Chapter 1 - The Morning After
Emily woke with bright light streaming into bedroom.
She knew, with that certainty that comes with great clarity after crisis, that from today she would become a new person. She would leave behind her alter ego, the person in whose skin she had lived this last year. Like the way a snake sheds it skin and there is a new full formed skin underneath, but still an integral part of the whole.
She would remake herself, both anew and by a return to the life of her own happy childhood. Once this was done her Susan persona would soon fade from collective memory. It had happened that way for Mark’s identity when she had told the world of his real name. Mark Bennet had slid away, along with all the other Mark Bs. In their place the world now only remembered Vincent Bassingham. So too she would shed her Susan name, a name redolent of horror. Those she cared about would now only call her by her name from school.
It was an idea that had formed in her mind over dinner last night, an alternative way of escaping her own self now that Vic had come back. It seemed like a good plan, a way in which she could build a new life with her almost formed children.
She stretched in bed. This bed was unbelievably soft and luxurious after where she had slept over the last few months. Her brain was struggling to take in the changes that a day had made. Yesterday she had looked no future in the eye and convinced herself that this was what she wanted, an escape on any terms, even one of her own ending.
Today those last months had a surreal feel. She was glad to be alive, glad that somehow, whether through fluke, divine providence, or perhaps the efforts of friends, she had stepped through two doors. She could now look from outside into her two cages of yesterday, the cage inside her mind which refused to see other options, and the cage of a jail cell which had sealed away her body for months.
She climbed out of bed and stretched, revelling in a sense of freedom. It was true, all of a sudden she could come and go as she pleased; she could catch the hotel lift and walk outside without anybody to say not. A glance out of the window told her it was a bright sunny day. Her room was high up, a short walk from a cliff top. Beyond lay miles of water looking to a distant shore. This must be Darwin Harbour; it seemed big and empty with barely a handful of boats dotting the horizon.
She found a bathrobe and went into the shower. She stripped off in front of a full length mirror. Her body was much changed since the last time she had a full view of herself. Her arms, legs and face looked very thin, almost gaunt. They contrasted with her large, bloated belly. She felt the weight of her babies pushing down; it was a bare six weeks to go until the due date.
As she came out of the shower a discrete tap on the door signalled a visitor. She put the safety latch on and opened cautiously, not wanting to find a TV crew and camera in waiting. It was a breakfast tray someone must have ordered for her last night. She felt inordinately pleased with this simple service and brought it inside. A minute later her phone rang. It was Anne, checking she was awake and inquiring whether to come over to her room or, alternatively, inviting her to come out and join them for breakfast. She told Anne to come in five minutes and share her breakfast tray, but only for her to come.
Emily felt full of thanks to Anne, the friend who had stuck to her through thick and thin. She must to talk alone with Anne before she faced the wider world. Yesterday was a reprieve. Today a mass of unresolved issues bubbled below the surface that she needed time and more mental clearness to deal with. Last night she had pushed them away out of sheer relief, today she needed a clear head to think rationally about them.
Dealing with a whole lot of people who were no longer kept away by a prison and who now wanted to know her plans seemed too confronting. She and Anne could talk sensibly, one on one, about today and the days after, how to start taking baby steps back into this scary outside world.
Her thoughts turned to Vic. She felt another welling up of affection. She had intended to spend the night with him, minding him and holding him close, giving comfort to his broken body, in a similar way to how he had begun to heal her broken mind, but exhaustion had intervened. He had come with her from the court to the nearby hotel bar where his cherished beer, steak and chips had been ordered. He had finished the beer quickly, perhaps too quickly. He had eaten some chips and a few mouthfuls of steak, but at that point the exhaustion overwhelmed him.
So Buck and his wife, Julie, took Vic to a hotel room next to theirs where they could give him the attention he needed. Really he should have gone to hospital, but he would not agree to that. So Buck, as a friend, took the responsibility to ensure his care. Emily felt pulled to go with Vic, to lay her body alongside his and hold him as he slept, but she knew she must find some time to talk with and thank the others, Anne and David, her Mum and Dad, Alan and Sandy. It was not deep conversation, but the togetherness and simple relief felt good to them all.
During the night she had dreamed of Vic, of loving him and joining her body to him. Tonight she must do it, make the dream become real. One thing she knew after her months locked away was that she would take the chances for happiness that came to her; she would not waste them or die wondering about what might have been. She was confident that Vic had real affection, maybe love, for her. She had spent too long on her own, now she wanted to be with him and she thought he wanted to be with her. So she would do all she could to make it happen without delay.
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 of 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 with 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 unm
entioned, 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.