Sunlit Shadow Dance
when it was raining heavily, and she would see tiny
glimpses of colours flash. But when she sang or heard this song,
then the purest and most beautiful blue colour came out. She could
see it so clearly even if other people did not seem to. That made
her feel really, really happy, all over.
    Then
yesterday, not when she first met him, Vic, but when he picked up
her baby, David, and put him on his shoulders, and again after he
cut his lip, suddenly Vic had a color too. It was not an all over
color but it was a color to his arms where they were wrapped around
her baby. It was a rich brown color; she called it nut brown in her
mind, it was so real and warm.
    If she could
see that colour on him then perhaps he would see the blue colour
she saw when she sang; she really hoped so. So she had she had
invited him to come and hear the singing. It was not something she
had ever done before, to invite anyone to anything, though Ruth had
organized and invited people to a couple things for her, like the
baptism and birthday party of her children. But this time it was
she who had wanted him to come and the invitation popped out of her
mouth. Now she was glad it had. She hoped he would come to see and
hear the singing and that he would like it, his opinion mattered to
her.
    She was
feeling comfortable and happy thinking about this as she finally
drifted off to sleep in the late night, with her children’s bodies
pressed into her. Then she woke with the dream, like she had
before, where there was another body in the bed and she did not
know it or anything else. She had felt the shape. I was a hard and
angular shaped; a body of elbows and bony protuberances. It must be
a man.
    This time she
had really wanted to see it, to see a face and to know who it was.
But she was so afraid, afraid to know this person and the story
that went with it, lest it tear her apart and destroy her. So her
fear had stopped her. Instead she had buried her face in the pillow
and tried to hide it from her mind. But, in forcing herself to pull
away, she was so lonely, so utterly alone; her insides feel
desolate.
    Now, as she
woke in the morning and as her new memories came back, she knew it
was only a dream. Yet the sense of a great loss of something
remained. It was a something she must find. But she knew she could
only reach it through this dream and this dream caused her
terror.
    Her children
were now stirring. So she washed and fed them then dressed them for
church. As she was getting ready to leave her house she heard a
roar of something which was flying overhead. David rushed to the
window, pointing, making a sound for some unintelligible word. She
realised he was trying to say, helicopter, helicopter. She glimpsed
it flying away.
    She felt sharp
disappointment. She had invited the pilot, Vic, to church to hear
her music and she thought he would come. He had not said he would
come but his demeanour suggested it. Yet he was already taking off
and leaving, so he would not be there. The colour in her mind faded
back to grey.
     
     
     

Chapter 6 - The
Choir
     
    Vic went for
an early morning walk in the dawn to still his impatience to see
Jane again. He found his mind had given a new identity to this
person, the name she wore. Perhaps she was Susan still, but his
mind had begun to call her Jane. As he walked he found the
surrounding bush with its screeching parrots and the thump of
kangaroos, which hopped nervously away as he came into shooting
range, helped soothe his jangling nerves. This was like how he felt
at the outset of a new romance. He thought of this woman as a blank
canvass waiting for the painting to be drawn.
    As he walked
past the petrol station and shop on his way back to town he could
see a light on in her cottage and hear little children noises. It
gave him an inner glow of anticipation. He went back to his room
and packed up his things and found some breakfast which he ate. As
he had nothing more to do he decided to go to his helicopter and

Similar Books

The Good Girl

Mary Kubica

Bones in High Places

Suzette Hill

Elsewhere

Gabrielle Zevin

Burn What Will Burn

C. B. McKenzie

Triptych and Iphigenia

Edna O’Brien