It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

by Jo Wood

  Then I went out with Dodi Fayed. I had a mad crush on him. For our first date he took me to a private screening of a movie he had just produced. I must have been partied out, because the last thing I remember was fighting to keep my eyes open before falling asleep. Oops. Dodi and I saw each other for a few dates, nearly always at Tramp. I even went on a couple of dates with the footballer, George Best. He was pissed out of his brain both times I saw him. On our second and final date we were sitting in a bar when he turned to me and slurred, ‘Marry me, Jo.’ I just laughed. You’ve got to be joking.

  After a while Sue and I had to move out of the house in Wandsworth and, soon after, Sue got engaged to the singer Lulu’s brother, Billy Lawrie. Meanwhile, I moved to a flat in Fulham to house-sit for some friends and started seeing a guy called Flavio. He was Colombian, mad as a hatter and always had huge amounts of money and coke, although it didn’t occur to me that he might be a major-league dealer, even when he announced one day that he was off to Bali for six weeks and was going to leave his ‘stash’ in my Fulham flat for safe-keeping. I watched as Flavio hid this catering-sized Maxwell House jar of coke in a recess in the chimney, out of my reach, ‘so you won’t be tempted, darling’.

  Fool!

  As soon as he’d left I was on the phone to my friend, Max. ‘Flavio’s left all his stash here, down the side of the chimney!’

  ‘Right, I’m coming over,’ he said.

  We spent the whole of the next two days trying to reach that damn jar. We’d have a break for a bit, smoke a cigarette, then get back to the job. Eventually, using a tool fashioned from two bent coat-hangers, we managed to pull it out. We stood the jar on the table, then carefully unwrapped it, remembering how it was put together so Flavio wouldn’t know we’d opened it. Take off the paper, peel off that bit – easy does it!–and finally we unscrewed the lid. It was crammed to the brim with the purest fluffy white Colombian coke. Carefully, I took out a scoop for me, a scoop for Max, we packed the jar back and then we were off. Tramp, Monkberry’s – we went crazy! A couple of days later we finished it, so we went and got some more. After a while we just attached a piece of string to the jar so we could pull it out whenever we wanted. For the next six weeks we were the most popular people in London, but suddenly Flavio was due to return and the jar was barely a quarter full. Oh, God, what was he going to say? I panicked, refilled the jar with flour, carefully wrapped it up and put it back in the chimney.

  A couple of nights later I was in Tramp and one of the barmen told me there was a phone call for me.

  ‘Hello?’

  It was Max. ‘Flavio’s back!’ he hissed. ‘Why the hell did you put that flour in the jar? You’ve messed up his stash. He’s looking for you, Jo!’

  ‘Well, I thought if I mixed it up a bit he wouldn’t be able to tell! Do you think—’

  I didn’t get any further. Just then there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned round and there was Flavio.

  ‘Oh, heeeey, Flavio! It’s so great to see you!’

  He didn’t look as if he felt the same. In fact, he looked a lot like a Colombian drugs baron who’d just found out he’d been robbed.

  ‘You ’ave ruined my stash,’ he said, quietly.

  Fuuuuuck. ‘I’m so sorry, Flavio, but, you know, you left me there with all that coke, it was a bit of a risk . . .’

  He was furious. But after he’d ranted for a bit, his anger faded and he was remarkably reasonable about the whole thing. He didn’t kill me, after all.

  And that was the last I saw of Flavio until a few months later, by which time he was still doling out the good stuff, but my life had changed again, this time beyond all recognition.

  7

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror and gave my hair a ruffle. Not bad. I was wearing a navy-blue dress with white flecks that used to belong to my granny (I’ve always been a vintage girl) with a tweed jacket and beige high-heeled boots. I loved the outfit, but I really didn’t want to go out that night. I was, quite frankly, partied out. Giving myself a final once-over in the mirror, I tried a smile. Come on, Jo, you might even enjoy yourself.

  It was 9 September 1977 and I’d had to move out of the flat in Fulham where I’d been house-sitting as the owners were returning, leaving me homeless. Although I had the option of going back to the Old Vicarage full-time, zipping back and forth to Benfleet in my Beetle was exhausting – and as much as I loved being with Jamie (who was about to turn three), I needed to be in London for work. At the time I was getting a lot of work, with Freemans and Grattan, the big mail-order fashion catalogues of the time, to give me a regular wage. More interesting jobs, when I was lucky enough to get them, included fashion shoots for Jackie and TV commercials. I yearned to be in front of the camera!

  The solution to my housing crisis was, sadly, the indirect result of my friend Lorraine’s marriage hitting bad times, with her and David deciding to spend time apart. Until I found something permanent, David said, I could stay in the guest room of their beautiful three-storey house off Kensington High Street. I gratefully accepted. Then, the day before I was due to move in, he called to say he was having a big party for Richard Jefferies and his new wife that night: would I like to come? I tried desperately to think of an excuse. After nearly two crazy years as a single girl about town, I’d been to so many parties I felt I’d met pretty much everyone in London, so I had no doubt it would be the same old faces, the same old chat. But David had been sweet enough to let me move in: I really had to make the effort.

  So, my expectations were pretty low when I walked into the party that evening, but when I looked around the hall I was stunned. The place was packed with everyone I didn’t know. All sorts of glamorous, exotic people – and I had no idea who most of them were! Perhaps it was going to be fun, after all.

  I caught a glimpse of David, who waved and mouthed, ‘Drinks in the kitchen!’ so I made my way through the crowd, noting Rolling Stones bassist, Bill Wyman, deep in conversation with a leggy blonde. The booze was flowing and I grabbed a vodka and tonic. Reflected in the mirrored tiles above the sink, I saw a spiky-haired skinny guy standing directly behind me, pretending – and there’s no polite way of putting this – to hump me. There he was, thrusting away, clearly thinking he was hysterical. What an idiot. But then he saw me watching him and shot me this cheeky smile and I couldn’t help but return it. He was wearing a velvet jacket, a pair of gabardine trousers with strips of tapestry sewn down each side and Capezios – white dance shoes that were very popular at the time. I’ve always been a sucker for a good look and his was pure rock ’n’ roll (although the tapestry trim on those trousers was shocking).

  I knew who he was, of course – although probably only because I’d just seen Bill Wyman and made the connection – but I’d mixed with enough actors and musicians to be unimpressed by celebrity. I’d learnt that you should never take people at face value: you might meet a gardener who is fascinating and a rock star who turns out to be a complete dickhead. Besides, I wasn’t the type to get fanatical about the Stones or any other band – and I certainly wasn’t star-struck enough to flirt with him just because he was famous. You’ve got to remember that there wasn’t anything like the cult of celebrity that exists today, when every girl seems to want to date a movie star or marry a footballer and the paparazzi stalk celebrities when they go out to get coffee. There just wasn’t the interest. So I picked up my drink, still chuckling to myself, and slipped past him into the living room. A little while later, though, he came and found me again.

  ‘Hi, I’m Ronnie Wood.’

  ‘I’m Jo Howard,’ I said. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  He had obviously been expecting me to scream or faint or something, because he reached behind him and pulled out a copy of the Stones album, Black and Blue. ‘This is me,’ said Ronnie, pointing himself out in the photo.

  Oh, God, that’s terrible, I thought. He must think the world of himself.

  ‘So what do you do for a living, then?’ he asked.

&
nbsp; ‘I work in Woolworths,’ I said. ‘The main branch on Oxford Street.’

  ‘Are you the manageress or something? In fashion?’

  ‘Nah, I worked on records, but now I’m on the broken-biscuits counter.’ This was where you could get a big bag of mixed broken biscuits for a few pennies. It was the first thing that sprang to mind because it was where Dad used to say I’d end up if I didn’t work harder at school.

  ‘You’re having me on,’ he said.

  ‘I’m most certainly not,’ I said, indignantly. I pulled out some pictures I had in my diary of a modelling trip I’d taken to LA and Vegas the month before. ‘Look at this! Us girls were chosen out of all the Woolworths employees in England to represent the company in America.’ I pointed at a couple of other people in the photo. ‘This is the woman who organized the trip. And this is Mr Woolworth’s son!’ It was actually the photographer. ‘We went round all the branches of Woolworths in California and met the staff. It was so exciting!’

  Ronnie fell for every word of it, the twit. He kept going on about how he would never have thought such good-looking girls would be working at Woolies. After a few minutes of this, I made my excuses and went to get a refill, thinking that was the last of it – but once Ronnie had set his mind to something, he wasn’t one to give up.

  I was chatting to my friend, Gael, when he sidled up and said, ‘Come with me, girls, I want to show you something.’ He led us both upstairs to the bathroom and got out some coke.

  ‘Ooh, great, thanks!’

  After we’d had a line each we went to leave, but before I could follow Gael back downstairs he made a grab for me and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away, laughing. ‘Oi, you’re a fast mover, aren’t you?’ And with that I went back to join the party – and that was the last I saw of him.

  I went to bed that night with a smile on my face, thinking about how I’d pulled a fast one on the Rolling Stone. He was cute, though . . .

  The next day was moving day. I arrived back at the house in Kensington late that afternoon with all my bags. David opened the door.

  ‘Hey, Jo,’ he said, with a smile. ‘There’s someone here to see you. In the living room.’

  I dumped my things, opened the door to the living room – and there, to my surprise, was Ronnie Wood, sitting with another guy, who, I later found out, was his chauffeur, Frank.

  ‘You don’t work in Woolworths,’ he said.

  ‘How do you know I don’t?’

  ‘Because I’ve just spent the last few hours sitting outside the staff entrance waiting for you.’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  Ronnie hung around for the rest of the afternoon. He was a skinny little thing, not my usual type at all, but he was very charming and had a mischievous sense of fun that I found really appealing. We giggled and flirted and by the end of the day, I was hoping I’d see him again soon.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. A few days later David had another party at the house and Ronnie came along. This time he brought his wife. I knew about Krissy, with whom he had a young son, Jesse, but he insisted his marriage was all but over. They certainly didn’t seem to be together.

  Later that night when I was lying in bed, keen to get some sleep as I had work the next day, Ronnie suddenly appeared at my door. I didn’t make much of a fuss. He closed it behind him and put a chair against it, a cheeky smile on his face.

  ‘What are you doing that for?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want anyone else coming in.’

  He came over and lay on the bed, but I wouldn’t let him get under the covers or take off any of his clothes.

  ‘Behave yourself,’ I said, firmly. And he did – for a little while . . .

  The next morning I got ready and went downstairs, leaving Ronnie in bed, when David appeared out of the kitchen and started waving frantically at me.

  ‘Sssh, Krissy’s asleep on the couch!’

  Krissy? As in Krissy Wood, Ronnie’s wife? You have got to be kidding.

  I went back upstairs and woke Ronnie. ‘Did you know that your wife is asleep downstairs?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ He yawned. ‘I gave her a Quaalude sandwich. She’ll be out for hours.’

  Less than two weeks after our first meeting, Ronnie was scheduled to fly out to New York with the band to shoot the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and then on to Paris, where they would stay until Christmas, working on their new album. I knew I’d probably never see him again after that, so I wanted to spend every moment I could with him until he left. Thankfully, Ronnie felt the same way and for the next few days he took me everywhere with him, introducing me as Frank’s girlfriend so that Krissy wouldn’t get suspicious. There was a party at Eric Clapton’s house, one at Jimmy Page’s – he even invited me to a gathering at his huge Richmond home, The Wick. The ‘chauffeur’s girlfriend’ line evidently wasn’t that convincing, though, because it was at this party that Krissy – who hadn’t put in an appearance all evening – summoned me to her bedroom. I knocked gingerly and then went in to find her sitting up in bed.

  ‘Oh, hiiii,’ she said, vaguely. ‘I just want you to know I’m not in love with Ronnie.’ She went on to tell me that they had nearly got divorced a few years back, but then her father had died and she was so devastated that they got back together again. ‘I’m actually in love with Jimmy Page,’ added Krissy. ‘And I’ve lived for a year with him wearing just a sheet.’

  ‘Um, okay. Thank you for telling me.’

  After that bizarre encounter, I didn’t feel too bad about the fact that I was falling for Ronnie. The more I saw of him, the more I fancied him. I used to analyse his face and think, He’s got little beady eyes, a big nose and no mouth, but put it all together and it just . . . works. I thought he was unbelievably sexy – and that was before I even saw him play the guitar.

  As his departure approached, things got even more intense between us. We were at a party in the country and I remember him sneaking through the fields at dead of night to this little cottage where I was staying. It was just madly, magically passionate.

  And then the awful day came that Ronnie left for New York. We said our goodbyes, but there was no ‘I’ll miss you’ or even ‘See you again some time.’ I resigned myself to the fact that our fling had been flung.

  A few days after he had left I got home from work and, as I closed the front door, heard David call from the living room.

  ‘Jo, quick, Ronnie’s on the phone for you!’

  Breaking into a delighted grin, I ran in and grabbed the receiver. ‘Hey, how’s New York?’

  ‘Meet me in Paris, Jo!’

  ‘What? In Paris? Where?’

  ‘I’ll be at a place called L’Hôtel.’

  He gave me the address, but I didn’t know much French and, besides, the line was so bad I could barely make out what he was saying.

  ‘Okay, that’s L’Hôtel on Friday. I’ll be there, Ronnie. Can’t wait.’

  But he had already gone.

  Once the initial buzz of euphoria had faded, it was replaced by an uneasy feeling that actually this was a really stupid idea. All I had was the name of a hotel and a vague date. I had no way of contacting him. Was I really going to blow a large chunk of my savings on a flight to Paris on the off-chance he might appear? After all, Ronnie wasn’t exactly Mr Reliable . . . But I didn’t have any jobs booked for the next few days – plus I was desperate to see Ronnie again – so, with the spirit of adventure that, over the years, had landed me in fun and trouble in equal measures, I decided to go for it.

  On the Friday night I arrived at L’Hôtel at nine: I thought I’d get there later in the day to make sure Ronnie had already arrived. The hotel was tucked away a few streets from the Left Bank of the Seine on the rue des Beaux-Arts. From the outside, it looked like a grand private home, while inside it was like a magical cocoon, spinning dizzyingly upwards around a big circular lobby. This was seriously luxurious.

  My heels click-clacked across the marble floor to the reception
desk where I asked for Mr Wood. The guy flicked through the register.

  ‘We ’ave no Monsieur Wood ’ere, mademoiselle.’

  Shit. ‘Are you sure? Mr Ronnie Wood. Could you check again, please?’

  ‘I’m very sorry, but there is no one of that name staying with us.’

  So, my worst fears had come true. The wanker had stood me up! I was stuck in Paris with no money and nowhere to stay. What the hell was I going to do now?

  ‘Do you have any free rooms? I’m afraid I don’t have a reservation.’

  But the guy shook his head. ‘I am sorry, mademoiselle, we are fully booked because of ze pret-à-porter shows.’

  Now I really began to panic. I begged and pleaded, and I guess I must have looked really desperate because eventually the guy said there was a maid’s room at the top of the hotel where I could stay. That night I lay in a tiny single bed in the smallest room I’d ever seen, feeling like an absolute idiot. I was exhausted, but couldn’t get to sleep as I was planning how to sort out this mess the next morning. I must have dropped off at some point, though, because I remember waking up and seeing a dull grey light filtering through the crack in the curtains. I looked at my watch: 6 a.m. Oh, God, this is awful. I dropped my head back on the pillow and shut my eyes again. Suddenly the phone rang.

  I leapt on it before it had a chance to ring twice.

  ‘’Allo, is that Mademoiselle Karslake?’

  ‘Yes! I mean, oui.’

  ‘Are you also known as Mademoiselle ’Oward?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Ah, we ’ave a Monsieur Wood down ’ere asking for you. Shall I send ’im up?’

  Oui, oui, oui!

  I was naked and looked a right state after my sleepless night, but I only had time to give my hair a quick brush and grab a sarong and tie it around me like a dress when there was a tap at the door. I opened it and there was Ronnie. I flew into his arms, all instantly forgiven.