh so blue. Her smile was radiant. “I think that was the most exciting thing in my life. Thank you so much.”

  Vic took a deep breath to calm his own breathlessness. “When you look at me and smile like that, I think that look in your eyes is far more exciting than a helicopter ride.”

  She blushed and looked away, uncertain.

  Then she looked at the watch on his wrist. “I must fly,” she said.” The choir needs to do a quick practise before the church service begins.”

  Vic walked to the church once had had finished his machine shutdown. The pastor’s wife was waiting for him, minding the two children. She brought him to sit next to her near the front of the church, introducing him as she went and making polite conversation. They sung an introductory hymn and the pastor talked and led some prayers. Then the choir came forward for its performance, Jane standing in the midst of aboriginal women, with men standing behind them.

  The first song sounded like a negro spiritual. He did not know it but it was lovely with blending voices, though he could not distinguish any in particular. Then came a song with a familiar sound, he realized it was one of Gurrumul’s songs, sometimes he listened to this lovely voice when feeling a bit low. He looked up, he realized it was not Gurrumul but Jane, singing as the other women hummed.

  “I was born blind, I don’t know why.

  God made me blind, because he loves me so.”

  As she sung he was transfixed by her loveliness. She was glowing, as if with a shimmering light, she was so beautiful. He wondered if she was an angel. She was singing about him and she was singing about her. He knew it was her, his own lost Susan, she had become lost and blind and without her he was lost too. But now it was OK. It did not matter if she knew or remembered him. In her blindness she had found peace and escape and that was enough, it was a complete goodness in its own strange way.

  He found her eyes, they had tears and his own eyes had tears too. He did not want the song to end. He just wanted to keep looking at her.

  The rest of the service passed in a blur. Then it was time to go and she was walking with him back to the helicopter, her hand resting lightly on his arm. She asked, “Will I see you again?”

  He said, “I hope so, I will make it so.”

  Then suddenly, he wanted to know, he needed to know. He took the photo of his Susan, taken from before, and showed it to her. He asked her if she knew this person.

  She looked at it intently and shook her head. It looks like me but it is not me. She had a different life spirit inside her to that which is inside me. I think that person has gone now and cannot come back. Are you looking for he
r?

  Vic nodded, mutely silent.

  She said, “I hope you can find her, but I don’t know if you can ever bring her back.”

  She paused, silent for a minute, as if searching for words of comfort, perhaps looking for something buried deep inside herself.

  She said, “I think she would want you to look for her, to try to find her, even if she does not know it and may not be able to return, so good luck.”

  Suddenly Vic was unsure. Half an hour ago he was sure he had found his Susan and would find a way to bring her back. Now he was unsure on two fronts, whether it was really her and, even if it was, whether he could ever reach her again and bring her back to him and the others who loved her.

  He said goodbye. She touched a finger to her lips then to his lips. It felt and tasted of an inexpressibly precious life essence.

  Then he took off and flew away, looking back at her as her form dwindled into a miniscule dot and finally vanished into the horizon.

  Chapter 7 - Revelation Dilemma

  As the tiny person on the horizon faded from view Vic’s thoughts returned to what to do about his discovery of this person, Jane. His gut reaction said she was Susan but his logical mind just did not know. And, even if it was her, he had a whole lot of conflicting things to resolve.

  He did not feel he had the right to drag her back into the awful situation she had been in before she vanished. She had fought so hard to hide the other side of Mark to protect her children and also to protect her own sanity which had started to come apart at the seams as it all unfolded. In one of their nights of loving she had told him she was but seconds away from ending it all when he had arrived in court.

  This thought had chilled him to the bone then, and it scared him even more now that he had seen her and her children again. He thought this new apparent demeanour of calm vacancy was not real. It was like that thin layer of ice which forms on frozen water in an Alice Springs winter dawn, but where one knock shatters it into fragments which never reform.

  It was not her fault that she had ended up in that impossible situation but the thought that it had almost driven her to take her own life and, but for an almost miraculous intervention she would have succeeded, was horrific to him. He did not think anyone else knew just how close it had come, she may have told Anne. But fate, or God, or something had intervened to keep her alive then. If it had intervened, yet again, to bring her to safety in this place he would allow nothing to threaten that.

  And yet her vanishing had torn a hole through the lives of a whole lot of other people, they all had a raw vein of grief running through them too. It was particularly her family and Anne, but others who knew her too were also in that place, particularly Alan and Sandy who had a great sense of guilt for their own role in bringing her to this. So they deserved some light to come from this, if light there was.

  His initial inclination, as her saw her face fade from view, was to just find a way to come back here to work, day after day, month after month. As he saw her time after time he would slowly befriend her and then he would win her confidence, maybe even win her heart anew.

  He needed so much to have her back in his life and the thought of trying to woo her and win her, when she knew him not, was hugely appealing. He felt he had been given a chance to start all over again with her, as if they were each discovering the other for the first time. In this vision she was for him alone to know and find.

  But now, as these thoughts rolled around, he realized that it was too unfair to deny others the knowledge he held if it could ease their own pain. Still, balanced against that, and even more important, was the imperative of protecting her from the hostile outside world which had almost destroyed her once before. Even if that meant he could see her no more, he would choose that so as not let something bad like that happen again. In the end he just did not know what to do.

  As these thoughts kept circling around and around inside his head he realized he was approaching Normanton where he had to fuel up for his next leg. He decided to would ring Buck and seek his wise counsel; he was the best friend he had left. He should be at home today at lunch time, it was Sunday after all. So, once he had fuelled up, he pulled out his mobile phone. It had reception at the airport.

  Julie, Buck’s wife, picked up on the third ring. He heard her holler for Buck to come to the phone after exchanging a few pleasantries. At first Buck was his usual blunt self, “Why are you ringing me on a Sunday at lunch, just when I have gone for a siesta, barely shut my eyes, can’t it wait till you see me next week?”

  Vic gave him back, “Now you are turning into a pussy, a big fat pussycat who needs a midday sleep in the sun. Some boss you!”

  Then it all came bubbling out in a rush. “Buck, I think I have found her, Susan, up at a blackfella place on Cape York. It looks like her, it sounds like her, but she does not know who I am and I feel like I am just imagining it. But it fits; she had two kids the right age, named David and Anne. She has taken the name Jane Bennet. I could have sworn it was her until I saw the blank look in her eyes and now I really don’t know.”

  Buck said, “Whoa there, slow down, too much information all at once. Start again from the beginning.”

  So slowly and carefully he told the full story and this time all Buck could say was “Jesus, Well I be fucked.”

  Then Buck’s rational brain took over. “Where are you and what are your movements? I think you and I need to get to Darwin pronto and talk to Alan and Sandy. I know they won’t spill the beans and we’ll all need our thinking caps on for this one.”

  Vic filled him in on the rest of the details. Buck told him to stand by in Normanton while he sorted out arrangements. Soon Buck had it organized, cover for Vic’s job tomorrow at Anthony’s Lagoon Station. As he organized this he had Julie on the computer looking up a flight for Vic from Cairns to Darwin. On a second phone Buck confirmed it all with Alan, he and Sandy were available tonight.

  Vic could hear Buck talking on the other line, Buck did not tell Alan the content that Vic had relayed, just that something of critical importance about Susan had come up and they all needed to talk tonight.

  Soon Vic was on his way for a five hour flight helicopter flight back to Cairns, from where he was booked on a late flight to Darwin this evening. Buck and Julie would take the station plane to Darwin this afternoon. Vic’s flight arrived about 9 pm and they would all meet soon after at Alan’s flat.

  It was after 9:30 that night when Vic arrived and the others were seated out on the verandah around a big table. He was surprised to see three extra people and felt apprehensive at seeing them, Susan’s mother, father and Anne. Alan broached it directly with Vic.

  “Mate, I am sorry to put you on the spot like this, but these others are flying out in the morning, returning to the UK after meetings over the last week with the police and coroner. We promised each other to immediately share any leads we get, no matter how small or inconsequential. Plus we all have exactly the same interest, to find Susan and help her anyway we can.

  “Buck has been tight lipped about what you know but I can read between the lines and I know it has to be significant. You would not have flown half way across the country and them up from VRD at the drop of a hat, not unless it was really important.

  “I don’t want to have to relay what you say, so it just seemed the best solution was for you to tell your story to us all at once. We have already agreed in advance that nothing you say will leave this room and none of us will take any action on it without your agreement.”

  Vic felt pressured; he really just wanted a frank one on one chat with Alan and Buck, to toss around what it all meant and what should be done. But he took on board what Alan had said; they all had the same right to know, he could not bear the idea that someone else would have held back from him news this significant.

  So he nodded and took a deep breath. Buck and Julie were nodding too.

  “I think I saw Susan yesterday and again this morning. But she did not show any sign of kn
owing me and I really am not sure about it,” he begun.

  Vic saw the shocked and dazed looks on people’s faces, struggling to take in this naked fact and make sense of it.

  Buck put his hand on Vic’s shoulder. “Mate, you should just start at very beginning and tell it as you saw it, not what you think now.”

  Vic nodded and the others nodded. So he began again. He told the story of his week, deciding to leave out the exact location. He told of mustering in Queensland, then about the booking to muster the aboriginal station. He told them about him standing by the yards, thinking he might head away, but how he enjoyed chatting to the local kids; then how they called out, “Miss Bennet, come and see the cattle.”

  He told how he looked around to see who this Miss Bennet was and how his heart almost stopped when he looked up and saw someone who looked just like Susan walking towards him. This person was holding a toddler with each hand, a boy and girl who walked at each side of her.

  He told of the excruciating moment when he searched her eyes for a sign of recognition and found none. Then he told of the barbeque and the singing in the church, and finally how he showed her the photo and she said it looked like her but it was someone else who was no longer there. He told them how he asked others about her and found out she had first come there around the time Susan vanished and that her children were the right age, sex and names, that her name was Jane Bennet fitting the Mark identity.

  He finished by saying. ”My mind says it is Susan, my heart so wants it to be Susan, and yet I really don’t know.

  “When I asked Rick, the station manager, about her he said she seemed like someone who was nobody, a person you could look through and see no one there, a person without a soul. I don’t think that is right, but if it is her, she is not the person she used to be. I don’t think she remembers anything from when we knew her before. The minister’s wife, who is her friend, said that once Jane asked her how old own children were when they first walked. She said she would have asked her mother how old she was when she first walked but did not know where her mother was.