Chapter 11 #2
Nicola laughed – if that was how her throaty, phlegmy bark could be described. ‘So Michelle’s that open-minded? I love this new Kat!’
Katrina was completely lost. What on earth did Nicola mean? Then she heard a clink and spied a small glass bottle snuggled inside Nicola’s open handbag.
Vodka. Oh, God. Nicola was day drinking. On school grounds.
Dismayed, she peered into Nicola’s bleary face and murmured, ‘Are you all right?’
Nicola punched her shoulder. ‘Of course! Just want the races.’
‘Well, they’re listed by the stands right over here.
’ Katrina steered her friend out of the marshalling area, then, shaken and confused, returned to her clipboard.
She made a mental note to have a quiet chat with Gabby and Pauline, or maybe with Nicola’s husband, who was a good guy.
Between them, they might be able to help.
Right now, though, she had a job to do.
After a slightly shaky start, the Under-17s 50m and 100m freestyle races for both boys and girls went off without a hitch.
Katrina took control. She filtered out the background noise and focused on the task at hand.
She identified contenders for the State Championships and swapped out a couple of timekeepers.
By the time the breaststroke relays started, she’d recovered her equilibrium.
Then Craig walked into the aquatic centre as if he owned the place and headed straight for the marshalling area.
Katrina was so shocked that she almost had an out-of-body experience.
She hadn’t seen her former husband since the night he’d left, and as she watched him swagger towards her, wearing the midnight-blue Hugo Boss suit that she had chosen for him, she didn’t know whether to scream or cry.
Craig had never attended a Colville carnival, athletic or swimming, in all the years the boys had been at school.
Yet here he was, acting the model father, invading her Happy Place, and, worst of all, looking better than ever: more tanned, more relaxed.
His demeanour told the Colville community that Katrina had been the burden weighing him down and he was thriving without her.
She wanted to flee this horror show, but she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Not with everyone watching.
‘Do you have time for a chat?’ Craig asked in a businesslike voice.
Her anguish nearly choked her; he didn’t have a skerrick of shame. And why did everyone keep coming into the marshalling area?
‘Craig, spectators need to be in the stands. Can’t it wait?’
‘No.’
An announcement rang out of the loudspeaker: ‘Will all non-officials please leave the marshalling area, thank you.’
Katrina was trying not to collapse in a blubbering heap when the freckled mother from lane three came over and asked quietly, ‘Do you need a break?’ There was sympathy in her eyes.
With a tremulous smile, Katrina handed her the clipboard, picked up her handbag and turned and walked the length of the pool, shoulders back, boobs out, chin up, trailed by Craig.
She was aware that the eyes of nine hundred students, all the teachers, her friends and a gaggle of diehard swimming parents were trained on them, but Katrina refused to break down in front of her community.
She fast-walked to the teachers’ toilets a little way from the pool, stopping outside the door of the ladies.
At that point she and Craig turned to face each other, and she realised, with a jolt, that he was wearing a new purple silk tie that Roxane must have chosen for him.
It was elegant and understated, and looked so good with his blue eyes that it felt like a slap.
Roxane was better at choosing clothes than Katrina.
Roxane was better at everything.
But when Craig rubbed his hand over his bald spot, as he always did when anxious or ruffled, Katrina caught her breath. She knew him so well, she could read him with ease. A deep pang of grief supplanted her rage. After so many years, how could they have ended up like this?
‘I’m going to ask the boys to stay with me for at least fifty per cent of the time,’ he announced. ‘I’ve signed a lease on a big apartment near the beach while we sort out the house sale, so I won’t have to waste money on child support.’
The announcement was a body blow. Katrina swayed and leaned against the wall. Craig was trying to rip her sons away from her! Swinging an axe at her heart! But she wouldn’t collapse in front of him, she would not. She took deep, ragged breaths until she could speak again.
‘Justin hates the beach,’ she choked out.
A flutter of earth-toned linen caught her eye as Pauline appeared in the corridor. ‘Sorry for interrupting, just using the toilets,’ she said apologetically. ‘I always say these are the nicest ones in the school.’
Katrina blinked, startled. Was Pauline checking on her? It was a nice thought, but a bit intrusive. ‘We can’t talk here,’ she muttered to Craig, then led the way to the school hall, which she hadn’t entered since the gala.
She saw with resignation that the wall of dusty honour boards still hung above the fire exit.
Stopping near the stage, she wheeled around. ‘You can’t do this to the boys. You can’t rip Justin out of school and both of them out of their home just because you’re having a mid-life crisis. Especially since neither of them will want to live with Roxane.’
Katrina felt safe saying that. Not only was their father’s girlfriend almost young enough to date Hamish, who found this minimal age gap disturbing, but Justin couldn’t bear the thought of anyone replacing his mother.
‘Roxane’s agreed to move out when the boys stay,’ Craig said. ‘She’s very understanding, trying to make this situation work for everyone. I wish you’d give her a chance.’
Katrina gaped. Give the woman who’d helped destroy her marriage a chance? What drugs was he on?
Craig must have read her expression, because he hastily added, ‘Anyway, you don’t know where the boys want to live. We need to have a proper family meeting.’
Katrina gritted her teeth so hard, she thought she might crack a molar. ‘You’re the one who exploded our family and now you want a family meeting?’ As he sighed, she pressed her advantage. ‘Anyway, they like living in their own home.’
‘Don’t be silly. The house will be gone soon, and I’ll be damned if I’m paying another dollar for this stuck-up, candyarse school. You can’t earn enough to live like this. You know nothing about the value of money. How are you going to finance everything – with your engagement ring?’
Katrina felt the hot bite of tears behind her eyes but blinked them away. ‘I’ve flushed that ring down the toilet,’ she yelped, ‘just like you flushed our marriage away!’ It was a lie, of course, but she wanted to hurt him.
Craig’s face slackened with surprise, then tightened in anger. ‘You’d better be joking. You owe me half of that ring in the settlement, which you’d know, if you’d read my lawyer’s emails.
That’s a bloody expensive ring and it’s shared property. I have the valuation certificate, so if you’ve got rid of it, it’ll come out of your money.’
Katrina looked at him in shock, her heart hammering. Her precious, beautiful ring? Wasn’t even hers? No. That couldn’t be right.
A patter of footsteps. They turned to see Gabby and Nicola slipping into the hall.
‘Sorry, just using these toilets.’ Though Gabby’s tone was breezy, her eyes were telegraphing concern. ‘It’s a zoo at the other ones.’
‘Don’t let us disturb you guys,’ Nicola added, flashing Craig a belligerent look.
Katrina prickled with irritation. Couldn’t her friends see they were doing more harm than good? She spun around and marched into the storeroom where the gala museum had been. The inkwells and mannequins in historical uniforms had all vanished – just like Katrina’s history with Craig.
‘For God’s sake, will you grow up?’ Craig had followed her in.
He looked too large for the small room, and his force field of impatience made him seem even larger.
Katrina was a nuisance to him, a dull annoyance to be gotten through, like a passport renewal or the over-50s bowel cancer test. ‘You need to get your head out of the sand – you’ll be in an apartment soon,’ he pointed out.
‘Have you started looking for what you can afford? It won’t be in this area. ’
‘I’ll earn enough to keep the house.’ Katrina was trying to swallow a sob. ‘I’ve got this new event-planning business—’
‘Oh, please.’ Craig curled his lip, contempt written on his face. ‘You’re living in fairyland.’
Katrina couldn’t tolerate his disdain any longer. Pushing past him, she ran back into the hall, where Gabby, Nicola and Pauline were admiring the honour boards.
‘Kat! Darling, we’re here for you . . .’
Gabby stepped forward but Katrina dodged her, slamming straight through the main entrance, out into the sunshine. She needed air.
She knew Gabby and the others would want to comfort and analyse, the way they always had since high school; they would huddle around supportively with requests for her to replay the scene, blow by blow, then launch into a total character annihilation.
Everyone would call Craig an arsehole, a skeeze and a pathetic excuse for a human being.
Finally, the process would wind up with the usual supportive comments: ‘You’re too good for him, Kat’, and ‘We never thought he deserved you’.
Later, Katrina might find this ritual comforting, but right now she couldn’t face it.
She made her way to the car park, which was like an obstacle course, with vehicles left illegally on pedestrian crossings and nature strips.
She had to press the button on her key fob three times before her car would unlock.
When she’d cleared the school grounds, she roared off like a Formula One star, unleashing her anger and despair. But after a block, she slowed. Her vision was blurry and she wasn’t paying attention to the road signs. She’d hate to hurt anyone by driving in this state.