Sunlit Shadow Dance (21 page)

For a minute she thought about saying
about her memory loss. She also thought of telling about the
seeking of a pardon. But the first thing was only the girl’s
business and the second was only the law’s business. He did not
need either for his story. She felt better not to have surrendered
these two small things, as if a corner of her soul had retained
something of its own.

He passed her the second envelope with a nod
of thanks.

She took it and walked out the
door without looking back. Her hand holding the money felt on fire,
as if she was holding a burning devil.
But, having sold her soul, she would
not let the devil go.

In the days that followed Beck
tried to forget what she had done. She told herself, over and
over
, that
she had done no real harm, the money was for a good cause and the
girl was away free and would soon be married and living a new life
where the past could not touch her.

Her lack of memory was her salvation. It
made her untouchable. So this man may find her and ask her
questions, but all she could say was she did not know, she did not
remember. That was no story and interest would fade.

Beck walked miles along
Nightcliff and Casuarina beaches as she
reran and repeated this mantra in her
mind, scuffing sand and kicking little waves, as she tried to walk
away the memory, make herself believe it would be OK.

On the Monday morning the mailman brought
a package to her work. It was a slim square package with a note
from Ross saying this was the agreed DVD of the interview. She
closed her office door and loaded the DVD into her computer,
watched as the icon came up showing it was loading, then when that
finished she pressed play

The video was good quality though mostly
it showed Ross’s face to the camera. The other person was sitting
with only her side profile in view from behind. It took Beck long
seconds to connect this image with her mind image of Susan. Dark
hair was replaced by something auburn to blond, tied loosely in a
haphazard fashion, conveying a person who cared little how they
looked. Her face was unseen but the profile conveyed a sense of
unreality, a non-person filling the space, a part was due to the
strange view, more due to a demeanor more absent than present. Ross
had mentioned something about this girl seeming to be missing a
part of her soul, an empty shell sensation. But until she saw this
image these were just words.

Now she understood
him; the person
sitting there brought to mind a beautiful but lifeless piece of
porcelain. It was hard to believe that this person had anything
linking them to the girl she had last seen sitting in the dock,
smiling brightly but incredibly controlled, a will of steel inside
a pretty face, with an incredibly vital life force emanating. It
was so much easier to believe that here was a different person. No
wonder she was hard to find.

Beck
half wondered if it was really her,
rather than some clever charade of a different person, role
playing, out for fame and glory. The change in the life essence was
too hard to take in.

A few seconds later she began
to speak.
In
that instant the uncertainty resolved. It was so her, the voice,
the accent, it was unmistakable.

“
Doctor Sangster, I know this is important for others, so I am
doing it for them. But, you see, even though it seems important for
these people to know about me from before it is not important to
me. I know I was someone else once, but I am not that person
anymore. I don’t need to know that person anymore to live a good
and happy life now.”

At that point there was a clear
discontinuity as if a part had been edited from the tape.

It then jumped to a place where Ross asked
her to tell of her earliest memories saying.

“
Tell me what is the last thing you remember from when you
were a little girl, living in England?”

She replied,
“It was my first year in High School, when I met Anne and we became
friends. I can remember the first day I met Anne. She was a gawky
twelve year old with flaming red hair and a big cheeky smile. We
had desks side by side. We used to talk when the teacher was not
looking.”

Ross said, Put
yourself back into that place now and try to remember the last
school holidays before then, where you went and what you did.

A few seconds
of silence ensued then the voice continued, “I remember those
school holidays. They were summer holidays. We went to a farm up in
Scotland. It was the farm where my Dad had grown up, in a valley
between big green hills. His parents lived in one house and his
sister, who was married, lived in another house nearby. Her husband
did the farm work. My Dad loved to help on the farm and I did too.
My Dad would bring me out on the farm with him.

“
My brother Tim did not like farm work much, he had a cousin
about his age and the two of them would spend hours playing
together. There was also another cousin, but she was younger than
Tim. I felt too grown up to play with her. I liked her and talked
to her but I did not play with her much.

“
I also remember my Aunt Em, my Dad’s youngest sister. She
still lived at home with her parents, she had just finished school.
She was the baby of the family, that’s what Dad used to call her. I
was twelve and she was eighteen. She was to go off to University
after summer. She was really pretty and a bit wild. I would sit
with her and talk for hours about boys and going out and things
like that. I can’t really remember exactly what we talked about but
I just remember how much I liked being with her. She was so excited
to be going off to a big city to live and study. It all sounded
exciting to me and she would talk to me like I was as grown up as
she was.

“
I remember how she, me and Dad would sometimes talk, all
sitting around the fire in the evening. Em and Dad both loved
animals, particularly the big wild animals in other countries, the
lions and tigers, the elephants and giraffes, the monkeys,
chimpanzees and gorillas.

“
We all wanted to go to Africa and see them, particularly the
lions, leopards and cheetahs hunting in the national parks. I don’t
know if we ever did, but we dreamt and talked so much about it,
being camped by a waterhole and watching all the animals coming in
to drink and how a lion pack would try and ambush them, while we
watched from a hidden hide.

“
What were your favourite animals?” Ross asked.

There was
another pause as if she was thinking. Then she answered, “I am not
sure, I thought the apes were so amazing, they are so like us,
their behaviours and the way they interact. But I loved the
predators too, the way a cat would stalk up, or silently wait in
ambush until something came along.”

Ross asked,
“Did you ever see any wild animals that you remember, perhaps at a
zoo or something like that?”

Another pause and then she said. “I think the year before
those holidays my Dad took me to a zoo called Whipsnade Zoo and
also to London Zoo in Regents Park. I can remember watching a
cheetah stalking someone who was walking along the outside of its
enclosure at Whipsnade Zoo. And I also remember feeling a bit sorry
for the lions at Regents Park Zoo. They were lying out in the sun
and their enclosure was mostly concrete. I thought of them out in
Africa, in the long grass, hunting animals. I thought,
What a pity, they have nothing to chase and
nowhere to hunt in there.”

Ross asked,
“Have you ever seen a crocodile?”

At first she
said nothing though a flinching movement passed over her body and
her side face took a hard and squeezed up look, which washed away
as her mouth opened into what looked like a grimace.

As it did a
noise began, somewhere deep inside her. It started as a thin wail,
rising in tone and volume into a screech of terror. Then the noise
was gone, as if she had bitten it off. Now her body began to shake
which soon became huge sobbing movements, with the words, “No, No,
No, My Babies,” said over and over again.

Beck watched
as Ross stumbled to his feet and ran to her, putting his arms
around to comfort her. She turned to the side towards him bringing
her face into view. It was a mask of pure and unadulterated terror.
Suddenly the screen was blank, though the image was still burned
deep into Beck’s retinas.

Then the face
image returned; she was there again, facing Ross, saying with
accusing eyes.“Why did you say that, that thing about the
crocodiles? It is evil. I saw my babies swimming in a pool full of
crocodiles. Lots of big crocodiles, swimming towards them, mouths
open. My babies needed help and I could not reach them. I was stuck
here in the wrong body. I knew the crocodiles would take them, tear
them apart, then eat them. I knew my babies would be torn into
little pieces. I could not reach them or help them. I could not
bear to watch it happen. It was so real.

“
I wish you never said those words. I don’t want to talk about
memories. I don’t want try and remember, it is all too terrible. I
never want to see that awful thing again. I just want to be left
alone.”

Beck knew in that
instant
it
was a terrible mistake for her to pretend this girl was alright,
that she could retreat behind a no memory mask. She knew now it was
not true, already her past had destroyed one life.

Now,
even though she had built something
new which had cut all links with the past, leaving her with little
more than a shell of her past existence, it was a fractured place.
Deep cracks ran between the new and the old and the wrong words
could tear this fragile edifice apart and smash it to bits. If that
happened she would be culpable.

The video was finished now, a real blank
screen. Beck looked at it with blank eyes; her only remaining image
was the overwhelming terror in this poor girl’s eyes. Shame rose at
her own part, reflected from this image.

There was a knock on the door. She called
out, “Yes.”

Her receptionist came in, saying, “I have a
Dr Ross Sangster on the line and he would like to talk to you
urgently. He says he had to fly to Darwin at the end of the week
and thought that he could perhaps schedule a meeting to discuss the
video and his report. He just needs to know if you can arrange that
before he confirms his bookings.”

She picked up the call, a welcome
distraction from her thoughts. “Hello Ross. Can I expect to see you
in Darwin?”

“
Yes I have been asked to meet
with and review the treatment plan for an aboriginal man in Darwin
Hospital who has traumatic and alcohol related brain injury with
severe memory impairment. They have asked me to fly up for the day
on Thursday, and I wondered, before I locked in flights, whether
there was value in me discussing my report either with you or your
other legal colleagues. I could do either Wednesday or Friday
though, to be honest, Friday works better for me. If I came then I
would stay for the weekend for a bit of sightseeing as I have never
been to Darwin before.”

She answered, “Can you give me ten
minutes? I just need to check the Attorney General’s diary and also
to see if at least one of the two others, the coroner and the
sentencing judge would also be available and could fit in a
meeting.”

She walked out to her receptionist, saying,
“Jenny, could you get onto, Judge Davis’s associate and see if she
can squeeze us into his diary for an hour sometime on Friday, it is
about the Susan MacDonald case.

“
Also ring Coroner Edwards’
personal assistant and check his availability, ideally for the same
meeting though it can always be for different meetings if needed. I
will go and check with his lordship the AG.”

She knocked at the door, knowing her boss
had been in for at least half an hour and that he liked to be left
alone to catch up on reading the daily pile of briefs for his first
hour of the day.

A grumpy sounding “Come In,” came back and
she walked in, putting on her calm and determined face as he looked
up.

“
Oh it is you, Beck,” he said,
giving her a much more pleasant smile than his voice
belied.

“
You sound frazzled,” she
replied.

“
Just these endless crappy
cabinet papers, for Thursday’s meeting. Some people need to learn
how to write simple English. They say lawyer English is bad. But we
have got nothing on these high faluting civil servants, bloody
jumped up office clerks who think we want to read endlessly about
strategic plans, key performance indicators, milestones of success.
It is enough to give me a headache and make my beard go grey. Why
can’t they just say what they mean?

He paused for a second to draw breath,
“Sorry for the rant. I am sure you did not need to know that. How
can I help?”

“
Friday is a clear day,
right?”

“
Well unless I can bugger
off
for the
day after Cabinet and go fishing. But I suppose I can make myself
available if needed, especially seeing as you ask with such charm,”
he said, winking.

“
Dr Ross Sangster has just rung
and I said I would call him back in a minute. He sent me his report
and the DVD of our own Lost Girl, Susan. I was just looking at it
before he called. He has to come to Darwin on Thursday to meet with
an aboriginal patient. He asked if he could schedule a meeting with
us to discuss his report, preferably on Friday. I am good for that
day, your diary says the same. Jenny is checking re Judge Davis and
Coroner Edwards. It would be best if we are there together to hear
what he has to say. So I wanted to double check with you before I
said ‘Yes’ on your behalf. I will try to keep as much of your day
free for that fishing trip as I can manage, but no
promises.”