What struck Pedro after the ceremony was the marked lack of joyousness on the part of all the assembled guests. It was as if everyone was singularly aware that the whole arrangement was a sham. Everyone, that is, except Ion Antonescu, who beamed proudly and swanned around, having bagged a rich widow as his bride. Meanwhile, the other guests milled around outside the Mairie waiting for the wedding photographs to be taken on the front steps. As Ion slipped from person to person, accepting congratulations that no one meant, Bianca looked vaguely uneasy but ignored her new husband’s antics until the photographer’s assistant came up and said he was ready to take the pictures. She immediately marched over to her new husband and brought his peregrinations to a sudden end by peremptorily grabbing him by the sleeve and frogmarching him to the top step. ‘Time to pose for the pictures,’ she commanded. ‘You can talk all you want at the reception.’ After the photographs had been taken, the assembled company broke up.
The family returned to Bianca’s true love, L’Alexandrine, and while the children lounged about on the enclosed veranda smoking, she headed upstairs to change into one of the amazing couture numbers that Yves St Laurent had created specially for her.
The reception itself proved to be a rerun of the wedding ceremony.
Once the guests had arrived and the event was in full swing, the prevailing atmosphere among them was anything but celebratory, and, indeed, if anything, the tone had deteriorated from silent bemusement to open questioning. Everywhere Julio, Antonia and Pedro went, they caught snippets of conversation from the guests, all of whom were openly speculating about the reasons behind this marriage.
Julio and Antonia, being more accepting by nature than their more spirited brother, were less disturbed by what they were overhearing, although they too felt sullied that their mother’s private life was being discussed with such embarrassing openness. But Pedro, acutely aware of Bianca’s true motive for marrying Ion, was positively furious with her.
This was reflected in his demeanour, which, to even the most unpractised eye, was awkward in the extreme. As her second son skulked from group to group, alternating charm with sullenness, Bianca kept an eye on him, fearful that he might say something that would embarrass her in front of these new, socially desirable friends whom she hoped would form the basis of her circle, her ambition still being to become a leading light of the International Set.
Bianca found it impossible to feign pleasure in the company of her second son for any length of time. Usually she ended up saying or doing something that antagonized him and fed the deep-seated hostility Pedro had held towards her ever since, as a little boy, he realized that he came a poor second to his elder brother Julio in his mother’s eyes. The sad truth was that Pedro had always rubbed Bianca up the wrong way. The consequence was that he had long ago become firmly convinced that his mother despised him, which was not strictly fair, for while their personalities were mutually antipathetic, she did have strong maternal feelings for him.
This being Bianca’s wedding day, and Pedro suffering from the unloved child’s natural tendency to want love even when he knows it would not be forthcoming, he walked up to his mother towards the end of the evening and asked her to dance. ‘Madame Antonescu,’ he said humorously, bowing deeply, ‘May I have the pleasure of the next dance?’
‘Avec plaisir, Monsieur,’ Bianca said, smiling sweetly and putting her hand through the crook of his arm. Together they stepped into the ballroom, where the Confrey Phillips Band, one of the British Royal Family’s favourites, was playing a version of the Beatles’ ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’.
Pedro twirled his mother around the dance floor, enjoying what seemed to everyone to be a happy moment. As the music came to an end, he raised her hand and kissed it, Continental-style, his lips touching her skin. ‘Only peasants connect their lips with the flesh on a lady’s hand,’ Bianca said without even thinking. ‘And I do wish you’d stop trying to draw attention to yourself with this flamboyant conduct,’ she continued. ‘“Madame Antonescu” indeed!’
‘Ashamed you’re married to a fag instead of someone who can give you a straight fuck?’ Pedro retorted, stung by the unfairness of his mother’s response, when all he was trying to do was be as gracious as possible under difficult circumstances.
Immediately Pedro could see he had gone too far. ‘You seem to have lost your mind,’ Bianca snapped back, her expression diabolic. ‘Keep this up, you little shit, and I’m going to have you locked up on the grounds of insanity.’
‘I bet you’d do it too, even though you know I’m the sanest of your children, certainly the most clear-sighted.’
Very aware that they were being watched, Bianca ran her hands through Pedro’s hair, a smile on her face, then said quietly: ‘I don’t care how open you keep your eyes, as long as you keep your mouth shut. I can do without the rumours you’re helping to spread about me. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Excuse me for having been decent enough to come over and ask my mother to dance and for calling her by her new married name,’ Pedro replied bitterly. ‘Ungrateful cunt,’ he muttered as he walked away, just loudly enough for Bianca to overhear.
The party ended at eleven o’clock, when the last of the guests left with Ruth Fargo Huron and her husband Walter.
‘Now for the interesting part,’ Pedro remarked with mischievous amusement to Julio and Antonia. ‘Will the newlyweds drift off into the night to share their own special cloud, or will our new stepfather have to play with his own dick while dear Mama and Uncle Philippe do their Anthony and Cleopatra act? Which do you think it will be?’
‘Why don’t we wait and see?’ Antonia said.
‘We’ll have to, unless you have some inside information on the bedroom Mama has allocated Ion. Does he have his own?’
Julio and Antonia looked befuddled. ‘So you don’t know either,’ Pedro said. ‘This is developing into an interesting evening.’
‘Nightcap, anyone?’ Philippe asked, as if he were head of the house.
‘I think it’s time for bed,’ Bianca retorted. ‘Manolito has to be on a plane in the morning, and I have to be up early to see him off. And we’re off on our honeymoon tomorrow, though Philippe is keeping our final destination a secret from us. So shall we?’ Bianca said, looking at Ion, who bid everyone good night and followed his new wife out of the room.
Ion also shared the children’s curiosity about where he would sleep that night. He knew this was not a marriage in the full meaning of the word, but good form had prevented him from enquiring about the location. Trusting to Bianca’s good taste, he had steered clear of the subject, but now that he was ascending the stairs, he wondered where the staff had unpacked the overnight case he had sent over earlier that day, along with the suitcases he was taking on his honeymoon. A honeymoon he was sharing with his wife’s lover and Philippe’s sister Rebecca, whom neither he nor his new wife had yet met.
‘I thought we’d put you in the bedroom opposite mine,’ Bianca said as they reached the top of the stairs, ‘if that’s agreeable with you.’
‘I’m sure it will be,’ Ion said before he had even seen which room was being allocated to him. He was, of course, familiar with the layout of the house, and indeed with all the rooms, having acquired furniture and objets for them, but he was still not sure which room she was referring to, and he was too restrained to indulge in vulgar curiosity.
Bianca took his arm and led him into the large bedroom opposite her suite of rooms: that is, the medium of the three sizes of L’Alexandrine’s many bedrooms. This startled Ion, who had expected that he would at least receive one of the huge bedrooms. His disappointment, however, was quelled somewhat by the furnishings. The focal point of the room was a bed that had once belonged to the Empress Marie Louise. The armoire had also belonged to Napoleon’s second wife, but the chest of drawers, writing desk and armchairs had all come through a descendant of Prince Eugene de Beauharnais, the Empress Josephine’s only son who subsequently became the Duke of Le
uchtenburg after the collapse of the French Empire. The furnishings were covered in the most exquisite iceblue silk, embroidered in gold thread with Napoleonic bees. This theme was picked up in the heavily flounced curtains of the same ice-blue material. From Ion’s point of view, however, the pièce de résistance was not any of the furnishings or even the landscape by Sisley, the pastel of a ballerina by Degas or the erotic charcoal of Paul Roche by Duncan Grant but the exquisite Corot landscape above the writing desk. Even if the room had been smaller, its appointments could not have been bettered. Ion made a snap decision not to let this surprising turn of events bother him. Nevertheless, he also made a mental note of it.
Ion had actually detected something about Bianca Barnett Calman Piedraplata Antonescu that few others had ever had the opportunity to note. For all her generosity, she could be unexpectedly - and counterproductively - mean. This, of course, was a trait about which Pedro could have written epistles, for Bianca’s generosity was something she doled out, either to obtain an advantage or, in his fairly partial opinion, to bewitch those she wanted to have in her thrall.
His head whirling with the implications of his new lodgings, Ion said goodnight to his wife with a chaste peck on the cheek and was about to accompany her into her bedroom when she held up her hand and said:
‘You are such a dear, but there’s no need. Goodnight and sweet dreams.’
Within minutes, he heard Philippe’s footsteps in the passage as he headed into Bianca’s suite of rooms. He needed little imagination to envisage who was consummating his marriage for him.
The following morning, the new Madame Antonescu got up at nine o’clock to say goodbye to Manolito. He was flying from Geneva to London on Swissair with his nanny to link up with Amanda, who was due to take him back to Mexico with Anna Clara for a holiday in the sun.
Part of Amanda’s custody agreement with Ferdie had required him to provide her with the use of two Mexican houses: one in Mexico City and another in the country. Although owned by Ferdie, these houses had been chosen by Amanda and were maintained, fully staffed and furnished, all year round, in perpetual readiness for her imminent arrival. No one was allowed to live in them except Amanda and anyone of her choice, and she could, any anytime within her lifetime, elect to change the locations of either house. In other words, she had two fully staffed, well maintained and fully furnished Mexican houses at her disposal, for the remainder of her life. And Amanda had chosen well. The country property, which was a five-minute drive from Sintra, had one of the largest and most beautiful gardens in Cuernevaca, while the villa in the city was an eighteenth century Spanish nobleman’s hacienda in San Angel two cobble-stoned streets away from the Piedraplata family home. It was to these houses that Manolito and his nanny were now heading.
Manolito was now six years old. Although he called Bianca ‘Mama’ at her suggestion, he called Amanda ‘Mummy’ as he had always done. He loved both women. In reality, he now had two de facto mothers. This did not present a problem for him, because both women treated him well.
While Amanda’s feelings for him were purely maternal, and her consequent conduct was as nurturing as a loving mother’s could be, Bianca’s treatment of him was also good, even though her detractors would say that her motives were mixed. Undoubtedly, she was genuinely fond of the little boy, who was cute and lovable; but Amanda and Clara were not alone in asking whether she would have been so interested in Manolito, had control of his inheritance not been the benefit of his guardianship.
There was, undoubtedly, an element of truth in this rather jaundiced view. They also believed that Bianca, being farsighted, understood that the little boy would come of age within a few short years and would then have the freedom to do what he wished with his vast fortune. As Bianca’s and Philippe’s financial interests were tied up with Manolito’s, the only way she could keep a measure of control over his fortune was to gain and keep his trust. In their view, her objective was therefore to create a personal relationship and a professional structure of such soundness that Manolito would have no incentive to alter anything, once he turned eighteen.
Of course, Manolito was oblivious to everything except that Bianca was warm and loving towards him, which was only conducive to his ultimate feelings of well-being and love. Even Amanda had to concede that her Nemesis indeed performed as a good stepmother would, and that Manolito was, as a consequence, flourishing under her care and control.
Nevertheless, there were significant gaps in the child’s upbringing, as Amanda discovered on the third morning of their arrival in Mexico. They were walking past one of the large Calorblanco shops housed in a seventeenth century palace in the old centre of the city. ‘You know, darling,’ Amanda said, intending to reinforce the loving feelings the little boy had for Ferdie, ‘your Daddy founded this company. Do you know what that means?’
Manolito looked up at her quizzically. ‘That means that Daddy started the company that owns Calorblanco. You see this shop. Your Daddy, Grandma and Aunt Clara owned it. They owned all the other Calorblanco shops in Mexico. One day a large part of that will be yours. It is a great heritage, and you should be very proud to be a part of it.’
Manolito looked blank. ‘Hasn’t Bianca told you anything about your Daddy…about what a special person he was?’ Amanda asked, careful to keep all accusation out of her voice. ‘It’s OK, honey, you can tell me.’
‘Mama never talks about Daddy,’ Manolito replied.
‘Come,’ Amanda said on an impulse. ‘Let’s go into Calorblanco. I’ll show you. Your Daddy’s portrait is in all the shops as the founder. In all the clinics. The schools. All the Calorblanco properties. His portrait always hangs above Calorblanco’s emblem of the white flame. It was the wish of your Grandfather. He was a wonderful man. So kind. So decent. He was proud of your Daddy, because your Daddy had amazing ideas and brought them to life in a way that benefited the life of thousands of people, rich and poor alike. Let Mummy show you.’
Taking Manolito by one hand and Anna Clara by the other, she walked into the first Calorblanco store she had been into since leaving Ferdie. This one she knew especially well. She headed for the north-east side, but when she reached the spot where Ferdie’s portrait had once been, she saw a head and shoulders colour photograph of Bianca glamorously bedecked in a parure of emeralds and diamonds. Beneath the lavishly carved gilt frame, where once there had been a bronze plaque commemorating the occasion upon which Ferdie had opened the shop, there was a new brass plaque that stated simply and sparingly that it was a likeness of the chairman of the board, Bianca Barnett de Piedraplata, taken by Antony, Earl of Snowdon. Amanda was pleased to see that Bianca had resisted the temptation to point out to the ignorant that the photographer was the husband of the Queen of England’s sister Princess Margaret. She grimaced, however, at the showiness above the frame, for there, for all to see and be impressed by, was the company emblem of the white flame topped by a coronet, which, if Amanda’s genealogical memory was correct, had the number of points assigned to an English baron. ‘She doesn’t even have the good grace to let poor Ferdie keep recognition for his accomplishments,’ she involuntarily observed. ‘And she calls herself a lady. What a piece of work she is…and such a phoney too! She’s not entitled to a coronet, and neither is that father of hers who can’t even speak English properly.’
With that, Amanda shuddered, took Manolito by the hand and walked out into the blinding Mexican sunshine.
‘I didn’t see Daddy’s picture, but I saw Mama’s,’ Manolito murmured.
Chapter Sixteen
From the outside, the High Courts of Justice on The Strand look like a vast complex of buildings covering what would be in New York an array of several Avenue blocks. As you step in off the street, there is the vast central hall, as long and wide as a football pitch, off which runs a rabbit warren of cold stone corridors leading to the panelled courtrooms. It is very easy to get lost, even if you know the place quite well, so Henry Spencer took the sensible precaution of hav
ing his clerk meet Clara and Rodolfo outside the main entrance on The Strand.
Clara and Rodolfo pulled up in the Piedraplata Rolls Royce promptly at nine-fifteen on the morning of the Wednesday following Easter for the second day of the trial. The Rolls was one of the few family possessions that she had managed to retain, having taken it out of storage shortly after arriving in England after Ferdie’s death. Thereafter, she ‘declined’ - to use her word - to return it to the storage facility where Bianca would undoubtedly seize it, as she had seized so much else. It was, Clara recognized, a small victory, but it was a victory nevertheless, and she needed to see that she was making some headway against her sister-in-law and Philippe Mahfud.
The case had begun the day before, on Tuesday, April 24 1973, and it had gone well. The morning had been taken up with legal arguments before Mr Justice Landsworth, during which Clara and Rodolfo had sat in the same row of benches no more than three feet away from Bianca, resplendent between her new husband Ion Antonescu and Philippe Mahfud, who Clara had no doubt was still the man in her life.
After lunch Conkers Coningby had opened the case for the Plaintiff by calling Clara to the stand. His examination of her had been brilliant, eliciting answer after answer that drove home the point that Bianca and Philippe were opportunists who were seeking to deny the documentary evidence. Clara had been a good witness too. Lucid. To the point. Calm.
At four-thirty sharp, while Clara was answering a complicated question about the way her shares and her mother’s had been registered in the various Calorblanco subsidiaries, Mr Justice Landsworth had looked at his watch ostentatiously, peered down at Conkers Coningby, held up his hand to Clara and said theatrically: ‘Counsel, I take it there will be no more questions after the Marchesa has answered this last one, and we can call it a day till ten-thirty tomorrow morning?’
‘My Lord,’ Conkers Coningby had said, nodding his bewigged head and rushing Clara through her answer before being excused from the witness box with the warning that, as she was still under oath, she could not discuss the case with anyone, including her own legal representatives.
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