Sunlit Shadow Dance

by Graham Wilson

  Surprisingly for the next week it was only a local story and he thought it would all die down. Susan was named but of minor interest, he was the one talked about, the boy from the Australian Outback, a true bush hero.

  After a week someone joined the dots. This story was front page on a London tabloid and he knew that tomorrow it would be front cover of all the papers and lead on the TV news.

  He waited anxiously for the next day to come, expecting the worst. But instead, now that he was a national hero there was no space for any bad story about Susan. Even though the first tabloid had made the connection and tried some hints about Susan’s past life it was howled down by all the other papers and programs the next day, with stories like

  HELICOPTER PILOT HERO AND HIS REMARKABLE WIFE.

  Despite rumors in our disreputable competitor we can report that both Vic Campbell and his delightful wife Susan are true heroes, she for surviving the ordeal of months in jail for a murder she had now been pardoned for, he for first having made an extraordinary journey to escape from his own helicopter crash in one of the remotest parts of Australia and then having performed a second extraordinary feat to rescue others in a similarly terrifying situation. As modest people they now just want to be left alone to enjoy their beautiful little baby and so we should respect their wishes.

  The only comment was a single interview with her father. He simply said he and he and his wife were incredibly proud grandparents and asked all to respect the privacy of his wife and son in law.

  Within a week it was just another story, barely mentioned. In another week it was gone, with no appetite remaining for sensation. It seemed to pass Susan by. They did not deliberately hide newspapers from her and for the first day or two she had proudly read about Vic. By the time she became a character in the story she had lost interest. So these papers stayed unread.

  Chapter 37 – Mind Picture Flashes

  Susan found little Vic a delight, he was an easy baby, full of life when awake, but happy to feed and settle for good long sleeps. His eyes were now open and she loved to meet his eyes. She thought he was beginning to recognize her and give her tiny smiles as his dark eyes gazed at hers intensely.

  She was also full of pleasure as she watched Vic hold his child, him trying to talk in an overly grown up way, telling the tiny boy of the first ride he would have in a helicopter, how they would play football and other things they would do together in the future, while the baby looked up at him with dark serious eyes.

  On the day she brought him home she felt no anxiety, she had done this before and that time she was alone. Now she had helpers by the score and it really was not hard.

  As she settled back into life at the farm she found it almost too easy, and for the first time she could remember she felt strangely restless. It was an unfamiliar feeling. She wondered why, now when everything was so perfect.

  She felt a sense that she needed to bring order to her life, that she needed to do something more constructive than just mind her baby and now and then her other children, when not with the many other helpers.

  She decided to organize their room, re-arranging the furniture, bringing in bright pictures from the hall, buying exotic imported flowers in the town.

  As she was sorting through all her things one day, putting aside the clothes from her late pregnancy when she had grown large, she came across a book wrapped in cloth which she had forgotten about. As she unwrapped it the memory came flooding back. It was the gift of Vic’s uncle from a couple weeks before they got married. She had promised to try and find someone to decipher the strange writing within it and comprehend its contents.

  At that time she had photographed it on Vic’s phone and meant to seek out someone who could make sense of it. However in the activity of wedding preparations it had been forgotten, the pictures left on the memory card of Vic’s phone which now sat at his sister’s house in Alice Springs, and the book put into the bottom of her suitcase. There it had stayed while it accompanied her across the world.

  She decided that this would be her new project, something to keep her busy in the free time of which she had plenty right now. So she needed to find someone who could read what it said. It was unlikely that anyone in this small community would be able to do that. So she needed to go to a city to find someone who could do this, perhaps Edinburgh or Glasgow, where University scholars abounded, perhaps down to London. She remembered that her mother worked at Reading University, in a medical field, and her brother had also attended there. Between them they may know someone who could help.

  She had promised her Mum and Dad she would come and stay with them with the baby soon. She had a half formed plan to go next week, to catch the train down and stay for three or four days, do it while Vic was away in Aberdeen on one of his flying trips. Perhaps she could fit it in then.

  She wanted to keep the old book safe; it was after all a family heirloom of Vic’s family, entrusted to her for a purpose. So, while in due course, she wanted to show it to various people to get their opinion, she did not want to hand it over to others lest it got lost or damaged. So she must photograph it again before she showed it to others. That way she could pass over a digital copy while retaining the original. Her Mum and Dad were always taking photos of their grandchildren on a fancy camera. She could borrow this from them while visiting.

  The following week she was on the train with David, Anne and little Vic.

  Vic dropped her at the station en route to Aberdeen for four days. He would collect her on his return which he had timed to fit in with her travel. David and Anne were thrilled with the train ride, looking out of carriage windows at mountains and lakes and then, as the highlands fell away, at rolling green fields with sheep and cattle. However, as the novelty went, they were just two ratty toddlers, hungry, restless and endlessly complaining as boredom overtook them.

  She was glad to arrive at Reading after several long train hours and pass her children on to her mother. They soon came to her old house.

  As she walked inside she felt the weight of memories flood in on her. It had been her home for most of her life and, even though she had no memory of it since little, there was so much of her life from before then which came pouring into her mind again.

  Her Mum called out she was taking David and Anne to visit a neighbor who had promised a cake. She should follow over in half an hour when they were invited there for afternoon tea. Baby Vic had fed shortly before arrival and was now sleeping soundly so she placed him on a rug on the floor and asked her father if he would keep an eye on him while she set out to explore.

  She found her old bedroom, not so large and grand as she remembered, but with her familiar favorite teddy on the pillow. She picked it up and hugged it to herself. As she did more memories came back, some fully remembered. Others were little more than shadows that teased at the edge of her mind. Today she felt her mind was a place of sunshine and shadows, the remembered happy memories were like bright sunlit spaces. Alongside these were other places where she knew she should remember but saw only shadows with vague glimpses of things that had been. For the first time she felt her curiosity piqued, wanting to know about all that had gone to make her life from before, particularly in those missing years.

  She started rooting around in her drawers, looking at the clothes. None were what she remembered, tight denim jeans with a bright sparkly top, floral summer dresses, make up and accessories. None of these had belonged to a twelve year old.

  She opened the bottom drawer, searching for something that may be familiar. Instead under jumpers she found an expensive looking camera. It tore at her memory strings but with no clear knowledge that it had been hers. Still, as she picked it up, she instinctively knew how to use it, the controls familiar in her hands. She flipped the power on button. Surprisingly it still worked. She thought the batteries would be flat from years unused. The battery warning light was on but it still showed a bright back screen.

  She pushed the buttons to display the photos on th
e camera. One by one they flashed up. There were photos of her with friends and family, at home and on holidays. Apart from her family the only other person she knew was Anne. She saw photos of herself in a pale shaded bikini, holding the hand of a handsome blond tousle haired man; he must have been a past boyfriend though she could feel no trace of him left in her mind.

  It came to her that this camera would provide a solution to taking photos of the old book she needed to translate. It had lots of space on the memory card, just a new set of batteries were required and she could get to work. It would take a few hours tomorrow to photograph all the pages. Then she could print off some sample pages and go looking for someone to translate what was written.

  That evening she talked to her parents about her plan. After dinner her mother suggested she show them the book so they could think who might best be able to help her with deciphering it.

  Her father looked at the complex curls of the characters on each page and said, “I think it looks a bit like Arabic, so I think we should start there. If it is something else from the Middle East or India there is a good chance that they can direct us.”

  Her mother slightly knew a Professor of Arabic Languages at the Reading School of Literature and Languages. He had helped her with a project some years past about Arabic medicine from the time of the Moorish Empire. She took a few photos on her phone, saying she would show him these tomorrow and seek his advice.

  Her father found her some new batteries for the camera and it now showed fully charged. Susan’s other grandmother, who lived nearby, agreed to come over tomorrow and mind the children so Susan could have a few undisturbed hours to take photographs. She found she was looking forward to the challenge of doing something that felt important and complex.

  After breakfast next day she got to work. Her Gran was there early and the older children were keen to go with her to a nearby park, then on visiting neighbors while Susan worked away. Vic had just fed and she would have several hours of solitude to work.

  So she opened the book and began at the front, doing it page by page, checking the quality of the first few photos was acceptable on a laptop her father had lent her before she continued. They were fine.

  As she returned the memory card to the camera she was seized by a powerful sense of déjà vu. It felt so familiar, using this camera to photograph this – the word ‘diary’ came unbidden into her head – she wondered where it had come from. It may in fact be a diary, but equally it could be something else like a religious book of devotions or transcribed stories.

  She told herself, no it is not a diary, it is a book. Yet, every time she turned the page and took another photo, her mind said, Now you have captured another page of the diary. She had a sense now it was not one book but two, this book in a strange language in her hand, and another book, a diary in neat but cramped English, with a bit of French thrown in. She could even picture a page of lovely flowing French cursive script though her mind did not have knowledge of its meaning.

  She shook her head to clear this complexity of layered pictures; it was like two sequences of images had got overlaid in her brain, one from now, one from some other time. She made a conscious effort to block out the extraneous thoughts and just concentrate on the task at hand – turn the page, focus, click, check image on back screen of camera, begin again.

  An hour passed and then two. Now she had all the pages captured. She just needed to check their quality in detail and label them on her computer, cross checking the accuracy of the sequence with the original book as she went. She began at the outside – Label - Outside Front Cover – correct. Inside Front Cover – correct. She clicked to the next image on her screen and reached for the book to open its cover again and compare. But now this dark brown cover with a few curly symbols transposed in her mind to a red brown cover with the words Mark B in clear hand writing.

  She shook her head. This was seriously weird.

  She pushed on, it was hard to concentrate. Each time she turned the page another image, different from the book in front of her, jumped into her mind for a few seconds before it faded.

  She forced herself to ignore these unwanted images and go on. As she was getting towards the end she saw a transposed page with the word Kate written on it. She tried to think of any Kate she knew but could not. A few pages later the word, Susan jumped out at her. Somehow she knew this half seen page in her mind was a page about her.

  She could not begin to imagine why she was seeing a book, actually diary, that had parts written about her. It was not written by her, she knew this writing belonged to someone else, an unknown man she thought. She also knew the lovely French script was written by another woman.

  The strange thing was that if she tried to see this other book more clearly it would fade and drift out of her mind. But if she looked at the book in front of her, its images were overlaid with sharp images of the other diary.

  At last she was finished and went to make herself a cup of tea, her head feeling overloaded with so many images. As she sipped her tea the jumble of pictures left her mind and only the ones of the book she had photographed today remained. It felt a relief to get her mind back under her control again.

  She looked at the clock. It was lunch time and she was hungry. Her Gran and the children should be home soon and Vic would wake hungry too. She set to work to make up sandwiches for the others when they arrived. As she worked the phone rang and it startled her out of her reverie.

  It was her mother, saying, “I have just met the Arabic Professor over our lunch break. He tells me the language of your book is not Arabic but it has some similarities. He thinks it may be in a language from the Indian subcontinent, something like a Kashmiri script. He is unable to work it out though he can guess the odd word. However he had a long standing Kashmiri friend in Wokingham who has offered to have a look. He rang this friend while I was there and the friend has offered to meet me and you mid-morning tomorrow.

  “So I have blocked out the morning for this if it suits you to come. If Gran is there I will ask her to mind the children again. This man would like to see the original as well as the copied images. He said that if he can look carefully at the cover and binding it will help him to know exactly where it is from and the period when it was written.”

  Next morning, about 9:30 when the morning traffic rush had died down, they set out. It was seven miles to Wokingham. In less than half an hour they were coming into this lovely old town. It felt achingly familiar to Susan, but this was no surprise, she had probably been here many times in her lost memory period.

  They met an elderly Indian looking man who introduced himself. As they waited for coffees he reverently unwrapped the book from its covering.

  “Ah, it is beautiful, as I thought it is written in Kashmiri. It is a variant that is a different from the regular script. But I can read most words and, with a bit of practice and research, I will be able to transcribe it for you.

  “It is a book which has been written in over several generations. It covers at least two hundred years. It contains some religious tracts, but also family stories. The last part describes the journey of a young man who left his home and family and travelled to a faraway land, bringing camels with him.

  “It will take me a couple months to work my way through it but I would be honored to do this task if you will allow me. Could you tell me as to how you came by this book?”

  Susan described its history, handed down over generations through a part aboriginal family in Alice Springs, with an understanding that it had originally being owned by an Afghan Cameleer who brought it to Australia.

  “That is all I know, except that this Afghan man was my husband’s great grandfather. His Uncle has told me the book is to go to my husband and one day be passed on to our children to keep the old man’s memory alive. So, this Uncle would like to know what it says, the story of his ancestor, so he can pass this on too, the story to go along with the book.

  “So I am happy for you to do this but I wou
ld ask you to take care of it. It is the only surviving piece of family history of that man.”

  As she spoke these words she knew it was a silly request. The reverent way in which this man handled this book meant he gave it a value far higher than she had perceived.

  He nodded. “But of course, it is a very precious object and I will take great care. I understand you have photographed the pages. I will work off those images but I would still value having the original as I work. Sometimes it may help my understanding to hold it and look at it more closely.”

  So it was agreed, he would copy the memory card images onto his computer and she would retain a copy as well. Each week he would send her a letter with a copy of the pages that he had translated. She and her husband could read this story as it unfolded and send a copy back to Vic’s Uncle.

  It was now almost lunch time and Susan’s mother needed to go, as she had an afternoon appointment at the University. So, after shaking hands and thanking the man profusely for his help, they started to drive out of town, following a different road to the one they had come in on.

  As they left the shops of the town behind an industrial building came alongside them. Something buried deep in Susan’s mind screamed out. “Stop,” she said.

  Puzzled her mother pulled to the side of the road. “What is it?”

  Chapter 38– Contents of the Locked Box

  Susan said to her mother, “There is something inside there I need to get. I left it here before. It is inside a locked box.”

  She could feel herself tugged towards the building, it was here, she knew it; the diary she had seen. She walked off without reply, leaving her mother in the car. He mother parked the car and followed her.