Sunlit Shadow Dance (4 page)

He said he had
to fly back to the Northern Territory in the morning; he had a
distance of about 800 kilometres to fly before daylight Monday.

The pastor
asked, “Would you have time to come to church in the morning before
you head away?”

He shrugged
and grimaced slightly. “Well you know Pastor, not really my cup of
tea, so I better not make any promises, plus I had planned to go
early. So I won’t say yes, but stranger things have happened, so
you never know.”

Doug and Ruth
both smiled and nodded knowingly as the conversation moved on. Vic
found himself wondering at his even half agreement, it was more
than he had intended, but perhaps he was in the current of
something much bigger and he just had to go with the flow.

Soon they came
to the church hall and Vic was introduced all around. There were
maybe 50 people gathered, a quarter white, three quarters black and
a few of in between shades, like himself. They were standing in
loose groups, conversations drifting here and there. A gang of
children, maybe twenty, ranging from toddlers to ten plus ran
around between the adults grabbing handfuls of nibbles, while they
chatted and drank fruit punch. It was friendly and welcoming. Vic
found himself looking for the Jane person.

Suddenly there
she was at his elbow, carrying a platter of savoury pastries which
she was offering around. She treated him to her brightest yet
smile, not quite Susan like but somehow more familiar and welcoming
than before. He thanked her and she moved away, continuing her
rounds.

She was
dressed simply and plainly, no glamour of make up or hair style.
Her clothes were probably op-shop hand me downs, neat but without
any concession to fashion. Yet he still thought she looked lovely.
He felt a huge compulsion to talk to her, to get to know this
reincarnation that looked so like Susan, even if the light at her
core was missing.

However that
was easier said than done in this busy social gathering. She
continued to take a lead in the service of food and he had many
people who wanted to talk to him; ask his advice about the cattle
work, find out about how he came to be a successful helicopter
pilot, trade stories with him of the bush. He enjoyed it and found
it engaging, yet part of him wished for a quiet place where there
were just two people and they could talk alone.

However he
participated with good heart, knowing he must be patient for a
chance to come. He found himself seated with a big plate of food,
surrounded by several stockman and Rick, all telling stories of
cattle work. Jane was seated now at another table talking to the
Pastor and his wife. Her two children were like unguided missiles,
shooting amongst the floating mass of others, running here and
there, sometimes eating, mostly laughing.

He felt
something grab his leg. It was David. He hoisted him to his lap and
directed pieces of food his way as the conversation continued.
David seemed content for a minute just to sit there and gaze around
this crowd of men’s faces. After a few minutes he wriggled back
down and ran off.

Vic watched
him as he hurtled back towards the place where his mother sat.
Suddenly a small foot caught a chair leg. Vic watched as he crashed
face first into the wooden floor. Vic was up and over to him in a
bare second, lifting him up before he could start to cry. He did
not begin to understand how his reflexes had moved him so fast.

David had a
cut on his lip and looked to be about to burst into a crying fit,
but then he saw this man’s face holding him. He took a deep breath
as he calmed himself and controlled the tears. There was something
so ‘Susan like’ in that little gesture. It shook Vic to the core,
that ability for self-control.

He took the
hanky from his pocket and dabbed it on the cut, just a smudge of
blood. He gently held it there for a minute while the boy remained
quiet. He removed the hanky and the lip seemed OK though no doubt
it would be swollen in the morning. He returned the boy to the
floor, giving him a pat on the head and saying. “You are a brave
little fella.”

David toddled
off, minor injury forgotten. Vic looked up to see Jane’s eyes on
him. They were serious, not smiling but seeking, as if trying to
find some tiny fragment of another self. As he caught her eyes she
looked away.

It seemed all
too soon when the night was ending, no late night revelry here. He
had found no chance to talk to her in anything approaching a
private setting. Now he saw her walking towards him bringing her
two little children, one holding each hand.

She stood
before him, in a simple and unassuming manner, saying. “I am sorry,
I need to take my children home to bed now, they are both tired. I
just wanted to say thank you for minding David, particularly when
he fell over.

“
I am not sure if you can manage it in the morning, before you
leave, but if you can it would be really nice if you could come to
church. Service starts at 9 am and our choir has been practicing
some songs to sing. I would like it if you came.”

He wanted to
jump up and escort her home, but something restrained him. He had a
sixth sense that he had to take it slowly, allow trust to grow and
give her time to open up when she was more comfortable. He still
did not know if this lady was Susan or someone else, but it no
longer mattered so desperately. He just wanted to know her more,
the face of the enigma. So he stilled his impatience and watched
her walk out the door, knowing that he was destined to be at church
in the morning.

He looked up
to see Rick looking at him in an appraising manner, “I don’t
pretend to know what is going on inside your head, but there is
something happening there. And not just for you, our Jane has shown
more animation tonight than in the year and a half she has been
here.”

Vic nodded,
“You could be right. I promise I will tell you soon. I need to do
more work around here, so as to have a reason to make some more
visits. Make sure my name gets to the top of the list if you hear
of helicopter jobs going, hell I can even drive a bull catcher if
it comes to that.”

Rick nodded.
“I get it, jobs north, south, east and west of here with ferry
stops and overnights here. I might need a commission to act as your
local agent, but I will see what I can do.”

Jane dreamt of
lying in bed, without memory, with the unknown man, again that
night.

It was a
broken night of sleep. David was restless and irritable with the
cut to his lip. In the end, she brought him into bed with her to
help him settle and, of course, Anne would not stay alone without
her inseparable brother in the crib next to hers. So they both
ended up sleeping in her bed; fortunately it was a big double bed
so they all had space to stretch out. She put them on the inside
where the mattress was hard against the wall. That way she knew
they would not fall out of bed and wake up screaming.

So, for a
couple hours after she came to bed, she lay there in a restless
state, soothing her children until they finally settled. After that
she found her own mind was wide awake and active as it relived her
remembered life, the almost eighteen months since her memories had
begun in April last year, just at the end of the rainy season, with
her children born in early May. It was now October and the nights
were getting hot, she could feel sweat on her skin from places
where her children were touching her despite the ceiling fan
whirring away. The covers, which her children needed to settle,
seemed too heavy on her skin and made her hot.

She found
herself wondering about David and why he had taken to this strange
new man, the one that looked at her with such piercing eyes, as if
she should know him, though she had no idea why he thought
that.

He was just
another stranger who she had seen for the first time earlier today.
The funny thing was he had begun to have a color in her imagination
this night, a nut brown color, not all of him, but the bare skin on
his arms, those strong arms which had effortlessly picked David up
and hoisted him into the air, sitting on his shoulders. She found
herself smiling as she remembered the way David had chortled as he
sat on top, loving the view and patting this man’s head like a pet
dog.

Every other
time a man had reached for David, to pick him up or restrain him,
David had cried out in fear and she needed to take him and comfort
him. Even now, after well over a year, he would barely allow Pastor
Doug to touch him though he went happily to his wife Ruth and to
other children. And yet he had gone straight to this man, Vic,
without hesitation. She intended to give Anne to Vic to hold,
knowing she would be fine. Instead he had picked up David before
she had a chance to suggest that.

She felt a
small bit of worry about David, Anne was resilient and outgoing but
David was very shy and dependent on her and his twin sister. She
would have liked him to be a bit more confident. When she was out
with other people he mostly just clung to her skirts. Maybe it was
a stage he was going through. She had no one else to compare him
too. While she loved her importance to him, she wanted him to
become braver and less dependent. So yesterday had been a big step
forward. She really hoped this man would come to church to see and
listen to her sing. Singing was the one time she felt complete, as
if she had something of value to give to others.

It was funny,
but when she had first come to this place she had no real sense of
a missing past, just an empty place before her memory started and a
new reality began. But she knew there must have been a past
somewhere, a man to father her children, a mother and father of her
own. She did not miss not knowing them, but she did feel a vague
curiosity about who these people were, most particularly her
mother.

It had come to
her clearly one day when she wanted to know when her babies would
be able to walk, people had told her that most children learnt to
walk at about a year of age but some learnt early at nine months
and some took up to a year and a half. She found herself wondering
how old she was when she took her first steps. Then the thought
occurred to her that, if she had a mother nearby, then she could
ask her. So she wondered what had happened to her own mother so
that she did not know her.

Now, as she
lay tossing in bed, her mind wandered to another place, thinking
affectionately of her best friends the church pastor and his wife,
Ruth, who seemed to have adopted her. She remembered them coming to
the hospital the day after her babies were born, introducing
themselves, and offering to make a prayer for her babies’ health
and happiness. She had accepted, thinking this must be the normal
thing people did with babies. It had been nice, hearing them say
kind words for her and her children.

Then Pastor
Doug had suggested she have her babies baptized a few weeks later.
She assumed this was also part of what one did so she said ‘Yes’
again. He had asked her if she wanted to invite anyone, like
parents or family. She said she did not know where her parents or
family were. So he suggested an aboriginal man and woman from the
church to stand in as god parents. She accepted that too as they
seemed like nice people and they now were also her friends.

As she looked
back on her remembered life she thought about another thing she had
since discovered about herself which was peculiar. Her life had no
colours.

People often
talked about the colour of things, the green of trees, the blue of
the sky, the brown of the earth. She saw shades which she thought
were those colors. But, a few months ago, she had been having a cup
of tea at Ruth’s house while her babies played. She was looking at
two books on the coffee table there; they both had pictures of
people and places. To her the pictures in both books looked much
the same, nice but nothing special.

Ruth had come
and sat alongside, looking with her. Pointing to one picture, Ruth
said, “Isn’t that sky the most beautiful blue colour?”

She had
replied, “It looks the same to me as that other picture,” pointing
to a picture with sky in the other book.

Ruth said,
puzzled, “But that is just a black and white picture, how can you
tell they look the same?”

Jane said, as
if it was normal, “They both look the same to me.”

So they had
turned a few pages of both books together and Ruth had pointed out
different colours which all looked the same shade to Jane.
Gradually they had both come to realize that Ruth was seeing
something that Jane could not, a thing she called colours.

Jane had
thought, before, she was seeing colours too. Since then she
realized that what she was seeing was shades of grey. It had not
seemed a big deal to her, she could see just fine and she could
work out what things were from the shades she saw, even if Ruth
seemed a bit concerned.

Soon after
that she started to go to church each weekend, at first to keep
Ruth and Doug happy. But it was nice. Pastor Doug mostly told happy
stories which she liked.

But what she
discovered, which she most liked at church, was the music. The
church had a choir; she really liked listening to the choir. One
day the choir sang a new song which she had never heard before. It
was an aboriginal song by a blind man called Gurrumul. He lived at
a place called Gove; it was somewhere towards Darwin in the part of
Australia called the Northern Territory. This day, someone played a
new song which Gurrumul sung on CD music player. The church choir
sang along.

“
I was born blind, I don’t know why.

God made me
blind, because he loves me so.”