All She Ever Wished For

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘So to clarify, you wanted it returned because, as its rightful owner, you possibly wished to display the painting in your new home?’ Oliver leads him, and I’d almost swear the two of them have rehearsed this part.

  ‘I only wish that were the case,’ Damien smiles. Actually smiles. ‘Because believe me, if that were the case, I’d have given it to Katherine willingly, and with a whole heart. However, the painting was purchased in the name of the King family trust and as it’s a work of some note, our intention was always to make sure that it could be viewed by the general public at any time. The last thing I would ever want to do,’ he adds, with a quick, tight smile in the direction of the jury box, ‘would be to hoard it to myself under lock and key.’

  Oh God, this guy’s good, I think. So persuasive. So utterly convincing. The whole package.

  ‘So what were your plans for the painting?’ prods Oliver.

  ‘Quite simply, we intended to use it in a forthcoming exhibition based on the life of Rembrandt that would tour the USA. An A-list tour too; one that would take in galleries such as the Met in New York, the National Gallery in Washington and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.’

  ‘A noble aim indeed,’ Oliver nods, satisfied.

  ‘And at this point there’s something I’d like to add, if I may,’ Damien goes, respectfully turning to address us up here in the jury box.

  ‘Please do,’ says Oliver, waving his chubby hand in our direction and if I was a bit suspicious before, then now I’m totally convinced.

  They’ve practised this whole verbal tennis match between them.

  ‘I’d just like to take this opportunity to express my utmost apologies to each and every one of you,’ says Damien, looking up to the jury with utter sincerity written all over him. ‘Because I feel very strongly that a case like this should never have come to court in the first place. This is a simple, straightforward matter of misappropriated property, which should be returned to its rightful owner. Which as we’ve stated time and again, clearly is the King family trust.’

  I glance around and can visibly sense his words working their magic on the faces around me. The guy really is that persuasive.

  ‘And I’d just like to add something else, if I may?’ he adds.

  ‘Please,’ says Oliver, with another wave of his hand.

  ‘It’s heartbreaking to have to discuss this in a court of law,’ Damien says, ‘because I loved my ex-wife and continue to love her to this day. All I ever wanted to be was a kind, considerate and indeed generous husband. Throughout our long and happy years of marriage I’d gladly have gifted her anything she’d set her heart on. I wanted and continue to want nothing but the best for Katherine. Were it up to me, she’d be more than welcome to the painting. She could even use it as a dartboard, if that made her happy.’

  A few titters at that, before he goes on.

  ‘But sadly, A Lady of Letters isn’t mine to give, and never was.’

  Bloody hell, I think. He’s so utterly convincing that I can hear Mai beside me whispering, ‘You see? None of this was his fault. All her doing. Told you so.’

  ‘The only thing he ever did wrong was to love that greedy, self-centred woman,’ hisses Jane, who I swear to God looks almost on the verge of tears. A lot of us in the jury box are even looking at Damien King sympathetically now. Meanwhile from across the floor, Kate is blankly eyeing the wall behind him, barely reacting to a single line he’s saying.

  ‘Greed,’ Barney chips in, shaking his head. ‘Sure you can see it written all over her face. You only have to take one look at her.’

  ‘So the King family trust bought the painting and presented it to your ex-wife on her birthday, isn’t that correct?’ says Oliver.

  ‘Absolutely,’ says Damien, again turning to speak to us in the jury box. ‘But then I’d have done anything to make Katherine happy. Just to see the smile on her face. The only hitch was that it was never intended to become a personal possession of hers. As I’ve already stated for the record, A Lady of Letters belongs to everyone and not just to one single individual. If it did, then none of us would even be here.’

  Oh dear God, it’s like Minnie, Edith, Ruth and just about every pensioner I’m surrounded by is melting at that. The only one of us in the jury box who doesn’t look like he’s being swayed by such a compelling argument, I notice, is Will. Instead he’s sitting back, copiously taking notes and otherwise looking completely unmoved.

  ‘I want Katherine to be happy,’ Damien says calmly. ‘At whatever cost and whatever it takes. Except, regrettably, when it comes to A Lady of Letters. Because it’s just not in my power to give. My ex-wife is a wonderful woman,’ he adds, ‘and I know that were she quite herself, there’s no way she’d have resorted to behaving in this manner.’

  ‘No further questions, Your Honour.’

  ‘The Defence may take now cross-question the witness,’ says Judge Simmonds, glancing down at her watch. ‘But I must add that you’d be well advised to be as brief as possible. Be warned that I’ll be adjourning for the weekend very shortly.’

  Hilda Cassidy rises to her feet, her eyes flashing.

  ‘It’s been a long day for everyone,’ she says in that clear, unwavering voice. ‘So before we adjourn, I have just one short question, Your Honour.’

  ‘You may address the witness and pose your question,’ says Judge Simmonds, eyes still glued to her watch.

  ‘Mr King,’ says Hilda coolly, taking full advantage of the tiny parcel of time that’s available to her. ‘You’ve stated under oath that you very much loved your ex-wife, and still do, and that you’d do anything in your power to make her happy. Isn’t that correct?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ says Damien, looking so laid back that you’d swear he was about to order a pint of Guinness in a minute, to really get the weekend started.

  ‘Well, it’s very puzzling,’ says Hilda, shaking her head, ‘because the Defence have a key witness who will personally testify under oath to the fact that you gifted Katherine King this painting, as a birthday present. And as you know, under the terms of her pre-nuptial agreement, she’s legally entitled to keep gifts. Yet now, in this spectacular about-turn, you claim that the painting belongs to your family trust.’

  ‘And so it does,’ says Damien smoothly.

  ‘So let me get this straight. In April 2014, the painting is my client’s, and yet just a few months later, you seem to have completely changed your mind.’

  ‘That’s actually not the case at all—’ Damien tries to say, but Hilda barrels over him.

  ‘Which begs the question, what can have brought about this change of heart? You have a new partner, don’t you, Mr King?’

  ‘Objection!’ says Oliver, so sharply that every eye in court swivels towards him. ‘And how precisely is this relevant, Your Honour?’ he thunders on, approaching the judge’s bench. ‘This case is about the rightful owner of a painting, and to drag my client’s private life into it is unfair, unwise and frankly a waste of time.’

  ‘I’ll allow the question,’ says Judge Simmonds. ‘But be careful,’ she adds with a peering look down at Hilda.

  For a moment, Damien looks flummoxed, but he still answers the question anyway.

  ‘Yes, that’s correct, I have a new partner. It’s not a secret.’

  ‘It certainly isn’t,’ says Hilda. ‘So could your sudden change of mind possibly have anything to do with the fact that your partner is an art historian and an expert on the seventeenth-century Dutch Masters, notably Rembrandt? And that she is in fact hotly tipped to be appointed curator of this exhibition in the USA that you’ve just described to us?’

  A shock ripples through the court at that, as the judge calls us to order.

  ‘I’ll instruct the Defence not to pursue this line of questioning,’ she says, ‘as clearly, it can only ever be speculation. And I think we’ll adjourn right there for the weekend. Till then I would charge the jury to forget that last question and we’ll resume this hearing at 10 a.m.
sharp on Monday.’

  ‘Ah no,’ groans Minnie disappointedly from beside me. ‘I would have loved to have heard how Damien King tried to wriggle his way out of that one.’

  I know exactly how she feels too. It’s unfortunate that Hilda didn’t get to continue questioning him, but as far as the press are concerned it makes absolutely no difference. Whether it’s expunged from the record or not, it’s out there now and you can be sure that Damien only wanting the painting for the new girlfriend will be the dominant story wherever you look this weekend.

  Which, essentially, is the first point that Team Kate has actually managed to score.

  KATE

  Castletown House, April 12th, 2014

  Her birthday party

  None of her distinguished guests realised it, but Kate had already made up her mind exactly how she was going to fight her corner tonight. The only hitch being that she knew there wasn’t a hope in hell of her going through with it without the tiniest bit of medicinal help.

  A Lexotan, she decided, the welcome thought striking her while chatting to Mo earlier. Lexotan was a sedative her doctor had prescribed a while back, just to help calm her nerves when she felt anxious. Not quite as good as a stiff drink, but for now it would just have to bloody well do. She knew for definite there was a strip of them left somewhere upstairs in her room.

  Somehow she shook off Mo, made her way through the crowd of guests to the grand staircase and if she did stumble just a bit on her heels as she made her way upstairs, then all she could do was pray no one noticed.

  Thank God though she got as far as her bedroom without being accosted any further. But then that was the worst thing about a night like this; everyone wanted a piece of you, people didn’t seem to realise when you needed to do a Greta Garbo and just be alone. She closed the door firmly behind her and the cool of the room came as a blessed relief after the intense heat of one hundred and fifty assembled guests downstairs.

  Strange thing was that although she felt woozy, she still wasn’t out and out drunk, at least not that much, at least not yet. Nerves and adrenaline had kept her in overdrive all evening and now suddenly she knew she had to lie down.

  Perching on the edge of the giant, four-poster bed, she kicked off her shoes, cursing herself for not having the foresight to have brought a drink up here with her so she could at least have savoured it in peace; anything rather than having to endure all the frowning and hissed tut-tuts from guests, who’d seen how aggressively she was knocking back the G&Ts earlier.

  Downstairs she felt like her every move was being watched, but it was quiet and soothing and cool up here, even if the noise, the chat and the background music still drifted up. Everyone had turned up tonight, and by that she really did mean everyone. Even a few handpicked and carefully chosen press hacks were here, all of whom had been pre-vetted by Damien first, of course, to make sure they were fully ‘on side’ and could be guaranteed to write about the whole evening in the most glittering and effusive way imaginable.

  Well, good, Kate thought. They came here for a story and by Christ were they about to get one.

  She wondered how many of their guests had already noticed, how many knew that her days here at Castletown House were numbered. Doubtless the chatterers downstairs were already writing her off as a soon-to-be ‘first wife’. And even at that much, she’d failed miserably.

  It mattered not that she’d been the perfect wife in every other respect for the past fifteen years; that she’d wined and dined everyone Damien had wanted her to, that she’d entertained lavishly, never failing to look ornamental and to shine at his side just as he wanted her to, so they could act the part of Mr and Mrs Perfect Couple.

  ‘You’re my perfect girl,’ he used to say to her, back in the day. ‘Always stay my perfect girl.’

  But in their cloistered little circle, first wives had only one real role to carry out and that was to provide children – the more the better. Particularly for a man like Damien who was almost monarchical in his ambitions and who’d openly wanted as many heirs and spares running around who could be groomed to one day take over Globtech for him.

  The cold, hard fact though was that after fifteen years he and Kate were childless and there were no words to describe the dull, aching pain that caused her; day in, day out. It had almost got to the stage where she couldn’t even pass by a baby’s buggy on the street without feeling a familiar, sharp, tugging pain right to her solar plexus.

  These days Kate was even avoiding some of her girlfriends, mainly because all their chatter ever seemed to resolve around was kids. There was always one pal who was organising either a Christening, a Confirmation or else humbly bragging about how ‘little Sophie had just been cast as the lead in her school play’. Kate would listen politely, commenting when she was expected to, then escape to the bathroom for her own private lip-wobbling moment as soon as she feasibly could.

  With the sole exception of Mo, who’d always been a bit more sensitive than the others, it was as though this was all the women in her circle could talk about. Didn’t they realise what she’d already been through? Didn’t they know how empty and useless and stupid all their talk made her feel?

  Which of course meant the stage was practically set for someone like Harper Jones, all of twenty-seven years of age and doubtless with ovaries like Sten guns. She’d probably be pregnant before the year was out. Certainly if Damien had his way, which he invariably did. Then he could conveniently elbow Kate to one side, while claiming he was only doing the right thing in standing by his oh-so-young girlfriend and their unborn child. Thereby managing the difficult feat of getting exactly what he wanted, under the guise of being the good guy just trying to do his best, while still managing to curry popular favour from all sides.

  Vintage Damien, in other words.

  In fact his PR team were probably planning that far ahead already. Nothing would surprise Kate. Not any more.

  Suddenly she clearly heard more ringing at the doorbell, more noise and more of a kerfuffle as yet more bloody guests arrived.

  ‘Where’s my wife? Has anyone seen her?’ she heard Damien’s voice filter up as far as her bedroom door, instantly making her stomach clench.

  ‘I don’t know, Mr King. I’m so sorry, but I haven’t seen her since the party started,’ Elena, their housekeeper answered. ‘I thought she was in the drawing room with you.’

  ‘Well can you just find her, please?’ came the impatient reply. ‘She’s needed. Now.’

  Kate’s stomach flipped at the realisation that she couldn’t hide up here for very much longer. Suddenly she felt shaky, nauseous and weak with nerves. Where were those bloody Lexotan tablets she’d come up here for, anyway? She pulled open a drawer on the bedside table to check if they were there, but no, nothing. So in one quick move she was up and padding barefoot through the dressing room and on into the bathroom she shared with Damien. Or rather, that she used to share with him. Right now Kate was hard pressed to remember the last time they’d actually slept together as man and wife.

  She fumbled about in the bathroom cabinet, accidentally spilling over a whole open bottle of paracetamol, which bounced off the marble floor then scattered everywhere.

  Shit. Must be drunker than I thought.

  Normally she’d have been on her hands and knees scrabbling about to pick them up, but right now she was beyond caring. Instead she kept on rummaging around and quickly found what she’d been looking for. She unscrewed the cap and knocked back a single Lexotan, splashing a gulp of tap water into her mouth to wash it down. Then she thought, what the hell, why not have a second one? God knows if she was going to go ahead with this, then she’d need all the medicinal help she could get. Just to take the edge off, that was all.

  She was just about to replace the bottle when from the master bedroom door there was a loud knocking before someone just barged straight in. And only one person in this house ever did that.

  ‘Katherine! Oh for God’s sake, what the hell do you think
you’re doing?’

  Damien, suddenly standing right in front of her, taking it all in. The pills rolling around the floor, while she stood there with a bottle of sedatives clamped to her hand. Says everything, she thought from out of nowhere, that he won’t even call me Kate any more; almost like he just wanted to put the maximum distance between them.

  ‘I had a headache,’ she began to improvise weakly. ‘I just needed something to get me through the rest of the evening …’ But it was too late. He was straight over to her, grabbing her wrist, snatching the bottle from her and scanning the label.

  ‘Lexotan, Katherine? Seriously? With half the board of Globtech downstairs? And you’re slurring your words too, how many drinks have you had?

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve just had one or two – no more than anyone else here.’

  ‘The US ambassador has just arrived with his wife and you’re up here pill-popping and hiding away like some basket-case recluse? Get your fucking act together,’ he hissed at her, ‘if it’s not too much to ask.’

  ‘Well would you blame me?’ she retorted, the words halfway out of her mouth before she could rethink what she was about to say. ‘Given tonight’s guest list?’

  Then silence, while he coldly scanned her face. A hot, angry silence.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said after a pause.

  ‘Yes, you bloody well do.’

  ‘Katherine, you’re clearly drunk and you need to—’

  ‘So it’s OK for you to invite your girlfriend here tonight, but not for me to have a drink? I’m just expected to stand by and say nothing? Is that it?’

  ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ he said coldly, a façade of politeness in place now that they seemed to be on the brink of something this momentous. But then she and Damien rarely communicated at all these days. If she wanted to know what was going on in his life, generally she had to read about it in the papers.