Sunlit Shadow Dance (26 page)

Jillie
and his Mum would bring him and his
Uncle to the church the next day, the one his sister belonged to.
Jillie had squared away with the pastor that there be no publicity
and no uninvited guests and for extra security Buck and Alan would
take positions by the back door to only ensure invited guests came
inside for the church wedding ceremony.

After
the ceremony they would all go out to
Desert Springs Park for a private evening reception, with paid
security to ensure no uninvited guests like photographers turned up
there either. That night they would go to a private resort in a
gorge in the West McDonnells for their wedding night. Here they
would have brunch with the wedding guests the next day before
saying their goodbyes in preparation for Monday’s early
departure.

The whole plan was not totally
foolproof but
, since the early leaks when he had first done a runner and
brought Jane away, there had been no further squeaks. So Vic was
quietly confident that it would all work and they could just fade
into the sunset, like any other newlyweds.

Saturday morning had a slow,
dreamlike quality. Vic sat at his sister’s kitchen table drinking
endless cups of coffee, his hangover only minor. Jack had gone up
town shopping, having been harassed by Rosa to buy a new suit so he
looked the part of the head man of the family. Vic’s own suit hung
in the cupboard, never worn though he was confident it would fit.
He would do it all the proper way though this part of ceremony
seemed unimportant to him
. But he wanted it to be all perfect for Jane. He
could not quite believe his luck in marrying this delightful girl,
it was an unimagined dream of barely six months ago. He promised
himself to make their life together extra good from here. He could
not wait to see her or their children again, he even wondered if a
third one may have started its spirit journey in one of their
nights of loving out in the desert. It was a wonderful
thought.

The time drifted away until his sister
harassed him into showering and dressing. He polished his shoes an
extra time and adjusted his bow tie in the mirror, deciding he
looked pretty spic.

Then it was time to go to
church. After a brief hello to a few friends he moved to the front
of the church to await his bride. The waiting was agony; all he
could think of was all the things that could go wrong. Every second
seemed like a minute and every minute seemed like an hour. At last
her heard the distant noise of a car’s arrival and muffled voices.
This was the moment
of ending waiting. He looked down to the far end of the
church. A shimmer of light started to drift through the door, part
sunlight, part gossamer.

He realized it was the flounces of a
wedding dress, as she paused for a second before coming through.
White with tiny patterns of a faintest blue to turquoise that he
could only just make out, they drifted in and out of view in the
breeze. Then this gorgeous apparition wafted through, lightly
holding her father’s arm. She was so beautiful she took his breath
away, a huge lump formed in his throat and his hand brushed tears
from the edges of his eyes.

She drifted towards him like that strand
of gossamer floating above air eddies, weightless with her own
exhilaration. Their eyes met in an iridescent smile, with just a
trace of amusement in hers at his discomfiture.

The service had a mesmeric quality, words
spoken; “I do, I promise,” finally a ring on his and her finger and
the signing of the register. Her kiss was the barest brush of lips.
They joined their arms to walk back down the aisle. They emerged
through the crowd of well wishers, laughing, hugging and shaking
hands, he unable to believe his luck.

A man stepped forward. Dark skinned but
different from his local black brothers. He thought he was coming
towards him, but then he realized it was Jane he sought. As he
reached them a microphone was pushed forward. Vic saw a camera on a
tripod a few feet behind with its red record light
running.

Words came from the man’s mouth. “Hello,
Susan Emily MacDonald. How does it feel to have married the best
friend of the man you killed?

“
This is Jake SS reporting for
the Truth in downtown Alice Springs.”

Vic felt an overwhelming rage. He knew that
name; he had read his by line in the newspaper on the day that
Susan had vanished. He was the author of all those hateful words
and still it was not enough.

He stepped forward, tearing the microphone
free with one hand and casting it aside. He felt his fists move,
hearing dull thuds as they connected with the hateful face, once,
twice with each hand as the man slumped forward, then he hit into
his chest and body as his rage powered him on.

He felt himself being grabbed from behind,
pulled back. The man was slumped on the footpath, near the edge of
the road. Buck moved across his view, picking up the camera and
smashing it into the road, then grabbing this man and hauling him
to his feel. Alan was by his side, a posse of two. Each held an arm
and kept the man upright.

Buck’s voice spoke. “Listen you scumbag.
You are lucky we pulled Vic off before he killed you, because he
surely would have. I don’t want him to end up in jail for fixing
filth like you on what should be his perfect wedding
day.

“
But I will give you a tip, if
so much as one word of what happened today ends up in your scummy
paper I will come and find you and string you upside down, hanging
by your balls and dick, until your precious bits come away. Then I
will take what is left of you and give it to the crocodiles, the
ones that interest you so much. If you don’t believe me just try it
on.”

Alan nodded,
“T
o be
double sure you shut your filthy mouth I will be there to help him
too. This man and woman who got married today are both worth a
hundred of you. They have earned the right to be left in
peace.”

With that each took an arm and
flung him backwards
towards the road. He lay there, on his side in the gutter,
with a stunned look on his face and blood oozing from cuts on his
face and lips.

Vic felt his anger slowly cool,
watching from the
edge of his vision as this man sat there unmoving, making
no attempt to interrupt further. It almost looked like an
expression of shame had come onto this man’s bleeding face. Vic
decided he would not to let it spoil his day.

Anne and David, along with other family
and friends, had formed a tight knot around Jane, shielding her
from view and further intrusion. This pleased Vic while he got his
anger under control. Alan and Buck stayed nearby, not crowding,
giving unspoken support and plenty of time to let him get himself
back together.

He felt a tug at his elbow; it was Jane’s
father with a big grin on his face.

“
I always told her she needed to
find a man with balls, one who would stand up and fight for her. I
think you just proved you’re that one. It was the prettiest boxing
exhibition I have seen, barely five seconds, eight lovely punches.
Someone should put you in a ring against a pro. You could show a
thing or two.”

Vic found himself grinning back and
laughing. His anger evaporated. It seemed the words had passed Jane
by, not understood, no damage done. He sensed, from this guy’s
demeanor, that he would tell no further stories.

Time now to enjoy the night with his
ravishingly beautiful wife!

He eased his way back through the crowd to
her and she rewarded him with a smile that melted everything inside
him.

“
I belong to you, I love you and
we are married,” she whispered with unadorned delight.

Now he kissed her and savored every inch
of her wonderful body as it pressed to his. Then it was David and
Anne, both the big and little who joined the hug circle and then it
was Jane’s mother, father and brother too, and then it was his own
mother and sister and uncle, then was a hug joined by every person
who was there, all except one.

After a minute a second person detached
from the group and went across to the man on the ground. She took
his hand, spoke to him briefly, then pulled him to his feet, put
her arm around his waist and led him away.

Vic did not recognize this
person, not from his family or friends, not anyone he had met from
Susan’s side. She had grey streaked hair and looked old, perhaps
fifty or sixty, but she walked with the firm manner and had the
step spring of someone half that age.
Curious
, Vic thought.

Gradually the people hug knot unwound and
they made their way to their cars. For Susan and Vic it was only a
short trip to an open place where a helicopter stood resting,
waiting to whisk them off to afternoon photos and then the
reception. The children would travel with Jane’s and his parents
and the rest of the bridal party to join in the photos. Other
guests would follow along in an hour or two.

Jacob
pulled himself to a sitting position
on the edge of the gutter and sat there waiting for the pain to
ease. Long minutes passed. His whole face and body was hurting, but
it was a small hurt compared to the hurt to his pride. Five minutes
before he was feeling so pleased with himself that he had finally
run the witch-bitch, Susan, to ground. He had thought of hiring a
camera man to capture the day but in the end decided not to as he
did not want to share his glory with any other.

It was a simple
sho
ot, he
knew exactly where they would be when they came out of church,
making their way through the gathered people, and walking down the
steps to the outside. So he put his camera on a tripod and filmed
them as they came out the back door, following their slow progress
unnoticed as they made their way through wedding guests,
handshaking and kissing friends. Then he focused the camera on the
bottom of the steps with a wide enough view to capture them coming
down. While the camera continued to record he stepped forward
holding a microphone connected to a recorder in his
pocket.

Susan looked different to when
he had last seen her, much fuller
of body and face and more womanly, hair
done differently. She was stunning in her floating white dress with
little blue-green flowers within the fabric. Despite the changed
appearance it was unmistakably her, her blue eyes and an aura that
was just her. He knew for certain he had found her.

Seeing her bedecked as a
beautiful bride seemed a fitting way to end it, the ultimate
betrayer image
; the perfect deception story undone.

As he had said her name he expected to see
a look of fear and horror come into her eyes at being caught out.
Instead all that came was a blank, bemused look. He knew in that
instant she really had no idea what it was all about, there was no
guilt or anxiety. Good actor though Susan had been he knew she was
not good enough to hide this. Instead here was a person filled to
the brim and overflowing from happiness who showed a kindly face
towards an unknown stranger, someone who had said something she did
not understand. She would try to help him out of innate
generosity.

The image was not
right
; in
fact it was totally wrong. As he saw it all his certainly about her
guilt crumbled to dust and instead he felt ashamed at what he had
done.

In th
e second of watching her face he
forgot about the man standing beside her, the elusive Vic through
whom he had finally found her.

So he felt surprise as this man loomed
into his central vision, tearing the microphone free and throwing
it away. Then there was further surprise as the flying fists
connected with his face and body. He felt his head jerked back and
forward with each impact and felt his face mashing under hard
knuckles. Normally he was quick on his feet and had grown up in a
tough place where self-defence was a required survival skill He
knew he should protect himself or get out of the way. But surprise
rendered him immobile in those seconds and he just stood there and
let the blows fall.

He felt burning pain in his
chest and belly
as more blows fell there; this guy had fists like
sledgehammers despite his modest size. Then, before he could move,
those two human gorillas, not so much big as strong, stepped in.
Hard faces in his space and hard hands on his arms, they had told
him they would finish it if he spoke another word of what he had
found out.

He knew he would never tell the
rest of this story but it was not
from their threats. It was a thing inside
his brain called his conscience which had told him he had got this
story awfully wrong, that to mislead further would be the greater
wrong. It had never occurred to him before that he had a thing
inside him called “knowledge of right and wrong”, instilled as a
child in the church with his mother. This part of his mind now
said,
Enough!

He felt mortified as he lay
there. It was a blow to his manhood and his pride. He knew
he
could
have stood up for himself and fought back. But they were right. She
deserved to be left alone. Even if they had not smashed his camera
he could not use this, not if he had any shred of remaining
decency.