Claudia Carroll - All She Ever Wished For

Everyone knows a Glamazon like Kate King; or at least, everyone thinks that they do. She’s the type who’s forever in the papers flaunting her statement homes – and yes, that’s homes plural – or gracing high society dos, or else maybe perched on a TV sofa discussing her ‘charity work’. Always glossy and smiley and skinny, with her filthy rich husband never too far from her side. Kate King really was the woman who had it all.

But why the woman who had it all was now crying on a bridge in public in the lashing rain was quite another thing. It was a bit like stumbling across the Queen bawling her eyes out over the Thames; one of those things that you just couldn’t imagine happening.

Tess hesitated. She was dead late for the movie now and Bernard would probably be furious with her, but it felt wrong to just walk by when there was someone beside her clearly distressed and needing help. Kate King really did seem to be in a right state; supposing she was on the verge of doing something stupid like throwing herself over the bridge? Then Tess would have to read all about it in the next day’s papers, knowing that she might have been able to do something, but instead chose to keep on walking, just so she could be on time for some obscure Mexican art house movie that Bernard insisted on seeing.

‘Excuse me,’ she said gingerly, approaching the lady. ‘I’m so sorry to bother you, but are you OK?’

Kate King turned sharply to look at her and Tess was shocked to see two puffy, red eyes with mascara running all the way down that famously beautiful, sculpted face. You never saw a woman like this looking anything less than flawlessly composed and immaculate in magazines and on the telly. Tess almost wondered if this could possibly be one and the same person.

No response.

‘Maybe you’d like me to get you a taxi?’ Tess asked her gently. ‘You could shelter under my umbrella till we find you one?’

‘Please just go away,’ came the clipped response.

‘But you’re getting soaked!’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Oh, well … sorry to disturb you,’ said Tess, taken aback. ‘I only meant to—’

‘Look, I’d really like some privacy. Can’t you just leave me in peace?’

Her tone was brusque now, dismissive. She meant what she said. So Tess backed off, wondering what the hell could possibly have gone so wrong in Kate King’s flawlessly perfect A-list life that someone like her was left all alone and sobbing on the Ha’penny Bridge in the pouring rain. For a split second, she hesitated, overwhelmed with guilt for leaving and walking away. Should she turn back? Maybe try to engage with her a bit more?

‘Whoever you are,’ Kate King said, sensing Tess wavering right by her shoulder. ‘I’m sure you mean well, but I’d really like you to move on.’

So, left with little choice in the matter, Tess did as she was told, shook the excess rain off her umbrella and quietly went on her way.

She could barely concentrate on the movie though. Instead, all she could do was think about Kate King, and wonder.

The Present

And so it was happening. Now. Today. This morning. There was no getting out of it and certainly no turning back. At that thought alone, she felt another huge, violent stomach retch and this time barely made it as far as the bathroom. Her third time to throw up so far today.

Oh Christ, she thought, slumped against the bathroom floor – for a brief, fleeting moment savouring the cool feel of the marble tiles against her skin – have I really brought all this on myself? Have I really been that stupidly short-sighted? Isn’t there any way out of it?

She felt as weak and useless as a butterfly pinned to a card. But like a character in a Greek tragedy, the inevitable was slowly coming to get her and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.

If it’s any small consolation, she thought bitterly while she waited on yet another wave of nausea to pass, you’ve got absolutely no one to blame but yourself.

The present

What would Kate Middleton do?

Easy, I thought, fidgeting with the letter that had just arrived and forcing my shaky legs as far as the bedroom window for a few nice, deep, soothing breaths. Kate Middleton would stay serenely calm and at all costs not let a potential disaster like this get to her. She’d call Carole and Pippa who would instantly rush around to her side with wise words of wisdom and support. She’d book herself in for a nice, relaxing blow dry, shoehorn herself into a neat little coat dress from Reiss, then get back out there, arm clamped onto Prince William’s with a bright smile plastered across her face.

It’s impossible to plan any wedding without a blip and it would seem that this is mine. So now I just have to figure a way out of it, that’s all.

‘ Oh, I’m a lumberjack, and I’m OKAAAAYYY! ’ I hear my dad warbling from out in the back garden, as he waves the hedge trimmer in huge threatening swoops, Darth Vader-style. All to the soundtrack of electronic buzzing that’s only marginally more deafening than that instrumental bit in Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise You’, and Christ alone knows that’s bad enough.

‘Jacko? You’ll do yourself an injury!’ Mum yells from the kitchen window. ‘If you lose a limb cutting back those bushes, you needn’t come crying to me, you roaring eejit.’

‘ I cut down treeeees, I wear high heels, suspenders and a braaaaaa! I wish I’d been a girlie, just like my dear Papa! ’ Dad keeps on screeching in a surprisingly passable baritone, considering that Mum never tires of reminding him how useless he is in all other walks of life.

‘And where’s Tess gone? I thought she was out there helping you?’

‘She was meant to be, but she vanished the minute the post came,’ Dad shrugs. ‘More wedding shite, I suppose.’

I can hear the conversation as loud and clear as that. The only problem is that as I’m listening, the four walls of my bedroom tilt a bit and I suddenly have to focus very hard on breathing.

In for two, out for four, in for two and out for four …

‘Tess, are you in the loo?’ Mum yells up the stairs. ‘You’ve been up there for ages. Are you a bit constipated, do you think?’

‘No, Mum,’ I somehow manage to squawk back down at her, in a voice I barely even recognise as my own.

Stay by the window and keep breathing, just keep breathing.

‘Well I think the base of the wedding cake is nearly done, are you coming down to do a Mary Berry on it?’

‘Did I hear you say wedding cake?’ Dad butts in from the garden, switching off the hedge trimmers. ‘Ahh lovely, you can cut me a nice, juicy, big slice while you’re at it. I’m starving.’

‘It’s not for you, it’s for the guests; I wouldn’t waste it on you. Now you just pick up those branches and stop annoying me,’ is Mum’s comeback, as she slams the kitchen window firmly shut.

All this is for me, I remind myself, trying my damnedest to blank out the letter that’s just arrived; this curt, five-line letter that’s just caused my whole world to shift on its axis. Which side is it if you’re having a heart attack? I wonder. Left or right? Because right now my breath will only come in short, jagged shards and the tightness around my chest is almost making me want to black out.

Twisting the letter in my hand, I force myself to keep on breathing and look down onto the garden, to the grass, the leaves, to my mother’s petunias in full bloom, to the peaceful, lovely sight down below. To absolutely anything that might take my mind off this.

Exactly half an hour ago, I hadn’t a care in the world. There I was, out the back helping Dad with the garden, mowing the lawn and picking up dead leaves. Half an hour ago, I was happily bustling in and out of the kitchen checking on the wedding cake base and trying to convince Mum to relax and leave me to it. That I’d take care of everything. That getting married at home needn’t be the huge stress-inducing nightmare you’d think. That I could expertly organise my wedding reception in our own back garden and that I could easily manage all the catering myself. That with a bit of imagination, Bernard and I could have a simple, intimate, homely wedding and save ourselves a complete fortune in the process.