Okay, enough of the pity party. I think we’re getting sidetracked. I can feel the energy rising in Dad’s study, and I am sensing it’s important. Louise is pointing to something on her laptop, and Ruth is shaking her head in wonder. No, that’s not wonder. That’s disbelief and regret. She’s beating herself up.
“I knew he sounded familiar,” she says. “Dammit. I should have gone with my gut.”
“What?” says Craig, glancing at the screen over her shoulder. He, too, reads for a bit before his eyes widen.
“Whoa,” he says. “Okay, that explains the drugs then. He’s got form! Is that two deaths he’s been linked to?”
Ruth is still shaking her head. “And here he is, showing up at another. I can’t believe he didn’t mention this earlier tonight. Like we couldn’t have looked it up.”
“You think he brought the drugs?” says Kelly, and Craig is nodding for her.
“’Course he did, who else? And he thought we’d never find them!”
You nearly didn’t, you idiots. If it wasn’t for the SOCOs, that packet would still be bobbing up and down with every flush. I have no idea who they’re talking about, but it’s got me excited. Whoever it is, he’s clearly a criminal and it’s clearly not my brother.
Ruth turns to Craig. “Please tell me you got his contact details. His real details, that is.”
Craig pulls out his notebook and begins madly flicking through it while my heart begins to thump wildly. I watch for a few moments as he turns back a few pages then lets out a yelp and starts jabbing a number into his phone.
“I’ve got him!” he says, but my focus is suddenly shifting again.
I have another memory flash, but this one is very fresh and I just know it has to be related.
I am standing on the pool deck, staring at my phone while Justin Bieber massacres the Spanish language and someone screeches with laughter from the daybed. Then another sound catches my attention. It’s coming from inside the house, and it does not feel right. I frown. I step inside, and that’s when I see it, a tall silhouette of a man at the front of the house.
He has something at his side. What is that? He looks annoyed, no, aggravated. I feel a prickle of alarm. I want to ask what he’s doing there, but there’s something in his eyes that shuts me up.
I’ve seen the man before. I know him. I am suddenly awash with panic.
And now Craig and Kelly are rushing down my hallway and through my house. They reach the front door and burst through it and then down the driveway.
I watch with fascination as they make a beeline for the street, striding, one after the other, in the direction of Tessa’s place. From this angle it looks like they’ve got dibs on who’ll reach the house first.
Kelly wins the prize and throws himself at the front doorbell.
It buzzes loudly, quickly followed by a series of blunt knocks that reverberate through the hallway like a jackhammer. Mrs McGee starts at the sounds but Una is already up and opening it, her eyes widening, too, when she sees Kelly standing on her doorstep, Craig close behind.
“Is Vijay Singh on the premises?” Kelly asks, almost breathless from his sprint over.
She nods blankly, half turns, but Vijay is already there, his keys in his hand, his vest now buttoned up. It is as though he has been waiting for this all night. He looks defiant, almost smug.
“Hello, officers,” he says, sounding far too cheerful considering their presence.
“Detective Sergeant Powell would like us to escort you back to the May house for some more questions,” Kelly says.
He nods, not asking why.
“What’s going on?” This is Tessa, entering the hallway with Roco, cigarettes still alight.
Then Arabella steps forward, her eyes frantic. “But… but Vijay, honey, will you be coming back?”
He doesn’t answer her, but that term of endearment answers an earlier question, don’t you think? Now we know who was playing nookie in the spare bedroom. Although you probably already worked it out.
Vijay turns to Kelly and says, “Give me a moment, please.”
Then he steps away from the officers, but it’s Una he grabs on to, not Arabella, first holding her by both hands, then dragging her into his embrace.
“It’s okay,” he says. “It’s going to be okay. I’m innocent. You have to remember that.”
Then he hugs her even tighter, and it makes her whole body stiffen, but it’s not his touch that’s upsetting her. He’s whispering something in her ear, something like “not now” and “incriminating,” but the police don’t catch that.
Kelly just looks impatient and starts to wave a hand in the air as if to say “Yeah, yeah, no time for schmaltz.”
Vijay releases Una, then steps back and turns around to follow the officers out, only stopping halfway down the driveway to yell back, “Go back to the family, Una! Go back!”
Arabella looks confused, even a little put out, but Tessa is mortified and is staring daggers at Una.
“What’s he on about?” she demands. “What does he mean, he’s ‘innocent’? He’s not a client, is he, Una? Tell me you didn’t bring a criminal to Maisie’s party!” Then, an eyebrow pitched high, she adds, “And what did he just give you?”
Aha! So Tessa saw that too. Did you?
When he hugged her tight, Vijay slipped something flat and pink into Una’s jacket pocket. It has to be that pilfered envelope.
Una blinks down at Tessa as if she, too, is confused, then reaches into her pocket and retrieves the pink envelope, staring at it as though it’s a white rabbit.
She looks back at Tessa again, her expression now one of alarm as the others start crowding in.
“Yeah, what was that about?” This is Leslie, Jonas just behind her, Roco close by.
Arabella has stepped back, however, and is holding one ear, the one without the earring. She is thinking What a bastard.
Now it’s Una’s turn to step away, but she doesn’t look angry or smug or defiant. She looks panic-stricken and shoves the envelope back into her pocket.
“It’s nothing,” she says. “Nothing at all.”
“Come on, what does he mean he’s innocent?” Tessa persists. “Why wouldn’t he be innocent? What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know!” Una is in a flap, and Tessa’s eyes are firing up.
Arabella has now dropped onto the couch while Mrs McGee is clutching the kitchen door as though it’s the only thing keeping her up.
“You brought that man to the party, Una!” Tessa’s voice is rising, her pitch getting hysterical. “Who the hell is he? What did he do?”
Una’s palms are out. “I don’t know… I didn’t…” She backs up towards Arabella, then drops down beside her and crumples.
Oh, Maisie, she thinks to me. Oh honey, I didn’t think… Honest, I didn’t. I’m so sorry…
Everybody is staring at her, aghast, including me, and when she looks up, she recoils before swallowing stiffly.
“I need to tell you guys something,” she says.
Then the sound is suddenly switched off.
Oh no you don’t! No, no, no, no, no! Don’t you dare hide from me, Una Conway! You turn the volume back up this instant!
But Una’s now whispering furtively to the group, and most of them are looking shocked and alarmed except for Arabella, who just looks embarrassed.
Dammit, Una, what did you do? Or, more importantly, what have you been up to?
Because it’s too late for silence, and I think I know your secret.
I’m not sure what Vijay’s story is—I can’t get my head around that yet—but I do know one thing for sure. I saw that pink envelope, Una, and this time I saw it clearly. It had the initials DM scribbled in Biro across the front and, below that, a clumsily drawn love heart.
Are you keeping up, dear reader? Do you understand what I’m saying?
Those are my father’s initials—David May—and the handwriting… Oh God, the handwriting is not my mother’s.
“It’s all your fault.” This is Neal, and he’s by my side again.
I swing around to stare at him. “What? Why?”
“You’re not ready to hear it yet. You’re not ready to face the truth.”
I am! I am! I am! I am!
“Then why is that conversation still hidden from you?”
“I don’t know!” I screech back at him. Honestly I don’t.
I glance back down to Una, who despite having everyone’s rapt attention, looks absolutely bleak, guilty too. Do you think she looks guilty?
I wish I could see into her jacket, into those large, lumpy pockets and double-check that envelope. The writing was not my mother’s, but it was deeply familiar. It can’t be Vijay’s, I know that much, so it must be Una’s; it just has to be. Nothing else fits.
Is that what she was doing in my father’s study earlier tonight? Was she penning him a letter and, if so, why?
Why would a work friend be leaving my father a letter on blush-coloured stationery with love hearts? Why would she have his personal mobile number for that matter? A mobile he never told me about? A number I was never given.
I told you Una had dangerous taste in men. Did I also tell you she liked them older and married if she could manage it? But it was worse than that. She was unapologetic about it.
“Single men are so needy,” she told me once, “at least young men are. That’s why I go for older blokes, the attached ones.”
The two needn’t necessarily be linked, I wanted to tell her; there are plenty of single older men who’d be happy to treat you like crap.
“Older married men are more blasé,” she continued. “They keep it light; there’s no strings attached.”
“Well, apart from the wives’ apron strings of course,” I ventured, unable to help myself. It was one thing to joke about this, but these were real people’s lives, I remembered thinking. Am thinking now, but she scoffed as if it was inconsequential.
Then she mocked me and said, “You’re so old-fashioned, Maisie, honey, you really are.”
Like affairs are a harmless twenty-first-century invention.
I shake the thought away irritably and try to think more recently. Did she flirt with Dad? Did he flirt back? Of course he flirted back; he flirts with all my friends.
Did she read that incorrectly, or was there something more serious going on?
My heart drops again. I taste bile in my mouth.
Surely my dad and Una weren’t… Urgh, I can’t even say the words out loud, and if you’re thinking what I’m trying not to think, you can scrub your mind out with soap.
There is no way that Dad… There is no way that Una…
And what has any of this got to do with my murder?
Think, Maisie, think!
Did I go back and read that letter? Did I confront Una about it? She’s a big girl; we all know who’d come out second best if things turned violent.
Neal snorts beside me, and I turn to catch him mid-eye roll. He’s as bad as Kelly. It makes me want to scream.
“What?” I say to him. “You think I’m overreaching?”
“I think you’re getting distracted again.” Then he nods his head towards my house and repeats the words Vijay uttered just recently. “Go back to the family, Maisie. Go back.”
And so I tear my eyes away from that silent confessional and back towards my house, noticing as I do so that several sets of neighbours are still awake. One man is peeking through the blinds, as though waiting for an encore, others lie under blankets, shifting and turning and shifting again, pummelling pillows like they wish it was my face. They’re annoyed with me now, angry that my death has interrupted their slumber, and unlike Una, they don’t care if I know it.
Well excuse me for keeping you up! I want to bellow. How dreadfully rude and inconvenient of me!
I feel like haunting them now. I feel like whooshing down and rattling the bedcovers, but that very thought has Neal tut-tutting.
“I’m not going to do it,” I tell him.
“Tempting though, isn’t it? When I died, the old farts across the road threw a party. And I’m not talking the sobbing to the tunes of Nick Drake type of party that your mates are throwing. I mean, Flora and Lionel Johnson were thanking the Lord that the likes of me were no longer walking the earth and corrupting others.”
“Horrible,” I say.
“Typical,” is his response. “I really wanted to punish them. I had great plans. Was going to make their old video tape of The Wizard of Oz levitate.” He giggles. “Deseree stopped me. Party pooper.” He smiles. “But enough about me. We’re getting sidetracked again.” Then he brings a broken finger to his lips and makes a shushing sound. “It’s not over yet, Maisie, not by a long shot.”
Sniggering, he adds, “Sorry, I just know how much you love a good pun!” before floating back to the tunnel.
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes, but I do as he suggests and focus back on the detectives. Ruth is sitting across from Vijay at the kitchen table, as though waiting for the entrée to be served up. Craig stands behind Vijay. Kelly behind Ruth. Tanner has long gone, which is just as well, and Louise is in the study trawling through Dad’s emails.
No one is speaking, but Vijay doesn’t look quite so smug now.
Ruth takes a deep breath, then recites Vijay’s legal rights while he nods along, almost melodically, as though it’s a tune he’s heard many times before.
“Now, I’d like to ask you about Anya Mirakai and Geraldine Smythe.” He stares at her and says nothing, so she adds, “I’d like to ask you about their suspicious deaths.”
His lips droop a little. “I can’t see why. I was acquitted on both counts. And I’m pretty sure the report you’ve just been looking at tells you that.”
She licks her lower lip. “Your fingerprints were discovered at the homes of both women; they found some correspondence between you and Mrs Smythe.”
He shrugs. “So we chatted. I made a few visits. She was a sad old dear. I was just keeping her company. That’s not a crime, detective.”
“It is if you killed her.”
“And yet I didn’t.” He meets her eyes and does not flinch. “You do understand the meaning of the word ‘acquitted,’ yes, Detective?”
She smirks and thinks, Smug bastard, then says almost as an afterthought, “Did you have anything to do with the death of Maisie Leanne May?”
He leans back in his seat, forcing the chair onto two legs.
My mother hated the way my brothers used to do that. Would admonish them every single time. “You’ll break the chair,” she’d say. “You’ll break your back.”
I hope he leans out further.
Ruth repeats the question, and now Vijay looks disappointed in her.
He says, “I’d like to see my lawyer now.”
And Ruth just nods, clearly expecting this, but I am furious. That wasn’t an answer. He didn’t refute anything. Is Tessa right? Did Una inadvertently bring a cold-blooded killer to my party? It’s all so outlandish I can hardly think.
Luckily, Ruth is doing the thinking for me. She packs him off in a patrol car headed for police headquarters where she’ll join him later for an official interrogation, his lawyer by his side, no doubt.
Vijay seemed neither alarmed by this development nor surprised, but I am suddenly feeling quite deflated. Is that all this is? A random killing by a friend of a friend, a crazy client of Una’s? Was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Please, Death, don’t make it as depressingly shallow as that!
It’s such an anticlimax.
I turn away. I make my way to the tunnel. I’m ready to hold up the white flag.
Deseree is standing there now, Emie by her side, Neal nowhere to be seen. Good. I’m fed up with his Royal Smugness.
“Okay,” I tell them. “I’m done. Let’s get this over with.”
“But it’s not over,” says Deseree, and I snort.
“Well, it’s over for me. I don’t think I care anymore. So Vijay killed me because he’s a psychopath, or maybe it has something to do with Una, I don’t know. Makes no difference, really. I’m worm fodder no matter how it pans out. The party’s over now, anyway, might as well mosey on over to the tunnel and get on with it.”
Deseree is shaking her head. “I told you before. It doesn’t work like that.”
“Well, it does for me! You tell… whoever it is back there calling the shots, you tell them that I’m ready. I’m good to go! Let’s fire up the engines, people, let’s get this show on the road!”
They both just look at me sadly. Their sympathy is worse than Neal’s smugness.
I groan. “Why?” I sound like my toddler self again.
“Read Rule #4 again,” Deseree says as the tunnel swallows her and Emie away.
Rule 4. Thou shall see all when thou is open to seeing.
Hello! I’m open! I’m here, aren’t I? I’m trying!
I stare after the vanishing light and scowl, then back towards earth where Craig is also scowling. He’s flicking through his notepad frantically, his eyebrows wedged together.
No, dammit, no, he is thinking. It just doesn’t work.
I don’t know what he’s looking for or what doesn’t add up, but I don’t care anymore, and it’s not because I’m over all this. It’s because I can hear a very familiar sound, and it makes my heart break.
The two people I love most in this world have arrived home, and I’m stuck here to witness their misery.
Thanks, Deseree, thanks a lot.
A dusty silver station wagon is just pulling into our street, rattling down the road and sliding into position at the bottom of our driveway. It’s my folks, of course, and they are not in any hurry.
The engine is switched off, but for several minutes neither of them gets out. They just sit there staring at the road ahead, and at first I am offended. Why aren’t they rushing in, all guns blazing?
And then it makes sense. I get it now. By opening their car doors, they will beckon in a new reality, a darker dawn, so they’re putting it off. They’re procrastinating. That’s all very well, guys, but you’re already six hours late.
I think it’s time.
Eventually, slowly, my mum’s door creaks open. Followed a beat later by my dad’s. I see one leg, then another, then two more. I see them shuffle onto the sidewalk and reach for each other. I see them take a deep breath before turning to stare up at the front door, their eyes wary, as if approaching a haunted house. Which I guess, if you think about it, it is.
I wonder, too, if they intend to knock, but I never get to find out. The door has swung open, and Detective Ruth stands there, a grim look on her face.
She beckons them in as though she’s the butler, then shakes both their hands and leads them down the hallway, away from the office where my blood is still splattered and towards the kitchen, where I can hear the kettle boiling.
The sound seems too parochial, considering the circumstances.
My parents follow Ruth, as though strangers in their own home. Has my death ruined everything now? Has it turned our home back into a house, albeit a creepy one, one that not even slick rendering or lush vines can combat?
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Ruth says, pointing them into their own kitchen chairs.
They blink at her. My mother nods. They dutifully sit down.
“Kelly will make us a cup of tea.” She flashes a glance at her sidekick, who doesn’t exactly look thrilled by this. He thinks the task is below him and is wondering why Craig can’t do it. “Do you mind my asking you a few questions now? Or would you rather—”
“Now,” my mother says loudly. Then more softly she adds, “Now is fine.”
Ruth nods and takes the chair across from them, placing her hands prayer-like on the table. She breathes in, waits a few seconds, then exhales.
“Can you tell me when you last saw your daughter?”
“Two days ago,” starts Dad, but Mum interrupts.
“It was Thursday, just before eleven. We had packed the car for the drive. She was in my sewing room, reading a magazine. We both went in to say goodbye.”
“She didn’t come out to see you off?”
My mother stares at her, frowning. “She… no. No she didn’t.”
“And what state of mind was she in? Could you tell?”
“She was fine.” This is Dad, and he is determined to speak. He is determined to let this woman know that I was in perfectly good spirits, thanks very much for asking.
And yet even I am having trouble believing that.
I was holed up inside at eleven a.m. on a weekday, for goodness’ sake. I couldn’t even find the enthusiasm to see my parents off. Not so fine perhaps.
“She hasn’t been great,” says Mum, ignoring his outburst. No, it is because of his outburst. She is addressing this to him, and he is glaring at the tabletop like he finds the cheap pine offensive. “She had to leave her job, you see, and she really loved that job. And she broke up with Roco—”
“He’s a ratbag!”
My mother waits a beat. “They broke up amicably, David.” She smiles pointedly at the detective. “As I told you on the phone, she was struggling with it all. She was not great.”
My father closes his eyes as though that will somehow block out what she is saying.
“She was depressed?” Ruth asks, and Mum’s eyes flicker with impatience.
“Wouldn’t you be?” Now she sounds defensive.
Ruth nods, but she doesn’t look convinced. Perhaps she doesn’t love her job as much as I did. Perhaps she doesn’t have a Roco in her life.
“Have either of you ever met or had any interactions with a man named Vijay Singh. Dr Vijay Singh.”
They both stare at her, baffled by the change of tack.
Eventually Mum says, “No. Why? Who is he?”
“He attended your daughter’s party, Mrs May. That’s all I can say at this stage of the investigation.”
I expect her to object to that, to demand some answers, but she drops it immediately and just smiles at Kelly as he hands her a teacup.
“Milk? Sugar?” he asks, and Mum goes to get up, but he waves her back down. “I’m sure I can manage.”
Mum smiles again, grateful, then she turns her eyes back to Ruth and her face seems to fall into itself. Her shoulders drop. She is no longer smiling.
“Do you know…” She falters, closes her own eyes for a moment, then opens them and says more assuredly, “Can you tell me what happened, please?”
Ruth looks puzzled by the question and waits as Kelly places milk and sugar on the table and then hands my father his cup.
“Your daughter died from a fatal gunshot to the head, Mrs May. I did explain that over the phone.”
“Yes, yes.” Mum sounds impatient again. This is not what she’s asking. “I just want to know, do you know for a fact that she…?”
Mum can’t quite bring herself to say it, and I see Dad shrink into himself and reach for his cup. He wishes it was whisky.
Ruth says gently, “We can’t rule out suicide, Mrs May, not at this stage. But we are keeping an open mind. We’re looking at all avenues.”
“All avenues?” This is Dad now, glancing up from his brew. He looks buoyed suddenly.
“It’s early days, Mr May, but we have found some evidence that others may be involved.”
“This man you mention? This doctor?”
“Perhaps.” Yet for some reason she doesn’t look convinced. “I need to ask about the gun.”
Dad’s shoulders fall again, his gaze dropping back to his cup while Mum’s eyes slide his way. Does she blame him, I wonder?
Ruth says, “You stored the gun on two hooks in your office, is that correct Mr May?”
He swallows. “Yes, but… but it was an old piece of junk. I didn’t even know it still worked.”
“Why wouldn’t it work, David?” says Mum, her voice rising in pitch.
Yep, definitely blames Dad.
“Because it’s a million years old, Mandy,” he says through clenched teeth. “It wasn’t even loaded. How was I to know?”
“Because it’s a gun, David, an actual working gun. Not something you found at Toys R Us. You understand that, right?”
Ruth holds a placatory palm up. She needs to get this back on track, she needs to keep this couple calm; they’re no use to her if they’re arguing. “And you say it wasn’t loaded, Mr May? Where were the bullets stored?”
Dad looks from Mum to her, his frown easing. “In one of the drawers in my desk, the bottom one, right at the back, I can assure you of that. I never showed anyone. I certainly never showed Maisie.”
Ruth nods. She emits a sigh. “I know this is confronting, but I need you to take a look in your office for me, Mr May. I need to ascertain if anything has been disturbed, if anything is missing.”
He looks confused again, but Mum has rallied and is already on her feet.
“Good,” she says. “Of course.” Then, noticing Dad still sitting there hunched over his cup, she almost snaps, “Come on then, David. This is no time for tea. Let’s face the music, shall we?”
Wow, she really does blame Dad, doesn’t she? The incrimination in her voice is agonising to hear, yet I wonder if it’s the only thing keeping her from falling apart. Blame can be quite motivating, almost energising when you think about it.
In contrast, guilt is clearly crippling, and I watch as Dad pushes his cup away and struggles to his feet. He suddenly looks all of his seventy-four years. Louise goes to help him, but he shakes her away, then follows Ruth down the hallway towards ground zero.
At the office doorway, Ruth stops and says, “No further, please.”
But Dad is not listening. The walk has reenergised him, and he is already pushing past her and inside. Ruth goes to grab his arm, but it is too late. He is staring at the carpet to the side of his desk. He is staring at the remnants of me, the smattering of blood I left behind. He stiffens, he chokes, he drops to his knees and he breaks into gulping sobs.
And now I am sobbing right beside him.
I wish I could reach out. I wish I could hug him, but I’m also surprised because I thought Dad would be the stoic, dry-eyed one and Mum would be the one who turned to jelly. I mean, she was always good in a crisis, but she was my mother! How can she be so together? How can she still be upright?
I guess it all comes back to that gun.
After a few agonising minutes, Mum’s demeanour softens and I am relieved to see her step towards Dad, lean down a little, and gently start patting his back, like she’s soothing a naughty child. Ruth shoots worried glances between them, but she’s not thinking about the warring couple. She’s thinking they mustn’t go any further. She must preserve the integrity of the crime scene.
Oh my baby girl, I can hear Dad think now, and it sets me off again. If only you hadn’t gone on that bloody date.
I do a double take and swallow back my sob. Sorry, what?
If only that night had never happened.
Hang on, is he talking about my date with Hottie Hodder? Is that what’s upsetting him? Not the fact that he brought a gun into our home or hung it on the wall or left the bullets lying around for any nutter to uncover but the fact that I went to an Italian restaurant one chilly winter’s night with Jonas?
What does a harmless date with a good-looking guy have to do with my murder?
Now I feel more muddled up than ever.
As Mum continues to soothe Dad, I try to get my head straight. I try to work out why my father’s first thought when he saw that blood was of Jonas. As was Tessa’s, now that I think about it.
Perhaps I haven’t looked at Jonas closely enough. He was the first to find my body, and the way Roco and Tessa were just talking, well, I have to ask: Is there more to Jonas than meets the eye? Does he have something to do with this?
I try to think back…
Jonas wasn’t nicknamed Hottie Hodder for nothing. He was the best looking guy in my social circle, a work friend of Tessa’s and, at least until recently, Roco’s best mate. When it comes to friendship, Roco is a serial monogamist, and his latest bromance was with Jonas, a man who could down a schooner of beer in seconds, banter about football for hours and always be relied upon for a good time. He’s what Aussie guys call a “top bloke.”
To the women, however, it was all about the body. Jonas wasn’t tall and dark so much as fit and blond—Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper rolled into one with the six-pack to match. Yet when he asked me out on a date that winter, I had to smile and let him down.
“You know Tessa’s got a major crush on you, right?”
He smiled back. He shrugged nonchalantly. He said, “So? What’s that got to do with us?”
“She’s my friend, Jonas. She’s your friend too. It’s how we met! I couldn’t do that to her.”
“That’s the problem, yeah? Tessa has monopolised us both.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s always around. Like a bad smell. This has got nothing to do with Tessa. I just want to get to know you better. Get some quality time with the amazing Ms May.”
I was flattered. I can’t say I wasn’t, but I was also surprised, and I asked him why he assumed I was so amazing.
“You’re just so… together.” I looked at him, puzzled, and he laughed. “I mean, you’re beautiful and you have a great job and friends, and well, you just have your shit together, that’s all. Unlike most of the chicks around here. Unlike bloody Tessa.” He laughed again. “You’re the whole package, Maisie. Tessa’s not. Why should you be punished because your best mate has a crush that’s going nowhere?”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Oh, I see. So not going out with you would be a form of punishment, is that what you’re saying?”
He smiled his silky smile. “I guess you’ll have to accept my invitation and find out for yourself.”
And still I resisted. “I’m just not sure I can do it to Tess.”
“Why not?” His smile had vanished. “She’d do it to you.”
“No she wouldn’t,” I snapped back. I knew that for a fact. Or at least I thought I did.
Then he smiled at me again. It was the full Hollywood throttle—the gleaming white teeth, the tilt of the head, the slight squint of the eyes. “It’s just dinner, Maisie. I’m not asking you to get married.”
He made a good point.
“I didn’t think you even liked Jonas,” said Tessa when I fessed up later that day. I had to tell her—of course I did—but I cushioned the blow by explaining that it was just a quick pizza down at Bill and Tony’s Ristorante.
“Nothing’s going to happen, Tess. He’ll work out I’m dull as dishwater and quickly lose interest.”
She gave me a strange look then. “You’re worried about me,” she said.
“No, I’m not.”
“I’m not into him anymore, is that what you think?” She laughed. She sounded genuine. Then her laughter stopped. “Just be careful there, okay? He’s not as hot as he seems.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Now I’m just being a bitch. Go out, have fun, be free!”
I think about her comments now. Was that why she decided Roco was fair game? Because, in girlfriend land at least, I’d already crossed the line? I had lost her loyalty.
But I digress. I don’t think it’s the date with Jonas that Dad is referring to now. I know he was happy to see me step out of my comfort zone and “let my hair down.” I’d been single for some time and a bit down in the dumps. No, I think Dad is referring to the end of that date, the bit where it all went to hell in a handbasket.
Despite my promises to Tessa, something did happen that night, something pretty momentous, although the date itself was relatively benign.
We talked, we flirted a little, we even squabbled at one point—he thought the #MeToo movement was pathetic; I thought it was a powerful concept. But we put our differences aside when the food arrived. We were in too good a mood to argue.
We shared a delicious pumpkin-and-goat-cheese pizza, Jonas and I, washed down with plenty of good Shiraz. So much wine, in fact, that few people were surprised when I went hurtling down the restaurant stairs on my way out and broke my leg.
Few people that is, except Jonas. He was horrified.
The day after I was released from hospital, my leg in a cast, my head pounding like a jackhammer—I guess I must have hit the wall on the way down, it all happened so fast—he backed right off. Suddenly he didn’t want to upset Tessa. They were colleagues; it could prove uncomfortable at work.
I saw Jonas after that from time to time—hanging out with the gang, at parties, a few hours ago, in fact—and he was always friendly enough, but he could never quite look me in the eye, at least not for very long. It was though I had ruined the mirage.
I was the silly little drunk who fell flat on her face. The amazing Ms May had been vanquished.
Was that when I lost all sense of control? Did my self-confidence shatter right along with my right tibia? And does Dad blame Jonas for that? More importantly, did I confront Jonas about it all last night? Did I demand a belated apology for his rejection? And was murder the result? Or did Tessa finally confront me? Demand to know how I could date the man she liked? Is that why I’m dead?
Oh it’s all so damn silly, so trivial, in fact.
So why did Dad bring it up? Why was that the first thing he thought of when he saw all that blood?
“Please take a moment, Mr May,” Ruth is saying, her voice low, her tone patient. But the truth is she doesn’t want him to take long. She has questions, a dozen questions, and she wants to get on with it. It’s been a very long night. Hell, the morning is practically upon us.
Dad is shaking the tears off, struggling back to his feet, when he lifts a weather-beaten finger and says, “What’s my chair doing over there?”
Good question! Finally they’re thinking outside the box. Someone clearly pushed it over there so they could reach the gun. Yes, let’s focus on that.
“You didn’t put it there?” Ruth asks.
“Of course I bloody didn’t! It’s always behind my desk.” His guilt is making him rude and defensive again.
“And the gun was on the wall, just above the chair? Resting in that case?”
Ruth knows the answer to that, so why bother asking? It’s almost as though she’s on Mum’s side and is rubbing his face in it.
Dad nods, chokes, hangs his head again. It makes my heart break. Mum is frowning now, but she is not thinking along the same lines as Ruth. She’s now so outside the box she’s in fresh territory.
“But the hooks aren’t very high, are they?” Mum says. “Why would you need the chair to get to the gun?”
And before any of us can even compute that question, she has another more intriguing one. “And why is the photo like that?”
We all follow her eyes to the filing cabinet to the side of Dad’s desk where there’s a silver picture frame sitting beside a dusty nautilus shell. The frame is facing the wall so we can’t see what it contains.
For a moment my memory fails me, and I can’t quite remember the contents. Was it their wedding photo? A certificate of some sort? Then it comes to me with a whoosh. That’s right! It’s a happy snap taken on the last holiday we ever had as a family. I already told you about that. It was my final year of school, the setting an island in Vanuatu. We were all there, including Jan and at least one of her kids. We were standing on a sundrenched beach, Mum and Dad grinning happily, Peter looking stoned, Paul caught midblink, one arm slung around Jan who is half-cut from the picture, as though even the photographer didn’t feel she quite belonged.
And me? I’m right in the middle of the fold, my smile as wide as Mum’s, my arms spread out as if to say “Here we are, world, aren’t we terrific!”
It’s my favourite photo, so why is it facing away? Mum attempts to retrieve it, but Ruth has a hand up.
“Allow me.”
She steps carefully across the perimeter of the office, pulling a latex glove on as she does so. When she reaches the frame, she stops and turns back.
“I gather it doesn’t normally face this way?”
“Of course not!” This is Dad again. He is as flabbergasted as my mother. “It’s a picture of the whole family, our favourite one. Why would I have it facing the damn wall?”
I watch with curiosity as Ruth scoops it up, glances at it and then frowns. She looks up at my folks and then back at the frame, her frown deepening. Why is she frowning? I feel something slither down my back.
Slowly, almost gingerly, she makes her way to the door. When she reaches Mum, she shoots her an inscrutable look, then turns the frame to face my folks, and only then do I see what all the fuss is about.
It may have been our favourite family photo, but the frame is now empty.
I suppose my parents gasp. I know I do, but Ruth is looking animated. Another clue! Another culprit, perhaps.
“Who would take…?” My mother starts. Stops.
“I’ll kill ’em!” That’s my dad. Livid.
I can’t get my head around it. Was it taken as a memento? Some kind of ghoulish souvenir?
“I gather it was still in the frame before you left for Dubbo?” Ruth asks, and Dad rails again.
“Of course it bloody was!”
He’s really got to get his temper under control. He’s just lucky Ruth isn’t taking it personally.
“As far as we recall,” Mum adds more gently. “We can’t say for sure, can we David? We’ve all been rather distracted of late. Maybe somebody took it earlier? Maybe Peter took it so he would have a picture of us to take back to London.”
Dad scoffs at that, he does not agree, while I’m surprised once again by her clear thinking. Yet I too don’t agree. Instead, my head is reeling and I’m almost as excited as Ruth. This has to be another clue! There’s no other explanation. And it has to lead straight to the culprit. I don’t know whether they took the picture before I was killed or after, but if we find the photo, I just know we’ll find the killer.
Has anyone thought to frisk Vijay and see if he has it?
“Where are my boys? Are they still here?” This is Mum, and she finally sounds fraught, like the picture has just reminded her that she has other children, that it’s not all about me.
“One son was out by the pool earlier,” Ruth tells her, signalling for Kelly, who has been loitering out in the hallway. “I’m not sure about the other. We had to keep them out of this area. The crime scene officers are just finishing in the living room too, so that space is also out of bounds for now. I trust you understand.”
Mum looks at Ruth as though she doesn’t understand any of it, then glances at the empty frame one more time as Ruth hands it to Kelly, before sighing heavily and making her way towards the back of the house.
Dad watches her leave, then slowly follows.
When they reach the sliding door to the back deck, Mum glances around and does not see Paul at first. He’s half-asleep on the daybed under the pergola, the black splotch on the ground by his feet. Paul’s wife has vanished. She’s getting about a lot tonight.
“Peter?” Mum calls out. “Honey, is that you?”
The splotch stirs, shimmers, moves towards her. Paul looks up with a start and does the same. And then my heart breaks all over again as I watch my family embrace each other, or at least my family and the black blob.
All four of them find their way back to the daybed and fall into it. I think about what was happening on that bed just a few hours earlier. It seems a lifetime ago now.
Mum wipes a hand across her wet cheeks. I can see her hand is shaking. At last her true colours are showing. At last she’s acting like my mother.
“Do you know what happened?” she says eventually. “Did you boys see anything? Were you close?”
Paul shakes his head, looks away. “I wasn’t here. I’m sorry, Mum.”
The guilt in his eyes matches my dad’s. Mum reaches a hand to his and squeezes it, then they both stare towards the blob. A conversation ensues. I’m not privy to it, but I get the idea because Mum is now shaking her head, vehemently, while her hands are now calm and steady.
She holds one up like a traffic warden. “You cannot blame yourself, Peter. I will not allow it. I will not!” Her voice is strong. Her tone determined. “Maisie lived her own life, and she had a good life, really she did. You weren’t responsible for that, and you aren’t responsible for her death.”
Peter must start to say something because she holds both hands up now and almost snaps at him. “Enough, Peter! Enough!”
Dad says, “You weren’t to know, boy, you weren’t to know.”
Then Mum reaches one hand towards the shadow, and when she speaks again her tone is tender. “You need to let it go, my darling. It was not your job to protect Maisie, and she would not blame you. I know she would not.”
And then he must have let it go because the darkness slowly dissipates and my eldest brother shimmers into view. It’s the first I’ve seen of him since my death, and it sends my heart into a tailspin again.
Peter looks like a derelict version of himself, nothing like my handsome, swarthy oldest brother. His unbuttoned dinner shirt is smudged and wrinkled, his slick hair now dishevelled, his complexion raw and ruddy. It’s like he’s gone from polished timber to distressed wood in just one night.
Why was he beating himself up so hard? And why was he hiding himself from me? I assumed it had something to do with drugs, but maybe I misunderstood.
“How’s Gramps?” I hear Paul ask, and I want to know—now, desperately—so I try to let that go. I try to concentrate.
“Hanging on,” says Dad, who looks like he’s only just hanging on himself.
I wonder how they feel about that. About being by an old man’s bedside when they could have been home, saving their young daughter instead.
Is that mean-spirited of me? Does youth naturally take precedence? It’s funny how we worship the young and rescue them first, as though they are somehow more worthy. Why not the elderly? The people who have put the most in?
I’m trying to remember why I didn’t go to Dubbo this time to visit Gramps or the last time now that I think about it. I wasn’t working. I had nothing on my schedule. It can’t be because of my party; that was planned after my folks left the house.
Was I always a bad granddaughter? A selfish one?
“Does Gramps know about Maisie?” Paul asks, and Mum shakes her head.
He’ll know soon enough, I think. No, I know this. And it has nothing to do with them phoning him tomorrow or the fact that he’s ninety-five and in palliative care. I just know he isn’t long of this earth. It’s a feeling I get. I can almost sense his presence. He’s not far off. It’s like he’s started on this journey but hasn’t quite hit the road yet. Is still gathering his swag, pulling on his boots, checking for traffic.
I long for Gramps suddenly, like a yearning ache. I wish he were here to help me get through this. I’d rather him than Neal and Deseree and that poor, ravished girl. Or even Grandma if I’m being honest. I never really got to know Grandma May. She died fifteen years ago, before we started making regular trips back to Nevercloud. The only memories I have of her are fragrant ones—the waft of fresh roses and blueberry jam and cinnamon. Lots and lots of cinnamon.
“She’s a bloody good cook your gran.”
That’s Neal by my side again, but I am surprised by the comment, not his presence.
“You know my grandma? My actual grandmother?”
“Grandma Pickles and Pie? Of course! She makes a mean pumpkin scone too. To die for.” He sniggers at the pun, then rolls his eyes at my gaping mouth. “Everyone knows everyone; it’s not that big a deal, honey.”
“But how? There must be so many of you back there.”
“Not really. We’re just one cosmic force. It’s hard to explain. You’ll get it when you cross.”
“And when will that be? How long have I got?”
He shrugs. “How long’s a piece of string?”
My mouth is grimacing now, and he chuckles again. “In your case as long as you need. You get special privileges.”
“Really? Why?”
He smiles at me sadly. “Because of the way you died, honey. I can’t believe you haven’t at least grasped that bit yet. You need extra time to come to terms with it all.”
There must be a lot of Americans hovering between life and death then, I think, recalling recent statistics I read on gun deaths in the US. But there’s something else I want to know, something I recall.
“What did you mean when you said you needed to get your points up?”
“Sorry? You’ve lost me.”
“Earlier, when I first met you. You said—”
“I was just being a bitch.” He sighs. “It’s pretty simple. Once you do cross over, you have to help others across, it’s part of the program.”
“Program? What program?”
He holds up a broken limb. “Now we’re getting distracted again, and it just won’t do. You might have all the time in the world, honey, but I’ve got people to see, places to go, scones to eat!” He winks at me. “Come on, let’s get our skates on.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “What people? What places?”
He shakes his head and sighs dramatically. “Nope, no, this time I’m not biting. You need to focus, woman, focus on whodunit.”
“I already know who did it. I told Deseree that I know. You’re clearly not keeping up.”
He looks at me sideways. “You do?”
“Yes, it’s obviously that dodgy character Vijay. You heard what the cops said earlier. He was up on murder charges. And now that I think about it, it’s starting to make sense. He must have swiped that photo as a grisly memento, just like he swiped the envelope.”
Neal shrugs. “Oh Vijay’s not so bad. He got acquitted, remember?”
“Yes, twice, so he says. Doesn’t mean he didn’t do it.”
“No. No it doesn’t.”
My ears prick up. “So are you saying he did do it? That he was guilty of killing those women?”
He looks at me impatiently. “Yes, no, maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t necessarily mean he’s your man though. Not in this case.”
“Why not? It’s perfect! He’s a killer. He was at the scene of the crime. Surely it has to be him, surely no one else in my group could do such a thing!”
“And yet you continue to suspect them,” he says, his voice as smooth as ice. “Have you noticed the way you do that?”
“I’m trying to get it all straight in my head! I’m trying to work out who did this.”
“Then keep going,” he says. “It’s closer to home than you think.”
And again he vanishes like a rat into the night while I hover above with nothing to do but watch my loved ones implode.
I can see that Ruth is watching them too, biding her time. She has more questions for my parents, and she wants to get back to the station, but she knows the best time to get answers, honest, candid answers, is when the parties involved are wrung out. And my family is as wrung out as a wet dishcloth.
Louise has just shown Ruth something on Dad’s computer, and it’s set her into another tailspin. I didn’t catch what it was, but she snatched an item from the top of his desk and made a beeline for the back deck.
After a few more minutes, she coughs discreetly and catches my parents’ eyes.
“Can I have another word?” she mouths, glancing at my brothers before adding, “In private.”
They look at each other with matching frowns and then slowly get to their feet, following her back inside while my brothers watch them go, their eyes wary.
My parents are headed for the kitchen again, and I am about to follow when Paul makes an interesting comment.
“You weren’t here, Pete. Where did you go?”
Ooh, good question. Let’s hang around for a bit.
Peter frowns at him. “What?”
“After the party. You vanished.”
“Nah, mate. No I didn’t.”
“Yeah, mate, yeah you did.” His tone is mocking and impatient. “Cops said they couldn’t find you.”
“Couldn’t find you either, right?”
“That’s because I’ve moved house, you dickhead. Didn’t have my new address. What’s your excuse?”
“Oh just piss off, Paul,” Peter says, turning his back to him. “I don’t answer to you.”
This only infuriates my other brother. “Just bloody tell me! Why are you being so evasive? What were you doing? Pulling chicks again? Scoring a hit? What? Just tell me where you were!”
“Nowhere, I was nowhere!” Then he rubs a hand through his hair and says, “I was just… I was at Central Station. Okay? Happy?”
Paul looks mystified by this, his brow furrowing, and I don’t blame him. I’m equally mystified. Why would my oldest brother be loitering miles away at a grotty train station after midnight? It’s hardly his style.
“Central?” Paul persists. “What were you doing there?”
“Nothing! Turns out I was doing nothing, going nowhere fast, so just leave it be, okay? Please, just… just drop it.”
And Paul does, releasing a low growl as he gets to his feet, but I don’t want to drop it. I think it’s a really excellent question, and I’d also like to know why the word Nevercloud is being repeated over and over, like a broken record, inside Peter’s head.
What was my brother doing at Central Station at midnight, and why is he thinking about Dad’s property at a time like this?
Back in the kitchen, my parents are seated at the breakfast table again, which will forever be an interrogation desk to me now, and Ruth has produced a white slip of paper. It’s the boarding pass I spotted on Dad’s desk earlier tonight.
What has that trip to Vanuatu got to do with anything?
“Can you tell me about this?” Ruth says, passing it straight to my dad.
I’m expecting him to laugh and say, “What of it?” but he does the opposite. He stares at the pass like it’s poison, no, worse than that, like it’s porn, his face riddled with what looks to me like guilt again, but this time it’s laced with disgust. He darts a look at Mum, who sits stony-faced beside him.
“What… what about it?” Dad manages.
“You took a recent trip to Thailand, Mr May.”
It’s a statement, and I expect him to dispute it, but he does the opposite. He nods.
She says, “Can you tell me why you were there?”
What’s she talking about? Dad hasn’t been to Thailand. She must have mistaken Peter’s name for Dad’s. She must have her wires crossed.
Dad glances back at Mum, who is staring straight ahead, glaring at the aqua-blue splashback, a garish metallic glass that she never liked and Dad never got round to replacing.
He says, “I just needed a break, that’s all.”
A break? Dad? That makes me laugh. Dad never needed “a break” in his life. He wasn’t the “R&R” kind. And if he did want some rest and recreation, he’d head straight to his favourite place on earth (yes, Nevercloud), not some tacky resort in Koh Samui or wherever the hell he went.
I wish I could see that pass more clearly. Dad’s covering most of it with his big lumpy paw. Does it really say Thailand?
“You went for three days? Alone?” Ruth asks, flashing a glance at my mother, and now his guilt turns to what looks like panic. His face has drained of colour, and his eyelashes are batting madly.
While he sits there, looking skittish, I try to recall the last time Dad went anywhere alone for more than a few hours. It was to Dubbo, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s right, last month, something about the farm and crisis management. I remember feeling sorry for Dad and relieved at the same time. At least Mum and I had escaped that particular road trip. Now I’m wondering if that’s when he snuck off to Thailand.
Then something even more disturbing smacks me in the head.
Someone else went to Thailand recently, Bangkok if I remember right. Someone with blond hair and legs up to her eyeballs. Somebody who flirts with older men, preferably the married kind. My stomach turns. My head pounds. My heart reaches out to my mother.
“And it was just a holiday was it, Mr May. Just recreation? No other reason for your—?”
“Boss! You’re gonna wanna see this!” That’s Kelly, the only one with the guts to interrupt Ruth Powell midinterrogation.
She turns her glare upon him.
“Sorry,” he adds quickly. “It’s important.”
She looks back at my parents with a stiff smile. “We’ll discuss this later.”
Then she gets up and walks out of the kitchen while my dad visibly slumps and Mum continues staring at the splashback.
Ruth continues glaring at Kelly all the way from the kitchen to the living room, where I notice several SOCOs gathered around the couch. It’s been pulled out from the wall, and someone is taking photos of something on the other side.
The flash is sharp and unsettling, but it wipes the glare off Ruth’s face. Now she just looks curious.
“What’s the story, JJ?” she says, striding across, and the tattooed SOCO looks up from her camera and then nods back to the carpet.
Ah, now I see it! Now I see what all the fuss is about.
There’s a stash of hundred dollar bills splayed out between the couch and the wall. So that’s where all that money got to!
If my parents have any clue as to the origins of that money—$775 as it turns out—they’re not letting on. I think Dad’s hiding something, but I’m not sure he even knows what it is he’s hiding. He looks as puzzled as I feel.
Ruth has returned to the kitchen, cash in hand (well, in an evidence bag, if you must know), and she’s smacked it down on the table before them. It’s all very dramatic, like a scene from Law & Order, but they both just blankly stare at the bag.
“We found this down behind the sofa, the one in your living room. Any idea what it was doing there?”
Now they look at her blankly.
“Did either of you put it there, for example?”
They shake their heads.
“Is this where you normally stash extra cash? Perhaps you’re not into the usual hidey-holes like under the mattress or, I don’t know, a bank?”
Again, they shake their heads.
“Do either of you have any idea who might have put it there? There’s almost $780 in this bag. That’s not loose change, folks. That’s not a bit of coinage slipping down between the cushions. Would one of your children have put it there?”
Again, the shaking of the heads. Mum looks completely lost, but she’s also lost her energy and can’t seem to fathom enough to enquire further, although she’s clearly curious. Dad looks like it’s starting to ring a bell, maybe, kind of. Perhaps.
Ruth catches this and zeroes in on him. “Mr May? Talk to me.”
He shrinks back. He shakes his head. It’s a safer response.
Ruth groans with exasperation. She does not believe him, but she, too, is tired and is running out of time. She has a slippery suspect to interrogate back at headquarters not to mention fingerprints to check and toxicology results to demand…
“Aherm.”
This is Craig, standing at the kitchen door. He has his notepad in his hand, and he looks fit to bursting. He’s really loving this gig. I wonder if he’ll ask for a permanent transfer from Tanner’s team and if Ruth will accept.
She whips her head around, offering him the same glare she gave Kelly when he interrupted her, but Craig’s getting braver. He holds firm, darting glances at his pad as if it’s the Holy Grail.
Ruth groans even louder and turns back to my parents. “The SOCOs are finishing up now, Mr and Mrs May, and we’ll all be out of your hair very soon,” she begins, not surprised by the relief that washes across both their faces. “But don’t think we won’t be back. This isn’t over, folks.”
“Can I see my daughter?” Mum asks, and again, it feels as though it’s only just occurred to her. “I need to see my baby.” Her voice cracks.
This wipes the condescension from Ruth’s tone. “Of course, Mrs May. I’ll arrange that tomorrow.” She glances towards the window. “Later this morning, I mean.”
Mum nods, a tear dripping from one eye.
Ruth gives her a tight smile, then scoops the cash back up and leaves my parents sitting together in their kitchen. They’ve never looked more alone.
Again, I want to reach down. I want to wrap them in a ghostly embrace, but Ruth is already motioning for Craig to join her in the living room, and I am keen to learn what it is he’s so confident about.
Only when they reach the room, only when they know they’re out of earshot, does Ruth stop and turn to him, an eyebrow raised questioningly.
“Vijay Singh couldn’t have done it, ma’am,” Craig says, his tone elevated.
“And you know this, how?”
“I questioned everybody earlier. I have their alibis. Dr Singh was with one of the other guests in the spare bedroom, you know, doing stuff.”
“Doing stuff? What are you, twelve?”
He blushes. “Having sexual relations, his words, not mine.” He glances down at his pad. “During the pivotal hour and a half, Mr Singh and a woman called Arabella Simpson were first at the pool, then in the kitchen, then in the guest bedroom, the one upstairs. Several witnesses have confirmed it. His presence is accounted for.”
“They could be in it together,” she says, and he shrugs.
“Mutual friends insist they only met each other last night.”
She frowns, thinks about that and then winces. “And you’re only just telling me now? Now that we’ve hauled him down to headquarters and dragged his cranky solicitor out of bed!”
“Sorry, ma’am, but I thought you’d want me to check, to be certain.”
“And you are certain?”
“Yes, I am. I just phoned the woman in question, Ms Simpson. She confirms that she only met Dr Singh this evening and was with him from about eleven until the victim was discovered around twelve fifteen. The pathologist says Maisie was probably shot between eleven thirty and midnight, so…” He lets her do the math. “She doesn’t sound happy, ma’am, this Arabella Simpson. In fact, she asked if you could pass a message along to Mr Singh.”
“Really? And what message is that?”
“She said to tell him to, um…” He blushes again. “To, er, go f-word himself.”
Ruth stifles a smile, and I can’t help giggling. We both agree that sounds like the genuine sentiments of a woman who’s just been used and spat out, not an accomplice providing a fake alibi.
“Sorry, ma’am, but I think he’s in the clear.”
“Yeah,” she says, “more’s the pity.”
And, again, I agree. The sleazy doctor was such a good suspect! So remote and detached from my life, I was happy to pin it on him. Now we’re back to square one.
Now we’re back to my loved ones.
The sun is just peeping up from behind Tessa’s house, lending it a rosy glow. It looks shiny and new. There’s a sparkle coming from one of the top windows, and the low lighting has muted the patchy paintwork. It seems as though someone’s just given it a bath and popped on some fresh lippie.
Must be a trick of the light. That house hasn’t been spruced up since Mr McGee took off, and there’s nothing fresh about its contents.
Three of them are now collapsed like ragdolls against each other on the couch. Una is at one end, her long legs crossed over on a mismatched pouf in front of her, her mouth agape, Tessa asleep at the other, chin in her bosom, and between them Roco, his head on Tessa’s lap, his legs across Una’s knees, snoring loudly.
I never minded his snoring, not like other couples. I knew he couldn’t help it, just like I can’t help looking down on them fondly despite their secrecy, despite their lies.
The others have left, and Mrs McGee is back in her own bed, sleeping soundly. It’s sad and all, but it’s clear from my friends’ proximity to each other that whatever Una has told them, whatever her secrets—my dad? Thailand? Her friendship with a suspected killer?—all is now forgiven.
I am both relieved and insulted, but I let them be. I pull myself away and return to my house where I see the police have left as promised and my folks are still awake. I know it’s petulant of me, but I guess I’d feel betrayed if they were snoring happily.
Nobody wants their death to send people to sleep.
Mum and Dad are huddled under separate blankets in separate chairs in their own living room, clutching what looks like tumblers of whisky, their eyes still wide with the horror of it all, but the boys are nowhere to be seen. I assume Paul has returned to his own family, and as for Peter? God knows. Is he a black splotch again? Has he found another hotel room, another warm body to help him through?
Then I hear a loud snore followed by a moan and a splutter, and I almost giggle. I feel like a little girl again, peeping in on her big brother. Peter’s under that duvet in the guest bedroom, his clothes strewn on the floor, an empty crystal tumbler on the bedside table. For the first time in ten years he has stayed over at my parents’ place. It’s a pity I had to die for that to happen.
I wonder about this now.
Why did Peter stay away so often? Why does he live his life as if from behind a shadow?
“He can shag and snort and do whatever he likes at the InterContinental,” Paul had mumbled the last time he came to town, but I didn’t think that was it. I had a hunch there was something deeper going on.
I wonder now if he knew about Dad and Una, if he’d caught Dad sleeping around with other women in the past. Was that what he was avoiding? Or is it something else entirely?
“Could be gay?” Neal says, catching me by surprise, but I don’t bother to look around.
He seems to be popping up more frequently now, and I’m slowly getting used to it.
“He’s not gay.”
“How do you know?”
“He might not be married, but there’s always a girl on the scene.”
“Ah, the classic gay beard! A ruse! Maybe that’s why he lives in London, so he can hide his true self.”
Finally I turn to face him, my head cocked.
“All right then,” he says, “if you say so. Pity though. He’s a hunk, that one.”
“What do you want, Neal?”
“Deseree asked me to come out, see if I can help speed things along.”
“I thought I had all the time in the world. What happened to that?”
“You do have time. But you don’t need it, honey. You just need to open your eyes and see.”
“I am!” I snap back. “My eyes are so open I’m seeing shit that, quite frankly, I wish I’d never seen! I would have been very happy to head off to Forever without any of this, so you can tell Deseree to—”
Diiing, ding, diiiiiiiing!
A high-pitched bell breaks through my tantrum, and I look back down. I know that ringtone. I’d tune into it at a heavy metal concert. It’s my front doorbell. Ruth and Kelly are standing outside, finally acting like the intruders they are and not the owners of the place, startling my parents in the process.
They both jump, and Dad manages to spill whisky all over his blanket.
“Bugger it,” he says.
Mum looks at the clock on the wall. It’s just after eight. How did that happen? She sighs heavily. “I’ll get it.”
As she makes her way to the front of the house, her stoicism reminds me of something, of another time. She closes her eyes very briefly, then opens them again as she swings open the door, waving Ruth in without a word. She doesn’t ask what she wants. She doesn’t have to. She’s been waiting for their return.
Kelly remains outside as Ruth and Mum walk back to the lounge room where Dad is now gathering dirty glasses and soggy paper plates and attempting to clean up. I had forgotten all about my party and am almost taken aback by the mess, which looks excessive in the harsh light of day. The empty champagne flutes and lurid-coloured cupcakes, some stabbed with cigarette butts, seem so out of place under the circumstances. Like a really lame joke.
“Can I have a word with you both?” Ruth says, and Dad drops a beer bottle back into the potted plant where he found it.
They sit down on the couch together now and wait.
Ruth glances at Mum, shoots her a look I can’t read, before turning to Dad. “I’ve just spoken with my counterpart in customs, Mr May. We know all about your recent trip to Thailand,” she tells him.
I think, Yes, yes, that’s old news, move it along!
“We know who you were there with, and we know why you went.”
Now Dad closes his eyes and hangs his head, and my heart crumbles all over again. Is this how my poor mother has to learn of his affair? Does Ruth really need to make it so brutal?
Mum is staring at Ruth, but I can’t read her face. I can’t read her mind.
Before the detective can say anything else, three things happen. Ruth gets a call on her phone and holds a finger up to excuse herself, my brother Paul enters the room, his car keys jangling, and Mum turns to Dad and says, “Say nothing.”
Then she plasters a smile to her face, turns to Paul and says, “Cup of tea darling?”
As the kettle begins the boiling process (gee it’s been getting a workout), Mum reaches for some loose-leaf tea and begins to make a pot, calling back to Paul.
“You’re up early, sweetie.”
He looks like he hasn’t even been to bed, and he wipes a hand across his advancing stubble.
“Well, the little buggers are always up at the crack of dawn so…”
He slumps onto a stool. I wish he wouldn’t do that. I wish he’d return to the living room and sit beside our shaking dad. Or at the very least start cleaning the mess up, because I know that it will be left to Mum, and I feel so guilty about that. And I’m not talking about the dirty wineglasses.
Dad has somehow pulled himself together and enters the kitchen. He gives Paul’s shoulder a squeeze before dropping into the neighbouring stool.
“So Pete’s still asleep, is he?” Paul mutters. “Well what a surprise. Typical.”
“Don’t.”
It’s a simple word, but it’s loaded with emotion. Both Dad and Paul look up at Mum with a start. She has her back to them, but we can all tell she is at breaking point.
“Just today,” she says slowly, her voice low and firm, “can we just have peace, please? That’s all I ask.”
Paul looks away, shamefaced, and I wonder about that. Did we fight all the time? Were we really that kind of family? That’s not what I recall or, at least, not entirely.
I have a strong memory of giggling with my brothers, only recently in fact. I remember perching on my bed, Paul at the door, Peter by my side, the laptop in front of him as we snorted with laughter. We joked about dressing up and hitting nightclubs and getting “out of it” together.
There was a lot of love and laughter between the fighting and the angst. Wasn’t there?
Ruth is now in the kitchen too, Kelly by her side. She nods hello to Paul as she slips her phone back into her pocket. She appears to have forgotten her line of questioning because she says nothing further about Thailand. Instead, she asks, “Have any of you had any interaction at all with Dr Vijay Singh?”
Paul’s the only one that looks at her blankly now, but I’m more confused than ever. What’s Tall, Dark and Handsome got to do with Thailand?
“You mentioned him last night,” says Mum, now facing the detective. “Who is he? What’s going on?”
“I just need to clarify whether you’ve ever met him, had any conversations or correspondence with him. I need to know the truth.”
“No, we told you that yesterday,” she says. “But why? Why are you asking us that?”
“Never mind,” is Ruth’s clipped reply, but my mum does mind, very much. She has abandoned the tea and is staring hard at the detective, arms on her hips.
“Is that man involved? Is that what you’re saying?”
Ruth looks at her patiently and seems to wrestle with an answer. Eventually she says, “Dr Singh has been at the scene of two other apparent suicides in the past eighteen months. His presence here is therefore somewhat suspicious.”
“Why was he here?” Mum demands. “Who brought him?”
“One of the guests.”
“Which one?”
Again with the hesitation, then, “Una Conway.”
Mum’s eyes shoot straight to Dad, who is not looking up. Again. I wonder if he has any idea how shifty he looks? Has looked ever since he got home.
Paul says, “Who is this bozo? What’s going on?”
Another good question, thanks, Paul! I thought we’d eliminated that bozo. Five seconds ago he had a rock-solid alibi. Did Craig get that bit wrong? Did some new information come in?
Ruth draws away from the bench. “I need to check something in your daughter’s room, Mrs May.”
Mum blinks back at her, surprised by the subject change. “Um… sure… fine,” she stammers, before staring back at Dad.
The detective glances between them, then turns and departs the kitchen, heading up the stairs towards my bedroom, her lapdog nipping at her heels.
“What did Una do?” I hear Mum ask, her voice quivering now, like she is only just controlling her anger.
“I don’t know,” Dad whispers.
“You promised me you’d leave it alone!” she says, the control faltering. “You said it was a mistake, that it was over.”
“It was! I had nothing to do with that.” He looks up, his eyes stricken. Every wrinkle on his face seems etched in charcoal, deeper, darker, almost gothic. “You think I would allow this? While we’re not here? You think I would let that man…?”
Mum’s eyes narrow. “What? Let that man what?” Dad looks away again and Paul glances between them, worried.
“What’s going on, Mum? Dad?”
Mum folds her arms across her chest. “I don’t know what to think anymore, David. It’s a bloody mess.” And then she hisses. “You made it messy. It didn’t need to be!”
Mum’s hiss cuts through to Ruth, who stops on the staircase and considers returning before seeing Mum storm past and out to the pool, a hand across her mouth like she’s smothering the screams or the sobs or something.
Ruth resumes her climb upwards.
My bedroom is a mess. The police have clearly ransacked it. I may not have unpacked properly, but I have always been neat and tidy. One glance at my room and you would think I was a slob. I am irate. How dare the police destroy my last resting place! (And no, I don’t count Dad’s study; there was no resting going on in there.)
Ruth tells Kelly to wait at the door, then steps inside. She takes a moment to look around, then strides across to my bed, lifts up the pillow, then the quilt to look underneath. I have no idea what she’s looking for, but all I can see are fresh sheets and a lavender wheat pack. She bites her lower lip, then leans down and plunges one hand between the mattress and the wall. She fumbles around for a bit and then pulls out a semitransparent green plastic folder. There’s something inside—is that paper? Brochures? She glances at the folder briefly, flashes Kelly a victory smile, then wedges the folder under one arm and retreats.
What the hell was that? Why are things being stashed down walls all of a sudden? I don’t recall putting that there. How did she find it, or more specifically, how did she know to look there?
The plot thickens again, and I am more lost than ever.
With a mug of tea in each hand, Paul steps out to the back deck and looks around. Mum is perched on the daybed, knees up, arms wrapped around her legs, fat tears dropping from her eyes. She sponges them up with a tissue as Paul closes in.
He hands her a cup.
“Thanks, love,” she says, sniffing into her Kleenex.
“No worries.”
He repositions some cushions and drops down beside her. And they sit like that for a bit, both sipping their tea, him staring out to the pool, looking constipated again. I know he’s confused. I know he has no clue what just happened, yet he doesn’t want to ask. I can feel his hesitation. And it annoys the hell out of me.
Ask, you idiot! Find out! Stop being the evasive ostrich you’ve always been!
I love Paul, can’t help that fact, but he’s always hidden from life, taken as few risks as possible. That’s why he married the first girl he met and had kids as soon as possible and lost himself in suburbia, six blocks down from his childhood house. For all his sleazing, for all his sins, at least Peter got out, got a career, got stuck into life. Paul just treads water, and right now all that treading is getting us nowhere.
I used to admire his steady reticence once. I got it. I had a dash of it myself. Now it irritates me. I need him to butt in. I need him to interrogate our mother. She knows something. Dad knows something too. We need to know what that is.
“You okay, Mum?” he eventually asks, and she sniffs again, then turns and offers him a comforting smile.
I love the way she tries to comfort others when she’s so clearly in turmoil.
“Really?” he persists.
Good, I think, keep going!
“’Course, yes, this isn’t going to break me, honey.” Then her smile firms up. “It won’t break you either, or your Dad. We’ll be okay.”
Like he’s the one who needs consoling. He nods but does not look like he agrees.
Then I hear his thoughts. Thoughts I wish he didn’t want me to hear.
Fuck you, Maisie. Look what you’ve done.
I look away, I race away, I don’t want to hear those thoughts. Victim blaming is one thing but from my own brother, my own flesh and blood! I’m sorry my murder has left a gaping hole and you’re all confused and hurting, but really, Paul? Really?
It’s like I’ve been shot all over again.
I shift away from the pool. I wander my old street, or at least as far as I can go. I see one set of neighbours heading off somewhere, hats on their heads. They’re smiling like it’s a new day, and I guess, for them—for everyone but me—it is. I see old Mrs Russo has swapped her floral nightie for a floral muumuu and is reaching for the rolled newspaper on her lawn. I’m sure my murder hasn’t made that early edition, but she’s ripping the plastic off, scanning the front pages. Is she looking for coverage of my death or just checking the weather report?
I see a blue heeler galloping towards her. That dog looks familiar. I stop and watch for a bit.
“Kasper! Kasp! Here boy! Come!”
There’s a middle-aged man standing at the end of the road, a dark beanie on his head, muddy leash in his hands, and Mrs Russo steps back, wary, as the dog rushes up. But it just gives her a cursory sniff before turning back.
“Good boy!” the man yells and holds a palm out to the woman. “Sorry about that!”
She gives him a curt nod, then shuffles back up her path.
I look at the man. He, too, looks familiar. I know I’ve seen him before. Why’s he wearing a woollen beanie? It’s already hot out.
“Oi! You!”
Roco is striding across the McGee’s front lawn, his clothes cruddy, his hair tufted up like a crazed clown, congealed blood just visible between his shirt and neck. He looks like the walking dead, and the man glances at him with a start, then grabs his dog’s collar and pulls him close.
Roco notices the dog and slows his pace.
“Can I help you?” the man says, dropping down to pat his stocky mutt’s white-and-bluish-black coat.
“You came to the party last night; you were making threats,” Roco says, and the man gets back up, one hand still wrapped around his dog’s collar.
“The music was loud,” he replies. “I just wanted the music down.”
“You were going to call the cops.”
“But I didn’t.” Then he frowns. “Perhaps I should have.”
Roco stops, scowls, places his hands on his hips. “What does that mean?”
“I heard what happened to that poor girl. The police came to my door.”
Roco’s scowl deepens. He glances around the street, then back at the man and says, “Did you do it? Did you kill my friend?”
And there it is.
He’s officially disowned me three times. Not that I’m counting.
The man reels back now, his dog barking at the sudden movement. “What? Are you insane? Why would you say that?”
“Because you were angry, mate. You were making threats!”
“I told you, it was late, I wanted the music off, and I didn’t think it was good for…” He lets that sentence dangle and pulls his beanie off. “Look, that’s all it was, okay? Why would I shoot somebody? Over music?”
Roco stares hard at him now, but his tone is slightly calmer as he repeats the words, “But you were angry.” Then, shockingly he says, “I saw you, man. I saw you talking to Maisie.”
The man stiffens considerably then, and sensing this, his dog begins to growl. “I just asked her to turn the music down. She said she would, and then I left.”
“How do I know that?” Roco says, his tone darkening again. “It’s the last time I saw her alive. How do I know you didn’t do it?”
I notice old Mrs Russo has not gone back inside; she is loitering by her door, listening in.
The man notices, too, and has had enough. He leans down and attaches the leash to the dog’s collar. “I didn’t kill anybody.” He looks back at Roco and shakes his head. “Get a grip, lad. Maybe you and your mates need to ask yourselves what you were doing when it happened. Take a good, hard look at yourselves.”
Then he pulls the leash tight and says, “Come on, Kasper.”
Roco watches them depart, his arms now dangling by his side, as if he’s been deflated. He’s not sure whether to believe him, but I do. The memory is now as clear as the sunlight filtering through the flame tree overhead, and the man with the Blue Heeler is right.
He did come to the house last night. I remember it now. It’s suddenly very, very clear. That man appeared just as my mother’s phone text came through.
Neighbours worried, hun. Have u got people over? Everything okay?
Except the ‘okay’ was a ‘thumbs-up’ emoji, and I remember being surprised. Mum was adapting faster than I thought.
Before I could respond to her message, I heard a strange sound, a dog bark, and I looked up from the pool and back into the house. There was a man standing just inside the front door, his lanky frame silhouetted by the entrance light. He had his dog by his side and a phone in his hand. I’d seen him before, walking his dog in the street.
“I’ve just spoken to your folks,” he told me when I made my way in. “They’re not happy about the party, and neither am I. It’s not good.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him. I begged him not to call the police.
“I’ll let it go for now,” he said. “Out of respect for Mandy and David and, well, everything that’s going on.” He couldn’t meet my eyes then as he shifted on his feet. “But it’s very late and you need to turn that music down and get some rest.”
I promised I would and bid him good night.
I bid him good night. I am sure of it. I am sure—aren’t I?—that he left the premises. Then I started down the hallway, determined not just to turn down the music but to turf everybody out. I was tired. Enough was enough. I’d tried to stop the party earlier, but my friends had laughed me off. Now I’d show them all I was serious, yet something stopped me. Something happened.
Yes, I remember! Something caught my eye!
Instead of heading back to the pool, I took a detour, to the right of the front door, in the direction of the study.
What was it? What made me take that fatal detour, the last detour of my life?
A high-pitched screech shakes the memory away, and I see yet another kettle rattle at boiling point. It’s in the McGee kitchen this time, and Tammie is padding quickly towards it, looking panicked. She wants to shut it off before she “wakes the dead”—her thoughts, not mine.
Why do women of a certain age assume a hot cup of tea will solve everything, heal all wounds, I wonder? And are they right? Is it as simple as that?
As she pours the water into a chipped teapot, Una appears looking less dishevelled than Roco but equally as shell-shocked.
“Coffee,” she mutters, her voice like a hung-over smoker. “I need coffee.”
Tammie nods towards a high shelf where a plunger sits, then crosses to the pantry and pulls out a tin. Una retrieves the plunger, takes the tin, opens it and shakes some ground coffee in.
As she waits for Tammie to refill the kettle and start the boiling process again, she glances out the kitchen window towards my house and flinches. She looks at Mrs McGee, who is now pulling out a frying pan, a carton of eggs on the bench top.
Una wraps her wrinkled jacket tighter around her waist then deserts the kettle and opens the side kitchen door, rushing out. I assume she is heading for Roco, who is now seated on a mouldy lawn chair, head in his hands. Is he weeping?
We don’t get a chance to find out. Una completely bypasses him and is striding down the McGee driveway and across the road in the direction of my house, her eyes staring straight ahead. She looks determined, but she also looks nervous. She scrapes fingers through her long tresses as she goes, wipes the sleep from her eyes.
I see what Una is looking at now. Who. It’s my dad, and he is standing at the bottom of the driveway, dropping glass bottles into the recycling bin. He sees her, stops and waits for her to cross over, his face a blank mask.
Are they really going to do this now? With my mother sobbing by the pool and detectives crawling the place?
“David,” Una says stiffly. She offers him a grim smile when she gets closer. “I’m so, so sorry.”
He does not smile back.
“Why did you bring him?” Dad bursts out, and she looks surprised by this. It is not what she is expecting, yet she knows who he means because she answers quickly.
“I didn’t realise. I didn’t think.”
“You could get us into big trouble, Una. It’s not over, you know? This whole thing could blow up.”
“It won’t. We didn’t do anything. We’re innocent. They’ve got nothing on us.”
“Bullshit,” he spits, and I recoil.
I have never heard my father use language like that, certainly not to a woman. He coughs, clears his throat. Settles his temper down.
“Sorry, Una.” He takes a deep breath. “Sorry, but it was stupid. The whole thing was stupid. I don’t know how you talked me into it. I don’t know how I could possibly have gone through with it.”
“You were coming from a place of love,” she says. “We both were—”
“I wasn’t thinking! I was a fool.”
“I know, I’m sorry…” She goes to reach out to him, but he has backed away.
He shakes his head, his whole body shaking alongside it, then he smashes the last bottle into the bin and strides back up the driveway.
“Wait!” she calls out, and he stops, his back to her. “I left you something. On your desk. Did you get it?”
She can’t see his face, but I can. He looks puzzled but I’m not.
She left you a love letter, you idiot! She penned you sweet nothings and left it on your desk for Mum to find. Probably reminiscing about your romantic rendezvous in Thailand. The cow.
But hang on. That doesn’t add up.
Una has that love letter in her pocket, doesn’t she? Vijay swiped it from Dad’s desk last night and handed it back to her a few hours ago. I saw him!
So what’s Una talking about? Is it that boarding pass? Was she returning it?
“I need to talk to you,” she persists. “I need to show you something—”
“Later!” he growls, still not looking at her.
“But it’s important, David, you’ll want to—”
“I said later!”
“But, David—”
“Una, please!” He’s facing her now, and his fury has morphed into despair. He looks across to her like a small child premeltdown, his lower lip quivering, his eyes swelling up. “Please, Una. Whatever it is, I can’t face it now. I just can’t…”
Then he turns and shuffles like a geriatric up the driveway.
Detective Ruth is standing at the top, just by the front door. She has seen the whole thing, although what she has heard I cannot tell. Dad stops when he sees her, then growls something unintelligible to himself and continues walking, scooping up the day’s newspaper before sweeping past her and into the house.
In the kitchen he tosses the rolled-up paper on the bench and throws open the fridge. As he stares into it, not hungry, not really seeing the contents, Ruth approaches.
“You want to tell me about Thailand now, Mr May? About your trip with Ms Conway?” Her tone is mild but firm.
Mum is still at the pool with Paul. Seems as good a time as ever.
He slams the door shut, turns and then leans against it.
“It was a mistake.”
“Actually, it was a lot more than that. It’s a federal offence.”
Adultery? Since when?
He flinches. “We didn’t go ahead with it. You must know that.”
“I know nothing of the sort. I’m supposed to just believe you, am I?”
He blinks back tears, his throat now choked. “Believe what the hell you want. I loved her. I loved her deeply.” His voice cracks.
“Enough to commit murder, Mr May?”
His eyes flood with something I can’t quite recognise. Is it guilt? Regret?
Then he surprises me by smiling, but it’s not a happy smile. It is giddy and ugly and full of shame. “That’s the sad irony, Detective Powell. Despite everything, I clearly didn’t love her enough.”
Then he slides down the fridge to the floor, drops his head into his chest and weeps like a baby.
My heart is shattering, shattering, shattering, but I have no time to pick up the pieces or put any of that together because another squad car has just pulled up out the front. I watch with misery as Craig and the ponytailed officer step out. What was her name again? Did we ever find out? The woman remains by the car while Craig walks up the driveway and lets himself straight in the house. It’s amazing how quickly the force take over your home when a crime has occurred. How politeness and protocol are so quickly abandoned.
He finds Ruth in the kitchen, squatting down, patting Dad’s back. Their eyes lock, and she gets up. She steps out of the kitchen and down the hallway.
“He all right?” Craig asks, which is touching, I suppose, but she waves him on. As I said, there’s no time for that shit.
He pulls something from his jacket, several A4 pages stapled together.
“Just got the pathologist’s preliminary report,” he says, thrusting it towards her. “Brought it straight over.”
She snatches the sheets from him and scans the details. Frowns.
“That’s not the best bit,” he says. “Read the next page.”
She turns to the next sheet and continues reading, her eyebrows lifting, her head nodding suddenly.
“It was on her breasts,” he says, sounding excited. “Only one set of fingerprints, and it’s a match. Should we have pulled her top down last night and found it ourselves?”
“No, no,” Ruth replies, sounding eerily calm while my mind starts spinning in all sorts of directions, most of them pretty horrendous.
What are they talking about? Why would they need to pull my top down? What did they find on my breasts of all places? Did the killer scribble something? Leave a calling card?
Ruth doesn’t look at all perturbed, if anything she looks rather pleased by all this. Then she has the audacity to say, “Okay. Good. She took her own life. Well that’s a relief.”
Say, what?
I give my head a metaphorical shake. I try to let those words sink in.
She. Took. Her. Own. Life.
Er, no, Detective. No I bloody didn’t!
“Let’s pack up,” Ruth is saying. “Let’s get this finalised.”
I turn and glare at the tunnel, which is infuriatingly empty again. Where is smug boy now? Where is the condescending middle-aged chick?
How many times do I have to tell you people! I did not kill myself! I would not do that to my family, to my loved ones!
And, frankly, I am outraged that the lead investigator now believes I did.
I try to scramble my thoughts together. Why isn’t Ruth thinking clearly? There is so much evidence, so many suspects, and I’m not just talking this latest snippet, which has got me in a fluster. What on earth could they possibly have found on my breasts? And whose fingerprints are they talking about?
Forget that for now. We have plenty more to work with.
What about the dodgy “doctor” who has a history of murder and been up on multiple charges? I thought Una must have inadvertently brought him over, but maybe there was nothing inadvertent about it. We’ve all been preoccupied with pathetic pink envelopes and extramarital antics, but now the memory of all those hundred dollar bills flashes back. I know Vijay swiped that envelope. Did he also take the cash? Or did it belong to him? Did he earn it somehow? Did he then ditch it down the sofa to avoid incrimination?
I know it sounds outlandish, but what if Vijay was a hired gun? What if Una hired him for some reason? I’m not saying she hired him to kill me, but maybe I got in the way?
All right, it’s beyond crazy, it’s ludicrous. Let’s forget about him for a moment and put the whole ugly Vijay-Una-Dad combo to one side. We still have half a dozen suspects who haven’t been properly scrutinised.
What about that aggressive neighbour with the blue dog? Did anyone stop to investigate his background? He came into my house. He threatened me. Did he follow me into Dad’s office and leave his mark, in more ways than one?
What about my brothers? Come on, how suspicious have they been acting? I know they love me—I get that—but it doesn’t mean they didn’t do this thing. They clearly had their own troubles; they clearly begrudged the help my parents were giving me. I wonder now if Dad was selling Nevercloud, not for Mum but to help me. Is that why they are so angry with me? Is that why it’s all Peter can think about now?
Has anyone looked into their recent financial records? Paul’s family is growing bigger by the day, yet he just downshifted to a shoebox. Has he lost his job? Is he broke? That’s got to eat away at you while you watch your baby sister laze about in the family palace.
Not to mention Mr so-called Moneybags. Why was Peter staying in a two-bit hotel and using public transport when five-star and business-class are more his style? Does he, too, have money issues, or does he have a drug problem he needs to finance? I can still hear Paul’s words, like a slap across Peter’s face.
“What were you doing last night? Pulling chicks? Scoring a hit?”
Was Peter’s drug problem back?
I have a strong memory of giggling… Peter by my side, the laptop in front of him as we snorted with laughter. We joked about dressing up and hitting nightclubs and getting “out of it” together.
Was that why he was at a dingy train station in the dead of night? Was he getting out of it to get over the trauma of what he’d done?
And what about Arabella? Maybe she’s no innocent! Maybe she was in it with Dr Vijay, giving him the fake alibi he required. Maybe she’s just pretending to be a jilted lover to cover her tracks.
What about Tessa and Roco and their obvious love affair?
Or Leslie or Jonas for that matter…
There were almost a hundred people at my house last night. Surely one of them could have done this thing. Surely we can’t rest the case this quickly!
There is no way, dear reader, that I took that gun to my own head and fired that shot for no good reason. And, frankly, I’m offended that anyone would even consider it. I have no choice now. I have to try harder to remember.
Think, Maisie, think!
Go back to ground zero.
Go back to the moment you died.
There was someone in my Dad’s office last night, I just know it. I didn’t go in there to kill myself. I went in to see who had turned on the light.
And I did see! I must have! Just like I know somebody else rolled that office chair across to the wall, closer to that gun. It wasn’t me. I know it wasn’t.
Yet the memory remains just out of reach, and the answer feels like it’s a million miles away.
DS Powell is issuing orders. Kelly is to gather my entire family in the living room. But it will be a party of a different kind.
As he does that—asking Mum to wake Peter, even getting Paul to call his wife—I sneak another glance towards the McGee household. Roco has returned inside and is hooking into greasy bacon and eggs with little more than hunger on his mind while Mrs McGee watches him wistfully, thinking how lovely it would be to have a man in the house again.
Tessa has woken and is slumped at a kitchen stool, wishing she’d stuck with the mocktails Arabella was whipping up instead of spiking them with tequila. Una is on the stool opposite her, staring at the fridge, the coffee plunger now empty in her hands. She is thinking, I need another coffee. I haven’t got the strength yet.
They’re no use to me. Their thoughts have all moved on, and so I go back home. I go back to my mother.
Sometime in the past ten minutes—or was it thirty?— she has showered and changed into fresh clothes. She looks better, almost normal, and this time I’m glad of it. She’s going to need her wits about her. Ruth’s news will hit her like a rock in the head. Seated beside Mum on the living room couch, Dad still looks a mess. He can’t find the energy to do anything but chew at his bottom lip. Like father like son, I guess.
Peter has appeared and is clutching a can of Coke like his life depends upon it, and Paul is sitting across from him, his brow wrinkled again, his wife at his feet. I don’t know where their kids are, but I’m glad they’re not here. This is no business for young children.
My mind flits suddenly to another child, a cheeky smile, a smothered giggle, but it is lost again as Ruth claps loudly.
“Okay, people, thanks for coming.”
Like she’s Lady Muck and they are the visiting peasants.
Ruth is standing in the centre of my living room, her shoulders straight, her hands behind her back. Now she looks like Hercule Poirot about to deliver the climactic denouement, all eyes are upon her, including my own.
I think I know what she is going to say, so I am thrown completely when she produces a plastic folder and waves it about.
“I don’t know who colluded here, who knew what,” she begins, “and frankly, I’m not sure I want to know. This is tragic enough.”
Sorry, what?
She slaps the green plastic folder on the coffee table dismissively and turns to Kelly, one hand out. He has two sets of printouts and hands one across.
“First,” she says, “we have checked the fingerprints on the pistol. Apart from Mr May’s, which we’d expect to find”—she shoots my worried father a glance—“there were no other prints but Maisie’s.”
Then, in case they didn’t get it, she looks at each of them in turn as she says, “Maisie is the only other person who touched that gun. We also found gun residue on her right hand.”
They all nod, like that’s perfectly acceptable, but I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I’ve read enough murder mysteries. The killer could easily have wiped away his prints before smudging mine on postmortem. As for the residue? Perhaps I raised my hand as the gun went off.
She looks at Kelly, and he passes across the second printout. “Even better for you lot, we have some preliminary tox results, and they’ve come back clean. Maisie did not have anything in her system, no drugs, no alcohol, nothing.”
Again they all nod, but this time their relief is palpable while my head is left spinning. That bit most certainly does not add up. I remember being shaky on my feet, slopping margaritas about the place. They must have found something in my system. How do they explain that?
Mum is nodding like a yo-yo, and Dad has his hands at his mouth as if trying not to say what he is thinking, which is Thank God.
Ruth is not quite finished yet. “That does not explain, however, why we found these in the pool toilet.”
She produces the evidence bag with the illegal drugs and drops it onto the table, on top of that plastic folder.
Dad’s relief vanishes as quickly as it came. Mum turns to look at him, and he recoils under her gaze.
“I didn’t buy those, honey, I promise—”
A throat clears. “It’s okay, Dad,” says Peter. “It was me.”
“Shut up, Peter!” growls Paul as his wife nestles into his legs as though hoping to block the whole ugly saga out.
“No, you shut up, mate. I’ve had enough of all the lies.” He looks directly at Ruth. “I helped her find them online. She asked me. I had to help.”
Mum looks at him aghast, but that box looks suddenly familiar and now more of my memory is clicking into place. That’s what we were doing with the computer on my bed. We were ordering those drugs online. No, actually, he was. It was his credit card, his laptop.
Ruth says, “The seal has not been broken. They are unopened.”
She is addressing this to my mother, who looks marginally relieved. “That doesn’t detract from the fact that it is an offence to solicit pentobarbitals over the internet.”
Pento-what?
“I’d do it again,” Peter says defiantly. “In a fucking heartbeat.”
“Peter!” Mum cries out, but I’m not sure if she’s upset by the swear word or the sentiment.
“She was depressed Mum, she was miserable, it was the kindest thing.”
Dad nods at him, over and over. Now he’s turned into the yo-yo. “Good on ya, Peto,” he growls. “Good on ya, mate.”
What’s going on? Why is my family so keen to drug me? To see me get out of my mind? Was I really that miserable? Was I really that depressed?
“But I let her down, Mum,” Peter is saying, his eyes welling up. “I was supposed to leave them by her bedside. But I didn’t. We…” He looks at Paul, whose eyes are firmly shut, Jan’s the size of saucers below him. “We were going to hold her hand through it, yeah? But… but Paul’s kids got sick and he couldn’t make it and we agreed to put it off.”
Paul shifts in his seat. His eyes remain shut. “My kids weren’t that sick,” he mumbles. “I just… I just couldn’t.”
Peter sniffs like he already knew that and then stares at his lap.
Ruth does not seem at all surprised by this outburst, but she’s not particularly pleased by it either. She waits a few moments, then she says, “Which brings us back to last night. I have a theory if you’d like to hear it.”
All eyes are back upon her.
“As I said before, I don’t know who was colluding with whom, and who was planning what, but I think your daughter saw an opportunity and she took it.”
“The gun,” Dad says.
“The gun,” she repeats. “These pills may have been her first option, but something changed her mind. I believe Maisie saw the gun, made a snap decision and took her own life.”
They are all yo-yos now, their relief intensifying with each nod, and I want to scream and rail and thump my fists at their stupid bouncing heads.
I want to shout “But I wouldn’t do this to myself! I wouldn’t!”
Dad asks, “And Una’s friend? That man, Vijay?”
“We don’t believe he was involved, Mr May. Not this time. We’ve checked and double-checked the witness statements. He was never alone with your daughter, and we don’t believe he was involved in this particular suicide, at least not directly.”
Again, they nod as though this is a perfectly reasonable assumption.
Ruth reaches down and retrieves the pill packet and the green folder. It’s the one she found down the side of my bed, but she never even explained what was in it, and nobody seems even remotely interested in asking. As she hands it across to Kelly, I try desperately to read the sheets inside, but again it all looks like hieroglyphics to me.
Why? Why? Why!
“What happens now?” someone asks. Paul’s wife, I think.
Ruth glances back at her as she exits the living room.
“Now you organise the funeral,” she says gently. “Now you grieve.”
I stand alone in the middle of nothing. Bleak. Bereft. Befuddled.
Am I really to believe I killed myself? Is that all there was to it?
Maybe the truth was never going to make sense. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t remember. Maybe that’s why I refused to accept.
I smooth down my blue jumpsuit, straighten my tiara and glance towards the tunnel. Hello? Where are the dancing girls? Where is the marching band?
I know what happened now, so why aren’t they dragging me across?
“Because you need to see it all, the good bits and the bad.”
That’s Deseree, and I am so glad of her presence. I’d hug her if I had any strength left.
“What do you mean?” I say. “What bad bits? I had a secure home, loved ones, friends who cared. I could have been born in an impoverished African village. Instead, I fell apart at the first hurdle! I thought I was a little more resilient than that. I used to be the one in control. I was the one that kept the family together!”
“And that’s why you had to do it, don’t you see, Maisie?”
“No, that’s the thing! I don’t see! I still can’t remember! How can I not remember taking a gun and putting a bullet into my head?”
Deseree gives me a sad, sad smile. “Because you are still not ready to accept what you have done and who you really are. It’s like you forgot that bit the moment the bullet left the gun. Go back and look at yourself more closely.”
“I know who I am! I’m the ditz who blows her brains out because she can’t keep a boyfriend or a job.”
“No, before Roco, before the job. Who were you from your earliest days?”
“Oh you mean the little brat who forced her poor brothers to play stupid games and told lame jokes and bossed everybody about. I was an annoying little snot.”
“Snot of a different kind.” She smiles at herself. “You were the glue, Maisie. You were the one who held them all together.”
“So why kill myself?”
“Because you’re still holding them together, don’t you see that? You did it for them.”
“What rubbish! Suicide is selfish; it’s never a good thing. Look at them down there. They’re distraught. I’ve torn them apart.”
“No, honey. You had nothing but love in your heart.”
“That doesn’t make any sense! Was I really so miserable I was destroying the rest of them at the same time? I don’t understand what you mean by that.”
“Then you’re not ready, my darling. You need to go back. Just for a little longer. You need to go back and really see. You need to face the truth.”
I need to snot you in the face, I think as I draw myself away and drag myself back. Why can’t they just let me rest? The tunnel light still shimmers; it’s not so garish anymore. It flickers and teases. It lures me in.
Have I not been through enough? Can’t I just cross?
Down at the pool yet another party has begun, and it seems I am forced to join in, even though the last thing I feel like is company—at least not the living, breathing kind.
Paul’s kids have arrived, all four wearing matching beanies—what is it with everybody today? It’s midsummer for goodness’ sake. Jan’s mother must have brought them all over. She’s now sitting on the daybed. I wish I could remember her name. How shameful. Paul and Jan have been together fifteen years, and I can’t even remember the mother-in-law’s name.
Deseree is full of crap. I was a dreadful sister. A dreadful person.
Jan is sitting beside her mum, the youngest child, the sick baby, lying between them, fast asleep. I watch as the two middle kids run around the back garden, one of them stopping to rattle the pool gate, the other naked, apart from the beanie, and reaching for the pink flamingo which has been wedged between the fronds of a palm.
Dad’s barbecue is starting to hiss and spurt, my brothers standing to attention beside it, Paul with metal tongs, Peter still clutching a Coke, while Dad appears from inside, a tray of sausages in his hands, Mum just behind him with some onions and a loaf of bread.
Is that it? Really? A few firm words from a detective and everyone gets on with their lives?
I watch as one of Paul’s boys, four-year-old Toby, gives up on the gate and dashes off, giggling like he’s drunk, and I’m about to look away, their fun too painful, their laughter like razor blades through my heart, when a creepy scraping sound pulls me back.
Toby has stopped giggling and is now pulling one of the deck chairs across the pavers and towards the pool gate. I’m not sure he should be doing that. I’m pretty sure he can’t swim. I glance back to his mother and then to his dad, but they are both moving swiftly towards Mum.
They are going in the wrong direction.
Now they are huddled in a circle around Mum, and Peter is there and Tessa and Roco. When did they get here? And who is that in the middle of the throng?
I cannot believe my eyes. It’s Una and she has the pink envelope in her hand.
How is Una welcome in this house? And why is Mum smiling at her and sobbing instead of ripping her eyes out?
I hear another giggle. I glance back towards the pool. Toby has scrambled up on the chair and is now reaching for the latch on the gate. He almost has it open.
Wake up, Paul! Turn around Jan! Somebody? Anybody! Get your eyes off that dreaded pink envelope!
Help!
I see Jan’s mother glance up from the baby and towards the pool.
I hear someone cry out, “No! Get down!”
But the person crying out is me, and I am standing at the doorway to my father’s study, staring at the interior wall.
I see a little boy’s feet. He is standing on his tippy-toes, his swimming trunks dripping water all over Dad’s good leather armchair.
I go to say something, I go to chastise, then I see what he is doing, what he is reaching towards on a handmade wooden frame.
“The gun,” I tell Neal who is beside me again. Of course he is. He has been beside me all along.
He nods, knowingly. “The gun,” he repeats.
I close my eyes and I exhale.
Did a small child shoot me? Is that it? Was it the boy I caught sneaking over the pool fence earlier in the night? Did he wander into my dad’s office and get excited by the gun? Did he pull the chair over, reach up towards it and rip it from the wall? Did I startle him, or did he do it deliberately, thinking it was a toy, pointing it at me with delight?
No, that can’t be right.
Ruth said there was gun residue on my fingers, my fingerprints on the weapon. I must have wrestled the gun from him. The gun must have gone off accidentally.
I feel an enormous weight lift. I feel lighter suddenly.
“This makes more sense now,” I tell Neal. “I didn’t kill myself. It was an accident!”
Then I think of the child and I am horrified for him. Will he remember any of it? Is that why he looked so traumatised as he left my house?
Although, why didn’t they find the kid’s fingerprints on the gun?
I shake the question away. I just don’t care.
“I’m glad Ruth never connected the dots,” I tell Neal now. “I want to take the fall for that poor kid. I don’t know how he could possibly get over such a thing.”
I expect Neal to high-five me, but he’s barely even smiling. I look back, and the tunnel seems further away than ever. And it’s depressingly dark again.
“You really think that’s what happened?” Neal says. “That it was all just an accident?”
I frown. “Wasn’t it?”
He sighs, his tone gratingly sympathetic. “So why are you still hovering here, Maisie? Why can you still not remember?”
Day turns into night again, but I barely notice the shifting light. I have closed my eyes. I am trying my best, damn you all. I am trying very hard to remember!
What cruel world is this, to make the victim of a violent accident remember their death before they’re allowed eternal peace? Why can’t we forget something so traumatic? Isn’t that our prerogative? Isn’t that for the best?
Open your eyes, Maisie, comes a gentle voice on the wind. Open your eyes and see.
It’s my voice, from years ago, from a calmer, simpler time.
So I force my eyelids open and I stare to the house below, and I think, Thanks a lot Forever, thanks for torturing me.
So it seems the young lad didn’t kill me, or at least that’s what Neal is saying. How then did I die? And am I really to keep watching my loved ones as they get on with the business of living?
The pool party is over, and my friends have finally scattered. Roco has vanished completely, so too Una, but I can see Tessa back in her own kitchen, preparing an Indian curry while her mother watches her fondly. I loved Tessa’s curries. I forgot about that. I will never eat another of her curries again, and it makes me want to weep. I don’t care whether she hooks up with Roco or ever did. I just want to hang out with my old buddy again and eat her famous butter chicken swamped in creamy Greek yogurt.
Is that it, Death? Is that what you want me to see?
I hear a scrubbing sound, and I spot Jan in my dad’s study. She is crouched on the carpet, a brush in one hand, the other wiping away the tears that are gushing down her face. There’s a steaming bucket of water by her side. I must confess, this surprises me. A woman I never had any time for is now taking the time to scrub my blood away, but she isn’t really doing it for me. She’s doing it for Mum, and she’s doing it for Dad, but mostly, she’s doing it for Paul so he doesn’t have to face this gruesome task. Yet again, she is rescuing him.
Is that what you wanted me to see?
I think of young Toby now, and I have a sudden flash of panic, but then I find him sleeping soundly in his dad’s childhood bed upstairs, his little brother coiled close beside him, his tiny fingers clinging to a ratty old teddy. I will never get to cuddle those boys again, but I’m not sure I ever cuddled them much anyway. Did my loathing for Jan trickle down to her kids?
Is that what you wanted me to see?
A one-way conversation catches my attention now, and I notice that Peter is on the phone to someone; he’s shouting but he’s not angry. I think it’s long distance. He’s discussing dates and deadlines and asking for more time. It must be his boss. I wonder if he’ll get the sack thanks to me.
And just behind him, in an armchair, Paul is dozing. He looks completely at peace.
Is that what you wanted me to see?
Dad has fallen asleep, too, on the living room sofa, his snores vibrating through the house while Mum has gone upstairs and now sits on my bed, an empty green garbage bag beside her. How can Dad sleep? How can Mum find the energy to start packing me away so quickly?
Is that what you wanted me to see?
“Mum? Can I have a word?”
That’s Peter, hands thrust into his pockets, his eyes swollen red.
She offers him a gentle smile and taps the mattress beside her. He shifts a few cushions as he sits down.
“It’s all my fault,” he says. “I let her down.”
“Honey, please, we talked about this.”
“No, Mum, I need to get this off my chest.” He inhales deeply. Exhales. “We had a plan, Maisie, Paul and me. We were supposed to leave the stuff by her bedside, with a glass of her favourite bubbly. But I didn’t.” His voice cracks. “Mum, I didn’t.”
“I know, honey, and I’m proud of you for that. I’m not sure how I would have coped if you had been involved.” Mum’s voice cracks too, but he is shaking his head and swiping at his tears.
“No, you don’t get it. I was a freakin’ coward! It’s why she went for the gun! We were going to be there for her, we were going to hold her hand through it, yeah? So she didn’t go alone…”
He cracks on that final word and buckles over and starts to cry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my big brother cry, and Mum looks equally surprised. She goes to hug him, but he pushes her away and gathers himself again.
“Paul…” He clears his throat. “Paul’s kids got sick, and he chickened out and he said no, let’s put it off, let’s not do it. But Maisie wouldn’t hear of it. She said, ‘Please Peto, it’s time, please.’” He sniffs and I sniff alongside him. “Then she let me off the hook. Poor Maisie! All I had to do was put the pills by her bedside and go. She said I didn’t have to stay if I couldn’t handle it. It was as easy as that. I didn’t even need to hold her hand. That’s all she asked of me, all she wanted… and I couldn’t do it! I was a fucking coward!”
He buckles over again, his cries so wrenching Dad’s eyes flicker open down in the living room. Mum rubs Peter’s back and waits. I can’t believe she’s not aghast at this outburst. I can’t believe she’s so calm.
Eventually Peter collects himself and says, “I didn’t want her to find them. I didn’t want her to do it, so I hid the pills in the downstairs toilet and I took off. I left her all alone at her party. I needed to get away. I went straight to Central. I thought…” He gulps. “I wanted to get back to Dubbo, where everything seems so simple. So black and white, you know? I wanted to get the first train out of there, but of course there wasn’t one until morning, so I just sat there. I just sat on my hands while she…”
Again Mum goes to hug him, again he pulls away, looking more stoned than he ever has, but it’s from tears and guilt and grief. “I wasn’t there for her, Mum. That’s why she had to reach for the gun. I’m so ashamed. I let her down. I let my beautiful baby sister down.”
Finally he falls into her arms, and their cries turn into one. I am crying with them, but I am more confused than ever.
So that explains the black shadow I suppose. It explains why he couldn’t face me, even in death. He somehow feels responsible, like he forced my hand. But it doesn’t explain the rest. Why would my brothers collude to help me kill myself?
Even if I was that depressed, that gutless, addicted to antidepressants—whatever—why would my brothers agree to that? Why isn’t Mum chastising him? Why isn’t she furious that he didn’t get me help, get me some decent counselling?
After many minutes, sobbing and hugging and sobbing again, Peter swipes a tissue from my bedside table and gets up. Before he goes, Mum grabs his hand and says one final thing.
“I told you before and I’ll tell you until I’m blue in the face: your sister made her own choices, she did what she did willingly. And we have to live with that, Peter. You have to live with that because I have lost enough already.”
I know what she is saying and so does he. He nods, tears streaming down his cheeks again. Then he nods more assuredly and walks out while Mum is left sitting on my bed, alone and bereft.
She sighs like she’s ninety-five, wipes her face and looks around. Then she picks up the plastic bag and turns to my bedside table, reaching for a small white container. She scoops it up, and I hear it rattle as she drops it into the bag, then reaches for another.
There are six different bottles of pills on the table. How much medication was I taking? Are they all antidepressants? I look a little closer.
There’s aspirin there and heavy-duty ibuprofen and something called Riluzole.
Hang on, those aren’t antidepressants, and that’s not our family doctor’s name printed on the label. It’s someone else. Dr Harry Chang, from St Vincent’s Hospital.
Okay, I remember him!
I remember this!
Suddenly I recall it clearly. It was two winters ago, soon after that date with Jonas. Soon after I’d broken my leg. I was now getting twitches and cramps in my other leg, and for some reason my hands weren’t working properly. I’d had enough. I needed answers.
You came with me, Mum, and for some reason so did Dad even though he hated doctors and I’d never seen him inside a hospital before.
And we sat there and we smiled, but Dr Chang wasn’t smiling.
“It’s not good,” he said simply.
And then suddenly I see.
The horror on my parents’ faces.
The reason Jonas turned and fled.
The charity fundraiser where I first met Roco; the reason I broke up with him last week.
The cups crashing on the kitchen floor, the preoccupied mind and the lost files, the sympathetic smiles and that final handshake.
It’s why I moved back home but never quite moved in. The reason my mother cooked mushy food and my father looked so damn hopeless. And why Una threw that stupid party where I stumbled about even though I wasn’t drunk.
I wasn’t a loser.
I wasn’t depressed.
I had a disease, a dirty disease, and that’s the reason I’m dead.
“I don’t know how to tell you this,” Dr Chang said. “But at least it will help explain why you fell over, Maisie, and broke your leg.”
And I thought, It’s some kind of cancer. Bone cancer probably. But I’ll fight it.
“It’s motor neurone disease. MND. I’m so sorry.”
I frowned. I shrugged. I’d never heard of it, but who cared? I’ll still fight it, I thought to myself, but the terror that was creeping into my parents’ eyes suggested otherwise.
Dr Google confirmed the rest. Google also called it Lou Gehrig’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but no amount of titles could change the fact that there was no fighting this one. There was no cure, and it was beyond my control. Not even the world’s bossiest sister or the most efficient PA could juggle this problem away.
I had a neurodegenerative disease that causes rapidly progressive muscle weakness. In a nutshell: my life was over before it had really taken off. I would be lucky to survive two years, five if I was unlucky. By then I’d be wheelchair-bound and unable to swallow, let alone speak. I would be completely dependent on other people, well, my parents to be precise. And I hadn’t been dependent on them since I was five.
It was around that age I learned to count and decided that while I might have been a mistake—what idiots have a third baby six years after the last?—I would not be a burden. Never that.
I was fiercely independent from then on, super bossy and determined to run my own race. And now they were telling me I’d soon lose the ability to talk and walk?
Not on my watch.
I guess I’d felt symptoms and ignored them for some time. All that smashed crockery should have been a giveaway, but the real red flag came with that clumsy fall down those restaurant stairs, Jonas watching on helpless and cringing with embarrassment. He didn’t think I was that drunk.
For some reason Dad always blamed Jonas for my disease, like he was the catalyst. And Dad certainly blamed him for doing a runner as soon as the word got out. I didn’t. I understood why Jonas didn’t stick around. He barely knew me, and what he thought he knew had just been shattered, in more ways than one. Why would he want to hang around to nurse me through it? Why would I want him to?
I think I accepted it fairly quickly after that first diagnosis and learned how to manage the pain and my failing muscles, investing in supportive cushions and heated wheat packs and weekly sessions with an acupuncturist called Arabella, who fast became my friend.
The problem was no one else accepted it, my father least of all. He shunned the prognosis, could not believe that the disease was incurable, and began scrounging around for experimental treatments and miracle cures, each one pricier and more outlandish than the next.
Then Una told him about a “medical miracle” she’d heard about in Thailand and somehow convinced him to travel with her to investigate. When they realised it was a crock—just another snake oil salesman selling little more than water and wishes from a dirty street stall in Bangkok—they turned to Plan B and purchased some Nembutal, aka the “peaceful pill.” That’s a well-known euthanasia drug, a pentobarbital, illegal Down Under yet available without prescription in Thailand. They were going to sneak it back into the country and hide it away until the time was right. They were going to offer it to me as a last resort.
Dad’s heart must have splintered into a million pieces when he handed over the Thai baht.
Yet he couldn’t find the courage to go through with it. He dumped the unopened packet in a garbage bin outside Bangkok airport the morning they departed. That’s why Dad was so ashamed. As far as he’s concerned, he didn’t have the guts to help his daughter when she needed him most.
I never even knew they’d tried. I just assumed Una was holidaying solo, as she often did. I thought Dad was at Nevercloud, as he often was. I don’t know how I know all this now, but I do. They never told me a thing.
I realise now why Una was in my dad’s office last night. It had nothing to do with any love letter. She was reimbursing him for the return flight to Bangkok. My first guess was spot on; I should have trusted my gut.
Mum didn’t know anything about Bangkok either, as it turns out. At least not at first. If she had she would have gone ballistic and not because she thought it was a waste of money or a con. I don’t think she ever accepted my disease either, at least not at first. She honestly believed good old-fashioned home cooking and endless hugs would somehow pull me through.
And when that failed, when my muscles continued to waste away and I could no longer make it up the stairs, she did the only thing she could do. She turned practical. She cleared out her old sewing room, invested in an electric bed, and moved me to the ground floor. She made it cosy enough, filling it with scented candles and fresh flowers and even dangling a new dream catcher from the light fitting, hoping that would help. But I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want any of that.
So I approached Peter.
I wish now that I hadn’t. I wanted to end my life on my terms, in my own home, in my own damn bed. And I wanted to do it safely, with my loved ones close by. The problem is, euthanasia is illegal in most of Australia, so is assisted suicide, yet I needed assistance. I couldn’t do it alone.
So I turned to Peter. He’s so worldly; he’d have the answers, and it turns out that he did. We sourced our own Nembutal on the dark web just a few weeks ago, Paul watching on, worried, his usual hesitant self, me giggling like it was a joke and isn’t this hilarious!
I honestly thought I had the perfect plan. I thought I was so damn clever. I’d pass away with love and celebration in the air, not the whiff of morphine in a cold, clinical hospital bed. I’d do it with my friends and family around. Everyone, that is, except Mum. Oh how I would have loved her by my side, but I knew she’d never accept this and I couldn’t do it sneakily with her in the house. She hadn’t taken her eyes off me since the diagnosis. She’d catch me, she’d get my stomach pumped, she’d ruin everything.
That’s why I encouraged her to accompany Dad to Dubbo this time even though she was fretting about me, and why I agreed to the party when Una suggested it, even though the only two people who knew about my plan were my brothers. I hadn’t even let Tessa or Roco in on it. I just wanted them to be happy when I departed; I just wanted them to be their drunken, crazy selves.
The boys and I had it all arranged. Everything had been agreed.
I’d spend one final night with my dearest friends, the people I loved most before I slipped off this mortal coil. It’s such a pity Una had to go and turn it into The Hangover 4, inviting everybody and their kids, but I was still determined to do it.
The plan was simple enough. I could still pull it off. As soon as the revellers were drunk enough, my brothers would bring out the cake to corral them by the pool, and then they would secretly carry me upstairs. I would slip into my old bed and then slip away quietly, the tablets washed down with some Veuve Clicquot, my beloved siblings holding me tight, sending me off with love and well wishes.
Then everything went to pot.
Peter is wrong to blame himself. I decided against the Nembutal soon after Paul called in with his lame sick kid excuse and long before Peter scurried off to Central Station, tail between his legs. I already knew, even before the cake came out, that I couldn’t take those drugs. It was too risky; it would take too long.
I knew the chances of being left to die in peace were slim. Nobody cared about cake. There were too many people running up and down the stairs, there were kids sneaking about, and Una was following my parents’ orders and watching me like a hawk, their new iPhone number tucked away in her baggy linen pocket. Just in case.
But that wasn’t the main reason I abandoned the plan.
I couldn’t do it to Peter. He’d ordered the illegal drugs. They had his digital fingerprints all over them, and if a curious cop bothered to investigate, they’d be sourced straight back to his laptop, to his credit card. I’d seen enough of the news to know that assisting the dying is as good as killing them yourself. I couldn’t let him take the fall for me, and I couldn’t be sure he’d get off.
That all came to me in a sober rush as I watched my friends get increasingly intoxicated while I sipped Arabella’s nonalcoholic virgin margaritas, tears streaming down my face. Today was not the day that I was going to die.
And then I got that text.
If only I hadn’t got that text.
The cranky middle-aged neighbour is called Lance, the one with the frisky dog. I remember him well now. He was a single dad, had a son called Timothy, a beautiful teenage boy who died of leukaemia about ten years back. I’m embarrassed to admit I never really got to know either of them. Tim was a few years younger. Lance just seemed so damn sad all the time.
Mum befriended him, though, of course she did. She cooked him endless casseroles and looked in on him before and after. So when I got my diagnosis, I guess he returned the favour. I guess that’s why he was wearing that beanie we saw earlier, the same one on Paul’s kids’ heads. It’s got FightMND stitched across the front. All proceeds from the sale go towards finding a cure for motor neurone disease. I was too preoccupied with my own crap to really notice or to thank him for his donation. But I bet Mum did, and I bet she gave him her mobile number before she left for Dubbo and asked him to keep an eye out.
That’s the reason he texted her in Dubbo, worried about the party, not because of the noise, not really. He was more concerned about my health. He didn’t think it was doing me any good.
And it’s the reason he came to the door that night. I remember now. I agreed with him wholeheartedly. It was all a bit much. I was feeling very drained, suddenly very weary. I’d already abandoned my suicide pact, and it was time to clear the place out. I thanked him, I turned back, and that’s when I saw the light on in Dad’s study. That’s when I wandered in and spotted the small child on tippy-toes, reaching for Dad’s gun.
I smiled.
Yes, I remember it distinctly. I was smiling.
I wasn’t worried, not one bit. The kid was a good two feet from reaching the firearm; he never even got close.
“Naughty, naughty,” I called out, gently scooping him up and sending him on his way, then I turned back, I thought about it for, oh, three seconds, then I reached for the gun myself.
I remember holding it in my hands, just as Dad had done the day I walked in on him. But it was the future I was weighing up, not the past. It suddenly seemed like the perfect solution, one simple way to end my suffering without causing the suffering of others. One quick, unequivocal death, and no one could bring me back and no one would get the blame. No one, of course, but me.
I lived my life in control, and I would finally control how it ended. Gramps had taught me how to shoot when I was twelve, just as he’d taught my brothers, as though preparing me for this very moment. So I knew how to work a firearm, but first I had to check there were bullets, and it didn’t take long to find some. They’d been shoved to the back of a bottom drawer, the box old and faded. It felt like a sign to me, a green light from above.
So I quickly shut the office door, I sat down at Dad’s desk, and I got to work. I had a new plan, better than the last, or at least that’s what I thought.
First I typed a quick farewell on my Facebook page.
It’s been fun guys. Love you all. Good night.
Nothing too cheesy, nothing too alarming, although Jan was clearly alarmed when she stumbled upon it while breastfeeding in the dead of night; I hadn’t thought of that. I bitterly regret that now.
Then I typed a more private note, this one for Tessa and Roco. I gave them my blessing. I knew they had chemistry, even before tonight. It’s one of the reasons I broke up with Roco last week, even though he thought I was trying to give him a break from my disease, a way out. The truth was we were just biding time, and while my time was running out, he was wasting his.
We had a good relationship, it really was genuine, but Roco only ever latched on to me at that FightMND fundraiser because I looked so damn terrified. Then he stayed with me because, like I said, he’s a rescuer, and I needed rescuing, badly.
There was never any future for us, and I should have released him earlier. I should have set him free.
“It’s okay, guys,” I wrote. “I love you both so much. Please don’t spend too long doing ‘what’s right’—that’s just bollocks. You’re perfect together, so just get on with it and you’ll make me the happiest person alive, well, dead, but you get the drift!”
Then I added a laughing emoji and two red hearts and clicked Send on Facebook messenger. I knew they wouldn’t see it for a while; they were still splashing in the pool last time I looked, trying hard not to flirt, pretending not to be madly in love.
Next I looked around for some paper. This note had to be done just right.
That’s when I found Mum’s light pink stationery sitting on top of Dad’s desk. That’s also when I noticed the family photo, my favourite picture, the one in Vanuatu. It always made me smile, and I needed more than ever to smile. So I grabbed the frame, I removed the picture, and I tucked it down my jumpsuit. I wanted my family close to my heart. I needed them there for the grand finale.
But I had one last letter to complete.
I took a steadying breath, I jotted the letters D for Dad and M for Mum on that now-infamous pink envelope, and I began to write…
Dear Mum and Dad (Dear Peter, Paul, Jan and the kids),
Please know that I love you all more than life itself, and this is why I choose you, over life. I hope you understand that.
This disease has gone far enough. There is no cure. Let’s not kid ourselves. There is no reprieve. And it has left me broken. But I cannot watch it tear you apart as well, and I will not die slowly under your horrified gaze.
There’s very little time, and I have to do it while I still have the strength, without implicating anyone else, without any of you here to bear the burden.
I know you’re planning to sell Nevercloud, Dad, you think the money will somehow buy me a medical cure, and I love you so much for that. But we all know, deep down, that there is no miracle for me. And while it certainly won’t save me, selling your precious land will destroy you and your dreams of ever returning to the place you love most. I won’t let you do that. I just won’t.
You need to go back there, Dad, and you need to open your heart to that, Mum. It’s time. Hell, it’s long overdue. If you can’t do it for Dad, do it for the boys. They need it just as much as he does.
Please know that I leave with love and joy in my heart. I’m not scared. Not one bit. And I need you to forgive me, because it’s the only way forward.
Love, always and forever.
xo Maisie
“And yet you cannot forgive yourself.”
This is Neal and he’s sitting beside me. He has one mangled arm around me and I feel so secure, so warm and safe.
I cry for some time. I’m not sure how long, but there aren’t any tears, not really. It just feels as if I’ve cried a river.
“But it was my choice,” I splutter eventually. “I chose to shoot myself, so why couldn’t I remember it? Why did I struggle with that?”
He hugs me tighter. “Most of us regret suicide the second it’s done. Most of us don’t want to face the fact that we’ve taken what the world considers the coward’s way out, the selfish way out.”
I look at him for the first time tonight. Properly I mean, and I say, “You?”
“I slammed my father’s Ford Escort straight into a fig tree. Didn’t even hesitate. Killed on impact. Destroyed my entire family in the process, and I was the only one in the car.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, aren’t we all?”
“Why?” I ask now, and he shrugs.
“Bullying. Depression. Never feeling like I belonged.” He smiles and puts on a silly Welsh accent. “The only gay in the village.”
I smile back. I glance around. “And Deseree?”
“Overdose of prescription meds. Most common way for women. She lost her only child a few years back—Serena, she was six-months pregnant. Terrible case of domestic violence. The guy got off with barely a slap. Des never could move past it.”
“Oh the poor thing. How horrendous.” I feel so terrible about the way I treated her, my smarmy attitude, my mean-spiritedness. “And Emie?” I’m almost too scared to ask.
“Her story’s more complicated. Let’s just say she slowly starved herself to death.”
“Anorexia?”
“Lots of childhood trauma and abuse. Lost the will to eat, to live. Wanted to punish herself.”
My eyes close. I gasp. It’s all so bloody tragic.
“But it’s not, don’t you see?” says Neal, his tone upbeat. “Your death isn’t tragic! You were dying anyway, you just put your family out of their misery sooner.”
“But how is speeding it up somehow better?”
“Because it put the brakes on all the insanity. You did it to stop your dad from selling his beloved farm and breaking up your family, because you and I both know their marriage would have struggled to survive that.”
I’m glancing downwards now, but Neal is not finished yet.
“You did it to stop Peter and Dr Singh from getting accused of manslaughter because, yes, assisted suicide is still illegal in this state.”
“Vijay?” I’d forgotten about him. I didn’t even know the man; how did he become mixed up in all this?
He frowns. “They call him Dr Sleep. He’s a euthanasia campaigner and has assisted several suicides in the past, not that they’ve been able to make anything stick.” He sniggers. He’s glad of that. “Una brought him in to meet you, see if you were at that stage yet. She didn’t know you’d already got hold of some drugs through Peter; she just wanted some advice. Vijay’s the one who put the brochures into that green plastic folder and tucked them under your pillow. The ones that fell down the side of your bed. He eventually confessed all to Ruth back at headquarters.”
“So that’s why he was staring at me all night? That’s why he asked me up to my room.”
He grins. “That and the fact he’s a total sleaze and thought he had a chance.”
“No!” I say, aghast, and suddenly we’re laughing.
And we laugh for some time. It feels so nourishing. We’re both buckled over, roaring with hysterics.
Then a thought occurs to me, and I swallow back my laughter. “So why’d he pinch my suicide note?” I say. “My final letter to my family, the one in the pink envelope. Why’d he go and complicate things by removing that? I mean, that put everyone in the clear, including him. The cops would have cleared out a lot earlier if he’d just left it where it was.”
“I know!” Neal wipes away happy tears. “He’s a sleaze and a meddling twit! Dr Sleep thought Una had written it. Like you, he’d seen her go into your dad’s study earlier, during the party, while he and Arabella were sneaking upstairs to have their fun. He didn’t realise Una was just dropping off the cash for that flight. He didn’t know what she was doing, but then your body was found and everyone was in a flap, and he noticed the letter on the top of your dad’s desk while he was calling triple zero. He thought Una must have got a bad case of the truths and was going to incriminate herself or, worse, him, so he swiped it during all the chaos. He didn’t get a chance to really look at it until much later. That’s when he realised it was your suicide note and asked Una to give it to your family.”
“Oh how decent of him,” I say, snidely. “And the cash?”
“Yep, again, he thought it could be incriminating, so he stuffed that down the couch before the cops got there.”
“Meddling fool,” I say, then I almost blush. “I can’t believe I thought Una and my Dad… Well, I can’t believe I even entertained the idea!”
“Hate to break it to you, honey.”
“Sorry?”
“Well they were stuck in a hotel in Bangkok together, remember?”
I stare at him, the colour draining from my face, and he laughs again. “Don’t worry, nothing happened! Your Dad was a total gentleman, so you can wipe that look of horror from you face. He might be a flirt, but he’s all show, your old man. Still quite fond of your mum, despite everything. But don’t think the thought didn’t cross Una’s mind.”
“Oh stop it!” I give him a metaphorical slap. “You’re a troublemaker!”
“And you’re a good person, Maisie. So stop beating yourself up so much.”
I scoff. I know what he’s saying, but I don’t quite believe him and something still doesn’t add up.
“So why didn’t I remember?” I ask. “If I was so gallant and brave and really did shoot myself to protect my loved ones, why did I hide the truth from myself for so long?”
His face clouds over. He’s not laughing anymore. “It’s like I told you before, Maisie. Most of us regret suicide the second it happens. For you—and me, as it turns out—we regretted it the second before. Just as you squeezed that trigger, just before the bullet was released, you wished you weren’t doing it, and that’s why you hid the truth from yourself.”
I look at him blankly.
“Rule #2, remember?”
I still look puzzled, and he glances at the tunnel, then back. “You really had trouble with that one, didn’t you?”
“Come on, Neal, it’s been a very long day.”
He smiles and I see the Rules of Death have materialised in his hand. He points to the second rule and says, “Thou shalt not see what the living do not wish thee to see. Your living self did not want your dead spirit to see what you’d done. Despite everything, despite your best intentions, you did regret it, Maisie, you were ashamed, so you blocked it from yourself. It was too hard to face. It’s taken us quite some time to pull it out of you, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
“Oh, don’t mention it! I was almost as bad. Poor Des had such a hard time of it with me. She kept showing me the absence of brake marks in front of the fig, the lack of vehicles in the vicinity, the weather report—it was a bright and sunny day. No reason to crash; yet I kept searching for a reason, searching for a culprit, someone else to blame. Des couldn’t exactly tell me what I’d done. It wasn’t her place to, you see. Rule #4?”
Again I stare at him blankly, and again he glances towards the tunnel, but this time he sniggers and I’m not sure who or what he’s sniggering at. “Thou shall see all when thou is open to seeing,” he chants. “I wasn’t open for many hours. You, well, you were a closed book for almost twenty-four.”
I shake my head at myself and I sigh. I get it now. Now it makes sense. I thought I was being the brave one, opting out early. But they were the brave ones, my family, willing to sell their precious possessions and travel to foreign countries and put their freedom on the line, or in my mother’s case, just pad my nest, hold me tight and watch me die. How agonising that would have been for her, for all of them, but they were willing to do it. I was the coward. I couldn’t bear to see their agony, to witness their pain. I was the cop-out.
“You loved them, Maisie. How many times do I have to tell you that? You thought you were doing the right thing. You have to stop beating yourself up over it.”
“Or shooting myself in the head?”
He smiles. “Or that.”
I breathe in now, a deep, settling breath, then I turn to him and repeat Jan’s question. “So what happens now?”
“Ah, this is the best bit! I love this bit!” His face has lit up like the Sydney Harbour Bridge on New Year’s Eve, but it dims considerably when I still look puzzled. “You gave your life for them, now you get something in return. Yes?”
“I do?”
“Oh. My. God!” He turns back to the tunnel, and this time he yells out, “You owe me a fiver, Emie!” Then he turns to my startled expression and says, “I knew you didn’t read all the rules properly. We had a wager going. I said you wouldn’t get past #4, she was sure you’d get right to the end, to that last one. That’s the one almost everyone gets fixated on, especially these days. It’s an instant gratification thing. Most deadies want their gift before they do all the hard yakka.”
“What gift? I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I say, adding, “And you guys bet on me?”
“Sorry, darls, but we had to do something to while away the time.” He produces the Rules of Death again and points to the final one.
Rule 7. Thou shall be granted one final wish upon entering the light.
“When you see, once you see, you get a final wish,” Neal says as if it needed interpreting. “And I think it’s safe to say you have finally opened your eyes. Hallelujah! So, you get anything you want, honey, just name it.”
I smile. I know. I glance down at my house, and I sense that it has already started.
It’s just as I expected. There is not a cloud in the sky. I chuckle. Hell, I laugh uproariously. I would have been bitterly disappointed if it was raining.
I hear the rumble of a motor, and I watch as Paul’s family drives up the gravel road, pulling short just on the other side of a wallaby-proof fence and a rickety old gate with a letter box beside it. It’s an old milk can with the word Nevercloud scribbled across the front.
A young child jumps out. It’s Toby. He’s grown two inches.
“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” he squeals, racing to unlatch the gate.
He then stands aside as Paul pulls the car across the cattle grills and stops at the other side so Toby can latch it back up and jump back in.
Within minutes they are rumbling down the dusty road towards the old homestead. I can see it’s had a fresh lick of paint, and there are newly planted rosebushes out the front. There haven’t been roses there since Grandma’s day.
I watch as first Mum and then Dad and then, most surprising of all, Peter appears from inside the timber house. I barely recognise Pete. He has a battered Akubra on his head, and is that a plaid belt around moleskin trousers? He used to mock Dad’s old country uniform, now he looks every inch the part. He has abandoned the slick suits and dinner shirts, and his hair is overgrown, his face partially covered in a thin, reddish beard. He looks more handsome than he ever has.
They all wave happily as Paul pulls up in front of the house.
“So yer Dad finally won the toss, hey?” This is Gramps and he is chuckling beside me.
“Poor Mum,” I say. “How is she coping?”
“Better than you’d think. I even spotted her whipping up some scones the other day. I wasn’t sure she even knew how to bake.”
“Now, now, Grandpa, Mum’s a terrific cook. We’re just not all masterchefs like Grandma.” The smell of pumpkin scones wafts from somewhere. I don’t know if it’s Mum’s cooking or if it’s coming from Forever.
“I still can’t believe she gave up her beloved Sydney.”
“Oh, they have an apartment there now, she still gets plenty of smog to keep her happy,” says Gramps, “and, well, you did sort of ruin the family house didn’t you, love? Your folks never could go back into that study.” He offers me a warm smile. “Don’t beat yourself up though, a change is as good as a holiday. It’s done their a marriage a whopping great service, and as for Peto, well, he’s like a new man.”
“I can see that! I can’t believe he went with them. I can’t believe he gave up London.”
“I can’t believe he stayed in London for so long. Why do you think he was so miserable?”
“But I never knew he was miserable. Life seemed to be one big party for Peter: whopping salary, flash hotels, a different girl every night.”
He snickers. “I rest my case. You’re young, love, you don’t get it. But people only party like that to hide the misery they feel alone. It’s also the reason he never spent much time at home, because your dad knew this, could see it in his eyes. And it’s hard to have someone reflect your lie back at you no matter how much you’ve convinced yourself you’re happy.”
He sighs, smiles. “Your death woke him up, love; it’s just as you wished. Your death saved all of them in a hundred small ways.”
“Are they okay?” I ask. “I mean, really okay?”
“They will be. Well, most of the time.” Then he shrugs. “They’re still human, Maisie. They still fight and fret and carry on. They still miss you terribly, bitterly at times, but they were going to miss you anyway, right? That was always a given. Now they get to miss you free of guilt and you get yer wish, love. They’ve survived your suicide, and they will keep surviving. At least for a good long while.” Then he nods a head downwards. “And at least the old homestead gets some new life, hey?”
My brow furrows. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“What for, love?”
“For sticking you in that god-awful urine-scented hellhole.”
“Autumn Lodge? Did it smell of urine? I don’t remember that.” He cackles. “One of the perks of old age, you lose most of your senses. Not such a bad thing.”
“Oh, Gramps,” I begin, but he waves me off.
“It wasn’t so bad, Maisie. Better than being stuck in the middle of all that dust all on my lonesome, just begging the gods to let it rain.”
“Really?” I think he’s just saying all that to make me feel better, but now he frowns.
“Sure, at least I had company in town. There was a nice group at the Lodge, went to school with half of them, babysat the other half. I can tell you, that Betsy O’Reilly really blossomed. Pity I was so decrepit by the time I got there, or I could’ve given her a good—”
“Grandpa!” I interrupt him, glancing back towards the tunnel, hoping Grandma didn’t hear, and he laughs at me now.
“You young’uns,” he says. “You think you’re the only ones with blood pumping through your veins.”
“Hey, my blood didn’t pump for very long, so don’t start giving me a hard time.”
He gives me a wink instead. “Come on, that is your Grandma back there. She’s on the last batch of scones for the day, and I’m not missing out like last time.”
“Can I stay a little longer? Do you think that’s okay?”
He shrugs. “Stay as long as you need; it’s part of the program. Just remember Neal is a pig and he’s probably already scoffed the lot.”
“Ahh let him have my share. I think I owe him that.”
He smiles and heads towards the tunnel when he remembers something and turns back. “Oh and Deseree said to tell you there’s another one coming in a few minutes if you’re up for it.”
I glance at Gramps, an eyebrow raised.
“Gunshot victim, just fifty-five. You might relate.” Then he sighs sadly and adds, “And if you don’t, I can help you out. He was a farmer, from Western Australia. Bank just took his property. The bastards.”
“Oh no,” I say and he shrugs.
“Don’t worry, those bank managers will get their comeuppance.”
Then he cackles again as he continues to the tunnel.
“Thanks, Gramps,” I call after him, thinking of the incoming spirit. Just one more chaperone job and I have all my points.
Deseree explained it to me once. She’s in charge of the program. I think it helps restore her spirit as much as our own.
“Everybody who commits suicide has to assist two other suicide victims across,” she said. “It used to be one, but there are too many suicides today, sadly. The Catholics used to say they’d end up in hell, but really, we’ve already been to hell. Most of us were living it for years; it’s the reason so many of us do it.”
I know what she means. “But why us?” I asked. “Why other suicides? Aren’t we too screwed up?”
“We know more than anyone what drove them to such drastic measures. These are the souls who need extra attention, extra care.”
“Is that what Neal was doing?” I said, half smiling.
“You needed Neal,” she told me, “and frankly he needed you too. You helped each other across.”
“My turn! My turn!”
Toby’s voice pulls my attention back to the present, back to the living, and I watch now as Peter lifts his nephew onto a mottled grey gelding, in front of his big sister, Meg, who is beaming from ear to ear like she’s just won the lottery, and I guess owning your own pony is the tweenie girl’s equivalent. The rest of the family are watching, smiling. Paul has an arm slung around Jan. Mum is holding baby Ruby who has doubled in size, and Dad is standing behind young Jack, the boy’s head lost inside his own giant Akubra.
They look the picture of happiness, a wholesome family unit, but I know better. I know what Gramps was saying. I know times have been tough and will continue to be tough, that Mum still weeps for me in the middle of the night, and Dad stares at old photos of me, his throat choked up, like he can will me back to life. He’s removed all the guns from the property and has hung up family portraits instead. Not the one I pinched, however. They put it back where I wanted it, resting against my heart, then buried me in a deep plot at the edge of Nevercloud, next to Grandma, Gramps, Uncle Bob and several of those naughty cattle dog I mentioned earlier. I have one of them up here now. He’s a hoot. I renamed him Kasper and have given him to Timothy. He’s such a sweet kid. I’m keeping him company for Lance. I think he’d appreciate it.
But back to the living, back to Paul and Jan. I know they’re still stuck in that tiny shoebox in Chatswood, but they’ve weighed up their options and have decided they’d rather earn less and have more quality time with their kids. Life is short. I’ve taught them that.
As for Tessa and Roco? I don’t know what happened to them, that’s not part of the deal, but I hope they’re doing okay. I really do. I hope they’re moving on together and having lots of chubby kids and cooking tasty curries and moussaka and keeping Tammie company, just as I hope that Una has settled down with a decent, single guy, and Jonas has grown the hell up, and Leslie and Arabella and all my other friends are still smiling and partying and enjoying their lives, because what’s the point otherwise?
What I know for sure is this: my family is okay. And they will continue to be okay. I got my wish, and I am grateful for that.
Eventually, full to flowing with love and joy and just a hint of sadness, I finally pull the silly tiara from my head and turn back towards the tunnel. I will miss them all so dreadfully, but it’s time to leave the living and move on with the next stage.
Besides, I want to grab one of Grandma’s famous scones. I know a disgruntled farmer who will soon be needing one.
“Hey, Neal!” I call out. “Leave a few for me, mate. Oh and pop the kettle on! We’re going to need some tea, some hugs and some good old-fashioned home cooking.”
Then I stop and fling the tiara like a Frisbee outwards, watching with delight as the diamantés turn to raindrops and the raindrops fall to earth, and my family cries out with shock and wonder beneath me.
“It’s raining! It’s raining!” squeals young Toby, and I smile to myself as I head towards the light.
~ ~ ~
First I’d like to acknowledge Annie Sarac who edits my books with good humour, great wisdom and endless support. You are such a joy to work with. I’d also like to thank the lovely Elaine Rivers who gives so generously of her time, as well as my sister Michelle and her husband Peter. All four of you are like my personal cheer squad, reading every book I write, catching clumsy errors (not mine, surely?), and always lifting me up, reminding me that I’m on the right track. (And I look forward to repaying the favour very soon, Shell!)
Thank you also to my many long-time readers who soak up my stories, follow my blog and subscribe to my newsletter, and a special congratulations to Leslie L. Allen who won my Name a Character in My New Mystery competition. She earned the right to have her name used in this book, and while my character bears no resemblance to the real Leslie, I thank her from the bottom of my heart for being such a great sport.
On a more serious note: I cannot claim to be an expert on degenerative diseases or suicide, and I apologise, profusely, for any inadvertent errors. They are completely my own. I do have personal experience with both, however, and this book is for those beautiful souls who’ve headed off to the light well before their time. I hope you’ve settled in back there and are finally at peace. In fact, I hope you’re having fun!
In particular, I’d like to acknowledge Charlie and his beloved partner Edwina. MND may have taken your body, Charlie, but your spirit lingers on.
To find out more about Motor Neurone Disease or give a much-needed donation:
• MND Australia: www.mndaust.asn.au/
• The ALS Association: www.alsa.org/
For information on suicide and mental health:
• Beyond Blue: www.beyondblue.org.au