Chapter 4
When Katrina slipped out of the hall during the speeches, she was looking for a place to hide. There was a throbbing behind her eyes and her jaw ached from smiling at everyone who’d said how wonderful the gala was. A triumph!
She couldn’t smile anymore. She simply couldn’t.
Instead, she made straight for the one place she knew would be airy, soothing and deserted: the aquatic centre change room.
With Nordic blond-wood floors, a massage table and large mirrors over a long, stone-topped vanity, the change room was a home away from home. A safe place. A temple of mindfulness.
Collapsing onto a white-wood bench, she kicked off her shoes, set down her glass and yanked her phone from her clutch.
Then she scrolled through her increasingly frantic cascade of messages from the past three hours.
Ever since Craig’s first, enigmatic text about Warty Wax, she’d been trying to chisel information out of him (or out of the person controlling his phone), surreptitiously keying in questions while she joked, smiled, air-kissed guests and wrangled catering staff.
She didn’t know how she’d managed to keep socialising.
Warty Wax, for God’s sake! Was that stupid stuff really going to bankrupt her family?
A year ago, Craig had drawn down on their mortgage to invest in his brother Troy’s company, a start-up so outrageous that Katrina had thought Craig was joking when he’d told her about it.
His parents certainly hadn’t been on board; they’d already sunk enough money into Troy’s financial messes and didn’t want to ruin themselves.
But according to Craig, Warty Wax was bound to be a hit.
It was hand-poured surfboard wax made from an all-natural, locally sourced shark repellent. Organic. Cutting edge.
So what had gone wrong? That evening, on her way across Colville car park, Katrina had finally received a response to the seven messages she’d sent Craig after his first text.
It was a link to a scientific paper called ‘A Review of Cytotoxicity of Bufotoxin in Mammals’.
She’d skimmed the opening paragraphs, getting tangled in all the scientific language, then had stumbled on the phrase ‘bufotoxin is banned in Australia’.
Later, inside the hall, she’d been making breezy small talk under a balloon garland when it had clicked. Cane toad toxin, the shark-repelling ingredient of Warty Wax, was a banned substance. Troy’s idea had been a dud from the outset.
A moment’s catatonia, then she’d quickly rallied, greeting, introducing, complimenting, until finally the horror of it all had defeated her.
Now she shoved her phone back into her clutch and screamed. It was the kind of raw, animal sound she hadn’t known she could make and it echoed off the walls.
No, no, no. This couldn’t be true. Craig had trusted his brother with their money and now he was going to sell their home.
Didn’t he remember everything that had happened there?
Hamish’s broken pinkie finger; Bella the lab scoffing the gingerbread men; the shape of each boy – Hamish solid and chubby, Justin lighter and wirier – as they chased each other around the garden.
And what would happen when Craig’s infatuation for Roxane flamed out, as it probably would, and he returned to the family?
If he sold the house, where would they all reunite?
Katrina had been holding it together for the boys, for this hellish gala and because someone had to cook dinner and wash the clothes and put out Pauline’s bins and open the uniform shop.
But this news about their family home had broken her.
She couldn’t go back to her childhood existence of shuffling from place to place.
She couldn’t go on living a lie, faking confidence and zing, pretending to be the perfect mother and wife as her world dissolved around her.
If she didn’t tell someone that Craig had left (temporarily), her cortisol levels would shoot through the roof and she would die of a heart attack.
In other words, speaking her truth would be a good thing. It would propel her forward, forcing her to face her demons and walk through the valley of fire, where she would forge her shield of self-awareness. Or was it her sword of self-acceptance?
Burying her hands in her hair, she tugged hard at the roots and screamed again. God, that felt good. Then a strand got tangled in the diamond on her finger, and she thought, My rings! They’re part of the lie. Why on earth was she still wearing them?
With a sob, she pulled off her engagement ring and jammed it in her clutch, then tugged at her wedding ring.
It was stuck, probably because she rarely removed it.
As she wrenched and wrestled, she was reminded of the day she’d had her wisdom teeth out under local anaesthetic.
That feeling of mounting pressure as the dental surgeon had yanked. The fear. The anguish.
All at once, the ring popped off her finger. It bounced onto the floor with a taunting, musical chink and rolled under the benches.
Katrina screamed again. That was her wedding ring! Eighteen-carat gold! What would Craig think if – when – he finally returned? Falling to her knees, she groped, peered, panted.
She was reaching into a far corner, her butt in the air, when she heard footsteps. Someone was walking towards the change room. God, no! No one could see her like this!
Springing up, she smacked her head on the bench. The sharp, sudden pain made her eyes water and her head swim. She sank back, clutched her scalp and moaned.
A middle-aged woman appeared, holding a bottle of champagne. ‘Shit, Katrina, are you all right?’
Katrina peered up through the pain, strands of hair sticking to her lipstick.
Thank God – it was Michelle Redlin, from her own year.
Not that they’d moved in the same circles back then, but they had a history.
When Katrina looked at Michelle, all she could think of was an odd tugging feeling at her crotch, and suddenly she was bowing after the last performance of Grease in Year 11.
Michelle’s gaffer tape was holding Katrina’s tight black pants together (although it had snagged a few pubic hairs), the curtain was falling and the cast was still standing there, Chloe Dalton sly and red-headed in her Pink Ladies bomber jacket as she leaned over and whispered, ‘Everything okay, Kat?’
‘You know I’m not okay.’ Katrina at seventeen, smooth without retinoids.
Rounding on Chloe and letting her wide footlights smile fall from her face.
‘It was you who sabotaged my pants. And by the way, Nick and I have something to tell you. We’ve found each other.
The time we’ve spent together practising our scenes – Nick said we have this spiritual connection. Nick?’
Both girls, eager and anxious, then turned to confront Nick Jasinski, who looked hotter in his fifties quiff and letterman sweater than any 1990s teenager had a right to look.
Though a little shorter than most of the other boys, Nick was buff, with broad shoulders and mischievous eyes, and Katrina found the slight pixie tilt to his nose irresistible.
But Nick was blushing, glancing at Chloe, whispering, ‘Shit. Sorry, Kat.’
And as the curtain rose, Chloe’s triumphant smirk was flooded with light.
Taking her final bow, Katrina struggled to hold back tears. The wild applause meant nothing. The tape was still tugging at her crotch. When the curtain fell for the last time, Nick trailed Chloe offstage.
Later, weeping in the change room, Katrina was only vaguely aware of Michelle’s hand on her elbow, of Michelle steering her into a cubicle and giving Katrina her first Brazilian wax by removing the gaffer tape in one painful rip.
Katrina felt the same hand on her elbow now.
‘Is my head bleeding?’ she asked, struggling up onto the bench.
Michelle parted her hair and looked. Now that she could see again, Katrina realised Michelle hadn’t changed much.
Terrific figure. Minimal make-up. Still wore glasses and hadn’t coloured her hair, which was smooth and dark, with only a few silver threads.
Michelle remained attractive in a low-key way, and the touch of kindness in her face enhanced her no-nonsense style.
No jewellery and no obvious botox or filler, but then Michelle wouldn’t need it with her amazing skin.
She was dressed like someone heading to the office.
Michelle Redlin has seen my bare backside, Katrina thought. She had nothing to hide from this woman.
‘There’s no blood, but you’re going to have a lump.’ Michelle frowned. ‘Are you okay? Have you been attacked?’
Katrina shook her head, then winced. ‘Things aren’t great for me right now.’
‘Yeah. I heard.’
Puzzled, Katrina stared at Michelle, who added, ‘You were crying.’
Of course. Katrina looked around, trying to concentrate. ‘I dropped my wedding ring over there.’ She gestured vaguely at the bench seat. ‘But I can’t find it.’
Michelle immediately set down her bottle and crouched. Seconds later, she had fished the ring out of its hiding place.
‘Thanks.’ Through the tears that welled up again as she took the Tiffany band, Katrina noticed Michelle’s delicate, fine-boned fingers – fingers that had peeled a metre of gaffer tape off Katrina’s private parts.
Katrina clearly remembered Michelle’s light touch and lack of judgement.
If it was time for Katrina to speak her truth, what better person to receive it than Michelle?
‘I don’t even know if I can put this ring on again.
Craig’s left me for another woman, but it’s just temporary.
A mid-life crisis. You’re the first person to know except the boys. ’
Michelle looked pained. ‘I’m so sorry.’