All She Ever Wished For

by Claudia Carroll

  ‘Nude selfies, the whole works,’ she’d said.

  Over the years Kate must have heard a dozen stories, all with real human pain and heartache behind each and every one.

  And now it’s my go. My turn to be the one to keep the rumour mill in overdrive. My turn for all the pity and the pain.

  She liked to think that just about every woman in her circle who’d been through the same thing would support her, reassure her, maybe even give her a shoulder to cry on. It just didn’t lessen the unimaginable, searing sting of it, that was all.

  ‘Come on, Kate,’ Mo said, cutting across her thoughts. ‘Talk to me.’

  Kate took a sip of the coffee in front of her, which seemed to help. Not as much as a stiff G&T, or better yet, one of her Lexotan pills, but she could always have one the minute she got home, without Mo or anyone else around to judge her.

  Come to think of it, with Damien now officially moved out, who was to stop her from drinking herself into a stupor all day? In fact, that was probably the most comforting, reassuring thought she’d had all morning. So, spurred on by that she began to open up a bit.

  ‘You know he’s strayed before,’ she said, and Mo nodded. ‘More than once. But never, ever anything like this.’

  ‘You know that for certain?’

  Kate nodded. ‘Thing about Damien is that he likes to think he’s unreadable,’ she said in a meek little voice so unlike her own. ‘It’s something he prides himself on in business. None of which is helped by the fact that he is and always was an excellent liar.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed,’ said Mo wryly, but then her husband Joe was the CFO of Globtech, so if anyone knew his modus operandi inside out, it was Mo.

  ‘Plus he’s had every opportunity to play away from home. Not when we were first married, of course, but over the last few years it got so I could almost sense it, to the extent that the sheer worry alone was nearly pushing me over the edge. And whenever I’d confront him on it, there’d always be a perfectly plausible excuse, usually work-related.’

  ‘Well he does travel an awful lot,’ said Mo, which was true. For the past few years Damien seemed to spend as much time out of the country as he did at home, to the extent where his accountant had almost persuaded him to declare himself a tax exile. Globtech was one of those spidery corporations with tentacles everywhere. You name it, from Buenos Aires to Beijing, they had more worldwide operations on the go than Starbucks.

  ‘Then just under a year ago—’ Kate began to say, but broke off as a raw, visceral memory from Saturday night suddenly shot up to the surface, sharp as broken glass.

  Jesus, she thought, suddenly feeling she needed to be sick, right here, right now, at the table if need be. It couldn’t be true, could it? Had she actually seen what she’d seen? She certainly thought she’d noticed something on the night, but she must have been so out of her mind with booze that she’d just buried it away. But now here it was in the cold light of day, clear as crystal, waiting for her.

  Her very worst nightmare come true.

  ‘Kate?’ Mo said, looking worriedly over at her. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve gone white as a sheet.’

  ‘I think that – on Saturday – at least I thought I noticed—’ but she broke off here, unsure whether she could make it all the way to the end of her sentence. Would Mo even believe it? For Christ’s sake, she was having enough difficulty wrapping her head around it herself.

  ‘You think you noticed what?’

  But at that Kate bottled. Not here. Not now. Not in public. It was too humiliating, too painful. She didn’t think she could even tell Mo, who was being so lovely to her and who she implicitly knew she could trust with anything. Just at the thought of what she’d witnessed, her hand began to tremble involuntarily when she reached for the coffee cup in front of her and suddenly all she wanted was a drink. Now. She needed one, she couldn’t possibly get through today without one. Or two. Or ten.

  She had to get out of here, to get home. To be safe and to hide away, even from well-meaning friends and acquaintances. And to drink herself into a gentle sleep till all of this just magically went away.

  TESS

  The present

  Sunday morning and after a sleepless night during which I dreamt vividly that the wedding marquee blew away and we ended up having the entire reception at Pizza Hut in the Nutgrove shopping centre, unsurprisingly I wake up wrecked, red-eyed and with a pounding headache. I listen out for a bit but there’s total silence in the house, which means Gracie, Mum and Dad are all still out for the count. I can only hope they are enjoying their Sunday morning snooze after what they all had to suffer through last night.

  I know there’s only one thing for it whenever I feel this shite, so I give myself a healthy dose of the same advice I give to all my clients at the gym whenever they’ve overdone it the night before. Mind you, generally it’s far easier to dole out this advice than to actually follow it myself.

  I haul myself out of bed and somehow manage to root out leggings and a fleece from the back of my wardrobe. I even manage to lace myself into a pair of trainers, stumble my bleary-eyed way out the door and into the car. Because in the fragile state I’m in after last night, deep down I know that there’s only one thing that’ll sort me out properly.

  Last night. Jagged memories of Bernard and his family and that awful club of his keep coming to me in shards. But I shove them to the back of my mind, knowing that a good endorphin rush is by far my best hope of dealing with everything later on. Much later on, preferably when I’m dosed up with coffee and am able to think straight.

  Till then though, there’s only one place where I’ll be able to run in peace and park all thought of what happened. In fact just about the only place where I can clear my head without Mum, Dad or, God forbid, Gracie chipping in their two cents worth.

  From our house it’s just a ten-minute drive to Dun Laoghaire pier and given that it’s still only eight in the morning, I know there’s not a chance of my meeting another soul here. Which couldn’t be better. I park right by the end of the pier, clamp my iPod on, lace my trainers up tighter and get moving.

  Apart from the odd early-morning dog walker, I’ve got the whole pier to myself and already the crisp fresh air and the sight of the morning sun dappling on the water’s edge is starting to work its magic. I hit the shuffle button on the iPod and start to run, slowly at first but gradually building up a gentle – a very gentle – momentum.

  ‘Uptown Funk’ by Mark Ronson comes on first, then a bit of Foo Fighters, and by the time my playlist hits ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams the fug from last night is finally starting to lift a bit. But then it’s just impossible to wallow on a morning like this, when I’m surrounded by water, in peace and solitude and with the fresh sea breeze full in my face.

  I’m just getting into my stride when in the distance I notice another runner coming towards me, head to toe in black Lycra with a black baseball hat pulled down low over her face. It’s only as the figure gets closer that I see it’s a woman, tall and stick-thin, with blonde hair tied back into a ponytail. She slows her pace down to a walk, panting for breath as if she’s at the end of a long run.

  Without really looking at her I nod a quick good morning; jogger code for ‘aren’t we the hardy souls out at this hour, when normal people are settling down to the Sunday supplements and a fry-up’.

  But next thing, she stops right in front of me. I wonder if she’s in trouble, has maybe lost her car keys or something, so I switch the iPod off and turn to face her. And that’s when I realise that I actually know this woman. That most of the country knows her, in fact.

  Because it’s Kate King.

  ‘I recognise you,’ she says, speaking softly. ‘You’re … you’re who I think you are, aren’t you?’

  I nod back, utterly shocked. Jesus, what are the odds? Only in an overgrown village like Dublin could something like this happen. I stand rooted to the spot, unable to think of a single thing to say back to her.

&n
bsp; ‘Thought so,’ she says, taking my silence as a tacit yes. ‘I’ve spent the last week looking across a courtroom at you.’

  ‘We shouldn’t speak to each other,’ I eventually find voice enough to say, the thought of what Moany Mona would do if she found out at the forefront of my mind. We were all given a stern lecture by her the other day about ‘jury contamination’ and warned that something like this – even a chance encounter that’s pure coincidence – could result in the case being thrown out of court and a new jury having to be sworn in. Whereupon the whole palaver has to start all over again, right from scratch.

  ‘I need to go,’ I say. ‘Now. In case we’re spotted.’

  ‘I understand,’ says Kate quietly. ‘And I promise I won’t tell if you don’t.’

  ‘No fear of that. Doubt anyone would believe me anyway.’

  ‘I come here every Sunday for a run and I never thought I’d meet anyone. I thought it would be private,’ she says, almost like she’s talking to herself.

  ‘Me too.’

  We look at each other for a moment, or rather Kate looks down at me she’s so tall. And I swear I can almost see the thought written across her ghostly white face.

  My good name, my reputation and my whole future lie in this girl’s hands.

  ‘I’d better get going,’ I say, and she nods in understanding. ‘So I suppose … all I can do is wish you good luck.’

  ‘And thank you for your discretion,’ she says, humbly and sincerely, a million miles from the Kate King that the media portray. ‘I am grateful to you, honestly.’

  I’m just about to plug into my music again and get back into my stride when she stops me.

  ‘I’m sorry and I know I shouldn’t …’ she says simply, ‘but I can’t not say this before you go.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘That it’s not what you think, you know. Absolutely none of this is what you think.’

  *

  On my way back home I stop off to buy a stack load of the Sunday papers, which as you’d expect are full of the King case and very little else. I’m flicking through them at our kitchen table trying to find something to read that’s nothing to do with the case when Gracie half-staggers in, hair like a bird’s nest and with the dregs of last night’s mascara smeared under her eyes.

  ‘Coffee’s just made,’ I tell her. A grunt is the only answer I get back though.

  ‘Good night?’ I ask chirpily, feeling brighter after my run.

  ‘Better than yours anyway,’ she says, helping herself to a mug of strong coffee. ‘Christ, I need this. So, any word from the boring fart himself?’

  Shit. I never even checked my phone to see if Bernard was in touch. I scramble out of the chair and go to the kitchen counter where I’d left it charging last night. Says a lot that all Gracie has to do is refer to ‘the boring fart’ and I instantly know who she’s talking about.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, totally surprised as I check the phone. ‘No missed calls, no texts, not a single thing.’

  ‘Then it’s just as well you don’t seem all that bothered.’

  A pause while she sticks toast into the toaster.

  ‘By the way, who was that bloke you introduced me to in the bar last night?’

  ‘Oh, you mean Will.’

  ‘Yeah, him. How do you know him?’

  ‘Well, ehh, he’s sort of working on the King case too.’

  ‘You mean, like a juror?’

  ‘Well … yeah. Why do you ask anyway?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. There’s just something really familiar about him, that’s all. It was driving me nuts all night trying to think where I knew his face from.’

  KATE

  Castletown House, June 2014

  ‘Katherine?’

  ‘Damien?’

  Kate’s heart instantly twisted in her ribcage. But then this was the first informal contact she’d had from him ever since their three-minute conversation the morning after that bloody party when he’d told her he was leaving. Then he’d left Castletown House so fast, you could barely see him for dust. His mind was made up and that, as far as he was concerned, was that.

  ‘Are you driving?’ Damien asked briskly.

  ‘Erm, yes, actually,’ Kate stammered.

  ‘Then pull the car over.’

  Jesus, she thought, her heart racing as her stomach shrivelled. What the hell could this be about? She’d already been inundated with letters from solicitors over the past few weeks but as far as she was concerned, they may as well all have been written in Sanskrit.

  But then that’s how Damien liked to do things; once you were axed, he barely even bothered giving you the time of day. He was exactly the same in business, was famous for it. Damien even had a habit of changing his mobile phone number once every six months to guard against ex-employees (or, far more likely ex-girlfriends) who’d dare bother him.

  So it had been naïve of Kate to assume she’d be treated any differently. To date, any and all communication between them had been via all those formal, official-looking letters which she’d been strongly advised to pass on to her own solicitor, but so far had done absolutely nothing about.

  These past few weeks, a good day for Kate was one where she actually managed to drag herself out of bed and as far as the shower. The only reason she was even behind the wheel of her car right now was because she needed to get to the local off licence to stock up. Pointless asking Elena the housekeeper or any of the few staff left at the house to go for her, mainly because all she’d get were more raised eyebrows and frankly she’d had enough of that lately.

  Already she’d taken to hiding empty bottles around her bedroom, with the intention of getting rid of them later on, when Elena was out and not around to judge her. And already she’d been caught out. Mortifyingly too. Elena had been hoovering her walk-in wardrobe when she accidently knocked over a pair of riding boots and discovered two bottles of Hendrick’s gin, neatly stuffed inside either boot.

  ‘Mrs King, this is no good for you,’ Elena had sniffed in her broken English, while Kate pretended to be far too absorbed in reading a text off her phone to take in what was being said.

  ‘Is too much alcohol. You never use to drink like this and is very, very bad for you. No good hiding away here, need to face your problem. Need to be strong. Mr King very strong man, very powerful and you must be like a tiger to face him. Not like this, weak and sick and so white. Like ghost. Need to stop drinking and eat good food instead.’

  She knew Elena only meant well and was speaking out of compassion, but still. The minute she was out of the room, Kate helped herself to yet another large G&T. Anything to help propel her through yet another hour. Because that was how she was living these days; from minute to minute, hour to hour, day and night almost blending into one.

  ‘My legal team are anxious to set up a meeting with you at your earliest possible convenience,’ Damien said, pulling her back to the phone call. ‘They’ve been trying to reach you for quite some time but it seems all of their communication is ignored.’

  ‘Is that so,’ Kate answered flatly, thinking, well, that’s what all this is about then. Legals. Separations. All of the things that she’d so successfully been hiding away from for the past few weeks. As if by keeping her head in the sand for long enough, it might all just go away of its own accord.

  ‘So it might be an idea to reply to them one of these fine days?’ Damien added curtly, but Kate said nothing. Just stared out the car window onto the vast rolling parkland that bordered Castletown House.

  How much longer have I got here, she wondered. This home that I’ve loved so much and put so much of myself into … how long before they arrive with a removals van to turf me out? After that, it’s only a matter of time before he moves into my home with … she broke off here though. She still found it hard to articulate the name without her stomach clenching so tight it almost made her nauseous.

  ‘But as you can imagine, that wasn’t my primary reason for calling you,’ Damien w
ent on. And this time, Kate switched off the engine, instinct telling her there was worse – a lot worse – to come.

  A drink. Suddenly she needed a drink so badly that she broke into a cold, clammy sweat. And who cared that it was only eleven in the morning? Disapproving looks from Elena aside, who was even going to notice?

  ‘What now?’ she managed to ask in a tiny, quivery voice.

  ‘There’s something else you should know before you read about it in the papers or online,’ he said, but this time sounding a million miles from the confident, self-assured Damien she knew so well. Kate automatically clenched the palms of her hands to the steering wheel, suddenly remembering what it was she’d noticed the night of her birthday and now dreading that the worst was still to come.

  ‘And that is …?’

  ‘It’s Harper,’ he eventually said. And in a flash of clarity that cut through her muggy, hungover haze, Kate knew exactly what this call was all about.

  Suddenly she had to focus very hard on breathing.

  ‘The thing is, Harper and I are expecting a baby,’ Damien went on.

  I knew it, Kate thought, frozen in shock with the phone clamped to her hand. I bloody well knew it. The pointed way that Harper refused all alcohol at the party, and waved away the blue cheese canapés. Even the catering staff had commented on it. Kate had somehow absorbed it all and, remembering back to her own early days of pregnancy, suddenly put two and two together.

  ‘So you see the sooner you and I can tie up all our loose ends,’ Damien went on in a voice cool as metal, ‘the sooner she and I can make it official.’

  ‘Make what official?’ Kate asked numbly, feeling a bit like someone who’d just severed a limb; not in pain yet, but in the full expectation of it to come.

  ‘Well, our engagement, of course. Like I told you, she and I are together now. And we plan on staying together. I’m finally going to be a father, Kate. I thought you’d be happy for me. And I just thought it more respectful to tell you in person. Before you see it in the press.’