Kate (10 page)

The apartment was situated in a residential block in the center of town, a stone's throw from the British Institute on the Via della Spada, one of the choicest roads in the city and conveniently located above a delicatessen where the girls could grocery shop. Each morning, just after 8:30
A.M
., Kate pushed open the heavy door onto the bustling street, bought herself a cappuccino, and made her way through the beautiful Florentine palazzos to the British Institute. It was balmy and magical, and after her lessons from 9:00
A.M
. to 12:00
P.M
., she took advantage of the warm afternoons to stroll around the cobbled streets, soaking up the city and its Renaissance treasures. Being in Florence was invaluable, given her choice of university degree, and she relished the opportunity to familiarize herself with the countless masterpieces that were on display around the city in galleries, museums, cathedrals, and churches.

Ever the ambitious student, Kate had signed up for an intermediate course, but languages were not her forte, and after a couple of weeks she dropped down to beginner's Italian so that she could spend less time studying and more time enjoying the delights of the city. She had brought with her a professional camera with a long lens and set about compiling a portfolio of work. Mostly, she shot scenes of city life, spending hours on the busy Ponte Vecchio capturing the hustle and bustle of the Florentines and the city's myriad of tourists as the afternoon sunshine dipped into early evening.

Sharing a house with Lucy and her two other roommates meant Kate was rarely homesick. But several weeks after she arrived, her cousin moved into another apartment in the city. But by then Kate had forged new friendships, and though she was never lonely, she was still pining for Harry. Those who knew her during her time in Florence say she was still heartbroken after the breakup and often talked about her ex-boyfriend. “When Kate arrived, she was really hung up about this boy from Marlborough called Harry,” recalled a friend. “She spoke about him all the time. I think he might have broken her heart slightly. He seemed to have blown hot and cold with her when they were at school, and she was always talking about how she could get him back. He was the only boy she talked about, and I don't even think it was that serious. They definitely didn't sleep together. I got the distinct impression she was still a virgin.”

With her wavy brown hair, button nose, and athletic physique, Kate was a hit with the boys and known as “pretty Kate.” But she didn't date anyone during her time in Florence, nor did she engage in flirtations with the many handsome young Italian barmen who would ask her out. “Italian bar men would love Kate, and the irony was that because they always fancied her, the rest of the girls used to get free drinks, but Kate would only have one glass,” said her friend. “Whenever she went to a bar, the Italians would fall over themselves to serve her. She would handle their compliments very gracefully but would never rise to it. She was very demure, and partly because her Italian wasn't very good, wouldn't respond.” Kate found the attention amusing and would giggle at their over-the-top pickup lines, but she simply wasn't interested. “She was very unassuming and young for her age and not really interested in
boys,” added the friend. “She would attract male attention, but she was shy around boys. When they approached her, she would always get very embarrassed. She never seemed comfortable with the attention. She had an aura about her, and everyone who met her adored her. She knew she was good-looking, but she wasn't arrogant about it.”

Although she socialized, Kate wasn't a big drinker, and when her friends went to the famous Caffè Giacosa, the home of the Negroni cocktail, Kate would make a solitary glass of wine last all evening. Occasionally, she would go to the Art Bar next to her apartment, which was famous for its fresh fruit cocktails, but she would never drink to excess. “She'd get giggly and silly after a few glasses, so then she would stop,” said a friend. “She was never interested in getting really drunk. She wasn't really a party girl. There was lots of socializing among the British Institute pupils, who were all very well-to-do, posh public-school kids. They would all get rather drunk and silly, but Kate didn't enjoy alcohol. She wasn't uptight or boring, she was really fun and lovely, but going out and getting wasted really wasn't her thing. She never, ever let herself get out of control. While others were often doing drugs around her, she wouldn't be anti or judgmental, in fact she was quite interested in what drugs did to you, but she would never ever try them. I never saw her smoke, either.” She rarely went out clubbing but loved to dance and would sometimes go to a member's club called the Blob just behind the Piazza della Signoria.

Although alcohol and drugs did nothing for her, Kate was passionate about food and loved to shop at the
rosticerria
(rotisserie) opposite her apartment that sold delicious home-baked lasagnas and pasta dishes to take out. On Sundays, Kate and her apartment mates treated themselves to a leisurely
brunch by the river and then went shopping. The designer boutiques Valentino and Versace were on the road parallel to theirs, but Kate didn't have the money to shop at such expensive boutiques. She had arrived with just one suitcase, and her staple outfit was fitted jeans and V-neck sweaters, which she wore smartly with a Ralph Lauren shirt. “She was very horsey and public school in her fashion,” according to one of her girlfriends. “She always wore her hair curly, not straight, and she was curvier than she is now.” That might have been because of her love of cooking and the fact that she often prepared dinner parties for her friends in the open-plan kitchen. She would spend hours browsing the local food markets for fresh produce, and like her mother and sister, she was a good cook.

When her parents came to visit in October 2000, they checked into a boutique hotel and treated Kate to dinners at some of Florence's most fashionable restaurants. “Her father, Michael, was quiet, but Carole was very gregarious and would not stop telling Kate how beautiful she had become,” recalled a friend. “She had rosebud lips and this amazing mane of hair and she was gorgeous. When they were at dinner, Carole would exclaim to the waiters: ‘Look at my English rose. Isn't she so beautiful? What do you think of the waiter, Catherine?' Kate would be cringing in the corner, but she knew it was true.”

Like her peers, Kate spent much of the time thinking about the future and pondering what university life might bring. Her friend recalled that she had set her sights on St. Andrews and was waiting to hear if she had been accepted to study there, “She was going off to university, but she had deferred her place. We talked about the fact that William was going to St.
Andrews.” The prince was a popular topic of discussion after it was speculated in the press that he might be enrolling at the prestigious John Hall Pre-University Course in Florence to brush up on his history of art, before going to St. Andrews. Prince Charles had hosted a lunch at Highgrove that August for the mayor of Florence and a number of well-known Italian dignitaries, who suggested that William, soon to be a history of art student, should visit the city. There was quite a buzz about an imminent royal visitor among the aristocratic crowd in Florence, among them Princess Anne's goddaughter Lady Eloise Anson, who was taking a fine art course and was a popular fixture at the riverside bars. “There were a lot of very well connected posh English girls straight out of boarding school and lots of girls who knew Prince William, or claimed to know him. And there were people in particular who would brag about him all the time, especially as we thought he was going to be coming out to study on the John Hall course,” recalled a former student. Kate, however, appeared nonchalant and didn't tell a soul that she had already met William.

While she waited to hear if she had been accepted at St. Andrews, she learned that she had qualified for a place on a volunteering expedition to Patagonia in Chile that was organized by the UK-based company Raleigh International, which coordinates community and environmental projects in South America. Kate had found out about the program through the career department at Marlborough, and being an avid explorer, when she realized she had a whole year to fill before going to her university, had applied for the $4,500 trip. At school she had loved adventuring and hiking, and the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award had prepared her well.

She felt she was more than equipped to apply for the overseas adventure, and after a preliminary interview, she took part in a tough assessment weekend in the countryside in Oxfordshire, where she had to carry out survival exercises and sleep underneath a tarp, with only a ration pack for sustenance. Some weeks later, she was informed she would be heading to Coyhaique, the small capital of Region XI, where Raleigh is based, at the start of the new year. By coincidence, it also happened to be the very same destination to which William would be heading in October.

Prince William returned home from Rodrigues at the end of September, but he had an onerous task to carry out before he left Chile. The British media had agreed to leave William alone during his gap year in return for some controlled access to him, and on September 29, William gave his first solo press conference at his father's Gloucestershire home. While Charles hovered protectively, William, dressed in his jeans and a sweater that he tugged at nervously, faced the press gang. The reporters asked him about his trip to Rodrigues and how he was enjoying his gap year, while the photographers snapped away. For someone who hated the limelight, William handled the situation admirably. He had learned from his mother that saying too much could backfire badly, but he also knew he had to give the newspapers “a line.” The reporters got their story, and pictures of the suntanned prince graced the pages the following morning.

But Fleet Street had missed its scoop. Just days later, on October 1, 2000, William boarded a British Airways plane going from Gatwick to Santiago. The trip had been kept top secret, and St. James's Palace only announced the prince was
leaving at the very last moment. Malcolm Sutherland, who was in charge of the expedition, said, “The whole aim was to get him out to Chile on expedition just a few days before announcing it. It was a very well-kept secret.” Mr. Sutherland went to Clarence House, Prince Charles's London residence, where William and Harry had their own private living quarters, to meet with the prince ahead of his departure. In the privacy of William's apartment, he warned the young royal that Raleigh was not for the fainthearted. He would be working and living with 103 young volunteers from all walks of life. Some were part of Raleigh's “at risk” program and included former drug addicts and recovering alcoholics. Others, like William, had just finished their A-levels and wanted a stimulating challenge. Kate was one of the latter, but unlike William, who was fast-tracked, she had to endure the grueling selection process.

William was in Chile for three months. From the moment he arrived, he threw himself into his new surroundings and got to know the other people on his trip. According to Logistics Manager Graham Hornsey, who has led an impressive thirty-five expeditions and came to know William well, the prince proved to be a very grounded and decent young man: “William coped very well, and what struck me about him was how normal he was. He said he wanted to be treated like everyone else, and he was. When you saw him cleaning the toilets, it wasn't for the cameras, he really did clean the lavatories.” During his time in Tortel, a small coastal town, William oversaw the construction of a fire station, and he tracked huemul, an endangered species of South Andean deer in the Tamango National Park. The most challenging expedition of all was sea kayaking up to 12 miles a day through the deep ocean fjords
of Patagonia. In the remote wilderness of the Patagonian countryside, William could be himself. For the first time he didn't need to wear the electronic tag that enabled his protection officers to monitor his every move. On the snowcapped mountains, he was free—and he reveled in the moment.

Kate boarded a British Airways flight to Chile just days after William landed back in Britain, having completed his time there. Once again their paths had come tantalizingly close to crossing, and it was one of the many coincidences that would come to define their romance. According to Mr. Sutherland, Kate could not have known William was going to Chile when she applied for the program, because her application would have been submitted before he left in October. “That's the bizarre thing about it. Her application would have been well and truly complete before the announcement by St. James's Palace that William was going out there,” he said.

Kate arrived at base camp in Coyhaique on a bitterly cold day in January 2001. Before she left, she had received a letter from St. Andrews confirming that she had a place there and was able to enjoy a lively family Christmas at Oak Acre. Delighted and relieved to know that she hadn't jeopardized her chance of studying, she looked forward to the next part of her gap year. She had spent the holidays shopping for all-weather clothes and equipment suitable for extreme climates, and she had spent a small fortune acquiring everything on the checklist.

Arriving in Coyhaique, Kate donned her navy blue Raleigh fleece and took part with gusto in the ice-breaking games. According to Mr. Sutherland, she fitted in from day one. “I remember her well; she was level-headed, she kept her head down and got on with things. She didn't make a name for
herself for the wrong reasons. She got stuck in with the rest of her team. She was rather like William actually, reserved but in a nice way. There was no arrogance about her. She would pool together and make things happen. She made friends quickly and gravitated towards the people I suppose she could relate to.” Although she didn't stand out as one of the big personalities of the team, Kate did make an impression, and Graham Hornsey recalled her being a “big achiever. . . . She was proactive when it came to projects. It was largely down to the Venturers to set their targets and Kate aimed high.”