An Isolated Incident

  Bella’s dad turned up looking a hundred years old. He hugged me for the longest time and though we’ve never really got on I knew he was really hugging her and so I didn’t mind that much. All Bella’s workmates were there, including Glen, which was disappointing because it meant he wasn’t locked up somewhere being interrogated or whatever. I caught him giving me this hangdog mournful look and part of me felt rotten for him but a bigger part of me wanted to go over and ask him if Bella had been popping up at his windows, talking into his ears. Yeah, didn’t think so, mate.

  Apparently there were a lot more people outside the church. The whole town, Nate said, but I read later there were a thousand, so that’s only a third. Still, nice that they all came even though they weren’t allowed inside. I heard that the whole bunch of them from the pub were there and some of the regular customers, too. Again, I thought how good it’d be for Bella to see all this, hear all the love. She was such a goddamn sweetie, you know? And all these people crying over her because of it.

  And then there were the news people, hanging around the edges of the car park, a bunch of fucking blowflies around a rotting corpse. Nate’s expression. He yelled at them as we drove in. The bastards didn’t even flinch. The funeral home knew it would happen, but. They were prepared, had private security organised to make sure no press got in. Thank God for them. I never would’ve thought to arrange all that. They did it for free, too. Or, no, the security firm did it for half-price and the funeral home paid that. I think that’s what happened. I wasn’t in the best state in the lead-up to it all, but people were very kind and generous and I let them be.

  There was a closed coffin, obviously. Part of me wished it wasn’t. Part of me wished that everyone there would be forced to see what I’d seen instead of being allowed to imagine that what lay inside that box resembled the photo placed on top of it. But, of course, that wouldn’t be right. I’m her sister, her blood. It’s right that I keep her secrets for her, let everyone talk about how beautiful she was and not ever let on that she wasn’t in the end.

  Old Grey had offered to hold the wake at the pub and I agreed because I couldn’t imagine putting something like that on myself. It was only when I was sitting in Nate’s car out front that I remembered how much Bella hated the place, would never come unless it was to pick me up and leave right away. I had cried so much all morning that I didn’t know I had more in me, but turns out I did. I sat there bawling my eyes out and Nate sat there rubbing my back and handing me tissues.

  ‘Stop it,’ I said to him. ‘Just go in and tell them it’s cancelled. There’s no wake.’

  ‘I can’t stop it now. People are already in there. Bella wouldn’t mind, babe, I’m sure of it. She’d want you to do whatever was easiest on you. She’d be fine with it.’

  ‘That’s just a thing people say after someone’s dead. “What she would’ve wanted.” It’s bullshit. You don’t know.’

  ‘On this, I know. I know she would’ve wanted the people who loved her to be able to sit around and be nice to each other. Doesn’t matter where. That’s all this is. People who loved her being nice to each other.’

  He was right, of course. She would want that. I blew my nose and got my concealer and lippie out of my bag, leant in to the rear-vision mirror to fix myself up. Nate said, ‘Good girl,’ and kept rubbing my back.

  I was finishing my lippie when something black filled my side vision and Nate’s hand jerked off my back. ‘Fuck,’ he said. My heart banged hard in my chest. Nate was out of the car and running and my heart was bang-bang-bang and the air rushing in and people running, running from the front of the pub, running to where Nate was holding someone by the back of the shirt.

  A photographer. Nate told me later that not snapping the bloke’s pencil-neck took more willpower than not taking a drink. Next day he regretted it, said if he saw the fucker again he’d break his neck and worse.

  You saw it I guess? Front page, clean shot of me puckering into the mirror, while Nate stroked my neck. They ran it next to a picture of Bella at her work Christmas party, her fuzzy hair decorated with green and red tinsel. Top corner of the page was another photo. A black sheet over a lumpy shape, a blue tarp by the side. If you looked hard you could see her big toe poking out. I’m sure it was her toe, that tiny pale smudge. I stared and stared at that picture and the longer I stared the more obvious it became. How did no one at the scene notice that her toe was sticking out like that?

  Nate found me crying over the paper and took it away. He thought I was upset about the photo of me and him looking like sweethearts out on a date. As if I give a fuck. All that Bella had been through and not one of those busy-bees crawling all over the crime scene could bother to check that no bits of her were left hanging out in the cold, cold air.

  At the wake, after the photographer had taken that shot, Nate downed a schooner of Coke like it was a shot of rum and I saw from the tendons in his neck and the cracking of his knuckles over and over that he was close to the edge. I nicked a couple of smokes off Old Grey and led Nate back through the kitchen to sit on the outside step.

  Nate took a deep drag. His phone beeped. He glanced at it, took another drag, shook his head at me. ‘I can’t be here.’

  ‘Here at the pub or . . .?’

  He closed his eyes, leant back against the doorframe. His phone beeped again. He whipped it out of his pocket, punched in a reply.

  ‘That her?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Checking up on you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You shoulda brought her down with you. For support.’

  ‘Hard for her to get time off.’

  ‘What’s she do?’

  ‘Social worker.’

  ‘Just what you need, eh?’

  He closed his eyes again. ‘Chris.’

  I noticed my smoke was finished. I dropped the butt and brushed some dirt over it. ‘If I go back in there, I’m going to have to drink a lot.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And if I go home, I’m going to have to drink a lot, too.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Or what? What am I meant to do now? What is there to do? How do I just . . . What do I do now?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘What would she say? Renee? What would she tell me to do?’

  He took a breath, gave me that look of his, checking to see if I was being a smartarse. He must’ve seen that I was legit, because he picked up both my hands and held them in that way that made them still. Made me still. ‘Want me to call and ask her?’

  ‘Might have to, ’cause I’m fucking clueless here.’

  ‘What would Bella say?’

  ‘She’d tell me to go home, clean the house then get an early night, because everything’s easier to deal with when things are tidy and you’re well rested.’

  He laughed. ‘Sounds about right. You going to do that then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No.’ He looked out over the boxy concrete lot like it was a green, green field stretching all the way to the horizon.

  ‘Do you think they’re in there?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The ones that did it. Are they in there now? Drinking to her memory?’

  ‘Chris . . .’

  ‘That’s why the cops are hanging around, hey? They think the –’

  ‘Stop.’ He stood, dangled a giant hand for me to pull myself upright. ‘Come on. Inside. Say your thanks and goodbyes and then we’re leaving.’

  I let him heave me up and lead me through the kitchen. I barely spoke as we did the rounds, kissing and being kissed. Everybody was sorry and wanted me to tell them if there was anything I needed. I needed so much, but none of them could give me any of it and so I clung to the one who could until we were in his car and then I put my head back and closed my eyes and told myself it didn’t matter what happened next. r />
  In my kitchen I went for the bourbon and he stopped my hand with his and then kissed me long and hard and then we fucked on the kitchen floor and for as long as it lasted I felt that everything was exactly as it should be.

  And then it was over. I pushed him off me, stood, pulled my skirt back down over my hips, ignored the ooze down my thighs. In bra and crumpled skirt I poured and drank a thumb of bourbon. Nate said my name like a warning and I poured and drank another slug. My name again, a lament. Another drink, easy easy easy on my throat now. He got dressed, grabbed his phone and went outside.

  I stood near the window with the bottle and the glass and listened to him tell his girlfriend that the funeral was brutal and that I was a trooper and the news photographers were scum and that he couldn’t stop thinking about whether any of the men at the funeral were the ones that did it and whether he maybe made small talk with the bloke who – or shook the hand that – or or or and he wanted a drink so much, so much much much but he wouldn’t he wouldn’t he wouldn’t, baby, baby, baby, wouldn’t, couldn’t, because although things were worse than he ever thought they could be, things were also much better than he ever thought because there was her, Renee, there was her and there was the baby, soon, soon, their baby, their little fella, and he could get through anything, anything – get through it sober – because of them.

  A soft weight on my head, pressing just hard enough, moving from my hairline to the top of my ponytail. I sank into the nearest chair, shaking. The sharp smell of anti-bacterial hand wash made my nose twitch. The pressure again, perfectly judged. I whispered her name, felt myself breathing more slowly, closed my eyes, let her stroke me the way she always had when I was worked up or sad or shaky. After a minute I reached up, as I always had, to trap her hand beneath mine, to let her know she could stop, I was fine.

  There was nothing to trap, nothing to stop. I sat shivering, hand on my head, until Nate came back inside.

  He looked as hangdog and shifty as I’d ever seen him. His eyes darted from my tits to the floor to the window. Before he could pour his bullshit guilt out on me I told him straight, ‘I think Bella’s still here.’

  ‘What d’ya mean?’

  ‘Her spirit or whatever.’

  He sat at the table, glared at the bottle. ‘Chris.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Sounds mad, but . . . A couple of things have made me . . . I dunno.’

  He didn’t say anything. He was embarrassed for me. Or for himself. Ashamed, scared. I don’t know.

  ‘Do you believe in stuff like that?’

  ‘In ghosts?’

  ‘Yeah, nah. Not like a ghost in a movie or anything, just like, that people who’ve died might be . . .’

  He cracked his knuckles. ‘After Dad died, Mum’d say she saw him. Just sitting at the dinner table or out on the verandah having a smoke. Said it wasn’t scary, just like he was still there. Then after a while she didn’t see him anymore. She reckoned he’d hung about a bit to help her get used to the idea of him being gone.’

  ‘Do you think that’s true?’

  ‘I think she saw what she needed to see to get through those first weeks.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what I’m doing?’

  ‘I don’t know, babe. If you are it’s not working real well, is it?’ He poked the bottle.

  ‘I had three drinks.’

  ‘So far. And you were so rotten the other night I’m surprised you remembered how to make a phone call. If Bella is hanging around she’ll be disgusted.’

  He was right, of course. I hoped so hard then that he was right about all of it. That Bella wasn’t here, that I was comforting myself with delusions of her presence, ’cause otherwise she’d seen me spewing up and screwing that grub for money and then all this carry-on with Nate. I hoped so hard she hadn’t seen any of it and then right away I was crying, thinking how that wasn’t true, how I didn’t care what she saw, what she knew about me, that I’d take all the shame and judgement and disappointment. I called her name, I think, or I thought it so intensely that Nate knew I was calling to her.

  ‘Chris, babe. Jesus.’ He rubbed my back, stroked my hair. If I’d stood and turned he would have kissed me and it’d be all on again, but the idea was sickening now. I shook him off and went to my room. He followed, apologising, but it was like he was made of smoke. I waved him away, cried into the pillow and wished wished wished for the sound of her voice, touch of her hand, hospital-grade-clean smell of her. There was nothing though. Wishing for her was no good at all.

  Tuesday, 14 April

  AustraliaToday.com

  ‘We’ll speak of her often, think of her always.’

  May Norman

  14 April 2015

  Forty of Bella Michaels’ closest friends and relatives said goodbye to her in a private ceremony at St John’s Anglican Church in Strathdee yesterday while almost a thousand more gathered outside and wept for the woman whose brutal death has shocked a nation.

  Bella’s friend Vicky Moreland was the first to speak at the service. She told the assembled mourners that she had spoken to Bella every day for the past five years and that she would think of her every day until she died.

  Bella’s father Tony Michaels spoke next, describing his daughter as ‘a bright light that I never imagined I’d see put out’. He said that although he didn’t see Bella often, he always felt good knowing she was ‘here in quiet little Strathdee, shining her light on everyone she crossed paths with’.

  Bella’s former brother-in-law Nate Cartwright spoke on behalf of his ex-wife, Chris Rogers, who sobbed inconsolably throughout the service. ‘Bella and Chris had some tough times in their younger lives, but neither would’ve changed a thing because those tough times are what made them as close as they were. Anyone who knew either of them would’ve heard the other one’s name mentioned within the first five minutes of conversation. I know that won’t change for Chris. She’ll keep speaking of Bella often and all of us who knew Bella will be glad about that. We’ll all speak of her often, think of her always.’

  Another of Bella’s friends, Sarah Loome, then rose and said that Bella had never been one for poetry but that she loved the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and ‘cried like a baby’ during the funeral scene which featured the poem ‘Funeral Blues’ by W.H. Auden. Ms Loome then read the poem, drawing laughter from the mourners when she apologised to Bella for ‘not sounding as sexy as John Hannah’.

  The service finished with an address from the Reverend Peter Longley, who spoke of Bella’s generous spirit and deep, patient kindness. He ended with a prayer for peace for Bella’s loved ones.

  Mourners inside the church left via a private door at the back of the building as Judy Garland’s ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, from another of Bella’s favourite movies, The Wizard of Oz, played. Those gathered outside sang along, wept, prayed and swapped stories about their connection to Bella.

  ‘She took such good care of my dad at the nursing home,’ one woman said, wiping tears from her face. ‘She was Dad’s favourite. He wanted to be here today, but it’s very difficult for him to get around and so I came in his place. I didn’t expect to be as moved as I am. Just seeing how much she meant to so many people, it’s such a tragedy.’

  A spokesman for Parson Brothers Funerals confirmed that a private security firm had been hired for the event and provided with a list of approved mourners prepared by the deceased’s family. ‘Numbers had to be limited due to the size of the church building,’ the spokesman said. ‘However we understand that many not in Ms Michaels’ immediate circle would wish to pay their respects, hence the placement of speakers outside to broadcast the service.’

  Members of the media were restricted to standing at the back of the outside broadcast and asked to refrain from recording or photographing the event. In a statement written by a close friend of Ms Rogers and handed out at the gates by a Parson Brothers emplo
yee, members of the media were asked to respect the privacy of Bella Michaels’ family, friends and colleagues.

  ‘We wish to express our gratitude for the love, concern and support we have received from friends and strangers throughout this last, horrific week. While we appreciate that the media must report on crimes and their consequences, we respectfully point out that our pain is not breaking news nor does it constitute a development in the case. We therefore ask that you allow us to grieve our beloved Bella in privacy.’

  Also in attendance both inside and outside the church were Strathdee police officers and detectives from the Wagga local area command, a reminder that this grief is not the result of an accident or disease, but of the deliberate and monstrous actions of a person or persons yet to be found.

  ‘Why does the Tele have a front-page photo of the dead girl’s sister getting cosy with her murder-suspect ex at the funeral?’

  May sat up, rubbing her eyes open. ‘Morning, Andrew. Sorry, what’s your question?’

  ‘My question is what the actual fuck, Norman? Where were you?’

  ‘I was at the funeral getting quotes from mourners.’

  ‘Instead of following the sister and the ex-crim?’

  ‘The family asked for privacy.’

  ‘Christ! Are you new here? Tele says the lug-head ex took a swing at a photographer. Herald says the two of them left the wake together after fifteen minutes and he didn’t leave her place until late at night. But we reported that some random woman’s father was sad, so that’s good.’

  ‘Okay. I’m sorry. I fucked up.’

  ‘I want you back up here tomorrow.’

  ‘I said I fucked up. I’ll do better.’

  ‘Story’s run its course.’

  ‘Andrew, believe me, it really hasn’t. There are all kinds of rumours about –’

  ‘I want you back up here to cover the big femmo march thing tomorrow night. If there’s anything new to report down there you can head back, but there’s just no need to hang around. It’s dead, May. Right?’