Beth returned to the house feeling tired and numb. She took the phone off the hook to guarantee the silence. Curling up on the couch, her mind replayed the events of the last few days over and over again. Before she knew it, she’d drifted off to sleep.
It was early evening when she awoke, feeling more refreshed than she had for a long time. What a rare luxury, to let the fears and sorrow of the past few days fade from focus. The evening remained oppressively hot, so she took a long lazy shower and slipped into a cool, white, cotton nightgown. Things seemed far less daunting now she was rested.
“What a mess!’ she thought, as she went back downstairs. No housework had been done for days. Clutter filled the lounge room and dishes mounted in the kitchen. Beth packed the dishwasher and turned it on, but left the lounge room as it was. There was something familiar and comforting about its lived-in look. The rest of the house was eerily quiet though. It had been months since Mark had taken the children for the weekend, and she realised she was quite unaccustomed to the solitude.
A knock came at the door. Beth was almost pleased, despite all her protests about wanting to be alone. Perhaps Irene had returned for some reason. She remembered that she’d left the phone off the hook, and felt a little guilty. Hoping she hadn’t worried her friend, she opened the door. It was Mark. Beth stood, open mouthed, unable to process the evidence of her own eyes. Mark smiled warmly. Beth looked very young, with her tousled, towel-dried hair, her fresh scrubbed face, her simple night gown and her astonished expression. He could see the heavy outline of her breasts through the thin, cotton material.
“Can I come in?” he asked gently.
Beth stood stock still and did not answer. Taking her shoulders in both hands, he moved her to one side, and she meekly complied. His breath smelt strongly of whisky. He entered the house and closed the door. His wife turned to face him, but she remained close to the entrance.
“Surprised to see me Elizabeth?” asked Mark unnecessarily.
“How? How can you be alive?” stammered Beth.
Mark only smiled and said “Our little secret. Understand that nobody else can know.”
He sounded quite mad.
Beth’s mind desperately ran through the possible explanations for the impossible. She was still asleep and dreaming. She was deluded and hallucinating. She was seeing a ghost. What else? She remembered Rick’s dream. What had he said? That he saw his father at the funeral? She looked at Mark more closely; at what he was wearing. A cheap polyester track-suit. Not his style at all. What else did Rick say? A disguise, he’d said. His father was wearing a disguise.
As the reality of Mark’s existence sank in, Beth felt a wave of deadly fear rise from the pit of her stomach, causing her chest to tighten so that she was conscious of each heart beat. Her every intuition urged her to flee. Behind her, she felt for the door handle. Slowly, imperceptibly, she turned it until it clicked open. For a dreadful instant she was too frightened to move. But suddenly she found the courage to spring backwards, burst through the door, and make a mad dash away from the house.
Several moments passed before Mark comprehended what had happened. This wasn’t the way he’d imagined it at all. His wife was meant to be overcome with joy at his survival. Mark charged after her, fury mounting with every stride. Although she had a small head start, Mark was faster. By the time Beth reached the end of the garden he was upon her. As she tried to slip through the paddock rails he grabbed her, hurling her roughly face down onto the ground. In a second he was on top of her, kissing and biting the nape of her neck, trying to push her nightgown up around her waist.
She felt so soft and vulnerable beneath him that his anger started to subside. After all, she’d reacted only out of fear and surprise. Once she learned the truth, she’d come round. Beth lay quiet now, not daring to move. But Mark no longer held the element of surprise. This was no dream, no hallucination, no ghost. Her attacker was flesh and blood, and apparently intent on raping her, or worse. Gradually her fear was replaced with a steely resolve to defend herself.
Still Beth lay quiet. Mark turned her over to face him, and she acquiesced. The moon was not yet risen, but he could see the pale porch-light reflected in her eyes. It was too dark to read her expression. He spoke her name several times but she did not respond. Straddling her, Mark knelt up and slowly slipped the cotton straps of her gown off her shoulders. With one final tug, he exposed her breasts. Explanations could wait. The urge to possess her overcame him. His lips found her nipples, and one hand fumbled with his track pants, trying to lower them. This proved difficult. Beth seemed compliant enough now, so he took the opportunity to stand up, and strip to the waist.
As he lowered his body over her she seized her chance. With all her might she delivered a powerful kick to his groin. The blow was perfectly timed and placed. Caught unawares, Mark gave a yell and lost his balance. Beth shoved him aside and in an instant was away, diving through the rails of the fence and sprinting barefoot into the darkness.
Slowly Mark rose to his feet, cursing and pulling up his pants. Peering into the silent night, he could see nothing. Rage mixed with fear caused him to shiver slightly, despite the warm breeze. All his future plans depended on Beth. They were going to start a new life, together, far from here. He had no ‘plan B’. He turned to face the blackness, roaring out her name. In the shelter of a nearby gully, Beth heard and shuddered with alarm.
In spite of her precarious situation, Beth felt relatively safe in her hiding place, as if the bush meant to protect her. She was several hundred metres away from the house and the night was profoundly dark. Her knowledge of the land was excellent, while Mark’s was poor. The property was criss-crossed with thickly treed gullies, all leading down to a central watercourse. Her plan was to collect her thoughts for a little while, and then to try to make her way down the gully, cross the creek to the road beyond, reach a neighbour’s house, and then call the police. But for the moment she was content to crouch out of sight, recover her breath, and try to calm her racing heart. It continued to pound so loudly that she was convinced that Mark would hear it. From her hiding spot, Beth could see the woodpile, and the place where she’d held the dying Zenandra. Who would have thought that she too would be fighting for her life just days later? She mouthed a quiet prayer to the dead queen for courage.
Back at the house, Mark was becoming increasingly desperate. He needed a drink to help him think. As he walked across the lounge room to the bar, he noticed the miner’s lamp that he’d given his son for Christmas, lying on the floor behind the couch. It gave him an idea. Picking it up, he tested it. Good. It still worked. In the laundry, he found a length of light rope and shoved it into the pocket of his trousers. Then he went out the back door to the dog-run. A tired Beth had neglected to release the dogs, who’d been locked up all day and were anxious for some exercise. They greeted Mark excitedly, tails wagging and full of pent-up energy.
“Let’s find Mum,” whispered Mark as he opened the gate.
He put on the headlamp and walked with the dogs to where he’d last seen his wife, calling them through the fence into the paddock.
“Find Mum, find Mum,” he encouraged.
The little one began to yelp in anticipation.
Hidden in the gully, Beth’s blood ran cold as she heard the barking. The dogs would lead Mark straight to her. With no time to lose, she made her way in darkness down the gully, cutting her bare feet on the rough and broken ground and scratching her thinly clad body again and again on sticks and branches. Her progress was painfully slow, impeded by the treacherous combination of thick tea tree, bracken and the occasional Wombat hole.
For half an hour or more she battled on blindly through the bush. Then, exhausted and bleeding from cuts all over her legs, she paused, slumping down on a stump to rest. Looking back over her shoulder, she was horrified to see a beam of torch light. Mark. He was coming at a fast pace down the pastured hill adjoining the gully. With the advantage of light and the assistance of the dogs, he was bound to catch-up with her soon. The cover of the gully was of no use if the dogs betrayed her. Feeling around for some sort of weapon, she managed to tug a lump of wood out of the ground. Moving carefully, she finally emerged from her cover into the paddock on the other side, thinking she might have a better chance to defend herself out in the open.
By now Mark was just on the other side of the gully. She could see him clearly through the trees and realised that he was wearing a headlamp, probably Rick’s Christmas present. He held a coil of rope. When he caught her, he would have a free pair of hands. The dogs were following her by sight now. Mark stopped for a moment to train the beam of light directly on to her. She felt like a rabbit in a spotlight.
Beth backed away, praying for a miracle. Suddenly the lamp went out. She gave a quiet thank you for that faulty connection. Of course, she knew that the temperamental torch could click back on at any time, but at least it bought her some time. She continued to edge away, afraid to turn her back on her assailant. A large, fallen Wattle tree behind her caused her to trip and fall heavily, hitting her head. She noticed an odd, faint buzzing in her ears as she tried to stand and she prayed she had not suffered concussion. From nowhere, her little terrier jumped out of the night, licking her face with great excitement, closely followed by her collie, Dell. Without his light Mark had been unable to keep up with his canine guides. Beth’s reprieve was short-lived. Behind her, the enormous silver orb of a full moon rose slowly beyond the trees, illuminating the darkness.
Surrendering to her fear, Beth dropped the lump of wood and fled blindly across the paddock, followed by the excited dogs. To her relief Mark’s lamp was still not working. She reached a group of trees and hid behind them, crouching down, trying to keep the dogs quiet as her lungs tore the air for breath. Looking back from whence she came, she saw Mark’s dark figure emerge from the moon shadow cast by the gully. Once more she turned to run, hoping against hope that if she kept the dogs with her she might still elude him.