“If you will have me I want to stay with you for as far into the future as I can see and I want to be the father of your child, and hopefully of more to come. And because they are your children I will love them in the same way I love you. So what I am saying is that I want you and me to go on together, lovers and living together and whatever more you want. But it must be you and me in an exclusive relationship together from here on.”
She had thought her revelation would rock David. Instead it seemed to make him stronger. But what was she to make of his proposal, it sounded like marriage though he had not quite said the word. And while she very much liked David and was attracted to and liked being with him, both for the sex and his company, she was not sure if love was quite the right word to use for her feelings.
But the relationship was good and she did not want to set it aside in a search for perfection. Love was a very dangerous place. So perhaps this strong liking she felt was better, a more solid platform on which to build something enduring.
She looked at his serious eyes. “David, thank you so much for what you have said. I can’t pretend I am not physically attracted to you and I really like being with you and doing things with you. But I don’t want to decide my life on the basis of this baby or a week with you. I am not saying no, but I have not yet reached a place where I feel I can honestly say yes either. It has all happened so fast. I want us to keep going but I need some time to come to terms with all of this and to know better for myself what I think I should do.”
David screwed up his face slightly. “It’s funny, I felt I knew after the first night I met you. So I had hoped that, for you, it would be as clear, no ifs or buts. But I can understand what you are saying. All I ask that you don’t decide to terminate the baby until you have thought through what you want.”
Susan looked at him puzzled. “Don’t you care whether the baby is yours or not? I thought this might be important to you. It is something we could probably find out if you want.”
He thought for a moment and said. “You know it is funny, I feel I should care more than I do. It is like it belongs to a part of your past life, and even though we were together for a night in Sydney when it could have happened, that does not seem so important. From here it feels like my real relationship with you began when I came to England, The other was something lovely but temporary, in another place and time. Even though I loved you then, you were only beginning to like me.
“Now I feel our life together has really begun, in a public and exclusive way. And that child who grows inside you is a real part of you. So, while a part of me would love the thought that it was my own child from the outset, if we stay together it will be anyway. I will watch it be born, I will hold it as soon as it is born; that feels like my child to me. So from here on it is just part of what makes up you, the Susan I love.
“So I do not need to know about this, and I am sure I don’t want you to have tests, which pose a risk to the baby. If I married you and you already had a child that would be a child I would love, because it came from you and, if we could not have children together and adopted a child, I would love that child in the same way as my own child.
“Anyway, as you say, that all is not to be decided now. But, like you, I definitely want our relationship to continue. And because time will run away very fast I want you to come back to Australia with me as soon as you are able, to meet my family, spend some more time with me and decide what you want to do. How about that for an idea?
“I have to fly back Wednesday night, I can’t change that. But as soon as you can manage, if possible within a month, I would like you to come back to Australia for two or three weeks, and spend that time with me. After that we can decide what to do. In the short term I need to stay in Australia for my work. But if it is important to you we could come back to England to live before the baby is born, most of my work can be done from anywhere in the world and I am here for the purpose of expanding my business into the UK.”
Chapter 8 - Return to Australia
Just over three weeks had passed since David left and again Susan found herself in a plane heading for Australia. David had bought her the ticket and insisted on business class. Susan had to admit that the extra comfort and space was nice. She thought she could come to like the little luxuries which seemed to flow from David.
Their final two days in and around London had a dreamy idyllic quality as she looked back on them. They had gone shopping in Oxford Street and other fashionable parts of London, they had visited various historic sites, like the Tower of London, and they had a wonderful dinner with family and close friends, which David had hosted in an upmarket West End Restaurant, on the final night.
Anne had come, she was now unattached. She looked sensational, with her flaming mass of red curls and peaches and cream complexion. Not to mention the low cut green dress which worked perfectly with her green eyes. David had been visibly struck by her, they had joked that if he had not met Susan first then her English friend may have been the one.
Anne herself had also seemed a bit wowed. She had exclaimed “My God, Susan, I thought you were just going for a holiday and here you bring back this amazing Aussie hunk. Does he have a brother for me?”
It had been a lovely night. While not an engagement party it was definitely about Susan and David and their hopes of a long term relationship together. David said to people that he and Susan had made plans for her to come out to Australia very soon and he was hoping to see a lot more of them all, along with Susan.
Susan knew that both her parents and her Gran really liked him, and all her other family and friends seemed to like him too. Her only reservation was it all seemed to be a bit too perfect. It was the same sense she had on that first morning in Sydney, after their first night together, when he looked almost too beautiful to be real. It was not a real reservation, just a sense that things could never be perfect for ever, that there must be a flaw or a crack in the glass somewhere. As in Leonard Cohen song “it was the cracks that let the light get in.” Perhaps one or two flaws in David’s perfection would bring her a comforting sense of reality.
On their final day in London they had visited some upmarket jewellers. David had said he wanted to buy her a ring and, even if she had not said “Yes” to wearing it, at least not yet, he liked the idea of seeing what they both liked.
She had caught his mood of enthusiasm. After trying many rings they had both agreed on a choice. In fact the word “Yes” had been on the tip of her tongue since their dinner together when she told him about the baby. As he slid the chosen ring onto her third left finger she had an even more overpowering urge to say “Yes”, it got right to the very tip of her tongue but somehow it stopped just there.
Before he left, at the airport, she had told him that each day she was getting surer and she would be able to give him an answer when she came to Australia, she just needed to have some free thinking time, in between, to decide properly.
David, seeing that this was as close as he could get, admitted that he could wait a bit longer. In fact, he said, that he had come to London with only a slim hope that anything would come of it between them. So now there was a real possibility he found himself almost bursting with excitement and was enjoying savouring the pleasure of imagining their life together while he waited. Susan could not repress a smile at his puppy like enthusiasm.
Now here she was, sitting on a plane, about to cross the world. She was filled with anticipation at seeing him again in just over a day. Nothing had arisen to raise any questions about whether she should go forward except her dreams.
On their final night together in London, after the family dinner they had both gone to bed late and a little tipsy and had fallen straight to sleep, knowing a time for lovemaking would come later in the night. Susan had found herself immersed in a dream which was so incredibly real. It was a dream of lovemaking, at first just of her and a man’s body in the night, so intimate and passionate, but totally silent. It felt like Mark and she wanted i
t to be Mark. She had tried to look at the man’s face, as the ecstasy was building, but it was hidden in shadows.
Then a street light had flashed, illuminating the face, and it was Mark. She had been so happy and their pleasure together was so intense, his mind was telling her that he was really here and he loved her yet, and that both she and the child in her body belonged to him. She could feel tears of unbelievable happiness flowing down her cheeks.
Then, as the passion waned, somehow her mind left the dream behind and she opened her eyes to look at the man beside her. She knew she should have been happy, it was David and the joining of their bodies had been wildly beautiful. But her first unbidden reaction was an intense loss and disappointment that Mark was no longer there. Her body and mind ached for his touch, not that of the man who held her. She tried to hide it and felt she had succeeded, but it sat there like a stone at the bottom of a deeply buried pool of longing.
In David’s absence several more times versions of this dream had recurred, each one a little different and none with full sexual consummation. But it was always Mark who held her in her dreams, and his message stayed the same, she and her child belonged to him. It felt like her life walked in two parallel paths, a real, daytime part of her life when she had given herself to David in mind and body and loved the idea of their future together. But at night and in her subconscious she walked the other path, she belonged to Mark, his half crocodile form and spirit captured her; this part of her had given over her soul to him.
She wondered if it was a form of schizophrenia, where her mind was splitting her into two people, who lived separate lives in her own body. It was not really scary but it was just there, buried deep, this sense of dual possession.
But now, as she flew to meet David and felt a longing to see and be with him again, she hoped that the actuality of his presence, him being with her all the time would banish this other presence. She did not hate it but knew that there could only be space for the one, and only the living one was real.
Susan relaxed into her seat and enjoyed the service as the hours drifted away. She ate well and resisted the urge for a second glass of wine with her dinner, now conscious of a need to protect this baby, whoever’s it was. She was not quite ready to give it affection but at least it had passed from being an evil object to be cut out.
Even if she and David did not work out she was starting to feel that she should keep the child, it was not its fault what its father had been, like that biblical saying about “not visiting the sins of the father on the children” or something like that. And, for her, even if the pregnancy was not planned, she no longer thought of it as a terrible catastrophe; David’s willingness to accept the child had helped her to see that.
After what seemed like a very short night it was light again and she was looking below at the mountains across the centre of Asia, massive snowy ridges. She remembered those same lucent white carpeted peaks, glimpsed in the dark night of her first dream and felt a strange but familiar déjà vu kinship in this place. The plane incessantly carried her east, now they were approaching Bangkok for their evening stopover before heading on to Sydney for a five am arrival.
It was as if the world was moving around her and she sat alone in a still place at its centre, waiting for her life to move to another phase, perhaps with this man whose company brought her pleasure, living in Australia. She slept little in this second night; it was really only the afternoon in London. Instead she watched the map as the plane slowly and inexorably came down over Australia, slicing through black sky above the red heart.
As they came over Australia she felt her mind was now made up, if he still wanted her she would marry him, with the plane trip came a sense of closure on another life and now she could see herself with a new life in Australia.
David was there to meet her, alone in the early dawn. She had wondered if he would bring Ruth to join the welcome but it was just him and she was glad; it was him she had come to see and be with. She hugged him tight and he hugged her back, it felt good to be back together.
As they separated he looked at her quizzically and she looked back, serious for a second before she splashed him a brilliant smile. She knew what he wanted to know and she did not want to keep him in suspense.
She said, before he spoke, “If you still want me the answer is Yes, YES, YES, YES!”
He hugged her to him again. She could have sworn she saw a glisten of tears in his eyes. She felt his hands cup her face as he pushed it back and kissed it. It felt good. It was only a short drive, on this early morning, to David’s apartment and an hour of passionate lovemaking before a couple hours of sleep drifted by. As Susan awoke in bright light to the smell of coffee David came in and said, “If you are up to it I have just organised another lunch at Watsons Bay, call it an impromptu engagement party, the same gang as last time, plus a couple of my other friends, who I think you will like.”
It was another lovely afternoon, weather warmer than last time with a strong balminess to the day. It was hard to believe that only a couple months had passed since she last sat here with these people, it seemed a lifetime ago. David had not told the others about Susan and his plans, just that he was crazy about her and that she had returned for three wonderful weeks with him.
As they were clearing the desert plates, David suddenly looked serious and cleared his throat. The table fell silent. He turned towards Susan alongside himself and she looked at his earnest face with a tingle of excitement. Now he removed a small box from his pocket and opened it to her. It was the beautiful ring, a magnificent sapphire flanked by two smaller diamonds, set in white gold, the one they had both agreed upon in London.
He turned to all assembled and said, “Before I left London I asked Susan to marry me. She told me she would give me an answer when she came to Australia. This morning she said ‘Yes’. So, in front of you all, I would like to put this ring on her finger and ask her once again”.
Then, looking back at her, he said. “Susan I am asking you to marry me. What say you?”
“Yes, I want to and will do,” she replied. She held out her hand and he placed the ring on her finger. Now she could feel tears in her own eyes.
Everyone else was laughing, giggling, excitedly amazed, offering congratulations. It felt good even though it seemed to almost happen too fast.
The next three weeks flew by in an excited blur. She liked being with David and had very little time for reflection on what she had decided. He was fun and good company, and introduced her to many of his friends and family. They had driven over the mountains to meet his family the next day and all had been very welcoming.
His father was not unlike Susan’s own father, slightly crusty and no-nonsense but with a wicked sense of humour. Sure enough David had a younger brother, Stephen. He was dark to David’s fair but otherwise was similarly handsome. Susan thought of Anne, she was invited out to the wedding and who knew? She should not play matchmaker but Anne had suggested this after all.
David also had a younger sister, Rachel, who clearly thought he was wonderful. At first she was slightly standoffish with Susan. But then they had discovered a shared love of riding and become firm friends. Now Rachel was telling Susan all about her own friends, love life and hopes for the future.
David was a competent rider, who was around Susan’s level of skill and they both enjoyed riding across the trails at the back of the farm land where the mountains rose behind. It had something of the feel of the “Man from Snowy River” country even though it was at the back of the Blue Mountains, a place somewhere between Lithgow and Oberon, people told her. In the early mornings frost still crackled white under the horses feet though it was gone with an hour of sun.
The farm was large and prosperous for this area. It had a stud of black Angus cattle and fields of fine wool sheep. They also had another farm a couple hours’ drive further west on the western slopes where they cropped wheat, barley and canola, and which made most of the farming income. They also had a range of
other investments from many years of successful farming which contributed to family finances.
In the words of David’s father, they were prosperous with more than enough for all the family and needs, without being extremely rich. Really they were rich compared to most other people Susan knew.
The only person who was not totally welcoming was David’s mother. She was not unfriendly but had a certain reserve. Over a cup of tea on the second day, when it was just the two of them, she told Susan her version of the story about how devastated David had been when Nicki, his previous girlfriend, had gone off with someone else.
So her only concern was to protect him from another heartbreak; it was as if she had a womanly sense that this new relationship was all a bit too easy and a bit too fast. She did not want David, on the rebound, getting in too deep with someone else until they were both really sure. She told Susan that David was a prone to being impulsive and she feared this whole thing may be another impulse. So she wanted Susan to be sure before she committed her life to her son, not herself just be swept up by the impulse of the moment.
Susan understood what David’s mother meant; she had her own sense of the rush of it all. She told his mother that it all had happened so fast that sometimes she too felt it could not be real. But then, when she thought about being with David, she was really glad it was. His mother seemed to accept what she said and, after this chat, it was like the air between them had been cleared.
Privately she still thought about this and tried to satisfy herself that she was sure. She understood where David’s mother was coming from and sometimes wondered herself if she had been all too caught up in the whole romantic impulse, boy meets girl from the other side of the world and now with great haste they are getting married.
Once she tried to talk about this with David, saying she did not want him to rush into marriage because she was pregnant, perhaps they should slow down the pace a bit and give their relationship a bit more unhurried time, not break off their engagement, but just let the baby and the wedding each operate on their own timelines.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 32