That was it really, the end of the story of Cathy.
Mark’s diary told of their next night very briefly; them lying together in a swag under the stars, him telling her the story of Belle, how he had shot her, and of the awful grief and remorse which followed. She had comforted him with her body, the way that only a woman could, lovers at last, taking his pain inside herself and giving a little healing in return.
The diary did not record him telling her about the other deaths he had caused. That suggested he had not told her of these, perhaps he thought this was a truth too bad for even her to hear.
The story ended with the words,
“I lay with her under a starry desert sky and bared my soul, I spoke of Belle and how I loved her, yet how I killed her, and how that killing of what I loved was now killing my soul. There was something in Cathy that was like my Belle, it was a look, as if she saw into my soul and judged me not.
“Cathy comforted me as only a woman can, this woman whose soul was torn by her own anguish. She took my body inside her own. I emptied my seed within her and it felt as if some part of the badness in my soul was emptied too. She loved me with her body.
“As I held her I was comforted. In some small measure I hope I gave her comfort too though a part of me fears I betrayed our friendship by taking what too many men had taken before.
“But, after it was done, she said this night it was different, she had given herself to me with love, something she had never done before. I hope our shared pleasure has given her healing. But a part of me knows fear for her; fear that I have added another layer to her pain, giving her my pain to share.”
After those lines telling of them as lovers, giving and returning love, Cathy was gone. The only other time her name appeared was a brief mention in a poem. It was placed after a page on which he had drawn a picture of an eagle in the sky and a dingo standing alone and proud on a ridge top, mouth open and howling at the night sky.
Anne wondered if it was symbolic of the eagle flying away and him, left alone yet again, howling into the desolation.
The final entry with her name was poetic and cryptic.
Cathy vanished I know not where
I searched for her and found only air
Perhaps she has gone to a place in the sky
A place to which only the eagles can fly
I hope I have not harmed her
In my dreams I have fear
That something terrible has happened to her.
But where she is now I have not any clue
In heaven or hell, only God knows what is true
I wish her well in this life or the next
I most wish to hold her and again feel her breath
But still with her leaving I have her wise words
‘I have started again, Mark, so also must you
One day you will find her, your own new queen
You will travel with her to a place never seen
Would that queen was me, perhaps in time it can be
But first I must heal myself, mend my own broken soul
For a beginning of this I thank you, my friend of all worlds’
Then on the same page under the poem was a single line that may have referred to her uncle. ‘One day he will pay, I will make it so’
So Anne had a detailed picture in part, three days of their trip in the diary, an intimate and detailed account of what Cathy had told him of her own rape and life as a prostitute. This story was so explicit that it seemed as if, after she was gone, Mark recorded every word as she had spoken it, so others could know of the awfulness done to this child.
After Cathy told him of her life the story jumped straight to the intimate account of the night when they became lovers. It must have been a subsequent night, probably the next night, but that was only a guess.
There was no description of them leaving Coober Pedy on the morning after the party, though others confirmed that they had, their holding hands at breakfast, hugging their hosts and promising to come again, then a last sight of them driving away towards Alice Springs.
There was no clear record of them being in any other place. That final night was not a story about a physical place where they became lovers, nor about the act itself. It was a story about an emotional connection, a second part of their joint healing as she took his body within her own and gave comfort to his soul’s pain. And, in a strange way, it also seemed to be a closure to the story of Belle, as if Mark saw something in this woman that was of the other, a look and a kind friendship. It seemed to Anne that, when he was with Cathy, a truth was told and accepted and that gave him a way forward.
But Cathy, so alive and vibrant, just vanished. All Anne held in her hands to mark this passing was fragments of nothing.
Was she alive of dead? The story gave no clue. Perhaps Mark had really not known. After the tenderness of their few days together it was impossible to believe he set out to kill her. Yet she was gone and tragedy seemed to stalk all the companions of this man.
So it could be so, that she was dead, but Anne was determined not to abandon this one to the same lost fate as the others, a truly lost girl. She lived in hope that Cathy had just vanished somewhere to escape the story she could never bring herself to tell her family. Perhaps she was fearful of what Mark would do to her Uncle if he ever met him.
This part of Mark’s dairy told a deeply personal story of this girl, a story she had told to only one man in the confidence of a night together. Anne understood she did not have Cathy’s permission to it share with others, not even Cathy’s own family, it would betray her clear intent after all she had done to keep her awful secret.