Kate (23 page)

The new year heralded a fresh start for the couple. They had celebrated Kate's twenty-sixth birthday at the beginning of January with a quiet dinner at Clarence House, a far happier and settled occasion than the year before. Once again, however, her birthday coincided with William leaving, this time for a four-month pilot-training course at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire. William had been looking forward to his secondment (temporary assignment) with the RAF. He had dreamed of being a pilot ever since he was a little boy and his uncle Andrew had regaled him with stories of flying helicopters in the Falklands. Now he was training for his own pilot's badge—known in the RAF as “wings”—on a fast-track course that entailed early morning starts and late-night cramming for exams. His career, according to his aides, was “his number one priority” and once again, they tried to dampen rumors of an engagement. Kate was prepared for the time apart and was reassured by the sheer intensity of the training, which left little time for William to party and misbehave. In March 2008, they flew to Klosters, and this time Pippa joined them. The sisters loved challenging one another on unmarked slopes. They were both better skiers than William, and Kate even outshone the protection officer who accompanied them down the slopes. Gliding expertly down the ski run, she conjured memories of Diana, who used to delight in outskiing Charles on the very same mountains.

This was not the only echo of the late princess. Back at home, Kate had joined the prestigious Harbour Club in Chelsea, where Princess Diana also used to work out. On Friday afternoons, she went shopping for groceries at the King's Road branch of Waitrose before driving to Clarence House to prepare for William's arrival from RAF Cranwell. The prince
called her when he was en route, and Kate would always have a hot bath ready for him and a home-cooked dinner in the oven. Although their living space there was small, she had overseen a small refurbishment, and the Osbourne and Little wallpaper she had selected made their living quarters far more homey.

One friend, who was invited over for supper, recalled a scene of marital bliss: “Kate cooked and let William enjoy a glass of wine. Every so often he helped her stir and taste a sauce. They were very sweet together, very tactile, and they had a habit of finishing each other's sentences.” They had been advised by Charles to stay away from nightclubs after their last visit to Boujis had ended in an unseemly scuffle among the paparazzi, who were desperate to get a picture of the couple now that they were back together. Because they were seen so rarely in public these days, photographs of William and Kate were worth a lot of money. When Kate had left Boujis she was nearly knocked over as she tried to get into a waiting car.

There had been another concerning episode when Kate and her family celebrated James's twenty-first birthday in April. Party promoter Ed Taylor, a friend of Kate's, had arranged a VIP table for them at Raffles nightclub on the King's Road, but unfortunately James downed one too many shots, and according to photographer Niraj Tanna, who was there, “Michael had to literally carry James to the car. He was all over the place and couldn't stand up properly. Carole was jumping up at me trying to push my camera so I couldn't take the photograph. James was swerving on the pavement, and then he started urinating on the street. That's when Carole started going mad and jumping up at my face trying to push
the camera so I couldn't take a frame.” Kate, who was said to be mortified, had left the club through a back entrance.

But it wasn't just James, however, who had come under scrutiny. William was at the center of an escalating argument in the press after it was reported that he had flown a Chinook helicopter to his cousin Peter Phillips's stag party on the Isle of Wight hours after graduating from RAF Cranwell. The two-hour sortie had been cleared by his senior flying officers, but there was a furor over the fact that the prince had been allowed to fly a $15-million helicopter to a stag party when there was a shortage of Chinooks in Afghanistan, where the aircraft is used to ferry in supplies to British troops. Questions were asked about why William had been allowed to use the aircraft as a taxi service. The RAF insisted the flight was a “legitimate training sortie which tested his new skills,” but the episode descended into farce when it also emerged that William had made a number of practice flights to Highgrove, Windsor Castle, and to Oak Acre, the Middletons' family home.

Carole and Michael, who had no idea William was arriving by air, ran into their garden after hearing an almighty noise in the adjacent field, only to discover it was William “buzzing in.” The storm over the flights blew over a few days later, however, when William flew to Afghanistan in a top-secret overnight visit to see British troops. The trip had been planned for some time, but the Ministry of Defence was accused of staging a public relations exercise to save face.

Harry had recently returned from serving on the front line in Afghanistan after finally realizing his dream to fight for his country, but William was only able to make a fleeting visit to meet with RAF servicemen in Kandahar. Nonetheless, his
mission was significant because he brought home the body of a British serviceman who had been killed in combat.

Kate had been invited to the graduation ceremony at RAF Cranwell on Friday, April 11, 2008, to watch William get his wings, and she watched proudly as they were pinned onto his pristine uniform. As she chatted with Camilla and William's private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton in the audience, Kate seemed very comfortable, her presence in the front row signifying that she and William were back on track. The following month, William asked if she would attend his cousin Peter Phillips's wedding on his behalf because he had been invited to the wedding of Batian Craig, Jecca's brother, in Kenya. It was a year since their breakup, and the fact that Kate was representing William at a family wedding was a sign of just how serious the relationship was.

Peter was marrying his Canadian fiancée, Autumn Kelly, at St. George's Chapel in the grounds of Windsor Castle on May 17, and all the senior members of the family were attending. Harry and Chelsy, who were back together after a romantic reunion in Botswana, had been invited, and Kate was grateful, for she didn't know many of the guests. Her friendship with Chelsy was lukewarm; they were completely different characters, and the bubbly Zimbabwean got along better with Pippa. Kate had made an effort to befriend Chelsy, inviting her clothes shopping, but Chelsy had turned the offer down, leading to a coolness between them. On this occasion, however, they bonded, because they were both nervous about meeting the Queen. Although she was a regular guest at the royal palaces and had been to Sandringham for the Boxing Day shoot, this was, rather surprisingly, the first time Kate would be formally introduced to the Queen. Understandably,
without William by her side, she was shy and later recalled, “It was amongst a lot of other guests and she was very friendly.” The Queen had made a point of coming over to say hello to Kate, but according to Lady Elizabeth Anson, the introduction was brief: “There wasn't much time to speak. Meeting someone as far as the Queen is concerned is having tea with them, so for the Queen, this was an introduction rather than a proper meeting.”

Despite the brevity of their encounter, the Queen was interested in Kate and wanted to learn more about the young woman who looked set to marry into her family one day. William had sought his grandmother's advice during their brief separation, and the Queen was pleased that they were now happily back together, but she was concerned that Kate did not have a career. Although she was working on her photography, it had been six months since Kate quit Jigsaw, and there seemed to be no urgency on her part to return to work.

For the Queen, who carries out hundreds of engagements and travels around the country conducting official duties practically every day of the year, the idea of not working was unthinkable. Even during holidays, her red government boxes, containing confidential parliamentary papers for her to read, are always close at hand. She has a strong work ethic and has raised all of her children to follow her lead, putting duty ahead of self. At the time, a source close to the family said, “The Queen has no idea what Kate does. Privately, she is very concerned about what the repercussions could be if Kate is not in a stable job as and when William is ready to propose. The Queen is very close to her grandson, and they of course discuss Kate. Her Majesty is very aware that it's a serious and long-term relationship. Although they are not yet
engaged, it seems more likely than not that Kate will be a royal bride one day, and the Queen is of the opinion that Kate should be working. She believes in a modern monarchy and feels very strongly that the royals should be leading by example. Swanning from one five-star holiday resort to another is not the prerequisite for a young woman possibly destined to be Queen.”

To observers, Kate did seem to be having rather frequent holidays, and the press, much to her frustration, had taken to calling her “Waity Katie” because she seemed happy to wait on the sidelines for a marriage proposal. This label stuck, and it hurt Kate, who felt she was in an impossible situation. The truth was she was in limbo. While Pippa was enjoying working for a London-based events company and James had started up his own business, Kate's career was on the back burner. It was impossible for her to commit to a full-time job while juggling her life around seeing William, who had started a two-month-long assignment with the Royal Navy at the start of June. The prince was following in royal footsteps when he enrolled at the Britannia Royal Naval College at Dartmouth. His great-grandfather, King George VI, had trained at the base, as had his grandfather and his father. Whereas William had a clear purpose to his life, right then flying naval helicopters and diving with nuclear submarines, Kate was becoming increasingly frustrated with her own lack of career.

Mr. Morrison was still encouraging her to curate an exhibition of her own work. He genuinely believed in her ability to take compelling photographs, but Kate was worried she might face a further backlash: “As with most young artists, the obstacle for Kate was confidence, and I think she was worried about being knocked. I encouraged her to look at her work
and to edit it without asking for other people's opinions. I thought she could put together an exhibition, but she was worried that people would say that she was only being exhibited because of who she was. I think there was a fear of being criticized as well. I don't think the title ‘Waity Katie' was fair. She wasn't lazy and just waiting for William. She was very aware of what she was capable of doing, and she went ahead and did it. She found opportunities to work in art and photography.”

Kate was not, however, prepared to take the risk of showing her work and then be accused of cashing in on her royal connections. And while she was trying to forge her own future, her family watched helplessly from the sidelines. The concerns, at the highest level at the Palace, were privately being referred to as “the Kate problem” and had already made front-page news in the British press.

Carole wanted to put a plan in place before any further damage was done to Kate's reputation. She needed someone to shoot a new catalog for Party Pieces and help set up First Birthdays, a new section on the site. Kate was perfectly equipped to do both. Photographing princess outfits and treasure chests was quite different from shooting landscapes, and Kate described the work as “rather surreal” to her friends, but according to Mr. Morrison, it was an important technique for Kate to master and a happy compromise. “Still life is actually a good discipline. Kate may well have preferred doing landscapes, but this was part of her visual growing up. Working for Party Pieces was also a sensible stopgap opportunity for her. They are a very close family and very supportive of each other. Carole and Michael knew that Kate was going to be in a no-win situation, and I'm pretty sure they discussed the repercussions of being in the public eye. Carole's advice
to all of the children was: ‘You must prepare yourself.' I think she knew they weren't going to get patted on the back, and Kate particularly was always going to end up being criticized. People were always going to say that working for the family was easy.”

James had recently launched a do-it-yourself cake-making enterprise—Cake Kit—within the Party Pieces operation, and Kate helped to coordinate a new website. It was a perfect arrangement that would keep them both out of the headlines, especially James, whose penchant for going out to fashionable London nightclubs and joshing that he would one day be “the brother of the future Queen” had been generating column inches in the press. There was no chance of them being spied on at Party Pieces' Bucklebury-based head office, and although it wasn't the most inspiring of jobs, the photography kept Kate busy and earned her some money. Most important, it gave her the flexibility to work her schedule around William. “This wasn't really a career choice. It was about being with the person she loved, who happened to be the heir to the throne,” said Mr. Morrison. “Kate had to prepare herself for what that meant. It wasn't about being Waity Katie, it was about being with William. Quite simply, they loved each other, wanted to be with each other, and had to filter themselves through the fog of expectancy.”

It was a sentiment echoed by her family and friends, and working for the family firm was considered the perfect solution. There was only one minor setback when Carole authorized a picture and biography of Kate to be posted on the website. It was designed as a positive PR move, but it backfired when the press accused Kate of breaching her own privacy,
and within hours, the picture of her was removed from the website.