Life with My Sister Madonna (33 page)

A car meets me at the airport. After about an hour's drive, we arrive at Dornach, drive up a sweeping beech-tree-lined drive, and Skibo Castle looms in front of me cloaked in mist, big: beautiful, mysterious, and set on seventy-five hundred acres of prime Highlands land. A flag featuring the Union Jack on one side and the Stars and Stripes on the other—a tradition stemming from Andrew Carnegie, who restored the castle in the nineteenth century—flies from one of the turrets.

My first sight of the Skibo main hall is straight out of any Hollywood movie featuring an ancient Scottish castle. A crackling log fire burns brightly, the walls are Edwardian oak-paneled, some with stuffed animal heads displayed on them. A sweeping oak staircase leads to a landing with a stained-glass bow window, where Madonna's wedding ceremony will take place.

I expect Errol Flynn to swagger down the magnificent staircase at any moment and start fencing with me. My fantasies are punctured, however, when at the reception desk I am asked to hand over my credit card for incidentals. I tell the receptionist that I didn't bring my credit card with me. The result is that all my charges will be billed to Madonna and Guy. My white lie is, of course, motivated by my reaction to Madonna having blackmailed me into attending her wedding. I don't want to feel that way, but I just can't forget her bullying, overbearing behavior toward me.

I follow Skibo's kilted “greeter” to my accommodations, assuming they will be baronial and splendid, given the grand entrance hall. We walk up two flights, three flights. We walk up four flights, five flights. We walk up six. Along the way, we pass various suites, all magnificent, all with four-poster beds and furnished with antiques.

My room is on the top floor in a turret attic. I go through a little door, into a small hallway, then into a room about six by six, with a claw-footed Victorian bathtub in the middle and a toilet against the wall. That leads to another doorway, another low-ceilinged room, and there is my bed.

The phone rings and I am informed that dinner will be at eight. Moreover, it is black-tie. Madonna never warned me that there would be black-tie events. I've only brought one suit with me—Prada—so it looks like I'll be wearing the same suit every night.

I go down six flights of stairs. I pass a library and a billiards room. I take a walk outside, see the small gym and serene spa, and the historic Edwardian indoor swimming pool. Skibo is imposing yet beautiful, and I think to myself that I can deal with this for a week.

A pretty girl rides by on a horse. She introduces herself to me as Stella. The penny drops. Stella McCartney. Madonna's maid of honor. As far as I know, she and Madonna have only just met, yet Madonna has chosen her—not Ingrid or Gwyneth—to be her maid of honor. Stella designs and makes a free $30,000 dress specially for Madonna. Still, Ingrid can't be happy.

Stella explains the drill to me. Every morning, the men will go shooting, and the women will have a themed luncheon. She knows, because Madonna has told her.

“So I either have to go to lunch with the women or go shooting?” I ask Stella.

She tells me that no men are allowed at the lunches.

Shooting is out of the question for me.

I dress for dinner, then go into the library. Guy's friends are in there. I don't know any of them, but one or two look familiar so I guess I've seen them in some film or another. They are relatively friendly, and they all clearly have a history with one another.

We have cocktails and I try to make small talk. I ask how the shooting went and they tell me that they have shot three hundred birds.

I ask them if they are kidding.

They tell me they aren't. They are going to get hung up, where they are meant to rot. I flash back to the goat heads I saw hanging in a primitive Moroccan village all those years ago. Guy and his friends may be civilized Englishmen, not North African peasants, but their pursuits are similar.

“So are we having them for dinner?” I ask.

They all laugh and tell me that we aren't.

 

I
GO TO
dinner. Madonna walks in, says, “Welcome to Scotland,” and gives me a hug. Guy shakes my hand.

Trudie and Sting arrive. I met him when he played the Pacific Amphitheatre in 1993 and like him.

Melanie and her husband, Joe, walk in, and I'm glad to see them.

The large dining table is set for ten. Madonna has a seating chart, and on this first evening she's put me next to Melanie and Joe, and I'm glad. Scottish food is served. For a while, I pick at it halfheartedly. Then I ask for some chicken.

Tonight, and every night afterward, the guests toast the bridal couple. Tonight, one of Guy's friends makes the toast, which culminates in a crack with the subtext “Wouldn't it be funny if Guy were gay?”

I don't laugh. It wouldn't be funny.

After dinner, I decide to read up on Skibo's history. I learn that the castle stands on the site of an original Viking edifice. Through the years reduced to ruin, Skibo was reborn in 1898, when it was bought by Scottish-born philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who immigrated to America at age twelve and as an adult accumulated a $10 billion fortune by manufacturing steel. Having made a fortune beyond his wildest dreams, Carnegie returned to Scotland, determined to buy the castle of his dreams, and spent $2 million restoring and decorating Skibo.

Since then, King Edward VII, Edward Elgar, Lloyd George, Helen Keller, Rudyard Kipling, and the Rockefellers have all stayed at Skibo. Moreover, Paderewski even played the vast organ in the Great Hall. I relish Skibo's illustrious history, but still feel lonely there.

In the morning, I am awoken by a bagpiper playing under my window—apparently, a Skibo tradition dating back to Carnegie.

When I go down to breakfast, where all manner of Scottish delicacies are on offer, I discover that I am condemned to spend the day on my own. The guys are scheduled to go shooting, the women to spend the day behind closed doors taking part in various female pursuits. Madonna doesn't suggest any alternatives for me. Generally, a prospective bride isn't responsible for entertaining her guests, but I can't help wondering about the point of inviting someone to a wedding in the middle of nowhere, then leaving him to his own devices.

So I work out and then read. I'm curious, though, about what's going on in the girls' room. It's all very hush-hush. After a while, Stella comes out and says, “I'm tired of the girls, I'm going to ride my horse.”

In the evening, I check the seating chart and discover I am sitting between Trudie and Sting. At first, they talk about the castle and the weather.

Then Trudie leans in to me and says, “Christopher, do I have BO?”

“Huh?”

“Do I have BO? Do I smell?”

“Not that I can tell,” I say, perplexed.

“Are you into that sort of thing?” Before I can think of an answer, she chips in, “Mightn't you be?”

“Isn't the smoked salmon delicious?” I say.

 

G
UY'S PRIDE IN
his own heterosexuality swells noticeably when he's in the presence of a gay man like me. And during this wedding week, when there are nightly after-dinner toasts made by his male friends—many of which are aimed at underscoring his overt masculinity—he is in his element. I, however, am far from amused when many of the speeches trumpeting Guy's heterosexuality include the word
poofter,
a derogatory British expression for “gay.”

Ignoring all the other guests—Sting, Trudie, Stella McCartney, my sister Melanie and her husband, Joe—Madonna, who is at the head of the table, stands up and issues the instruction, “Christopher, tonight it's your turn to give the toast.”

I lean down the baronial table and, with great emphasis, reply, “Madonna, you really don't want me to do that.”

It's a statement, not a question.

Madonna looks back at me blankly.

“I think you should ask someone else,” I volunteer helpfully.

“No, Christopher, it's
your
turn!” she bark in a tone identical to the one she always used as a kid when she and my siblings all played Monopoly together; if she didn't get Park Place, she invariably stamped her feet and said, “But it's
mine
!”

In those days, in the face of her strong will, I always capitulated and rescinded my purchase of Park Place.

Nothing seems to have changed.

I stand up.

My fellow guests fall silent out of respect; the brother of the bride is about to make a speech.

I raise my glass, “I'd like to toast this happy moment that comes only
twice
in a person's lifetime.” Then, without skipping a beat, I go on, “And if anybody wants to fuck Guy, he'll be in my room later.”

Everyone erupts in peals of laughter. Everyone, of course, except Madonna, who keeps saying, “What did he mean? What did he mean?” and Guy, who I suspect knows exactly what I mean, says nothing.

 

A
FTERWARD, HE AVOIDS
looking at me. Soon after, I go to my room. I'm walking along the corridor, thinking that at least I got my dagger in when Trudie comes up behind me.

“That was hysterical,” she says. “Your sister didn't get it, but I've been listening to all those homophobic jokes, and if you weren't pissed off, I'd be worried about you. I just want you to know that we were aware of how you must be feeling.”

At that moment, I fall in love with Trudie, and she knows it.

 

T
HE NEXT DAY,
my parents arrive, along with Paula. Initially, Madonna didn't invite her. Paula tells me that she called Madonna and said she really wanted to be at her wedding, and Madonna said that as long as Paula paid for her own plane ticket and incidentals she could come. I am really pissed off at Madonna for treating Paula so badly. She is working as a graphic artist and only earns a modest salary. Yet Madonna still expects her to pay her own plane fare to this far-flung place.

My mood improves when Rupert, Alek, Gwyneth, and Donatella arrive. We take a golf-cart ride, and I tell them about the homophobic toasts and how awful everything has been. They laugh and console me. Gwyneth says, “Poor Christopher, we'll look after you.” We spend the rest of the day together.

The christening is in the evening. A long line of Range Rovers pull up in front of the castle, ready to take us to Dornoch Cathedral. A press pack of five hundred photographers and even more journalists is waiting for us outside the castle gate. We drive past them, but they follow us all the way to Dornoch.

More than a thousand fans are gathered outside the small, 776-year-old cathedral, famous for its beautiful stained-glass windows. Inside, the cathedral is lit with candles and garlanded with ivy and flowers.

I sit with Gwyneth and Rupert and only see Rocco—swaddled in his white-and-gold, $45,000 Versace christening outfit, a gift from Donatella—from a distance. I learn afterward that a journalist has been hiding in the massive pipe organ for three days. By the time someone discovers him, he has passed out cold.

Guy Oseary has been awarded the distinction of being Rocco's godfather. I try not to mind and, instead, focus on Sting's moving rendition of “Ave Maria.” After around thirty minutes, the service is over. We are driven back to the house, with the press following close behind.

Dinner is served, toasts are given. I experience a sudden urge to smoke, but know I can't, as Madonna has banned smoking.

Gwyneth and I leave at the same time. On the way up to my room, we stop at her suite, which is massive and beautiful. It occurs to me that I—who sometimes signed my letters to Madonna “Your humble servant” just to annoy her—have been relegated to what must be one of the smallest rooms in the castle, perhaps even the servants' quarters. A joke? Or just my sister's way of keeping me in my place.

 

T
HE NEXT EVENING,
the evening of the wedding, I put on my rented tux, but in a moment of rebellion akin to Madonna's cutting holes in her ballet clothes all those years ago, I pair it with my own Vivienne Westwood waistcoat.

Just before 6:30 p.m., we all gather in the Great Hall, now lit by candles, and take our seats at the foot of the staircase, the balustrades of which are garlanded in ivy and white orchids. It is beautiful.

I am sitting in an aisle seat, five rows from the front. The strains of the hymn “Highland Cathedral,” played by a lone bagpiper, fill the foyer. He is replaced by a pianist, Katia Labèque, who plays as Lola, in a long, ivory, high-necked dress, descends the staircase to the landing above us, scattering red rose petals in front of her.

Lola is sweet, winsome, and adorable. I feel sad that all week she has either been with her nanny or her nurse, or sequestered in the locked room with Madonna and the other girls, as I would have liked the opportunity to get to know her better.

Then Madonna, beautiful in a fitted ivory silk dress, enters on our father's arm. In his tuxedo, our father looks handsome, distinguished, and every bit the aristocrat. For a second, I wonder what his father, Gaetano—who arrived in America with just his $300 dowry, all those years ago—would think of his son now. Not to mention his granddaughter.