All She Ever Wished For. Claudia Carroll

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СКАЧАТЬ one of those people who’s forever looking out at you from news-stands and on the cover of glossy magazines. In fact it’s impossible to sit in a waiting room anywhere in this country and idly flick through a copy of a social magazine without seeing her beautiful, sculpted and very definitely lifted face gazing haughtily back at you.

      The woman’s been a media darling for decades now, ever since she first started out as a model. Even more so since she managed to nab Damien King, one of the wealthiest men not just in this country, but in the world. So for years she wasn’t just beautiful and famous, but the trophy wife of an actual billionaire, and apparently with no intention of not rubbing peoples’ noses in their obscene wealth.

      On paper, I think, eyes focused on the road ahead, there’s never been any reason to dislike the woman and yet the weird thing is that everyone does. For years she was just too upfront about her glittering lifestyle, and it stuck in people’s throats. In the worst throes of the recession, it was like the Kings were going out of their way to flaunt their obscene wealth in everyone’s faces; the private planes, the statement homes, his fortieth birthday party that according to the papers cost over two hundred thousand, all while people who lived near the Castletown estate, not two miles from her front door, were having their homes repossessed.

      Kate King is almost like a Marie Antoinette character of our age; you mightn’t particularly like her and yet you still feel this irresistible pull to read all about her.

      And like most of us, I vividly remember reading about her being in breach of a number of court orders about a year and a half ago now. Something to do with this painting, A Lady of Letters, or whatever it’s called – a priceless Rembrandt, apparently. The one Damien King was prepared to bring charges against his own wife to get back.

      Or ex-wife, I think, correcting myself. Because if Your Daily Dish and The Goss and just about every other online journal I scan through these days are to be believed, Kate and Damien have been living separate lives for years now and are just biding their time apart till they can officially divorce.

      I’m a bit behind with the news these days, what with all the wedding planning, but I know from my most gossipy pal Monica, who’s obsessed with the Kings, that Damien has apparently shacked up with another woman, someone much younger. And did Monica mention something about this young one being an art historian?

      I vividly remember charges being brought against Kate King over this painting she allegedly refuses to give back, and it being a huge story at the time. The press had a field day with it. It was everywhere, even made headlines on the TV news, that’s how dominant the story was. Everyone was talking about it and from the sounds of it, they still are.

      ‘You know, I heard that Kate King is refusing to leave that big Wicklow mansion they live in,’ another caller chimes in, yet another woman all-too anxious to stick the knife into Kate King. ‘She’s holed up there without a stick of furniture in the place, and she still won’t budge. Damien King will probably have to get another court order just to sandblast her out of there.’

      ‘She’ll get a right shock when he divorces her and she ends up in emergency accommodation somewhere,’ another quips, a bit cruelly.

      ‘Damien King bought that painting and he’s saying he’s the rightful owner, so what makes that ridiculous woman think that she can just cling on to it like this?’ says another.

      Then a taxi driver calls in and thankfully his is the first reasonable voice I’ve heard on the show so far.

      ‘Here’s what I don’t get,’ he says as the host invites him to throw in his two cents worth. ‘We all know Kate King has been charged over this, and we all know she’s in breach of court orders and that this isn’t going to end well for her. But what I don’t understand is this: why doesn’t she just give the shagging painting back to Damien King, if he wants it that badly? She’s the ex-wife of a billionaire, so she can’t be short of a few bob. Why is she bringing all this press attention and humiliation on top of herself when she could get out of it in the morning?’

      ‘Because she wants the money, of course,’ another caller on the line shouts over him. ‘That’s all she’s ever been after, that’s the only reason she even married him in the first place. Everyone knows that. That’s a Rembrandt you know, worth €95 million. So wouldn’t that set her up very nicely for life?’

      ‘She’s also trying to get back at Damien King too, never forget that,’ says another. ‘He’s got a new girlfriend now and apparently they’re engaged, that’s what I heard. So if you ask me, Kate is clinging on to the painting for no other reason than to get back at him. He’s dumped her, he’s traded her in for a younger model, and that painting is the thing that he loves most in the world. So she’s determined he’ll never have it, because that’s the vindictive type she is. Sure you’d know by the look of her.’

      None of these people have ever even met Kate King, I think. And yet they can be this vicious about a complete stranger, without hearing her side of the story first?

      I glance over to Bernard wishing he were awake so we could have a proper gossip about it. Because there’s a mystery here alright. Why would the woman invite all this trouble into her life and all of this negative press, when it could so easily be avoided?

      It starts to rain now and as I switch on the windscreen wipers, my mind wanders back to another rainy night, oh, it must be about two years ago now. There I was, scurrying across the Ha’penny Bridge in bucketing rain, when I accidentally stumbled upon Kate King herself. But the woman I came across seemed absolutely nothing like the she-devil they’re all so freely having a go at on the radio.

      In fact, what I remember is a sad, lonely woman standing all alone on the bridge, soaking wet and with tears pouring down her face.

      And so I switch off the radio.

      Conflicted.

       KATE

       July 2001

      With just a few weeks to go to the big day, as you can imagine for a wedding on such a titanic scale as this one, it had been panic stations. Kate and Damien’s wedding was to be held at Castletown House, which had been gifted to Damien as a twenty-fifth birthday present and which could comfortably seat a guest list of three hundred with ample room to spare. Which was just as well given that the final, confirmed list of guests was rapidly escalating by the day.

      Damien was not only an eldest son, but also the first of the King siblings to get married, so his family were determined to really push the boat out. The President was expected, along with no fewer than four other members of cabinet as well as the country’s honorary consul to Monaco, where the Kings held a villa purely for ‘tax status’.

      A giant marquee was to be erected on the sprawling south lawn at Castletown House for the reception and local florists in County Wicklow were working on high overdrive to have everything ready in time. Not only that but Robbie Williams, Damien’s favourite singer, had been booked to play at the reception.

      Meanwhile, about a week before the wedding, Kate herself was just in the middle of a pre-nuptial panic attack over her wedding dress. She’d lost so much weight in the run-up to the big day that during her final fitting the dress almost threatened to drown her. The dress was utterly stunning in every sense; a close replica of the wedding dress worn by Princess Grace on her marriage to Prince Rainier, made of crushed СКАЧАТЬ