Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  Almost as a lark, one person had said, “Why don’t we do it together?”

  Five other heads nodded, it was effectively settled.

  So after that it was just about figuring out how.

  A place of great emotional resonance for all was East Point, the place where Darwin Harbor met the sea. Here Alan and Sandy, along with other friends including David, Anne, Buck, Julie and Vic, had gathered in much sadder times, for the opening a missing persons memorial.

  The names of Susan Emily MacDonald and Cathy (Fiona) Rodgers, along with others who were also missing, were inscribed on a stone block. Cathy and Susan’s names were there still, inscribed on metal plaques giving the details of when last seen before missing and now a couple lines about their return. Two other names on the list of over 50 had similar joyous returns told, the fate of the rest was as yet unknown.

  So this was a place of hope as well as sadness. With the link between all these couples through this story, and their love of this place with its north-western vista, looking over the vast ocean towards Indonesia, all had agreed that this was the perfect place for their wedding ceremony to be. So on a Saturday in May, as the late afternoon sun fell towards the sea, making glistening lines on the watery horizon, they assembled to marry.

  They each had their own celebrant, each according to their own custom, a Presbyterian Minister for Cathy, a civil celebrant for Alan and Sandy, and a rabbi to mark Beck’s Jewish heritage. All assembled stood as witnesses for three ceremonies which together took an hour. By the end of the third the sun was only a hand’s breath above the where the sea met the sky.

  None were overly religious, but all had a sense of destiny and awe at how life had drawn them together. A central figure was the aboriginal man, Charlie. He was a friend to all; all had shared his wife’s catfish curry and forged their friendships around his table. He began by welcoming all to his country, Larrakia land. He spoke first, then a second time again at the end, this time doing a smoking ceremony to waft clouds of grey into to reddening sky, then calling on his rainbow serpent dreamtime ancestor to look kindly on these new married people and guard their lives together.

  When his speaking was done the sun had fully set. Then the two hundred guests moved on to the Fannie Bay Trailer Boat Club for an evening of stories, laughter and celebration.

  It was a simple but inspiring ceremony. Susan was so glad to have been a part of it. She looked with equal pride at Vic, standing with Buck alongside Alan as a groom’s man. This was something they had shared in equally.

  Soon the night was done and just one ceremony remained.

  It happened a fortnight later. Alan and Sandy were just returned from their honeymoon. It was a much smaller and more somber gathering, just her, Vic, Alan, Sandy, Buck, Julie, Charlie and Antonio, uncle of the man, Mark, his surviving next of kin.

  They waited together in the front office of the coroner’s building while two parts of a man were released from its custody. These body parts had sat for over three years now while the legal processes around his murder and the inquest about his role in the disappearance of the “Lost Girls” had rolled on. When all the lawyers were done this man’s mortal remains, a skull and a forearm, the parts had been forgotten about.

  Finally, almost as an afterthought, as Sandy tidied up in preparation for her own wedding and to take three months off work, perhaps to try for a baby of her own, she had come across these two preserved items resting in a storeroom cabinet. At first she had not known what to do. There was no obvious family seeking return of the remains.

  So she had talked to the two best friends of the man Vic and Buck, about what should be done. While Mark’s father was still alive Mark had explicitly rejected him having any role in his estate or other parts of his affairs, in his will. So they contacted his surviving uncle, who remembered Mark with affection as a child, and the three had agreed on a plan.

  What remained would be cremated and the ashes divided into three parts, one to go to his mother’s family in Italy. These grandparents were too frail now to make the journey but wanted to bury some part of the grandson they never knew in their own family graveyard. The second part of the ashes would be returned to the billabong from whence they came. Vic and Charlie would do this together, it was to return a part to the crocodile spirit which had brought this to pass, whose power they had both known.

  The third part belonged to Susan. It was for a role given by the man’s own request, something he had asked Susan to do in his farewell note, to take a part of him to a place in the desert which he had shown her long ago.

  She said she was not ready to do it yet. She said she would only do this with remembrance of who he had been. This memory had not come back. So she delayed her part, in hope that one day this memory would return.

  Today was the beginning. When the small coffin shaped box, into which the parts had been placed, was brought out, Charlie took his agreed place in the front to lead the man’s spirit home. The other four men each took a corner of the little box. Their wives walked with them, each with a hand resting on the box as a mark of respect. They placed the coffin box into a waiting hearse and followed it in funeral cortege, in two cars behind.

  They brought it to a private chapel next to the crematorium. Here a priest of the church of his ancestors would say his Catholic ceremony, so as to meet the request of his Italian family. Gathered inside the chapel were a handful of other friends, come from across the outback by personal invitation. They included Vic’s mother, uncle and sister, some miners from leases in unknown places, a store trader from Borroloola, Mick, fey Irishman from Top Springs and a few others, mostly with black skins.

  There were no outside observers of this unannounced ceremony. It was not something to advertise; too many had been hurt by his actions. Yet in these gathered people’s hearts was a part which held real affection for the life of this man and the good he had done.

  Four photos of the man in life adorned the chapel. One was from Buck. It showed him astride a horse, intense concentration on his face as he tamed a wild spirit. Another showed him arm in arm with Vic and Vic’s mother, his second family. A third showed a small boy going fishing with his Uncle many years ago. The final one was of a mother with baby in arms, Rosalie holding little Vincent Marco Bassingham. Together they seemed to make a fitting tribute to the tragic story of the boy’s passage into manhood. It was little enough, but it felt as if at least some good parts of his memory were held and valued by his true friends.

  The Uncle, Vic and Buck each told a story of the boy, become man, who was a friend to many in the bush. A few others told their own stories too.

  Then it was done. As the words, ‘Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes’ were spoken what remained of the man they had known passed from sight.

  Vic and Buck had tears on their faces as did Mick and some others. Susan remained dry eyed, wishing for a memory to give her own tribute.

  Chapter 46 – Hidden Within Golden Light

  Vic felt very nervous. Today he and Buck, with Charlie and Alan, planned to take a part of the ashes to the place of the crocodile, a billabong on the Mary River, a hundred odd miles to the east of Darwin. He had hoped to limit it to just the four of them but the others from the funeral cortege said they were coming too, except for the Uncle who had caught a plane to Italy, taking with him his own small casket for the family there.

  What frightened Vic was not the crocodile, or other unnamed terrors. It was bringing his wife to this place of horror. He had been staunchly opposed to her coming from the outset.

  He had discussed it with Charlie, and Charlie had agreed. “Bad medicine, best she not come. Bad spirit, maybe try take her again.”

  Vic knew that her mind was held together with not much more than sticky tape. The calm outside belied a place of turmoil within. Since the ceremony for Mark she had begun dreaming again, and it seemed the crocodile stone was losing its power. She would push it away from herself in the night and then she would dream. At first Vic tr
ied to push it back into contact, but it was as if it burnt her night time skin, she would flinch and recoil from its touch. During the day she would hold the stone, at least at times. But he would also discover times when she had set it aside and then she would sit there in a semi-dream state, unaware of the world around her. He felt he was losing her all over again, and this time it was totally beyond his power to stop it.

  Part of him felt he should abandon his plan to return to this land and instead go back to Scotland. It seemed as she came closer to the place of the crocodiles so their power to invade her mind grew too. He discussed it with Charlie and Ross and neither had a real solution. Ross suggested either a dream centre for night observation or some psychological tests; that was all medicine could offer. All Charlie could suggest was that he talk to his own medicine man and then that this man would talk to the Baru people, those entrusted with care of the crocodile spirits, to see if there was anyone who knew how to take this possession away from her.

  Part of the problem was that Susan did not seem to understand what was happening. So she was determined to go to the place of the crocodiles, to return Mark’s ashes and, along with them, the part of his spirit that seemed to belong to the crocodiles in this place. As her wishes coincided with his plans there was no keeping her away. It seemed to Vic that, even though she said she could not remember the man, some part of the crocodile spirit which connected both Mark and her to this place, drove her on.

  So, despite all the cautionary words from Charlie and the alarm running through his own mind, he found that he was unable to stop her. She said it was something she must do; it may help her regain her memories. She said it with such a hunger of anticipation that it both frightened him and gave him hope. Perhaps she was right; she had to meet the devil in his lair to know it, in order leave it behind. But Vic knew it was fraught with danger.

  So his fear and caution was to no avail. They were going today and she was coming, there were no ifs and buts. The one thing that reassured him was that Sandy was there too. She still seemed to have a power to see inside Susan’s mind. So Vic had to trust her to be the watcher and pull his wife back if danger threatened.

  In the early dawn, with first traces of light in the sky, they loaded up and got ready to go. The children were staying with Charlie’s wife, Rosie, for the day. Rosie would take good care of them, along with his own mother who was there with them too, so Vic had no concerns in this regard.

  Just as they were climbing into the car to depart another car pulled up and the occupants got out. It was Ross and Beck. It turned out that Sandy had invited Beck and Ross was determined to go where Beck went. Sandy told Vic of the day she and Beck had held the crocodile stone and how their minds had linked through it like crocodile sisters. So they decided to come together, two minds and two bodies watching Susan were better than one.

  Now they divided themselves between Alan and Charlie’s two Toyota’s and headed away. In the back of Charlie’s vehicle was the body of a small pig, it was one that Charlie had bought from a pig hunter friend, only a bite sized morsel for a large crocodile. They had placed a small slit in its belly. In that place were the ashes, now embedded in a ball of solid glass. That way this part of Mark ashes would end up inside this huge crocodile, present within its own perpetual crocodile stone. So, if it swallowed the pig it would have a part of Mark within it.

  Charlie had advised that to placate the crocodile spirit they should return a part of Mark’s body to its belly. He wanted to return the forearm. When this was not agreed by the others Alan came up with the idea of a newly formed glass crocodile stone, inside this food offering. A glass craftsman had taken the ashes, placed them within a small bottle and melted it into a casing which sealed the contents inside a half inch of glass, a sort of time capsule.

  All too soon they came to the side of the billabong. Susan at first stood back, as if watching within a dream, holding the flat black crocodile stone Charlie had sent her within her hand.

  Vic felt relief at her apparent willingness to watch from a distance. On either side of her, each with a hand resting on her shoulder, stood Sandy and Beck, as if communing with her, spirit to spirit.

  Charlie carried the pig towards the billabong, Buck and Vic flanking him on either side, while Alan walked just behind and to the side. He carried the Baru crocodile totem in one hand and his police service revolver in the other. The revolver was pointing away from the others, but he had it at the ready lest some saurian beast should emerge from the water.

  They reached the side of the water. All was still and nothing was in sight. They placed their pig offering at the water’s edge and stepped back a few paces, continuing to watch.

  The water was completely still, not a breath of air moved; its surface was like glass. They stood in a half ring facing east; it was two hours after dawn. The sun was yet to clear the trees and light the water, which sat in gloom. As they stood, watching and waiting, the first shafts of sunlight struck the water far out across the billabong, reflecting directly into their eyes.

  As the sun ball rose clear, the water surface turned to gold, dazzling and blinding them in reflection. They stood still, unable to move from the blinding golden light. A living essence sat at the centre of the ball of golden light.

  It was the time of the crocodiles. They knew it in their souls; the crocodiles were coming to claim their own.

  Chapter 47 – Crocodile Sprit Dreaming

  Susan felt an implacable determination to see this through. So when Vic had tried to tell her not to come, out of fear of what this place might do to her, she had dismissed this as irrelevant. She knew it could do her harm, Vic was right in that, but not to come was inconceivable, it was required of her.

  That she could not remember that fateful day when she had been here before made no difference. She had been here before. Her hand had ended this man’s life; she had a duty to fulfill. She did not know what was required of her, but she knew it would come to her once she returned.

  So she stood at the back and waited. The stone gave her calm and connected her to other eyes through which could see the colors, so she held it in her hands. And she found a comfort in the hands of her friends which rested on her shoulders. She knew this link let them see through her eyes as she could see through theirs.

  It was a strange sort of linkage, as if four sets of images were running together through her mind. One was what her own eyes actually saw in the here and now, another two came from her friends’ eyes and minds, what each now saw, mixed up with what they remembered or knew about this place. In this stream of images from Sandy she could see Sandy’s memories of when she first came to this place, she with Alan, together seeing the giant crocodile, Sandy with Anne and seeing the giant crocodile again as it called for the return of its own.

  In Beck’s mind were no images of this place from before, she saw it with fresh, curious and unafraid eyes. It gave her solidity and a reassuring courage. But also in Beck’s mind Susan felt her guilt towards herself and Vic from when she had betrayed them and leaked that information. Susan already knew this, Cathy had told her. But Beck did not know she knew, hence the guilt. Susan transferred a though of forgiving acceptance to Beck, It was done and no harm had come. She felt Beck’s relief and knew Sandy saw it too.

  But the strangest part of the mental image flow was the fourth set. They were the images of the hidden part of her mind which was closed to her. She could not see them directly; they were blocked away from her. But the block did not hide them from her friends. So they saw this day, as it happened in her mind, and through them she could see it too as a reflected image.

  This was the place of which she desired knowledge, so she encouraged them to look deeper. Now it was as if the three of them were there on that fateful day, reliving the awfulness.

  She saw herself lying in her bed in the predawn, wrists handcuffed and chained to the car. She saw the terror of her expected fate bubbling through her mind. She saw herself pick up the knife and h
ide it in her clothes. She saw Mark squatting at the water’s edge, lost in his own contemplation of his fate, making his peace. She saw herself summon her courage and rattle the chain, attracting his attention as she formulated her plan of escape. She saw the surprised look on his face, not ready for the moment, wanting to stop time.

  She saw him come and release her, then fix a bowl of warm water with a washer and soap. She saw the kindness and tenderness in his movements that she had never noticed on that first day.

  She saw herself walk away from him, take off her clothes, lay the knife on the ground and begin to wash herself, as his lustful eyes looked on. She saw herself call him over, seeking to create her opportunity and how he trustingly came, she saw and felt his hands as he stroked her breasts and washed her bottom. She saw herself pick up the knife unseen and turn towards him, knife in hand, eyes seeking the spot to strike.

  There at that point her memory froze in horror. She could look no more, knowing already what she had done to kill him, the knife embedded in his chest and the timber crunching through his skull. She did not want to see this or see how she then dragged his body to the water’s edge and the crocodiles came and took him and then tore apart his body. But as she withdrew a final image came, it was in the moments after, when blood only remained to stain the still water.

  It was a miasma sitting above the water, as if a half formed cloud. She realized now that her eyes had seen it on this day but had not recognized it for what it was.

  Now she knew it. It was the spirit of a man and crocodile made one, the man taken within the body had exchanged a part of his essence with the beast. But it had not fully settled into its new home yet and a fragment of this fused crocodile spirit hung in the misty air that covered the water surface.