It was almost dark when Vic and Jane arrived in Abu Dhabi, stopover point of their flight to London. They approached over the clear waters of the Arabian Gulf and glimpsed high buildings at the edge of the water before settling onto a runway that shimmered with heat eddies in the late afternoon light. They had three nights here and then their flight went on via London to Glasgow, where Jane’s parents, who had flown direct, would be waiting for them.
Vic had read the Sunday and Monday papers with trepidation as they waited to depart from Australia, but there had been nothing about where Susan was or linking her to his Jane. He was not convinced this hunting of her was finished but it was out of his hands.
So he decided that he and his new bride, along with little David and Annie should enjoy this visit to an exotic location. Tomorrow they would do a boat trip out to sightsee in the Gulf. The next day was a rest and relaxation day, visiting the shopping centers and big buildings before an early departure on the third morning for their London leg.
As they left their airport terminal for the coach to the city the baking heat hit them. Vic felt at home in this desert place, a different landscape but with similar air-feel to his home. He wondered how he would handle the cold rain and mist of Scotland after this place’s blasting heat which barely eased with the setting sun.
Their days passed like a magic interlude, out in the sparkling Gulf waters on the first day, heat shimmering off the shore horizon. On their second day they mostly lounged around the pool, teaching their children to swim, with a brief lunchtime foray to a huge shopping centre.
As Jane lay in the circle of Vic’s arms on that last night in the Gulf, he asked her if she was still as happy to be married. They had not talked about what happened on the day with the journalist. With all the other activity of the wedding it had largely passed her. He hoped he could now consign it to the dustbin of history.
However, to this question, rather than giving an immediate answer in her normal way, he felt Jane pause, as if thinking. He looked at her closely. He found himself sinking into her blue eyes. Just when he felt himself losing all other threads of memory in this pool of light she spoke. “I was fully happy before and now I am glad to be married. It has a feeling of rightness for me and in making you the father of my children.
“One thing I do not understand though is who that man was, why he asked that question, and what it meant. I most don’t understand what it was that made you so angry. I have never seen you angry before. With that man you frightened me, not because I thought you would hurt me, but because you were so quick to act against him. There was danger in you in that minute that I did not know existed.
“If I have done something that caused your anger towards him I feel I need to know and yet the knowledge scares me so. The only thing he said that made sense to me was my name.
“One day last Christmas, at the farm in the country, I saw a piece paper with the travel bookings for Tom and Elinor MacDonald. I knew it must be my parents, because people called them Tom and Elinor. So it told me that, as their daughter, my surname must have be MacDonald too.
“I could not remember having that name, but knew it must have been so. So I thought, I have been married before, that is where my babies came from, and that man’s surname must have been Bennet.
“Then, when that man, Ross Sangster, was asking me questions, he asked me to try and remember being a little girl. I told him I remembered going to my grandparents farm in Scotland. Since that day I have remembered how people called me Susan, or Susie, or sometimes, “little M”, after my aunt Emily. So then I knew that my other names were once, Susan and Emily.
“So, when that man came up to me and said, “Susan Emily MacDonald,” I knew he was talking to me and I wanted to help him. But when he asked me about marrying the best friend of the man I killed I did not understand.
“Did I crash a car and kill that man and in doing so did I lose my memory?
“Or did I cause some other accident that killed him and if so what was it?
“And why did him saying it make you so angry that you punched him, over and over again, until he fell to the ground?
“So it has not spoilt being married. But each day my mind asks these questions. Even though it frightens me I think I need to know.”
Now it was Vic’s turn to think, to try and wrestle a safe answer out of his mind that was true but not dangerous. To mask his uncertainty he put his fingers in her hair and kissed her. She kissed him in return. Soon the question was lost in other pleasures.
After, as she lay with hair spilling into his face, she said. “My question still remains from our wedding day.”
He said, “I will start to tell you, one little bit at a time. But if I frighten you please tell me to stop.”
“Before I met you, you were with my best friend. His name was Mark, Mark Bennet. He is the father of your children. One day he died, I don’t think it was your fault, but some people said you killed him. That man I hit wrote it in a newspaper, saying other bad and untrue things about you too. So, on our wedding day when he asked that question, I got very angry.”
Jane nodded, “I am glad that is all it was. That is all I need to know.”
Vic felt relief that Jane had asked for nothing further, though her lack of curiosity also troubled him.
Instead she placed his hand on the bottom of her belly and put her own hand over it. “Now I have something to tell you. Under there a new person is growing, I can feel his spirit touching mine like butterfly wings. I think his name will be Vic. He will be our child, the product of love and bodies joined.”
Vic lay there, keeping his hand pressed to that place, lost in amazement that a part of him had created a new life within the body of this gorgeous woman. He felt overcome by a joyous wonder that it could be so.
Next day they came on to London and then flew on to Glasgow, having decided it was safest to go straight there. From there they caught the train up into the highlands with her parents. They marveled at the glorious scenery of lochs and snow covered mountains.
Jane found more and more childhood memories returned as she saw this place, she knew the mountain and lake names, she remembered the little villages, and finally, as they drew near to their own stop, she was bubbling with excitement. As they came to the small village railway stop she could feel herself bursting with impatience.
She saw her aunt in the distance and knew her name without prompting. “Aunt Ada,” she called out and ran into her arms. “It is so good to see you and remember you. I feared you would be strangers. I am so happy to know you, even though it is only a memory from when I was a little girl.”
They brought their new family to their country house. It was not so large and grand as in her childhood mind, but was warm and comfortable, tucked into a hill with a lake below, with her grandparents house just behind it.
As they looked out a late afternoon mist was rising in the valley and far across the heather hillside she saw deer heads, raised proud and tall against the skyline. It felt so good to have returned to a place full of memories.