Empress Bianca (12 page)

‘Hiya, son,’ he said, his face awash with delight. ‘How’s my little champ? What a cute little guy you are. Come on, give your Papa a smile.’

‘He’s a bit young for that, Ferdie,’ Amanda laughed. ‘Babies don’t smile for the first few months.’

The sister’s response was to hand Amanda two sheets of paper, densely typewritten. ‘This is his recommended feeding schedule. Please follow it carefully.’

‘Thank you,’ Amanda said, refraining from mentioning that she and Ferdie had already hired a maternity nurse. She took the papers and put them away in her handbag, while Ferdie paced up and down with the baby, talking to him as if this were his closest companion.

From that moment onwards, Manolito - as the baby would thereafter be called within the family - became more Ferdie’s son than Amanda’s. It was Ferdie, already totally besotted with his son, who took little Manolito in his arms to the car, and it was Ferdie who cooed over him all the way uptown to the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, where Manny had been taken theWednesday before when he started passing blood. When they reached the hospital it was Ferdie who stepped out of the car with the baby in his arms, and when they reached his father’s room it was Ferdie who handed him the baby with the words: ‘We brought you your grandson, Papa.’

Manny, his last wish granted, cradled the baby in his arms, wiping away a tear with the back of his hand. ‘You’ve made my life complete,’ he said, looking from father to son. Six weeks later Manuel Piedraplata, formerly Emanuel Silverstein, was dead.

B
ianca had not intended the affair to take the course it had, nor had she intended it to last as long as it did. Her aim had been pure and simple: to bind herself more closely to the Piedraplatas. With that objective in mind, she had pursued every avenue open to her. First, she had tried befriending Begonia. That had worked for about three weeks, but by the fourth week, Begonia began making excuses for why she could not come for coffee or for a swim or for tennis. By the eighth week, Begonia would take and return only one in five of her telephone calls, and by the tenth week, when she dropped in unexpectedly to see Begonia, Bianca suspected that the other woman was lurking in her bedroom and was not out, as the maid had claimed.

‘I don’t see why you’re so upset if Begonia Mahfud is too busy to be your latest best friend,’ Bernardo said of Bianca’s increasing frustration. ‘You have plenty of friends already. Lay off her for a while then ask her and Raymond to a dinner party with Philippe and that Polish woman who’s new in town. That will keep the friendship on the boil but in a more manageable way from her point of view, since she’s so busy. What you don’t seem to understand, Bianca, is not everyone has as much time on their hands as you do.’

Bernardo was right, of course. Bianca saw that instantly. Distance would preserve the relationship and keep it on a social level. It would also spare her the pain of being rebuffed again, for the one thing Bianca, a naturally affectionate person, had difficulty coping with was being spurned.

Since the original plan of befriending Begonia to get to Amanda Piedraplata was not working out the way she had expected it to, Bianca did as Bernardo suggested and put the relationship with Begonia on a more impersonal footing. That not only worked well but surprisingly so.

Every invitation Bianca issued for dinner was reciprocated within a month by Begonia. Every invitation from Bianca to a cocktail party was followed by an invitation from Begonia to one of the fashionable Mexico City restaurants. And always, Philippe, Raymond’s unattached brother, was seated beside Bianca.

That was how it all began. In the age-old Latin tradition of friends dropping in without invitation, Philippe started to call by uninvited to see Bianca and Bernardo. He would stay for supper and chat to husband and wife after the children had gone to bed until Bernardo started to yawn. That was his cue for departure, and within months a ritual had been established with Philippe coming by once or twice a week without being invited.

This new addition to the Calman family circle was less unusual than it might have seemed to people who were unfamiliar with the way life was conducted in Mexican social circles of the day. The Calmans were known to be extremely hospitable, and Philippe was only one of about twenty friends who believed they had the licence to visit whenever the urge took them. What made Philippe’s visiting exceptional was the frequency and regularity with which he did it, but even that did not arouse suspicion, at least not in their circle of friends.

Bernardo was of the firm opinion that Philippe was merely lonely and that he was killing time until he found himself a girlfriend or wife. It did not strike him as odd that Philippe would prefer being with the Calmans to being with his own family. The truth was that life never appeared dull in the Calman household with its constant stream of guests buoyed up by Bianca’s vibrant personality. Meanwhile, life with Begonia and Philippe’s brother Raymond might have been worthy, but it was also excruciatingly dull. Even their dinner parties were like squibs dunked in water. To Bernardo, it was therefore easily explicable why Philippe - and indeed, everyone else - would prefer an evening with his vivacious wife and himself to an evening with Raymond and Begonia, although Bernardo was not a foolish or careless man, and he was on the lookout for signs that Philippe might be ‘sweet on Bianca’.

Many men had been ‘sweet on Bianca’, but Bernardo had always been vigilant in seeing off the competition before temptation had reared it’s ugly head. So far as any threat from Philippe was concerned, his conduct was so patently correct and above-board and so devoid of anything sexual that Bernardo gradually relaxed his guard and even began to encourage his friend to escort her to functions that he preferred to avoid. The term ‘walker’ had not yet been invented to describe Philippe’s function within the Calman family group, but within two years of meeting Bernardo and Bianca, he was indeed her ‘walker’ with the full approval of her husband.

The children, of course, had their own take on this new development. ‘Philippe’s in love with you,’ they used to tease their mother. Bianca silently agreed. However, she was not interested in an affair with this man, whom she did not find in the least sexually appealing. Indeed, she was not interested in having an affair with anyone at all. She was happy with her husband, whom she still loved passionately and with whom the physical side of marriage was as satisfying as it had ever been. Their lovemaking had, in fact, become ever more rewarding with the passage of time. ‘One of the best things in life,’ Bianca used to say, ‘is to make love with a man you’re in love with and who’s in love with you.’

The lacunae for Bianca were outside her personal life. They were centred round her need for interest and challenge in a world where women of her milieu had to restrict their activities to their social circles.

To outsiders, her ambitions, being centred round society, could be discounted as trivial, but to insiders, they would have been entirely understandable, had she been of a mind to confide her ambitions to anyone. She was not, however. Denial of social ambition was as crucial to success as the energy and resourcefulness that the Biancas of this world brought to bear on achieving their ambitions.

As for Bianca, there was nothing to be ashamed of in the way she felt. She needed something to strive for: something to give grit and purpose to her life. She needed the reward of accomplishment, although she was not consciously aware of it. She also needed the frustration of failure and the excitement of uncertainty, for success would have been meaningless without them. In the presence of a life with too much unearned fulfilment, she was seeking arenas where she could strive and stretch herself.

Over the two years in which her friendship with Philippe was
ripening into something else, Bianca preoccupied herself fruitlessly with how she could achieve her ambition of entertaining, and being entertained by, Amanda Piedraplata. Of course, her ultimate ambition was not to become an acolyte of Amanda’s. She wanted to befriend the queen of Mexican society so that some of the Piedraplata glory would rub off on her, along with some of their influence and clout. She was not deluding herself. She knew that her current rank in the social pecking order equated in aristocratic terms to somewhere between a countess and a marchioness. This might have been good enough for some but not for Harold Barnett’s little princess, who had been raised from birth to believe that she could, by dint of her natural talents and her efforts, be at the very centre of things. No. Such a paltry rank was not where she saw herself. She wanted to be a princess in social terms, and until she had achieved that objective, she would not feel that she had realized her potential.

The route to royal status in Mexican society, as Bianca knew only too well, was through the Piedraplatas. Unless she was a member of their circle - even a peripheral member - she could have all the pretensions she wanted to being a top-flight socialite, but she would not be one, nor would she be acknowledged as one by the people who mattered socially.

As things stood, she occasionally saw Ferdie and Amanda at Begonia and Raymond’s larger parties. This was not enough for the realization of her ambitions, but it was enough for her to discern that Ferdie was attracted to her. Pleasant though that fact was, it was not something upon which either of them was inclined to act. Indeed, had Ferdie been in the market for an affair (which he was not), Bianca would have been the last woman in Mexico who would have slept with him. To do so would have been to put herself for all time outside the magic social circle, which, Bianca was only too aware, had Amanda as its pivot. Bianca used her considerable resources whenever she was with Ferdie out of Amanda’s earshot, to befriend him in the hope that he might be instrumental in having his wife accept one of the invitations she periodically sent them.

The Mahfud family still provided her with access to Amanda. For that reason, she welcomed Philippe into the bosom of her family, even though she found him dull, if amiable and obliging.

Philippe, on the other hand, seemed to find Bianca endlessly fascinating, which in a way she was. She had energy and charm and warmth. She was hospitable. She had a great sense of humour. She was
strong and apparently invulnerable. She seemed unstintingly generous. And you knew, just knew, that there was a part of her hidden away from view and to which you could never gain access. She might, however, allow you glimpses of it, if and when you pleased her sufficiently. This hint of inaccessibility lent her an aura of mystery, which only heightened her appeal.

For two frustrating years, Bianca hovered around the Mahfuds, watching and waiting for the opportunity to advance her cause. Then, on New Year’s Eve 1965, at her own party, Bianca took a gigantic step forwards - although it was only later that she recognized it as such.

The garden was glistening with thousands of tiny electric lights. The tables were groaning with food. The band was playing all the latest songs, and Bianca was keeping an eye out for Astrud Gilberto, who had accepted an invitation - supplied by Smythson, of course - but was running fashionably late. She was thrilled that Brazil’s biggest singing star was attending, but even her attendance, together with a prince and princess of the Orleans-Braganza family from Brazil, could not completely eradicate the disappointment Bianca had to endure. Amanda and Ferdie had declined. Yet again. Amanda had replied - in her script with its upright looping characters so characteristic of upper-class British women - that she and Ferdie ‘much regret not being able to attend owing to absence abroad’. Life was too, too unfair. Every time Bianca had thrown a party in the two years since she had first met Amanda at Sara Finkelstein de Cohen’s party, her elusive quarry had not been able to accept her ‘kind invitation’ because she and Ferdie were out of Mexico. In the hope of nabbing the Golden Couple at a time when they would be sure to be in Mexico, Bianca had even changed the timing of her summer party.

Absence abroad had been the excuse again - or, to be more fair, the reason, for they were genuinely out of the country - this time in the South of France. ‘Why can’t those blasted Piedraplatas ever stay at home like everyone else?’ Bianca had asked Bernardo when she received their latest expression of regret. And, to add insult to injury, the Piedraplatas had never once asked the Calmans to any of their functions, although Bianca could at least take comfort from the fact that they had a good reason for being out of Mexico on this particular occasion: old Manny Piedraplata was dying in New York.

All of this, and the myriad distractions which occupy a hostess, were
on Bianca’s mind during her New Year’s Eve party as she cast an eye around the dance floor and received a shock that made her hands start to tremble. Philippe was dancing erotically with an American woman whom he had brought along as his date, a woman Bianca had pressed him to bring, because she needed Philippe to produce a possible love interest from time to time so that Bernardo’s suspicions about his feelings for her could be kept at bay.

‘What a tramp,’ Bianca hissed to herself under her breath, alert to the danger of losing her adoring swain as she watched Philippe and the over-peroxided Bonnie Lee Haldane grinding their hips together. Although Bianca had no doubt that he must be aware, as she was, that Bonnie Lee Haldane was a two-bit floozy on the make, she could not take the chance of sexual attraction distorting his perception and transforming this tart into something more substantial. After all, if Philippe should fall for - or, indeed, make off with - any other woman, it would significantly reduce Bianca’s chances of getting close to Ferdie and Amanda Piedraplata; and she was not prepared to take that chance.

Without missing a beat, she slapped her sweetest expression on her face and sailed onto the dance floor to speak to the couple beside Philippe and his bombshell. Having whispered the generalities to them that were the cover for her real purpose, she turned to Philippe and Bonnie Lee, whose elegant finger tips were positioned on his back and shoulder in a manner reminiscent of a praying mantis about to devour its victim, and said: ‘Philippe, what a cruel man you are! You can’t treat our guest so cavalierly. Look at the poor thing. You must be aware that foreigners are not used to the heat the way we are. If you keep on at this rate, you’ll have her sweating from every pore, and we ladies don’t like our maquillage ruined, do we, my dear?’ she finished, smiling broadly at the astonished woman. With that, Bianca grabbed her American guest by one wrist, Philippe by the other, and led them away towards the bar.

Once there, Bianca indicated to one of the footmen that she wanted three glasses of champagne. They were drinking Louis Roederer NV and chatting amiably when the band struck up ‘Blame It On The Bossa Nova’, a hit by Eydie Gorme of which Bianca was particularly fond. ‘My favourite song,’ she declared. ‘I can’t possibly not dance this. Would you mind awfully if I stole your date for a few minutes?’

‘Not at all,’ Bonnie Lee replied graciously, her eyes as hard as steel.

‘She’s on to me,’ Bianca thought, giving her one of her broadest and warmest smiles. ‘Darling,’ she said to the man nearest her, an old school friend of Bernardo’s as it turned out. ‘Do take care of our American guest and show her what Latin American hospitality is all about, while Philippe twirls me around the floor, will you?’

With that, she seized her prey by the wrist again. ‘Come on, my old dancing partner,’ she said, dragging him onto the dance floor with the first overtly flirtatious comment she had ever made to him. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather dance this with.’