Lost Girls (2 page)

There was a
knock on the door, it was Anne, she came inside and they hugged and
giggled with girlish delight. Together they ate every morsel of
food on the tray, then they found biscuits, chips and chocolate in
the mini-bar and devoured them all too.

They sat facing
each other, knowing the time had come for honesty, not knowing
quite where to start, each waiting for the other. Each started to
talk and then stopped, not finding the words, walking around the
edges of the elephant that sat between them.

Emily took a
deep breath. The time to speak of this was now, now they must talk.
Then Emily must face the world. But first she must see Vic again,
to tell him she wanted to be with him and make plans for tonight.
Her dream last night would be tonight’s reality.

At last Anne
spoke. “Can you tell me the truth now?”

Emily replied,
“Yes, I think so, but I will only be brave enough to tell it once.
It will cost too much of me if I ever have to go there again. My
mind almost came apart yesterday, with me deciding to end it all.
That person and place still sits looking over my shoulder, lurking
in the shadows. I fear, if I let that person back into my mind for
a second time, I will never be able to leave there again.

“So can you
listen and maybe write it down. I will tell it like it happened,
from my mind as I lived it. And, after that, I will speak of it no
more. After I have told you I must then put it from my life and
start to live again in another place where it cannot reach or touch
me. I think that is the only way where its power of evil can be
gone.”

Anne said. “In
that case I must get a tape recorder. Then, as you speak, it is
there for me later. So I need not remember it all at once. When you
are finished the telling I will write it out in full as I do with
my barristers’ tapes. After that you need speak of it no
further.”

Emily nodded.
“This will be the story of Susan, the other half of me. When it is
told Susan will live only in words and paper. I will live again as
Emily. No one else will know that Emily is my real name. To the
readers of those words I will be Susan and Emily will
disappear.

Anne nodded
seriously. “OK Susan, no Em, if that is what you want then I will
tell it that way.”

They agreed to
meet after lunch and start the telling, to tell it in parts each
afternoon until the telling was done.

Now, this
morning, she would go and see Vic, David, her parents and all the
others who had helped, not least Alan and Sandy. Until the story
was done her nights would belong to Vic, her mornings to her
friends and family and her afternoons would be with Anne for the
telling.

She knew there
were a few parts she would slide past unmentioned, the note she had
discovered on the aeroplane which told her Mark’s true feelings,
after she had killed him. That was private, just for her. With it
went his will; she was not prepared to let others read it without
her first knowing its full contents. Also she would tell no one the
true location of the diary; they had the copy; that was enough. And
she would not tell about the bag of jewels, they were Mark’s
private present just to her and she was not ready to give them
away. She really only wanted the pendant and ring he had given her,
but it was linked with all the other things. She could not reveal
one without the other being discovered too. Perhaps, in time, she
could retrieve just those things.

Anne and Emily
enjoyed a morning of laughter with their other friends, first
coffees and cakes in the hotel lobby, where Vic, David, Buck and
Julie joined them, followed by her parents, cousins and Alan and
Sandy, forming an ever increasing circle.

At first they
just chatted and exchanged news and banter. Then she asked them
all, if the media tried to get to her through them, to say she
needed to rest and be left alone for now. They all agreed.

Next she told
them all of her changed identity to Emily, saying it was her middle
name and had been her childhood name. Her Mum and Dad were used to
the dual identity, a part of how they saw their daughter.

At first Vic
and the others were a bit perplexed, it seemed too simple and easy,
but as it was explained by Anne who was now well used to her
friend’s two faces it started to make more sense. They agreed that
if it was what she wanted they would all play their part.

Vic had the
most reservations; he said he knew her as Susan and wanted to keep
that person alive. She quelled that by taking his hand and asking
him to come and walk with her, just him by himself. She said she
wanted him to show her the town which she had never seen.

So they walked
the town, she keeping hold of his hand. Once they were well alone
she turned to face him, saying that now she was free she wanted to
spend as much time as she could with him, both the days and nights
together. It seemed a bit forward, inviting him to be her lover,
but he had a huge grin as she said it and from then it seemed easy
and natural, a promise of things to come.

So she stepped
up close and kissed him mouth to mouth, telling she wanted him the
way that a woman does a man. She said she hoped he did not mind her
full and bloated body, but that, if he would have her, she did not
intend to let that stop them sharing their bodies as lovers.

She knew that
Alan and Sandy had an empty flat and put it to him to ask if they
could stay there together from tonight, just the two of them. Vic
said Alan had already offered it for his use, said he could stay
there while he recovered. Vic was sure it could accommodate two not
one.

Then she asked
him to walk with her down to the beach, below the cliff. She stood
there with her feet in the wavelets, and asked him to put his arms
around her from behind, to hold her tight to give her courage.

She could feel
his maleness against her. She took his hands and placed them on her
breasts, telling him this was how she wanted him to hold her, now
and tonight when they were back together again.

After standing
with him holding her like that for a long time she said. “Now it is
time for me to become Susan, each afternoon to tell Anne her story
until it is finished. Tonight, when I leave Anne, I want you to
hold me again, encased in your arms like this. I will become your
Emily again as you hold me. I need you to help me become her, new
and whole again.”

She returned
again to the lobby where her parents still sat, though her other
friends were gone. She told them that from tonight she would be
staying with Vic; he was special to her and she wanted to be with
him.

Then she found
Anne and began her story. On this first day, the Thursday, she told
of the first meeting until the leaving when she went to Sydney and
then of the re-meeting in Alice Springs up until the big waterhole
on the Frew River. This was the time when there were no clouds in
her sky.

On the second
day, the Friday, she told of her discoveries and of sending the
text, then of the second last night on the crocodile river with the
running tides, a deeper, but shadowed perfection.

On the third
day, the Saturday, she told of the ending, the ending of a life,
the ending of her innocence, and then of her first plan to
escape.

On the fourth
day she told of her life in a cage, consumed by the crocodile
spirit dreaming, until her whole life was but a part of by this
madness. She told of how desire to go to the place of crocodile
spirit had possessed her until it was the only way she saw to
escape, that was until when the gods of fate opened a window and
Vic was returned to her.

Then she looked
up at Anne and said. “It is done; I have spoken all I know. It is
not within my power to tell it again, or even to correct it or
change it in any way. You must take and tell this story of Mark and
Susan to those who need to know. I want to know nothing of this or
anything which comes from it. I will be only Emily and Emily will
vanish from this story. I will no longer know Susan or share her
memories. Perhaps that is enough to let me be free again.”

After she
finished the telling each day she went out into the evening
calmness and walked on the beach until the spirit of Susan and that
of the crocodile faded from her into the harbour dusk. Then she
found Vic and put her arms around him. He and she held each other
through the night and through their joining she rebuilt her
strength for another day.

In the mornings
she would share coffee, breakfast and laughter with her friends,
and walk with them and see the sights of the town. In the
afternoons she would close her mind to Emily and be only Susan for
the telling. In the nights she would try to become only Emily
again, to give her love to Vic, who had need of her as she did of
him. But in this giving and loving of the night a part of her
always became Susan again. In the small hours it returned to a
crocodile spirit dreaming. Here another man found a space in her
dreams. Yet each morning when she awoke again it was Vic whose arms
held her and she was glad it was him.

Anne found
herself consumed by the story. She sat, both appalled and
enthralled as it unfolded, occasionally forcing herself to ask
questions to clarify odd bits of the monologue. The two faces of
Emily-Susan were but a part of the larger tale.

Emily had been
her friend from school, though her real name was Susan Emily
McDonald. However, as a small girl she had adored her own Aunt Em;
her father’s younger sister, who had died tragically when young.
So, at that time, she had decided she wanted her Aunt’s name to be
the name people called her. It was first year high school, the same
year they first met, when their friendship had started. Anne had
first known her as Susan. Then, only a couple months later, after
her Aunt’s death, the name change occurred. It seemed weird at the
time, but everyone soon got used to it. By the end of school her
first name was forgotten, all knew her only as Emily, though she
had never officially changed her name.

So her passport
had Susan as her first name and when they had gone on holidays to
the beaches of the Mediterranean she was Susan again. It began as a
game; she remembered them sitting on the plane together as they
left England.

Emily had
announced, part mocking, “Seeing my passport calls me Susan I will
call myself that while I am away, you know, tell that name to any
boys we meet. It will become a second me.”

Then, during
her University years, she had used Susan more and more. She still
responded to Emily, it was what family and close friends called
her, but the lecturers used Susan, and she made Edward call her
Susan. She said it was too kitch for a couple to be Edward and
Emily, shortened to Ed and Em.

It was strange,
but as the years had gone by it was as if two people had started to
live within the one, Susan the outgoing extrovert, party animal and
traveller, and Emily, the quieter and more studious twin, careful
and competent at everything she did. More and more Anne had called
her friend Susan, but her family still mostly called her Em, and
Anne lived in both worlds.

Once Anne had
asked her what was the name she used for herself inside her head.
She had replied, “Emily, but I like the idea of a braver and wilder
me. That is who my friend Susan is.”

So, weird as it
sounded, it made a strange sort of sense, this girl who was two
people, choosing to split herself and pass the bad memories and
experiences to the one part which she would shed, while she
returned to her earlier self again, the person too cautious for
this to ever happen to.

Anne found that
swapping between the two personas of her friend was almost
effortless, it was like using someone’s name and nickname
interchangeably. So she slid into this narrative form without
effort. As her friend spoke, she saw the person sitting there as
Emily but she heard the words which came from Susan’s mouth.

So Anne sat and
listened as the tape recorded. It was a story which began like a
bright shaft of sunlight. But, even before the first day was done,
she could see roiling dark clouds climbing up the horizon, rolling
relentlessly forward. As later days unfolded this darkness became
all encompassing.

Sometimes she
tried to test what happened through her own moral code and her
sense of courage. Would she have gone to the police earlier? Would
she have acted to save herself by killing a man she loved in the
way her friend had or would she have stayed frozen in terror as a
passive victim? Could she have accepted the punishment meted out to
her for what she perceived as a greater good to save a man’s
reputation and to protect her children?

Some parts she
found incomprehensible, other times she found herself marvelling at
the bravery of personal choices, never did she form the view she
could have acted better or feel entitled to sit in judgement. Her
friend was a harsher judge of her own actions than another could
be. A part of Anne felt privileged that she had been entrusted with
this story. Mostly she just listened.

It was so good
to have her friend back, to see the real Emily hiding behind Susan.
But she knew this Emily was in a fragile place, that she must be
protected and kept away from shocks which would damage her slowly
rebuilding self-esteem.

By the end of
the fourth day, when the telling was done, Anne began to feel
easier. It seemed as if a huge weight had been lifted off Emily as
Susan had separated from her. Now Emily walked with lighter and
brighter feet, the skip returned to her step.

As the story
had unfolded, as well as compiling the tapes, Anne had made notes
of urgent follow up actions she must undertake, based on the
knowledge imparted. Highest on the list was to retrieve a small
metal box which held passports of four lost girls. While she had
never been to the site she had a clear description of the location,
the place where the little hill was. She knew where the box was
buried in relation to the hill. So, once the telling was finished,
as Emily went off to find Vic on the Sunday night, to spend a last
night with him before he was taken to hospital to have his broken
leg set straight, she picked up the phone and called Alan on his
mobile.