Oh Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her? Chapter 10

Heard the one about the world-famous actress and the X-rated dinner party? Greg Bearup is digging into the seamy history of Australia’s A-list with his scandalous chapter.

 

This is ‘summer reading’ like nothing you’ve read before: a diverse field of writers collaborating on a novel that will captivate you through summer.

Each author had just three days to write their chapter, with complete freedom over story and style; it’s fast, fun and very funny.

Tune in over the summer to see how the story unfolds.

Today, Greg Bearup continues the story with Chapter 10.

By Greg Bearup

Maya Churchill sat glowering in the corner while the others fretted about the absence of De Kock.

She was fixated on John McCredden, not that dopey South African.

“What a pathetic man,” she thought of McCredden as she elegantly withdrew a cigarette from her mouth and blew a thin jet of smoke through pursed lips.

She’d not smoked for years but the events of the past few days, and last night, had rattled her.

She knew she’d find a packet hidden somewhere in a drawer behind the bar.

She felt that old, abusive comfort as she drew in deep and the smoke bit into her lungs. They all looked at her with righteous disgust but none dared tell her to put it out.

She’d always liked McCredden, she found him amusing and witty but not that amusing and not that witty that she’d want to wake up next to him in the morning. She certainly never found him attractive. And then last night she’d seen a side of him she didn’t like.

The previous evening they had smuggled out a couple of bottles of champagne and had gone to their separate bungalows.

Then, when the coast was clear, McCredden snuck over. He knocked five times, three quick and two slow, to signal he was not the murderer. They were both in their seventies and acting like 17-year-olds. It was fun. He was fun.

The situation, the two deaths, only added to the frisson. But she’d planned to kick him out when the champers was done and when his hand found its way to her inner thigh, as she knew it would.

They talked about old friends and old times and as they filled up on booze a pent-up desire spilled out of McCredden like the bubbles from his flute. His hand went to her thigh. Normally that was her cue.

But something let it continue on its slithery journey. She felt not desire, but pity. What had that ghastly union woman – the odious crook who stole the union funds – said in court about that lawyer she’d slept with?

A charity shag! That’s what it would be with McCredden, a charity shag. But John McCredden never saw himself as a charity shag. He always viewed himself as the main event, the star billing.

Back home, Maya Churchill lived in a small but very beautiful old cottage on the edge of the CBD, not far from the water. It was one of the last colonial-era cottages left in the city, and possibly the only one to have retained its original garden. It was one of a number of beautiful houses she had lived in over the course of her charmed life. Sometimes her husband stayed. Sometimes not. Maya was famous for hosting dinner parties and to receive an invitation was to be anointed. McCredden had been to the cottage numerous times, but not for a number of years. He’d never left in the morning.

There’s a famous story from one of Maya Churchill’s dinner parties and everyone who is anyone in the city claims to have been there that night, like everyone reckons they were at Homebush the night Cathy Freeman won gold. But, of course, there were only 10 – 12 at a squeeze – because while beautiful and magical the cottage was not the TARDIS. Like all great yarns, there are several versions of the same story from that night. Some say it involved Sam Neill. Others say he was just a guest and that it was Barry Humphries. The name Simon Baker has more recently been bandied about. McCredden had once heard that the debonair old fox of letters, Tom Keneally, was the one in the hen house.

Whatever, the story goes like this; Churchill was hosting one of her fabulous dinner parties where everyone is greeted with a stiff cocktail at the door.

Guests are expected to sing for their supper and, on this night, as always, the room was bursting with egos as they competed to hawk their best stories and most outrageous gossip. Everyone was seated and about to eat when the exalted one burst into the room, fresh off a flight from some exotic movie set, or an international literary festival. The room fell silent. He looked around the cottage, taking it all in, before loudly and theatrically exclaiming: “Maya, this is the most beautiful place of yours I’ve ever been in.”

Without missing a beat, and while placing a steaming silver tray of 12-hour lamb on the table, Maya Churchill replied, a little indignantly, “Really! What about my panties?”

It brought the house down, the furniture at least.

A famous comic, a rather fat one, laughed so hard he broke the colonial-era chair he was sitting in, setting off an old back injury. Had it not been Maya, he’d have sued. Instead, the next week a courier arrived at his place with the broken pieces of chair in a box. There was a note from Maya and the phone number of a restorer from the museum – one of the city’s finest craftsman who spent his days mainly working on outside jobs to pay his kid’s school fees.

So of course the story got out. Chatham House rules can never be applied to a story this good. Besides, Maya would have been disappointed had it remained private. It added to her allure.

No-one doubted its essential veracity; it’s just that in the telling and retelling bits were added or subtracted – the story took on a life of its own, with Maya Churchill always the lead character with an interchangeable cast of support actors. But John McCredden was never mentioned as the chosen one. It ate away at him. Every time he did a profile for one of those ghastly weekend magazines, or sat to have his portrait painted for Ahn Do, he expected to be asked if he was the supporting actor in Maya Churchill’s Oscar-winning anecdote. He was never asked.

And then last night he was asked in. The glorious prize of a naked Maya Churchill lay on the bed beside him, like a goddess. After all these years he’d finally arrived at the front door of her most fabulous place, and … nothing.

Maya tried all her womanly tricks, for she was most certainly a woman who’d ordered meat.

She was frustrated at first. And then she saw the humour – he’s was like the yappy dog who finally caught up with the postman’s motorbike and was gnawing uselessly at the tyres, losing flesh and dignity with each fresh attempt.

She began to laugh. He flew into a rage and for one awful moment she thought he may hit her. And then he burst into tears. When the sobbing eased she ordered him to leave. “I sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.” He departed, a shrunken man.

Back in the Pandanus Lounge she swings the cigarette to her lips for another drag and says to no-one, but out loud. “Pathetic man!” All eyes turn to McCredden who wishes he could disappear.

There is silence and then De Kock bursts through the door, followed by gusts of howling wind and driving rain. He’s rambling incoherently and his accent is all over the shop, from South African to Urdu to Tuvaluan. His eyes are wide with fright. He’s not making sense. His shirt is ripped open and the scar that runs the length of his torso is pulsating.

McCredden seizes the opportunity to try to redeem himself. He steadies De Kock by the collar then slaps him across the face, exactly as he’d once done in that local spin-off, The Pirates of the Arafura.

He even uses the same line. “For God’s sake man – out with it!”

De Kock fixes him with a mad, wild-eyed Pauline Hanson stare and says, “They’ve landed.”

For app readers, swipe to the Summer Novel section to find all chapters or click to read Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4 or Chapter 5

The Weekend Australian Magazine’s Greg Bearup is an award-winning journalist and author who has been dying to use the dinner-party anecdote for decades.

Twitter: @gbearup