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 cream silk taffeta, encrusted with delicate pearls and with a twelve-foot lace veil, held in place with a simple wreath of cream tea roses.
Next thing, out of the blue, Damien’s father called her.
Instant panic stations. But then ever since she’d started dating Damien, Kate had only ever met his father on a handful of occasions. On every one of which he was dismissive of her almost to the point of rudeness. And never once had she been invited to call him by his first name, Ivan, so of course in her head she immediately gave him the nickname Ivan the Terrible.
‘Mr King, is that you?’ she said, answering her mobile in a froth of underskirts and taffeta at the designer showrooms where she was having her fitting. ‘How are you?’ Her tone was so respectful and over-polite that to hear her, you’d swear she was on the phone to a mortgage arrears company she owed a fortune to.
‘Kate, there you are,’ her father-in-law-to-be said gruffly while she strained so she could hear him properly. There was the deafening sound of engines roaring in the background, as if he were calling her from the airport.
‘How are things with you, Mr King?’ she asked nervously, not having the first clue what this could be about, and almost feeling like she might need to sit down to take this call. Ivan King terrified her, as he did most people. But of course that was something she could never even discuss with Damien, who idolised his father and who wanted so badly to emulate him. In fact you could almost say that everything Damien did and every success he scored in business was done with the sole purpose of impressing his dad.
‘I’m fit and well,’ Ivan said gruffly, ‘but then I’m always well. In fact, I’ve just touched down at Dublin airport and I’m on my way to see my solicitor in town. I’d like you to meet me there in one hour, please.’
There was no ‘are you free?’ or ‘does that even suit you?’ Just the presumption that she’d drop everything and rush to meet him. Which as it happened was exactly what Kate did, too terrified not to.
Exactly an hour later, with many rushed apologies to her designer, Kate found herself pulling up at McNally Ross solicitors just on the quays, right across the river from the Four Courts in the heart of the legal district. For about the fifth time, she tried calling Damien, to alert him to what was going on and to see if he had any idea what all this might be about. As bad luck would have it though, he was away in Brussels on business and his phone had been switched off all morning.
Ivan the Terrible was already in the so
licitor’s office ahead of her, waiting in the conference room, sitting at the head of the table as if he owned the place. Which, knowing him, he probably did. A grey-looking, bespectacled lawyer was introduced to Kate as a Mr Ross and Kate was invited to sit down in front of a legal document, with a pen strategically positioned right beside it.
‘You’re exactly seven minutes late,’ said Ivan the T, who Kate knew to be notoriously punctual and highly intolerant of anyone who didn’t meet his exacting standards. Mealtimes at the Kings’ house were a bit like an army drill, according to Damien.
‘I got here just as quickly as I could,’ she said politely, determined not to feel intimidated. ‘In fact, I rushed out on a designer friend of mine, just so—’
‘But you’re a model,’ Ivan the T interrupted her. ‘It’s hardly life or death stuff we were interrupting, now was it? What were you doing anyway, strutting down a catwalk or something?’
‘As a matter of fact, no, I was—’
‘I’m afraid Mr King can only spare us a few moments,’ the solicitor interrupted, ‘before he has to leave for the airport again. His time is very precious and we must all respect that.’
And my time isn’t precious? Kate thought crossly, but stayed tight lipped.
‘So Miss Lee,’ the solicitor went on, ‘if you’d just be kind enough to turn your attention to the document in front of you, then we can proceed.’
‘Oh now, you needn’t look so worried,’ said Ivan the T, waving his hand as if to dismiss Kate’s concerns. ‘This is absolutely nothing to concern you. All perfectly standard. We just need your signature on the dotted line, that’s all. Then we can all get out of here.’
Kate began to read the document, but scanning down through it wasn’t much help to her. It all seemed to be written in the most over-complicated legalese, littered with phrases like, ‘the third party pertaining to the first part,’ and ‘hitherto forth and dated this third day of July, should the marriage come to be terminated …’
This is a pre-nup, she thought, horrified. So that’s why she’d been summoned here, with Damien safely out of the country: to sign a bloody pre-nup. Without her own lawyer present, without any warning or notice. She was about to become Damien’s wife and now the King family just landed this on her and wanted her to sign her rights away?
Well, if they thought that she could just be bullied into putting pen to paper, then they had another thing coming. She had to talk this over with Damien, she just had to. Though instinctively she knew he’d probably laugh and tell her to rip the whole thing up, then fling it in the bin, where it rightly belonged.
‘I’m so sorry to waste your valuable time, Mr King,’ Kate said, standing up to her full height and pointedly shoving the document as far away from her as possible. ‘But there’s absolutely no way I’d dream of putting pen to paper on something like this. What you have to understand is that Damien and I love each other very much. We intend to spend the rest of our lives together and over my dead body would I ever consider discussing divorce before we’re even married. And I’m afraid to tell you, nor would Damien.’
Later on that evening, Damien came back from Brussels and immediately called Kate. They’d been due to attend a movie premiere that night, a new release called Gladiator that was hotly tipped for Oscars, but as soon as Kate told him what had happened, he cancelled. Instead, he whisked her off for a cosy dinner, just the two of them, in l’Ecrivain, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the heart of town where he was a regular.
Still shaky from the whole experience, Kate told him everything and was beside herself with relief when he was just as dismissive of the whole thing as she knew he’d be.
‘Oh, forget about it, I’m sure it’s nothing,’ he’d said, topping up their glasses with a bottle of Cristal Champagne that he’d insisted on ordering. Kate never drank, it was her one and only golden rule, but she was still so shaken after that morning that she made an exception.
‘Just the old man trying to protect family capital, that’s all,’ he went on. ‘In fact he faxed me over the pre-nup this morning too. I’ve got it here in my briefcase. Never even glanced at the thing. Hadn’t the time yet.’
‘Damien! And you didn’t think to call me? Just to give me a bit of warning that this was in the pipeline?’
‘It’s nothing! Trust me, this is just the way my dad is. Practically insists on a blood sample before he’ll even hire a new employee, so you can imagine what he’s like with a prospective daughter-in-law.’
‘It was so scary in there today,’ Kate said, allowing herself a tiny sip of champagne. ‘I was caught completely off-guard, so I had no idea what else to do.’
‘Sweetheart, by walking away from it you did the right thing. Besides, it’s grotesque imagining you and I ever at each other’s throats and screaming for a divorce. As if!’
Kate laughed and drank a tiny bit more.
An hour later, Damien was trying to convince her that this mightn’t be such a bad idea after all and that the pre-nup meant so little, she might as well sign it.
‘After all, sweetheart,’ he said, reaching across the table to take her hands, ‘you and I are never going to divorce anyway, are we? You’re my perfect girl. Why would I ever want to divorce my perfect girl?’
‘And I’d never divorce you in a million years,’ she smiled back at him, randomly marvelling at just how handsome he looked in the candlelight.
‘Well you know something?’ Damien went on. ‘Then what possible difference can this make? It’s just a signature on a piece of paper, that’s all. It means absolutely nothing to me.’
Three glasses of champagne later when dessert was being cleared, he’d got her thinking it was actually all in her own best interests really. And Damien could be so persuasive when he wanted to be.
‘Look at it this way,’ he’d said, eyes glinting in the dim light. ‘If you do sign, then in one fell stroke it proves two things to the old man: firstly, that you’ve absolutely no interest in the King family fortune and never had, and secondly, that you’re marrying for love and nothing else. Plus it would certainly get you off on the right foot with the in-laws, wouldn’t it?’
And by the time they called his driver around to take them home, light-headed from the champagne, Kate had already borrowed a biro from a passing waiter and signed on the dotted line.
TESS
The present
‘I look like the Irish flag,’ says Gracie, my baby sister and bridesmaid, shoehorning herself into the slinky little bottle green shift dress that she picked out for the big day months ago.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re gorgeous!’ I say brightly, sticking my head around the fitting room door, so I can get a good look at her parading up and down in front of the mirrors outside.
‘And it’s too tight. Either I’ve put on weight or else it just doesn’t bloody well fit properly.’
‘You’re as thin as a pin and it looks like a perfect fit to me.’
‘Is it too late to get something else instead?’ she whines, staring in the giant mirror ahead of her and fidgeting with the sleeves of the dress, almost as though they’re itching her.
‘You know right well it is,’ I tell her firmly, going back into my fitting room. ‘Besides, can I remind you that you’re the one who insisted on wearing that dress in the first place? So in fairness, it’s a little bit late to back out now.’
‘I know, but what in the name of arse was I thinking?’ Gracie insists. ‘A bottle green dress against my head of carroty-red hair and freckly skin? By the time you throw in the white posy, I’ll look like something off a St Paddy’s Day float. You should have held me back, you should have ripped the bloody thing off my back when there was still time.’
‘You’re absolutely stunning, Gracie, love,’ my mother coos over from a plush white armchair at a dressing table in front of a mirror, where she’s sipping Prosecco – at half three in the afternoon by the way – while trying on fascinators and having an absolute ball for herse
lf. ‘A good spray tan will sort you out and wait till you see. You won’t know yourself.’
‘I promise you this much, Mum,’ says Gracie, ‘if I ever get married, I’ll run away to the registry office just to spare you all this malarkey.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ says Mum, balancing her glass precariously on the edge of the dressing table. ‘And admit that deep down you really love dressing up. Besides, gay women have white weddings all the time these days, you know. Look at Ellen DeGeneres and your woman, what’s her name, the tall blonde one that used to be on telly.’
‘Not this gay woman, thanks all the same,’ says Gracie.
The three of us are in The Bridal Room as it happens, which is this really exclusive shop outside Kildare town, about an hour from Dublin. It’s boudoir luxurious in here, with plush velvet seating, deep pile cream carpets and, as you’d expect in a bridal showroom this posh, glasses of Prosecco on tap. It’s my last fitting before the big day, hence my dragging Gracie and Mum all this way for the ride. And so far, in spite of all the behind the scenes trepidation about this wedding from my side of the family, it’s been fairly stress-free for all of us. So far, at least.
In fact I’d go so far as to say that this really is the joyous, happy, fun day out that I’d hoped for, and as an added bonus, I’m not having to listen to yet more long drawn-out lectures from my nearest and dearest about why Bernard and I will never work out and how I’m about to make the biggest mistake of my life, etc., etc.
I’ve been putting up with that for months now and I can’t tell you how lovely it is to have a single day free of it. But then to a man, everyone around me has expressed doubts about Bernard, and the closer the big day gets, the more ominous those doubts seem to grow.
At this late stage, I’m basically sick to the gills of having to endure comments along the lines of, ‘he’s way too old for you!’ ‘You’ve absolutely nothing in common!’ ‘He’s so bloody boring!’ ‘You’re just doing this on the rebound!’ And somehow the most stinging of all from my dad, ‘ah pet, are you sure you’re doing this for the right reason? You know what they say, marry in haste, repent at leisure. And I’m not just saying that because I’m having to shell out a fortune for the bleedin’ thing either’.
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