Almost two months had passed since that day when Jane and Vic had driven away. Vic could not think of a time when his life had been better or more fulfilling. Not that there were not lots of little speed-bumps or frustrations along the way, including the inability to satisfy his sexuality with this beautiful women whose body pressed to his every night.
But these were, at most, minor frustrations. They did not detract from all the goodness that filled his life. In his earlier life, when he visited his sister in Alice Springs, one of the things which gave him greatest pleasure was her three children coming and going, talking to Uncle Vic, sitting on his knee, showing him their books and drawings, sometimes telling him their stories of the days. At times they played little games which involved him but at other times he just sat and watched.
Now he had a family and it felt like it was his own; his Janie, his Annie and his Davie; he had given them all pet names of affection. Janie was his wife in all but name. Apart from that full sexual union, they did everything together, talked, shared, worked side by side, held each other in the night. He felt so comfortable with her and knew it went both ways. And he loved their children. Even though they were really hers, not his, he felt the same level of ownership and protectiveness he would have if he was the biological father. At first they mostly called him Bic, now he was just Daddy; he had filled up their memories in this space. He rarely disciplined them, though a couple times he had given Annie a small slap when she was mean to other kids at the playground, and a couple times something similar to Davie when he did something dangerous that could injure him. He had told Janie and she had said, “Of course, you are their father now, like I am their mother.”
As he walked off to work this morning he rolled through the events of the months in his mind; that long drive across the Cape to find her again, her uncertainty in the doorway and then, as they touched each other, their bodies and minds had connected in a safe place.
So he had committed himself to care for Jane and her children; she had trusted him to do so in whatever form it took. It was this sense of total trust that was so compelling; it drove him to be better than he otherwise could have been. In a way he felt he was minding three children not one, except that one had the body of an adult. He sensed he was entrusted to carefully and gently rediscover this adult beneath the child in Jane. This trust was the best thing his life had required of him at any time.
He believed that, in giving her this space and safety, she would slowly rediscover herself; an adult made anew from the child he now held. He felt and thought she could never be the Susan of before again; too much had been broken inside her, parts which could not be remade. But instead she had the chance to create a new self, one who could become his Janie, the one he knew and loved and who loved him in return.
So he must hasten slowly, let her rebuild her life piece by piece. He knew he could take and love her body at any time he chose; she would trust him with this too. But to do so now would be to take a part of her innocence, to make the choice for her before she could make the conscious choice for herself. He most wanted her to regain her sense of womanhood and choose him, not for him to seduce the trusting child who would then be his bonded woman in an unchosen way.
He did not know why this seemed so important but it was. So he must just push away his sexual desire for her, at least for now. He must pretend, when she cuddled her body into him and pressed her thighs against his maleness, that he was doing no more than cuddling a sleeping child.
His mind stepped through the weeks that had passed. Week One - they had crossed the peninsula to the east coast and followed it south to a small town south of Townsville, where they had found a caravan park with an empty van and stayed there for five nights. Days were spent watching their children play on the beach and going for walks through the sand dunes. Nights were simple meals and storytelling; she seemed to have no interest in watching television and he preferred it this way, lest stories of the missing Susan appear, or stories of Mark, Anne or the other Lost Girls.
While he was not sure what was the best way for her to regain her past knowledge, his sense was that any memories or desire for knowledge of the old had to come from inside her not be pushed onto her through the telling of the historys of who she had been by others.
So instead they both told stories, first for the children, then stories of her life in the mission since her babies came and also stories of his helicopter mustering and the people and places he had been. As they talked they linked their eyes together to share their imaginations. In that place he felt totally joined to her.
In Week Two they had drifted further south still following the coast, more little villages with holiday accommodation, budget places, each for a night or two. One day they had treated themselves to the ferry to Great Keppel Island and had stayed there for three days, swimming and snorkelling in the clear water and watching their children play in the shallows. In Week Three they came towards Brisbane, stopping in towns like Bundaberg and Gympie, but finding the city, as they approached it, to be too confronting for an unfamiliar family with two small children. By Week Four they had come back to the coast, this time to the Sunshine Coast.
Here they finally found this place which felt right; a holiday and caravan park just a short distance from the town of Caloundra. The ocean beaches were beautiful, there were sheltered inlets on the bay side which were safe for small children, the people were friendly but incurious, and they had been given a free demountable to live in along with a modest wage for Vic, paid in cash in return for him doing a few hours of caretaker and handyman duties each day. He also did a bit of casual labouring nearby, the jobs coming by word of mouth.
There was plenty of work and it was easy work for someone with his mechanical skills; ground maintenance, welding and fabrication, fixing lawnmowers and other small machines, maintaining the pool complex and gardens. It was not a job for life but the pay was enough to cover the daily living expenses and it gave them both a sense of stability and security.
He used the name Vic Bennet, giving an impression of being married to keep life simple. At the same time he avoided pieces of paper that could be traced; the cash funded a day to day existence, meeting basic living costs without the need for a verified identity
For Janie, in particular, this was a place to put down new roots. Her best friend had become Thea, a single parent who lived in the demountable two doors down. She had two children, aged two and four, and supported herself by making the beds and cleaning the units in the park.
Now Janie also had a part time job doing this too, covering days when Thea was extra busy or not available. When neither was working they would meet up for a slice of cake and a cup of tea, mostly at Thea’s unit. During work, when required they could share the child minding though Thea mostly brought her children from unit to unit as she tidied them. Jane had started to do the same with her children when Vic was not at home.
Vic liked Thea, but he was wary of her becoming too curious about their life. He tried to skirt around the occasional questions she asked; about where they were from or had lived and worked before. He just said he came from Alice Springs and had both been living and working up in the Cape before they got together. But Thea was a keen magazine reader and TV watcher. This gave Vic bouts of anxiety, lest she make the connection to such a well-covered media story.
Vic found his mind returning to their trip down the coast. Along the way, as they travelled, he had made a weekly phone call to get news of what was happening with the legal case in Darwin. At the same time he would pass on news of Jane for parents and friends. Wherever possible he used payphones to avoid his mobile, lest it be traced.
His concern was about a mole in the NT police or court system. His first suspicions had been well founded; within a week of them leaving a vague rumour was aired about sightings of Susan, still alive, in a town in north Queensland, fortunately with no location specified. This story seemed to have more of a ring of truth than the previous Susan sightings.
At least there were no new names and no current photos, his Janie now had her hair cut in a short bob and her face had plumped out, so the ability to link her to the Susan released from jail in Darwin nearly two years before was fading, the pasty faced, heavily pregnant girl of the old media photos was very much changed to his Janie.
His first telephone conversation had been with Buck. Vic identified himself and told Buck they were together and all was fine, avoiding more specific news.
Buck himself had two pieces of news, one that Susan’s parents had tested the DNA from the handkerchief and had confirmed that David was indeed their grandson, though Vic’s doubts of this were well gone without the official confirmation. The second was about the rat in the ranks of NT government who was feeding some information to the press, fuelling the speculation which was now hotting up, as evidenced by the Queensland sighting. So, as Buck said, this meant they had to be really careful about any communications and particularly about any locations and names.
On the inside of NT government Alan and Sandy were informally aware of DNA result. Alan had been talking to people unofficially in legal circles about how to proceed, whether to seek to reopen the court case and seek a change to the conviction or alternatively to try and have the sentencing concluded to a level where Susan was free to lead her life, or at least to some find some way of removing the legal requirement for her to return to custody for having broken her bail.
There had been speculation about Vic having a role in her disappearance. Some calls for an arrest warrant to be issued for him, based on the suspicion that he had in some way aided a convicted prisoner had been aired. But the story Buck let slip of his going to Canada was accepted; after all he no longer flew his helicopter. And Alan had done a good job of calming the horses from the inside so no-one had formally attempted to locate him for questioning or pursue more serious matters.
The other conversation Vic had was with Anne. This happened when they were staying in Yeppoon one night, where they had checked into a motel. They had just spent the three glorious days on Great Keppel Island, staying in a small and basic bunkhouse a short walk back from a pristine white sandy beach, dotted with corral atolls spread through the deeper water. Another couple, with small children, were staying nearby and they all became instant friends, sharing meals and drinks while their children played together. They had also taken turns to babysit the combined children while the other couple went for a swim together, out amongst the corral.
It was not something Vic had done before but Janie knew all about it, even knowing the names of many of the fish and pointing them out to Vic, glowing with enthusiasm as they explored. She was delighted this part of her knowledge carried over from a former life, having intensive discussions with the husband of the other couple, Eric, who was a marine biologist. Vic loved seeing this part of Jane’s adult personality and memory return.
That night, having returned from the island, with all the activity of the last three days, Janie and the babies were exhausted and fell asleep together in a tangle on the large bed. Vic had been reluctant to use his own mobile too much, since he had talked to Buck, lest the police try and trace him through it. It did have a new number but still he was not sure he could not be traced.
So he had eyed off the room phone and decided to chance it. Buck did not pick up, so he thought who else to try. Alan and Sandy were a bit risky and he did not want them to have knowledge they might have to deny.
That left Anne or David, neither of whom he knew well, or perhaps Susan’s parents. He was not yet ready to talk to them though he had taken a picture of Janie and the children to send to them on his phone camera.
He thought about waiting for another day, but chances were not easy to come by. In trying to understand this person he was with he really needed to know more about her and, after all, Anne was Susan’s best friend. She had been so from school, so who better to fill him in on her early life, the little snippets that he may be able to use to see if they triggered any memories.
So he rang through and she picked up on the first ring. “Anne here,” a more businesslike manner than he was used to. However, after a minute of making polite conversation, he found himself comfortable talking to her. He explained. “I felt like I needed to touch base with one of her friends. She and the children are fine. They are asleep on the bed next to me as they are tired.
“Now that we know for certain it is her, I am trying to think of ways to help her remember. At the moment she has no memories of before being here in Queensland with her babies. But the amazing thing is that she has full knowledge of some things, like working computers. Today she was talking to a marine biologist about Barrier Reef fish as if she was as much an expert as he was. But she does not know where she was born or grew up; she does not know how to cook a meal except for eggs and sausages, or any of those other things which would come from her past memories. So I am trying to find out things that she might know about, as it will help us to have things to talk about and it may also lead to other memories which she can’t reach now.”
In the end they talked for over half an hour and he got lots of the detail of Susan’s early life. He also promised to text her the picture with Janie and the babies so that Anne could pass it on to Susan’s parents.
After that, as they travelled on, Vic used his new found knowledge to try and open up more of Susan’s past knowledge and memories. He found her knowledge of what she studied at University was remarkably good, though she had no knowledge of the courses of study or the people she knew at University. Now they could talk about archaeology or medical technology, even though these fields were not Vic’s strong points. But, in this, Janie was a great teacher. She seemed to be able to retrieve vast stores of knowledge of her technical background, building Vic’s interest in these unknown fields.
He really liked seeing this side of his companion; in these things she was the master and he was the apprentice. It brought more balance into their relationship. It also seemed to satisfy a need in her to have more meaningful things to think about and discover. Now she would collect inexpensive books on these topics in second hand bookshops and devour them voraciously.
But in all other things she stayed a child, and in most ways she seemed unaware of her childish state. She had no sense of what clothing suited her, she had no sense of how she should cut her hair or apply makeup, her food and cooking knowledge was rudimentary, her knowledge of normal children’s development was abysmal.
One day she told him she could not see colours. The way she recently identified and told him the names of the fish on the reef, describing their patterns and shapes, it had not occurred to him she could not see this. It came out as she told him more about her singing in the church and how it let her see the colour blue when the world around was only greys. And she told him how she now could see the brown colour of the skin on his arms when he held her children, but only in that place and that time. She said that one day she hoped she would be able to see some other colours, but for now she was happy she could see these two colours as they were so beautiful.
The thing he most loved and marveled about in this new woman was her positivity. She had lost almost everything she had ever known. And yet, in the things she did have, her children, him, and with the two colours she saw, she conveyed irrepressible joy. The eyes that looked at him, her blue eyes, gave him total attention and were for him alone. She looked at and played with her children the same way. They basked in this joy as did he.