I never suspected he liked men--but that’s not what bothers me about his betrayal
SOME will doubtless find it scarcely credible, but Maria Fernandes insists she simply had no idea about her husband’s sexual preferences.
Apart from the scrutiny they endured because of his high-profile political role, Ms Fernandes always thought their marriage normal. ‘I did not suspect anything,’ she insists. If she entertained the idea at all, she always thought that if he did stray it would be with a woman. In any case, despite the Westminster whispering – and the escorts’ claims that they met on several occasions – she accepts that her husband’s encounter with gay escorts was a one-off.
And for Ms Fernandes, it was the act of betrayal that wounded her most of all, not the fact that it was men with whom he cheated. ‘I can’t say sex with men is any different… I was betrayed, my trust was betrayed and in a sense it doesn’t matter whether it’s a man or a woman,’ she says.
‘The shock was also the whole scenario of allegedly using sex workers because it’s so unlike him. If I expected anything could have happened, it would have been within a relationship rather than, you know…
‘Actually, had it been within a relationship, it could have been worse as there would have been an emotional connection. In a sense it’s better [because money changed hands] but I don’t condone paying for sex.’
After his fall from grace, Keith Vaz popped up in the Commons and even managed to ask a few questions. According to his detractors, it was ‘brazen’ behaviour that was typical of the man. In reality, says his wife, even as he addressed his fellow MPs, he was growing increasingly depressed and having suicidal thoughts.
Despite her obvious anger at his betrayal, Ms Fernandes was still looking out for him, as he looked ‘completely broken’, and she feared he would commit suicide – like his father, who jumped in front of a train when the future MP was just 14.
During the Hinduja passport scandal in 1999 when Mr Vaz had to resign as Europe Minister, he had gone through a similar bout of depression. Ms Fernandes, 57, says: ‘I think that’s why I looked out for him. He was looking very broken. I think he was suicidal.’
Mr Vaz has told friends that he contemplated jumping from the top of their house in Stanmore, North-West London. Despite the ordeal that she and her family have been through over the past week, Ms Fernandes says that what made her pull through was the support from friends and relatives.
‘I am not a devout Catholic, but it played a huge part in my act of forgiveness, because I had friends who came down and we talked about it, and we prayed actually. Forgiveness is not just about forgiving the other person, but also releasing yourself from the pain because what would happen next is that hate would take its place.’
She adds, with tears welling in her eyes: ‘The forgiveness starts with the love of a person, having spent so many, many years together.’
Ms Fernandes’s ‘journey’ with Vaz began 24 years ago at a basement flat in Victoria, Central London, when she was an ambitious young City lawyer, and he was a rising MP in the Labour Party.
As she sits on the cream sofa of her living room with her beloved labrador Treacle at her feet, Ms Fernandes recalls the first time she met her husband. Of Goanese origin, she had heard talk of Vaz, a fellow Goan who had become the first Asian MP.
They met at a dinner party at a friend’s flat. As their mutual friend introduced her to Vaz, he clumsily spilled a drink on her. ‘As we were talking, he dropped orange juice on my dress,’ Ms Fernandes laughs. ‘But that’s the line he used to offer me dinner as compensation.’
The two exchanged telephone numbers, and within days Ms Fernandes
‘He was looking broken, I think he was suicidal’
received a call from Vaz’s parliamentary office, saying the Leicester MP would like to invite her for dinner.
Their first date was at the famous Indian restaurant in Soho called Red Fort, which was a haunt for Labour politicians at the time. ‘The food was very good. It was a lovely dinner, but I was a bit worried, because he was this person who appeared on TV. But he was very charming and very funny.’
There would be another date at a Thai restaurant in Fulham, West London, after which the couple began to see each other as ‘an item’. They soon met each other’s parents, and Vaz even sent Ms Fernandes a bunch of roses when she was at her mother’s house in Stanmore, North-West London.
But the most romantic event in the relationship was yet to come – at his own mother’s semi-detached house in Leicester. Almost half-shy, Ms Fern-
andes recalls the evening when Vaz’s mother Merlyn went to bed, and her boyfriend put on Whitney Houston’s hit song I Will Always Love You.
‘He put the track on to propose. He had a bad back and so did not kneel. He showed me a green emerald stone ring. He never told me how expensive it was, but I hope it was,’ says Ms Fernandes. She adds: ‘I accepted – it was very romantic.’
About a year later, the couple married in London. They had their wedding ceremony at Westminster Cathedral, as they could not hold it inside the chapel in the Houses of Parliament because they were both Catholics. But a blessing ceremony followed in Parliament.
The wedding was attended by fellow MPs David Mellor, then a Tory Minister, and Diane Abbott. It was the couple’s honeymoon to India that became her ‘baptism of fire’ in becoming an MP’s wife, recalls Ms Fernandes. They flew out to Mumbai for a ten-night honeymoon, but after three days Vaz received an urgent call from Labour frontbencher Jack Straw, asking him to return immediately.
Mr Straw said that there was going to be an emergency vote on the Maastricht Treaty, and Vaz needed to come back. Her husband protested he was on his honeymoon, but it fell on deaf ears. The couple flew back to Britain after three days – only for Labour to abstain from the vote.
Ms Fernandes says: ‘I think it was the first time I realised that it was going to be a different life.’
Within days of living as husband and wife, she realised how difficult it was to be the wife of an MP. She barely saw her husband during the weekdays. ‘I didn’t realise how punishing the hours are for an MP, because I used to make dinner for Keith, and wait for him to come home. But he literally turned up at midnight, because he was voting at the time.’
The newly-married wife did sometimes ponder whether her husband was cheating on her. But at the time, she suspected that affairs would have been with women – not men.
Ms Fernandes first came to Britain to study at a convent school for girls in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. After studying law at Cardiff and beginning a career as a solicitor in London, Ms Fernandes made the UK her home. In their married life, Vaz and Ms Fernandes were also to face a trauma, from which she still has not recovered. Their first child, whom they named Sahara whilst still in the womb, was stillborn.
When their son was born two years later in 1995, Ms Fernandes gave up her job as a City lawyer, and then started her own company called Fernandes Vaz, which she ran from home. Their daughter was born in 1997, only three weeks before Labour won a historic landslide victory. Shortly after, Vaz made history becoming the first Asian Minister in a British Government.
But with the role came the first biggest political scandal of his career. Vaz was implicated in the so-called Hinduja passport affair, where Peter Mandelson, the then Northern Ireland Secretary, was accused of lobbying for the two Indian billionaire brothers.
Some of the most vicious attacks against Vaz have been launched by Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, who has written letters of complaint against him to the police, the Charity Commission and the Commons Speaker John Bercow.
Ms Fernandes says: ‘He is very toxic – he is exactly the type of person who is bad for public life.’
The couple have now made commitments to each other to heal their marriage. They will spend more time with each other, and she will even accompany him to Leicester so that he is not out of her sight.
She has also banned him from football matches as punishment.
‘He proposed to the song I Will Always Love You’