Of Rumours And Kate Expectations
The Sunday Age
Sunday June 1, 2008
The signs are everywhere that Prince William and Kate Middleton are about to get engaged. Jacqueline Maley reports.
WHEN holidaying in Mustique in the West Indies last week, Kate Middleton, girlfriend of Prince William and tipped to be the future queen of England, received a telephone call from a reporter. As Middleton picked up the phone in her #1785 ($A3675) a-night room at the Villa Alumbrera - a resort so exclusive it only has five suites - the journalist from the Daily Mail asked her if she was having a nice time. "Yes," Middleton replied. Small talk over, the journalist cut to the chase, like a nosy aunt at a family barbecue: would she and the Prince be getting engaged any time soon? "I'm terribly sorry but I will not talk about that. I am truly sorry but please excuse me," Middleton said, with impeccable manners. If the rumours are true, and an engagement is pending between the royal heir and his middle-class girlfriend, Middleton can expect many more media interruptions of her private life. All the signs are that she is quietly preparing herself for the challenge of being a royal fiancee. In recent months she has quit her part-time job as an accessories buyer for Jigsaw, has been spending more one-on-one time with the Prince, and has even represented him in a semi-official capacity at a royal wedding."I would say that they will get engaged within months," says Andrew Alderson, chief reporter for The Sunday Telegraph, who has covered the royal family for 14 years. "The fact that Kate has put her life on hold suggests to me there is an understanding."She is a bright and intelligent girl, but since leaving university she hasn't pursued the career that you would expect of someone of her talent and abilities."Since handing in her notice, Middleton has been "playing" at being a photographer, Alderson says, learning the craft and organising exhibitions of other artists' work. She picked up the interest while studying art history at the University of St Andrews, which is where she met the Prince. She has also been spending a lot of time at her family home in Berkshire, where she walks the dog and hangs out with her parents, to whom she is close. "She's just enjoying her last few weeks and months with her family," Alderson says. Her last public outing was the recent wedding of the Prince's cousin, Peter Phillips, to Autumn Kelly, a Canadian with no title. The Prince was unable to attend, having already accepted an invitation to the wedding of a friend in South Africa. So she went alone, comfortably mingling with the royal family and their Canadian commoner in-laws.Middleton and Prince Harry's girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, entered the church through a side door so as not to upstage the bride.According to Hello! magazine, which bought the rights to the wedding and dedicated about 30 rather slavering pages to it, the Queen gave William permission to send his girlfriend as his representative. "That is a huge increase in status for her," says Duncan Larcombe, royal correspondent for The Sun. "That would have been unthinkable a year ago. She is now an official girlfriend. She appears to have a much bigger public profile."The decision by the marrying couple to sell their wedding rights to Hello! caused great disapprobation in Britain. One Labour MP declared "the British public would expect the Queen to rise above being pictured in the pages of Hello!". It was considered unseemly for the Queen and the royal girlfriends to appear in a weekly glossy best known for cataloguing the lives of wags and soap stars. Her majesty was reportedly very unamused to be forced into such a vulgar position. But perhaps the Queen needn't have worried. It was clear from the copious photos of Middleton - laughing, sipping champagne, looking pretty in a hat - that Hello! knew who its readers were most interested in. And it wasn't the monarch, or even the Canadian bride. According to Larcombe, you could put your mortgage on an engagement announcement in the next year. He believes that most Britons would love to see the second in line to the throne marry Middleton. She may not be a career girl but her middle-class background represents a royal shift to modernity, as does the fact that her relationship with William is clearly a love match, as opposed to the rather more convenient marriage his parents had. "She hasn't put a foot wrong for four years," Alderson says. "She's fantastically discreet and good fun. They obviously get along well. Unlike Diana and Charles, when they get engaged, they will have had a long-standing relationship."The royal family moves slowly but it does move forward.Although pictures and stories featuring Middleton appear constantly in the press, she has never spoken publicly and the British people know next to nothing about what kind of person she really is. This will all change if and when she accepts William's proposal. She will instantly become public property. She will be assigned a royal bodyguard.For now she goes about her business unprotected, although when she skied with William in April at the exclusive Swiss resort Klosters, she borrowed one of her boyfriend's security men for a day. It was seen as significant that Middleton accompanied William and his father, the Prince of Wales, on their family holiday. Consequently they were mobbed by paparazzi, some of whom even followed them on skis. Of course, last year, Kate was not part of the Klosters party, because she had broken up with the Prince. Many Britons were shocked when news of the split broke in April 2007. Some commentators suggested it was a ruse to diffuse the pressure the couple felt, but Larcombe believes the break-up was genuine. "It was about where they were heading," he says. "When William joined the army . . . he did all the things young army boys do, like drinking in the mess most weekends. "She got fed up with that and gave him a wake-up call . . . She read him the riot act and said this was going to be a proper relationship. I'm told it was definitely William who initiated getting back together."The more cynical pundits say that Middleton played her hand beautifully. She remained dignified and, crucially, silent throughout their separation, which lasted a few weeks. She was photographed smiling, clubbing and looking stunning. "No matter what she's had to drink, no matter how annoyed or off guard she's caught, she handles the paparazzi harassment brilliantly," Larcombe says. "That's the hard part of the job."Most royal spectators believe the two would not have got back together unless it was understood an engagement would follow, sooner rather than later. This is despite the fact that 25-year-old William is on record as saying he would prefer not to marry before the age of 28 or 30. Middleton, reportedly a smart and sensible person, may not be in such a hurry to get a ring on her finger. The minute she gets engaged to the future king of England, her life will be irrevocably transformed. Whenever the marriage happens, the young couple should perhaps remember one thing - to make sure the telephone number of their honeymoon suite is an unlisted one.
© 2008 The Sunday Age