An Isolated Incident

  The first hour went smoothly enough, though May had the sense that Chris was on high alert. She paused before each answer and then spoke softly and quickly, the words sometimes running into each other or even switching places. But when May asked how she’d met Nate, Chris visibly and audibly relaxed. As she spoke of their first meeting and early relationship, the tight lines on her forehead and around her eyes all but disappeared and her mouth softened, seemed to become fuller. The hands she’d been knotting together in her lap gestured emphatically and gracefully. Her eyes filled with love, May scribbled in her notebook, then added: Literally, which I didn’t know was possible. She wanted to ask Chris what the hell had happened to ruin this true love story, but she sensed that the pain there was almost as big as the pain of losing Bella and so resolved to hold off until their rapport was stronger.

  ‘You obviously really like men,’ she said when Chris had finished an anecdote about the send-off the staff and regulars at the pub gave her before her wedding.

  ‘Yeah. I s’pose so. I mean, I like people. Mostly.’

  ‘Sure, but I mean, you surround yourself with men. Spend so much time in their company.’

  ‘Nature of working in the kind of place I do, I reckon.’

  ‘You choose to work in the place you do. You’re good at your job, well-presented, as they say. If you wanted to you could get work in one of the more upscale places. I think you like the Royal because it’s so blokey. I watched you there one night. There was an energy. Between you and all the blokes. Sexual, for sure, but not only that. They like you – not just your body or whatever – but you. And you like them.’

  ‘People are nice to me, I’m nice to them. Nothing worth banging on about.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ May said. ‘It’s so unusual and you don’t even realise it. You don’t realise how much most men dislike women. And knowing that, most women can’t relax around men the way you do. Can’t let ourselves show that we like them even if we really do.’

  ‘Ah. That’s a different thing, though. I like ’em fine, but I’m never relaxed, not fully. It’s like with dogs. All the joy in the world, but once you’ve seen a labrador rip the face off a kid, you can’t ever forget what they’re capable of.’

  May leant forward. ‘Is that just a metaphor? The labrador thing?’

  ‘I wish. When I was a little tugger, three or something, I don’t know – how young can you remember things? I was tiny, anyway, couldn’t get up onto a kitchen chair on my own. That’s what I remember trying to do. Climb up on the chair because the dog was going at my cousin. It was her house. We’d been playing and the dog just sitting there like a slobbering stuffed toy and then suddenly it was ripping into Kylie’s face. We were both screaming, dog growling, me trying to get up on that chair, get away. Probably shoulda kicked the damn thing, tried to help, but like I said, I was a tiny thing.’

  ‘Was your cousin okay?’

  Chris stood, left the room. May wondered whether to follow.

  Chris shuffled back in, handed May an unframed photo. ‘Taken a few years back. That’s her on the left.’

  May didn’t need to be told. Chris, Bella and four other women squinting into the sun in front of a table set with red and green paper plates and golden crackers. Six women squinting through eleven eyes. Five women smiling and one grimacing through lips that looked freshly sewn on.

  ‘Look at Bella, will ya?’ Chris hovered over May’s shoulder. ‘Talk about a rose between thorns.’

  ‘They all your cousins?’

  ‘Yeah. My uncle Fred’s kids. Kylie and Kim have the same mum, Jess and Rae different. There’s a son, too, Jason, but we never saw him much.’

  ‘You still in touch with the girls?’

  Chris sat back down across from May, ran a hand through her hair. ‘Yeah, little bit. They’re up in Brissie, all got kids. Even Kylie. Face like that and she still managed to hook a fella. He’s not much to look at himself, of course, but he’s nice enough.’ She shook her head. ‘Nah, I don’t know actually. If he’s nice or not. It’s just something you say, isn’t it? Someone not much to look at you have to say he’s a good bloke, but he mightn’t be for all I know. Plenty aren’t.’ A smile, thin and mean.

  ‘You’ve known some not-nice blokes then?’

  ‘Jesus, haven’t you?’

  ‘I guess.’

  Chris crossed her arms, held her gaze.

  ‘’Course I have. That’s why I asked in the first place, about you liking men, you know. Because most women don’t. Because we know most of them are shits.’

  ‘And most women aren’t?’

  ‘It’s different.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Chris. Really.’

  The shock of it passing over her face. May itched for her camera. You can’t be there for every significant event but you can extrapolate. That look, Jesus Christ, that look. Like seeing her hear the news for the first time.

  Interview transcript (excerpt)

  26 April 2015

  Nate Cartwright

  The way that you – that everyone – describes Bella, it’s very difficult to imagine but I need to ask: is there anyone you can think of who would want to hurt her?

  Her specifically? No.

  What do you mean not ‘her specifically’?

  [Sigh] I was talking to my missus about it all, when it first happened. She never met Bella but she’d heard all about her, even before all this. She knew I thought the world of her, saw her as a sister and that. And I said – it was the first or second night after they found her and I was a bloody wreck – and I said to Renee, ‘Who would do this?’ you know, ‘Who would ever want to hurt someone like her?’ And Renee, she looks at me real serious and she says, ‘Plenty of people. She was a woman, wasn’t she?’

  Do you agree with that?

  Yeah. Wish I didn’t. But, yeah. No other way to understand all this.

  What do you think Bella would say about that?

  About?

  The idea that plenty of people want to hurt women just for being women.

  Fucked if I know. Sorry, but . . . It never came up, right? Why would it? Before this happened it never occurred to me to even think about why someone would . . . Yeah, gotta say, mate, it’s a stupid question, it really is.

  Fair enough. It’s just I’m trying to get a sense of what Bella herself would think of all this. If it had happened to someone else, I mean.

  Yeah, but it didn’t. It didn’t.

  I can see I’ve upset you. I’m sorry. It’s just really important to me that Bella’s voice comes through in all this. That her views, her opinions are –

  You don’t get it. Bella’s voice is gone. Gone. We don’t get to hear it, don’t get to find out what she thinks of anything anymore.

  But we can –

  No. We can’t. Not ever again.

  I’m sure everyone knew about what had happened with Dave Hunt. I kept catching blokes looking at me from under their caps, women giving me the side-eye then flashing fake smiles. No one said a word about it, which is how I knew that I’d done something really bad. Do something a bit shit, like getting in a fight outside the TAB or getting a DUI, and people around here will bag the hell out of you. But something beyond the pale – beat your wife, hurt your kid, stalk a bloke because you think he murdered your sister – those things go unspoken.

  Trust that this night, of all of ’em, the fella I’d last taken home – the one against my instincts – he was there, eyeing me up and down openly instead of on the sly like everyone else. Late in the night he came right on up to me while I was cashing out the second register since Suze had just clocked off. ‘Chris,’ he said, ‘been a while since we caught up.’

  ‘Crazy busy lately.’

  ‘Yeah. Been pretty flat out myself.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Be really sweet if I could crash at
yours tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, listen, mate. Not really up to visitors at the moment.’

  ‘You’ve had a shit time of it, I know. Might be a bit of company’s just what you need.’

  ‘Appreciate the offer, but I’d really rather not tonight. Now stop gasbagging so I don’t have to count these notes a third time.’

  He dipped his head and swaggered away. Took all I had not to keep looking up to see if he was watching me.

  I finished cashing out the till and took the proceeds into the back office, locked them in the safe and, on my way back to the bar I stopped by the kitchen and asked Nadine if she had her car tonight. She didn’t, as luck would have it, but when I told her there was a bloke I was a bit worried about she said she’d give her old man a call and have him pick us both up. My impulse was to tell her not to worry about it, but then I thought again of the last time he’d been in my house and I nodded, thanked her.

  The man left without bothering me again and soon after that I called last drinks. By the time Nadine’s husband turned up I felt like a knob. Silly woman scared of nothing, needing to call someone else’s husband to rescue her from the Big Bad Wolf. Felt even worse when I told him my address and he said, ‘Yeah, I know.’ I wanted to ask if it was sex or death that’d made my address common knowledge, but I didn’t of course, just climbed into the back seat of his Commodore and strapped myself in like the fragile little child I was.

  ‘Want me to come in with you?’ Nadine asked when we were out the front.

  ‘Nah, I’ll be right,’ I said, even though I really kind of did. I hadn’t left the porch light on and the front door was in shadow. I jogged up the path, trying to look light rather than rushed. I had ice in my guts, I tell you, and it felt crucial I get the door open and light on before that car took off. Nadine must’ve picked up on it and told her husband as much, because I heard the engine purring until I got inside and a second after I lit the kitchen up and locked the front door I heard two cheerful honks and then the car roaring away.

  It was so quiet inside. Quiet and very, very cold. Yeah, it was middle of autumn and all, but this was different. It was like the air touching my skin was ten degrees colder than anywhere else. I know that doesn’t make sense and there’s no way I could know, but I’m just saying it’s what it felt like. Like cold was clinging to me.

  I had a hot shower and then got in my flannelette pyjamas and into bed. I was cosy as could be, started drifting off to sleep and then whoosh the cold was all over me again. I sat up, shivering and shivering. I called her name, softly, feeling mad and on the edge and in a minute I was warm again. I sank back down and on the verge of sleep there it was again, like someone had opened a freezer right over my bed. I started to cry. I said her name over and over. Asked her why she was doing this. But all that happened is I got colder and colder and colder until I couldn’t lie there anymore. I needed to move or I’d freeze to death, honestly, that’s how bad it was.

  I got up and started towards the hall cupboard to get the fan heater. I flicked on the light. For a second the room was bright and then the bulb sparked and all was dark. I was crying hard now, and, listen, you know how silly it sounds, me crying and carrying on because it was cold and a lightbulb blew? Well I knew that at the time, I really did, I was saying it to myself, Get a grip, woman, you know, but the feeling on my skin . . . Cold as a grave, that’s what they say, isn’t it?

  I felt my way into the kitchen. The light in there worked fine. I put a mug of milk in the microwave and while I was waiting for it, I plugged in the heater and then took a slug of bourbon right from the bottle. There was a low boom and the heater shot sparks and whirred to a stop. My hands shook so hard I had to steady one with the other in order to put the bottle safely on the table. The microwave stopped its turning and the light overhead flickered on-off-on-off-on-off. I sat in the dark and howled like a bub. I asked her again why she was doing this and again felt my blood icing up.

  Then this rumbling noise started and I about wet myself before I realised it was a car coming. Not a car; a truck. I ran to the window and watched as it stopped out front and the man climbed out of the cabin, moved up my driveway slow and easy. It occurred to me I should drop to the floor, pretend I wasn’t there, but I couldn’t move.

  He knocked on the door and my face got all hot and then the warmth spread down my neck, to my chest and arms and stomach and legs. He kept knocking. I reached for the light and turned it on and it didn’t flicker. I opened the door and he walked in, not smiling but not angry or anything, just normal, like he did this every day. He said hello and I said it back.

  His touch left me cold, but only metaphorically. And that was better. Or it seemed so at the time.

  I woke in the night to the sound of crying. It was soft, like she was trying to muffle it with a pillow. The man beside me snored so loud, too, it made it hard to hear anything else. But I heard and I knew it was her. I told her I was sorry and there was a little pause and then she started up again. I lay awake listening until she cried herself to sleep and then I did the same.

  In the morning I gave him back his money. I don’t know why.

  No, I do.

  He shrugged, pocketed the notes, left the way he’d come, few words and no expression.

  Monday, 27 April

  When May arrived, Chris was waiting on the porch, huge sunglasses covering half her face, her white patent-leather tote bag at her feet.

  ‘You going out? I thought we were going to talk some more this morning.’

  ‘Yeah, really need to get out of the house, though. Can we go somewhere?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Chris picked up her bag and started down the driveway. May followed, unlocked the car, watched from the corner of her eye as Chris strapped herself into the passenger seat. The woman’s hands seemed electrified. Not shaky. Jolting sharply, without pattern.

  ‘Everything alright?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Bad night.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that. It’s a beautiful day, though. We should sit outside somewhere. Is there a nice quiet park nearby or –’

  ‘I wanna see where she died. Was found. You know the place, right?’

  ‘Are you sure you’re up for it?’

  Chris swallowed, pressed a hand to the base of her throat. ‘Feels like something I have to do.’

  ‘Sure. Of course.’ May started the car. This was so fucking perfect she couldn’t believe it. ‘Hey, I wanted to tell you,’ she said, keeping a calm unexcited tone as she drove towards the edge of town, ‘I’ve spoken to a couple of editors. Good Weekend, Australian Magazine and Women’s Weekly are all interested. Each would want it angled a slightly different way, of course. My preference would be Women’s Weekly. Circulation’s excellent. It’s a monthly, so much longer for the physical copy to be hanging around places getting picked up. And they’d be wanting more personal focus, less about the crime itself, more about who Bella was as a person, how her loss has affected you. What do you think?’

  ‘Yep, sounds okay.’

  May glanced across. ‘Did you want to call Nate, see if he wants to come along? Might help to have some support.’

  ‘Nate’s back in Sydney.’

  ‘For good?’

  ‘More or less. He’ll pass through but . . . They’re having a baby. Him and Renee. So he obviously needs to be around a lot more. Around her.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for. How far is it?’

  They’d passed the Melbourne exit sign a minute ago. Chris had become supernaturally still.

  ‘Coming up on the left in a sec. But listen, if you change your mind at any point we can leave. Just say the word, right?’

  ‘Yep.’

  May spotted the enshrined tree up ahead, braked too quickly, half skidded to a stop at the verge.

  ‘So this is it, eh?’ Chris didn
’t wait for an answer, just opened the car door and strode out across the gravel, over the grass. She stopped short about a metre from the tree with the misspelt signs and deflated balloons and dead flowers. When May caught up with her, Chris held out her palm: a warning. Stop here.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I just . . .’ She shook her head, dropped her hand. ‘I thought I heard something.’

  ‘Something like . . .’

  ‘I dunno.’ She shuffled forward a few steps, stopped again. ‘There. There. Did you hear that? Like a whooshing sound?’

  ‘Um, maybe. It’s windy.’

  Chris laughed, fake, awkward. ‘Yeah, geez, I’m all spooked. Silly.’

  ‘Spooked how?’

  Chris waved her off, stepped closer to the tree, sucked in her breath. ‘It’s nice, I guess, that strangers’d do stuff like this. Weird, too, but.’ She pressed a finger to a faded photocopy of a newspaper reproduction of Bella’s photo.

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘Well, have you ever done it? Read about some terrible crime and then driven out to the shithole where it happened and left a little handmade sign or whatever? Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s sweet, but I don’t get it.’ Chris squatted and picked up a long-dead bunch of roses. Once-yellow petals scattered and she brushed them away. ‘Woulda cost a fortune, these ones. My favourites, you know. Wish I’d seen them when they were fresh.’

  ‘Did Bella like roses?’

  ‘Fucking hated them.’ Chris barked out a laugh, stood, brushed her hands together. ‘Any flowers. She liked them all right in gardens, but bunches, bouquets, all that – bane of her life, she said. People’d send them to the home for birthdays or anniversaries or, I don’t know, out of guilt. Staff have to take the deliveries, bring ’em in to the patients, half the time poor old dear doesn’t have a clue what she’s supposed to be celebrating, so the staff explain. Then they’ve gotta find a vase if the cheap relos didn’t send them in one. Find the vase, arrange the things, get pricked by thorns, bits of leaf everywhere. Put it somewhere it won’t get knocked over. Few days later chuck ’em out, rinse the vase, explain to the old dear why her flowers are gone. “Two minutes on the phone for the guilty relo, a whole damn rigmarole for the staff,” Bella used to say. Some of the other aides’d just chuck the flowers soon as they came in or leave them in the reception area, but Bella always made sure the patients got them. Whinged about it after, but always made sure Old Mrs Whatever had the fucking roses the son who’s never visited her in a decade sends.’ Chris picked a clingy petal off the front of her shirt. ‘See what she meant now. Bloody messy business. Oh, wait!’ Chris’s hand flew to her throat as she looked up into the skeletal branches overhead. ‘This tree isn’t – The police didn’t say anything about –’