Chapter 14
On Thursday morning, when the only clean underwear Katrina could find was a scratchy lace g-string – never again – and a pair of ancient briefs with saggy elastic, she decided to tackle the laundry.
She’d asked Hamish and Justin to put a load in, and they’d agreed, but had they done it? No. And while she didn’t want to heap more stress on them or drive them into Craig’s new flat, couldn’t they see that their family’s domestic ship was going down?
She dumped the whites on the laundry floor, then stuck in her earbuds and phoned Michelle. She was squatting by the machine when Michelle picked up.
‘Hi, only me.’ Katrina strained to shove the clothes in. ‘How did you go last night with your adorable Italian?’
‘It was fine.’ Michelle sounded flat.
‘Fine? Is that all?’ Perhaps Filippo’s charm had dulled on closer acquaintance. Well, he was a client, not a boyfriend, so his charm wasn’t important. Katrina slammed the machine’s door shut, scooped in some powder and, as she rose, pressed the start button with her knee.
‘It was pretty much the same as last time,’ Michelle said. ‘Just helping him with his domestic skills. I won’t need to see him again.’
No more Filippo? That was a shame – he’d been a good client.
But Katrina didn’t dwell; she started to sort through the darks, checking pockets for tissues.
In Justin’s grey track pants, she found the orange card for Worsley’s World.
Commit With Grit! Get Fit! it screamed at her in big black letters.
‘So how did it go with Kirk?’ Michelle asked.
‘You’ll never believe what happened.’ Wandering into the kitchen, Katrina paused by the bin, then turned and dropped the orange card into the tray of keys, paperclips and old lanyards that lived beside the fruit bowl.
If the boys asked about it, she’d tell them she was thinking of taking up kickboxing again.
‘His crazy cat slipped out the front door when Kirk arrived home, so Kirk and I had to catch him before he started mauling lorikeets. We ended up chasing that cat around the garden for twenty minutes, like we were playing hide and seek. I snapped the heel off my Loeffler Randall shoe, and they weren’t cheap, even on sale.
My knees are covered with bruises.’ She picked up the coffee she’d made using an old Tetra-pak of Craig’s oat milk.
They were out of proper milk. ‘I understand why people used to believe cats were servants of Satan.’
Michelle laughed, but it was a pale little laugh that trailed away into a sigh. ‘Did you catch him?’
‘We gave up in the end, but when we came back in, the little devil was lying on the sofa, cool as can be.’ Katrina frowned as she sipped the coffee.
Oat milk tasted of dreariness and disappointment, like lukewarm muesli, and it was dampening her morning caffeine kick.
‘At least Kirk said he’d give me a generous tip.
’ She paused as the air began to tremble with the thunder of Justin’s clomping feet.
He was coming downstairs, at long last. ‘That’s not a band of gorillas, it’s only Justin,’ she told Michelle. ‘Ignore him.’
When her son entered the kitchen, he was in his school uniform, but only just. His shirt was partly unbuttoned, his tie-knot hung halfway to his belt, his fly was undone and he seemed to be missing a sock.
But Katrina knew better than to say a word while he was still treating her to an unparalleled display of sullen moodiness.
She simply waved at the wholemeal loaf, then at the cereal in the pantry, miming at him to eat something.
He grabbed a piece of unbuttered bread and, ignoring Katrina’s dumbshow of pointing at the toaster, walked out the door. Slam. Of Hamish there was no sign, apart from the socks left on the stairs. He must be asleep.
‘Justin’s upset after Nick hid in the flowerbeds,’ Katrina told Michelle. ‘Who can blame him?’
‘Have you heard from Nick again?’
‘Not a whisper. Craig seems to have scared him off, but Justin won’t talk about it. Maybe I should send him to a therapist.’ At least Katrina could afford a therapist now, thanks to clients like Kirk Keane.
‘Perhaps,’ Michelle said, absently. ‘Oh, Drew has booked for next week. And the magistrate. And the football guy!’
Katrina brightened. ‘Fantastic.’
‘Hang on a second, Dad wants something.’ A rustle and a clunk, as Michelle set her phone down.
Waiting for her to return, Katrina scrolled through the news on her phone.
Man tries to open a plane door mid-flight – dear oh dear, some people were terrifying.
A mid-level restaurant chain had gone bust. Then—
‘Oh my GOD!’ she screamed and dropped the phone.
‘What is it?’ Michelle’s tiny, tinny voice called to her from the kitchen floor. ‘Katrina? Are you all right?’
There, on the glowing screen at Katrina’s feet, was the Daily Post online. The headline read: Peekaboo! Naughty Sexcapades in Kirk’s Bush.
Katrina’s hands were shaking so much, she could barely pick up her phone.
She clicked and scrolled, but the ads and the video took forever to load.
Hurry up! she screamed internally. Then a picture appeared, of her own bottom clad in tangerine silk, protruding from a hedge with Kirk kneeling directly behind her on the half-cape attached to her frock. It looked so obscene.
A faint noise leaked from her mouth, like the squeal of a balloon deflating. She’d only been trying to coax Buster out of the hydrangeas, but who was going to believe that? Oh, God. Oh, hell. She couldn’t breathe.
‘Katrina? Katrina! What’s wrong?’
Gulping down air, Katrina found her voice.
‘Go to the Daily Post online and look halfway down the sidebar,’ she croaked, scrolling to a grainy photo of her on her knees at Kirk’s feet after she’d tripped on a tree root.
It seemed almost pornographic, when in fact, Kirk had been swearing and Katrina struggling not to cry as the pain shot through her knees.
‘Hold on, I need my laptop.’ Michelle’s rapid footsteps were followed by clicking and tapping, then a long, long pause.
Katrina couldn’t stand it. She’d already started reading the article.
‘Michelle, can you see it? I’m a complete idiot!
After the Pippa story was everywhere I should have realised there’d be journalists watching Kirk’s house!
’ Tears filled her eyes and she had to wipe them away before she could continue.
‘Listen to this – “The mystery blonde, her toned legs emerging from an asymmetrical tangerine orange dress with scarf detail (see similar, $799), teamed with high gold heels (Loeffler Randall bow pumps, $420), was hiding in the bushes in what looked to be a fun, flirty game with the celebrity chef . . .” I’m the mystery blonde! ’
‘Yes, I see it . . .’ Michelle trailed off.
Katrina waited, then waited some more.
‘This is a disaster! Everyone’s going to see this!’ She felt a sudden, cold stab of fear. Justin and Hamish. Her boys would read the story and recognise her. They would move in with Craig and Roxane, and she’d never see them again.
‘Give me a second to read the whole thing.’ Michelle might have been talking about an email from her power company.
Katrina paced the kitchen. She took a gulp of her coffee and gagged, then spat into the sink and tipped the rest after it. Oat milk was hideous. Everything was hideous!
Finally, finally, Michelle spoke.
‘Katrina, these pictures are lousy. All I can see are a few grainy photos of a white woman with blonde highlights who could be one of hundreds of women I pass every day on the street. I’ve downloaded a pic and zoomed in, and I still can’t make out your face, just your hair and your arse. No one’s going to know it’s you.’
Katrina squinted at the photos. She tried to imagine it was another woman. Perhaps Michelle was right?
Then she realised. ‘But the dress! It’s a Giuseppe Grasso, back when the design house was in its tangerine phase!
’ Damn that dress – she’d bought it half-price almost a decade ago and had worn it exactly once, to Hamish’s Colville Year 7 parents welcome drinks.
Her mother had always said bright orange was vulgar and didn’t suit her, but Katrina had thought the colour was a bold swerve.
She was breaking away from her mother’s rules! Being her own woman!
Only later, when she’d seen photos of the event, had she realised that her mother was right.
The orange Giuseppe Grasso with the half-cape was not her dress.
It was probably no one’s dress, because Katrina had discovered it a month later in the shops at an 80 per cent discount.
That failure of a dress had sat at the back of her wardrobe for years, like the gruesome, concealed corpse of her spending crime, before she’d dug it out last night, figuring she could get one more wear out of it.
Oh, why hadn’t she gone with the anonymous black sheath?
‘That dress is so distinctive,’ she moaned. ‘Someone might recognise it.’ She would have to toss it in a charity bin at midnight, somewhere far from home.
Michelle remained silent, as if considering. At last she said, ‘It’s just a dress. And Kirk’s not going to talk about Dreamwives to the media.’
‘But if he doesn’t, won’t it look like he’s seeing—’ Katrina had to swallow before continuing. ‘A prostitute?’ Oh, God. That was what the article implied. ‘His marriage is at stake, remember?’
‘Yeah, but in some ways, this makes him look even worse. Does he want the public to know he’s hired a fake wife? And what if he outed us and then we told the media about the potato gems and party pies? If that went viral, it could ruin his entire business empire.’
Katrina sighed. ‘I’m just trying to remember anyone who could connect me with that tangerine frock. I wore it at a Colville drinks party, years ago . . .’
‘Probably no one,’ said Michelle. ‘Anyway, who the hell remembers a dress?’