Testimony: The girl that I left behind

Ligeia Hunt's heart-stopping looks were her currency, her life. But the years have been cruel

For About 15 years I rarely paid a train or bus fare. People just let me off. I never went food shopping - I didn't go into a supermarket until I was over 30. I never had to buy meals or drinks unless I really insisted. I wasn't trying to ponce off people or to prostitute myself. They just offered. Jean Cocteau said: "The privileges of beauty are enormous." But it is hard to make the damning admission that one is, or was, beautiful or to speculate on what the inevitable loss of such looks entails.

I was never a classic, or even a natural beauty. I was too small, and back then too thin and flat-chested - but youth, determination and artifice ensured that my combination of dark red hair, pale skin, big eyes, high cheekbones and pre-collagen pout conformed to a certain Western ideal. Distinct, flexible, it has predominated for some 40 years. Facially, I was beautiful enough to obscure my other bad points. It would have been stupid to pretend I didn't know that many people were attracted to me. But conscious awareness of my looks made me feel superstitious and desperate. The hysterical emphasis on youth and beauty everywhere was a forcible reminder of their temporary nature. Everything I depended on was slipping away, day by day. In the meantime I obeyed the usual rituals - I modelled (hats, cosmetics, kids' clothes), appeared talentlessly in films, accepted air tickets, travelled with rock bands, posed for artists and photographers.

After university it never occurred to me to get a serious job. I had no confidence in any abilities beyond being decorative and I always lived with someone. There was always someone happy to look after me. I was not calculating or even practical about this and initially had to believe that I really cared for each lover. I preferred the scruffy and artistic to the purely wealthy and was often a zombie-like muse, absorbing the fantasies, projections and insults of some arty egomaniac. Like a lot of pretty girls, I endured some real bastards. Nice, unselfish men were usually much too diffident to approach. Also - particularly if your beauty is contrived - you feel a fraud and let men mistreat you. You know you are valued for something which is simultaneously deemed incredibly important and yet of little worth. Your position is a result of luck, not ability.

But things are much easier for the pretty girl. When you are indulged like that you acquire a sort of learned helplessness. It makes you very lazy with your life. You drift along like sea kelp. People would go to incredible lengths - driving me hundreds of miles on a whim, taking over all practical and unpleasant tasks. Many men expected sex in return, but others, men and women who knew sex was out of the question, would still persist, for more complex reasons. People would try and persuade me to service clients properly and make money. But I felt I prostituted myself anyway, living partly off lovers. I despised myself.

I did get jobs - they were constantly offered - but I couldn't get up in the morning. I'd always been out. I survived - I was homeless for about a year, so I would just go to a party and pick someone to live with for a while. Then this guy bought me some emeralds and a flat in Shepherd's Bush. Hardly Breakfast At Tiffany's ... The terrible pity is that you don't really know the power of youth and beauty until it has gone. And it does go - no one at 40 looks as they did at 18, whatever they do.

I was terrified of ageing. I thought I was finished at 25 and at 30 I married, convinced I'd soon be worthless. Every day there were these sharp reminders. I read about three French TV commentators - beautiful women - who all killed themselves shortly after their 40th birthdays. I couldn't forget it. I'd see women who'd been great beauties. From a distance, with their long blonde hair, expensive boots, cuddling their Saluki and Shih Tzu dogs, they looked great, but up close they were old; skulls and ashes. It was chilling.

Every little sign that you are getting older is a dagger to the heart. You really feel it. The first time someone calls you "Madam". The first time a man's eyes don't follow you. The first time you like a guy and he is completely indifferent - no offers of a lift, a drink, not even a telephone number. The first year with no valentines and recalling the 15 or 20 that used to arrive. The first sign of pity or triumph from a friend. The increasing callousness regarding your welfare. The growing anonymity, standing alone for the first time at a party. No more being whisked to the head of the queue and "After you, please" and "I expect we can find a spare seat"; being automatically on the guest-list, having a back-stage pass, not needing an invitation, being admired. Real life, in fact.

After 30 my shape changed. My shoulders broadened and I lost the pipe- stem arms and thighs, the androgynous, adolescent silhouette necessary for fashion-victimhood. After 35 the chin loses its definition, gravity takes over, the mouth turns down at the edges and awful lines score themselves from the edges of the nose to the mouth. In your mid-thirties you have to come to the decision - whether to work at it (and it really is hard work by now), to exercise and have cosmetic surgery or not to bother. But by that time you've been so spoilt that you don't have much self-discipline. The years of indulgence have taken their toll. And now you have to pay for everything - in every way. It is easy to retreat into seclusion with drink, pets, TV or whatever floats your boat.

Regrets? I've had a few. I wish I'd been more hard-headed and had something to show for those years. I wish I'd restricted my charms to people who could have furthered a career. But with feminism barely established and no self-confidence, it was difficult. Feminism created more options and made for better relationships with other women, but otherwise any pretty boy could have had the same experiences.

Now nearing my mid-forties, I am still married and living an ordinary, working life in public housing. I don't resent younger people; after all, I had a good innings. I can't say I've learned anything heart-warming about the unimportance of looks - not in this society. My looks were part of me and without them I've never felt I am offering more than half a person. I hate it most when people see old pictures of me and say "God, I'd never have recognised you", because neither would I. And worse - if scientists do conquer ageing it will be too late for me. I always knew that would happen.