She sat astride him, moaning deliriously, her hair tumbling over her big breasts. He reached forward for them, mechanically massaging them, letting his mind turn to Lauren and how she would look naked.
She was almost six feet tall and slim as a whip, her hip bones so sharp they'd grind against his, shiny dark hair flowing over her bronzed skin, brilliant-white even teeth and luscious full lips.
Lost in the fantasy of being with Lauren, he drew Belinda down to him to kiss her. As her hair floated over his face, the smell of chip fat brought him sharply back to reality and he lost his erection instantly.
'What's the matter?' she asked, moving back up to a sitting position.
'It's you,' he said, pushing her off and sitting up. 'You stink of chips.'
To his surprise she didn't burst into tears, but leapt off him and grabbed her clothes. 'I probably do smell of food,' she said, tossing back her hair from her face. Her eyes were blazing; something he'd never seen before. 'I've spent the last twelve hours in a kitchen. If you hadn't suggested we went straight to bed I'd have had a bath, then cooked you a nice "dinner". I even had a bottle of wine in the shopping bag.'
She was into her tiny black panties and bra so quickly, Nick was astounded. 'Where are you going?' he asked.
'Home,' she snapped. 'You've been getting pickier and pickier lately. Even if I didn't go to a posh school like you I'm bright enough to know why.'
'Don't be silly. I've just had my mind on other things,' he said weakly. He wasn't entirely sorry he'd provoked this. At least he could go out later to the Village Gate.
'You've had your mind on being a big star,' she said tersely, wriggling into her tight pink dress. 'And you don't think I'm good enough for you any longer. Well, Nick Osbourne, I won't hang around and embarrass you. I just hope the next girl you meet wants you for yourself not your money.'
'You don't embarrass me,' he said quickly, all at once aware of how final this sounded. 'I'm just a bit uptight. Maybe I just need a bit of time alone to sort myself out.'
'Well, you'll get it now, won't you?' She tossed her hair back, opened the wardrobe and began to pull out the few clothes she'd left there.
'What are you taking those for?' he asked, sitting up as she began to stuff them into her shopping bag.
'Because I'm not coming back,' she snapped, without even turning to look at him. 'I know what you want, Nick, and it isn't me. Go ahead and do whatever it is you've got on your mind. Screw all those glamour girls who'll come crawling out of the woodwork as soon as you're on TV. Get some prune-faced debutante to iron your shirts. Just remember that I loved you when you were nobody.'
Nick was stunned. 'Don't be silly,' he said feebly.
'Silly am I?' She turned to him as she pushed her feet into her high heels. 'Do you know what you are? A conceited overgrown school boy. You think you're "it" now you're going to be on television. Well, let me tell you there's hundreds of actors out there who are more talented than you. You were just luckier than them, that's all.'
Anger made him leap off the bed and he'd punched her before he could stop himself. As she fell back against the wall the shock in her wide blue eyes cut him to the quick.
'I didn't mean to do that.' He reached forward to wipe away the trickle of blood from her lip. 'I'm sorry Belinda, I don't know what came over me.'
She backed away from him, but to his surprise she didn't look frightened, only outraged. 'I know what came over you,' she snarled at him. 'It's the real Nicholas Too-Big-for-His-Boots Osbourne. Don't even try to get in touch with me again, you thankless bastard!'
She left then, sweeping out of the flat with a pride he hadn't known she possessed. His flat felt suddenly cold and empty.
Nick sat up, punched the pillow angrily and lay down again. He couldn't understand why his mind could recall shabby incidents in his life with such clarity, yet he had a job to remember phone numbers.
'Poor Belinda,' he whispered. 'You deserved so much better than that.'
But even though he tried to clear his mind of that period in his life, it seemed to be stuck there, forcing him to look at how he'd been.
He didn't give himself time to miss Belinda. That night and every other one he went out, playing the part of the rising star. Within the week he had been invited on a television game show, had two interviews on the radio and had been to a party in Cheyne Walk where he met Donovan and Steve Marriott from the Small Faces and he believed he had arrived.
The drug taking started as something all the stars did. Speed made everything more fun, acid opened his mind and a few joints helped him relax. He bought a Lotus Elan on hire purchase, filled his wardrobe with dandified clothes, and he slept with a different girl every night of the week. He never went home to visit his father.
His agent warned him to calm down, saying that one television series didn't mean his acting career was secure. But he didn't believe it, after all hardly a day passed without journalists begging for an interview. But his head was turned most of all by becoming part of the Chelsea jet set. New friends inviting him to fly off to Paris, or to a country house for a weekend. They were rich and famous themselves, knew he soon would be too.
But Hunnicroft Estate flopped. Nick could still see those terrible reviews as if they were printed permanently on the back of his hand. 'A shabby, desolate series.' 'Purile rubbish.' The reviews of Nick's personal performance were slightly kinder, particularly in the more subversive 'arty' magazines. But even so the telephone stopped ringing, and his agent looked embarrassed when Nick called at his office.
If at that point Nick had proved to producers that he was a seriously committed actor by going to every audition in town, he might have salvaged something. But he was too arrogant for that. Instead he went out nightly to Blaise's, Annabel's and the Speak Easy, believing that by acting the part of a big star, he would miraculously become one. He took 'sleepers' when he got home in the early hours, stayed in bed all day, then dosed himself up with 'leapers' to face the next night of posing.
Sometimes when he woke with his mouth feeling like the bottom of a birdcage and his hands so shaky he could barely hold a cup, he would think longingly of Belinda. But almost as soon as he'd popped another pill into his mouth he'd convince himself that he was about to be offered another leading role.
It was during this period that he heard about the girl being tied up and assaulted in Beaufort Street. He used to go in the Elm at lunch time to perk himself up with a few drinks before doing his daily swagger down King's Road chatting up girls in the boutiques, and calling in to see his agent.
But his agent was suddenly always out when he called and his money was running out too. The Lotus Elan was the first casualty, reclaimed by the hire purchase company when he couldn't keep up the payments. The telephone was cut off next, and then an eviction notice arrived for non-payment of rent at Onslow Gardens.
For several weeks he used all his old friends by crashing in their flats, pretending he was looking for another flat, but he had no money by then even for another bedsitter and it wasn't long before he'd run out of friends willing to put him up.
The only jobs he was offered in that time were a dog food advert and a tiny part in a play that folded as soon as it opened, but still he refused to face what was happening. One by one his friends dropped him. Curtains twitched when he rang on doorbells, but no one opened the door. When he went into the Elm, his old drinking partners turned their backs as if they hadn't seen him. The only girls who welcomed him for the night were the dim sort who got their kicks from sleeping with anyone who'd had five minutes of fame and believed his stories that he was about to sign a film contract. They washed his clothes, fed him and lent him money, but the money went on scoring drugs and he never paid them back. When one got wise to him, there was always another. Acting parts might be thin on the ground, but there were gullible girls by the score.
It was desperation that made him attempt to gate-crash a party in Hammersmith in the spring of 1971. Nick had overheard a
conversation about a party in St Peter's Square, where Vanessa Redgrave lived, and in his fuddled state he assumed the party was at her house, and that it would be teeming with actors, agents and film producers.
He didn't give himself time to consider the likelihood of being thrown out. Even through his drug-induced haze, he knew he was in trouble: he had no fixed address and no money to get one, and he'd resorted to stealing food and drink from supermarkets just so the girls who put him up would believe he was sincere. If he could just get someone interested in him again as an actor, he could at least go home and ask his father to bail him out one last time.
He spent his last five pounds on a haircut, and promised a plain little girl in a dry cleaners a night on the town with him if she'd just press his velvet jacket and launder his best frilly shirt.
By the time he arrived glassy eyed on speed in St Peter's Square without even enough money for a tube, let alone a cab fare, he actually believed he'd been invited to the party. It was a warm night for spring and the sounds of Burt Bacharach wafted through large open windows at number five.
A burly man in evening dress opened the front door.
'Good evening,' he said. 'Nicholas Osbourne.'
To his surprise the man barred his way. 'Your invitation sir? I haven't anyone of that name on the guest list.'
Nick looked through his pockets, insisted that he must have lost his invitation, then tried again to walk on through the door.
A hand clamped down on the shoulders of his jacket, and before he could even protest he was manhandled down the steps to the pavement.
'No one gate-crashes Mr Soames' parties,' the man said shaking him like a rag doll.
'What on earth are you doing, Ronald?' A woman's voice rang out from behind them.
They both turned. The woman was standing at the top of the steps. She was perhaps forty, but as exotic as an orchid, with black lustrous hair and a deep violet low-cut evening dress.
'He's one of my guests, Ronald,' she said indignantly. 'What are you doing to him?'
Nick was so surprised by this magical intervention, he couldn't even speak.
'He isn't on the guest list, ma'am,' Ronald said.
'I forgot to add him,' she said, tripping down the steps towards Nick and taking his arm.
Nick allowed himself to be led back up the steps, before looking back to smirk at poor Ronald.
But as they stepped into the hall, the woman turned to him under the glittering chandelier, reached up to adjust the frills on his shirt and smiled knowingly. Her eyes were pure violet, just like her dress, and they danced with amusement. 'You naughty boy,' she whispered. 'This party is going to be an infernal bore, so I had to find out why on earth you wanted to gate-crash it.'
Nick had never fancied older women, but this woman's creamy skin, voluptuous curves and her low, melodic voice struck some chord inside him.
'I thought this was the Redgraves' house,' he whispered back.
She looked puzzled for a moment and drew back, appraising him. 'Well, it isn't, and they aren't likely to come either,' she smiled. 'But I'm Kate Hardy and I'm bored stiff, so if you still want to stay I'll be glad of your company.'
No stars turned up at the party. There were artists of the commercial variety, bankers and lawyers and their wives. Kate held his arm and introduced Nick as 'her actor friend'. If it hadn't been for her, he would have left: there was nothing and no one to interest him here.
The house had the same kind of dignified perfection as Oaklands: Chinese carpets, exquisite antique furniture and a collection of impressionist paintings in the drawing room.
'That's why Harry Soames is so careful whom he lets into his house,' Kate said quietly. 'Do you know about art?'
'No,' he admitted. 'Nothing.'
'Thank God for that,' she laughed. It was the sexiest and most infectious sound Nick had ever heard. 'I've been surrounded by art bores for most of my life and I'm sick to death of the subject.'
Kate told him she sometimes acted as a hostess for Harry Soames, who was a bachelor. She pointed out a tall, thin man with hawk-like features talking earnestly to another middle-aged portly man in one corner. 'He's been my friend and lawyer for years,' she added. 'But these days my patience is growing thin. He will surround himself with the most tedious people.'
Nick felt the serious-faced, balding money men looking at him curiously, and several of their middle-aged wives sniffed in disapproval as if they suspected he was Kate's gigolo. He drank gin and tonic after gin and tonic and wondered how he could manipulate this strange twist of fate to his favour. The last thing he remembered was Tom Jones singing 'Love Me Tonight' as he danced with Kate in the almost empty drawing room. She smelled of lilac and her voluptuous curves seemed to mould themselves onto his body.
He woke the next morning to find himself in a pink and white bedroom. Kate was asleep beside him, as beautiful without make-up as she had been the night before, one big soft breast swelling out of a pale pink lace nightgown.
He crept out of bed and went to the window, drawing back the heavy silk curtains. The sun was shining on a lush green lawn. Beyond were trees, and between gaps he could see the Thames sparkling.
The garden and the bedroom suggested she was wealthy; the diamond ring and gold necklace dropped carelessly on the dressing table suggested she was also naive. He felt he had fallen on his feet.
'What went wrong in your life?'
He spun round, surprised by such a penetrating question so early in the day. Kate was sitting up in bed hugging her knees, her black hair tousled, her violet eyes bleary.
'What makes you ask that?' he said, immediately on the defensive. He picked up his pants from a chair and hastily put them on.
'I know you were very drunk last night, but I felt your suppressed anger and disappointment,' she said, raising one eyebrow. 'Why don't you tell me about it?'
For the first time ever he couldn't think of a quick retort. Her questioning eyes reminded him of his mother. He wondered if he'd screwed her and whether it had been a disaster.
'We didn't make love.' She smiled as if she'd tuned into his thoughts. 'I showed you where the bathroom was and the next thing I knew you were in my bed fast asleep. Now, Nick, I'm not a rich woman looking for a young plaything, I brought you home with me because I guessed you had nowhere else to go. If you don't want to talk to me you can take your clothes and leave now, but if you would like to stay, as a friend, I expect honesty.'
At first he told her just enough so she'd let him stay. Her home reminded him of his mother's taste – the soft pastel colours, the dainty china and flowers – and it felt soothing. Despite his first impressions, Kate wasn't wealthy: it was an ordinary semi-detached house, decorated and furnished with care, and she earned her living doing accountancy from home. She later told him that her ex-husband had given her the house as a divorce settlement.
After that first night she put him in her spare bedroom, a tiny yellow and white room that made him think of a nursery. She sent him back to Chelsea with only enough money for the return fare to pick up his belongings, and made him sign on at the Labour Exchange. He went along with it because he had no choice, but for the first day or two he spent a great deal of time considering stealing something from her and making off.
But Kate was wise to him: she gave him odd jobs to do around the house, leaving her office door open while she worked, and she had a knack of appearing with a cup of tea at crucial moments. As the days passed and his head cleared from the drugs which had been so much part of his life, he began to realise just how low he had sunk and how fortunate he was that he'd met Kate.
It was a long time since he'd had regular meals and Kate was a good cook. She made him help prepare the food and wash up, and in the evenings they watched the television together, listened to music or talked. She was restful company, interested in him, but not nosey, concerned about him, yet not overbearing. It was like a convalescence. Slowly he began to tell Kate about himself. The bitterness came o
ut first: he put all the blame for his downfall onto other people and Kate listened and commiserated. Then he found himself moving back to tell her about his childhood, his older brother and sister, how his parents restored Oaklands, and the happy times until his mother died. Kate's gentle questions were like a key turning in a long-locked door.
He had never told anyone, not even Belinda how he hated his father for not bringing him home from school in time to see his mother before she died, but he told Kate. He told her how empty Oaklands had seemed in the long summer holidays, and described how he had made a conscious effort to do badly at school to get some sort of response from his father.
Finally he told her about Belinda, and what they'd had together. For the first time he was able to see that he alone was responsible for everything.
'Nick,' she said, fixing him with those lovely compassionate eyes, 'you haven't lost everything. You've just been flipped back to the start line. You are still young and handsome, you still have that talent which got you that television series. You have a father who loves you. You are healthy and strong. Now that's more than enough to start out again.'
'But my name is mud,' he said and to his shame he began to cry. 'I've hurt so many people. How can I start again?'
She put her arms around him and drew him to her big breasts as if he were a small boy. 'By looking deep into yourself and understanding why you did those things. It's my belief your mother's death is at the root of it all,' she said, gently caressing his neck. 'I suspect you locked your anger and sorrow inside you at the time. But these feelings can't stay shut away forever, and when they do finally rise to the surface we don't always recognise what they are.
'You felt powerful once you'd got your first good acting job. Maybe you were testing Belinda to make sure she loved you enough to stay forever, no matter how awful you were to her.'
'But I didn't want her then, I wanted to be free,' he sniffed.
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