Lost and Found

by Lynda Bellingham

  For us girls it was a numbing few weeks. Two funerals in the space of a month. The services were wonderful, though, and all credit to Barbara who organised them, with Jean. I was not much help as I was doing the play and as anyone who knows anything about the theatre will tell you, the play stops for nothing. Not even a death in the family. I had to go to both funerals while I was performing in the evening.

  They were incredibly moving occasions, the village church full both times as a testament to my parents’ popularity. For my father’s funeral we filled the church with wild flowers, and the RAF sent a flag to go over the coffin. This is normally only reserved for people still in the service. My sister organised a bugler, also from the RAF, to play the Last Post and it rang out through the little country church, pure and strong. The church was packed to the rafters. My dad would have been so touched and probably embarrassed by the scenes of emotion he prompted in the congregation. My friend Jenny Puddefoot (married to Rod, the folk singer) sang ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do’, as it was Mum and Dad’s song when they were courting. Mum had chosen the ‘Airmen’s Hymn’ to be sung for him too, in her better days, and it was very moving to hear. It was a fantastic service and did Dad proud.

  But no sooner had we recovered ourselves, than we were back in the same pews waiting for Mum’s coffin to arrive. Once again the church was decked with flowers, this time all purple. My son Michael sang ‘Jerusalem’, unaccompanied. I was so proud. Again, the church was packed. Lovely.

  Both my parents had given so much to the village through the years and it was wonderful that so many people turned out to pay their respects.

  When we had first arrived in Aston Abbotts people were suspicious, as they always are, of the newcomers. Then it was announced that the village was in the flight path of the proposed Wing Airport, and my dad came into his own. He headed the campaign against the Government’s plan to build the third airport near our village and nearly achieved hero status because he knew all the ins and outs of the business, and could answer all the relevant queries and objections. The airport was eventually built at Stansted, thanks mainly to local objections.

  Mum had been a member of the local ladies’ club and ran a weekly craft group at home. She was always first in there with the ideas for the fete or church jumble sale, and loved organising everybody. When all her friends got older, and became widows, Mum also would insist on lending Dad out! He was kept very busy driving ladies around.

  They were also of another generation that is now sadly nearly all gone. A generation from another kind of life, lived simply in the country in a way that was incredibly genuine and without guile. I mourn the creeping loss of that society of country folk and that way of life. But every day I mourn for my parents. I owed them so much. I could never have repaid any of their kindness or support but I just wish they could have been around to see me grow up. It took me so long, but anything I have achieved or learned is thanks to them, and any kindness or goodness in me is thanks to them.

  Donald John Bellingham died 17th January, 2005.

  Ruth Bellingham died 22nd February, 2005.

  May they rest in peace.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  I FACE MY DEMONS AND EMBRACE MY FATE

  AFTER MY PARENTS had both passed away, I felt completely alone. Everything I had been through so far in my life I had coped with because they were there in the background, supporting me, but now it was just me against the world. Or so I thought.

  Michael Pattemore was there for me every step of the way. I have been so unbelievably lucky to have met him. Our relationship moved very fast and became, for me, very intense. I clung to Michael and our sex life was incredible. It was as though I was trying to reaffirm my whole existence.

  But we also had to keep our relationship under wraps. I was so worried that the press would get hold of the story and Nunzio would go mad and then the boys would have a hard time. My ex-husband still had that kind of control over me. I had lived with the fear of upsetting him for so long I knew no different.

  Michael and I were spending so much money now on hotel rooms we decided we had to find a flat somewhere. Dear Pat Hay offered us her place for the summer, as she was going off to film Doc Martin in Cornwall. We had a wonderful time during those summer months. I was going to the theatre every night to do Losing Louis, while weekends were spent meeting Michael in our secret flat.

  I would get up on Sunday mornings and drive back home, which was only round the corner, and sort out the boys (they never got up before lunchtime so I was always able to be there when they got up) and cook them lunch. I would make enough for Michael as well, and afterwards I would drive back to Pat’s with the rest of the Sunday lunch and we would have it in the evening. Talk about meals on wheels! The boys had no idea about my secret life!

  More importantly neither did Nunzio. Then, in September 2005, we met Richard Lane, my friend and accountant, for a dinner at Langan’s Brasserie. After a few glasses I was a bit too demonstrative towards Michael in the restaurant, and we were papped. Suddenly the Daily Mail – who had obviously done their research – was running headlines about my criminal lover: ‘WANTED BY THE FBI’ ran the headline. We were ‘outed’, and I had a decision to make.

  The last six months had made me realise that I was deeply in love with Michael. We had spent a great deal of time together and he had been so strong. Although I was nervous about committing completely to our relationship, I knew I didn’t want to lose him. I wanted to make a gesture of commitment to him during this bad time but now was not the time for him to move in with me. Nunzio would have made the boys’ lives hell.

  So we decided I should buy a little flat as an investment for my old age. I talked to Richard about it and he agreed it was a sound financial plan. Michael would contribute to the costs and we would have a place to be together. So we bought the ‘Love Nest’ in East Finchley. It was a one-bedroom flat in a sixties block. We had such fun decorating it and buying furniture for it and it was just so wonderful for me to share something with a man who didn’t moan constantly and who could do things like plumbing and decorating. Heaven! Every weekend I would troll up there on a Friday with my shopping for the next two days, and while Michael was winging his way from Spain, I would be cooking and preparing for our weekend. It was like playing at being a family without the hassle of the children. My boys never asked me where I was going as long as their dinner was on the table. What did they care? I was only a phone call away.

  It was the perfect arrangement. Christmas 2005 was hysterical. Two Christmas trees, two sets of decorations, two Christmas dinners. The boys love Christmas Eve as I do, so I stayed with them for that. Although now they were older, twenty-two and seventeen no less, it was more a question of getting up early on Christmas morning and taking their stockings in to them while they were asleep, and then waiting until they woke up bleary-eyed and hungover to open the presents.

  This Christmas I went to Midnight Mass with Michael and then went home to my flat and organised the day to come. I delivered the stockings to the boys and spent the morning cooking the lunch. Michael had driven down to Somerset to see his parents and we were going to meet back at the Love Nest in the evening.

  The boys and I had a lovely lunch and opened our presents and then they went off to see their dad. I cleared up and set off for East Finchley. It looked so pretty. We had a lovely Christmas tree and lights. Everything was very neat and tidy after my house. I put the presents under the tree and champagne in the fridge, and the dinner was in the oven. Michael drove like the clappers and was back in London by the early evening and we sat down and spent a wonderful Christmas evening together.

  It was all working wonderfully well and we would probably have gone on like this indefinitely, when some friends of ours came round for dinner at our little flat and pointed out how ridiculous it was that we were in a one-bedroomed flat while my sons were in the lap of luxury in a three-bedroomed flat in Highgate, with all their meals cooked and their w
ashing done and a cleaner who came in once a week. They had a point!

  We decided to make a change, and when my son Michael saw the flat in East Finchley he wanted to move in straight away. That would have been fine if we could then move back to my flat but this was going to cause a problem with Nunzio, who would not let Robbie sleep under the same roof as my lover. So we bought a sofa bed for Robbie and the two boys moved into East Finchley. I thought this was the perfect way for them to learn to look after themselves, while I kept an eye on them from a distance.

  The arrangement lasted about three weeks until Robbie got fed up and moved back with us. But big son stayed there for the next three years. It cost me a fortune because he was a student and couldn’t afford rent, but he learnt to fend for himself in many other ways.

  LATER IN THE year, I did a play called Sugar Mummies at the Royal Court, on Sloane Square. Written by Tanika Gupta and directed by Indhu Rubasingham, it was all about women going to the Caribbean for sex. I was playing Maggie, a less than sympathetic character from Manchester who finds a young black guy and tries to have sex with him on the beach, and when he can’t manage it she ties him to a tree! (Obviously there was a good deal more to the play than that.) It was a fantastic take on this kind of abuse of young black men. Everyone knows about Thai brides but when it is young men involved, and women doing the buying, it doesn’t create so much outrage for some reason, which shows appalling double standards in society today.

  The cast was outstanding. A young actor called Jason Frederick played opposite me. The big scene where we are rolling around on the beach was a bit of a headache, and the poor guy was so nervous I suggested, one lunchtime, that we go and have some wine, and then rehearse the scene. He was worried he would get into trouble for drinking at work but I accepted full responsibility. On the back of that rehearsal, we decided it worked best to do the scene doggy style!

  The set was fantastic – it was of a beach, using six tons of real sand. This had a drawback as, of course, the sand got everywhere, as sand tends to do, and after every performance rolling around in the first half, I had to spend the interval showering.

  One day I asked Jason if he had told his mother he was doing this scene with me.

  ‘Oh no,’ was his reply. ‘She really likes you and I don’t want to upset her by telling her I am having sex with Mrs Oxo!’

  The audiences were great during the run, and used to get really involved. One young actress, Heather Craney, had a scene where she called her black lover a nigger. There was always a stunned silence from the audience. One night, after this line, a single voice rang out in the theatre: ‘Beat her!’ It was extraordinary.

  We got a huge round of applause every night. Great stuff. Again, though, the enjoyment was marred, because one of the directors at the Royal Court, a theatre which takes its image very seriously, remarked to me that it was unusual to see ‘an actress like you’ on its stage. Why? Just because I am well known commercially doesn’t make me less of an actress. Just because the play got huge laughs and was sold out is not a matter of shame. It makes me so cross!

  Again, I was disappointed when nothing came of the play for me personally, and no further roles arose because of it. Every job seemed to end and take me nowhere.

  But I was always busy. I did an episode of New Tricks which was such fun as I was with all my old mates. Amanda Redman was on great form, as were Dennis Waterman and James Bolam. And Alun Armstrong was very naughty. I had last worked with him in 1970 on General Hospital. He had a wicked sense of humour then and he hadn’t lost it.

  In one scene for New Tricks, I had to do a long speech that was pretty intricate in terms of the plot, and making sure the audience would know what was going on. It’s always hard when you come into a long-running series as a guest, because the guest gets all the boring bits of story-telling while the regulars get all the gags. We were all in the scene, which we’d had to do about five times so that each actor got his close-ups done. Of course, by the third time everyone was very bored with my speech, including me! Alun’s character had got a broken leg so he was using a crutch and, when it came to my turn for a close-up, he decided to stick the crutch up my skirt while I was talking. I refused to stop, or laugh, so I spent the whole speech wrestling – out of view of the camera lens – with his crutch!

  OVER THESE FEW months, Michael had taken a major decision and given up alcohol. He had been for a check-up and been told by the doctor that if he didn’t stop drinking he would have a heart attack in ten years’ time.

  We had gone to the surgery together, and when he had come out and sat in the car and I had asked him how it all had gone, he couldn’t tell me at first. Just said, ‘Right, that’s it, I’ve stopped drinking.’ I must have looked amazed because he told me that even the doctor had thought it would be impossible for him to stop, just like that.

  ‘He offered to find me a counsellor!’ Michael said indignantly. ‘I told him no way. I’ll stop now from this minute, you watch me.’ I didn’t say anything but I secretly didn’t believe him.

  Michael’s whole life in Spain revolved around drinking. All the socialising he had to do with clients, not to mention the fact that everyone drank in Spain, whatever they were doing. Since we had got together we were as bad as each other. We would sit out on the patio with a bottle of Amaretto and drink it dry.

  So I wasn’t holding my breath as far as his ability to stay off the juice went. How wrong could I be! He went back to the doctor three months later and all his tests were great. The doctor couldn’t believe it. I was so proud of him and he looks a million dollars now.

  I should have given up with him, of course, but I decided to ‘soldier on’. My decision created a good deal of tension between us, however, and threatened to destroy our relationship.

  The problem, of course, is that when someone doesn’t drink they become very aware of everyone else getting drunk and talking rubbish around them and there is nothing so boring as going to a party or out for a meal with a group of friends because if they all get plastered, they get stupid, repeating themselves and getting aggressive and shouting over the top of each other.

  I, of course, was doing all these things in spades. Poor Michael would come over from Spain to spend a weekend with me and we would go out to a friend’s lunch, or a charity do, or a first night or something, and I would happily get a bit sozzled, or worse, and end up ignoring him.

  One of the things I always used to do when I was drunk was come home and start ringing friends. Normally I hate talking on the phone for hours. I think it comes from when I was young and Dad would go mad because I was always on the phone, and he trained me to just deliver my message, and hang up. But when I had had a few, I was always happy to chat. It was a way of catching up with people, especially when I was going through all the problems with Nunzio and never got to see anyone.

  But now, unfortunately, I was doing it at Michael’s expense. He would go to bed and I would be in the kitchen on the phone. He tried telling me nicely that if I didn’t calm down he would have to make a few decisions about our time together, but I took no notice until one day we had a big row and Michael told me he was not going to bother to come over for the weekends if I did not stop drinking. I was shocked. I wasn’t that bad, surely? But he told me that I was starting to be a real pain. Sometimes, now, when we had been out I would come back and be sick, or just go to bed and pass out.

  He was kind but firm. If I wanted to drink that was fine, but he would not be with me.

  I had a lot of thinking to do. It seemed so unfair to make such a big deal of it because it didn’t actually happen that often. Most of the time now, because Michael didn’t drink, neither did I, and it was fine. But if I was honest with myself, there were the odd lunches where I seemed to get drunk very easily. Certainly my tolerance for alcohol had lowered considerably. But the thought of not having a glass or two of champagne or a glass of red wine was horrific. That lovely thing of getting tipsy with the one you love and making love a
ll afternoon; I just couldn’t imagine life without it. But obviously the time had come to call time on my drinking and, if I needed any more persuasion than losing the best thing that ever happened to me, my guardian angel also stepped in to give me a much-needed kick up the backside.

  We had been to lunch with Amanda Redman at her house. Pat Hay was there, and some other friends, and it was a great day. It went on all afternoon and I was well away, telling stories and throwing back the red wine. Michael finally managed to drag me away and take me home. As we got into the house, the phone rang. Jean had been mugged, right outside her house, and was lying in the road. I was so drunk I couldn’t actually stand up by this time, but I registered the horror of it and through the fog I was struggling to get myself together to go and help her.

  Michael just told me to shut up, sit down and stay there. He would deal with it. He left me sitting there, and I was still in the same place God knows how many hours later. I spent the whole time trying to sober up. I was sick to my stomach and my soul. As always in my life, things have to go to an extreme for me to actually do something about it.

  When Michael returned he could hardly bring himself to talk to me. He told me Jean had broken her arm and been taken to The Whittington Hospital.

  My poor dear sister had been having a hell of a time recently. She had discovered that her husband was having an affair and her twenty-eight-year marriage was in tatters, and now this. And where was her supporting family? Round the corner in a drunken stupor. Michael was so disgusted with me he left for Spain very early the next morning without even saying goodbye. When I rang him later he basically told me again that if I wanted to drink that was fine but he would not be coming back to visit me. I begged him to forgive me and pleaded for another chance. Thank goodness he relented, and I too stopped drinking there and then.