Two days after Christmas the warder announced to Susan she had a visitor. She had been told she would not be permitted visitors until the New Year, as only a skeleton staff was rostered on, not able to supervise visitors. But some people seemed to find ways around rules.
Still she was perplexed as to who it could be, David and Susan were in Sydney, as were her parents. She did not imagine that either Vic or Charlie would be back so soon and she could not think of anyone else that she knew. But a visitor was welcome to break up her day. She almost skipped out of her cell with a light heart.
As she walked down the passage into the visitor’s room she could see bright sunshine outside, just a few fluffy clouds, none of the big lightning and rains of the last day. Her mood lifted with the sunlight, even if just glimpsed through the window from the air conditioned visitors building.
She saw a weather beaten old man sitting at the table, wearing a cowboy hat. She did not recognise him. As she walked towards the table he stood up and doffed his hat in a polite greeting.
Recognition came to her; the bar tender from Top Springs, the man who had made the strangely prophetic announcements about Mark and the crocodile spirit. He had given her that cryptic warning that now made a sort of sense. She did not know his name, she was unsure if Mark even introduced him, despite them talking to him for two hours. She felt uncertain how to respond to this man, again a friend of Mark’s.
She must have shown the uncertainty in her face, because he seemed to realise that a more formal introduction was called for.
He stood up, “Michael Riley at your service Maam. Not sure if you remember the day that you and that larrikin, Mark, stopped to tell stories at my bar at Top Springs.” With that he gave her a big broad toothy grin.
Susan could not help herself, she smiled back in response, there was something a bit mad and infectious in the mood she caught from him. She gestured, “Please sit down Mr Riley. Of course I remember you, who wouldn’t, you and all your prophetic crocodile tales. I told Mark you were a bit fey, he said it was the spirit of the Johnny Walker talking.”
The man shook his head in reply. “Well, you’d think he’d get that one thing right at least. Paddy’s is the drop I always drink.”
Then he continued, “Just before Christmas I got word that you had set that crocodile spirit free, and they had locked you up for it. So me, I thinks, I am here in Darwin for a Christmas visit, perhaps I should pay you a visit, so as to pay me regards, like.
“You see, me, I know what you done girl; I felt it on that day. A choice was coming; one had to go with the crocodiles and one was to stay. So it had to be him to go and you to stay, him having the crocodile spirit, like. It could not have been another way.
“He was not a bad man, all in, but he had done bad things. His time had come to pay. Since the deed was done, his spirit has bin talking to me, telling me things. He says tis better this way, he wants for you and the child you share to be happy, his life will go on through the child. You must have no fear for the child, not try to protect the child from the truth. You must tell his story for all who would hear.
Susan found herself protesting. “But you can’t know what it is you are asking. You can’t expect me just to tell the world what happened!”
Michael looked at her with a sad and perplexed manner, as if he could not see where to go from here. Then he shrugged his shoulders with a sad expression before he spoke again.
”That is his message for you that he said I must tell.”
With that he nodded, stood up and walked out the door.
Susan sat there alone, feeling mystified. What did it mean? Was she to tell her child when grown who the father was and what he had done? Was she to tell the lawyers, her family or the police about the Mark she knew and what she had discovered?
She was not ready to do that, no matter what supposed messengers said. Everyone always promised to help her, encouraged her to tell the truth. But none of them had to live with what followed; the consequences of the truth; she did. The truth could never be told, that she knew. She would think on it no further.
With that she dismissed this strange event from her mind.