JUST BORIS: A Tale of Blond Ambition (21 page)

Allegra packed her bags and fled back to London in February 1990. Charles Grant says: ‘Boris was distraught – he desperately wanted Allegra; that was probably the only time the comic mask dropped. He was very, very unhappy.’
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It was also one of the few occasions when he relaxed his self-control and drank more than a glass or two of wine. Charles Grant remembers inviting Boris to a party at his apartment in the rue de Calle just after Allegra had left. ‘That was the last time I vomited from drinking too much – and it was because of Boris. He didn’t want to go home when everyone else did because he was on his own. He said, “Let’s open another bottle.” I was persuaded to drink it with him – and then I was ill.’

‘Very unusually, we had one or two heart to hearts when he was
disentangling himself from Allegra,’ recalls David Usborne. ‘We got very drunk on Duvel (a strong Belgian beer) when we went away for a weekend and stayed in a log cabin in the Ardennes.’

Other guests were surprised when Boris also got ‘very distressed’ in public over dinner with his uncle Edmund Fawcett – his mother’s brother – in late June 1990, while he was covering an EU summit in Dublin for the
Telegraph
.

The period of the break-up, which stretched over two years, is a rare example of Boris reaching out to other men in what has otherwise been a remarkably self-sufficient life. On occasion, he would also be uncharacteristically open with professional rivals. He once asked one: ‘Do you think I’m a difficult person?’ It was not ‘a Boris sort of question.’ Divorce proceedings had begun and even reached the decree nisi or provisional stage, but in September 1990 there was something of a reconciliation. At weekends, Allegra began flying to Brussels (before the days of the Channel Tunnel) to be with Boris while taking her Law Society finals in London during the week. A full year later, she enrolled at the Université Libre in Brussels for a Masters in EU law, in one last attempt to repair their ailing marriage.

For Boris, never a man to be alone for long, it was already too late. Although in some ways a loner, he has never enjoyed bachelorhood. While Allegra had been slogging over her law books in London, he had already begun a dedicated pursuit of his childhood friend Marina Wheeler, whom he had known since they were both in nappies in Washington. He had first fallen for her a few years later at the age of nine – when she had turned up from America sporting an ‘Impeach Nixon’ badge and been able to teach an impressionable young ‘Al’ what it meant. As we have seen, she was less enamoured back then.

Their halting relationship suffered another false start when the pair were both 16 and Boris discovered how he could take Marina out in London without having to pay for it. ‘I found out that Hare Krishna devotees would give you a free lunch if you attended a session at the centre near Shaftesbury Avenue. I thought the food was delicious but she didn’t think much of it and has never forgiven me.’
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As if trust is
a constant issue for him, Boris gravitates towards people he has known a long time. Marina came back to Brussels in 1990, just as Allegra was leaving, and was working only a short walk away as a lawyer for the EU practice of Stanbrook & Hooper. The ex-pat community in Brussels is close-knit but she found Boris at his most lonesome. Even when he reunited with Allegra in the autumn of that year, his wife’s studies in London meant he was by himself most of the time.

Where Allegra had become more emotionally needy, Marina with her steady career, sense of purpose and quiet steeliness was a reassuring presence. Here at last was a woman who was a model of stability and independence. He was attracted to her unusual self-sufficiency and calm, inherited from her unflappable Indian mother, Dip. ‘Marina was always so grounded, such a balanced person,’ remembers a close female colleague. ‘She was a star on the fast track. She was very interested in people in a genuine way but she’s also someone who doesn’t need attention.’ Certainly, Rachel’s friends have said how Marina has been accepted into the family in a way that Allegra, thought to be neurotic, never was.

Despairing of his marriage, Boris pursued Marina devotedly, bombarding her with phone calls and flattery. ‘Boris was obviously smitten and she fell madly in love with him,’ recalls the colleague. ‘When he was pursuing her, he didn’t play it cool at all. It was full out, lots of phone calls all the time. Boris would be very open about his feelings, he wasn’t coy once he decided that Marina was the one.’ Fatefully, when she was in town, Allegra frequently invited Marina round to dinner at the flat she shared with Boris because Marina lived in ‘crappy digs.’

This time Marina responded in the way that he had hoped. Although she and her family – particularly her ever-loyal mother – insist she did not become romantically involved with Boris until it was all over with Allegra, observers are equally sure that the line between Allegra finishing and Marina beginning is fuzzy at best. ‘It was a sort of natural progression,’ says one. ‘Or rather there was no real line at all.’ ‘I often went to Allegra and Boris’s house for lunch or drinks and Marina would be there too,’ recalls another ex-pat. ‘There was clearly something between Boris and Marina in terms of attachment and
affinity. It was like visiting a ménage à trois – I wondered how Allegra dealt with that.’

Another frequent visitor puts it: ‘It was clear Marina was obsessed by Boris. When I went round to Allegra and Boris’s house, Marina would often be there. She was clearly in love with him. Her familiarity with him, the way she treated him, it was hard to see where the friendship stopped and the love began. One week I was going round to Boris and Allegra’s house with Marina there. The next week, I was going round to Boris and Marina’s house with Allegra nowhere to be seen. It was if nothing had happened. I don’t think Boris would have let Allegra go if he hadn’t had someone else lined up, but Allegra’s growing disenchantment had made it uncomfortable for Boris.’

Really there is little justice in blaming Marina for the breakdown of Boris’s first marriage – and it is clear that Allegra does not hold a grudge. According to one Brussels friend who had also known them in Oxford, relations with Allegra had by then become ‘acrimonious.’ She was telling friends that Boris was behaving ‘shockingly.’ ‘It upset both of them a lot, and there were unpleasant accusations. It was really very bad.’ Allegra left Brussels for the last time in early 1992, taking the furniture with her – down to, and including the egg spoons. Marina helped Boris refurnish his home – and rebuild his life. And then she moved in.

‘She dropped everything for him,’ remembers one of Marina’s friends. ‘Then the pregnancy happened very quickly and she was absolutely delighted.’ By October 1992, Marina was engaged to Boris as well as expecting his child. His charm, wit, intelligence, charisma and growing fame were undoubtedly a potent mix. Life with Boris promised glamour, excitement, lots of laughs and a whiff of danger. No doubt he was a refreshing antidote to the stuffiness and tedium of EU directives, conventions and articles that filled her working life. She in turn was more indulgent of him. Visitors to the flat now inhabited by Boris with Marina observed theirs was a very different liaison: ‘The relationship must have been founded on much greater tolerance than with Allegra from the start,’ one frequent visitor noted. ‘She seems to see amusing foibles in Boris, whereas Allegra wanted to change him. Boris was never going to change. Maybe Marina knew
what she was getting into with Boris, because of how she had come to be with him in the first place.’

Allegra had long attempted to smarten Boris up with an expensive wardrobe in which he took no interest whatsoever. ‘She wanted a stylish Boris,’ explains an old friend. ‘She wanted everything ordered and organised. She wanted to remould him, but that wasn’t possible.’ In contrast, Marina would merely laugh indulgently at Boris’s ragged attire and leave it to him to decide on his own style. Under her influence their home was designed for practicality and cheerfulness rather than elegance. This laissez-faire approach was immensely helpful to Boris’s freewheeling style and in part explains the longevity of this much-tested and unconventional partnership. ‘When I was round at their house, Marina was always calm and calming, while he was volatile,’ recalls a one-time regular visitor. ‘It was a good match. He also provided her with something. He is witty, clever with words, recites poetry brilliantly and has a high level of emotional intelligence. He’s quite empathetic when he wants to be, clever at judging other people’s moods. His roguish thing also works – she actually enjoys it. Marina is also bright, although outwardly less assertive, confident and outgoing than he. So overall, I get the impression it is a marriage of equal parts.’

Nonetheless there were also indications that Marina, the liberal Lefty lawyer, had serious doubts, not only about the divergence between her own and Boris’s political views – but also the extent of his overweening ambition. Indeed, she once pumped me as a colleague and someone who had observed her husband at the closest quarters for information on him and was keen to know what I
really
thought of him. Some observers believe she was also wary of Stanley’s extra-marital past and the circumstances of the breakdown of his marriage with Charlotte – plus, of course, Boris’s own failed relationship with Allegra.

There was, however, an immediate practical problem. Boris was still married. Once Allegra learned about the baby, she agreed to an accelerated divorce but Boris was also required to produce various crucial items of paperwork speedily – a challenge that has frequently defeated him. One EU official recalls finding him head in hands on
the steps of the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, groaning loudly at his own ineptitude. ‘He said he had great problems because he was getting divorced,’ the official recalls. “‘Allegra is very angry because I forgot to send in the papers,” he said. I asked him why he had married her. He said she had pushed him into it.’

The divorce finally came through on 26 April 1993. There was no time to lose, as Belgian doctors were beginning to question whether the now heavily pregnant Marina would be able to cross the Channel for her wedding on 8 May. She just about managed it, following a party in Brussels where, resplendent in a smart fuchsia and black maternity dress and a beatific smile, she lugged a magnum of champagne around for her guests. Boris performed his usual bumbling glad-handing routine in a smelly brown jacket with shredded pockets. Sunlight filtered down through the glass kitchen ceiling and Boris’s paintings lined the shelves down one whole wall. It was a happy scene in their new home together – unlike Allegra, Marina had been successful in winkling Boris out of the old flat to a house that was capacious and homely. They were now living at 76 rue van Campenhout in a fashionable central area just a few minutes’ walk from the
Telegraph
offices and the European Commission.

The wedding, a few days later at Horsham town hall in Sussex, was low-key compared to Boris’s first with a small reception in the Wheelers’ nearby garden. ‘It was a very simple affair, without any big names there,’ says one of a handful of close friends invited. ‘It was just a lovely, sunny day in the garden without ceremony or fuss and not at all an English society wedding with top hats and tails. Marina, although heavily pregnant, took everything in her stride and both Boris’s mum and dad turned up.’ True to Johnsonian form, the honeymoon was modest – consisting of one night in a hotel in unromantic East Grinstead.

Back in Brussels a month later, on 12 June Marina went into labour. But Boris was nowhere to be found and not answering his pager. In desperation, she repeatedly phoned the
Telegraph
office in Brussels to try and track him down. As usual, he had left no indication as to his whereabouts, so London was called in. This caused further consternation, as Boris, in typically secretive mode, had omitted to
tell his bosses that he was an expectant father, let alone that his wife was on the verge of giving birth. Eventually he was located on a remote North Sea beach on the ‘Belgian Riviera’ covering a far from thrilling tale about a ship that looked as if it might go down in high seas – but didn’t. He still insisted on filing before hurtling back to Brussels. Soon afterwards a baby girl was born – followed by a fierce battle of wills between the couple over her name. ‘I’ve got to win this one,’ Marina told friends and, significantly, she did. Boris had been set on calling her ‘Lettice’ while Marina preferred the less outlandish Lara. The compromise was that she was to be known as Lara Lettice but for many years now she has been known, to her mother’s pleasure, as simply Lara.

Lara’s birth was before the days of automatic paternity leave. Even so, as a brand new first-time father, Boris was unusual in barely skipping a beat in his gruelling near seven-day-a-week work schedule. It was a portent of how life was to be for Marina, where despite working full-time as a lawyer and becoming an eminent name in many legal fields including privacy, the EU, divorce and mental health, she has been the key family ball juggler. Home has never been a refuge from work – and certainly wasn’t after Lara’s arrival. ‘Boris is extremely clever, but he’s also a workaholic. He’s done it by sheer hard work at the exclusion of everything, including other people,’ recalls Peter Guilford. ‘I remember a dinner party when he spent the whole time writing an article. At a requiem concert in the cathedral, he spent his whole time writing notes. At a wedding disco, Boris was going round interviewing people for his column while Marina was breast-feeding. He is completely driven. He has an ability to focus on one thing, no matter what human beings may be in the way.’

Boris had genuinely been upset at the failure of his marriage – but with a new wife, a new baby and soaring career he moved on quickly. Allegra’s wounds took longer to heal, however. Many of her old friends from college who knew her before she married Boris claim she has been ‘destroyed’ by what happened. Several were ‘shocked’ when they met her at a college reunion, not least because of how beautiful and full of promise she had been as a student. ‘She has
changed inside and outside,’ said one. She withdrew from society circles and took up first drink and then art.