Chapter 15 #2
Michelle swallowed. She sat up straight, heart in mouth, and did as Ilse had instructed.
Immediately, her screen was flooded with news headlines – Kirk’s Tasty Morsel!
Keane on This Cutie! Dirty Kirk’s Secret Sweetheart!
Michelle groaned as she scrolled from headline to headline.
Identity of Kirk Keane’s Mystery Woman Revealed, she read.
Kirk and Pippa on the Rocks. There was quite a lot about ‘Pippa’s pain’, and how Pippa Peters had only turned to her ‘hunky French co-star’ for ‘comfort and support’ after learning of her husband’s ‘insatiable hunger for the company of a shapely, mature housewife living on Sydney’s affluent upper North Shore’.
And there, scattered among numerous shots of Pippa Peters in plunging necklines, were pictures of Katrina.
Not just crawling around Kirk’s garden, but looking glamorous and sexy at various Colville functions, on a friend’s boat, in a pool, at a wedding.
There was even a photo of seventeen-year-old Katrina in Grease, wearing those familiar skin-tight pants and a come-hither expression.
But the most alarming snaps had been taken more recently – on Tuesday and Wednesday, in fact.
They showed Katrina in outlandish outfits entering and leaving Drew’s house, slipping through Kirk’s front gate and finally, in her normal clothing, walking across the grounds of Colville Grammar.
Michelle could understand the Kirk shots – and even the ones from the school, if the media had discovered who Katrina was – but why would journalists have been trailing Katrina when she was at Drew’s house?
Then Michelle’s scrolling thumb froze on a screenshot of the Dreamwives website, and she gave a squeak of horror. ‘Webb works for this private company, which promises a “confidential service”,’ the caption read. Who on earth had told the press about Dreamwives?
The answer hit Michelle as soon as she stumbled across another story featuring a photo of Katrina, this time draped all over a hot-looking Nick at one of the Grease rehearsals, thirty-odd years ago.
Suddenly it was obvious: Nick had provided the old pictures.
Nick knew all about Dreamwives, and had almost certainly taken the photos outside Drew’s house, since he’d been following Katrina on Tuesday. There was no other explanation.
But why? Why would he spill all this stuff to a muckraking journalist, when he was smitten with Katrina? Michelle was at a complete loss until she started reading one of the stories:
Katrina Webb is the mystery blonde recently seen romping with Kirk Keane in the celebrity chef’s exclusive Eastern Suburbs garden of love, wearing a vintage Giuseppe Grasso ‘Aruba Ariba’ cocktail dress (see similar, $799).
A married woman, Webb is no stranger to the high life.
But parents at the elite North Shore private school where she volunteers have been shocked to learn of Webb’s secret evening trysts in colourful costumes with men across Sydney, working for a company called Dreamwives, which promises its clients a ‘confidential service’.
A concerned father and former pupil is outraged that Webb is often at the school mixing with impressionable students. ‘You have to question her influence on the children,’ he says. ‘Is my daughter being corrupted by this woman and why isn’t the school doing something about it?’
Other parents were equally concerned.
‘She was always boy-crazy,’ says one Colville mother. ‘Also, we later discovered, girl-crazy. I heard she exposed herself backstage to dozens of students during a school musical.’
A second Colville mother said she thought Webb’s upcoming divorce had triggered her behaviour. ‘She’s always been emotionally unstable, but now she’s a complete mess. I hope she finds the healing she needs.’
Another Colville mother added that she’d heard Webb had had threesomes and was ‘wild and sexually out there’.
Michelle gasped. Could the ‘concerned father’ be Nick? If Nick was spewing toxic crap about Katrina, then it had to be because she’d rejected his advances. With some men, that was all it took.
Michelle was trying to find Nick’s name buried somewhere in the torrent of online garbage when she heard a ping. It dawned on her that she’d been receiving a steady stream of texts and emails over the last twenty minutes, all of which had barely registered because she was too busy doom-scrolling.
The first was from Drew: Pls cancel next week’s appointment.
The second was from Ilse’s CEO friend: Not worth risk. Sorry. Just paid cancellation fee.
Then came the magistrate, the football guy, the politician – all their clients, all cancelling. From the website, a torrent of dick pics was accompanied by countless short, offensive, misspelled messages requesting Katrina to do unspeakable things.
Jesus. Michelle dropped her phone onto the sheets and covered her eyes, rocking back and forth.
Not a single word from Filippo, but that didn’t surprise her.
Who would want to be involved in this category-one disaster, this Dreamwives death knell?
Because no matter how hard she tried, Michelle couldn’t see how they could claw their way back.
Once her name got out there, she’d be unemployable.
And it would be even worse for Katrina. Michelle was genuinely afraid for her – and felt deeply, horrendously guilty, because Dreamwives had been Michelle’s idea from day one.
Katrina had climbed on board, sure, but Michelle had started the engine.
Michelle set her jaw, picked up her phone again and tapped Katrina’s name. She should be the one to break the bad news. She couldn’t let Katrina stumble on to it accidentally.
But as soon as Katrina answered, Michelle knew she’d called too late. There was a long silence, then a sniffling noise.
‘Katrina? Are you there?’
A tiny gurgle. ‘Yes.’
Michelle grimaced and rubbed her forehead. ‘You’ve seen it?’ ‘Which one? Nick’s story?’ More sniffling. ‘Yes.’
‘It was Nick, then?’
‘Had to be.’ Katrina’s voice broke. ‘He must have taken photos when he was following me around, I guess. He was probably obsessing over my other clients . . .’
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
‘And Justin’s seen everything . . .’ Katrina seemed to choke, then sobbed, ‘He thinks I’m a sex worker! He’s locked himself in his room and he won’t even talk to me!’
‘I’m coming. Right now.’ Michelle slapped on the bedside light, jumped to her feet and cast around for something to wear. That T-shirt would do, with those leggings and sneakers. ‘Just hang on, okay? I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
Bra, socks, sunglasses. Phone and wallet and car keys. She was reaching for the door when she froze, her heart sinking.
What was she going to do with her dad?
‘You didn’t give me time to trim the old hooter,’ Rolf grumbled, fingering his nose hairs. He was sitting next to Michelle in the Yaris’s front passenger seat, cradling his leather toiletry bag, which was so ancient it contained a fitted Bakelite toothbrush holder. ‘Maybe I’ll do them now.’
‘No!’ Michelle used one hand to push him away from the rear-view mirror. ‘Are you kidding? You’ll end up sticking the scissors in your eye!’
‘Well, it’s not nice for your lady friend to see an old codger’s shaggy bits.’ Rolf hadn’t taken kindly to Michelle hustling him out of the house at ‘an ungodly hour’, but he’d quickly perked up when she’d mentioned that Katrina needed help. He was always keen to meet new women.
‘Katrina won’t care, Dad.’ Katrina wouldn’t care about anything much, except the ruination of her life. Michelle knew how she felt. Hadn’t she just lost Filippo?
‘I forgot my mouthwash,’ Rolf complained. ‘Can we stop at a chemist?’
‘No, we can’t. If you’re worried about your breath, don’t talk.’
‘It’s not for me, it’s for you.’
Braking at a traffic light, Michelle rounded on him.
‘I’ll drop you at the Randwick Seniors Centre for a tai chi class!
’ It was an empty threat, and Rolf knew it; they’d gone too far to head back now, and anyway, the centre wouldn’t open for another two hours.
But the edge in Michelle’s voice subdued him.
‘At least I can splash on some cologne.’ He pulled out his bottle of English Leather and unscrewed the wooden top, just as an unexpected pothole sent the bottle flying.
Cologne splashed across the glovebox, sprayed the windscreen and – after the bottle hit Rolf’s footwell – sloshed onto the floor mat.
‘Da-ad!’
‘Well, you shouldn’t be driving like Jack Brabham!’
Michelle lowered her window as Rolf tied himself in knots trying to retrieve the bottle. Though her eyes were watering from the intense bombardment of citrus and musk, she spied a cluster of vehicles outside Katrina’s house. One was a news van with a logo on it.
‘Shit,’ she muttered and drove straight past. She spotted seven or eight people on the footpath, some with microphones, one with a video camera. Journalists, for sure. How was she going to get in?
‘That was the news!’ Rolf craned to look back at the crowd that was already receding in Michelle’s rear-view mirror.
‘I know.’ Michelle took the next left, did a quick U-turn and pulled up with her nose to the intersection. From where she’d parked, she had a reasonable view of the chaos outside Katrina’s house, though she doubted the journalists could see her.
‘Is that where your friend lives?’ Rolf peered at the milling knot of media types.
‘Yes.’
‘Is she famous?’
‘Infamous, more like.’ Hence the media bombardment. Michelle couldn’t cope with it. She was too tired. Too distressed. What if she cried on camera?
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Rolf, frowning.
‘I don’t know. I feel bad. For Katrina.’ Rubbing her eyes, Michelle added, ‘How am I going to get past that lot? What if they won’t let me through?’
Rolf pushed open his door and started struggling to get out.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘What are you doing?’ Did he need a pee?
‘I’m off to get rid of those bloodsuckers. Help me with the walker, will you?’
‘You’re what?’
‘Get a move on, before I lose my balance.’
Forced from the car, Michelle wrestled with Rolf’s walking frame. ‘Dad, I can handle this, truly,’ she said.
‘Not as well as I can.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘It’s all about tactics. Now – give me my hat and wait here.’
He clumped away before Michelle could say anything else.
She let him go. Why not? If he wanted to make a fool of himself, she was too depleted to fuss about it.
Leaning against the side of the car, she watched him clunk clunk clunk up the road, roundly ignored by every reporter in sight until he launched into a full-throated attack.
‘What the devil do you mean by this?’ he roared. ‘Disturbing everyone at this hour – it’s a disgrace! I’ve a good mind to call the police . . .’
‘Do you know Katrina Webb?’ one woman piped up.
Rolf turned on her like a snarling bulldog. ‘You’re completely out of order! How dare you turn up here and block the thoroughfares! It’s criminal, how you people carry on. Do you know I’m a friend of the Minister for Communications? My word, I’ll have something to say to him about this!’
He kept railing at the journalists, getting right up in their faces, until the group began to disperse.
At first Michelle couldn’t hear what some of them were murmuring to each other.
Then a cameraman yelled, ‘Matcha almond milk latte!’ to a bearded bloke who was climbing into the van and she realised that at least four of them were driving off to get coffee refuels.
Rolf rounded on the Seven at Seven crew.
‘As for you lot, I’ve a bone to pick with you.
That story you did about the Rats of Tobruk last month – it was a complete fiasco.
The siege of Tobruk started on the tenth of April, not the first. And it was the Italians who’d built most of those underground defensive positions, not the Allied forces—’
Filled with grudging admiration, Michelle watched her father drive another handful of journalists away with the sheer tedium of his obsessive military interests. After they’d left, only one very junior intern remained. He looked about sixteen.
The intern and Rolf stared at each other. Then Rolf thumped his walking frame on the ground. ‘Piss off!’ he snapped.
The intern pissed off. Rolf waited until his battered little Mazda had disappeared, then turned and beckoned to Michelle, a big grin spreading across his face.
For the first time in a long time, he had come through for Michelle. It reminded her of the old days, when he’d sometimes take her side in family quarrels – though he always seemed to expect a gold medal afterwards.
‘What about that, eh? I told you I could do it,’ he said, when she reached him. ‘The weasels didn’t stand a chance. No backbone. Reminds me of Operation Fortitude . . .’
Oh, God. He was going to be impossible about this.