Goodwood (24 page)

The pathologist had three theories.

The first one sounded simple enough: Bart had a heart attack on his boat. He'd felt the thrust inside him, assailing him from within, and must've been in a precarious position—like near the edge, sitting or standing—and he'd been so overcome by the pain and the shock of it that he went over into the water, where he swallowed a chest full of brown liquid, until he spasmed, and frothed, and wilted, and drowned.

Death by drowning. That's what everyone had thought.

But the pathologist had a second line of thinking: that Bart did not ‘drown' at all. He had a heart attack on his boat. He felt it take him from within, in an instant. And it
took
him, just like that—so sudden. Bart died standing; or he died sitting. And
then
he went over, from his precarious position—graveyard dead—and hit the lake as cold as the water was. The forensic pathologist assured Mack that even then, in the instance of Bart not inhaling, the lake would still find his lungs. From all the time he'd spent sunken, aimlessly caressing the silty floor, the water would've seeped in and kept on seeping. The pathologist assured Mack of that. ‘That's what water does,' he said down the line.
That's what water does
, thought Mack for a long time after.

None of this was a shock to Mack. Everyone knew about the heart attack Bart had had on the riding trail with Pearl.

But then there was option number three: that somehow, at some time, Bart fell into the lake. That before the heart attack had even considered its move, Bart suffered some form of misadventure. Did he trip? Was he pushed? How could anyone be sure? But whatever it was, it caused Bart to take leave from his own boat and wind up in the water. Then, overcome with the stress of it, or the cold, and coupled with his already developed condition,
then
Bart had a heart attack and drowned. And the water seeped in, regardless of the order. The water seeped and seeped, because that's what water does.

Mack leant back in his chair and stretched his arms back over his head like he used to before a game of football.

He got to the end of the report. The blessed conclusion. The forensic pathologist had hedged his bets and sat on the fence. His preliminary findings—which would be passed on to the coroner—posited death by ‘atherosclerotic coronary artery disease with a contributory effect of drowning'—in which the drowning part either happened before, or after, or not at all.

Mack felt deflated. He chewed the inside of his mouth.

A coronial inquest had been ordered. The question marks were bound to hover. It could take months for the authorities to determine how Bart had died—and when.

And, in any case, where had Bart been this whole time?

The first thing Mack had been quick to note was that Bart was not wearing his life jacket. They'd found two on his ghost boat when they searched it, and Mack had asked Mrs Bart if Bart had owned another. ‘I have no idea,' said Mrs Bart, who had no taste for fishing. So he asked Irene Oakman and Roy Murray the same question, but they didn't know either. For certain he had two, because they'd both worn a second one. But they couldn't be sure if he had more. And whether he did or didn't, Bart had not been wearing a life jacket when Paulie Roberts made his terrible discovery.

The authorities had their opinions. The lake was cold that winter. Cold water stops a body from coming up again once it goes down. Mack had asked a lot of questions. Does a body always go down? The answer was yes, it does. A body always goes down. But then Mack heard words like ‘bacteria' and ‘gas' and ‘distension' and he shut his mind to the black thoughts the whole thing gave him. He thought of Belanglo and the inevitable ravens. He was verging on hallucinations. Mack closed his eyes again and waited for the dark clouds to pass and pass.

The undisputed facts were that Bart had died and sunk to the bottom. Then perhaps he'd floated along it, but no one knew for how long or for how far. Currents at the bottom were different to currents at the top, and no one had been down there taking notes. Bart bore no concrete
signs of pre-death injury, like a person hitting him over the head or engaging him in a scuffle; but then again it was very hard to tell. Water does all kinds of things that make ‘postmortem' and ‘ante-mortem' just approximate phrases. Water smudges and mystifies. It seeps in and destroys. It dampens a for-certain diagnosis. Mack hadn't known this about water, but now he did:
that's what water does
. So Bart had injuries, yes, the pathologist had said. He had gouges as big as valleys. He had cuts and abrasions and lacerations. But they were just as likely acquired by him making acquaintance with ‘obstructions' at the bottom of the lake. Sunken branches, the hulls of old boats, the wings of missing planes.

So Bart had sunk. Then the bacteria and gas and distention had caused him to rise, like the Second Coming, and that's when Paulie found him in the marshes of the Horse.

There was some question as to whether water levels may also have contributed. Bart was, after all, quite wedged. And with the lack of rain the lake was lower. So he may have risen earlier, got stuck just below the surface in the quagmire, only to be revealed as the water level in the lake slowly waned.

Really, though, what did it matter? Bart McDonald was dead and would soon be buried. He had a heart attack and drowned. Or he had a heart attack and didn't. Or he kind of did both at the same time.

Mack folded the fax paper and rested it inside his manila folder. He looked at the framed photo of Tracy and Jasper
that he kept next to his stapler. They always cheered him. He was a good husband and father. He wanted a nice time with his family now the warmer months had started. This was barbeque weather, he thought, and almost time for swimming in the river. The fish would be biting and he wished he wanted to catch them. Mack closed the folder and set it aside and longed to stop thinking about it every single waking minute.

31

The news about the discovery of Bart's body had taken up the entire front page of the
Gather Region Advocate
. It also warranted a paragraph in the News in Brief section of the
Sydney Morning Herald
, on account of Bart being notable, and the fact that he'd been missing for so long. It described Bart as a ‘local member of council and a much-admired figure in the community'.

Everyone in Goodwood agreed.

I cut out both articles, one big and one small, and slid them into my blue notebook, next to the articles I'd saved about the bodies in the Belanglo State Forest, and the few local articles on Bart and Rosie's disappearance. Rosie's MISSING sign was curled up all along the edges. I couldn't even bring myself to unfold it. I couldn't bear to look at her black-and-white inscrutable face.

Big Jim was devastated. When he pulled up his ute of an evening he'd sit for a while after he'd turned off the engine. I'd see him out of my bedroom window, sitting in the dark driveway, the whites of his eyes illuminated by the moon. Tears spilled out sometimes, and he'd stare through them for several minutes before pulling himself out the door and trudging into the trenches of his house.

All week poor old Fitzy forced a smile as she watered the back yard in her bike helmet, fretting about the lack of rain. She'd shed her neck brace but could only turn her head with limited mobility. Even Fitzy, who didn't like to dwell on sadness, was overcome by the news. Her helmet hung lower, resting on her giant glasses, making her face seem put upon by above. She cowered under the swooping magpies and her giant eyes blinked and welled in the fine dry day.

On the Wednesday after Bart's log-body had surfaced, Mum began complaining of pains in the chest. She said, ‘I don't want to alarm you, it's probably nothing,' and stood slightly bent over, holding her heart and breathing deeply.

‘Are you having a heart attack?' I asked.

Irritated breathing noises emanated.

‘No, no. I don't think so.' She winced.

She had finished organising the sunroom. The space she had made was just waiting for us to get a desk, and when we got a desk it would be just waiting for us to get a computer. But there was no point pushing it. Mum had been too busy
being busy. She'd weeded. She'd alphabetised her keeping pile of secondary books. She'd troubled herself for hours with difficult knitting. She'd dragged the vacuum into the garden on the end of our longest extension cord and cleaned out Backflip's kennel, awkwardly holding an umbrella to protect herself from the magpies. Then she O'Cedar-polished the dining table, pruned the houseplants, and took two garbage bags of our old clothes to Val at the Vinnies. Mum had nothing left to rearrange. She just held her chest and appeared afflicted.

Nan said it was psychosomatic. ‘Celia, for God's sake, your heart's fine,' and Mum bent upwards so she was straight again and looked genuinely confused.

‘But I'm not even thinking about Bart!' Maybe it's indigestion. I'll have a Rennie.'

She had a Rennie. She avoided chocolate, citrus and spices for the rest of the week.

Nan told me not to worry. ‘Everyone grieves in their own way,' said Nan. ‘The body is very much at the will of the mind.'

•

On Wednesday night, Mum said ‘The funeral's on Friday' and it was agreed that we would both attend. It was scheduled for the afternoon, on the last day of school before the holidays: four pm, at the Anglican Parish of Goodwood. If Mrs Bart had
had her way, it would have been sooner, but the autopsy had to be finished before Bart could be sent back to Goodwood. Given the reports from Paulie Roberts, there was no question around the issue of an open casket.

Meanwhile, to the north, the search continued in Belanglo State Forest. No other bodies were recovered. Nance, like an amateur detective, scoured the newspapers for new information daily. So did George and I, every lunchtime. We spread the grass with newsprint, wondering if they might find some hint or clue of Rosie. They didn't.

I grilled Mack for more information when he came over on Thursday morning before school to check in on Mum's heart. He was little help. All he could tell me was that the search was winding up. There was no suggestion of Rosie in the forest and he didn't think I should expect one. ‘It's a different case altogether. They haven't found anyone else in there, just those two backpackers.' He shook his head. ‘Those poor women.'

I shared this news with George at lunchtime and she, like me, was both deflated and relieved.

Mack said, ‘
That
many people have asked me if it's Rosie in the forest. I tell you, if one more person on Cedar Street stops me . . .' He trailed off. Then he told me and Mum that the specially trained cadaver dogs who searched the forest wore little booties to protect their paws from the rough terrain.

•

If Judy White had wondered whether Rosie was in the forest, she never said. The backpacker murders were all over the news. Belanglo was not that far by car. If Judy White considered it, as she convalesced in her dressing-gown, leaving the house only a handful of times to go to the Goodwood Grocer, she never once let on.

We did know that Judy quivered at the news of Bart when Nance told her. He was such a terrific guy. A good, honest man with a kind face. She shuddered at the thought of it. He'd been in the lake this whole time? While she had driven past and past? Just the thought of it—oh!—it made her quiver so. She wished she had checked in on his condition. On his worn, unhealthy heart. She should've suggested he get an echocardiogram, or an MRI. She should've asked after his stress levels and his blood pressure on one of her frequent trips to Bart's Meats. She should've done a lot of things.

She would check in on Mrs Bart soon. On
Flora
. God, she should have done so many things—and held on to her daughter. At every moment, as Nance observed, Judy quaked with the hole left by Rosie.
My baby, my baby, my baby.

•

On Thursday night—the night before the funeral—I rubbed Backflip's rough paws and lay down next to her on her bed.
She went to sleep presently and breathed slowly and every now and again her face twitched and she bared her teeth and fluttered her brown legs in a dream. I lay there for a long time and thought about Bart with his tired, sickly heart. I thought about Rosie, too, even though as the weeks went on I tried my hardest not to. She was a ghost now, only there to haunt me. I wanted to think of anything but Bart, and anything but hearts, and anything but Rosie White in the black-and-white, pulsating dark.

So I thought about Evie, and I admired her bravery. I quaked at her arm against my arm in assembly. By that time, well into spring, I had realised that I loved to think of her. It was so diverting, to visit her in my mind. I conjured her face and was overcome with calmness, like sinking into sand.
If only
, I thought. But if only what? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure about anything at all, just:
if only, if only, if only.

32

Bart's funeral was awfully sad and memories of it differed depending on who you spoke to. Smithy was the most lyrical in his recollections and he shared them from behind the bar with anyone who'd listen.

He said that back in Ireland a woman was expected to be keening. ‘Wailing over her beloved is keening,' he said. ‘She'd keen for an age until it felt righter and then she'd shush up and the town would drink stout.'

Mal West and Dennis Carlstrom listened, while they drank stout.

‘But this one was eerie quiet. I could nearly hear the teardrops.'

•

Pearl had attended the funeral on horseback. She rode in and stood Oyster in the small grassed yard next to the church.
He wore new shoes for the occasion and clopped them down Cedar Street, the first time his hooves had ever walked on a properly paved road. Coral said, ‘A horse! What a spectacle. It's just what Bart deserved'; and Kevin Fairley, who had left his cows in the south paddock, stood with Pearl and mooed to Oyster, patting the horse's powerful neck while Oyster nickered.