Girl in an Empty Cage

by Graham Wilson

  Chapter 22 – Pictures from Long Past

  It was now only six days until the sentencing hearing would be held and Sandy could feel time sliding through her fingers like a greasy rope. It seemed an eternity since Alan had gone away and yet it was no time as well, the speed with which the days were passing.

  She had this nagging sense that she must try and find something more to help. It had been with her and building for days, an anxiety which infected her waking being and her dreams. She tried not to let Susan into her unconscious mind, she had secrets kept from her that she did not want to share, particularly where Alan was concerned.

  So she maintained an almost continuous vigil of her mind, to stop it going anywhere near the things she did not want Susan to know. And she did her best to suppress that part of her unconscious from looking into her hidden knowledge, to keep it from getting into dreams and memories which rose to the surface when she was not in full control. It seemed to be working; she had no sense that Susan had breached these defences.

  And yet this ever growing anxiety was there, making her perpetually on edge, as if waiting for catastrophe.

  Then a package arrived in the mail. She thought she knew what was in it before she opened it. It should contain early family photos of Mark and his family that his uncle had sent. She had talked to Antonio and he had agreed to help in any way he could. He knew it could not help his nephew or sister but he wanted to help anyway. Sandy thought these pictures could give insight into the people that sat behind that story, Mark and his extended family, so she had asked that he send them.

  The package was a mid brown envelope about two centimetres thick. She opened it and began to flick through, pictures of a small boy and girl, both dark haired and distant, with an Italian looking Papa and Mama, also with a baby in arms. The first few were early family photos. They must be of Mark’s grandparents and their long ago small children in Italy. She put them aside and turned to the next group, a batch held with a rubber band. The first picture was big solid man, a picture of strength, but with a hard look about his face, although he was handsome.

  She wondered who he was, perhaps Mark’s father, she saw a trace of family resemblance to the few adult pictures she had seen of Mark, but little resemblance to the man in later life from the criminal charge sheets.

  As she put this to one side and looked again she almost dropped the batch of photos. What was a photo of Susan doing mixed up with these, she was sure none had been sent to this man by officials. He could have cut one out of a paper, but this was a real photo on old photographic paper. She looked more closely and it dawned on her, this was not Susan but Mark’s mother, a young Rosalie Moretti. Confirming her suspicion on the back was the name Rosalie and a smudged year date, it looked like it was 1960 something, perhaps six or nine. The girl looked like a teenager.

  When she looked more closely some differences were obvious, both in the setting of the photo and some features of her face. But it was the look; a half turned face, in partial profile, cascading dark wavy hair falling over shoulders part covered by a light dress, the face had the look.

  It was an expression more than actual facial features that screamed out ‘Susan’ into Sandy’s unconscious brain. It was striking how similar both faces seemed when they each had that faraway smiling look, like a look of pleasure at a thing of beauty seen on a distant horizon.

  She flicked through the rest of the photos, still some similarity but no others jumped out at her the way this one had. Sandy wondered whether a mannerism or look of Susan triggered a barely remembered memory in Mark of his beloved mother from his earliest childhood, a look beaten out of her long before she died, but which he held fast in a recess of his mind.

  She sensed there was something important in these photos that may trigger a response in Susan. Perhaps by seeing herself in another person from another generation, and so seeing Mark with different eyes, it may change her perspective on what happened. Could it help remove her guilt and regret from being captured and enraptured by this man.

  Sandy went back over the first batch of photos with more care this time, scrutinising each one in detail and checking for any writing on the back. She selected two more of particular moment, one of girl, Rosalie, holding a baby, with overflowing joy and adoration on her face. On the back was written, ‘Rosalie and Marco, 1961’. The second one, maybe a decade later, a older teenage Rosalie and her two brothers, one who looked older, the other younger, she recognised them as Antonio and Marco, a picture of happy normality. The resemblance of Marco to pictures of young Mark B was striking, no wonder his mother named him for her lost brother who had died as a late teenager shortly before she married. The final two photos Sandy selected were a photo of Rosalie with her child, a little Mark around two or three years old. Such intense joy and love was on the two faces as they each gazed to the other that it gave Sandy a huge pang of ‘If Only’. If only their life after had been different, one where they grew up as a happy family unit. Then what followed until now would have never been. She also pulled out a couple later photos of Rosalie and Mark, one with the big hard faced man there too and his name, Vincent, on the back. In these any essence of joy was gone, as if beaten out of her, replaced by an apprehensive and timid look, and also a sense of being spaced out and depressed, maybe drinking or taking pills to escape. The final photo Sandy selected was one of a boy Mark, alongside his Uncle Antonio, proudly holding up a fish he had caught. He looked to be around ten, it was after his mother died, yet he seemed happy in the moment. Sandy thought Susan may treasure this, to have something good to hold of the man, a once happy child with his Uncle on that day.

  She felt profound sadness as she put the rest of the photos back in the package, just retaining the small number she had selected. She was consumed by that same sense of ‘If Only’, now much sharper, If only Rosalie’s younger brother had not died, if only she had married a good and kind man, if only Mark had instead gone to live with his Uncle after his mother died, then maybe Mark would have grown up as normal happy boy and whatever monstrosity he had perpetrated that seemed to be now destroying Susan’s life would never have come to pass.

  She knew Alan was trying his best on the phone angle, and perhaps he would pull something off when he got back from Arnhem Land in two days' time. But she felt she must try something of her own. She wondered if showing Susan these photos might have the effect of cracking a hole in her protective shell without pushing her further over the edge.

  To Sandy these photos told the story of the descent of Mark’s mother from a happy child, sister and young mother into depressive madness, a cycle of horror and abuse. Perhaps through Susan seeing them she could get insight into what was happening to herself and seek to avoid it. She felt there was little to lose from trying.

  Sandy decided to pay Susan a last visit. It was not official; her work on the identity of Mark was done. But everyone at the jail knew her; she did not think Susan would refuse to see her. She felt she had to make one last try to reach Susan in a way that could allow her to free herself from this haunted past, to see how it had come to pass with clearer eyes.

  So here she was at the entrance to the jail at regular visiting hours, hoping to be admitted. She had decided to come unannounced, she did not think Susan would object, though she had seemed withdrawn, with her mind in another place, on her recent visits.

  Soon enough she was sitting in Susan’s cell, looking spaced out, lost somewhere inside her head. The look on her face was eerily familiar with that of the battered wife of the final photos of Rosalie, lost in another world, desperately seeking escape. Sandy had a sense of needing to pull her back into the world of hope, to break her inward looking cycle.

  She told Susan she had some photos she would like to show her of Mark and his family that had just been sent by his Uncle. She asked whether she would like to see them. At this mention of Mark and his family Susan seemed to slowly come out of a trance, she sat up straight and her eyes recaptured their
intensity. For half an hour they went over the photos. Susan did not seem to notice any similarity between herself and Rosalie, but was enraptured by the photos of Mark and Rosalie’s brother Marco. She touched their faces, she held the photo of the Mark holding the fish up to the light and smiled back at him with happiness in her eyes. It felt joyful, but otherworldly, as if she was communing with a person who no longer existed.

  Sandy felt a pang of doubt as to whether coming here today was the right thing. Even though it had brought Susan out of an almost catatonic state, the glint of madness in her eyes seemed even stronger. When it came time to go Susan asked if she could keep this one photo, the boy who was the earlier version of the man she once knew. She said it with such tender longing that Sandy felt powerless to say no.

  As she left Susan thanked her with heartfelt thanks for showing her the photos and brightening up her day.