Sunlit Shadow Dance (38 page)

Susan and Anne had both been baptized and
confirmed there so it was familiar from both their early lives. It
was a place where Susan had taken Vic to sit quietly and meditate
on their last visit to her parents, a month ago. That day, the old
building with seven hundred years of history gave him a sense of
calm and contentment as they sat amidst its lofty, soaring
arches.

O
ne night Vic and Susan were undertaking
their ritual of reading two pages of the diary together, an
institution they still maintained, resisting temptation to skip
ahead, determined to both know this man as fully as possible
through the words he had written. They were taking turns reading
sections; Vic’s concentration was a bit amiss tonight, thinking of
the trips he was booked to make in the helicopter the next
day.

As he was reading his
part
,
feeling dreamy, the book slid from his hands. He made a grab for
it, grasping the edge of the back cover. It fell open in his hand
in a place without writing. A single sheet of paper fluttered out,
floating in an unseen air eddy before it fell. Susan reached out
and grabbed it. She turned it face up so they could both read what
it said.

Vic’s eyes began reading, the tight small
writing; he knew the hand which wrote it. Susan was looking at Vic
not the paper, saying, “I didn’t know that was there. Perhaps I
left a sheet of paper in it one day.”

Vic shook his head; he
had already read
enough to know what it was. Part of him wished he could make it
vanish unread; love letter from another.

He knew the words belonged to Susan and they
read:

You probably
wonder why I say this now when I could not say it to your pleading
eyes just a short while ago. I cannot answer as I do not know. All
I know is that I could not give you false hope for a future
together in this life, to do that would have been a worse lie.

There was a
time yesterday, when I was angry with you. Then I thought maybe I
could kill you as I killed those others. But I knew, in that
instant when you tried to jump in front of that truck, that it was
impossible. In a choice between me and you, you must live; my life
is of less importance.

I am sorry my
actions have frightened you, I have seen fear of me in your eyes
and I hate that. I understand why. I must hurt you no more. That
leaves only one way.

Now, with the
first light of dawn, that time of choice has come and must be acted
on.

I have just
looked at your beautiful face as you lie sleeping. It is peaceful
and I hope your dreams are good. I hope you dream of happy times
with me.

There are so
many memories of you in my mind now and their joy will never go
away, it will be my last memory. I remember riding on the beach,
sharing a helicopter dance, your eyes as I gave you the pendant and
the ring. But most of all I remember loving you, holding your body
in my arms, your hair in my face, loving you over and over and over
again. While I have had you like this so many times, as I watch you
sleep, I ache to feel you again this way, just one more last
time.

Before I write
a final goodbye, I must tell you a few practical things. In my
briefcase, combination 2153, you will find two things which I would
like you to have. Do not give them to others, at least not until
you have decided for yourself what you want to do with them.

The first is a
pouch of precious stones. They are mine, bought and paid for in
full by me. They are all of high quality. I think their value is
between one and two million dollars, perhaps more. They now belong
to you.

The second is
my diary. It tells of what I have done over the last five years. I
ask that you read it so you know the good and bad of me. After this
you may give it to the police or pass information in it to the
families of others whose death I am responsible for. I wish I could
feel guilt over them but I do not, I did not set out with the
purpose of harming any of them. However you must judge this and me
with your own eyes and conscience.

I have made a
will. It is set between the back leaf and cover of my diary,
inserted into this space which is glued closed. It has been
witnessed by two friends I trust. It leaves all I possess to you,
and gives the details of how to access what I own.

Now all is
said and I must say goodbye. I leave this where I hope you will
find it, alongside your English passport which contains a picture
of your smiling face. I have just touched and kissed this one last
time. I would kiss the real face, but that may awake you too
soon.

Now I go to
the water’s edge. My own crocodile totem will to talk to the
crocodile spirits of this place until our spirits are as one. Then
I will swim out to join the crocodiles and offer my body to them as
a gift. I will wait until your eyes are open, before I go. I would
rather not give you this pain, but you must see me go to know I
have gone, so as to have freedom from me again.

If any of me
remains when it is done, I ask that you place the ashes of these
parts in the place of the rainbow spirits, that place we looked at
and loved together, when first we walked in the desert. There my
spirit will walk in freedom, along with many other spirits of this
land, holding forever an image of your love amongst the twilight
colors.

I wish you a
good and happy life with someone else, who will love you, and who
you will love in return, in the same way that we have loved. I am
blessed to have had this time with you.

All my
love

Mark

They sat still and in silence
for a long time after each read the letter
. Susan seemed less moved than he was
even though it was a letter to her.

He sat there
, tears oozing from his eyes,
breaths feeling like sobs. He thought of the bravery of his friend,
of what might have been. Mark had given Vic his blessing to take
and love this woman.

This paper was a message to him
as much as to her, a message from a brother.
Part of him wished this brother
had lived to share this joy instead, to watch his children grow, to
throw them in the air with his roguish grin.

For Susan, Mark was but a name and a few
disjunct images, not the life force he remembered. So it was left
to him to grieve for what she had lost, it was for the loss of his
friend and a life unlived. Now he felt he was back in the river,
his friend pushing him on, God how he missed him.

Susan was practical now. “He talks about a
will, did you know of a will, were you one of the
witnesses?”

Vic was too distracted to talk of this or
look further. He told Susan to let it wait for another day. She
nodded, cuddled into him and fell asleep. For a long time he sat
and stared at that paper sheet.

It was written for her but the words were
balm to his soul. Sometimes in the dark days of the winter past he
had felt rage and anger towards this man, blaming him for stealing
away the soul of the woman he loved each night, and dimming the
light in her eyes. Even if it was true, and he felt it was not, he
could not begrudge this man a part of her. He was the inheritor of
the sunlight, this man lived only in shadows.

He felt a great sense of agency for his
friend, he had witnessed the will, he would carefully ensure it was
done. He would do all he could to fulfill the trust given to care
for the woman they both loved. It was enough.

Vic was roused early when daylight was but
a gleam. It was Susan, saying, “You asked me to call you early to
drive to work. Now you must go. I will leave the will for your
return.”

It
was four days before he returned.
Then their lives were full for the next two days. The diary got
left aside, sitting on the dresser in the corner for that visit,
and for the next and the next. They both thought of it but neither
wanted to open it and take from it its hidden codicil. It had
waited there for more than three years now, what was a little
longer?

Then Anne was arriving the next
day and all the time went into packing and preparations for Susan
and the children to go to Reading.
Vic took them to the train, waved goodbye
to them and drove back to the farm. Early next day he would return
to Aberdeen for five days more flying before he joined the wedding
party.

So this night the house was quiet, just
him and his aunt, no children’s play and laughter. He went to the
bedroom and put a pillow to his face, feasting on the smell of her.
He saw the diary in the corner. It was time.

He saw the back cover bulged
slightly. He found a penknife and lifted the glued sheet
w
hich bound
the cover. There were several sheets of paper in that space in two
lots. He extracted the first. It was familiar, titled.

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF VINCENT MARCO
BASSINGHAM

It was relatively straight forward. Other
than pages referred to as Attachments 1 and 2, which sat behind the
signed document, it said.

I leave all those things I own
and posse
ss
to Susan MacDonald, except for the bequests I make as detailed in
Attachment 1.

Attachment
2 provides a list of assets
which comprise my estate and which I authorize the trustees of my
estate to dispose of as they see fit.

I name as executors of my
estate, Vikram Campbell and Buck
Mathews.

I further ask that the
executors contact and make arrangement for the ongoing support and
protection of my African child, Nathaniel Mark Nockezume. I give
them full discretion as to the manner in which they do so. He lives
with his Grandmother in Mozambique at the address in Attachment
1

Below this sat two signatures,
he recognized
these as Buck’s and his own along with that of Vincent
Marco Bassingham, the man he only really knew as Mark B, but still
the best friend whose instructions he would follow to a
T.

David’s ‘B
uck’s Night’ was a night
straight from his Australian home; most voices in the crowd had
broad Aussie accents. Buck and Julie had come over as part of the
gang and their trip for the wedding was to be followed by some
European sightseeing. Alan and Sandy were here too, talking of
plans for their own outback wedding in Darwin. The night started at
the hotel they were staying at, with pre-drinks for the whole
Aussie contingent, gradually added to by locals such as Anne and
Susan’s joint friends from their English lives and a few well
heeled legal eagles from the city firm Anne worked for.

Once all the boys were assembled they took
to a bus and moved on in the best Aussie style towards central
London, doing the whole nine yards with a succession of pubs and
increasingly raunchy venues, finished by a late night stripper,
though David was, by then, in no state for any serious
action.

Sandy professed disappointment
at being unable to
come along with the boys, so she and Julie, along with
Susan and Anne and Susan’s Australian cousins had their own
impromptu girls’ night out together, though in a different part of
the town, to ensure that paths did not cross.

Next day was not so
flash
for
the boys, hangover cures aplenty were touted. None really worked
though, as the day wore on, the passage of time ensured that all
gradually felt better.

The
Australians and others from out of
town had taken over a large part of their hotel in downtown
Reading. The smoking room was now a place of boys, with dark
glasses to avoid the glare, nursing watered drinks and with their
female partners showing a remarkable lack of sympathy ass they
sipped on Gin and Tonics, consumed plates of fries and mocked their
men folk for being piss-weak and having poor staying
power.

Vic was one of the better off
though he had enjoyed the best night out since he left
home
, the
‘Ocker’ humor worked best for him, full of mocking asides and
little put downs; David parodied by brothers and cousins
alike.

But that was last night. Now he needed to
talk to Buck, his fellow executor about Mark’s will. He and Susan
had only spent brief moments together since his arrival at her
family’s house the night before last, she was busy with a church
rehearsal when he arrived and by the end of a night of many
meetings and greetings they both slumped into bed
exhausted.

So, yesterday
morning
, he
had only mentioned the will to her and told her briefly of the
contents. He really wanted to talk to Buck in the first instance;
it was up to the two of them had to work out the details. She was
the main beneficiary once all the dust settled, but their job came
first, to interpret and follow the written instructions.

The
stones Susan had discovered were now
stored in an Edinburgh bank vault with a conservative estimate
placing their value at two to three million pounds plus. It was
likely a big plus due to the quality of what was seen. But they
were Susan’s private inheritance, as the letter from Mark made
clear. So even though Susan said they should be considered as part
of the estate, Vic did not agree and he was planned to forget about
them for now.