know. But honestly. I’d rather be working and doing some good, Marcus.’
‘Your presence would be very welcome, Kitty, but truly, if you find it too much, please don’t feel you need to stay.’
‘I’ll get changed and be right there.’
Two trams later, Kitty was in Richmond and breathing much more easily.
‘Good morning, Kitty,’ Marcus Schumacher said as Kitty arrived. Marcus, in his fifties, had a kind face. He was buttoned-down, respectable, and exuded an air of peace and respectful acceptance. Clients liked him because he made them feel safe. Kitty liked him because he was never condescending.
‘Good morning, Marcus. Thanks for letting me come in.’
‘You’re welcome, but I mean it. Leave again if you need to.’
‘Thanks. Do you want me to sit with you when the Driscolls come in?’
‘I’ve just left Maddie’s parents and her brother to gather themselves in the sitting room. Bring in some tea and I’ll introduce you.’
In the kitchenette, Kitty brewed a pot of fresh tea. Along with the fine tea set, she prepared a dish of lemon slices along with the honey and sugar. She added an array of thin, light biscuits. People’s grief settled in their stomachs sometimes and they couldn’t eat, and others ate blindly through the process. Some were like her, ambivalent in their mourning. Plenty of others didn’t mourn at all, and didn’t even bother to pretend.
Kitty carried the tray into the faintly formal yet cosy sitting room. The couch in it was comfortable but not squishy. It held people up when sometimes people couldn’t hold themselves up.
Marcus introduced her to the Driscolls in his wonderfully comforting baritone. ‘This is Catalina Carrasco. She’ll be looking after Maddie’s make-up and clothing for you.’
Maddie’s family, like most clients, were surprised at her youth. Kitty didn’t let it bother her. She simply went about, calmly and kindly, greeting them by name, pouring tea, sitting in the slightly less comfortable seat opposite them.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ she said, genuinely sympathetic. ‘Maddie seems to have been a lovely young woman.’
Mrs Driscoll nodded, tears welling up already. ‘Yes, she was. My Maddie, she was…’ And she couldn’t go on. Mr Driscoll patted his wife’s hand, and it was left to Jayden Driscoll, Maddie’s older brother, to speak for the family.
‘We’ve brought some of her clothes. And I made up a disk of her favourite music. Like Mr Schumacher asked.’ Jayden clumsily shoved an overnight bag towards her. ‘Oh. And. These.’ A folder full of photos, mostly printed out from the internet. They showed a bright teenager with a mischievous smile, as though she was planning a prank to pull on the photographer.
‘Thank you,’ Kitty said. ‘Anything I don’t use, I can give back to you, if you like, or we can manage it here. There’s no need to decide right away.’
Jayden nodded miserably.
Kitty placed her fingers gently over one particularly lovely photograph of Maddie in a vibrant summer dress, vivid blue flowers splashed over a pale yellow background. Mrs Driscoll caught the movement.
‘We’ve put. That one. In the bag. She loved that. That dress. She was. She.’
‘It suited her. Would you like me to make her up like she is in this one?’
Mrs Driscoll nodded mutely.
‘She looks very happy here,’ Kitty said, not expecting anything but leaving space for whatever might happen.
‘She was,’ Mr Driscoll replied. ‘That was her eighteenth birthday. She’d just been accepted to Monash. That’s her best friend, Nicole, there.’ He gestured. ‘And that’s her boyfriend, Mathias. He’s a good boy.’ He blinked rapidly. ‘He made her laugh. So much. With those. What do they call them? The game with the birds and the pigs.’
Jayden’s laugh was sudden and brittle, but genuine. ‘He got her those silly slippers, remember, the big red birds with those eyebrows.’
‘And Jasper attacked them,’ Mrs Driscoll said with a similar bad- but-good laugh. She gave Kitty a watery smile. ‘Maddie’s cat. Had him since he was a kitten. He’s so lost without her. Breaks my heart.’
‘Would you like to put something of Jasper’s with her? We can include something from Mathias, if you and he would like that.’
In the end, the family decided to bring Jasper’s collar for Maddie’s wrist and tokens from Matthias – a necklace and a mobile phone charm of a cross red bird. The bird had made her giggle, especially when Mathias impersonated its enraged little cartoon face. Beloved things and memories to keep her body company, although her spirit was gone.
Marcus saw the grieving family out, soothing them with his air of gentle authority. After they’d gone, Kitty cleared away the undrunk tea and untouched biscuits, and took the bag downstairs.
Maddie Driscoll was on the metal table. Trudy Schumacher, Marcus’s sister, hadn’t needed to do much reconstructive work. The blow from the fall off the brick wall had crushed the back of Maddie’s head, but left the nineteen year old’s face unmarred.
Calmness settled over Kitty as she put the bag of clothes aside. She’d first come to the Schumachers for work experience in high school, doing office work and helping Grandma with the flowers. By the time she graduated, she’d already started helping Trudy with make-up. It hadn’t helped her reputation for lonely weirdo-ness but she was used to that. She’d given up trying to make people understand that what she did had a sacredness to it, and that it was a service for those left behind. For people like her and her grandparents, who didn’t even have a grave to visit.
‘Hello Maddie,’ Kitty said as softly and as kindly as she had spoken to Maddie’s family. ‘I met your parents and your brother today. They’re lovely people. Jayden is watching out for your parents, and for Mathias too. I’ll look after you, now. I’ll help them say goodbye to you.’
Kitty knew that Maddie didn’t live in that house of bone and skin any more, but that was hardly important. The dead didn’t scare her, and she liked talking to them. The dead didn’t judge, and they were good listeners.
CHAPTER THREE
‘Six days.’ Sal’s accent – English undercut faintly with an older accent from Goa – thickened with anger. The fact that he couldn’t seem to get his teeth unclenched wasn’t helping. ‘Six days to be ready to perform, without a lead singer, a lead guitarist or a keyboard player. Without half our band.’ The way he said it, it sounded like he was being asked to play without half his heart, which was much closer to the truth.
‘We’ll work it out,’ Laszlo assured him. ‘I’ve seen you do much more with much less.’
Sal’s brown eyes blazed. ‘Not with much less of the fucking band, you haven’t. Alex and Kurt are dead. How much less do you think we can be and still function?’ He loomed over the older man, his dark skin flushing with emotion. ‘We can only perform so many miracles. Raising the dead isn’t one of them. That is the actual opposite of our
