Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  ‘I wish there was something I could do, beyond begging you yet again to take your drugs in a more responsible fashion.’

  ‘I will, I promise I will,’ Philippe said, reminding Dr Wiseman this time of a little boy who has got into trouble and hopes, that by promising to be good, that the punishment will go away. Except, of course, it wasn’t going away. Not until Philippe was dead.

  Dr Wiseman looked at his patient. Here was one of the richest men on earth, yet nothing he or anyone else could do would preserve him from the helplessness and powerlessness that awaited him. Money was a truly finite entity, as limited as it was empowering. Here was a man who had once made people quake in their thousands. Now he was trembling too.

  Meanwhile Bianca was winding up the shopping expedition across town. Coinciding her return with Dr Wiseman’s departure, she burst into her husband’s bedroom in a distracting flurry of excitement.

  ‘Darling,’ she cried, rushing up to his bed with a large box tucked under her arm, and then kissed him on the cheek, ‘I went to Gucci while you and Dr Wiseman were talking, and look what I found for you. Isn’t it beautiful? And so comfortable too.’

  She now held up a cashmere-lined silk paisley dressing gown, the collar topstitched in the Gucci emblem. She put it on and modelled it girlishly. ‘Isn’t it the most beautiful shade of yellow and brown you’ve ever seen?’ she asked. ‘It will pick up your colouring perfectly. Why don’t you try it on while I see Dr Wiseman out?’

  ‘How did it go?’ she asked in her most serious voice once she and Dr Wiseman had stepped outside of Philippe’s bedroom.

  ‘I think he took onboard what I was telling him.’

  ‘This is all very ominous. I wish there was something I could do.’

  ‘You’re doing all a wife can. The important thing is to help him keep his spirits up. MS is a cruel disease.’

  ‘What will the end be like?’

  ‘Patients lose the ability to swallow and so can’t eat. Their immune system is weakened and they fall prey to all sorts of infections and viruses. Finally, their hearts give out, or the ones with really strong hearts drown in their own body fluids. It’s not a pretty picture.’

  Bianca grimaced, her whole body shaking at the horror of it all.

  ‘I only hope I’m not there to see it when it happens,’ she said.

  ‘There is one other thing,’ Dr Wiseman said.

  Bianca looked up at him, her beautiful eyes filled with curiosity and strength. There was no doubt in his mind that this was one woman who could cope with anything that life threw at her and remain a paradigm of desirability.

  ‘Your husband said he doesn’t like Nurse Owens. He says she’s rough with him and she has no sense of humour. He feels uncomfortable around her. And,’ he said, a note of amusement creeping into his voice, ‘he claims that she’s ugly.’

  Bianca laughed. ‘That, I have no doubt, is the worst of her sins. Philippe has a real thing about women’s looks.’

  ‘He seemed genuinely distressed at the prospect of being left in her care.’

  ‘She comes highly recommended from the Van Gayribs in New York.

  She nursed old Mrs Van Gayrib who had Alzheimer’s disease. They couldn’t sing her praises highly enough. I told Philippe only last week that I’d find someone to replace her when I’m next in New York. I’ve taken you up on your suggestion of having brawny male assistants and am going over there in ten days to vet the men Mary’s interviewing.’

  ‘You might have trouble getting male helpers to cross the Atlantic,’ Dr Wiseman observed.

  ‘I gather there’s a queue of them willing to come.’

  ‘How did you accomplish that? I thought all the male helpers in the world want to come to the US.’

  ‘We’re offering them deals they can’t refuse,’ Bianca laughed. ‘Six month contracts as employees of the bank. All medical benefits thrown in free for themselves and their families for the duration of their employment, which can be renewed if they give satisfaction. Six shifts a week: $750 a shift. We fly them in as our guests, and they live here in Andorra, rent-free, all expenses paid, in a building we’ve leased expressly for the staff.’

  ‘Presumably the reason why you’re employing them under American contracts in America is that Andorran employment law has sharper teeth than American?’ Dr Wiseman remarked.

  ‘I honestly wouldn’t know,’ Bianca said. ‘We’re doing it purely and simply to get around the need for work permits. Can you imagine the nightmare it would be if we had to apply for four or eight different work permits every six months? This way, they come in as guests, collect their wages in New York, and we save ourselves a lot of trouble.’

  ‘Very sophisticated,’ Dr Wiseman said, smiling approvingly. ‘Was this your husband’s idea?’

  ‘How clever of you, Dr Wiseman. You never miss an opportunity to assess your patient’s condition,’ she laughed. ‘Yes, it was his idea.’

  ‘Still no diminution in his mental powers. That’s good.’

  ‘Or cruel, depending on how you look at it. It can’t be much fun for someone with my husband’s mental capacities to witness the collapse of his body while his mind remains intact. And, I have to tell you it’s affecting his personality. He’s become even more demanding than he used to be. Everything has to be done yesterday.’

  Dr Wiseman nodded his head sympathetically, bringing the visit to an end. One of the bodyguards opened the door of the apartment and shadowed Dr Wiseman into the elevator and down to the apartment’s street entrance, his machine gun cocked and ready for anything.

  Before the bodyguard had a chance to come back inside the apartment, Bianca had turned on her heel and was heading purposefully straight to Philippe’s bedroom.

  ‘Darling, Dr Wiseman is very concerned about your welfare,’ she said. ‘I know he’s spoken to you about winding up your work with the bank, and I think now’s the time for me to give back some of what you’ve given to me over the years. Why don’t you appoint me chairman of the board in your place and let me act on your behalf? I’ll only do what you want, of course, and refer everything to you for your consideration.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work,’ her husband replied slowly and deliberately.

  ‘Why not?’ Bianca replied patiently, feeling anything but patient.

  ‘I can’t think of a worse thing to do. It would send out the wrong message to the financial community. They’ll think I’m past it. All the sharks would be after the bank.’

  ‘There’s no denying it,’ Bianca thought. ‘This broken down old man is still a force to be reckoned with. If only he’d hurry up and die and get out of my hair, so I can live the remaining years of my life without having to waste time and energy thinking about someone who is nothing but a pain.’

  ‘So what do you propose doing?’ she asked sweetly.

  ‘I’m going to throw bait to a few fish. Spread the word that I’m open to offers for the bank. Then I’ll wait until a big enough fish swims into my waters. In the meantime, you can get me a sweet and pretty young thing to replace that ugly bitch Nurse Owens,’ he said, a twinkle in his eye.

  A practical nurse from Kingston, Jamaica and a devout Plymouth Brethren aged thirty-eight at the time of her employment in 1998, Agatha Wilson had been blessed with a sweet disposition, and all the adversity she had faced during her life had only made her more kindly. The sixth of seventeen children born in Trench Town, Agatha went to work as a maid at the age of thirteen. Within six months she had given birth to the first of five children, all of whom would be delivered before her twenty-first birthday. She got her big break as a nursemaid to the young wife of Nicholas Shoucaire, the Lebanese industrialist.

  As Agatha’s natural abilities became apparent, Odette Shoucaire promoted her as nanny to the two youngest children; and Agatha, earning more money than ever before, breathed freely for the first time in her life.

  When the Shoucaires moved from Jamaica to Canada, they took Agatha Wilson with them.

 
; Like many God-fearing Jamaicans, Agatha was both industrious and reliable. Every penny she earned, she sent back to her family in Kingston.

  She took pride in the fact that her children were being sent to good schools; that they lived in a small but clean house in Havendale, a suburb, instead of the slum where she had been raised. To her, the accomplishments of her children made all her sacrifices worthwhile.

  It had to be said, some of Agatha’s sense of contentment lay with the Shoucaire family. Husband, wife and children were all happy and decent, and they made Agatha feel a part of the family in a way that few other employers would have done. Then in 1990 disaster struck. Nicholas Shoucaire was diagnosed as suffering from Multiple Sclerosis at the relatively young age of fifty-seven. His disintegration was even quicker than Philippe’s, and when walking became too difficult for him, they sold their three-storey maison de maître near Nice and moved into a sprawling one-storey villa beside Walter and Ruth Fargo Huron’s house near Cap Ferrat. This was shortly before their youngest child was due to go to boarding school in England, and Agatha dreaded the prospect of having to return to Jamaica once the post of nanny became redundant.

  Faced with the possibility of losing their faithful retainer, however, Odette and Nicholas Shoucaire suggested that she switch roles and become his practical nurse. They therefore sent her to a practical nursing school in London for six weeks, where she learned the basics, and when she had completed the intensive course, she returned to Cap Ferrat to nurse him.

  Bianca’s path first crossed that of Agatha’s at a luncheon party given by Walter and Ruth in 1996. She was impressed by how gently the Jamaican woman treated Nicholas Shoucaire but thought no more of her until Odette telephoned her out of the blue in 1998, just as she was about to dismiss Nurse Owens. After exchanging pleasantries Odette said: ‘I’m trying to find a position for Agatha. My children are all at school and, now that my husband is dead, I simply don’t have any work for her to do. I remembered that your husband has MS too and wondered if you’d be interested in employing her. She was truly a godsend with Nicholas.’

  ‘In principle, I’m very interested,’ Bianca said graciously. ‘We actually need someone right now. My husband says one of his nurses is too rough with him.’

  ‘Ruth Huron says you’re a superb employer, and all your staff adore you. This is the sort of position I want for Agatha. She really is an exceptional human being, and I hope you won’t misinterpret this when I say that offering her to you is about the highest praise I can confer upon you. That’s how much she means to us as a family.’

  Bianca and Odette arranged to meet with Agatha the following day, and the week after that, the nurse started working for Philippe in Nurse Owens’ place. Agatha and Philippe clicked from the very first. ‘Philippe’s in love with Agatha,’ Bianca frequently joked, and there was an element of truth to the statement. Both nurse and patient had complementary personalities. Each of them was hungry for an emotional attachment, and within weeks of knowing each other, they had established a genuinely companionable and emotionally sustaining relationship that only strengthened with time.

  During the first months of their relationship, Philippe beavered away: setting up, with the assistance of John Lowenstein, what was little more than an elaborate scam to ensure that the financial and social columns on both sides of the Atlantic were drip-fed favourable stories about Banco Imperiale’s performance with a view to enticing someone into bidding for it. However, it was a totally isolated occurrence that swung things in Banco Imperiale’s favour and removed any reservations the financial community might normally have entertained about dealing with Philippe Mahfud. In August 1998 Russia defaulted on its debt, and the financial world stood transfixed, as if on the edge of an abyss, for several months.

  During that period, investors with funds to invest had to find a safe haven. USNB, the mighty American bank which had the most limited exposure in Russia of all the leading American financial institutions, reasoned that Banco Imperiale was a safe haven at a time when it looked as if the extraordinary buoyancy that the financial markets had enjoyed throughout the latter part of the nineties might be coming to an end. So out of the blue, USNB tendered an offer in mid-September of $6.8 billion for Banco Imperiale. This was just the sort of deal towards which Philippe had been working ever since he had divested himself of his New York operation. Here was the highest amount ever offered for a private investment bank. Philippe, fully aware that the Banco Imperiale was not worth the price, moved to close the deal before USNB discovered how completely they had been duped or before the financial markets recovered from the Russian crisis.

  Multiple Sclerosis or no Multiple Sclerosis, Philippe clearly remained as wily and astute as ever. He could see that the Russian crisis was little more than a storm in a teacup, although he was firmly of the opinion that such an overheated economy would go bust within three or four years. ‘We must strike while the iron’s hot,’ he said to Agatha, who, having no idea what he was talking about, nodded her agreement good-naturedly. Using his health as the excuse to speed up the conclusion to their negotiations, Philippe stipulated that the deal must be signed within six weeks or it was off. Then USNB made its second mistake. It laid down the condition that it should have the right to send its own medical team to Andorra to confirm that his health was as precarious as he claimed it was. Philippe unsuccessfully tried to rub his hands with glee when that term came through. Then he had Agatha telephone Bianca at L’Alexandrine and ask her to come to Andorra as soon as possible. Wondering what the problem was, she came as quickly as she could and was more than a little irritated when she walked through the bedroom door to see her husband propped up in bed, grinning broadly. ‘They’ve fallen for it,’ he rasped throatily. ‘We’ve got them.’

  ‘Who’s fallen for what, and who have you got?’ Bianca asked, irritation tripping off her tongue with every word.

  ‘USNB,’ he laughed. ‘They’re suspicious about the state of my health, and they’re sending their own doctors to check me out.’

  ‘But I thought you didn’t want anyone in the financial community to know your state of health.’

  ‘I didn’t before this, but now I do. Don’t you see, Bianca? Their doctors will confirm that my health is so precarious that my demand to conclude the sale within an unnaturally short space of time is reasonable, based as it must be upon my fear that I might die before the deal is done,’

  Philippe chuckled then started to cough, the spittle running down the side of his face, as he struggled to continue talking. ‘Once the markets regularize, USNB isn’t going to be quite so keen on acquiring Banco Imperiale as it now is. So we’ve got to move fast.’

  All trace of annoyance deserting her, Bianca sat down on the bed beside him and stroked his arm tenderly. ‘You’re the most brilliant man I’ve ever known,’ she said, ‘and so lovable too. What would I do without you?’

  ‘I knew you’d be proud of your old Philippe.’

  ‘I am, darling, I am. No one else could’ve done this but you. Now, I must be off. Tonight I’m having dinner with the Oldenburgs, and I don’t want to be late. They’re having one of the Spanish Infantas, and you know how crazy everyone goes whenever any member of any reigning royal family comes to dinner.’ Bianca pecked her husband on the cheek, turned to Agatha and said:

  ‘Take good care of Monsieur as you always do.’ She was out the door by the end of the sentence, having been there for less than ten minutes.

  As Philippe had envisaged, USNB’s doctors verified the state of his health, and it was agreed between the two sides that the purchase of Banco Imperiale would be concluded on Wednesday, October 28 1998.

  On the day of conclusion, the ailing man awoke bright and early. Agatha and Eli, his favourite male assistant, helped him dress before he sat down to a breakfast of fresh mango juice, scrambled eggs, Matzos soaked in milk and butter, and coffee. The announcement of the sale was due to take place at nine o’clock New York time, which would be three in th
e afternoon his time.

  Bianca had promised to come and share the moment of victory with him, and Philippe allowed himself to savour a delicious sense of anticipation as he shuffled towards the living room to watch his moment of glory on television from the comfort of the overstuffed sofa that Valerian Rybar had made for his stylish wife and himself.

  Agatha turned on the television. Philippe used the remote control of get CNN. He squirmed from side to side in an attempt to get comfortable, before settling down to watch the financial news. So far, so good.

  At eleven o’clock Agatha and Eli helped him back into bed. He rested until one in the afternoon, getting up in time to have a light lunch of mashed potatoes and smoked haddock, which the Jamaican nurse fed him, as usual, from the hospital tray beside the bed. When he had finished, he looked at the clock and registered that the time was coming up for two-twenty.

  ‘Ring L’Alexandrine and find out what time Madame left. She’s late,’ he said to Eli as Agatha wiped the corners of his mouth with a Handy-Wipe before completing the job with a fine Irish linen napkin that was heavily embroidered with Banco Imperiale’s emblem of the doubleheaded eagle which the Mahfuds had adopted as their own.

  Eli left the room to make the call.

  ‘Help me up, sweetie,’ Philippe said to Agatha. ‘Let’s see if we can’t Zimmer me into the living room without Eli’s help.’

  His nurse pulled him up by gripping him beneath his arms. He leaned into her. ‘You smell so lovely,’ he said lustily.

  ‘You’re a naughty boy, flirting with me like that,’ she joked.

  ‘I wish I could do more than flirt with you.’

  Agatha laughed good-naturedly. ‘Naughty.’

  ‘I used to be in my youth. I was a man of strong passions. Still am. Only thing is, the old pecker hasn’t worked for years.’

  ‘You’re making me blush.’

  ‘I love it when you blush. Come on, give me a little kiss. Just one kiss.’