‘Are you capable of satisfying your young wife, Mr Campbell-Black?’ or ‘Would you be prepared to take on an older child, one perhaps that was coloured, abused or mentally and physically handicapped?’
To which Rupert had snapped back: ‘No — Taggie’s got enough problem children with me.’
‘You’re too old at forty-four, Mr Campbell-Black. By the time he or she is a teenager, you’ll be nearly sixty. I’m afraid if you want a baby, you and Mrs Campbell-Black will have to go abroad.’
Rupert gritted his teeth at the memory.
Looking at the two of them, Maria Immaculata felt that beneath his cool, Rupert was the far more apprehensive. Probably because his background, which involved a disastrous first marriage, a string of
And who would not, thought Maria Immaculata, admiring Taggie’s sweet face, now that the sun curiously peering through the bougainvillaea had added a glow to her blanched cheeks.
The hand not clutching Rupert’s was now rammed between her slender thighs to stop them shaking. It was also noticeable how she winced every time the crying of a baby in the orphanage could be heard over the wistful chant of women’s voices coming from the chapel.
Over herbal tea so disgusting Rupert suspected it had been made from Sister Mercedes’ beard shavings, it was agreed Taggie should spend the next three weeks helping in the orphanage to indicate her suitability as a mother. Rupert would drop her off and collect her in the evenings. There was no way Sister Mercedes was going to let him loose among her novices.
As a rule, couples were never shown their prospective baby at a first interview. But Maria Immaculata was so charmed by Taggie trying so heroically to hide her longing, that she reached for the telephone and gabbled a few sentences. Sister Mercedes pursed her thick lips — it was all going too fast. Rupert, who’d picked up some Spanish on the international show-jumping circuit, went very still. What if they produced a hideous baby, Taggie had such high expectations.
‘You may find you cannot love the baby we have chosen for you,’ said Maria Immaculata as though reading his thoughts. ‘But our babies are like gold to us, and we, in turn, may decide you are not the right parents to have one, but we thought-’
There was a knock on the door and a beautiful young nun in a snow-white habit, whose dark eyes widened in wonder as she saw Rupert, came in bearing a tiny bundle hidden in a lace shawl.
‘This is Sister Angelica, who runs the nursery,’ said Maria Immaculata.
I wouldn’t mind taking that home, thought Rupert irrationally.
‘We thought Mr and Mrs Campbell-Black might like a glimpse of baby Bianca,’ went on Maria Immaculata.
This time the hibiscus really did go flying, as Taggie leapt up and stumbled forward, drawing back the shawl and gazing down in wonder at the little crumpled face.
‘Oh look,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, may I hold her? Oh Rupert, oh look,’ she gasped, taking the fragile body in her arms.
As if it were the Christchild itself, thought Sister Angelica.
Taggie gazed and gazed.
‘Look at her tiny nose and her perfect ears, and her long fingers and she’s got little fingernails already and eyelashes and her skin’s like ivory. Oh Rupert, was anything ever so adorable?’ Taggie’s gruff voice broke, and her tears splashed down onto Bianca’s face waking her, so the baby blinked and opened big shiny black eyes.
‘Oh thank you, she’s so beautiful,’ sobbed Taggie.
It was as instinctive as one of his brood mares nuzzling and suckling a new-born foal. Suddenly Rupert didn’t need that cocaine hit after all.
Seeing the look of pride and triumph on his face, Maria Immaculata mopped her eyes. Sister Angelica was openly crying as she dabbed
‘There, I mustn’t monopolize her, you must hold her,’ Taggie turned to Rupert.
But Rupert was only happy because Taggie was overjoyed. To him, Bianca was just a blob. In fact the only baby he’d ever liked had been his daughter Tabitha.
Perhaps Bianca sensed this, because when she was handed over to him she went absolutely rigid, screamed, and even regurgitated milk over his blazer, until Sister Angelica, laughing, removed her.
Meanwhile a dazed Taggie was hugging Maria Immaculata. ‘I know it’s only the beginning and she’s not remotely ours yet, but thank you,’ she mumbled. Then, turning to a still, stony faced Sister Mercedes, she settled just for clasping her hand.
‘You’ve all been so kind, oh may I hold her again?’
‘Would you like to give Bianca her bottle?’ asked Maria Immaculata, then, ignoring Sister Mercedes — to hell with the raffle — added: ‘I think this calls for a glass of brandy all round. I do hope you’ll be comfortable in the hotel Sister Mercedes has chosen for you. It is very convenient, only three kilometres from the convent.’
To Rupert, the Red Parrot was Sister Mercedes’ revenge — a two-storey, cockroach-ridden version of the hair shirt. Having acceded to Rupert’s demands for double beds and air-conditioning over the telephone, the landlord, Alberto, whose tight, grease-stained grey vest displayed tufts of stinking, black armpit hair, showed them into a room where the double bed wouldn’t have accommodated two anorexic midgets. The air-conditioning consisted of wire netting over the window, an electric fan which distributed the dust and the swarms of insects, and a gap along the top of the walls to let in the blare of the television sets in neighbouring rooms. Outside the rickety balcony was about to collapse beneath the weight of two parched lemon trees in terracotta tubs, and traffic roared both ways up and down what had been described as a ‘quiet one-way street’. It was only when Taggie looked round for water to relieve the parched lemon trees, that they realized the nearest bathroom was twenty yards down the corridor.
Seeing that Rupert was about to blow his top, Taggie said soothingly that Alberto couldn’t be that bad.
‘Did you see those sweet little hamsters running round his office?’
Rupert hadn’t got the heart to tell her they were on tonight’s menu along with another Colombian delicacy: giant fried ants.
‘The only consolation,’ he said, crushing a second cockroach underfoot, ‘is that the Press will never dream of looking for us here. Tomorrow we’ll move somewhere else.’
‘I don’t think we can. Alberto just told me he’s Sister Mercedes’ brother.’
But they were so tired and relieved they fell asleep wrapped in each other’s arms in one tiny bed.
The next morning, Taggie, shrugging off any jet lag, was back at the convent, blissfully happy to be looking after Bianca and helping Sister Angelica with the other orphans. Having dropped her off, Rupert returned to the Red Parrot and spent half the morning on the telephone checking up on all his horses, including his best one, Penscombe Pride, who had happily recovered from a nasty fall in the Rutminster Gold Cup.
Rupert also tried to cheer up his favourite jockey, Lysander Hawkley, who was suicidal because his old horse Arthur had collapsed and died within a whisker of winning the Gold Cup, and because the girl he loved, Kitty Rannaldini, was showing no signs of leaving her fiendish husband.
‘No Arthur and no Kitty, Rupert, I don’t think I can stand it.’
Afterwards Rupert visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bogota. As a former government minister, he wanted to see how many strings he could pull, and how much red tape he would have to cut through to enable them to take Bianca back to England.
He lunched with a polo friend, a sleek, charming playboy called Salvador Molinari, who offered him a cocaine deal.
‘You know so many reech people, Rupert.’
The deal would have sorted out all Rupert’s problems at Lloyds. Regretfully, he refused.
‘I’ve got to behave myself, Sal, until we’ve got Bianca safely home.’
Later, in the Avenida Jiminex, Rupert bought some cheap emeralds from a dealer for Taggie, his daughters, Perdita and Tabitha, and Dizzy, his head groom. In Bogota, beside the dark-haired, dark-eyed Colombians, Rupert was as flashily conspicuous as a kingfisher. Leaving the dealers, he was stopped by a policeman, pretending to be doing an official search, who then tried to make off with Rupert’s Rolex and his wallet. Being still high from a
