Suzanne. You have nothing to blame yourself for. What happened was beyond your control. Anyone’s control. Don’t torment yourself with what might have been.”
Zachary Lee talked to her for a long time. But it didn’t help. It was one of those situations where no-one could possibly have foreseen the consequences, but in her heart of hearts, Suzanne had little doubt that if she’d never met Leith Carew, Brendan would not be dead.
The James family gathered to give their support to Suzanne, both at Brendan’s funeral and in the weeks and months that followed.
Nothing helped.
Her sister Rebel and Rebel’s husband, Lord Davenport, flew all the way from England to give her what consolation they could. Thirteen brothers and sisters of many different nationalities and backgrounds formed a cocoon of love and strength around Suzanne. The two people who had adopted them and welded them into a unique family remained close by, to be called on at any time.
There was a cold lonely place inside Suzanne that none of their warm caring could touch. She was grateful to them for being there for her, as she knew they always would be in times of need, but it did not make up for what she had lost.
The memory she held of Leith Carew became meaningless. Why did it take a disaster to reveal how much she cared for the man she had married? Brendan had been solid reality, Leith Carew a mere fantasy of what might have been in another time and place.
Her sister Tiffany and Tiffany’s husband, Joel, invited her to stay with them in their beautiful home on Leisure Island. “You need someone to look after you for a while,” Tiffany pressed, believing that her bright, optimistic nature could draw her sister out of her mental and emotional retreat from life.
Suzanne didn’t want to, but somehow it seemed mean to refuse when they were being so kind. Zachary Lee also urged her to accept. The island was close to Surfers Paradise, not far from Brisbane, where he lived.
Tom promised to look after her home in Alice Springs. Suzanne was not to worry about anything. The family would take care of whatever needed to be taken care of.
She numbly agreed to the arrangements made for her. She was vaguely aware of days passing, weeks passing. Tiffany organised activities. Suzanne went along with them. But they were meaningless. The only persistent thought in her mind was the wish that she could go back and relive the past, particularly the last year, giving Brendan all the love she should have given him instead of being preoccupied with needs of her own.
She was plagued with guilt over the way she had let Leith Carew seed the compulsion to start a family. Even though nothing of substance had happened between them, meeting him had affected her. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself that she had wanted a family anyway, she knew that if he had never walked into her life, it would not have become a matter of such urgency to her.
It was Tom who eventually rescued her from her morose apathy. He arrived at Tiffany’s home one day and asked Suzanne to accompany him on a journey.
“Where?” she asked without any interest.
“To my homeland. It will heal you, Suzanne.”
Despite her disinclination to make any concerted effort to do anything, Suzanne could not offend Tom by refusing his offer. She knew what a privilege it was to be invited to share a heritage that was unique to the people of his ancient tribe.
They flew to Alice Springs and Tom took her on a journey that was like no other she had ever experienced. It stirred her to taking an interest in learning to see through Tom’s eyes, and she gradually perceived that what was uninhabitable desert to most people was a place that lived and breathed to a different set of rules.
They were sitting in companionable silence around their camp fire one night when Tom’s head suddenly lifted, turned in quest of something Suzanne neither heard nor saw. Tom was unique. He could sense things that no other person, black or white, could feel, as though he was attuned to the vibrations and pulses of the universe.
She waited, aware of the listening stillness of his body, sitting absolutely still herself so as not to disturb his concentration.
The distant howl of a dingo carried faintly on the crisp night air. It did not strike any fear in her. Their camp fire kept the creatures of the wilderness at bay.
“Something’s wrong,” Tom murmured.
“What is it?”
“You don’t feel it?”
“No.”
But she knew he did. Tom’s deep affinity with this vast outback land was in everything he said and did. Even the way he walked over it had a sensitivity that no white person could ever appreciate. He came from a race that for over forty thousand years had taken this country into their minds and hearts, sharing a unity with it that no newcomer could comprehend. At least, that was how Tom explained it. The primitive tradition of the Dreamtime was very real to him.
He rose to his feet in a fluid unfolding that had all the instinctive grace of a wild animal sensing danger. “Wait here. Keep the camp fire burning.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know where.”
“Why do you have to go?”
“A life has passed. Another life calls. It calls to me.”
She didn’t question any further, sensing his urgency to follow the call that only he heard. “Take care,” she said, nodding her understanding.
A smile of assurance flashed from his dark face.
She smiled her trust in him.
He swiftly became a shadow of the night, needing nothing but the moon and the stars and his own instincts to guide him wherever he had to go.
Suzanne slowly turned her gaze to the fire and released a long, pent-up sigh. Tom’s softly spoken words lingered in her mind. A life has passed. Another life calls. They seemed to reflect her own situation.
Was there any meaning to life, she wondered?
Out here there was a timelessness that seeped into the soul. At night she could look at the brilliance of the stars and feel as though she was at the dawn of creation. By day, the sheer immensity of the landscape stamped a forever feeling in her mind, turning humanity into a mere speck of passing dust.
Yet even in this seemingly desolate world there was life, continually surprising her with its many fantastic forms. Without Tom to show her, she wouldn’t have noticed much of it. He unfolded the secrets of the desert, sharing his intimacy with all there was around them.
Suzanne felt intensely privileged to be with him, aware that it was only because she was his sister that he was teaching her a new appreciation of the cycle of life and death, and that at the very heart of nature there was a necessary passing from one to the other. To Tom, it was only a shift in form.
The night air was chilly. From time to time Suzanne fed the fire as Tom had instructed. She stayed awake as long as she could, but when she found herself dozing off, she climbed into her sleeping bag and settled herself for the night. She had no way of knowing how long Tom would be. He might not be back until morning and he would not expect her to wait up for him.
He was not back when she woke soon after dawn. All day went by with no sign of him. She knew it would be madness to go looking for him but she couldn’t help worrying. What was keeping him away for so long? She built a fire as the sun set, aware that he would expect it of her and would perhaps be looking for it after nightfall.
Suzanne knew she was in no personal danger. Their camp was by a permanent waterhole and she had plenty of food supplies. Tom, however, had taken nothing with him. She assured herself he knew how to survive in the desert and there was no need for her to worry. Tom would find his way back to her.
She ate a solitary meal, hoping that something else hadn’t gone wrong, that there would be no other disastrous turn of fate to blight her life.
She