It was now mid-March, only than a month to go until Anne’s wedding and plans for it were well advanced. The days were much longer now and the grip of winter was easing, most of the snow was gone from the hillsides and the trees were all in bud with early leaves and flushes of early flowers were starting to poke up their heads in the meadows.
Anne was flying in, arriving in two weeks. Once she came Susan would take the children and stay with her parents in Reading for a fortnight. That way she could share in all the final preparations with her friend, going to the church rehearsals and the hens’ night amongst many other things.
David was flying in three nights before the wedding, on the Wednesday. Most of the other Australian contingent arrived that day or the day after. Vic would also go down that Wednesday, taking the following week off flying.
There was a bucks’ night on Thursday, where Vic would join many of the other Australian contingent, along with Susan’s brother and a couple of other down under locals to give David a proper Aussie send off. Friday was a quiet night before the wedding on Saturday in Greyfriars Church, a treasure of an old Francisan building in the heart of Reading.
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.
One night, when he was home from flying, Vic and Susan were curled up together in bed doing their ritual of reading two pages of the diary together, an institution they had consistently maintained, resisting temptation to skip ahead, determined to both know this man as fully as possible through the words he had written. They took 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, his eyes closed. 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:
Dear Susan,
If you are reading this it almost certainly means I am dead. I know now that is the only way forward from here. One of us must vanish and I could not bear for it to be you.
I have written this because I wanted to say goodbye. It seems important to me now to tell you that I love you and not just vanish with those words never said.
They are words I have wanted to say to you ever since that first day on the boat when I met you face to face, though I had already been entranced by your image, glimpsed distantly on the Cairns shoreline, feet in the shallow water and hair flung back embracing the sun. It is that I have loved you utterly since even before I first met you. It was only when brought to a place of no other choices that I could say it honestly.
“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 don’t know. All I know is that I couldn’t 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’m sorry my actions have frightened you, I’ve seen fear of me in your eyes and I hate that. I understand why. Now I must hurt you no more. That leaves only one way. Soon, with the first light of dawn, that time of choice will come and must be acted on.
I’ve just looked at your beautiful face as you lie sleeping. It’s peaceful. I hope your dreams are good and you dream of happy times with me, there are so many memories of you in my mind now and the 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’ve had you like this so many times, as I watch you sleep, I ache to feel you again this way, just one more time.
Before I write a final goodbye, I must tell you a few practical things. In my briefcase, combination 2153, you’ll find two things which I’d like you to have. Don’t give them to others, at least not until you’ve decided for yourself what you want to do with them. The first is a pouch of precious stones. They’re mine, bought and paid for in full by me. They’re all of high quality. I think their value is at least two million dollars. They now belong to you. The second is my diary. It tells of what I’ve 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 don’t, I didn’t 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’s 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 talk to the dreamtime crocodile spirit of this place until our spirits are as one. Then I’ll swim out to join the crocodiles and offer my body to them as a gift. I’ll wait until your eyes are open, before I go. I’d 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’s 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 colours.
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, Vic, 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 which 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 possess 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.