Lost and Found

by Lynda Bellingham

  It was a relief to see these words written down. It made it real for me. When you have been ground down by hate for so long, you begin to think you have imagined it all, that things are so bad they cannot possibly be real.

  It may sound dramatic, but it is only now, all these years later, that I can dare to let myself go and admit to the horror of it all. At the time, I just had to ignore the threats and the tirades of abuse on the phone, otherwise I could not have kept going.

  From April 1996, when I left Nunzio for good, until the hearing that was almost four years later, I had lived like some kind of fugitive. Every time I left the house I was looking over my shoulder. My kitchen window at the back looked out over tennis courts, and Nunzio would sit on a wall by these courts looking up at my window. I nicknamed him the black crow because that is exactly what he looked like. A black crow sitting on the wall. Waiting. Once I came home and was unpacking the car outside the flat. I was leaning into the boot of the car and suddenly felt something on the back of my legs. He had driven right up behind me so I was trapped between the cars.

  The divorce had gone through very quickly in September 1996. Unreasonable behaviour was cited. An understatement, indeed. My dear friend, Richard Lane, who is also my accountant, helped me through the finances. But really it was simple. I gave Nunzio half of everything I had. But even then he wouldn’t believe me, and was convinced that Richard had helped me salt away some kind of fortune. If only I had! Even after we had actually divorced and he heard I was doing the film in Russia, he went after me for more money. I paid a barrister £1,000 to be told that as I was the breadwinner, maybe I should just settle a sum and be done with him. But why should I? We had done the deal when we divorced. No one could give me a straight answer and I was so harassed by Nunzio, I spent the whole time in a panic.

  Much against Richard’s judgement I decided to hand over the only money I had left: the boys’ school fee trust. The tax was paid on it, so it was a lump sum just sitting there, except I now had no money at all to pay for the school fees. Nunzio took it.

  Over the next years he didn’t pay a penny towards the boys. I remember one time he was taking them for a pizza. He picked them up and then, five minutes later, Michael came back and rang the door bell.

  ‘Can we have some cash for the pizza, please? Papa hasn’t got any money.’

  Thank God, I made some money from the Russian film, and thanks to sound advice from Richard, I bought the flat at the top of the house. Now, at least, I had a source of income for my old age, and this was when Julia Sawalha moved in, which was wonderful. She was going through a very bad relationship at the time, as well, so we helped each other.

  Nunzio had bought a flat about a quarter of a mile away so that he could be near his children. More like spy on me. I was effectively a prisoner in my own flat. He would patrol the road outside and every time I looked out he was there. If the lights were on after a certain time, he would ring and ask who was there? Or he would want to know what the boys were doing. Why weren’t they asleep? Then other times, he would come to the house at ten or eleven at night, and insist I get the boys out of bed so he could see them. There was no thought for their welfare at all. He talks about love, all the time, to them, but it is only on his terms. I would leave the phone on loudspeaker, and do my housework, while Nunzio was on the other end screaming for an hour at a time: ‘You’re a cunt! Women like you die in my country. You deserve to die. I’ll kill you. You are a bitch, do you hear me? A bitch and a slut.’ It went on and on. Even when I told him I was recording the phone calls, for evidence, it didn’t stop him: ‘Fine. I don’t give a fuck what you do. You can record me and tell all your friends, but will you tell them you are a cunt and a slut?’

  The police came one day and, while they were there, he rang. I let them listen as Nunzio threatened to kill me. But the police told me they were powerless to do anything until he actually attacked me. So when he drove over the pavement in front of me and Pat as we walked along the road, that was OK? When he jumped out of the bushes as I came up my garden path and screamed at me, that was OK? If I went to the shops in Crouch End and he opened my car door as I was sitting there waiting for Michael to buy a bun and said: ‘Remember I am watching you. Everything you do. I am watching. I will destroy you,’ that too was fine, apparently.

  Unless they’ve experienced it themselves, no one has any idea what it feels like to live with this kind of fear. My dear sisters and parents accused me of being theatrical. ‘Stand up to him,’ they said. ‘Don’t be such a wimp.’ In fact, I did feel pretty pathetic, until a situation arose that confirmed I was not being completely useless.

  London Weekend Television had hired a bodyguard for me, to live in, and help me deal with the daily onslaughts from Nunzio. I had asked for a woman because I knew that if it was a man it would just exacerbate the situation. My sister, Barbara, and her husband, David, had come for lunch and we were all discussing the situation with Nunzio and how I should deal with it. Barbara and David were criticising me a bit and suggesting I should just stop being so dramatic and stand up to him. Suddenly, my bodyguard came to my defence: ‘You middle-class people make me sick. You have no idea what a man like Nunzio could do to Lynda. She has every right to feel fucking scared, and I hope you never have to go through what she is going through.’

  I love my sisters deeply and I have lost Barbara now, so nothing is worse than that. But I really do think they never understood how bad it was.

  Certainly my sons do not realise. It was so hard for them because Nunzio is their dad after all, and they love him. I tried to keep a good deal of the personal abuse of me a secret from them. This resulted in them not understanding the situation at all, and if I called the police they had a go at me: ‘Don’t do this, Mum. Why do you want Papa to go to jail? You make him angry.’

  Oh my God, that hurt me so much. It is the classic answer of an abusive man to his wife, or girlfriend: ‘You’re the only woman who has ever made me do this. I am not a violent man really. It’s all your fault.’ And here were my own sons accusing me of causing this pain. There were many times I wanted to set them straight. But the poor boys heard nothing all day from their Dad except rantings and ravings; they didn’t need to hear it from me as well.

  During these years, I was also trying to keep the situation out of the press as I still had my Oxo contract till 1999. The police were fantastic. They are often accused of being indiscreet and leaking stuff to the press, but they were brilliant with me and incredibly supportive; even the usual Panda car guys, who must get so frustrated when they are called to domestic scenes, time after time, and nothing changes, were always very helpful and positive.

  After I got back from the film in Russia I thought I was on the mend. My wonderful experience out there had given me a second wind. But not for long. I just couldn’t fight the barrage of abuse I was taking on a daily basis. I could go away for a couple of months, on a job, and find some respite, but that often meant the boys were left alone to deal with it. Not that Nunzio would harm them in any way, but he just battered their senses with his constant stream of hatred against me. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong, but how could I stop it?

  The years from 1998 to 2003 were a weird mixture of ups and downs. I did a lovely little film called Don’t Go Breaking My Heart starring Anthony Edwards of ER fame, and Jenny Seagrove. It had a stellar cast including Charles Dance as a smooth dentist. George Layton and I played a lovely north London Jewish couple and Michael, my son, played our son! Never one to miss an opportunity I suggested him for the role. I made some lifelong friends on this shoot. I had returned from Russia with my terrible blonde hair and, thanks to the very talented Carol Hemming, a film hairdresser, she made me look perfect for the film and then restyled my hair completely afterwards. She also introduced me to the fabulous Andrea Schaverien who gave me back a hair colour that was human and who now continues to make me look acceptable for a woman of a certain age!

  I then went off to the Isl
e of Wight and did a six-part series for ITV called Reach for the Moon. It was a fabulous location and we were in a beautiful hotel called the Priory Bay which had its own private beach. Even the weather was good that year. I gave a birthday party at the hotel; a hog roast for all the crew. It was great fun, only marred by a phone call from my son, Michael, saying he had been suspended from school.

  This was just before he was to take his GCSEs. I rang the school and spoke to the headmistress. She knew quite a lot about what we had all been through, and were going through, and I begged her to have some compassion. It wasn’t even as though he and his mate had done anything really serious – they had skipped a class and gone out in the lunch hour and were late back. We were not talking drugs here! She would not budge. Poor Michael was terrified that Nunzio would find out. I could do nothing, stuck on the Isle of Wight, except wrestle, yet again, with my guilt. Fortunately, Michael was allowed back to school in time for his exams and managed to scrape through them, bless his heart!

  So, every time I came home I was faced with the torrent of hatred coming from up the road as Nunzio’s constant harassment continued to rule our lives. I had managed to leave him yet here I was, two years on, still living in fear.

  I found myself shut in the kitchen day after day drinking and smoking and bemoaning the fact that men were all bastards. A neighbour from across the road was going through a bad time with her husband, and another friend, Brenda, had discovered her husband was having an affair with her cleaner. Alena was suffering abuse from her partner. Can you see a pattern here? It was the classic situation of like finding like.

  I had also started smoking again in Russia, and was trying to hide it from the boys. Talk about role reversal. They were now at an age when they were trying things out and smoking was the big thing. I was desperately trying to stop them from doing it while lighting up myself. Every time they came in the kitchen I had to drop my cigarette into my mug of tea. How pathetic was that?

  I did try to keep things on an even keel. I met a fantastic aerobics instructor called Beverly Kaufmann who took me on and sorted me out. Well, physically at least. She came twice a week and we would exercise in my front room. Nunzio would drive by all the time and peer in. Or he would be outside watching. He once shouted across the street that he knew why I was trying to exercise and lose weight. It was because I wanted to fuck men! That was the last thing on my agenda. Beverly put me on a diet and over the next two years I lost three stone. However, my new health kick didn’t stop my alcohol intake; it just kept a complete breakdown at bay.

  I am proud of the fact that no matter how much I was battling with myself and my demons, I continued to provide a home for the boys. They may not have appreciated it at the time, but now Michael often says to me that he realises how well I managed to look after them. My sons were at a difficult age. Michael was sixteen in 1999 and was going through all sorts of difficult stuff. Robbie was only twelve and having to listen to a constant barrage from his father about me. He was at Aldenham School in Hertfordshire as a day boy. It cost me a fortune but I was trying to keep Robbie away from all the shit and give him some discipline. At one point he expressed a desire to board on a weekly basis because lots of his friends were boarders. This would have been ideal for me because I could work, knowing he was safely tucked away, and then we could all have our weekends together. Nunzio put the kibosh on it, of course, the inference being that I wanted to get rid of Robbie to have a good time. It was so disheartening that every time I tried to organise our lives we were dragged back into the fog of Nunzio’s hatred and paranoia. They were very dark times and I must confess there were nights when I sat in my kitchen in the dark thinking about ending it all. But every time the thoughts began, I would try and imagine what would happen to my boys if I died. I could not do that to them. So I would take another sip of wine to help me sleep and edge closer and closer to the brink of despair.

  THERE IS A Jean Rhys quote, from Wide Sargasso Sea: ‘The only time she felt excited or happy was when she had had a drink, because then anything might happen. The feeling of insecurity became exciting.’ This perfectly describes my life as a drinker. Everything, for me, arose from insecurity. I drank to be funny, or sexy. I drank because I was afraid or happy or sad, and I drank for anything that required emotional commitment. I know that now. I had chosen a profession that thrives on insecurity, and is never far from some form of social intercourse that involves alcohol or drugs – the profession involves intercourse, period! I have some wonderful friends who still enjoy a drink and manage to stay in control, and I admire them, but I have also lost many dear friends to it.

  Most of my early love life was conducted under the influence of booze. I just felt better when I had a drink inside me and, over the years, I think I associated drink with sex. I never drank, though, when I worked. I was completely professional about that and, of course, ironically, I never needed to drink when I was acting, because I was happy doing what I was doing. I was in control.

  The trouble for me was that I had a strong tolerance for alcohol. If only it had made me sick like it did some of my friends! But I could throw it back. It wasn’t like I was on my own with a bottle in a brown paper bag; all my friends drank. We had fun. The social scene was about eating and drinking. In fact, we were very well behaved compared to a lot of what goes on now. You would never see me fall out of a nightclub or catch me snorting cocaine in a toilet. But one did follow the herd and you had to be in it to win it. Acting is really the hardest career for anyone who is in the least bit sensitive or insecure, and yet I would say ninety per cent of actors are sensitive and insecure. It is rarely about being talented. It is about surviving the knocks, pushing through the rejections, and ignoring the crap that is everywhere you turn. Nowadays, it is even worse because celebrity today means a brand name. Everything celebrities do or say is fed to us by the media. Alcohol just helps one wade through the miasma of bullshit. I don’t mean to sound bitter and twisted and indeed I’m not, now. But I was getting that way, very slowly.

  SOME OF MY drinking was brilliant. There is nothing like the camaraderie one has with fellow drinkers. It is a club you never leave once you join. Well, certainly not willingly or easily. After my marriage ended, there were some wonderful times when I was out with the girls. The gang was often headed by the glorious Sally Bulloch, whom I had rediscovered when I came back from Russia. This was a woman who could hold her drink! She ran the Athenaeum Hotel with an iron rod (well, cocktail stick), and I have never known someone consume champagne in the quantities that she did, and still carry on all evening, chatting and networking, as if she were as sober as a judge. I have never laughed so much or found myself in more bizarre situations than with her. Once, in Mexico together, we sat in a mud hut underground being reborn, and in Prague, I followed her round as we stopped at every bar for a local tincture, known as becherovka, so that our friend, Lynda Berry, who could not cross bridges (is there a medical name for that?) got pissed enough to forget her phobia so we could all get back to the hotel. The sight of Sally wobbling over the cobblestones, in her impossibly high heels and long mink coat, is for ever emblazoned on my mind.

  They were good days, and Sally Bulloch was never far away. She died very tragically two years ago. Anyone who knew her and loved her knows it was so wrong for her to go like she did, but we all make choices and, whether we like it or not, sometimes our loved ones have to pursue their own destiny. Alcohol was her killer; she couldn’t give it up.

  I did some good work around this time, in 2000, in a series called At Home with the Braithwaites and made some fantastic friends. Amanda Redman, who starred in the series, is a great actress and a good mate. Sylvia Syms, who I also met on that series, has become a good friend. We had such fun and we did get to go out and get drunk from time to time, but only after hours and I was in control because I was working. I also had some wonderful Sunday lunches when I wasn’t working, and the boys joined in as well. It was a great way of finding out what they wer
e up to because normally they were very tight-lipped with me – I was their mother, after all. But get a few friends round and after a glass or two, we would all relax and be telling stories, and they’d open up and relate their adventures to everyone.

  Also around this time, I had done an episode of My Uncle Silas which starred Albert Finney, and we had had a wonderful two weeks. Sue Johnston, who was an old friend, was also in it and I was playing a fabulous role. I played a wicked widow whom Albert had to chase round an orchard in her petticoats. It was great fun until I slipped and fell over and pulled a muscle in my back. The next day we had a sexy love scene to do, where Albert untied my bootlaces and threw me on the bed. I discovered that it’s very difficult to be sexy when one is in agony with back pain: the director kept saying to me, ‘Lynda, dear, do try not to show the pain in your face. It’s wrong for the scene.’

  Albert was so kind to me that I wanted to thank him, so I organised a lunch at my flat. I asked Mitchell Everard, the then manager of the Ivy, what Mr Finney’s favourite red wine was. Barolo. I took myself off to Majestic and spent a happy half-morning ordering wine and champagne. There were six of us to lunch, including Sally and Lynda La Plante, and Albert’s now wife, Pene Delmage, and the wine bill came to £500! I did Wensleydale cheese soup (from my B&B days for All Creatures), followed by rack of lamb, with bread and butter pudding to follow. Then loads of smelly cheeses and After Eight mints. The lunch started at noon and went on until twelve that night. Albert is an example to us all. He works to live. Too many of us live to work.

  I was so lucky to have the friends I have to help me get through those Nunzio years. Catharine had got married and moved to Shropshire with her husband, Rupert, and the boys and I would often go and spend a weekend with them. She had started a wine business so there was many a glass raised by a roaring fire. And my friend Gabrielle Lloyd would have to listen to me for hours on end when I was in my cups, poor girl. Anna and Albert Ferrante invited us to France for wonderful summer weeks spent in their garden next to a field of sunflowers. We were surrounded by vineyards and tiny villages with markets full of cheese and wine and foie gras. These were happy days amidst the gloom.