All She Ever Wished For

by Claudia Carroll

  Will gives me a quick nod and clears the empty chair, which he’d slung his jacket and manbag over.

  ‘Make room for the Beatles fan,’ he says dryly as I pull into the seat beside him.

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘So did you make all your appointments yesterday afternoon?’ he asks, shoving a clumpful of coal-black hair out of his eyes. ‘Sorry, but it was impossible not to overhear you. You were on the phone for ages and it certainly made for intriguing listening.’

  I wince a bit as I remember just how waspish I was with him then, and seeing as how we’re all locked in to this jury thing together, decide that I’d better make peace.

  ‘You know, if I was a bit snippy with you yesterday,’ I say tentatively, ‘well, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to come across like that.’

  ‘Hey, you’re allowed,’ he smiles. ‘A bride’s gotta do what a bride’s gotta do.’

  ‘The thing is,’ I say, grabbing a bottle of water from the table in front of us, ‘I just don’t think I’m my best self when I’m stressed.’

  ‘Why are you stressed?’ he asks, folding his arms and looking keenly at me now. ‘Engagements are meant to be a happy time in your life, aren’t they? You know, marrying the love of your life and all that?’

  My stomach does an involuntary flip at the ‘love of your life’ comment, but I let it pass.

  ‘Oh God, how long have you got?’ I say, with a grimace. ‘You know, I think the whole trouble started when I decided that a great way to save money would be to have the wedding reception at home. I’m telling you, if I’d known then what was ahead of me and the sheer amount of hassle involved, I think I’d have just been a tiny speck on the horizon.’

  ‘Just remember,’ he says, dark eyes reading my face, ‘all that matters is that you turn up to marry him and he turns up to marry you. Because everything else is nothing more than white noise. Believe me.’

  ‘It’s Will, isn’t it?’ I ask, even though I’m pretty certain it is.

  ‘Yup. And you’re Tess. And this starter is pure vomit, if you ask me.’

  I smile at this because it’s true; we’ve just been served prosciutto that’s virtually one hundred per cent fat, on a bed of lettuce that looks like it first started wilting about two weeks ago. Just plonked down in front of us, without anyone being asked if they actually wanted it or not.

  ‘But don’t you really appreciate the amount of choice there is for us at this restaurant?’ I say, playing with the prosciutto that I can’t bring myself to even look at.

  ‘Personally speaking, I was overwhelmed at the breadth of the menu we were offered.’

  ‘Be interesting to see what they’d do if you came in and said you were a lactose-intolerant coeliac …’

  ‘Who’s vegetarian …’

  ‘And vegan,’ we both say together, as the starters are cleared away a bare three minutes after they were dumped down in front of us, boarding-school-style.

  ‘In fact the grub here is so delicious,’ says Will, tongue in cheek, ‘it almost makes you wonder what we’re in for as a main course. The Ebola special, perhaps?’

  ‘And based on this delightful culinary experience, I’m wondering where they’ll treat us to lunch tomorrow? Because I hear there’s a wonderful greasy spoon on the M50 where they do a mean egg and chips, swimming in a bed of congealed fat.’

  ‘Ah yes, I’ve heard about this,’ Will plays along, ‘although it could prove tricky to get a reservation. That place is Michelin-starred, I hear. And as you’re discovering, jurors are only ever entertained at the very best restaurants.’

  The main course arrives, again without anyone having a word of choice in the matter. Lamb shanks and soggy broccoli, in gravy with the skin already formed on top of it.

  ‘Ahh, a rare delicacy,’ says Will, playfully picking off the skin, his eyes glinting. ‘It’s our lucky day.’

  ‘In fact it all looks so divine,’ I tell him, ‘I’m thinking of changing my mind and having my wedding reception here instead.’

  ‘When is the big day?’ he asks, shoving his plate away and facing me now.

  ‘In just under four weeks,’ I smile. ‘Well, actually three weeks and four days, but who’s counting?’

  ‘And you mean to say you’re having your reception somewhere other than here at the Queen Street Arms? Let me guess, there’s a two-year waiting list to get in here and somehow you didn’t make the cut?’

  ‘And also the fact that I didn’t want our guests to feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the retro 1980s decor.’

  ‘I take your point. This place would put you in mind of Versailles, really, wouldn’t it?’

  He nods towards the peeling wallpaper with the damp behind it showing through and we both grin, just as dessert is served – jelly and ice cream in a bowl with a wafer on top.

  ‘You know someone should enter whoever designed the menu here into Masterchef,’ says Will. ‘I’ve been waiting on jelly and ice cream to be recognised as retro-chic and finally the Queen Street Arms have done it.’

  ‘From now on let’s call it the Ebola Arms, will we?’

  ‘Certainly has a ring to it. Could catch on.’

  We’re given about three minutes to knock back lukewarm teas and coffees before being ushered onto the coach and back to court. But just as everyone is gathering up coats and scarves to ward off the chilly April air, Will stops me in my tracks.

  ‘And by the way, Tess?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t let all the stress get to you. Just keep remembering that this is supposed to be a very happy time for you, and you’ll be fine.’

  ‘Yeah, I will, thanks. Marriage really is the best, isn’t it?’

  ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘Are you …?’

  ‘Am I what?’

  ‘Married?’

  A tiny pause while he looks at me with an expression that’s unreadable.

  ‘Divorced.’

  KATE

  The Goss.ie

  17th December, 2007

  KATE’s €90K CHRISTMAS SPENDING SPREE!

  Who else but Kate King could possibly manage to spend upwards of €90k Christmas shopping in a single day? The Goss.ie can exclusively report that Kate, along with her best friend Mo Kennedy and a few other close friends, flew to London City Airport in her husband Damien’s private Gulfstream jet, whereupon they transferred into a specially chartered helicopter which flew them directly onto the rooftop of Harrods. No humble taxis or pubic transport for these well-heeled ladies!

  Once Kate’s party arrived at Harrods, well-placed sources say they shopped for hours, only pausing to revive themselves with a snipe of Dom Pérignon at the store’s famous Champagne Bar. Kate allegedly sampled Harrods’ own vintage Hostomme too and enjoyed it so much that she ordered three dozen crates of it to be delivered to her palatial residence at Castletown House, just in time for Christmas.

  The ladies then spent the rest of the day shopping, with tens of thousands reportedly being spent on Christmas gifts. Well ahead of the posse though was Kate herself, who managed to nab no fewer than six designer dresses from Harrods’ couture hall in just under an hour, at a total cost of €20K. Then it was up to the gift department, where for the remainder of the day she reportedly blew another €40K on ‘gifts for the staff at Castletown’, as she later told us. These allegedly included a selection of TAG Heuer watches for the gentlemen and a whole assortment of Mulberry handbags for the ladies.

  The shopping party continued on till well past the shop’s official closing time. We’re reliably informed that Kate and her entourage then wound up an undoubtedly hectic day with dinner at The Wolseley, before retiring for the night to the Presidential Suite at – where else? – the Mandarin Oriental hotel.

  When The Goss contacted Kate to ask what she was planning to buy her husband Damien for Christmas, her response was, ‘well he’s recently developed an interest in Baroque art. So I suppose a Caravaggio. Or a Rembrandt. Whatever’.
/>   *

  ‘You’ve been following me around all day,’ Kate pleaded to the reporter who’d recognised her and who hadn’t let her out of his sight ever since he’d spotted her party first arriving in Harrods earlier that morning. ‘We’re just a few girlfriends having a private day out. Nothing more. Please understand I was speaking to you off the record. So you won’t write about it, will you?’

  But he went ahead and ran with the story anyway, embellishing freely as he went. Just like the bastards always did.

  TESS

  The present

  By the following day the press pack outside the courts has swollen and just trying to weave my way inside is like an obstacle course. I bump into Minnie doing exactly the same thing, though God love her, she has to take the steps slowly on account of her walking stick, so I link her arm, help her up and together we just battle our way through them. No one bothers taking our picture of course: they’re all saving themselves for either the Kings or else Oliver Daniels; grade-A paparazzi fodder.

  ‘Makes me realise what life must be like for proper celebs,’ Minnie smiles warmly as soon as we’re safely inside the courts building.

  ‘Makes me realise that I need to start wearing make-up before I leave the house.’

  Edith is in the lift ahead of us, full of chat about how she’s certain today is going to be a good one.

  ‘We’re due to hear all about the Kings’ separation agreement,’ she says knowledgeably. ‘Oh ladies, I can’t tell you how much I’m enjoying this case! I’m the envy of all my neighbours to have a front row seat here.’

  I wave at Will as we’re all ushered into the jury box and he gives half a wink back. He’s in a deep-blue shirt today and it suits him, brings out his dark eyes, I think distractedly. Possibly might be a nice fella for my pal Monica, if she were up for a blind date?

  But then that’s the thing about being engaged and in a secure relationship. You feel this need to match up the rest of the world as well. I’d been trying my level best to pair off all my single pals with some of Bernard’s colleagues, only most of them are ‘confirmed bachelors’. And considerably older too. Or as Monica dismissively said of one of them, ‘thanks, but no thanks. I point blank refuse to date anyone if they’re within five years of getting the free bus pass’.

  The whole morning in court goes by in a blur. As ever, all eyes are zipping back and forth like a Wimbledon centre court match between Damien and Kate King, assessing their faces, gauging their reactions to what’s being said. Which can be summarised thus: him, stoic and unflappable, radiating confidence; her, head down, eyes staring at the palms of her hands, white as a ghost. She’s dressed head to toe in black again today with just the hint of a white collar sticking out, blonde hair tied neatly back.

  ‘Even when Kate King isn’t all glammed up, she still looks fabulous,’ I hiss to Jane, who’s right beside me.

  ‘Hmm, if you ask me, she looks like Goody Proctor from The Crucible,’ Jane, our resident businesswoman who’s always dressed to impress whispers back. ‘Almost like she’s trying a bit too hard to create the illusion of innocence.’

  She can be a bit mistrustful, Jane, if you ask me.

  In summary, it’s not a good morning at all for Kate King. All Oliver Daniels is short of doing is pointing one of his pudgy fingers in her face and yelling, ‘gold digger!’ It’s all out in the open; there are absolutely no secrets here.

  Mind you, it’s all done very cleverly and subtly. Over the course of the morning, Oliver slowly weaves together a picture of the young Kate before she met Damien, doing very nicely as a model, thanks very much, but with her sights set on far, far loftier goals. He describes how she essentially lived out of a suitcase before they met and yet quickly adapted to the highlife the minute she got the ring on her finger.

  We’re told tales of her spectacular excess that would almost make a Euromillions Lotto winner blush. Damien King’s chief accountant is called as an expert witness and stuns us with some of the figures that Kate King managed to work her way through on an annual basis.

  ‘So Mrs King’s allowance was thirty thousand euros a month?’ Oliver puts the question to him, taking great care to emphasise the ‘thousand’.

  ‘Yes, but only very rarely did she actually stay within that budget,’ says our witness; a baldy, squinting middle-aged man who puts me in mind of a vole let out of its cage for the day. Then he hands around printed spreadsheets outlining what he refers to as ‘just a small sample of Mrs King’s monthly outgoings’. Every one of us in the jury box gets a copy, and it would nearly make your jaw drop. The figures that are being bandied around the court are staggering, unimaginable to the rest of us.

  ‘Mrs King regularly spent in excess of five thousand euros a month on facials, microdermabrasion treatments and botox … her hairdressing bills frequently ran into thousands … in fact on more than one occasion Mrs King flew her personal hairdresser out to join her on holiday so he could tend to her tresses …’

  ‘No local hairdresser she could have patronised?’ Oliver interrupts.

  ‘It appears that was never an option Mrs King would have considered.’

  Hilda is straight up on her feet, objecting like mad and spitting fire.

  ‘Your Honour, I can’t just sit here and allow the Prosecution to paint such a negative picture of my client. There were good reasons why her expenditure was high and I’d just like to—’

  ‘Credit card bills don’t lie,’ shrugged Oliver as the judge rules in his favour and allows him to continue this line of questioning.

  ‘And since when is it a crime to spend money?’ Hilda snaps back, full of indignation.

  My eye automatically drifts towards Kate to see how she’s reacting to all this, but again nothing. All she’s doing is just staring straight ahead, completely dead-eyed.

  Then a former butler who worked at Castletown House is called, takes the stand and is sworn in.

  ‘A butler?’ whispers Barney, our resident jury granddad, as I’ve nicknamed him in my head. ‘What is this anyway, an episode of Downton Abbey?’

  And Oliver Daniels’s character assassination juggernaut just keeps trundling on. We get an in-depth description of Kate King’s wardrobe, we’re even shown pictures of it on a screen. No kidding, it’s the approximate size of our whole house. There’s one entire room for her casual wear, another for evening gowns, plus a third that’s temperature controlled ‘so her fur collection could be kept at optimum temperature’.

  Disgruntled mutters from all around the court at that and from the corner of my eye I can see a pack of journos in the press box madly scribbling away. No prizes for guessing what’s going to take centre stage in the late editions and online. Because there’s no room for doubt and it’s just confirming what we knew all along; this is a woman who loved to spend her husband’s money and spend big. Oliver even draws a veiled parallel between Kate King and Imelda Marcos, right down to her shoe room, which again we’re shown pictures of and told that her collection exceeded several hundred.

  And as for the lady herself? It’s astonishing to witness really. Here she is having her good name torn to shreds for all the world to see. And her reaction? To sit quietly, stare blankly at the wall behind us, bite her lip and occasionally give the tiniest headshake. That’s it. No attempt at denial, no urgent notes passed to or from her barrister trying to defend herself.

  In fairness, Hilda Cassidy is trying her level best. Time and again she’s on her feet to cross-question witnesses, but sadly, ‘yes, this may seem like a lot of money to spend on clothes, but you must understand that Mrs King was a corporate wife and thus expected to look the part’, just doesn’t seem to cut it as a justification. I glance around the jury box and can almost read people’s thoughts. We all read the papers and we know for ourselves just how much Kate King enjoyed spending her husband’s money.

  ‘You must understand that Mrs King would never have dreamt of running up such expenses of her own accord,’ an exasperated Hild
a says at one point when she’s questioning the witness. ‘At least not without actively being encouraged to do so by her then husband,’ she adds, taking great care to address us.

  ‘It’s hard for us to get our heads around the colossal figures that are being bandied about here today,’ she goes on, ‘but all these expenses must be seen for what they were at the time: a very small percentage of Damien King’s annual salary, including all his remunerations. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you’ve got to put all these expenses into proportion. After all, isn’t a wife entitled to live in the manner her husband expects her to?’

  It’s a weak point though and it’s as if she knows it. The dogs on the street know how much Kate liked to spend; it’s been drip-fed to us by the media for years now. No question about it. This round just went to Oliver Daniels.

  *

  Lunch recess is called and that bossy woman with the iron-grey hair called Mona comes with us as we’re bussed back to the Ebola Arms, then ushers us upstairs into the same dingy, cabbage-smelling dining room we were in yesterday.

  ‘One hour for lunch, kindly be prepared to re-board the bus at 13.55 p.m. sharp!’ she says, just as I manage to catch Will’s eye. He does a mini Nazi salute behind her back and I can’t help giggling. Anyway, this time I’m sitting in between Barney and an elderly lady called Mai, who has a perm so tight it looks like someone poured a tin of baked beans over her head, and who literally doesn’t stop moaning from the very moment we sit down.

  ‘Terrible food. I had indigestion all day yesterday. And you know my bowels wouldn’t be the best anyway, so this is doing me no good at all.’

  I glance away and see that Will’s sitting about as far away from me as is possible. He’s sandwiched in between Edith and yet another older lady whose name I don’t know, but who I’ve silently christened Lily of the Valley on account of the perfume she wears.

  Poor Will looks like he’s fighting a losing battle wedged between Mapp and Lucia. He’s struggling to make conversation with them both, but I can’t hear a word they’re saying. The only other eye contact we share is when he holds up a forkful of gloopy beef casserole with so much stringy fat in it that it looks like a heart attack on a plate, and rolls his eyes over at me.