Lost Girls (21 page)

Mark said he
was searching for gemstones. This place was so remote that the
looking before had been minimal, just an occasional early foot
prospector leaving small abandoned diggings, but now the big
companies were interested. They had the Argyle Diamond Mine to the
south and they were now lobbying for access to the beautiful and
remote coastal country with many competing claims from local
aboriginal groups. However he was not greedy, he just wanted to
poke around on his own and see what he could turn up, he had found
this to be rewarding many times before.

He had a
collection of wonderful stones which he showed her. He hoped
together they would find something special. If they did half of any
find would belong to her as her own special memory of this
trip.

So they were
off to a wilderness place together, just the two of them, sharing
it in friendship and, increasingly she hoped, sharing a much more
intimate thing. She would let that happen in its own time, but in
her mind she was making up love songs to sing to him and woo him
with on her guitar. She would also show him how to dance and let
his feet take flight, to know the joy of that flowing movement to
music. She would tell of this by writing in his diary and her own
little notebook, phrases of the passion she felt, written in her
own French words.

She wrote,
“Mark, mon ami et maintenant amant. Nous somes ensemble pour
toujours avec joie”- together forever with joy.

Mark felt so
gutted as he returned to Katherine, the place where he had a flat
in an ugly building in the town. He wondered what it was with
himself that destroyed everything he loved.

He had loved
Elfin without reservation, and while it had started more slowly
with Bella, by that final day when he made the impossible choice to
end it for her, his love for her had grown to something similar. In
a way it had become even deeper, the way they shared their stories
through both writing entries in his diary, the way she had taught
him to play simple chords on her guitar and to sing harmonies with
her, her voice with like drops of gold, his more guttural but it
had a resonance and timbre that seemed to blend with hers so that
the whole was more than the parts.

He especially
remembered the way she had taught him to dance as she sang the
music for their feet to move to. They had practised on the flat
ground next to the campfire. She had sang a waltz and patiently
taught him the steps, doing it over and over again until his body
flowed alongside his in a perfect synchronicity. She had recognised
a shyness in him on that night in Derby, the man who no one had
taught to dance and thus had been deprived of one of life’s great
joys. She had decided to fix that and give him this legacy even
after she left, not that he planned for her to go as the days
unfolded.

Dancing with
her was like the joy he felt in riding a horse, two bodies moving
in effortless flow, two wills fused, except with her it was even
more wonderful to do, bare footed in the dust with this gorgeous
dark haired woman who flowed in his arms, whisper light as she slid
and brushed past him. It was endlessly enticing to be so close to
her without consummation. He knew if he had tried to ravish her in
the moment the magic may have broken, she would have not resisted
but he wanted it to go on and on forever, bodies trembling in
anticipation.

He remembered
that wonderful second last night where they had finally joined
their bodies, after a week of circling around this point in
increasing desire, both wanting it to happen, but neither quite
ready to make the first move.

It had been in
the aftermath of a glorious song into the sunset, sitting together
perched on the cliffs above a Kimberley Ocean that it had finally
happened. Their bodies were touching as they sang, as if the song
had given them permission to press against each other in a wordless
embrace. Then as the glow of light had faded, they had stayed
sitting that way for a long time, neither wanting to break the
spell.

Finally she had
nuzzled her face into his neck. He had found himself kissing her.
From there all the rest was inevitable. It was something they both
wanted so badly. It was as wonderful as any other moment he could
remember in his life, the joy he felt as she held him tight, her
body open to him and the wonderful release that came for both of
them together.

The next day
she had been like a frolicking goat as she bounded from rock to
rock and cliff to cliff, so confident and fearless. She said she
had grown up in hills like this and, now they were lovers, she
wanted to sing and dance for joy. Their one full day together had
been wonderful as they explored the coast, cliffs, rock pools and
caves around the place of their camp. During that day they had made
love more times than he could count, in the hot sun, in cool caves
and pools and during much of that last glorious star filled night,
with only two bodies in a wilderness of stars.

But what was
even more precious to him was the way they had talked. She had told
him all her hopes and fears, he had done the same with her. No
secret was hidden by either from the other, their souls were bare.
He had promised to come back with her to meet her family, he
imagined having babies with her and her singing them lullabies. So
it was as if they were soul mates even more than lovers and this
was the most precious thing. She was his Bella, his beautiful one
with the beautiful dancing spirit and a voice to charm the
angels.

But she was
gone, he felt now that he should have dived in to be with her in
that final moment, so clearly imprinted on his brain. Him; sitting
in the shade of a tree in the midday sun, as she cavorted on the
cliff edge, dancing above a blue ocean as five large and lazy
crocodiles circled below, hoping for more small lumps of leftover
meat they had thrown to bring them in close.

Then how, as
she danced by the edge, enjoying his eyes on her body as a prelude
to more love making, the rock had crumbled under her ankle. A brief
second, as she wobbled on the edge, her little shriek and then she
plunged out of sight, two seconds of silence and the splash of
water as she landed below. When he reached the edge he saw five
crocodiles, initially startled, converging from all directions, her
in the midst.

He ran back to
pick up his rifle, only a 22 with small bullets, shorts, good for
shooting the rock pigeons of which he was collecting a brace for
their dinner. There was no time to run back to the car for his
heavy rifle. He saw the terror in her eyes as she saw what was
about to happen. Her cry to him for help tore him deep inside. He
first considered trying to shoot the saurians; perhaps he could
deflect one, though his gun only had the power to sting something
this size, not harm it.

He remembered
the desperate look on her face in that last second, with the
closest crocodile less than a metre away. Then his sudden knowledge
of what he must do, even as the thought broke his heart.

She must not
suffer, his beautiful Bella, she must not know and feel the
terrible tearing of their mouths. That final split second, as she
looked up at him with an unfathomable hope and trust; he brought
the foresight into line with her small white forehead, then the
flat crack and her body slumped in the water, knowing no more. He
had turned away, unable to look as they tore her body apart.

He willed
himself to try and merge his soul with hers, in whatever spirit
place she now existed. As hours passed he felt as if he achieved a
sort of fusion between his spirit, hers and those crocodiles who
had taken her within them.

He sat there in
the full sun, still, unmoving, with no tears to cry until the sun
came to the same place as the first night of their lovemaking.
Then, as the wild dogs howled their hunting cry, he had howled his
rage and grief to the empty sky.

As the stars
came out he gathered all her things and found a small cave, hidden
under the cliff at the back of their first love making place, a
safe and dry place. One by one, he placed all her objects into this
place, holding her clothes to his face for a long time so he could
absorb and remember her smell. Her guitar came last of all; he
strummed the strings one last time before he left it. Then he
filled the entrance with large stones, to deny other creature’s
entrance.

He drove off
into the night, rage still burning in his soul and tears un-cried.
He drove all the night and most of the next day until finally he
found himself coming into the town of Kununurra. Here he bought a
hotel room and a bottle of overproof rum. He finally succumbed to
alcoholic stupor. He stayed for three days, consuming bottle after
bottle, until finally on the fourth day he woke almost sober, with
the mother of all hangovers. He fed himself for the first time
since Bella.

He was due to
go to the Argyle diamond mine but could not bear to do this work
without her. Instead he drove slowly back to Katherine, the nearest
thing he had to a home at his empty flat. As he unpacked the car, a
mechanical going through the motions, he found her passport.

It was funny
how these things refused to die and lie with their owners; he still
had the Elfin one which also should have been left behind to mind
its owner. But now he had it he would now cast it away, it was so
precious as it bore her image. So he found a small tin box and
placed the two passports side by side in this box, mementos of lost
loves. The box went behind his car seat to travel on with him to
wherever came next.

A month passed,
then another. Life had lost its flavour. Only the sense of the
crocodile spirits remained and, in a strange way, he treasured
them. He could not blame them; they were his totem after all. He
found a small comfort in the togetherness of his soul and hers,
linked through the crocodiles. Increasingly his mind turned inwards
to this place.

Anne looked
back on what she had understood from Mark’s diary thus far. It was
the most heartbreaking story she had ever been part of, she had
read plenty of awful stories in books, but here was an immediacy to
living the scribbled words penned in that far off place. He
described tragedy with banality and it felt like someone had pulled
her heart out.

It was a
patchwork of fragments. It was only when she had come to France and
met with Isabelle’s parents that it had begun to make real sense in
her mind. There were many French passages in this diary part, some
in a lovely flowing cursive French script which Isabelle’s parents
had said was Isabelle’s own hand, so familiar from the memorabilia
of her bedroom, these notes in her own hand the incontrovertible
match to her diary writings. Other parts were in simple, unadorned
English in Mark’s hand. Some parts were written awkwardly in
constructed French. Here it appeared that Isabelle had sat
alongside, helping Mark to find words and phases to express his
emotions, a voyage of joint discovery which spoke of friendship and
growing love, a shared poetry of togetherness.

Of her own
notebook, to which she referred to in a couple places, there was no
sign. It must have remained with her other things as the repository
of her most private thoughts. But there was plenty in the diary in
her hand. It spoke of her infatuation with this man, and equally of
his with her, telling of the kind things he did for her and little
gifts he gave her. It was first told with the sense of ever
deepening friendship, and then through eyes filled with the intense
passion of new lovers. In the scenes which told of the singing and
dancing were pure magic.

Then came those
final flat sentences where Mark told of her fall and the end,
redolent with grief.

He told of his
act with the rifle, an act of kindness, but it was a finale so
devastating; she and Belle’s family had tears flowing over their
cheeks.

He told of his
remorse that he had not brought a bigger gun; he talked about how
his 308 or 243 that could have kept the crocodiles at bay. He told
of his similar remorse that, in that split second of decision, he
had not flung himself in the water to try and use his body as a
shield while she swam to the bank. But there was no going back from
that second.

She could see
that in this reading both Mark’s and Isabelle’ words she had
brought some closure to Isabelle’s parents’ grief, not removed it
but given them all understanding, a sense that Mark had taken the
best bad choice, better than the fear and pain of the alternative.
But it was so hard to read and know the truth.

After this
happened Mark had descended into a very dark place, there were few
words in his diary in the next year, but what was told spoke of the
void in his soul with the loss of this girl, his friend and
lover.

He seemed a man
marked by an evil finger of fate, his upbringing and this series of
misfortunes, deaths for which he could not really be blamed but
which destroyed some part of his soul. If was as if this day marked
the true start of his descent into inhumanity.

If only that
day had been different she had little doubt that Mark would have
returned with Belle to France, met her parents and married this
girl, now they would now most likely have children of their own and
have forged a new and happy future together far away from the
previous darkness and tragedy. And but for this the rest would
never have been.

She could
picture the man and his dark haired girl in a French village, him
using his skill to make and fix things, she using hers to teach the
local children, evenings of laughter, dancing and singing.