Oh Matilda: Who Bloody Killed Her? Chapter 12

Ambitious newshound Becky Cummerbund is chasing the story of what happened to ingenue Matilda Meadows for Celebrity Central, and she’s got the whiff of blood. Or is it fear? Shankari Chandran takes the lead in Chapter 12 of our progressive novel

 

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, acclaimed author Shankari Chandran continues the story with Chapter 12.

By Shankari Chandran

Rebekah Chung couldn’t remember the exact moment she decided to become Becky Cummerbund. Maybe it was when the political editor of a paper she admired mistook her for a poorly paid cleaner, rather than an unpaid intern. Maybe it was when another editor asked her for research on the One Belt One Road Initiative and then questioned her objectivity.

Perhaps it was when one of the journos asked her if she had a good pho recipe and she thought, “How the pho would I know?”

Either way, her total persona code-switching had been fast and furious. Insta, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn; the name changed and the profile pics were replaced with a ‘BC’ monogram in American Typewriter font; it said neutral with a hint of edgy. Becky said friendly female. Friendly meant: please don’t be threatened by me. Female meant: resigned to the gender pay gap. And Cummerbund, well in for a penny, in for a pound.

She surveyed the room through her wet hair plastered to her face.

“Hi,’ she tried again, hand resolutely outstretched into the emptiness, the crowd shrinking back with every step she took forward. Oh, this was going to be fun.

“Bradley,” she fixed the director with her most disarming smile. Another more muscular fellow was extricating himself from the quickly imploding, paradoxically renamed Champion.

“It’s been too long.” She air kissed him twice and then twice more, Belgian style, because his contortions were almost as entertaining as Mother’s facial expression. Damn, that woman was still alive and still all Liam Neeson to Champion’s hopeless kid from Taken.

Henry, whom she liked to airily call ‘my cameraman’, had instructions to do a quick sweep of the room to capture initial reactions (fear, horror, more fear, minor loss of bladder control already noted and inhaled), followed by up-close-and-personals, as she talked to each guest/murder suspect. She’d use the footage for a Celebrity Central Special. It wouldn’t be Gary Jubelin but she doubted the master detective read Celebrity Central anyway.

Hopefully, the Special would catapult her into the orbit of the Entertainment Tonight talent scouts. Becky was starting to accept that the BBC’s Australia Desk was never going to call.

She already had a working title with the charmingly ocker ring that Americans loved: Oh Matilda, Who Bloody Killed Her?

“Bradley, we’ve received news on the mainland that Matilda Meadows has been brutally killed. With no one but your cast and crew on this island, we can only assume that the murderer – or murderers,’ she scanned the room with her steeliest Stan Grant look. “Is standing among us.”

Champion was still trying to clear the blockage in his throat, perhaps it was a hyper-retracting testicle, when Mother placed her heavy frame between Becky and her progeny, such as he was.

“Becky, how unlovely to see you again,” she replied for Bradley. “As you say, poor Matilda has met a tragic and untimely end. I can assure you, we’re as mystified and concerned as you are. Although I’m mystified as to why you’re concerned, and even more mystified as to how you know about this terrible event. The storm has left us cut off from the mainland, even the internet is … broken.”

Touché, Mother, touché. The internet had gone down and no doubt everyone except Maya Churchill, too self-confident to post, was spiralling into withdrawal. But moments before the internet ‘broke’, John-cheaper-than-Bryan-Brown-McCredden, still handsome and leaning into his inevitable typecasting as the drought-weary patriarch, had sent a tweet.

Just one, but it was enough.

Fantasy Island has turned into And Then There Were None. One down, more to go, I fear. #MatildaMeadows #RIP

A short message to his beloved nephew in Tasmania. Except that he had posted publicly without realising it. Naturally, the Twittersphere hadn’t noticed the message, McCredden’s thoughtless delivery of tragic news or his faulty use of hashtags because it wasn’t by @RealHughJackman. It wasn’t even another mindless yet magnetic exercise clip by @chrishemsworth.

But Becky Cummerbund had noticed it because she followed Matilda Meadows. Young, talented and full of promise, Matilda had befriended Becky at a bruncheon for Diversity in Entertainment for Women and Sisters, or DEWS. Apparently, the acronym was a play on dues – Women of Colour had paid their dues and now they were due more – rather than a grammatically incorrect reference to early morning moisture.

Becky and Matilda had spent the bruncheon receiving business cards from powerful WOCs, making jokes about how there were more than five of them (a surprising and inspiring fact) and stalking the divine Michelle Law together. They’d stayed in touch ever since and when Becky saw McCredden’s tweet, she couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it.

She didn’t tell Mother any of this. She didn’t owe Mother or the rest of these has-beens and dilettantes anything. But she owed Matilda a proper investigation into the truth. And Matilda would want her to find the truth, and use it – via her Celebrity Central Special – to get the pho out of the barren moral wasteland of her current career and into the more titillating moral wasteland of American entertainment news.

“How did I know about Matilda’s murder?” Becky repeated Mother’s question for the benefit of her future viewers and their social media diminished short term memories.

“Good question, Mother, but I’m the journalist.” She ignored the older woman’s snicker, it could be edited out later. “So, I’ll ask the questions, you answer them. Standing in the way won’t protect him this time.”

She leaned in, her voice dropped to a whisper for only the Champions to hear.

“Matilda told me what he did to her,” she said, looking around the maternal torso to the quivering offspring behind. “And she told me what you did to save his skin.”

Bradley Champion’s face paled as her words penetrated his fear and finally reached what remained of his frontal lobe after his last failed attempt at rehab. He seemed to be struggling to breathe; perhaps it was the other testicle hyper-retracting and searching for its mate.

Henry walked towards the Champions, his light and lens drawing closer. She could see the future footage in her mind, hear the dramatic score heightening the tension that was clear on the mother and son’s faces. She was so distracted by her future acceptance speech for her first Walkley that she didn’t see Mother’s arm until it was too late.

So fast and sure of its mark, for a seemingly elderly woman. So much muscle, coiled and then released towards her. So much anger that missed her by a few centimetres and landed on John McCredden’s impossibly square jaw instead, as he stepped into and tried to claim the limelight.

As usual, it was his, but not in the way he wanted.

There was something else that had brought Becky Cummerbund out into the storm and onto this island tonight. When she heard the terrible news about Matilda, she remembered her friend’s last email to her:

Just arrived. Sat next to McCredible (Not) on the plane. You’ll never believe what I overheard. This changes everything. People would kill to keep this quiet.

They would. And they had.

Shankari Chandran is a lawyer and a writer of fiction. Her professional credits include a global social justice program, a TV series and emotional post-it notes to her four children. Her novels have been accused of othering the coloniser.

Instagram: @shankarichandranauthor

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