Sunlit Shadow Dance (23 page)

As he spoke he looked into her
eyes with searching intensity, as if seeking
to discover kindness in her
soul.

She felt shame well up, his mistake seemed
such a small thing compared to what she had done, but for him she
could tell the pain was real. She knew she must take this chance to
unburden herself too.

She took his hand which rested on the
couch beside her, squeezed it with her own and turned her face back
to his, searching his eyes as she gathered courage. “Thank you for
telling me, it must be hard to speak of this. In time I think she
will come to understand that you meant her no harm.”

She took a deep breath to steel herself to
go on, collecting her faltering words. “I have done something far
worse, a thing that shames me. I harmed you and her in what I
did.”

His eyes stared into hers in a
kind
,
nonjudgmental way. She stumbled through the story, the lust and
betrayal, the taking of the money, the buying of things to help her
mother, and then the day just gone when she met this man again and
took his money in return for telling what Ross had told her. She
saw the pain in his face as she told of that, a wince. He did not
look away.

She finished by saying, “After I saw the
video I could not bear to touch the money. It is still in my
drawer. I feel, having sold out, I should take it, use it to buy
the thing for which I paid the price. Then a small piece of good
can follow the bad. But I cannot bear one more betrayal. Before I
saw her face and terror I pretended I was harming no-one, even
though it was a lie.

“
I cannot pretend anymore. In
her face I saw the harm I had done to her, now and before. So, if I
cannot repair that, I must do no further harm.”

Beck found her body shaking as she spoke;
it revolted against her mind in tearless horror. Ross did not speak
but put a big arm around her shoulder and pulled her in against
him, cradling her head like a child. They sat like that for some
unknown time.

At last he spoke. “What you did was a bad
and selfish thing, and cannot be undone. For that you will always
carry shame. Now you must learn to let it go. One day, should the
chance arise, you must tell these words to those you have hurt, the
girl and her man. They are good people and I am sure they would
forgive as I do. Then perhaps you can begin to forgive yourself. In
the meantime we should do something good with that money. Not use
it for your mother, I will make sure she gets the wheelchair she
needs without you needing to lie and steal secrets. But you should
use it to help others in great need, those you do not know. That
way the money will not taint them too.”

Beck put her arm around him and lay her head
against his shoulder. “Did anyone tell you, you are a good man and
a good friend.”

The weekend passed with them spending most
of the time in each other’s company. They were not lovers but their
friendship was a deep and intense thing, they had shared their
deepest and worst secrets so now they felt as if they could each
tell the other anything.

On Saturday they drove out to
Litchfield National Park. They walked alone along a barren
stony track for
half an hour until it plunged down a hole in the hills. They swam
together in a clear rock-encased pool, both a little self-conscious
about their revealed, imperfect bodies. A late wet season water
flow plunged over a sheer cliff into this shadowed place below,
spraying them with a fine mist that flowed over their bodies and
made surreal shapes as they drifted in and out of the fog into the
gloomy light.

That night Beck played host at her own
house. While she worked away in the kitchen preparing food, Ross
charmed her mother and the next door neighbor, a regular visitor
who covered for when Beck was away, she was a longstanding friend
of the family.

On Sunday night, in fact
early Monday
morning, she went with Ross to the airport for his red-eye flight
to Brisbane. She sat with him at a small table, sipping a coke and
keeping odd snippets of conversation going but mostly just sharing
silence.

Finally
, when the flight was called, Ross
took her hands, saying, “Thank you for a wonderful weekend; the
best in my memory.

“
I have been meaning to tell you
but was not sure how to say it. I have been offered a job in
Darwin, working at the hospital in the Rehabilitation Unit for
people with brain injury, both from alcohol and traumatic causes.
It sounds exciting, but in truth half the attraction is because you
live here. What do you think about me taking it?”

She gave a spontaneous grin. “Well I am
glad that is settled. Otherwise I would have had to find a way to
move to Brisbane. That would have been tricky with my mother. In
the meantime I was thinking of flying down to Brisbane for another
weekend, just with you, only if you are free, of course. This time
you can play the host.”

Now he gave her a huge smile in return, “I
would really like that.”

Vic had got the warning to move
from Anne, via Alan
, and took it seriously.

He had been shocked as he had
looked at the
record of Jane’s interview a few days later with Ross and
the barrister. Jane’s upset manner on the day was bad, but she was
over the worst when he saw her. Then after she had a distant and
reserved manner, so unlike her normal sunshine self, which had
persisted for a few days, as if for the first time in her
remembered life she had lost trust in someone or something, though
she had stayed affectionate to him. Fortunately this had faded and
now she seemed back to normal. But it had reinforced his sense of
her vulnerability.

He had gone back to Brisbane the following
week for a 2 hour meeting to decide on the contents of the video to
be sent away. They had debated long and hard over what parts to
leave in. Vic had insisted that all parts that referred to him or
her living in the north Queensland aboriginal community be taken
out, lest others who saw it trace her that way. He also wanted the
bit showing her acute distress removed, not that it gave anything
else away. But it was far too raw and pain filled to let others
see, or so he had thought.

Ross had argued forcefully,
that despite his question being a mistake, her reaction was the
thing that would work best in getting the government to understand
just how fragile and
damaged she was. The barrister supported Ross,
saying this picture was far better than any words.

But
, even though he had finally agreed
to it remaining, the awful sight of Jane’s terrified face had
frightened him to his core. He had already been thinking about
whether it was too dangerous for them to keep staying so close to
Brisbane with the series of meetings he had been to
there.

It would not require Einstein
to start checking the smaller regional towns nearby,
particularly
checking out the temporary places where people stayed like
caravan parks. He considered renting a house in one of the towns
around here. But that was fraught with its own problems, like the
identity documents and references being needed for leases. He could
try to find a farmhouse somewhere in return for farm work, but his
contact network did not run deep in this place and the act of
looking would bring him into public view.

He hated the idea of randomly
moving Jane and their children around, as much for the children’s
sake as hers, they all needed stability and new
roots
, not
an endless half fugitive existence.

It was a devil’s choice between
two evils, the evil of forever fractured existence, links broken
over and over when only half formed, and the evil which lurked in a
buried place in her mind
, threatening to break out and overwhelm her. So
he did not know what to do, each choice was not good.

At least with the message about
the threat of
exposure came the message that there was agreement for a
pardon. The other thing that Vic had thought about and talked over
with Anne was the need for Jane to have new identity documents.
They were needed for marriage, which she mentioned regularly and
they were needed for travel, as well as the thousand other normal
things a person did, health insurance, education, driver’s license
– the list went on and on. Of course the primary identity of Susan
MacDonald was an English one, so the changes had to begin
there.

So he had a half formed plan of
her needing a new passport in
the Jane Bennet name and that would need a legal
name change in the UK. That part was not so hard to achieve if Jane
could remember her former self and give a signed instruction for
her name to be changed. But it needed to be done without public
knowledge and it needed to be done on her behalf by someone else,
which meant her parents.

So he had talked it around
with
Anne
and bounced the ideas around with Ross too. They formed a plan for
Ross would provide a report confirming Jane’s loss of memory and
new identity. Ross would say she needed to be given identity
documents in this new name, as it was likely to be very harmful for
her to be forced to confront her previous identity.

A
t the same time Anne would use her legal
connections in London to work out how this could be done both
legally and in a non-disclosed way. Her idea was that Jane’s
parents could sign forms authorizing a name change and then new
identity documents could be issued in the Jane Bennet
name.

Now the wheels were in progress
for a pardon
Vic also thought he could seek agreement from the NT
government for this course of action, Alan was pretty good in
getting things like this sorted as he had already shown.

So Vic was hopeful that within
4-6 weeks, shortly after the pardon was granted, Jane would have
identity documents in her own name
. Then using these they could get on with
their lives together in some faraway place.

But this did not solve the conundrum of
where to go now. He knew they needed a new home, one not easy to
get to, one where the people could be trusted not to let the cat
out of the bag. It had to be a place where there was control of
others who came and went and importantly one where he could do
something useful while he waited. He tried to think of all the
remote parts of Australia where he had not been, thinking first
that if he was not known no one would guess to look for him in
these places. But if he did not know the people, in a small place
he would stand out like the proverbial dogs balls, not to mention
Jane and their children. Their unknown status would make them
subject of much idle gossip and curiosity and that brought
danger.

At last it came to him. He had to go back
to where he was known and trusted, and with that came a trust in
others. One of the stations at the outer edges of the Alice Springs
district would be best. They were small family owned units, despite
their immense size. Many of them had extra houses for workers or
outstations and most stations had yet to take on workers for the
cattle season. He could think of several such places, it would need
a bit of careful inquiry to work out which served best, for both
the place and him. In such a place the only person who would know
he was there would be the station manager. Most were already good
personal friends. People from outside could only get to these
stations with the manager’s agreement.

It seemed like a neat solution,
at least for a couple months until the pardon and identity stuff
was sorted.
He remembered he had an uncle who worked out on a place to
the far north-west of Alice. He lived alone now his wife had died
and his kids had moved to town. He was head stockmen when there was
a stock camp. The rest of the time he maintained the windmills,
making sure stock had water. Vic had not seen him for several years
but had visited him often as a boy. So that was an obvious place to
go.

He would ring his sister and
ask her to
try to get it arranged. At the same time he would tell Jane
he wanted to make a trip to Alice Springs for her to meet his
family. Jane had announced that she wanted to get married there, so
it was also a step towards this idea which he liked as much as
her.

Jane and the children were really delighted
when he told them and they decide to leave the day after tomorrow.
They all really enjoyed the Christmas car trip to the farm and this
promised another family adventure.

He made Jane promise not to tell anyone
where they were going, saying that once the arrangements for the
wedding were made she could call and tell people then but for now
he wanted to keep it a secret. He could see she was torn in wanting
to tell Leah but she agreed and he knew she always stuck to what
she said.

A week later they found
themselves crossing into the Northern Territory from Queensland
after coming across from Boulia and crossing
the multiple flood outs of the
Georgina River. It had rained two months ago and the country was
lush with fat cattle and myriad wildlife and water birds. They came
onto the Plenty Highway as they entered the Territory and followed
it was as it skirted around the northern margin of the Simpson
Desert. Part way along they turned into the station homestead road
they were heading for. After another hour they were there. Vic’s
uncle was there to meet them along with his sister and mother who
had driven the several hundred kilometers for a family visit. They
were entertained royally in the station homestead on the first
night. The next day they all climbed aboard a Toyota Landcruiser
Station Wagon driven by Vic’s Uncle Jack.