An Isolated Incident (17 page)

Wednesday, 15 April

AustraliaToday.com

Thousands march for Bella

May Norman

15 April 2015

Between four and five thousand people marched through Sydney's CBD Wednesday evening to mourn murdered Strathdee woman Bella Michaels.

Police closed sections of George, King, Pitt and Market streets between 6 and 8pm to allow the mourners to pass freely through the city.

Many of those attending carried signs bearing feminist slogans and messages about violence against women. Others carried flowers, cards and other funereal mementos which organisers said would be collected and passed on to Ms Michaels' family.

Femolition's Monica Gordon led the way with a handmade sign declaring END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN 4EVA, 4 BELLA. Ms Gordon said her group had been inspired to organise the march after seeing the ‘overwhelming' social media response to Ms Michaels' murder. ‘All of these people, from all kinds of backgrounds, were expressing such grief and shock and horror. There was such a sense of hopelessness. We decided to organise this event to bring together all of those grieving for Bella and all of those who feel overwhelmed by the extent of violence against women in the community.'

Kaylene Johnson, 47, who marched with her three teenage daughters, said it was the sense of hopelessness which brought her out. ‘My girls and I have been weeping about Bella ever since we heard. We've been talking about what we could do. This doesn't change anything for poor Bella, of course, but it does give you hope to see how many people care enough to come out. It makes me feel a bit better for the sake of my girls, to see that people do care.'

No members of Ms Michaels' family were present at the march. According to Ms Gordon, ‘They are grieving privately, which we respect.' Asked if it wouldn't have been more appropriate to have held the march in Strathdee, Ms Gordon argued that although the crime took place there, it is one that has had a national impact.

‘I'd like to see marches like this all over the country. Anywhere that young women think twice before going out alone, anywhere parents fight the impulse to lock their adult daughters inside, anywhere that people have shed tears over Bella Michaels – we should be out on the streets uniting in our grief, our outrage and our determination to make a world in which women can move about freely without fear of violence.'

According to the Strathdee Council, no permissions have been sought to hold a march in the town where Bella Michaels lived. Walk down any of the six streets that make up downtown Strathdee, however, and you'll see the grief of the community in the prayers for Bella on the signs of the Anglican, Catholic and Uniting churches. It's there, too, on the handmade and professionally printed signs hanging on shopfronts and power poles, all bearing some version of the message ‘RIP Bella'.

And at the nursing home where Ms Michaels worked, and was last seen alive, the Australian flag out the front is at half-mast, the windows of the front office hung with black organza. A makeshift shrine on the nursing home's verandah grows by the hour as local residents, passing holidaymakers and out-of-towners on a mission bring flowers, balloons, teddy bears and cards.

A similar shrine has appeared where Ms Michaels' body was found beside the highway a few minutes from town. This one, being out in the open and unprotected from wind, sun and rain, looks wrecked, abandoned, even as it, too, grows.

Ten days on from the discovery of Ms Michaels' body, police have yet to make an arrest. Sources close to the police department report that there are no suspects and few leads on the case, though an official spokesperson refused to confirm this, saying only that investigators are ‘pursuing several lines of inquiry'.

You saw the march, I guess? Amazing, hey? I watched news clips of it on Lisa's computer and at first I almost felt bad about not getting involved. All those strangers holding up pictures, crying for Bella. But then I saw the close-ups of those ladies leading the thing, tears but no swollen eyes or red noses, their make-up not even streaky, and I felt so angry I couldn't breathe.

Look, for the record, I believe they were sad and scared. But that march was about them, for them. That's fine. Whatever gets you through this life. But they shouldn't've pretended it was for Bella. How could it have been? They had no memories of her to celebrate, no way of understanding just what it was the world lost when she died. And the coverage that damn thing got, well, it made people – all the goddamn compassionate, sad people out there – feel like something had been done, some kind of justice. It made a lot of those nice ladies and men marching through Sydney feel better about what had happened and that was the opposite of what was needed. We needed rage and heartbreak, we needed the whole country to be unable to sleep, to eat, to move on with their lives until the men who did this were found. Instead we got warm feelings about community and sweet quotes about paying tribute. They got peace and we – Bella and me – got jack-fucking-shit.

Sorry. The screws start popping when I talk about all that stuff. That's Nate's expression. When I start getting worked up he'll say, ‘Calm down, babe, the screws are popping.' If I keep going – which, let's be honest, I usually do because who's ever been calmed by being told to calm down? – then he'll say, ‘Yep, those hinges are busted all the way off, now.' He usually says it right before clearing the hell out of my way.

Anyway, in the days leading up to the march, Nate organised to have my number disconnected and a new one set up and called the people we wanted to have it, told them to keep it mum. He also arranged that Lisa and Carrie would take turns to pop around and clear the messages from it for me, so that I never had to answer a call from someone I didn't know or didn't want to talk to, but wouldn't have to worry about missing anything important. And, of course, he put that sign about trespassers and photographers out the front, too. For all the good it's done.

Anyway, after he'd taken care of all that, Nate told me it was time for him to go back to Sydney.

‘I've used up all my leave, and Renee's –'

‘About to pop.'

He started at that, dumb idiot.

‘You got a voice like a thunderclap. So when's she due?'

The look he gave me then, geez, it had our whole young lives in it. Those years we'd tried before the doctors told me I wasn't fitted out right. The slow slide when I understood the last reason not to get drunk and stay that way was gone.

‘Still a few months to go.'

‘You could've told me.'

‘I would've. Just the circumstances, you know – felt like I'd be rubbing it in.'

‘Yeah.'

‘I'm really sorry, babe.'

‘Don't be. It's a happy thing. Never be sorry about happy things.'

Oh, the smile he gave me then. Kidding myself to think I'll ever be over him.

‘I've asked to be put back on the Melbourne run, so I'll be passing through here all the time, staying at Melvin's still. And even when I'm not, you only need to call and I can come. Seriously. Call me whenever, for anything, Chris, I mean it.'

‘No you don't. Not for anything.'

Another smile. ‘No, okay, not for that. But . . .'

‘I know. Appreciate it. And you keep me updated, when the bub comes and all that.'

His goddamn eyes started leaking a little. It was just too much. I kissed his forehead and thanked him for everything and all but pushed him out the door. Fine, fine, tickety-fucking-boo-fine.

I had a fear of abandonment as a kid. That's what the school counsellor called it, anyway. I was sent to see her because of all the days I'd had off without a note. I didn't have notes because my mum was too pissed or else too sick to write them, and even if she hadn't been I wouldn't have asked her to write me notes because then she'd realise I was staying home and make me go and then I wouldn't be there if she slipped and hit her head or got in the car three sheets to the wind and drove it into the creek. So if she was out of it enough not to know it was a school day, then I had to stay home and keep an eye on her. The school counsellor didn't get that I wasn't scared of her abandoning me on purpose; I was scared she'd die.

Everything changed when she met Tony. Him and me never warmed to each other, not really, but Mum was much better when he was around. Hardly drank, hardly cried. She even quit smoking when she fell pregnant and then stayed off them for months after Bella was born. I wouldn't say she was happy, but she was better than I'd known her. If you ask me about my childhood, it's those couple of years I think of, even though I was already a little woman to look at by then. But inside I felt like a proper kid finally, never worrying about what was for dinner or whether the electricity bill'd been paid or if all that vomiting meant I needed to call a doctor or just wash the towels and mix up some Lucozade.

Things got hard again when Tony left and Brett came, but in a different way. Mum was still sober, but under the influence of a dickhead, which was worse. Then he left and the beltings stopped but the boozing and panic attacks started again. By then I was pretty much over it all. Sounds harsh, but I was a teenager.

Bella was always better than me. Responsible, forgiving, kind. You know, thinking on it, the more she helped Mum the harder I got. Don't know why. I was over it all, like I said, but it was more than that. I suppose I felt it was Bella's turn. Fucking idiot, I was. Every bit of resentment I had against Mum for being such a shit adult, well, I should've been feeling it for myself the way I let that poor munchkin do all the tough stuff. Before long the little darlin' was taking care of me, too.

When Mum was dying, we took care of her together. Afterwards, all my old issues came roaring back. Yeah, clichéd
Oprah
bullshit, I know. Adult woman feeling abandoned by her mummy. Whatever, Bella was my rock. And then Nate left me and of course I fell apart again, and of course, again, Bella put me back together. I remember saying to her, ‘What would I do without you, Bel?' and she, cheeky thing, said, ‘Probably choke on your microwave dinner and only be found a month later when the neighbours complained about the smell.'

She could joke about it because it would never happen. Not the choking on my dinner – the doing without her. I would've bet every last cent, bet my life, on her always being there for me. I mean it. I feared abandonment, big time. I clung to my mother, to my boyfriends, especially to Nate, like a polyester dress on cheap tights.
But I never clung to Bella, never felt a need to. There was no scenario, no matter how catastrophic, in which she wasn't there. I could no more imagine life without her than I could imagine my own non-existence.

The cops called to say they were releasing Bella's car and would I like to come get it. I couldn't, and so they offered to bring it around to me. Funny, but I heard it coming up the street. I don't think I'd ever thought of how her car sounded – it's a ten-year-old hatchback, good nick, nothing special. But that afternoon I was in the kitchen and it was like – whoosh! Here she comes! Bella's car chuffing up the street, coming to a stop in the driveway. I leant forward so I could see out the corner of the window and there was its red hood sparkling away at me, filling me – against reason – with the pleasure of anticipation I always had when my little sis dropped around on a whim.

Once I'd signed all the papers and young Matt Drey had left in the police car that'd followed him, I took the keys and opened the driver's door, slid in and rested my hands on the wheel. It felt so comfortable, adjusted perfectly for my height. The cop's adjustment, I realised, not Bella's. She was shorter than me and always drove with the seat fully upright. Nate and me would bag the hell out of her, sitting up like a school bus driver, as serious and alert as a kid sitting her driving test.

What Bella always pointed out though, when I hassled her, was that at least she
could
drive. ‘Got you there,' Nate would say, but he wouldn't carry on about it because I knew he didn't want me driving. Not as long as I was still drinking so much anyway.

It was comfortable, sitting with my hands on the wheel, my feet on the pedals. I could imagine easing the handbrake off, reversing back down the drive. It was ridiculous that I couldn't. Ridiculous and stupid and neglectful. When Bella went missing I could do nothing but make goddamn phone calls and hope for the best. Even if I'd got that message on the Friday night, there was nothing I could've done except call around and ask others to go looking. But if I'd been able to drive, had a car sitting out here waiting, I could've headed on out the second I heard and at the traffic lights I might've looked over and seen Bella in the back of a car full of men and I'd've leapt out and slammed on the hood until they let her out.

Even if I didn't catch them still in town I could've kept going, driven all the way out onto the highway, and when my headlights hit the gang of them dragging her from the car they would've bolted and I would've run to her, helped her up and she would've been shaken and hurt – maybe badly hurt – but fixable, here.

How late would've been too late? How late could I have found her? I know what they did to her. I don't know how long it took. How late might I have gone out and found her and given her CPR, which I'd learnt so I could get a small pay bump at work, and wrapped her in my jacket and driven her to the hospital?

I popped the glovebox. Nothing but the owner's manual and rego papers. The back seat was empty, the floor looked freshly vacuumed. Bella always kept the car clean, but the absence of even a stray hairband or piece of fluff, the lack of any
smell
, was too much. Of course it had been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, every hair and fibre and scrap of paper taken as potential evidence. They wouldn't have given it to me if there'd been any remnants of Bella inside.