Oh Matilda: The winner of our reader comp ends it with a bang

Scores of readers entered our competition to write an alternative final chapter to our progressive summer novel — and the winner is leaving nothing to chance.

 

McCredden wasn’t sure why he was lying naked in the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge. Well, not on this occasion.

He looked around and grabbed a cushion from the nearby couch. Placing it over his sweaty crotch, he thought hard about what he’d been doing to end up here. He had been having a glorious quarter-night stand with Maya and then …

“Mr McCredden,” came a female voice behind him.

McCredden spun around. Christ. It was that Qantas woman. The one who had cut up his cherished Chairman’s Lounge card. Was she going to chuck him out? Surely, they weren’t still pissed he recommended Pete Evans to be their celebrity chef? And that incident at the Logies where he had thanked them as “Qant-arse” before dropping his dacks. He defied anyone bonhoming French champagne and Cheeching those shrooms from old-man Squiggle to not do the same. Besides, he had publicly explained that it was all a joke, despite the court at the time ruling otherwise.

“Mr McCredden, please follow me.”

Oh Matilda: The plot summary you’ve been looking for

McCredden examined the professional-looking woman in front of him. Maybe he could sweet-talk her into at least getting some clothes? If he could only remember her name. Julie? Jane? Damn it. He couldn’t help it if she hadn’t appeared in anything.

“This way please, Mr McCredden.” The woman gave an imploring corporate smile. McCredden knew it well from various network suits. It was a smile that was not so much pursed as cash-register-closed. It brooked no opposition.

McCredden gripped his figleaf cushion and padded barefoot to follow. He passed the bar with the bottles that McCredden knew better than his family and became aware of something else. Where were all the people?

They arrived at an impressive wooden door. The woman gave another prim smile and gestured McCredden to enter.

McCredden turned the handle and inched into the room. A confusion of faces sat around an unusual oak table that was shaped in the pattern of something vaguely familiar. The island!

And the faces … Also, now familiar. Bradley Champion, smiling like the cat that made the meme. Mother Champion, sitting next to him, even more catlike as she rubbed her hand in downward strokes over her bruised head. Next to her was De Kock, his puffy lips seemingly on the verge of saying “boobies”.

McCredden’s eyes moved faster. The shonktrepreneur Engelbrecht, the scribbler Greer, the cook Kev, that reporter Becky someone, that bastard Frank Churchill, some more faces and … Sitting at the end of the table staring at her phone was the woman who had started it all – Matilda Meadows.

McCredden searched for words to match his search of faces.

The Qantas woman cleared her throat. “If you wouldn’t mind taking a seat please, Mr McCredden. We’re just waiting on one more. Ah … here she is.”

McCredden gripped his cushion tighter as he took in the regal form of Maya Churchill. Shimmering in a red satin ballgown superbly matched by the same shade of lipstick, she was no ageing siren. She was a siren for the ages.

Maya nodded at the Qantas woman. “Jessie.”

So that was the damn woman’s name!

“Lucy,” the woman reciprocated.

Hold on. Lucy? Maya is Lucy?

“Would you please take your seat, Mr McCredden,” said Jessie. McCredden slumped into a vacant chair.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Qantas Jessie, “I’d like to welcome you all to Purgatory.”

Purgatory? McCredden recalled the paintings Father O’Connor had used to scare him straight as a child. The writhing bodies being simultaneously pulled down by devils and tugged aloft by angels.

Maya seemed to derive joy from the blinking faces around her. “Jess calls me Lucy or sometimes Lucyfer, but you, of course, know me as Maya … the Yucatec God of Death. I also go by Mephistopheles, Moloch … I have lots of M monikers. The one you probably all have a bit to do with is Mammon.”

“Yes, all right, Lucy,” said Jessie. “The point is that you have all been brought here to Purgatory for us to work out who, to quote Lucy, ‘bloody hell killed ya?’.”

“Sorry, and you are?” said Becky Cummerbund.

“Oh yes,” said Jessie, absent-mindedly. “I’m Jessie. Jesus. Jehovah. Jupiter. Big on the Js, me. I represent the good-uns.”

McCredden was having trouble taking this all in. “But why …”

“Why am I in this form? Well, since the dawn of time, good and evil have had to take on corporeal form when visiting Earth. I generally choose a meek form while Lucy likes to be … well, more theatrical.”

Maya gave a devilish smile. “Thanks, Jess. Now, speaking personally, I would have killed all of you losers but the rules prevent it. Free will and all that. Of course, I used to have followers do that stuff for me, but it’s so friggin’ hard to get them these days.”

“You know it’s the same on my side too,” said Jessie, “it’s just the way of the world.”

“I remember I used to just wait at the crossroads with a contract and …”

Matilda looked up from her phone. “Sorry, are you two looking to increase your followers?”

Maya and Jessie stared at each other before cautiously chiming, “yes”.

“Well, I can help you there.”

Maya stared at her thoughtfully, like a producer eyeing a tax break. “Well, Miss Meadows,” said Maya, “if you can increase my followers, I can perhaps offer you something. How about a chance to return to Earth for a second go of things?”

McCredden cocked his head like that of a curious dog. A second go of things? Was that possible? “We need to get saved as well,” he blurted. “And you need to throw in a miracle or something.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “Always with the miracles. You’re not happy with my loaves and fishes thing?”

“Well, to be fair,” said McCredden, “It was a bit crap. You need to update it.”

“What are you talking about?” said Jessie. “You don’t like the Filet-O-Fish? I even make the fish square.”

“Anyway,” said McCredden “All of us alive and a miracle. Otherwise, neither of you will get any followers. And let me tell you, Matilda had more followers than Ariel Grand.”

“Ariana Grande,” corrected Matilda.

“All right, fine,” said Jessie. “You people always wear me down. But you have to work nice together. Otherwise, I will do nothing.”

“I could maybe make some arty food porn for people to follow,” suggested Kev.

“And I could shoot some TikTok dances,” added Dario.

The room was now abuzz with collaborative chatter as the dead put aside their differences to get a second crack at what had collectively been a pretty flimsy whip.

It was now a year since Matilda’s death. Sad emojis were filling the new Matilda Forever account set up by … well, no one really knew. However, everyone seemed to accept its repackaging of Matilda as a saint, cruelly taken before she had starred in her first Marvel movie. In life, Matilda could only achieve thousands of followers but in death her squad was now in the millions. It was a modern miracle. And her ghostly CGI likeness could be seen as fans scrolled on down their social feeds, pinging “you’ll come a liking Matilda with me”.