Sunlit Shadow Dance (40 page)

So they returned to ask the
guide how these things were done.
The guide said that, if his grandmother
approved, Nathaniel could come and stay with them in Maputo until
they left.

As for going to
a national park
that part was easy. He suggested they go to Limpopo National Park.
It ran along the mighty Limpopo River and adjoined Kruger National
Park in South Africa, world famous for its wildlife.

It was a four hour drive in the four wheel
drive they had hired; he would continue the hire. Bringing one more
made no difference. All would fit in the car and he would drive
them if they wished. He knew the road well and he was happy to be
their guide for this part too, just another three days of guide
fees, very cheap for tourists.

If he brought them he would show them all
the wildlife, lions, elephants, giraffes, zebras and much, much
more. He even had a relative there who ran a lodge for guests and
would ensure they got an extra good deal.

Vic could see this man’s business brain
working, how to get the most from his tourist visitors. But he did
not mind, Mark was paying for this bit and he could well afford it,
he had asked that they do something like this.

So Limpopo
National Park it was. He said
it to Susan who was talking to her children and
Nathaniel.

She grinned,
“
To the
‘great grey-green greasy Limpopo River, all set about by fever
trees,’… Seeing that would be something. Perhaps we could even see
the elephant child of Rudyard Kipling’s story. Oh do let’s
go.”

So the guide asked the
grandmother
.
She gave a beaming smile which told of her agreement. They invited
the boy themselves, conversing with him in his good English. They
could tell he was delighted, grinning widely. He said it was a long
time since he had left the village. It sounded like a whole new and
exciting adventure.

They said nothing about his leaving his
grandmother and coming to Australia, just of coming with them to
Maputo and Limpopo National Park for the next five days. His eyes
told them how desperately he wanted to come.

So he packed his clothes and a few other
belongings in a plastic shopping bag and sat in the car, between
the other children who thought he was totally wonderful, a new
grown up play friend.

Next morning the family packed
up in the car with their guide and drove inland until they came
to
the park
of the mighty Limpopo River. That evening they stayed in the lodge
their guide had recommended and looked out over the Limpopo River’s
bank.

On the bookshelf Susan found a copy of the
‘Just So Stories’ by Rudyard Kipling, much thumbed by many other
readers. In the falling dusk she read the story of the Elephant’s
Child to her assembled family.

As she spoke of the broad
hippopotamus aunt
, who smacked the Elephant’s Child with her broad, broad
hoof, they watched a hippopotamus rise from the water and make a
mighty yawn. Soon after, walking down the river bank, came a group
of elephants with a baby elephant following close behind. It looked
like just they imagined the Elephant’s Child, full of
'satiable curtiosity’
to discover the world. Fortunately of
crocodiles there was no sign.

Next day they drove out onto
wide grassy plains dotted with zebra, giraffe and
innumerable
antelope. They watched a group of hunting lions as they fanned out
in search of prey. Later they saw a leopard resting in a tree,
troupes of baboons and the dark shadowed bulk of a rhino half
hidden behind thorn trees. None of them wanted their holiday to
end.

By the end of the
trip it felt like
Nathaniel belonged with them, he was just one more of their family.
He asked endless questions of Vic when he learnt he could fly a
helicopter. Vic could tell he really wanted to ride in one. He felt
a strong desire to show him, even to teach him to fly as he had
been taught. Even though he looked very different from his father,
Vic felt the shadow of Mark in him, his intense and focused
interest and his ability to concentrate and learn new
things.

So
, that night, back in Maputo, as they
sat on the beach looking across the vast Indian Ocean towards the
continent on the other side, Australia, they asked him if he would
like to come and live with them there.

Now he had a shy and nervous
look on his face as if this fortune was beyond
all dreams. He answered, “Yes,
I will come if the grandmother and spirits will it,” He gave a
rapturous smile to his new brothers and sister.

So, on the final day before they caught
the plane, they went and saw his grandmother, and sought her
permission. She gave it by the signing of a legal paper with the
imprint of a thumb mark indicating her agreement.

It
was not an official adoption form,
just a document quickly drawn up by a Maputo lawyer. They did not
know if it would be legally valid, but it was a start, a promise of
intent.

Vic
also promised he would come back as
needed to complete the full process. It would take time for all the
formalities to be done in both Australia and Mozambique, but they
were happy to give sponsorship and any other undertaking required.
Formal adoption was what they offered.

In the meantime they arranged for a
payment of $100 Australian dollars a month to come to the
grandmother, and an extra $20 month commission to their guide in
return for him ensuring that the money got to her and any other
needs of her and her grandson were met. They also promised the
guide a bonus of $1000 if he could ensure that all the legal
adoption steps were completed quickly, along with another $1000 for
any expenses he had to meet along the way to achieve it.

For their guide this was
a vast sum that he
could use to buy a new life for himself and his family, even to buy
his own car for his business. So they were sure he would hold to
his side of the deal. Even if he did not it was only money, and
with more money they would find someone else to do it.

The lawyer was also left with a good
retainer for the work he needed to undertake, and again there was a
promise of more if success was achieved.

So they had done all they
could
for
now. One day, very soon, they told Nathaniel, they hoped he would
join their family in a new home far away.

Nathaniel nodded, saying. “Yes, if the
spirits will.”

Susan hugged him to herself, and the
children hugged him too, before they waved goodbye. Vic shook his
hand and told him that soon he would teach him how to fly a
helicopter.

Actually it was three weddings
on one day, not four. The fourth wedding had already been, and the
funeral came later. But Susan, and her new best friend Cathy,
always thought of this day as the day
of four weddings and a funeral.
Perhaps because from the movie of the same name, with the ‘oh so
dishy Englishman’ that they both rather fancied, it was also
because this part of their story really began with the four wedding
invitations that had arrived the week before Christmas, followed
with the first wedding a month before. Now it continued with many
of the same cast of characters on this remarkable wedding day which
followed. Then the sequence concluded with a funeral of sorts a few
days later, for parts of a man long gone.

So Anne had married David. It
was something that Susan felt hugely emotional about, an emotion of
unfettered delight for both
David and Anne. On the day of their wedding, with
her as a bridesmaid, she had cried many more tears than she had on
her own wedding day, and the delight of the occasion was almost
equal to her own wedding day for her.

She knew
, from the stories others told
of herself, that she had been briefly involved with David, even
engaged to marry him. But it was a vanished memory. Anne had retold
Susan the story of her own first meeting with David, when he was
with Susan, almost engaged. Anne took delight in saying how there
was a primal spark of attraction between them both on that day.
Even though they had not acted on it until much later, when Susan
had formally broken the engagement and given Anne her blessing, she
felt there was an inevitability to all that had followed, like two
attracted magnets which finally fused. Susan could see it was a
rightness she and David never had.

She liked
David, she could feel his charm
and saw his good looks. But he did not melt her insides the way Vic
did with a single look. She also knew how her own vanishing had
torn David and Anne apart, over and over, continuing for over two
years while Anne searched for her. It had probably delayed their
own wedding plans equally.

So this wedding had a right
feeling
, it
was long overdue for them to formalize life together. After the
ceremony they went off on a month long honeymoon, travelling the
globe, going to more countries than Susan could count. They
returned just in time to celebrate this triple wedding.

Anne had told her, on the girls night out
in Darwin, when Susan asked about her modest drinking, that she
thought she was expecting. It redoubled Susan’s delight and she
shared her own news that this time they would do it together, only
two weeks ago she had got the positive test result herself. Now
that she and Vic had decided to return to Australia to live it was
even possible that they would have their babies together, almost as
twins.

Today both she and Anne wore
bridesmaids
’
dresses, she on behalf of Cathy and Anne on behalf of Sandy. So it
would be lovely to stand side by side in the combined bridal
party.

It was strange how this event had come
about. Three groups of people, unknown to each other at the start
of last year, and two couples unknown to each other until after her
own marriage last year, had struck up friendships almost overnight,
all having decided to get married.

When
one couple told the other of wedding
plans in Darwin, the second couple said they had almost identical
plans. Soon after, all three couples were out for a meeting and
drink. It turned out, when they compared notes, that all had
wedding plans for Darwin in the same week.

A
lmost 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.

T
he 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 t
his 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.

W
hen 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.