Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  As Susan said goodbye she felt amazed at how far their lives had moved on it the last six months. For her their past life in Australia now seemed like a barely remembered shadow. She did not miss it. She was less sure if Vic felt that way. She wondered if she was a selfish burden on him, trapping him in this place with her family and offering little in return for what he had left behind. Still, at least he was flying helicopters again.

  Over the month that followed Susan made herself know the full story of that missing year. She listened to the tapes of her own voice telling it which Anne had sent her, she watched the documentaries of the Lost Girls Series and she listened to it as well hearing the same stories from Vic, making him recount all he had seen and done. But it was only knowledge not memory. It seemed like it had happened to another person, someone unrelated to who she was now. No new memories of then broke through whatever block had sealed her mind.

  A week before Christmas she got another letter from Anne. It was a wedding invitation, this time for her to take the bridesmaid role. It was to be after Easter in Reading, four months from now, when the spring days were growing long and all the flowers were out.

  David and his family would cross the world for the wedding. Susan found herself thrilled with the idea of this occasion, she would chatter to Vic about it, asking for his advice about the various arrangements that she had offered to help Anne, with. Vic was of little help, saying to ask her mother, that his part in his own wedding of turning up and being dressed, was the limit of what he could manage. Susan did not push it, liking this new challenge.

  Three more wedding invitations turned up at the end of that week; three weddings in one, for the end of May. All were to be held in Darwin on the same day. They were for Alan and Sandy, Cathy and Jacob, and for Ross to a person named Beck. Vic knew of Beck’s role in arranging Susan’s pardon.

  Neither Vic nor Susan had met Beck but both liked Ross Sangster. His opinion, after all, allowed Susan to go free. So, while he was little more than a face to them, they thought well of him. Now he was a friend of others they knew, they figured that soon he and Beck would be their good friends too. It seemed strange to have decided to have three weddings all on the one day in Darwin, but it would make it easier for them to attend them all.

  So they booked their flights to return to Australia from the middle of May to the middle of June, flying from London to Darwin for the weddings, then a week in Alice Springs with Vic’s family, then a week in Sydney with David, Anne and Susan’s cousins and then a final week of holiday time in Cairns before they returned to Scotland.

  They had never discussed a future beyond this place. It seemed Scotland had become their new home, Vic’s flying career had risen with the publicity and the money was good. Susan’s life was full with her children, the book translation pages arriving from the Kashmiri book and helping around the farm. So, for now, they both accepted they would return here.

  They were even making plans to have another baby around the end of the year, God willing. A gap of a year seemed right. Of course it was up to Susan to fall pregnant, but that happened with ease before, no reason to believe it would be different this time. So Susan would stop breastfeeding in March in the hope of a New Year baby. With luck it would be a little sister for Annie which she knew Vic would love.

  It was a white Christmas that year, all the hills around covered with snow. Susan’s parents, along with other cousins, came up and it was a day of great excitement, particularly for David and Anne for whom it was their first remembered Christmas. They were spoilt rotten with so many presents from so many relatives. In the afternoon the men found toboggans in the shed and took turns racing each other down snowy hillsides, with children on board.

  In the New Year life settled back into a quiet routine, periods of three or four days when Vic was gone and two day home periods when they spent most time together.

  They read part of the diary each night and discussed what it meant. They were half way through, but had read the later bits about Susan early on, as part of her knowing her past. It felt like embarking on a joint voyage of discovery, reading a two page part each night and discussing what it meant before sleep.

  They were reading about J or Josie as Vic thought her to be. She had just arrived in Katherine and Mark had taken her in, describing his feelings for her like those for a little kid sister, but it was clear she was looking for more than that from him. By the end of this night of reading, Josie had found her way into his bed. They both felt secretly pleased for this comfort Josie had given Mark, his life had been very dark and empty since Belle was gone.

  They drifted into a dreamy sleep as they put the book aside, bodies not quite touching but with connections between hands and feet.

  Vic awoke to hear Susan call out. At first he thought something had happened, perhaps to one of the children and that she was summonsing him to wake. But he saw she was sleeping still. He watched her for a moment. Her face was reflected in the soft light behind little Vic’s crib that allowed them to find their baby in the dark.

  Suddenly Susan sat bolt upright in the bed, waving her arms, saying “Please, please, don’t let it end like this. I will stay with you on any terms. We can make a new life together in a place where we know nobody. I love you. I will never tell what you have done.”

  She held out her arms imploringly, desperation in her face, pleading. Then it seemed as if she had been struck an invisible blow, she recoiled and, as if rejected turned her face away, softly crying, lying on her side.

  Vic wanted to put his arms around her to comfort her. But he knew in this dream she was sharing life with another man, living out a private agony of that ending. He did not feel entitled to share that. He had heard the story before, told with her voice on the tape, the story of her final night with Mark, how she implored him to stay, yet he had turned his face away.

  In the morning, when she awoke, he asked her if she remembered any dreams of the night before. She shook her head, puzzled, and said. “No, maybe I dreamt of colors and sunshine.”

  The next night he awoke to her dreams again. This time he found her pacing the room, as if in a trance, talking to a person he could not see.

  Vic said her name, “Susan.”

  She did not seem to hear him, continuing with her conversation. Then she put up her arms and started to move and sway in a rhythmic pattern. He realized she must be dancing, moving in time with a hidden body. It felt both private and weird. As it went on he was consumed by jealousy. Eventually she came and sat on the bed, dance and conversation over. He eased her under the covers, tucked them around her and she settled back to apparent sleep.

  Again, next day, she said she remembered nothing.

  The next night he was gone, so before he left he asked her aunt to check on Susan in the middle of the night, lest she sleepwalk, saying he had found her sleepwalking the night before but she remembered nothing of it.

  When he rang and asked about Susan the next day her aunt said she had been sleeping soundly when she checked. But that morning Susan had told her of having a dream full of colors, she could not remember what happened; the colors were all she could remember.

  When Vic returned after his three days of flying Susan had a tired and drawn look to her face. Her aunt said she had been irritable for the last two days which was very unlike her, normally so calm and sweet.

  The next day he brought her walking into the hills with him. It was late afternoon, the sky alive with streamers of cloud in the flat slanting winter light. He was entranced by the beauty of these streamers of gold and other fiery colors. He held Susan in front of him, arms wrapped around her, body pressed to his. He asked whether she saw it too, the glowing light and color.

  She showed no interest, saying it looked like nothing much, just a dull grey color as the light was fading.

  That night he kept his arms around her all through the night, determined to hold her and thus keep her for himself; to let no other invade her dreams. It felt as if this p
erson of her dreams was stealing her soul from him.

  She woke up in the morning with a sad wistful look, saying. “Vic, your skin used to be brown, now it has gone a dull and dirty grey, I can’t see your color anymore.”

  She went to pick her baby up from the cot. She came back with empty hands, tears streaming down her face. “Something has happened to my eyes, now I can’t see the color of my baby’s skin anymore, he is a dull and dreary grey, the same color as you.”

  “Everything looks the same color now; that is no color, all the light has gone. It is only when I dream that the light and color returns to my world.”

  Vic thought of taking her to the doctor, but it did not seem a problem that a doctor could fix, he knew it was in her mind not her eyes.

  He took her in his arms and brought her back to bed, seeking to comfort her. He made love to her with all the tenderness he could find.

  He remembered how, once, he had wanted a woman with a fire that raged at the world, someone who could see the shadows as well as the sunlight. Then he had found a woman who only saw sunlight and he had loved her for her simple goodness.

  Now it seemed that she only saw shadows in her waking hours and the sunlight was only for her dreams. More than anything he wanted the sunlight to return to her waking eyes, to see bright light in them again.

  So, after that, each night he let her to her dreams, it seemed to refresh her spirit though it left her tired and irritable in the day. It was as if some of the color of the night carried forward into the next day. By the evening the light in her eyes had faded and she would take to her bed early so she could return to her dreams.

  He found himself hating the spirit which shared this time with her, but he could not withhold this from her lest all the color faded completely from her daytime eyes.

  The thought that she could not see the color of him was hard to bear. The thought that she could not see the color of her baby was impossible to bear, and made him feel like his heart was being torn apart all over again. He hoped and prayed that, as the sun returned in strength, moving the winter sky back towards spring, so too would the light come back into her days and her need for nighttime dreams of color would fade.

  January merged into February, the sun grew brighter and the days were longer, but yet the dreams continued and her daylight colors faded ever faster, barely lasting the morning. Sometimes he would find her gone to her bed and sleeping after lunch. It was as if she must return to the one place which was real for her. It made his heart ache to see her like this, his girl of fading, fading colors except in her world of dreams.

  Now he often spent sleepless nights trying to understand who or what it was that invaded her dreams. But while she often walked and talked in her sleep it seemed it was never again to a person he thought he knew, as on the first night when he knew she pled with Mark.

  She never spoke any name. It seemed her partner was a faceless soulless being. But always she returned to commune in this place of colored dreams. After each two nights of watching her, Vic needed to return to the helicopter base to sleep.

  She continued to be sweet to him, though now she was often irritable with her children and others. But, more and more, it seemed her eyes no longer looked towards the daylight but only to the night, as if he and others of the world were fading from her view and, as they did, the colors faded too.

  Vic could feel quiet desperation seep into him. He had found this girl, his wife. He had loved her and she had come back to him in body and soul. Why had he not just taken her to a far off place where she knew nobody and the past could never reach her. She had a new identity and they could have gone and lived anywhere in the world, unknown.

  Instead he had chosen to bring her back to the simple and comforting reality of an older familiarity, trying to give her connections back to her distant past from which to build a new and different reality. But, while the past brought connections and some were to the good, some were also to the bad. It seemed she could not keep separation between them.

  Now, as the bad came surging back, he felt it was slowly tearing her apart, making fractures in her soul, breaking apart the inner core of the new person he had found. It was as if her dreams opened cracks between two beings resident in one body. These cracks let in the colors, but so too did other shadowed things slip through as well.

  He did not know for sure that the people or things of her dreams were bad. But he could see them sucking her vitality. Now her life force was fully consumed at night and not enough remained for her daytime life with him and her family.

  He wished he knew what to do. His aunt had glimpses of this shadowed self; she had become a quiet supporter in his corner. Others saw less, and his wife, the consummate actor, could hide it from them. Even the fact that she now was able to live a double life, spoke of the return of a duplicitous part to her soul, which was not there when he found her again.

  He remembered how she had warned him on the first meeting, “I do not know if you can find her, or if you will ever be able to bring her back again.” These words now resonated with a ring of truth. It was as if the more she discovered of her of her past, the less remained of her in the present and for the future. He felt despair at reliving all the loss anew.

  He did not think it was not a sickness of the body; rather it was an illness of spirit. It seemed as if another spirit, perhaps a malevolent crocodile spirit, was stealing away the soul of the person he loved.

  One night, at the helicopter base, when it was daytime in Australia, he rang Alan and told him of his fears. He asked him if he would talk to Ross and Charlie, to see if either could offer any ideas of what he might do. If it was a disease of the mind, perhaps medicine could help, or perhaps, if it was a spirit, human or crocodile, drawing her back, the way it had before, then there may be some aboriginal spirit man who could help.

  Next day Alan rang his back, saying he had talked to Charlie and there was a parcel coming which he hoped might help. It was heavy and had cost a good bit of money to express post. But he should have it in a day or two. Charlie said it was a powerful medicine against the dreaming spirits, crocodile spirit to fight crocodile spirit.

  Ross rang later the same day. He had no solutions. He talked to Vic about psycho-analysis but admitted that, in her case, it was probably a waste of time, whereas he thought Charlie’s idea was worth a try.

  Chapter 42 – Crocodile Stone

  Vic returned from the base to the farm on the third day, nervous with anticipation. Sure enough an express box sat on the kitchen table, waiting. It bore his name, writ large, in black texta. He picked it up, it felt heavy.

  Susan was out visiting with her aunt so he had the place to himself. He took the box to the bedroom and opened it. In it, nestled in bubble plastic, was a black stone, flat and round, as if river smoothed, but with a dark polished texture. It looked as if the stone was coated in impregnable matter which had rubbed smooth into a dull luster.

  He lifted it out. It sat, neat and full, in the palm of his hand. He could feel it was infused with a presence, emanating a silent force. It soothed his mind and spirit like healing balm.

  He understood, without it being said, that it was intended for Susan to hold, for it to sit in the palm of her hand or rest against her body. Alan and Charlie had talked of the crocodile stone which had given her mind solace before. Perhaps this was it and it could help again.

  When she came in, full of subdued brightness, as the light of the night was fading from her eyes; he brought her to sit on the bed and asked her to close her eyes, and to put her open hand out, palm up.

  She complied and he rested the stone in this place, closing her fingers around it. She seemed to want to open her eyes. So he rested a finger on each eyelid and asked her to stay still and tell him what she felt. He could feel calmness wash over both him and her, coming from her to him in the place where their skin was touching.

  She said, “It is like a dream and yet I know I am awake. My mind is full of light, light and
colors. I can see your color; I can see David and Anne’s color. I can see my baby’s color. I can even see the color of the sky. It is so glorious and beautiful.

  “It is as if, when I hold this stone, my mind sees through other eyes, eyes not my own. These eyes can see what mine cannot. But because I am linked to it I can see the things these eyes see too.”

  He lifted his fingers from her eyelids. As he did the shared vision faded. He watched her face intently as she looked at him. “It is not so bright as it was before, when you touched me. But still color remains, softer than before, but still a thing of beauty.”

  She kept looking at him with a beatific smile, saying. “The thing of most beauty I see is you. I had forgotten how wonderful you look.”

  So now as she walked and talked she carried the stone with her, mostly in an inside pocket where a part rested against her skin, sometimes in her hand. It brought light back into her eyes and joy to her smile. It almost made her seem whole again. But then, whenever she put it aside, the brightness faded and only the shadows remained.

  Vic felt his anxiety fade as the brightness returned to her eyes. It was not fully the Susan of old, but at least, when she held the stone, the fading colors returned to brightness and with them came a light which lit her face like a shaft of sunlight.

  Their life returned to a place of quiet joy. He did not have her fully back but, having known the fear of losing her again, now he understood the preciousness of what he had regained. She had a renewed zest for life, playing with her children, talking to Anne, her parents and the old Kashmiri man, making plans for the wedding. But it hid a brittleness; a shell encasing a shell, hollow inside.

  Others seemed delighted to have back the Susan of old, perhaps they had noticed more than he realized. But he knew that, while it was better to have her in this place, he only held her by a thread, a thin line of contact through a crocodile stone. The sickness was still in her soul and sometimes he glimpsed it, even now.