Bryan set off on a world tour in spring 1977. He had just sold his London house to John Cleese, so I decided to stay with my sister Cyndy in New York. I threw myself into work. Bryan was touring Japan and Australia and he wrote to me saying it was too expensive to call. I heard from a hairdresser that he was having an affair with a model in Japan.
One evening in New York, I found myself sitting between Mick and Warren Beatty at a dinner party. They were both fighting for my attention. Mick, who was still married to his wife Bianca, made me laugh. After dinner, we went to the famous Studio 54 nightclub. Mick and I would celebrate that date – May 21, 1977 – for the next 23 years. Mick was gentle, charming, funny and fascinating. I loved the way he didn’t seem to care a hoot what people thought of him. He was confident, cool and in control.
From that moment, Mick laid siege to me, sending me flowers and getting me invited to dinners where he would be seated next to me. I was flattered. I started an affair with him on the condition that it would be over at the end of the summer when Bryan came back from his tour. I told Mick I could only see him every other day. It was a futile attempt to protect my heart because I was falling in love with him.
That year my father died. I sent a telegram to Bryan begging him to call me, but he just sent back a telegram offering his condolences. I felt hurt, so I turned to Mick, who was supportive and consoling. While most men aren’t very good at feelings, he had a talent for it.
Mick and I saw each other discreetly for the rest of the summer. For my 21st birthday in July, he gave me an exquisite pair of diamond hoop antique earrings. When summer ended, we said a tearful goodbye. Bryan was due back the next day. I felt confused, but when Bryan arrived I was happy to see him. He gave me a beautiful emerald bracelet for the birthday he had missed.
I hoped I could forget about Mick and make a fresh start with Bryan. We moved to Los Angeles, but I was terrified he would find out what I had been up to. One night Bryan and I had dinner with Prince Rupert Loewenstein, the Rolling Stones’ financial adviser. When Bryan was out of the room, Rupert passed me Mick’s number. I rang him the next day. He begged to see me again, telling me how much he missed me, so we arranged to meet while I was appearing in some fashion shows in Paris.
I felt horribly torn. I missed Mick – I knew what we had wasn’t over yet. I wanted to end it with Bryan, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I went to Paris and as soon as I saw Mick I knew I wanted to be with him. After the shows, we went to Morocco for a holiday. I told Bryan I had a modelling job. Mick and I lost our suitcase at the airport, so we bought some Moroccan gowns.
We felt so free, driving around in a rented car, with black kohl eyeliner around our eyes, listening to great music. We stayed in hotels with rooms full of sweet-scented bowls of roses and lit by candles. Mick played his guitar and sang to me by an open fire.
We were having lunch in Agadir one day when I ran into a fashion editor I knew. I told her we had lost our bags and she lent us some clothes from her photoshoot. I was still phoning Bryan and telling him I was working. Finally he said: ‘Stop lying. I read about you and Mick in the papers.’ The fashion team must have spilled the beans. Bryan said: ‘Just come home and we’ll talk about it.’
But I couldn’t – I knew he was not the forgiving type and I was already too much in love with Mick. I felt bad for breaking off our engagement, but it never occurred to me to complain about the affair Bryan had had in Japan. Bryan took me leaving him badly, refusing to give back my clothes and possessions. I had left a book by the bed called The Mists Of Avalon, about druids. Bryan wrote a beautiful album called Avalon, but he never spoke to me again.
My love was so strong I couldn’t do anything but follow Mick wherever he led me. I knew he had a reputation as a womaniser and he was still married, even if he hadn’t lived with Bianca for a year, but I was hopeful. We rented an apartment in Paris beside Notre Dame. We made love four times a day, ripping each other’s clothes off. We never got bored or disagreed. Unlike Bryan, Mick thought my leg-wrestling was hilarious.
As Mick’s girl, I lived life in a constant spotlight. When the Stones went on tour, we were given police escorts to hotels. If we wanted to go out, we had to be sneaked through hotel kitchens into windowless vans.
Soon after we got together, Mick and Bianca divorced. He wasn’t nearly as rich as people thought and had to give her most of what he had. But we were free to be together. Having spent years living like nomads, Mick and I felt the need to settle down. We bought homes in New York, London, Paris and Mustique, and in March 1984, our first baby, Elizabeth, was born. We both adored her. When Elizabeth was nine months old, we took a break on an island off the Brazilian coast and while there I became pregnant again. Mick nearly fainted when I told him I was carrying twins.
But three months into the pregnancy, I was told that one twin was slightly bigger than the other. At five months, I had another scan – one baby’s heart had stopped beating. I was confined to my bed for a while and the emotional stress of losing one of my twins was painful.
The surviving baby, James, was born in August 1985. He was healthy and gorgeous, but I suffered postnatal depression, probably caused by mourning for my dead child, and not being able to talk about it because we had kept it secret.
