Chapter 24 - Anne in France
Anne looked back on what she had understood from Mark’s diary thus far. It was the most heartbreaking story she had ever been part of, she had read plenty of awful stories in books, but here was an immediacy to living out the scribbled words penned in that far off place. He described tragedy with banality and it felt like someone had pulled her heart out.
It was a patchwork of fragments. It was only when she had come to France and met with Isabelle’s parents that it had begun to make real sense in her mind. There were many French passages in this diary part, some in a lovely flowing cursive French script which Isabelle’s parents had said was Isabelle’s own hand, so familiar from the memorabilia of her bedroom, these notes in her own hand the incontrovertible match to her diary writings. Other parts were in simple, unadorned English in Mark’s hand. Some parts were written awkwardly in constructed French. Here it appeared that Isabelle had sat alongside, helping Mark to find words and phrases to express his emotions, a voyage of joint discovery which spoke of friendship and growing love, a shared poetry of togetherness.
Of her own notebook, to which she referred to in a couple places, there was no sign. It must have remained with her other things as the repository of her most private thoughts. But there was plenty in the diary in her hand. It spoke of her infatuation with this man, and equally of his with her, telling of the kind things he did for her and little gifts he gave her. It was first told with the sense of ever deepening friendship, and then through eyes filled with the intense passion of new lovers. In the scenes which told of the singing and dancing were pure magic.
Then came those final flat sentences where Mark told of her fall and the end, redolent with grief.
He told of his act with the rifle, an act of kindness, but it was a finale so devastating; she and Belle’s family had tears flowing over their cheeks.
He told of his remorse that he had not brought a bigger gun; he talked about how his 308 or 243 could have kept the crocodiles at bay. He told of his similar remorse that, in that split second of decision, he had not flung himself in the water to try and use his body as a shield while she swam to the bank. But there was no going back from that second.
She could see that in this reading both Mark’s and Isabelle’ words she had brought some closure to Isabelle’s parents’ grief, not removed it but given them all understanding, a sense that Mark had taken the best bad choice, better than the fear and pain of the alternative. But it was so hard to read and know the truth.
After this happened Mark had descended into a very dark place, there were few words in his diary in the next year, but what was told spoke of the void in his soul with the loss of this girl, his friend and lover.
He seemed a man marked by an evil finger of fate, his upbringing and this series of misfortunes, deaths for which he could not really be blamed but which destroyed some part of his soul. If was as if this day marked the true start of his descent into inhumanity.
If only that day had been different she had little doubt that Mark would have returned with Belle to France, met her parents and married this girl, now they would now most likely have children of their own and have forged a new and happy future together far away from the previous darkness and tragedy. And but for this the rest would never have been.
She could picture the man and his dark haired girl in a French village, him using his skill to make and fix things, she using hers to teach the local children, evenings of laughter, dancing and singing.
Perhaps they would have travelled the world together, going to out of the way places in French Polynesia or French Africa. But it was not to be.
Where her final resting place was, the place of the cave of her things, was little more than guess. Anne had surveyed the vastness of this wild place on the map, but there were few clues of an exact location in the diary, it was hundreds of kilometres of possible coast. So perhaps that part would never be known, or perhaps, with some local knowledge giving a better guess, a search could be made.
In the meantime she felt she had closed one more chapter of Mark’s life with a degree of understanding. She feared to read on in detail, her previous limited reading gave a sense this story would be much darker from here. But to do justice to the other lost girls, read it she must.
Now she must say goodbye to Belle and her family; travel on.
As she went on she must try and discover another girl, an unknown emergent from shadows, she was not a known person, J, perhaps Josie, was her diary name. She appeared but briefly, like a moth drawn to candle flame. Like moth it seemed to end badly.
Part 4- Interlude
Lost Girl Diary Page 26