Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  That night, having returned from the island, with all the activity of the last three days, Janie and the babies were exhausted and fell asleep together in a tangle on the large bed. Vic had been reluctant to use his own mobile too much, since he had talked to Buck, lest the police try and trace him through it. It did have a new number but still he was not sure he could not be traced.

  So he had eyed off the room phone and decided to chance it. Buck did not pick up, so he thought who else to try. Alan and Sandy were a bit risky and he did not want them to have knowledge they might have to deny.

  That left Anne or David, neither of whom he knew well, or perhaps Susan’s parents. He was not yet ready to talk to them though he had taken a picture of Janie and the children to send to them on his phone camera.

  He thought about waiting for another day, but chances were not easy to come by. In trying to understand this person he was with he really needed to know more about her and, after all, Anne was Susan’s best friend, had been so from school, so who better to fill him in on her early life, little snippets that he may be able to use to see if they triggered any memories.

  So he rang through and she picked up on the first ring. “Anne here,” a more businesslike manner than he was used to. However, after a minute of making polite conversation, he found himself comfortable talking to her. He explained. “I felt like I needed to touch base with one of her friends. She and the children are fine. They are asleep on the bed next to me as they are tired.

  “Now that we know it is her, I am trying to think of ways to help her remember. At the moment she has no memories of before being here in Queensland with her babies. But the amazing thing is that she has full knowledge of some things, like working computers. Today she was talking to a marine biologist about Barrier Reef fish as if she was as much an expert as he was. But she does not know where she was born or grew up; she does not know how to cook a meal except for eggs and sausages, or any of those other things which would come from her past memories. So I am trying to find out things that she might know about, as it will help us to have things to talk about and it may also lead to other memories which she can’t reach now.”

  In the end they talked for over half an hour and he got lots of the detail of Susan’s early life. He also promised to text her the picture with Janie and the babies so that Anne could pass it on to Susan’s parents.

  After that, as they travelled on Vic had used his new found knowledge to try and open up more of the past Susan’s knowledge and memories. He had found her knowledge of what she had studied at University was remarkably good, though she had no knowledge of the courses of study or the people she knew at University. Now they could talk about archaeology or medical technology, even though these fields were not Vic’s strong points. But, in this, Janie was a great teacher. She seemed to be able to retrieve vast stores of knowledge, building Vic’s interest in these unknown fields.

  He really liked seeing this side of his companion; in these things she was the master and he was the apprentice. It brought more balance into their relationship. It also seemed to satisfy a need in her to have more meaningful things to think about and discover. Now she would collect inexpensive books on these topics in second hand bookshops and devour them voraciously.

  But in all other things she stayed a child, and in most ways she seemed unaware of her childish state. She had no sense of what clothing suited her, she had no sense of how she should cut her hair or apply makeup, her food and cooking knowledge was rudimentary, her knowledge of normal children’s development was abysmal.

  One day she told him she could not see colors. The way she had identified and told him the names of the fish on the reef, describing their patterns and shapes, it had not occurred to him she could not see colors. It came out as she told him more about her singing in the church and how it let her see the color blue when the world around was only greys. And she told him how she now could see the brown color on the skin on his arms when he held her children, but only in that place and that time. She said that one day she hoped she would be able to see some other colors, but for now she was happy that she could see these two colors as they were so beautiful.

  The thing he most loved and marveled about in this new woman was her positivity. She had lost almost everything she had ever known. And yet, in the things that she did have, her children, him, and the two colors she saw she conveyed irrepressible joy. The eyes that looked at him, her blue eyes, gave him total attention and were for him alone. She looked at and played with her children the same way. They basked in this joy as he did.

  Chapter 11 - The Girl and the Woman

  In the months that had passed since Jane had come away with Vic, she did not understand what caused her to trust him so much that when he asked her to come, but she had said yes without hesitation.

  Her life before in Cape York had been simple and she was contented. But yet, when Vic came into her life, he brought his color to it, and David trusted him. So she trusted him too. Now she was overwhelming glad to be with him. But she was starting to sense that their life together was missing something.

  As she thought about the life she had now her principal emotion was one of profound happiness. The words that her mind held to describe emotions, based on past memories, were limited things. So she struggled to verbalise what she felt towards this nut brown man who shared her life. In books she read about a concept called love.

  She felt this “love” thing must be something more spiritual, akin to her emotions when listening to singing in church. Her feelings towards this man were earthy, she smiled as she thought of the smell of the sweat of his body when he worked in the hot sun, she liked how the muscles in his brown arms corded and stood out when he strained to move something heavy. Most of all she smiled inside when she thought of how he played with and held her children. They looked at him with simple adoration; he was good and kind, he always had time for them, he cared for them in a simple and uncomplicated way, the same as he cared for her.

  All in all it made her feel warm inside when she thought of him. She felt trust and affection and many more things besides, for most of her feelings she could find no words to fit, but the sum of all was simple happiness.

  And yet there was more, she had tiny glimpses of another life where she knew him too. These were like the tiniest reflections of light sliding through gaps in a fog which covered all the surfaces of her past. These flashes had slivers of anxiety attached to them, they did not spoil her happiness, but they were there and she knew them for what they were, warnings to leave well alone whatever had been before.

  Sometimes she thought she should ask him to tell her what he knew about her from before. Was she the girl in the photo that he had shown her when they first met, the one he was searching for on that first day? Or was she someone who looked like that girl and who had taken over her place in his life? These were little puzzles that her mind glimpsed. She trusted he would tell her when the time was right. Buried deep also was a fear to know what had come before; she did not want a shadow cast over her life now.

  And there was something else about him that she could not define; it was part of the happiness but different. It was something to do with him being a man. She had glimpsed his naked form, as he had hers, and it stirred other emotions which she did not understand. She had felt hardness at his middle, where his belly muscles joined his legs, and it stirred similar emotions to his naked form, but again she did not understand.

  Sometimes, when he slept in the night, his body touching hers, he had pressed this part of his body against the place where her legs joined her body. Then she had wanted this feeling to go on and become more, but she did not know what followed from here. So, after a minute of enjoying it, each time she had turned away, but felt regret in the undoing of this contact.

  And sometimes, when she could feel him wound up and tense, she had this vague sense of wanting to do something more with her body to relax and pleasure him, to help relieve his tension. But again she
did not know what.

  It was not a big thing; it did not spoil her happiness. But sometimes she wished she had a sister who she could ask what else she could do with her body to give this man more comfort and pleasure.

  She was also slightly uncomfortable about them living in the same house and sharing the same bed when they were not really married. The minister, at the church, where she went each Sunday, talked about living in sin. He did not say it directly to her as he thought she was married. But he would speak about it to the young grown up boys and girls who came to the church. She did not understood what this meant, but gathered it had to do with a man and woman living in the same house and sleeping in the same bed before they were married. She had seen weddings at their local church, and knew that she and Vic had not done this wedding thing; it was something she was sure she would have remembered.

  So, even though Vic told her to say to people they did not know that they were married, and she had agreed, it could not be true. She understood it was said to explain the children and stop the questions. Now, as she thought of those men and women she had seen going to the church to get married, she thought this would be a nice thing to do with Vic. But she did not know how one decided to do it, what arrangements were needed, whether it was something a woman asked a man to do, or the other way around, or whether it just happened when the time was right.

  Anyway now it was time to stop thinking about these complicated things. Her friend in a nearby caravan, Thea, had given her a cooking book, and she wanted to try the recipes from it. In her mind she knew, from when she first remembered, how to make toast and tea and cook eggs, sausages and other simple things like that. But she did not know how people made fancy food. Now that she had been given this recipe book she realized she could learn to do this; it was time to move beyond things out of tins and toast. It appeared that cooking nice food was a thing that a woman did, apart from minding her babies, when the man went to work.

  Vic was due home from work in about an hour; he was working some days as a labourer for a local builder a few miles away. So she wanted to have this recipe, a dish called Lasagne, ready waiting for him when he came home. The thought of his smile, and the praise that would come when she served it, made her feel warm inside. So she set to work, feeling upwelling excitement as she waited for him to come home.

  Tomorrow she would ask the Thea what other things she could do to please a man, apart from cook him nice food and stroke his hair as he lay beside her. She knew Vic really liked those two things but there must be something more. She needed someone to tell her what else there was and, as Thea was her best friend in this place, she would ask her.

  Just after she finished preparing the dinner and setting it in the oven Vic was home. She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him, wanting to convey her joy in his presence.

  He looked at her and grinned. “Well, I loved that, give me more, more!”

  At that moment David and Anne came running up and he picked one up in each arm. Both giggled with delight. Then he smelt the dinner cooking and looked at her inquiringly.

  “It is a dish called Lasagne. I got the recipe from the book Thea lent me. I hope you like it!”

  Dinner was a great success and the toddlers shared it too, smearing as much over themselves as went in their mouths. After this Vic helped her bath them. Then they all sat and played together for a while before they went for a walk along the beach in the fading light. After ten minutes they were each carrying a sleeping child. So they returned to their cabin and lay together on the bed, quiet for a moment.

  It came to Jane in a flash of clarity; they needed to move beyond this point to something closer. Maybe Vic could help her instead of asking Thea.

  She took his hand and touched it to her face, saying. “Vic, I need to begin to know who I am. I have tiny fragments of memories, but not enough to put together by myself. I also need to know so many other things, such as why you and I call ourselves married and are not, why the church tells me it is sinful for a man and woman to live together when they are not married, but yet we live together and it feels so right. I also need to know how a man and woman should behave when they are together alone.

  “There are so many things I should know but do not know. As I watch other people I start to see how many holes there are in my life, things I should know but do not. For instance, when I met you, I only knew how to cook toast, sausages and eggs. I have no memory of meals from before, what things I liked or how to make them.

  “The things I don’t know are the ordinary things of life. I know how to work a computer, how to do figures and ordering, nobody needed to show me that. But that stuff is just there in my head, I don’t have to think about it to know it. Whereas, when I try to think about the ordinary things, like what to wear or how to do my hair, I just do not know.

  “Where I lived before I met you I was lucky because Ruth was my friend and showed me many things. So when I did not know something I would just ask her. She never seemed to mind. So I thought it was normal not to know things and have to ask her to show me.

  “It is only since I have come with you that I have started to realize all the things that I don’t know but need to. At first, when we came away together, I was happy just to be with you. I did not think about knowing these things, it was like something that happened to another person I do not know. But, even if I cannot remember a life before, I know there was one. It must be full of things I did and people I knew. And I think you know some parts of it.

  “So, even though thinking about these things scares me somewhere deep down inside, I think I must begin to know who I was, in part to know how to behave better towards you. I feel there are things I need to do for you to make you happier and I do not know what they are.

  “Tomorrow I was going to ask Thea to tell me about the things a woman should know and do to please a man. I would do them for you if I knew, and I think they would please you like the dinner did. That is why I must discover them by asking others.

  “But then I thought, You are my best friend; you are the one I trust the most. So, before I ask others, first I should ask you to tell me about who I have been, about how I should be with you. Please tell me these things?”

  Now Vic put a finger to her lips. “You are so perfect the way you are. I could not imagine how you could be better for me and make happier than being the way you are now. So I would rather be with you, the way you are, than be with anyone else I have ever known. If there were a thousand people in a room I would pick only you.

  “If it would make you happy to be married then, of course, I want to be married to you the way other people are. But it would make little difference to how our life is together, our taking joy in being with each other and being with your children.

  “What being married is about is making a promise to the person you marry that you will love them and care for them always, in any way you can. When I asked you to come away with me I was making that promise to you.

  “When you said you would come with me you trusted me to keep my promise, and so you were making your own promise as well.

  “Getting married in a church is just a way of making these promises while your friends, family and God are all looking on, so everyone knows they are true.

  “But, as to telling you what I know about you, you are right, there are things from the past that you need to know, simple things like about your mother, father, brother and old friends. There are also things that it may be better if you do not know, things that hurt you before and could hurt you again, the things that caused your memory to go away.

  “There is too much for me to tell you all I know at once, and there are many things you will want to know that I do not know and so cannot tell you, even if I wanted to.

  “As for how to please me, you please me so much already. The other things you want to know are things that only a woman can know. So perhaps those are things that Thea can tell you.

  “Right now, I want to hold you close, to feel
your breath on my cheek, to feel your body touching mine, to feel you inside the circle of my arms; that is the way it is meant to be between us.”

  As they lay together in a still place, Vic said. “Perhaps I should start by telling you about how I first met you, the girl in the picture.”

  She said, “Yes, tell me, but not tonight. Tonight I want to first tell you something. That is, I want to be married to you, that that is what I most and really want to do. Tonight I want you to show me and teach me how it is to really be married to you, to behave with each other in the same way other married people do.

  “It is, like you say, that if there was a room with thousands of other men in it, all rich and handsome and nice and I could take my pick, the only one I would choose is you. I cannot imagine wanting to be married to anyone else, but it is what I most want with you.

  “It seems to me that when people get married they make a promise to try and be the best they can for the other person. I want to make that promise to you, like the way you made it to me when we came away.

  “It feels right that I should do it in a church where I know God is listening. But that part can wait. For now I want to know what it feels like to be fully married you, not just where you have made a promise to me, and I have trusted you, but where I have made the same promise to you and given all I can of me to you. I know I can give more, but I don’t know what. So now I need you to tell me and show me.”

  “After that, when we have finished that part, then, I want to know about my family. I did not know I had a brother and I most want to know of him.”

  “But to begin with, before you tell me or show me other things, I want you to first tell me about you. I need to know about you to know best how to please you. So please tell me about you, you must have a family too. I want to know where they live, what are their names and the things you remember from when you are little. Perhaps we can go to the place where your family lives and get married there. Then I will start to feel like have a new family which is your family. Once I have discovered who you are from you telling me about you, I think I will start to know better how to please you, and once I know that I will be ready for you to begin telling me about myself.”