You Only Get One Life (3 page)

‘I wish they could talk,' I'd say.

I wondered about the men who sent them off and what they thought. I'd hear the wings flutter when they were readied for release and hear the excited noises from the birds. When they circled ready to make their journey I wanted to clap, jump and shout encouragement – but I was always too shy.

My own attempts to make a break for it were rather less successful. I started early, when I was just three. Liselotte was my best friend and she came from a wealthy middle-class family, with a father who was a dentist. She was the opposite of me, small and quiet while I was the tomboy. Liselotte was a year older but it was me who convinced her to go on an adventure with our tricycles. ‘We'll go and see my grandmother,' I told her and we set off to find the lake.

I have no idea how we got away with it, but we did, and Grandma gave us juice and cake. I savoured every mouthful, all the while knowing that I was going to be in big trouble with my parents who were already on their way to pick us
up. I got a smack off my dad but it didn't put me off adventuring. Liselotte and I stayed friends for years and I was always hungry for excitement. I liked nothing better than to pack a bag with some supplies and head off into the unknown with my trusty bike. One time we somehow managed to find our way onto a motorway. The police found us and there was definitely no cake. I was always the one who was being reckless. The result was another smack and one week grounded.

When I was on my own I often cycled about five kilometres to Heden, a beautiful open space, flat and tranquil. I got off my bike and lay on the grass, gazing into the white clouds and daydreamed. One day a handsome man would ride up on his horse and take me away from all the bad things to a magic land. Rødovre was safe, it was all right, but I was never comfortable. Something about the place didn't agree with me.

For a start, I was always sick. As a baby I had streptococcal blood disorder which affected me for a long time around the age of two. My hair fell out and I had a very high fever. I was in and out of hospital for months while the doctors tried to find out what was wrong with me. Three years passed and they prescribed so much medication that I had to go to a specialist hospital reserved for children so sick that they can't live normally. I was five, but I was still the size of a two-year-old and very thin. ‘Will I be like this forever?' I asked. It was a pretty big question for a five-year-old.

I later discovered myself as a mother of four that kids are amazingly resilient. They can survive the most devastating illnesses and I did get better. I didn't even remember much
about the sickness myself. It was very different for my parents, who found it unbearable to watch their child suffer. They felt completely helpless that whatever they tried to do didn't work. I realised just how bad it must have been when my youngest son Raoulino was diagnosed with a noncancerous brain tumour at the age of eight. As it grew he was at risk from bleeding in the brain and he was sick for two years. He's fine now, but at the time they told us he could die at any moment. I felt that gnawing terror that my parents felt at an illness which doesn't seem to have a cure.

My own memories of being a very young child were happy ones. The best times were when our yearly holiday took us to Orø. We never had the money to go on foreign holidays and instead we went to this tiny island north of Copenhagen. We piled into the old, embarrassing car with all the luggage tied on top with a rope; at least my parents allowed me to take Liselotte with us.

The holiday home was old and little more than a not particularly large, wooden box. One room included the kitchen with its single-ring stove while the toilet was outside with a hole, but it made for the most memorable vacation even if you'd swear our cramped quarters could never hold all of us. It didn't matter though, because for once the rules were relaxed and that was enough to make it paradise.

I was allowed to hide, to run around and – my favourite thing – to climb trees. As a kid, I was like a monkey and I would lose myself for whole days at a time and could be as dangerous as I liked. The island was only about 14 kilometres in total, small enough for the adults to be reassured that we were probably safe but large enough for
it to be an exciting wilderness for us. It was warm and I was surrounded by the people I trusted the most. Mum and Dad were relaxed and in a good mood and nothing could hurt us. We'd head off with backpacks stuffed with food and drink. Liselotte was by my side just as she'd always been since we were little.

We went down to the water to laugh at birdwatchers. All were totally absorbed in what they were doing, some motionless, gazing straight up with their noses in the air while others stared intently for minutes at a time, seemingly at a patch of sand. They had no idea that they were providing the cabaret: they were hilarious in their seriousness and the way they seemed completely oblivious to anything if it didn't have feathers or live in an egg. You could get right up close to them and they wouldn't react at all. Then we ran off to throw ourselves in the sand dunes and look for seals in the water.

That holiday was also the first time I fell in love. Vesti was the son of the shopkeeper who ran the island's tiny supermarket. He had dark, curly hair and dark eyes and I remember their long, dark eyelashes, they were so beautiful. And he made me laugh. I dreamed about him the whole summer.

I was only nine years old but I can still remember the way he smelled and a wonderful feeling of tingly excitement, like I had something sparkling and fizzy in my stomach, every time I looked at him. It was a confusing sensation that I first got to know in the shower when I was eight.

I'd spilled marmalade all over my clothes and my mother got me to take off the sticky things and clean myself up. I
never needed any encouragement to get in the water and I loved to bathe – I was a real waterbaby. My hair was washed in the shower and I got soap all over myself. I directed the showerhead all over my body and when the jet played between my legs, I felt this jolt of excitement.

I had no idea what I'd discovered with my showerhead, but I liked it. The warm sensation was strong and tickly all over my body if I kept the showerhead in a particular position and whatever it was, it felt fantastic. After a while it would get to be almost too nice. I had to change position occasionally otherwise it felt like I might go crazy – but I always brought it back again. How long was I doing it for – five minutes? Ten? I don't know; I lost all sense of time.

The experience opened a door to a completely new world and I was eager to understand what it was all about. In some ways I was already an experienced young lady by the time I got to meet Vesti: I had already met the feeling that he aroused in me and I knew myself quite well by then. The physical world I was exploring and the world of love came together in Vesti. At the time, I just wasn't old enough to make a conscious connection between the two. I couldn't quite work out what the difference was between the love I felt with my trusty showerhead and the love in the presence of Vesti. The best I could work it out was that the feeling I got in the shower would always end quite abruptly. When it was over – it was over. What I felt around Vesti lingered on. I was to spend many years later on trying to bring the two worlds of the physical and the emotional together.

The love I found on holiday was new. It was warm,
exciting and it was a comforting sensation. I felt safe, although I know many women wouldn't compare love to safety. For me it was everything. And of course that kind of love only works when the other person feels that safety too and you get the feeling returned. Vesti seemed interested to me but I'm now sure that it was basically just me who was in love. We were, after all, only nine and I don't think he had much to return to me. I was just ecstatic to have those feelings – I felt so proud, so grown-up. This was the thing that meant the most to me in my life – and it has done ever since then.

Love has come and gone over the years, but I would never have wanted to have lived without those sensations, no matter how hard it's got at times. Maybe Vesti was something of a red flag if only I'd been old enough to understand it. Love requires all the energy I have in my body and soul. Even at nine it demanded everything of me and I felt that slight edge of madness that comes with it. I think I was even then somewhat addicted to that tremendous kick. That was an indication of a less healthy side of love. But if Vesti had been a warning of what was to come, do I regret ignoring it? No. I wouldn't have missed out on any of my adventures in love. They took me to surprising places and even if they were on occasion places I wouldn't want to go, that's just the way it was: you can't control where love takes you.

I never got to hold Vesti's hand and we never kissed. He probably just thought I was stupid for being so interested in him. But in our eight- and nine-year-old ways we expressed our feelings. He chased me, we'd tease each other and hang
out. We were just doing normal kid stuff but holding Vesti's attention was what gave me that special tingly sensation.

The other love that started that summer would prove to be life-long. Liselotte and I found a farm with a couple of ponies, which the owners allowed us to ride. I was instantly smitten and fell for a pony called Magic. I don't know what kind he was or how old, but I wanted to be with him as much as possible. I looked after him, fed him and would take him out for rides. Sometimes I would just push my face into the warmth of his mane – I loved the intoxicating smell of horses all over me. I've been mad about riding ever since. Everything about horses is wonderful – hugging them, taking them out to gallop over the hills or just listening to them after a ride in the evening when they're chomping feed in the stables.

Riding the ponies that summer made me feel so serene. When we got back from holiday I would cycle to stables outside Copenhagen every day and spend hours grooming horses. In return I got an hour of free riding every week. I gazed into those big, dark eyes that were large enough to absorb all my thoughts and I'd feel them take away the meanness of ordinary life. The relationship with them was easy and honest. Riding can be as technically demanding as you want to make it, but it all comes down to moving each part of your body to the rhythm and motion of the horse. It wasn't so much a sport as a way of becoming one with this beautiful animal.

I didn't stop my regular rides until I became a model – and it came in useful later when I got the lead in
Red Sonja
opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. We had to do so much on horseback that I'd never have been able to do it without all my experience. I took it up again when I got married to Sylvester Stallone and we took up indoor polo with other Hollywood horse fanatics. Later, when I was in a relationship with American footballer Mark Gastineau, I had my own horse again. Mark was born and grew up on a ranch and he was always around horses. I learned how to ride bareback, on Western saddle, and I got to try roping. I don't have so much time to fit in riding these days but it's still a form of therapy for me, like some people go for a walk or cook a meal. I like to be close to the horse; feeling its calming heartbeat always makes me happier – it's got to be only a matter of time before I get my own horse once more. I'll never give it up. I'd love to live the rural life with Mattia, owning chickens, pigs and a pony somewhere outside London – there's nothing like the smell of the hay and the nuzzle of an affectionate horse.

M
y first thought: this woman must mean Susanne. She’s pushed me, but there’s no way I could be a model. You know when you see two girls out together and one is always good-looking and the other one is ugly? Those were basically the roles Susanne and I played. I was the beautiful girl’s friend and it had always worked perfectly well. It wasn’t like I thought it was going to be any other way. Almost as a reflex I stepped out of the way so that Susanne could talk to the woman who had stopped us.

She looked to be about 30 and she was still smiling. ‘No, no, it’s
you
I’m talking to,’ she said, looking directly at me. ‘My name is Marianne Diers and I’m a talent scout for Copenhagen Models and Elite. Would you like to be a model?’

It was a simple enough question, but first let me tell you a little bit about me and my body. We’d never got on very well together. I hated the way I looked and I would do everything I could not to be seen. The opinion seemed to be
shared by most of the kids I knew. I studied hard at school because I was sure I would only be able to rely on what was inside me to get me through life. The taunts of
giraffen
really stung, but I also believed them: it was as if it was my fault that I was such a tall thing. By the age of 11, I was taller than my own teacher and in an attempt to disguise it, I would deliberately stoop slightly so as not to be noticed.

It was around this time that my parents noticed my spine had gone crooked with what was diagnosed as scoliosis. The doctors pointed out then that one leg was shorter than the other. This condition is painful and if it’s not treated properly in children then it can cause problems into adult life. I wore a medical corset for more than a year, but that was okay because I could wear it under my regular clothes.

But the doctors also said I had to wear special orthopaedic shoes to compensate for the difference in the length of my legs and at that point I rebelled. I wore those hateful shoes for two days and never put them on again. Already I had the corset, braces and I was stooped over with my height – I felt like some kind of freak. I had to go to physiotherapy every Friday until at last the doctors decided they weren’t getting the results they needed: they wanted to remove a piece of my knee, warning that the procedure carried a 50 per cent chance of leaving me with a permanently stiff leg. Thank God my dad told them the operation was completely out of the question: we would carry on working on the condition but my parents wouldn’t run the risk of me being permanently damaged.