Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.

by Viv Albertine

  The next day I get the train back to London. Mum meets me at the station. We go home. I go straight to bed. Tomorrow I’m going to Paris with the Slits. Julien Temple is coming along to film us for Malcolm McLaren.

  I can’t sleep. I think about the terrifying power that women and mothers have. We don’t need to fight in wars. We have nothing to prove. We have the power to kill and lots of us have used it. How many of you boys have ever killed anyone? I have. I’ve killed a baby. It doesn’t get much worse than that. Maybe your mother has secretly used her power to kill in the past and not told you. Maybe she even thought about doing it to you. It’s a secret and a burden she carries with her.

  I don’t tell the Slits what I’ve been through. I’ll look like a bloated milk pudding in Julien’s film though (luckily it was never made). When I look in the mirror I see a round pale face with two little currants poked into the doughy, uncooked skin. I keep the hospital identity bracelet on my wrist, I think it looks good: no one notices it. Emotionally I’m in a bit of a state. I’m physically weak too.

  After the Paris show – in a club called Gibus – along comes a very handsome French boy called Jeannot. He has dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin. He says that my name, Albertine, is considered ugly in France, it’s a servant’s name, a peasant’s name. I laugh it off but inside I’m crushed. I have no confidence. It’s been sucked out of me with the baby. Jeannot offers me heroin. I’m tempted. Not because I want to forget what I’ve done, or because I’m so down, even though both are true, but because I’ve lost my identity. I haven’t a clue who I am. I feel like a nothing. But I know without a doubt, if I take heroin now, I will destroy the tiny morsel of myself that is left, I will be lost forever. (Funny how heroin comes along at times like this. These guys can smell your weakness, like sharks smell blood.) I muster all my strength and say no. Jeannot sneers. He goes off with Tessa and Palmolive. He doesn’t speak to me again. Julien follows Ari around with the camera, because she’s the one Malcolm’s interested in. I sit in my little hotel room and stare out of the window at Paris, watching people walk up and down the street, the heels clacking on the cobbles keeping me awake all night. So this is what I’ve chosen over a baby: the Slits, gigging, hotel rooms, music, self-expression, loneliness. It was the right decision – wasn’t it? I wish I was at home with Mum.

  I didn’t regret the abortion for twenty years. But eventually I did and I still regret it now. I wish I’d kept the baby, whatever the cost. It’s hard to live with. But I still defend a woman’s right to choose. To have control over her own body and life. That cannot and must not ever be taken away from us.

  50 SID AND NANCY

  1977

  A groupie from New York has arrived in London, she’s been here a couple of days. Well, this is a first: there aren’t any proper groupies in ‘punk’. Doesn’t fit with the ethos. There are girls who sleep around a bit, the usual thing in a group of mates, but nothing official like a groupie. Who will want her? Maybe Steve. She’s followed the Heartbreakers over. I suppose groupies are more of an American thing. Her name is Nancy Spungen, not a sexy name like the groupies I’ve read about: Pamela Des Barres (Miss Pamela), Bebe Buell or Sable Starr. I heard rumours that she was in trouble in NY and had to get out quickly. And she takes heroin. I wonder if she’ll be scary and sophisticated, will she be cold towards us other girls? Bet she’s beautiful.

  Although we hang out there a lot, none of us go to the Roxy to pull. We go there because it’s the only place to go. Of all the people who end up pulling at the Roxy, it turns out to be Sid. I think one of the most shocking things he’s ever done is get involved with Nancy Spungen.

  Like any groupie, Nancy went for the singer first; she tried it on with John Rotten a couple of nights ago – he wasn’t interested. Next she tried the guitarist, Steve Jones, and worked her way down through the band. Tonight I see it happen with Sid. It’s been a good night, the Heartbreakers are here and it feels a bit more exciting than usual. I see Nancy early on, slinking around, all pouty; I know it’s her immediately, she stands out a mile, doesn’t look right at all. She has bleached blonde hair, but that old ladies’ hair-salon colour, sort of yellowy blonde, all curly in a long wedge shape, boring. Her eyes are nice, big and brown with a bit of a squint, quite cute, like a kitten or the actress Karen Black. She wears loads of leopard print but she looks like a barmaid – more Bet Lynch than Bebe Buell – a slick of red on her lips and a dark triangle of rouge on her cheeks, like a giant hand has grabbed hold of her face and left two bruised fingerprints. Her eye makeup is conventional and her tits are pushed up and out showing loads of cleavage. I’m quite disappointed; she’s a cartoon groupie, not an interesting one. She’s the embodiment of everything we’re against: American for a start, a boring dresser, uncreative, just a follower. And on top of that, she takes smack. I’m not going to bother getting to know her, she’s trouble, and not in a good way.

  Towards the end of the evening I notice Nancy lurking behind a pillar – it looks like she’s hiding from someone; what’s she up to? She leans forward out of the shadows, pursing her glossy mouth and batting her eyelashes. With a come-hither look, she does a sexy beckon with her index finger to someone across the room. It’s hilarious. I follow her eyeline and see that the person on the receiving end of all this is Sid. I try and catch his eye to laugh with him about it, but to my amazement, he grins shyly and with his long arms dangling by his side, trots over to Nancy like an obedient little puppy. I can’t believe it. This cynical, judgemental guy is going against everything he’s ever said and falling under Nancy’s – very corny – spell.

  Sid tells me a couple of days later what happened that night: Nancy gave him heroin – as far as I know, Sid hadn’t taken smack before he met Nancy, certainly not regularly – and a blow job (I bet she was good too). And that was it. From that moment on they went everywhere together: it was amour fou.

  In January 1978, before he goes on tour to America with the Pistols, Sid and I meet up and he asks me to spend some time with Nancy at Pindock Mews – the house they’re renting in West London – whilst he’s away. He says she’s very lonely, no one will have anything to do with her. I say I’ll do it (only because he means a lot to me, I’m dreading it). A couple of days after Sid leaves, I call Nancy up; she’s really excited to hear from me and invites me over for the evening. We sit on the squishy black sofa drinking Coke. Nancy smokes a lot and drones on and on. ‘It’s not fair, they all hate me, they’ll only be happy when I’m dead,’ she whines. ‘Malcolm hates me the most. But I’m going to show him, I’m going to cut off my head and send it to him in a jar, I’m going to have it pickled. That’s what he wants and that’s what he’ll get. Then he’ll be sorry.’ She goes on like this for hours. It’s torture.

  It’s really late, I’ve got no money to get home and Nancy asks me to stay the night. There’s only one bed, it has black satin sheets on it. Nancy doesn’t take her makeup off, she undresses and puts on one of Sid’s old Sex T-shirts – the cowboy one – with the armholes cut out really wide – ‘to remind me of my baby’. I get into bed next to her, fully dressed. Nancy talks for another half-hour and eventually falls asleep on her back, mouth open, snoring loudly.

  There’s no way I am going to sleep a wink tonight, I’m not good at sleeping in other people’s homes even when I know them really well, let alone with this strange and annoying girl next to me. I lie awake, the minutes crawl by, god it’s unbearable. I wonder when the buses will start running again. Then I can leave. Maybe about six o’clock. The sun comes up slowly, watery and thin through the blinds. I stare at the ceiling. Nancy rolls over towards me and her boob falls out of the armhole of Sid’s T-shirt. It rests there next to my shoulder on the black satin sheet, pale and pert, like a perfect little meringue, floating on an oil slick.

  When Sid gets back from America I go round to see him. He’s really grateful that I visited Nancy and thanks me, says that I’m the only person who came to see her and it meant a lot to
her and to him. He’s quite moved. I feel a bit guilty because I only went once. He says Nancy’s told him all about our conversations that night, including the one where I said I’d never really had an orgasm. ‘I’ll give you an orgasm, Viv,’ he says. He wants to do something nice for me, as I’ve been so nice to Nancy. Nancy says, ‘Sid’s fucking great in bed now. I’ve taught him what to do.’ Sid agrees with her, he’s very open about his lack of sexual prowess before he met Nancy. There’s no sexual jealousy between them, he says he would just as happily ‘lend’ Nancy out to someone.

  I thank them both for the kind thought, but not at the moment. He says any time I want to, just let him know.

  It’s so funny because I’ve only ever known the shy, bashful Sid, not this bragging, sexual Sid, he’s got a swagger about him now. I’ve also never seen him so soft and affectionate, he really loves Nancy, cares about her, he’s very protective, almost fatherly towards her. It’s quite beautiful to see. She’s found someone to love her. Not an easy feat. But everyone deserves love, even Nancy.

  Sid: May 1957–February 1979

  Nancy: February 1958–October 1978

  Sid’s signature from the Ashford letter, when he was still spelling his name ‘Syd’. 1976

  51 PERSONALITY CRISIS

  1977–1978

  The Slits go through managers very quickly. No one can control us. I don’t think a manager should control a band, ideally they should guide and facilitate, but control is what they seem to want to do. Also, when girls have an opinion, and the manager is a man, sexual politics rears its ugly head. They don’t hear, We don’t want to play those kinds of venues, we’re trying to create a whole new experience, so even the venues we play have to be thought about carefully. They hear, I don’t want to fuck you. They try and treat us like malleable objects to mould or fuck or make money out of.

  It’s me who organises the band and liaises with the manager – if we have one – and it’s getting me down. Tessa and Palmolive are happy just to rehearse when they feel like it but I want to make this a great band, I wouldn’t bother with it if I didn’t see the potential. I’m sure it’s a bit of a bore for all of them, the way I’ve come steaming in full of ideas about clothes and hair and lyrics and image and rehearsals, but annoying as I am, there must be a part of them that wants that too, or they would’ve chucked me out by now.

  Palmolive and Tessa are very close, they muck around together all the time, play-fighting, teasing, calling each other names, rolling around on the floor like a couple of lion cubs. I feel left out and boring. I can’t do that physical slapstick type of communicating. I feel stiff and awkward around them. Ari joins in occasionally, she’s younger so it’s not too difficult for her. Sometimes all three of them are rolling around on the floor and I stand there like a twit trying to laugh, trying to find it endearing and amusing. They must think I’m so uptight.

  I get on well with Palmolive; of everyone in the band it’s Palmolive that I feel naturally closest to, in age and in thought. I think she’s interesting and wild and clever but although we occasionally have a good chat, she prefers to hang out with Tessa. Ari is making new friends of her own now, she inspires great loyalty and devotion and no doubt she feels liberated to be amongst people she hasn’t grown up in front of, that she can reinvent herself with.

  When we go to Berlin I pick up on the decadence of the city and decide to try a new look on stage: Sid’s leather jacket open over a black bra. It’s very sexual. I feel brave, not sure if I can carry it off. The rest of the Slits hate it. They think it’s not right for the image of the band. I’m into feminist politics, always going on about it, and they don’t understand why I’m using such tired old iconography. But I like to use some of the old stuff, to invert it, or even, dare I say it, just to revel in the response. So I wear it anyway. That’s how I feel today. I feel sexual. I’m safe on stage to explore that stuff. It isn’t safe to do it on the streets of London, but I do it there too.

  I’ve noticed English girls don’t show their sexuality, not like French and Italian girls do. We seem to be either ashamed of it or turn it into some sort of jokey, slapstick, seaside-postcard pantomime thing or a porny caricature. European women feel sexy their whole lives. Even older women behave like they’re sexually active and attractive. I’ve seen them do it since I was a child, when I used to visit France with my father. Older French women’s attractiveness isn’t taken away from them by society. In England we’re not supposed to relax into ourselves in any way – to enjoy the power of our sexuality. I remember when I was seventeen and I wore a child’s shrunken Mickey Mouse T-shirt to art school that showed my stomach – I was experimenting with crossing the boundaries between childhood and womanhood and also Disney was so unfashionable in this rarefied artistic environment, I thought it was funny and iconoclastic. A middle-aged male lecturer said to me, ‘Eugh! Who wants to look at your fat stomach? Put it away.’ I was seventeen, skinny. My stomach was as flat as a board. But he managed to make me doubt it. Is my stomach fat? Am I disgusting for showing it? Am I offensive? I never wore the T-shirt again.

  I’m so exhausted one Saturday afternoon, I fall asleep on the sofa in Nora’s living room. The others have gone out, I’m too tired to go with them. I’ve become so wary of them all, so estranged, that I think to myself, I mustn’t let them see me like this, so vulnerable, but it’ll be OK, I’m a light sleeper, I’ll wake up when I hear them come in the front door. I’m worried they’ll see me asleep for fuck’s sake. Things have got that bad. I open my eyes and see Ari, Tessa and Nora staring down at me. Oh no, I didn’t hear them. I sit up quickly. What horrible things are they going to say? I brace myself. Ari says, ‘You looked so sweet lying there asleep. Your face looked so gentle and lovely.’ I can’t believe it. She’s utterly sincere. Ari is always sincere. She never lies.

  The only time I feel I can safely express my vulnerability is when I’m with a boyfriend. Having a boyfriend is very important to me at the moment, it’s an emotional escape from the band. With a boy I can be soft and silly and funny. Mick’s on tour a lot, we write to each other but I know what he’s up to and he knows the same about me. Officially we’ve split up but we meet again when our mate Sebastian Conran invites a load of people to his parents’ house in Albany Street one night. Mick and I haven’t seen each other for months. It’s raining, I’ve got my red Vivienne Westwood boots on and I don’t want to get them wet. He picks me up and carries me across the road, splashing through the puddles in his blue suede Chelsea boots. It’s so romantic. Sebastian says we can stay in his parents’ bedroom tonight as they’re away. There’s a huge white bed, white walls, white carpet and a private bathroom. The next day Mick goes on tour with the Clash. A couple of weeks later I go on tour with the Slits. And that’s it, the end of Mick and Viv.

  The Slits are on tour when Tessa’s father dies. She adored him. I have no idea what it feels like to lose a parent you love, how I would deal with it. Tessa shuts herself in a cubicle in the loos of a Top Rank we’re playing and refuses to come out – except to do the gig – or speak to anyone. She doesn’t want sympathy, she doesn’t want chats – all that sharing and caring nonsense. I realise she’s a very strong person in her own way.

  Most of the time the Slits see me as bossy (they’re right). I wouldn’t stay with them if it weren’t for Ari; despite being so young, she has an obsessiveness, a drive, I don’t know where it comes from, it’s more than I ever had at fifteen. But Ari’s too young to organise things, I can’t expect any help from her in that department, so I have to do it. I book rehearsal rooms, ring around everyone in the band – or beg them to ring me if, like Tessa, they don’t have a phone – so I can tell them when the next rehearsal is. Palmolive is always late to rehearsals nowadays, sometimes she doesn’t turn up at all. I call her about getting together next week but she’s become enamoured with a guy called Tymon Dogg and his music – Tymon’s teaching her how to play tablas – compared to him she thinks the Slits are devoid of spiritua
lity, she’s lost interest in us. I track Tessa down and tell her about the rehearsal. She can’t be bothered to come; it’s the last straw. I shut myself away in my tiny bedroom in Mum’s council flat in Highgate. I give up.

  Ari phones me, Mum answers, I refuse to speak to her. I never want to see any of them again. Ari comes round to my home, no mean feat: I live right across the other side of London and she has no sense of direction, it will have taken her hours and many bus changes to find me. She knocks on the front door.

  ‘Viv, please talk to me.’

  I ignore her. She knocks again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Viv. We do want to rehearse. Please open the door.’ It’s like we’re lovers, I’m upset, she’s begging forgiveness. Ari stays outside my door for a very long time pleading with me. With every knock my heart hardens. Even Mum takes pity on Ari and tells me to answer the door but I’m mad with grief and self-righteousness. I tell Ari to go away; eventually she does. I hate her. I hate them all. I’m deranged and defeated by their lack of commitment. And I’m ill.

  I’ve been coughing for a year. Deep chesty coughing. I haven’t slept through a whole night for ten months. Mum’s given up trying to get me to go to the doctor. I have a permanent headache from the racking coughs, I can feel them right down in my diaphragm, right down in my pelvic floor. For a whole year.

  I spend the night with Phil Rambow – an American singer I met through Rory – at Mick Ronson’s flat. Me and Phil don’t have sex, he can’t get near me, I cough and hack all through the night. In the morning I’m bathed in cold sweat with a red face and puffy eyes. I’m embarrassed. I must have kept everyone awake all night. No one says anything; I’m so grateful and impressed by Mick’s politeness as he offers me tea and toast. I see myself through his eyes: pale, spotty, ill, neglectful of my health. Unattractive. I go to the doctor. He says it’s serious and sends me to Brompton Chest Hospital. I lie in bed on a ward full of older women. Hospital is clean, white, restful. An oasis. No Sex clothes, just a nightie. No arguments, no goals, no decisions. I’m just a girl again. A week goes by. My face relaxes. After two weeks the colour returns to my cheeks and the coughing has subsided. I’m thinking more clearly. I decide I can’t be in the Slits any more, not as things are.