As luck would have it, a few days later, I was going to meet Sarah Smith (now married to Paul). I told her about the incident at La Famiglia with Nunzio, and we arranged to go there for dinner, so that I could make my peace and she could have a look at this gorgeous waiter who seemed to have stolen my heart.
When we arrived I made sure Nunzio was serving our table. He nodded in recognition, but there were no smiles or greetings. Sarah and I had a lovely dinner and, as we were waiting for the bill, I made an excuse to go to the loo. I found Nunzio and accosted him: ‘I am so sorry about the other night. I would not have offended you in any way. I hope you don’t think too badly of me.’
He studied me intently for a few moments. It made my heart pound. He smiled (he had the most amazing smile, which one rarely ever saw, so it made it even more special): ‘I forgive you, signorina. Let me bring you a glass of wine before you go.’
But before I could stop myself, I heard myself say, ‘Why don’t you come to my flat when you’ve finished work, and I’ll give you a glass of wine?’
I could not believe I had been so bold.
He stared at me for a long moment and then took my number. I was feeling very wobbly when I went back to the table and Sarah and I left. I dared not tell her what I was up to. I had shocked myself with my cheek, and I did not want to advertise it.
I drove home in a complete panic. ‘Nunzio must think I am a complete slapper,’ I thought. He could be a nutter. I could be inviting a murderer into my flat. Well, he probably wouldn’t ring anyway. Why would he want to come and see me? He was so handsome, he must have thousands of girls after him.
When I got home I paced about for ages. Then the phone rang and it was him. Oh my God! I gave him directions from Chelsea. It was miles away and he would take for ever to get to my flat. I rang my friend, Flic, in LA, in a panic and told her what I had done. She immediately forecast that it would be a disaster, because he would turn out to be a serial rapist. Very helpful, Flic. We chatted for a bit and then, suddenly, there was a ring at the door. He had arrived already. I hung up from Flic, promising to be careful, and went to the door and let him in. I was quite sober by this time and really regretting my impetuosity.
Nunzio was very shy, which made me feel a bit better. If he had been arrogant, and swaggered in, I would have felt very nervous. He had brought a bottle of red wine from the restaurant, and we sat down to drink it. We talked and talked all night. He was so interesting about his life. He had travelled the world since he was a young man. His family was all in Naples, and he obviously missed them all very much. He spoke really good English and had a wicked sense of humour. And he was so handsome. I was in love. I was buzzing and had only had a couple of glasses of wine. We watched the sun come up and, as the early morning light streamed into the flat, Nunzio suddenly took me in his arms and said, ‘May I kiss you?’
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ was my reply.
We went to bed and did not surface until the afternoon. I was completely smitten. I just couldn’t get enough of him. Over the next few days we barricaded ourselves in my flat, making love and drinking champagne. Nunzio was everything I had ever wanted. He seemed to feel the same.
He had to go to work, but every chance I had, I would go and pick him up and we would go out. I was still doing Mackenzie, so there were many early mornings when I had hardly been to bed. But I thrived on it. I felt so alive: my nerve endings were tingling and I was on a constant high.
I wanted to show him my life. I think I wanted to impress him a little bit as well. Here I was, the famous actress, living la dolce vita. Nunzio was very proud and insisted on paying his way. We went to all the places I loved, and some he knew as well. I took him round to meet barmen and maître d’s in places like The White Elephant and Langan’s. I wanted everyone to meet him and see how happy we were.
We did have one or two hiccups, however. Unbeknown to me, Nunzio had a girlfriend. Nothing important, he said, but he would have to end it with her. It made me feel sick, the idea he had someone else, and I begged him to end it quickly. He played me a bit, enjoying his power, and I had no shame or pride. I was completely under his spell. I just didn’t seem to be able to impress him. He didn’t know my work and that made me feel really insecure, so I hid behind my persona as an actress, protecting myself behind the image I gave out to everyone as the tough actor who knows it all, who is in control. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
I felt completely out of my depth, both physically and mentally. Nunzio had talked a little about all the women who approached him. How, when he worked on cruise ships, there were dozens of rich women after him. He also told me how much he hated being used by such women. He promised me that he loved me because I took him for what he was and liked his personality. I wasn’t just with him for sex. But as the first waves of passion subsided, I felt so inadequate. I could see how girls looked at him when we were out together. The kind of people who ate in La Famiglia were the crème de la crème. All the women were gorgeous and beautifully dressed. How could I compete? I felt full of anguish and insecurity. But whenever it threatened to engulf me, Nunzio would make love to me and I would forget everything. It was just me and him against the world. Within the month he had moved in with me. My life was perfect.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LA DOLCE VITA
I SPENT THE WEEKS after Nunzio had moved in, in a constant state of euphoria. I could do nothing but eat, sleep and live Nunzio. When I wasn’t working we were out and about. But there were still little warning signs. It was Pat Hay’s birthday, and I gave her a party at my flat. As usual everyone got very drunk. So much so that at one point I had to retrieve my new man from on my bed, where he was being seduced by two ladies. I was not amused.
I took him to meet my parents and I think they were pleased I had found someone not in the business. There was one awkward moment over lunch when Nunzio was waxing lyrical about Naples, saying how beautiful it was. Dad was nodding in agreement and then said, ‘Oh, yes, you’re right. Naples is very lovely. I bombed it during the war, you know.’ Whoops.
We went to see Nunzio’s family for a week’s holiday. His father was dead, but I met his mother and two sisters, and his younger brother, Michele, and his nephew, Gennarro. He was the son of his younger sister, Rosaria. I was so nervous about meeting his mum, but she was lovely. Very gentle and quiet. Not at all like the loud, Neapolitan housewife I had imagined.
They lived in a big old apartment with shutters on the windows and tiled floors. The front room was only used for weddings and funerals, and all the furniture still had the plastic covers over it. The kitchen was the hub of the family: his sisters Anna and Rosaria never seemed to stop cooking. I loved the lifestyle. It was so different from my own. Everything went so slowly. We would all stroll down to the market to buy the day’s food. No frozen food here. Everything was fresh on the day. If we had fish we went to the market, and spent a good hour studying the catch of the day. Then it was on to the fruit and vegetable stalls. Everything was poked and plumped and sniffed for freshness.
Through all this the sisters would carry on a constant stream of conversation, none of which I could understand. But that didn’t matter; I followed on behind with bags of groceries in each hand, drinking it all in. I was astonished at how many men there were everywhere. I guessed it was because there was not much work. Many of the men join as crew the ships that sail out of Naples; either the cruise ships like Nunzio did, or the tankers like Anna’s husband, Franco. He was away a good deal. In the early evenings, as one walked around, it was nearly all men who were chatting at the tops of their voices over a coffee or a beer. The women were all indoors cooking the dinner or getting dressed for the daily passagiato.
The continentals love this time of the day. The whole family puts on their gladrags and walk through the town meeting and greeting. I fell into the routine easily. Maybe because I am an actress, I can pick up things and take them on as my own? Everybody remarked on how Ita
lian I looked and how well I fitted in.
I was a little overwhelmed by the amount of housework involved in this lifestyle. It never ended, and when everyone else fell asleep after lunch I would be toiling over the washing-up. But I was desperate to create a good impression. Nunzio was very attentive and explained everything to me. As these were the early days, he didn’t revert to his Italian culture and join the other guys and his friends in the coffee bar without me.
However, I felt very strange when we did go out, because I felt like a pet on a lead. I would stand around while the men all talked, without joining in or saying a word. Even if I had spoken the language, it’s unlikely any of the men would have included me in the conversation. That was not how it worked. It was all so different from home. But I loved it. Nunzio would borrow a scooter and we would zoom round the crowded streets, weaving in and out of the traffic and the pedestrians. I often had to beg him to stop at a café so I could have a large brandy to fortify my nerves! It was very scary, and of course we weren’t wearing helmets. But I was so happy, and all thoughts of work and London left me cold. I was going to live here, and learn Italian, and have babies…
When we got back to London, though, we both had to find work. There was no money and I needed to pay the mortgage. In fact, I was still contracted to the BBC and filming Mackenzie. Nunzio was still working at La Famiglia but he was not happy there. He felt he wasn’t appreciated. I wonder now whether the owner, Alvaro, was getting a bit fed up with Nunzio not always being there, and maybe throwing his weight around now that he was living with me. I was to learn to my cost that Nunzio was never happy with his lot, and that he always blamed other people. Things were never his fault.
He was also beginning to dislike it when I had to work long hours. It is difficult enough explaining our working hours to someone English who is not in the business, but to someone Italian it was impossible. He started to make demands. Just little things like I must ring him when I was at work. He would come and pick me up (when I was working I would leave him my car sometimes) and he wanted to know what my relationship was with all the male actors and crew. It was not a big problem, but I wasn’t used to sharing my life with anyone, and certainly had never had to account for my time.
Nunzio also started to display signs of jealousy about my past. It’s always difficult in a new relationship, because we all have baggage. Guys would call me at home, and Nunzio wanted to know all about them. I was so open, I would always tell him if they were old lovers. Actually they were mostly friends, as I tended to lose contact with anyone I had been out with. Sometimes the phone would ring and then go dead. Nunzio would always make a bit of a fuss and suggest it was someone who knew he was there and didn’t want him to know anything. It all got very complicated to me. I didn’t have any problems with the way things were. As far as I was concerned, I was with Nunzio, and people knew that.
Greg was a big problem for Nunzio. He did not like me talking to my ex-husband. Not that Greg and I talked that much, but every now and then he would call. In fact it gave me great pleasure to let Greg know I had finally found someone again.
But all these little niggles were forgotten when we were together, on our own. How different it all was from my life with Greg, when I was lucky to get a peck on the cheek. Now I had a man who regarded sex like food and drink, as part of his existence. Nunzio used to say that the English talked about sex too much and never did it enough.
However, Nunzio’s problems were never far away. When we had nights with my friends we all drank copious amounts of wine and loved nothing better than to talk about everything from sex to fashion to gossip. Nunzio would sit and take it all in, then when we got home, would offer me his opinions on everybody. It wasn’t always positive and I would spend a good deal of time defending my mates.
Nunzio’s jealousy started to get the better of him. When we were round at Marilyn’s, for instance, there was a guy there with whom I had been at drama school. He was being very flirty and insinuating all sorts of things about me. In actuality, I didn’t know him that well as he had been in the year below me and so we didn’t mix. But he obviously felt the need to make people think he knew me very well. Nunzio got really beady with him and that just made things worse. There was quite an atmosphere when we left. When we got home, Nunzio went on and on at me, trying to find out if I had slept with the guy. I explained that if I had I would have told him. It got quite heated and I was very upset. And on another occasion, one morning Nunzio went off to work and left me doing the ironing. A perfectly innocent task. About half an hour later the front door burst open and in rushed Nunzio, shouting at me to own up, as he knew I had someone in the flat. It was so ridiculous, besides which it was such a small flat that had I been hiding someone he could have seen immediately. I just couldn’t understand what was the matter with him.
It is so easy, in hindsight, to see the beginnings of the problems. I should have seen the cracks but like most people in this situation, I ignored the signs.
I WAS BEGINNING TO feel uncomfortable and tried to talk to Nunzio about his behaviour. The trouble was that he was not only jealous of me in our relationship, but he was jealous of my past, about which I could do nothing.
There was a sense in which he realised he had a problem but just did not know how to control the misgivings he had when he felt them. I tried to make him feel secure at all times but it was very difficult because I couldn’t anticipate all of the problems all of the time. I would tell friends not to mention anything about my past or past boyfriends that might set Nunzio off and I made sure he knew where I was at all times. But more often than not my plans were foiled somehow by circumstances beyond my control.
After about two months Nunzio and I had a row, and I told him we couldn’t go on like this and that I thought it was better if he moved out for a while. He told me that if he left that would be it; he would not come back at all. He went off to work and I spent the day in turmoil. I just didn’t know what to do, but my work was suffering. I felt so hemmed in. Instead of going to work and feeling secure in my relationship so that I could concentrate on the job, I was beset with niggles and worries about Nunzio. I had to be strong and tell him to leave.
That evening when I got back, Nunzio showed me a contract with a cruise ship. He had signed up to go to work on a ship that sailed out of Miami. I was devastated. Why did he have to be so extreme? I think we were both testing the water and neither of us would back down. So after a night of tears and lovemaking, Nunzio left.
I thought it was all a bit of a game and that he would come round eventually, but as I waved him off at the door I did feel a sense of relief: it was as if a great weight had been lifted from me. There was calm again in my little home. I had it to myself again. Yes, I was upset, because I did love Nunzio; there was no doubt about that. But time would heal my heart. How wrong could I be?
From the moment Nunzio was gone I felt bereft. My life was empty. I missed him so much. I physically missed him with every bone in my body. It was like having flu. I ached for him. I couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. I rang him and he was very cool. I asked him if he was missing me but he was very noncommittal.
After a couple of weeks I was a wreck. I had a gap in my filming and I decided to fly to Miami and see Nunzio. I rang him with the news, and he agreed he would be there to meet me. He was working with another young Italian called Ciro, and he and his new wife had a small flat in Miami where Nunzio stayed when his ship was docked. I was so nervous about the whole deal. I had had a long talk to Lynda La Plante who had told me that when she had her ups and downs with her husband, and they split for a while, she had had to make a decision about what she wanted from life. If I missed Nunzio so much I should go and tell him. I could overcome the problems if I wanted him that much.
I arrived in Miami and was overwhelmed by the whole place. It was such a different environment from what I was used to in London. I felt very vulnerable, but Nunzio was wonderful. He seemed really happy to see
me and I was welcomed by Ciro and his wife into their home. For the next week, it was as if Nunzio and I had never been apart. We were like any young couple on holiday. The four of us had a ball, going out to bars and restaurants. The beach was amazing. Just miles of white sand. Everyone was so beautiful in Miami, it was like being on a film set.
We went to Disneyland for the day and laughed and laughed. I began to relax. My Italian hadn’t improved, so sometimes it was hard when the other three all chatted amongst themselves, but I made an effort to get on with Ciro’s wife. Sadly, I can’t remember her name. She was very sweet and I could see it was very hard on her because she was on her own a good deal when Ciro was on the ship.
One morning, Nunzio and I were in the tiny bathroom together, getting ready to go out. I was in my bra and pants by the door. Ciro knocked and half opened the door to say something to Nunzio, not realising I was in there too. I laughed and told him not to worry and peered round the door to speak to him. Nunzio went crazy. What was I doing showing myself to his friend? I was a slut! I was stunned. I was hardly naked – a bikini would have shown the same thing. What was the problem? He wouldn’t speak to me all day; then, when we went out in the evening, he watched me like a hawk. I felt so uncomfortable. For the rest of my stay he would keep on about that incident. Did I fancy Ciro? Why did I show him my body? I was completely taken aback. Why would I come all this way to see him if I wanted anyone else, for God’s sake? I longed to talk it over with Ciro’s wife because she was Italian, and maybe she could help me understand the mentality. But I just did not speak the language well enough. All we could do was smile at each other, and she gave me a hug when she saw I was down.
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