It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

by Jo Wood

  The conversation had turned to religion. I was instantly on edge: I wasn’t sure if Mum, who was quite a strict Catholic, would have an issue with me dating someone Jewish.

  ‘Well, of course you know Jo’s Jewish,’ Peter said.

  Mum looked at me, then back to him, confused. ‘No, I’m sorry, she isn’t. Josephine went to a convent school.’

  Peter grinned. ‘She’s Jewish by injection.’

  Oh, God. Mum looked utterly horrified. I didn’t dare risk a glance at Dad. But Peter just cracked up laughing, loving the reaction he’d caused.

  Shortly after that disastrous Sunday, Mum phoned to try to talk some sense into me. ‘You can’t turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. And, believe me, Josephine, that man is a sow’s ear.’

  My reaction was typically teenage: ‘But, Mum, I love him! You don’t understaaaaand! Why can’t you just be happy for meeee?’

  In the end, we had to agree to disagree.

  It was a few days before my 17th birthday, barely a month after I’d started dating Peter, that he gave me a diamond and sapphire engagement ring. There was no big proposal, certainly no getting down on one knee, he just handed it over: ‘’Ere you are, doll, this is for you. Now you can live with me, all right?’

  I think he did it to keep my parents happy, making things legit between us. And Mum and Dad took the news of our impending nuptials pretty well in the circumstances. I think they must have assumed it was just some little madness that I was going through and that it was better to play along and keep quiet until I came to my senses. Mum even made me a stunning dress for the engagement party (also my 17th-birthday bash); a copy of one of Marilyn Monroe’s, it had a sheer black top with sequins covering my boobs and a full tulle skirt. As I glided around our fabulous apartment on the night of the party, pouring champagne for all the fabulous people who had come to celebrate my birthday, I felt like Marilyn herself.

  In those early days, Peter and I had such fun. He was exciting and flamboyant, had money and the urge to spend it. I could go into his showroom and pick out whatever I wanted – it was around this time that I really started to get into designer clothes. We were out every night at the coolest places. We’d have dinner at San Lorenzo, then go on to Tramp or Monkberry’s with his friends and their model girlfriends. Every year we would drive to the South of France with Peter’s business partner, Steven, and his girlfriend, Jay, and his friend Harold Tillman and girlfriend Stephanie, with Stevie Wonder blasting on the eight-track. I loved the way he’d do these crazy, impetuous things without a second thought.

  One day he came home with a St Bernard puppy he named Amyl – as in amyl nitrate, the chemical name for poppers. (Typical Peter humour.) Of course, Amyl quickly grew from a cute ickle bundle of fluff into a 200-pound dog. One day I came home to find that Amyl had pooed on the cream carpet and left poo pawprints all over the apartment. Trying not to heave, I rang Peter and told him to come home from work to clean it up. To his credit, he did.

  A few months after our ‘engagement’, I fell pregnant. We weren’t being that careful so it was hardly a surprise, but I was so young and naïve that it still came as quite a shock. Peter freaked out, so I had an abortion. He took me to a clinic in Harley Street and that was that. At the time, it didn’t feel like such a big deal – as terrible as that sounds now, it just seemed like a quick way out of a tricky situation. Besides, I didn’t want to have a baby either. I was only 17–and who’d want to book a model with a bump?

  I was still working regularly and it was starting to cause problems in my relationship. Peter didn’t like Gavin. There was an obvious conflict of interests: Gavin wanted me to work, Peter wanted me to play. I’d go out all night to Tramp, get completely pissed, then have to be up early the next morning for a shoot. Thankfully, I was young enough not to suffer from hideous hangovers. I was surviving on just a few hours’ sleep a night. All those months of working hard and partying hard would prove brilliant training for what was to come later in my life . . .

  In the April after my 18th birthday we went on holiday to Los Angeles. In typical style, Peter just turned round one day and said, ‘I’m taking you to America, doll.’ We went with Steven and Jay, Tony Bloomberg – a whole gang of us.

  I fell in love with LA almost instantly. To this day, the smell of the place gets me every time: a heady blend of sunshine, hot tarmac and smog. We stayed at the Beverly Hilton and Peter rented a fantastic red Cadillac Eldorado with white leather seats. So cool! Our little posse went to all the trendy restaurants and clubs and hung out on the beach in Malibu. Then one day Peter suddenly said, ‘Let’s drive to Vegas.’ So we did.

  Las Vegas was still quite small in the early seventies, but even then it was such a mad place. I remember being particularly struck by the fact that every single car was a convertible. We stayed at Caesar’s Palace, which was the most extravagant place I’d ever seen: huge fountains and marble columns, with all the female staff dressed in tiny little Caesar’s Palace togas.

  On our first night in Vegas we went to see one of Peter’s friends who had a huge house there. The door opened – letting out a blast of icy air-conditioning – and there stood this guy with a moustache, permed Afro and white flared trousers with strawberries printed all over them. I stifled a giggle. It might have been the seventies, but if you’re old enough for a moustache you’re too old for strawberry-patterned trousers. Anyway, someone rolled a joint and we all sat in a circle, passing this thing around. It was the first time I’d smoked one properly and soon I was having the most terrible giggles over this guy’s strawberry trousers. The more I smoked, the worse I got, and eventually Peter had to take me outside because I couldn’t stop laughing. By now I was so stoned that when I stepped outside I thought I’d actually gone inside, because it was so hot in the garden and cold in the house. So there we were, clutching each other and giggling hysterically, when Peter looked at me and said, ‘Let’s get married.’

  And right there, in the sweltering heat of a Las Vegas night, stoned out of my mind, it seemed like the most brilliant idea in the world. ‘Yeah, come on, let’s get married! Woooo!’

  The next day I went out and bought a cream dress, Peter got the ring, we had a few drinks, and then we went to County Hall and tied the knot. As far as I remember, the groom was smiling proudly and the bride was giggling.

  That night we went out to dinner with the gang, and during the meal Peter leant across and gave me a little white wrap of paper.

  ‘Here you go, Mrs Greene, take this into the toilet.’ He smiled. ‘It’s cocaine.’

  I was pretty drunk by now. ‘Ooh, great, I’ve heard about this stuff!’

  Peter told me what to do with it so I dragged Jay off to the Ladies and did my first line of coke. I don’t remember it having much of an effect, but I probably only did a tiny little bit.

  That night Peter and I stayed in the honeymoon suite at Caesar’s Palace. The next morning I woke up in that huge room, with its ridiculous circular bed and satin pillows, and stared at my finger. All I could think was: Mum is going to kill me.

  It took me a couple of days to pluck up the courage to call home.

  ‘Guess what, Mum! Peter and I got married!’

  There was complete silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Mum? Are you there?’

  After what seemed like hours, she finally spoke. ‘That’s like having my right arm cut off,’ she said, quietly.

  I’m sure my parents thought that Peter and I would never get married – and if we did, at least they’d have had a bit of notice about the wedding. Mum was devastated that she’d lost her daughter to someone like Peter. But from then on they just accepted I was married and made the best of the situation; there was nothing they could do about it, so there was no point in saying anything.

  After we married I converted to Judaism to keep his parents happy. Peter was by no means religious: we celebrated the main Jewish holidays, like Yom Kippur and Passover, but he was pretty half-hearted
about it. Yet I loved the Jewish culture, even enjoyed studying for my conversion, and I can still remember the Hebrew blessing over the bread. Peter’s parents were also upset about our Las Vegas wedding, but for different reasons: they’d wanted us to have a big Jewish wedding. They were always lovely to me. ‘A nice shiksa girl,’ as his stepdad would say, with an affectionate smile.

  Being married barely changed our relationship. I was only 18, remember, so the whole till-death-us-do-part thing didn’t mean much to me. I certainly wasn’t thinking seriously about my future, just having a wild, crazy time with my man.

  The only place that things weren’t particularly wild, however, was in bed. Perhaps the age gap was to blame, or maybe we just weren’t that compatible, but while Peter was very affectionate, our sex life was never exactly dynamite. I hadn’t had much experience so I guess I would just have accepted it as the way things were, but when I was on shoots with other models I began to be aware that everyone apart from me seemed to be swinging from the chandeliers and having multiple orgasms. I’d listen to my girlfriends saying, ‘Oh, last night we made love for HOURS!’ or ‘He did this to me and then he did that to me and – oh, God!–it was just AMAZING!’ And I was just sitting there thinking, Well, I get it once a week if Arsenal’s won.

  One day, after hearing yet another of my friends going on about a night of knee-trembling passion, I realized I needed to take matters into my own hands. It was time to call in reinforcements. I went into Ann Summers and came out with Spanish Fly drops and Long Stand cream. On the way home, I studied the instructions intently (‘Add three drops to a drink . . . Wash penis thoroughly then massage cream into penis . . .’) and came up with a cunning plan.

  A few hours later Peter came home from work. I put the kettle on as usual, but this time added a special ingredient to his PG Tips. Drop-drop-drop. ‘Cup of tea, love?’

  ‘Ah, thanks, doll.’

  I watched him drink it all up.

  ‘Shall I run you a bath?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, doll, that’d be great.’

  I was sitting in bed with the Long Stand cream already on my hands when he climbed in. Before he could protest, I grabbed his willy and started rubbing the cream in.

  ‘Oi, what are you doing?’

  ‘It’s fine, just some special cream. Just relax and enjoy it.’

  ‘What? Leave it out, Jo . . .’

  And with that Peter turned over, snapped the light off and went quiet. I don’t suppose I can blame him – I had pretty much ambushed him. I lay there in the darkness, feeling stupid and frustrated. But about 20 minutes later, I heard Peter’s muffled voice from the other side of the bed: ‘It’s working.’

  I sat bolt upright. ‘It is?’ Thank you, God!

  ‘Yeah,’ said Peter. ‘But because you’re such a bloody mad woman I’m going to sleep.’

  Even though we weren’t having that much of it, sex was still happening, so I told Peter I needed contraception. He came home with some packets of pills and I started taking them, but they made me horribly bloated. In the end I went to the doctor, who told me they contained a dangerously high level of oestrogen and that I should never have been using them – so I just stopped. Then, in the first months of 1974, around the time of our first wedding anniversary, I discovered I was pregnant again – and as I was married there was no chance of an abortion this time. I was going to be a mum.

  My bump was barely showing when one morning I woke to find Peter had thrown his arm across me in his sleep. His armpit was hovering somewhere near my face and the smell made me feel sick.

  Oh, God, I thought. I’m married to this man. I’m having his baby. I quickly pushed his arm off me and he turned over, still fast asleep. I lay there feeling increasingly uneasy.

  Okay, this is just because I’m pregnant. I still love him.

  But it was like a switch had been flicked in my brain. My feelings for Peter seemed to change almost overnight. Perhaps it was the pregnancy hormones – or maybe it was because I’d finally started to admit the truth to myself. I didn’t really love Peter. And now that that terrible thought had wormed its way into my mind, I didn’t want the marriage, but what about our baby? I felt totally and utterly trapped – and there was nothing I could do about it.

  5

  Although he had been fairly indifferent about the pregnancy at first, Peter became increasingly excited about the idea of becoming a dad. He was in his early thirties by now, so I guess he felt ready for it. But as my due date approached, the less convinced I was by the path my life had taken. As I could no longer drink, our social life started to slow down (although I do remember going to Tramp with my huge bump clad in a fab silky patchwork dress from Antiquarius), and as I couldn’t work, I spent a lot of time at the Old Vicarage with Mum. I tried to ignore my doubts about our marriage, blaming the negative feelings on the pregnancy, yet there was this constant nagging fear in the back of my mind that my career and my life were all but over. I was only 19.

  It was a sunny September afternoon in 1974 when my contractions kicked in, then suddenly intensified. Woooaaah. I called Peter at work and shrieked, ‘I’m having the baby!’ He got a taxi home and took us both to Guy’s Hospital. I’m actually pretty good at giving birth and went through labour drug-free with my other kids, but on that occasion I took everything the doctors could throw at me. The epidural only half worked, though, so on one side I was blissfully numb and on the other I could feel every gut-wrenching spasm. Peter stayed in the waiting room while I screeched and panted my way through the birth. While he was still excited by the idea of parenthood, he had a lot less stomach for the gory details.

  At seven that evening Jameson Joseph Greene, a.k.a. Jamie, made his entrance into the world – and any doubts I had about being a mum simply vanished with one look at that gorgeous little screwed-up face. Oh, my little fella! It was all-consuming love at first sight. As I held him in my arms, I was overcome with happiness.

  When we got home a few days later, Peter pretty much left me to get on with it. He was the opposite of a hands-on dad: a hands-off dad, so to speak. He never once changed one of Jamie’s nappies, fed him or took him for a walk: that was all ‘woman’s work’. He just left me alone to do everything. Everything, that is, except Jamie’s circumcision.

  I tried everything I could to talk Peter out of getting it done. I was so upset at the thought of anyone hurting my precious little boy and just couldn’t understand why Peter was suddenly playing the religion card. The guy had bacon on his bagels, for God’s sake! But he was adamant. So when Jamie was a few days old, a rabbi came to our house (by this time we had moved to a terraced house in Shouldham Street, Marylebone) and performed the bris, while I sat in the bedroom crying my heart out. After it had been done, Peter’s business partner, Steven, came into my room and held out a tissue with this little bit of stuff on it.

  ‘How can you show me that?’ I howled. ‘OH, GOD!’ It set me off sobbing all over again.

  ‘It’s all right, Jo,’ smirked Steven. ‘It’s just smoked salmon.’

  Luckily I took to being a mum, aided, no doubt, by all those years of helping to raise my brothers and sister. Jamie wasn’t the easiest of babies, though. He was a beautiful little boy, but quite naughty and constantly demanding my attention – pretty much like he is now! I remember one particular night when he just wouldn’t go to sleep. I’d fed him, winded him, changed him, checked his temperature, but he was still screaming. After hours of this, feeling utterly exhausted and with no idea what was wrong, I picked him up and shouted at him, ‘Come on, Jamie, will you please just GO TO SLEEP!’ Instantly, I felt terrible. What is the matter with you, having a go at a little baby? I never lost it with him again – and I never once smacked any of my children.

  One of the things I enjoyed most about motherhood was breastfeeding. It was such an incredible, miraculous feeling, knowing you could sustain this little person. But Peter hated me doing it. If he came in after work and found me feeding Jamie, he’d say,
‘Ugh! Don’t do that in here, go to the bedroom.’ After one too many times of being made to schlep upstairs to finish a feed, I expressed some breast milk and put it in Peter’s tea. I watched him drink the whole cup.

  ‘Did you enjoy that, Peter?’

  ‘Yeah, it was all right.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased. ’Cos I put breast milk in it.’

  His face was a picture. ‘You didn’t!’

  I smiled. ‘I did, actually.’

  He wasn’t at all happy, as you can imagine. I was, though. I thought it was hysterical.

  We’d become more like flatmates than a married couple. While I’d hoped that having Jamie would bring us closer, it had the opposite effect. We weren’t arguing, but we weren’t really talking either. When Jamie was six months old I decided to start modelling again. I thought Peter would kick up a fuss, but he was fine with the idea so I hired a lovely Japanese au pair called Ushi and went back to work. I had left Gavin’s while I was pregnant so I joined another agency, Gill-Raine. Coincidentally, the photographer who had been booked to take pictures for my new agency model card was none other than Richard Best, the guy who had taken those very first professional shots of me back when I was just starting at Gavin’s.

  The shoot took place on Primrose Hill. By this time Richard had become a good friend, but I’d always had a bit of a crush on him. Like most fashion photographers, he possessed great charm – and he laid it on thickly that afternoon.

  ‘Oh, yeah, that’s great, Jo, you look beautiful.’ Snap-snap-snap. ‘Just move your arm like that and turn your hip . . .’ Snap-snap ‘. . . yeah, gorgeous . . .’ Snap-snap-snap.

  As I posed for him, I finally felt like I was getting my mojo back. I hadn’t realized how out of touch I’d become with the old free-spirited, fun-loving Jo. And Richard was outrageously flirty during the shoot. It had been so long since I’d felt desirable – and desired – that it was a real kick that this hot guy clearly found me attractive.