by Alex James
More Beautiful Women
Robert, the magnet guy, the artist I’d met in New York, came to stay at Mercer Street. One of his flying lawnmowers was on show at a new high-tech gallery in the East End. An American art dealer had converted an old warehouse into a church of contemporary art. This dealer was new in town. He explained to me that he liked the East End because it was still ‘kinda edgy’. It certainly was. On the morning after the gala opening three men walked into the gallery, locked him in the cellar and stole all the equipment: the computers, monitors, projectors and lights. They didn’t bother with any of the art and some of the artists were offended by the snub.
It was great having Robert around. He knew how everything worked. He enjoyed dismantling mechanical household appliances and putting them back together again so that they worked perfectly. He had already tuned up the dishwasher, given the washing machines a service, and when I got back from the studio he was stripping down the boiler. He felt it was a bit noisy, and that its performance could be improved.
I thought it would be good for business to take him to the Serpentine Gallery summer party and he squeezed into one of my suits. The Serpentine is in the middle of Hyde Park. Every summer a leading art figure is commissioned to create an experimental piece of architecture in the park next to the gallery and the good and the great all come and drink champagne within it. At the end of August a wealthy patron of the arts buys the ‘Summer Pavilion’ and puts it in one of his gardens, next to his tree collection, where it increases in value for ever more.
It was a sit down dickie-bow dinner. I was trying to listen to the football on a transistor radio. England went out and we hadn’t sold anywhere near enough copies of ‘Jerusalem’ to pay for all those violins. Then there was an auction. Charles Saatchi, the Saviour of British Art, bought a Mini covered in spots by Damien, similar to the taxi Keith had left in Rotterdam, but not as good. He paid half a million pounds for it. It was not my night, I figured. Then a man at the next table said, ‘Hey, this girl wants to meet you!’
I couldn’t recall ever seeing anyone so beautiful. I couldn’t recall anything for the moment. She was long, willowy and delicate and she held her infinite gaze on me with perfect poise and immaculate balance. It was like being killed. I was consumed in her gaze. I noticed then that I was laughing and I asked her if she wanted to come to Rotterdam, but we went dancing instead. Robert was having a good evening, he had sold a flying lawnmower to a lonely countess and although he’d split his trousers he was in the mood and, suddenly, strange things were happening again. We were escorted by discreetly armed SAS men to a cavalcade of Daimlers. The men kept looking around and talking into their sleeves. I got into the first one with Robert and the girl. The Duchess of York and Prince Andrew - or maybe it was Edward, whichever one she had been married to - got into the one behind. The remaining cars were for security. The procession glided into Berkeley Square and we hit the dance floor at a club called Annabel’s. I remember doing the Macarena with the duchess and ordering a magnum of Cristal, and I remember leaving with Robert. Then we walked back to the Colony where we belonged.
She called me, that girl, but I didn’t know what to do. I was already infatuated and I knew if I started seeing her I’d be in love, just like that. I was already in love, with Justine, and having sex with people was one thing, but falling in love was much more complicated.
I was with Colin Pillinger at the Groucho and we’d drunk too much absinthe. I was running to the toilet to be sick, but I didn’t make it and I lost my lunch on the floor of the upstairs bar. I felt much better and insisted on clearing it up myself. I was still mopping when Courtney Love arrived. She liked my shirt and she lifted my mop and gave me her phone number. I thought about it and I liked it and I called her. I wondered what booze to take to her house. I settled on a magnum of rosé champagne. Rosé champagne is never, ever wrong. You could take it to your granny’s. You could take it to Buckingham Palace. It was fine for Courtney too.
She was wearing a dressing gown when I arrived. We drank the champagne quite quickly, from the bottle, mainly. She’s had so many songs written about her, probably more than any other living person, and now I know why. She is a beguiling woman. I really liked her, we were having a great time, but I had to go to New York. Damien had another show, and, being banned from the Mercer, had taken the top floor of the SoHo Grand for his stay. It had a large roof terrace.
Things were really spiralling out of control. As the sun came up Keith, Damien and I burnt the backs of our wrists with hot lumps of charcoal from the barbecue on the roof. The circular scar was the sign of The Embers, a select brotherhood about which I can say no more here, as it is highly secret. Damien’s girlfriend Maia wasn’t allowed to join The Embers, but she wanted to join in so she burnt the back of her heel. Our friend Charles, the chef, was eligible for Embership but he didn’t want to go through the ritual. Later he got drunk and used a cigarette.
The burn gave me gyp the whole weekend. By the time the show opened, I’d been up for three days and I had pus dripping down my left hand. The gallery was rammed with gruesome New York high society at a high frenzy. It was like Harrods on the first day of the sales. They pushed and shoved and were every bit as grotesque as the people at the football match in Belgium. There was a girl called Fanny. She’d written a novel. We left right away. We went back to my room at the Mercer and danced to the Bee Gees. So many of the great episodes of my life have been interspersed with the music of the Gibb brothers. We went out for breakfast and I put her on a train to Brooklyn. I had a bad case of the horrors and went back to my room to die. To my surprise Keith was sitting on the bed tucking into a room-service breakfast. He was wearing a pink suit. I wanted to know how he’d got into the room and he said he’d told reception that he was my boyfriend. He had some vodka with him and that took the edge off everything. Keith did too. He never felt any shame. He was never horrified about anything he’d done. He had absolute faith in his every action. His company was just what my screaming superego needed. We walked round to the SoHo Grand in the sunshine, comparing burns.
The roof terrace was a battle scene. The best suite at New York’s second-best hotel was littered with the unconscious, the unsavoury and the undressed. I felt much better, drank some vodka and took all my clothes off.
That was when Damien threw the watermelon. It was the size of a beach ball. He picked it up and hurled it backwards over his head with both hands. It sailed clean over the parapet. I do wonder why he did it. He never got drunk enough to lose his charm. He must have known what he was doing. The street fifty storeys below was a busy one. A direct hit by an apple from that height would have been touch and go. A watermelon travelling at terminal velocity would have taken out a car. Way down below, there was watermelon everywhere. No one had taken a direct hit, but only by chance, and a fair number of people had been completely slimed. The police arrived quickly. There were a lot of them. They arrested everybody, especially the naked ones. I said I had to go inside to get my clothes. The door of the suite was open and I darted through it, unnoticed, scrambling into my trousers and leaping into the lift half dressed when it arrived. I only just escaped from New York that time. My arm was swelling up. Justine took me to the doctor, who wanted to know how it had happened. The doctor asked a lot of questions, to see if I was mad, but I managed to convince her that I was just stupid. Courtney had somehow found and called the home number while I was away. Justine was really good at handling those calls. Stella McCartney called a couple of times, just on friendly business. There was nothing going on there, but Jus was fed up with the girls she didn’t know calling the house and she made them all suffer.
‘Hello, can I speak to Alex?’
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Stella.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s Stella McCartney.’
‘Could you spell that please?’
‘M-C-C-A-R-T-N-E-Y.’
‘Yeah, I’m sorry, er, Sheila, but he�
��s watching telly. I’ll tell him you called.’
Grand Prix
The temperature was still rising. The tempo was increasing. It was the final spin cycle and things were getting still more far-fetched. I returned from Greenland after crossing the Atlantic four times in seven days, once on Concorde. I can’t remember a thing about Concorde apart from the noise. I was invited to the Grand Prix in Monte Carlo, to write a story for Harper’s Bazaar. I couldn’t see a downside. They’d put me in the blah-blah five star this, give me dinner at the blah-blah Michelin star that, and I’d have a driver and a pit pass and everyone would be there and it was all going to be super-duper. Damien said that he was going and that I should come and stay with Anne and Mungo at their places. They had an apartment overlooking the grid and a villa in the hills.
Anne is an art dealer from an old Monaco dynasty and Mungo is an expert Perudo player. I guess he must have made a stack of money somehow or other. I kept meaning to ask him what he did, but there was always something else going on. They led a life of exquisite tastefulness and elegance. I liked them both a lot.
‘They were going to put you in a hotel, darling, how horrible! What? A driver from Jaguar? Sweetheart, you can’t drive anywhere in town without Monaco plates this weekend. Take my car. Le quoi? Mais c’est terrible! You can’t possibly eat there. Everybody will be at Rocamadour tonight. You must come. Will you? Mungo, get this boy a drink!’
Largely thanks to Anne and Mungo, it was a weekend of great delights. How dull the weekend would have been without them, it’s hard to say. I would probably have thought I was having a good time. It’s funny how ‘very good indeed’ is no substitute for ‘the best’, once you know that ‘best’ exists. This was well illustrated in the harbour. Jemma, who was on/off dating one of the drivers, had told us to meet her on the big boat. Which big boat? we wondered; they were all big. It was a monstrous parade of obscene ostentation. It was tacky. The further we walked along the pontoon, the larger the boats became. Soon we were looking at ships. Then we saw the big boat. It was definitely the right one. On one end there was a helicopter pad with a shiny Augusta 109 sitting on it. The Augusta 109 is the fastest, fanciest, most expensive helicopter on the market. At the other end, an ocean-going yacht was suspended above the deck, in case anyone fancied a sail. It was dwarfed by the magnitude of the mother ship. The whole caboodle gleamed with mint newness and bespoke magnificence. The boats on either side were the second and third nicest things I’d ever seen in my life, both floating fortresses of far-fetched fabulousness. But they were deserted. Absolutely nobody was in the slightest bit interested in second and third. The whole world was aboard Le Grand Bleu. And that’s the way it is in Monaco. The big guy gets everything. I’m not sure if the owner was even there, but everybody else was.
Social standing in the world of high glamour is precarious. The previous time I’d been in the South of France was with the band for the Cannes Film Festival. We’d flown into Nice by private jet and transferred to the festival by helicopter. We were staying at a hotel with massed crowds outside. My room was the only one with a roof terrace. It overlooked the cordoned-off red carpet that led to the hotel entrance. We’d come in through the back doors, but there was a constant flow of celebrity traffic along the carpet, taking bows and signing autographs. I suppose film stars only encounter multitudes at premieres and they wanted to make the most of it. It is a unique and addictive feeling to be confronted with a crowd that loves you and is willing you to surprise or enthral it. Bands encounter thronged humanity every day. It’s normal. Surprisingly the bigger the horde, the easier it is to take command. It’s a thousand times easier to whip a swarm into a whirl than it is to get one person agitated. Crowd behaviour is surprisingly easy to control, as long as you have the right kind of spanner; the police use horses; we used guitars; the film stars had to do it all with their teeth, flashing their flimsy smiles.
The stage was on the beach, and the only way to get to it without going through the crowds was by speedboat. We played a couple of songs and we were done. The record company had hired the speedboat for the whole day, so that was at my disposal. Things were looking good. Roof terrace, private jet, speedboat, new friends – I was on the Soho House boat, with Ewan MacGregor, when the tour manager called and said it was time to go home. I told him I’d decided to spend the rest of my life here. He said that was all fine, and he’d leave an open return ticket at the hotel.
Then Mariella was there and she asked me how the hell I was going to get to the Hôtel du Cap by speedboat. I did not know this hotel. She said we had to go there right now, because it was where ‘it’ was. There is a lot of dashing around trying to find ‘it’ at Cannes. ‘It’ never stops moving. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘I’ve got a moped.’
It was indeed all happening at the Hôtel du Cap. Security was draconian. From nowhere, Mariella produced sheaves of paperwork, badges and accreditation, and we were in. It seemed to be more of a magazine than a hotel. There was a different story going on in every room. Apart from the bar, which was buzzing nicely, it was peaceful. The management had gone to great lengths to preserve the refined calm of the establishment. In town it was a bunfight; up in the hills it was all about candles and whispers. It was a wonderful atmosphere. I struck up an instant intimacy with a billionaire who invited me to come and stay on his boat in the south seas.
We were drinking Bellinis - champagne and peach juice. Pretty soon everyone was. At the exact point when things could never get any better, I left, taking two beautiful women with me.
It was late and all was calm on the Promenade des Anglais. We sat on the terrace looking out to sea and singing.
Then two men were pulling me out of bed by my feet. I was naked. God, I felt awful. What was happening? I kicked but they kept pulling and they were shouting now.
‘Messieurs, s’il vous plaît!?’
‘Room is finish!’ said one.
‘Fine. I’ll take it for another night.’
‘Is finish!’
‘Moi, je n’ai pas fini. Moi! Je payerai.’
‘Is all full.’
‘You’re telling me it’s awful, it’s a disgrace, mate.’
‘Non, monsieur. All. Full. Full.’
That was it: boom to bust in twenty-four hours. Dragged out into the corridor by my feet. One of them went back to get my stuff while the other one stared at me. The girls had gone. The speedboat was making someone else’s day today. I was wrecked, knackered and homeless. There wasn’t a vacant room within a hundred miles. How are the mighty fallen. I didn’t call anybody. I went back to live in England immediately. Nobody loves you when you’re down and out, baby.
In Monaco this time, things were on more of an even keel as I was with friends. There was something vaguely familiar about those cars flashing round and round in circles at high speed and volume. When they’d finished they threw champagne everywhere. As soon as the race was over, the sky filled with helicopters. It was gridlock up there.
We all walked to the beach. Anne said the gaffer, Prince Albert, was going to be there. I asked Mungo what I should be doing if I had a royal encounter. Mungo knew all about etiquette. He had shown me four different ways to tie a tie the previous evening. Then he had explained who made the best ties in the world and why they were great and where to get them. Then he’d kicked my ass at Perudo again. I felt like a small but favoured boy. With regards to any Albert activity, he said that it was an informal occasion so it would be quite relaxed, but it would be good manners to stand if we were introduced, not to shake his hand until offered, to let him lead the conversation and to refer to him as ‘sir’. It all sounded sensible.
Monte Carlo’s one small beach is reserved for its senior players. It is fastidiously maintained. It’s more of an open-air restaurant where you eat lying down. Anne and Mungo’s pitch, with its loungers and parasols, was permanently reserved and it neighboured the royal enclosure. Sure enough, Good Prince Albert was there and he and Anne were deep in conv
ersation. I was introduced and I stood up and it all went very well. Then Damien’s brother Bradley arrived. Part of Damien’s charm is that he is not from a privileged background. He’s more of a home-grown king, a triumph of merit and charisma, which have their own nobility. I love Damien’s family. Bradley is a Formula One fanatic and he was having the best day of his life. He was very drunk and excited and he was dripping from the sea. ‘Foookinell, did you see them bazongers? Them were beauty.’
‘Ah, Bradley, this is Prince Albert of Monaco.’
‘Fokinell, alright mate. Did you see them tits?’
Prince Albert of Monaco was smiling.
Several Sorties
August was a holiday. I spent the first week in the Colony and then I flew down to Land’s End to see Fanny. She’d come back from New York to stay with her parents. I terrified her poor mother. I drank all the brandy and knocked all the delicate things over. I had trouble on the way back, getting caught out by bad weather. I’d checked the forecast thoroughly, but the forecast got it wrong. I wasn’t qualified to fly in cloud. There was fog behind me and the cloud ahead was lower than the hill-tops. I was in a blind panic and considering putting out a Mayday. I knew very well that the average time an untrained pilot retains control of the aircraft in cloud is less than three minutes before spiralling into the ground. I heard someone say on the radio that he was above the cloud at fifteen hundred feet. There was no way forward or back. The only way was up. I was flying at five hundred feet and at a normal cruise climb I figured I’d be in cloud for two minutes. I just had to keep the nose up and the wings level and watch the airspeed. Sounds easy, but I’ve never been so scared, not even being chased down an icy road by a hundred of Magnea’s boyfriends. Not even close. Time stood still in the greyness. You can’t trust your sense of balance in cloud. Only the instruments can tell you what’s happening. I tried to do everything slowly but my mind was racing, my heart was whirring and sweat was teeming from every pore. Suddenly, as if someone had turned the lights on, there was brilliant sunshine everywhere. It was like being born again. I swore to do an instrument rating. I landed at Bournemouth and stayed with my mum and dad for a couple of days. My dad said he was concerned about how much I was drinking. Still, we went to the pub and the landlord wouldn’t let us pay for anything and kept bringing new whiskies for us to try. He didn’t want us to go home at closing time and kept bringing forth older and grander whiskies. By the time we sailed out at two a.m. my dad was singing ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ and agreeing that it wasn’t easy to stay out of trouble.
