Life Worth Living (32 page)

From the moment the
Post
hit the streets until I left North America I was run ragged, giving interview after interview to the newspapers or television. Everyone wanted to hear about Diana. And Cindy Adams was not unique – I could not help being struck by how much more professional the standards of journalism were in the US and Canada than in Britain. Whether it was Dini Petty or Katie Kouric or Joan Rivers or someone less famous, interviewers never seemed to have an axe to grind. They were after a story, and they got it within the confines of accepted journalistic ethics. They did not seek to embarrass
their interviewees on television with offensive questions delivered in an aggressive manner.

Nor did print journalists do what the British do, which is to make up quotes and generally twist or ignore the facts in accordance with the storyline they have conceived beforehand, and which they then print despite what you have said to them. It is said that the British loathe success while the Americans love it. I had often heard that in America anyone seeing a man driving a Rolls-Royce would say, ‘Good for him. I hope I’ll be able to work hard and get one for myself one day,’ whereas in Britain people said, ‘Look at that rich bastard in his Rolls-Royce,’ and then took a nail to its paintwork and scratched it. This, I now discovered, was true.

Everywhere I went in North America I was given a fair audience and treated with respect. If people did not like what I had to say, they picked me up on the points, not on the colour of my eyes or the structure of my body. I have no doubt that some of the malicious personal attacks on me in Britain had an element of envy. There the unstated question emanating from each journalist was: ‘Why should you, who are not even a professional journalist, have written a worldwide bestseller with information I would never have had access to? Why couldn’t I have had your connections? And since I don’t, why shouldn’t I pillory you for having the success I wanted for myself?’ Can you imagine American writers abusing Louis Auchincloss because he had written a book about a world they did not have access to? Or lambasting Jackie Onassis for using her name and connections to acquire a book out of everyone else’s reach? Americans simply have too much pride and dignity to indulge in the backbiting envy which proliferates in class-conscious Britain.

Time, of course, is a wonderful thing to have on your side. It not only heals all wounds; it also wounds all heels. While I was in New York, my publisher faxed me through a copy of the front page of the
Sunday Express
. Eve Pollard seemed to me to be actively promoting the forthcoming Morton book on Princess Diana, which was due to be serialised by the rival
Sunday Times
. In my opinion, she was enhancing a competitor’s acquisition with free publicity right after she had deprived her own publication of the opportunity to profit from a similar product. Coming from a mercantile background as I do, I thought this was little short of commercial self-mutilation.

It is hardly surprising that, under Pollard’s stewardship, the
Sunday Express
’s circulation plummeted. The consequences to her career were fitting: within two years she had departed, not to edit another newspaper, but for something akin to an editor’s version of oblivion. She bobs up every now and then on British television at three o’clock in the morning. So much for throwing out a bonny baby and trying to pass off dirty bathwater as eau de Cologne.

The case against the
Sunday
Express
quickly became Fleet Street’s largest damages action. Pollard, I am pleased to say, was not the only one to come a cropper. As costs on both sides escalated into the hundreds of thousands, the board of directors
of Express Newspapers became aware that they stood to lose several million pounds if the case went against them.

Meanwhile, Henry McCrory and Craig McKenzie were reaping the harvest of failure: both men left the
Sunday Express
. Indeed Justin Walford is the only central character of this fiasco still employed by the
Sunday Express.

They were forced to settle the action in August 1996 to avoid an even greater disaster in court. I had written
Diana in Private
purely for ‘baby money’, and although in 1992 I was embroiled in expensive litigation, I still had enough to buy a nice place in the country. My flat in London was too small to be a permanent home for a baby, a nanny and my three dogs. Tum-Tum, the dog James Buchanan-Jardine had given me, had presented me with Popsie Miranda in 1987, and she in turn had recently given birth to Maisie Carlotta, among four other puppies. However, if I made our main home in the country, the London flat would serve as an adequate pied à terre.

As soon as I returned from America to Britain, I turned my attention to acquiring a suitable place, and within four weeks I had bought it: a four-bedroomed flat in a converted Jacobean Grade 2 listed manor house in the heart of the picturesque Gloucestershire countryside. I chose a flat within a house to get the best of both worlds. Large houses always have large rooms, and if you have neighbours you have better security, which was an important consideration given that the flat would often be unoccupied. It had superb features which I knew a child would love: long, wide passages for riding bikes; our own inner courtyard where kids could safely play or catch the sun. The grounds, some seven acres, were also ideal for children. There was a long driveway and a wonderful ancient oak tree for climbing. The flat itself had appeal for adults, too. The drawing room was particularly beautiful, with panelling and a huge stone fireplace. The bedrooms were large, and in bed, looking out on the adjoining fields where cows grazed, you felt quite like Marie Antoinette at Le Hameau. And as a management company was responsible for the maintenance, I wouldn’t have to do a thing except write the occasional cheque.

As summer passed and I shopped for antiques for the new flat, the worm began to turn. The Morton book was published, Diana’s co-operation became evident and Buckingham Palace went into overdrive to protect the interests of the monarchy. Suddenly, I found myself inundated with requests for interviews from the foreign media, all of whom said, ‘Buckingham Palace gave us your number. They said if we want to know what’s really going on between the Prince and Princess of Wales, you’re the person to talk to. You’re the one who really knows.’

So, I thought with malicious delight, the very courtiers who had been pulling strings behind the scenes since February to discredit me and the veracity of
Diana in Private
now appreciated the value of a balanced and authoritative account of the marriage and the characters of the royal couple. Although I was still angry about the way I had been treated, I knew how useful the publicity would be for
Diana in Private
. So I jumped on the bandwagon.

Any benefit that accrued to anyone at the palace was purely coincidental, I can assure you. I was both amused and annoyed by the courtiers’ attempts to use me to protect the Prince of Wales’ interests. If they thought I was going to give countless interviews standing up for Charles against Diana, they were wrong. I gave only those interviews which would add to the success of my own book. ‘The prince can fend for himself,’ I told one courtier. ‘He has a whole organisation behind him. Where the royals are concerned, my only interest beyond adhering to the truth and fair play is my own self. While I wish the royals well, and I do think their existence lifts Britain out of its real insignificance into a more special, undeserved category, whether they live or die, reign or are deposed, makes very little difference to the true essentials of my life. I don’t owe my social position to them; I don’t owe what I will inherit to them. If they had never existed, I’d have lost out on a nice little earner like
Diana in Private
, but doubtless I’d have found someone else to write about.’

I would be a liar if I denied that it was gratifying to see the palace crew eat humble pie, but I had more important things on my mind. As soon as I returned in August from Japan, where I went for the launch of the book there, I was off to Russia to see about adopting the baby that was the reason I had written
Diana in Private
in the first place. This trip was really a shot in the dark. I had no idea whether I would be coming back with a baby, or whether I would merely be taking the first steps. So I made Moscow my first stop, staying with Max and Maria Theresa Trofaier at their magnificent apartment near the Kremlin. We went to see a British woman Maria Theresa knew who had adopted a Russian baby. She said her Russian lawyer had handled everything, and although she made it clear that adoptions were possible, she did not seem keen to give me his name. I did not mind, for I understood how protective people can be in such circumstances. In any case, I had already met Nikolai Kassyan, an eminent Russian jurist, through my Moscow guide, and he had agreed to act as my lawyer if I needed one. He seemed confident that he could devise a successful formula.

From Moscow I went by overnight train to St Petersburg, a romantic journey reminiscent of the days of the Czars. At the end of each carriage, little old ladies sat heating up tea which they served to us in glass cups with silver holders. I was to stay with my guide from my previous trip, Eugenie Visharenko, and I was going to see Russia as the Russians view it, not through the eyes of a tourist or diplomat. Life, I discovered, was tough, but the Russians are a warm, generous and resourceful people. They are cultivated and educated to a standard rare in the West. Whatever its ills, communism had provided everyone with a knowledge of literature, music and philosophy as well as the more practical specialised education required by their careers.

As a guide with Intourist, Eugenie had occupied a privileged position under the communists and knew her way around the system. She was confident that she could act successfully as my representative in an adoption, and, realising that she was indeed capable and intelligent, I gave her power of attorney. Thereafter I went from palace to palace, ballet to ballet and opera to opera while Eugenie made contact with various
members of the Nomenclatura and learned the ropes. After a week, there was still no sign of a baby to adopt, but I had not expected mountains to be moved in moments. I returned to London optimistic that he or she would come in the not-too-distant future.

I came home to find that some unpleasant ghosts from the past had reappeared to haunt me. The two newspaper groups which I was already suing, Associated and Express Newspapers, had been put up to rubbishing me anew, and I knew exactly who was responsible: Colin Campbell and Ian Argyll had been up to their old tricks again. This did not come as a complete bolt from the blue, for I had received a telephone call from Ian earlier in the summer.

‘I feel it’s only right that you should compensate my brother by settling an annuity of $20,000 on him. You owe your success to his name.’

‘I rather thought I owed my success to my literary talent, and to the people I know as a result of having been born the daughter of Michael and Gloria Ziadie,’ I replied.

‘If you hadn’t married my brother, no one would be interested in anything you have to say,’ Little Ian said.

‘I dare say the name Campbell explains why Andrew Morton’s book is doing so well.’

‘Colin can make life very awkward for you.’

I had told him exactly what I thought of him, his brother and his proposal. Now Little Ian had made contact with Associated Newspapers, who had set up an interview in New York with Colin and a tabloid journalist named Geordie Greig. For good measure, a
Daily Express
journalist was included in the act.

Argyll later gave a signed statement (starting: ‘We, the most noble Colin Campbell’ letting slip his twenty present and previous titles) which was a hatchet job and inaccurate to boot. The result was two big interviews with Colin Campbell, first in the
Evening Standard
, and then the next morning another in the
Daily Express
. Both stories alleged that I was a hermaphrodite.

Apart from anything else, this was inconsistent: the very first report about my medical history ever published in any newspaper anywhere in the world began with the damning words: ‘Lord Colin Campbell last night disclosed that his wife of nine months was once a man.’ Both interviews were as illogical as they were mendacious and vituperative.

Campbell and I had neither seen nor spoken to one another since October 1975, and we had no friends in common who could run news back and forth – I had severed contact with everyone I had met through him – yet he set himself up as an authority on my current social life. Stating that I did not know nor had I spoken to any of the people mentioned in my book, he decreed that its contents were a tissue of lies. He was not specific, of course, but then, he couldn’t be, for he had never met or mixed with any member of the royal family, and was as
personally ignorant about them as a mechanic from the Adirondacks.

I was amused at the newspapers’ attempt to present Campbell as a successful art-dealer and someone worth listening to, and not as a dissolute ne’er-do-well. This apparent success I took with a pinch of salt. When we were married he claimed to have been a deep-sea diver for black coral in Fiji, yet he had not one stick of it to show for his efforts. And you will remember that he also called himself a travel writer on the strength of six handwritten pages. The interviews might have concealed the stench of failure which emanated from the tiny, rent-controlled apartment where he has been holed up since returning to New York to live in the late 1970s, but the accompanying photographs showed a face distorted by a lifetime of substance abuse. So many of his teeth were missing that I quipped to my brother, ‘Colin’s teeth and his stories seem to have entered a race to see which have the most gaps.’

My lawyer was holding up the newspaper as he read out the piece to me. ‘You know,’ I said to him, ‘I never felt glad or grateful that my marriage came to an end until now, seeing what Colin Campbell looks like today. At twenty-seven he had the face God gave him; now he has the face he deserves. He’s like Dorian Gray’s picture. Every thought, every feeling, every failing, every sin is etched there, for all the world to see. Please turn the picture away from me. The mere sight of him is making me feel like being sick.’ I was not simply being catty. Had my lawyer not turned the page, I would have heaved all over my sitting-room floor.