When I finally spoke to Amy, she sounded absolutely fine and lucid. It seemed that the good shows had turned her around and given her a new focus. Still she couldn’t stop talking about Blake and her belief that he was going to be let out on bail. I humoured her as best I could, but I thought she was deluding herself about his immediate future regarding prison. It didn’t seem to me like he was going anywhere.
Part of what made it so difficult to be around Amy at this time was how quickly everything changed. She told me she’d stopped taking Subutex as it was making her throw up. Two days later the lucidity in her voice was gone. She called me from her flat, either high or drunk, saying she needed ‘kisses and cuddles’, a phrase from her childhood.
* * *
Amy’s performances were improving, but the police remained interested in what she knew about the possible attempted bribe. They went to our accountants and took bank statements. They were pressing to interview her, and we were advised again to go and see them voluntarily. They also wanted to interview me to find out if it was possible for large sums of money to be taken out of Amy’s account without my knowledge, but I wasn’t worried about that: I knew it couldn’t happen.
I was still driving my cab when I could, and throughout this time, whenever punters recognized me as Amy’s dad, I’d be asked, ‘How’re you doing? How’s your daughter?’
I answered as I always did, ‘She’s fine, thank you, and thanks for asking.’
But the truth was she wasn’t fine, and neither was I. Every day was like a ride on a rollercoaster, turning us upside-down and inside-out, so we didn’t know where we were from one minute to the next. Amy had never been chaotic before but she was now.
On Friday, 23 November, Blake was refused bail, and Amy was devastated. We were back on board the rollercoaster.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that Amy’s show the following night at the Hammersmith Apollo in west London was a bit of a mess. Whenever I could, I would see Amy before a show, to gee her up and make sure she was okay. Before that one I went to see her in her hotel and the singer Pete Doherty was there. They were both sitting on the bed strumming guitars. Doherty was always in the news over drink and drugs binges so I didn’t want Amy anywhere near him. I threw him out. Later, some people said I’d hit him over the head with his guitar. I have no further comment to make on that point, but he did leave the room with his head in his hands.
Amy was half an hour late going onstage that night and there was some booing from the audience. On the whole, she sang very well, but there were a few moments when she looked a bit wobbly. I thought the show was a bit of a shambles, but from what I heard, most people loved it.
Ultimately it didn’t matter. A day or two later, Amy called me, saying she wanted to cancel the rest of the tour: she just wasn’t up to it emotionally. I spoke to Raye and we concluded that cancelling was the best thing to do. Amy’s health was far more important than any tour but cancelling was pointless unless Amy went into rehab. I decided that a gentle approach was called for and went round to see her.
I told her that Raye and I had spoken, and she seemed relieved when I told her that the tour had been cancelled. ‘You know why we’re doing this, don’t you Amy?’ I asked. ‘It’s because we all love you and want you to get better. Your health is more important than any tour. But the only way you’re going to get better is with proper help.’
‘You mean rehab, Dad,’ she said. ‘I want to get better but I ain’t doing rehab.’ She wasn’t obstinate, just resigned.
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘I’m going to look at some options for you. There must be other ways of doing this.’ If she could get back to writing again it would help, I thought. Once she threw herself into something there was no stopping my Amy. We hugged each other for a while before I left.
As I got into my taxi I received the first of what would be a series of anonymous texts. It said: ‘You’re a real prick for the things you’ve said about Georgette. Sort your daughter out you c***.’
I decided not to mention it to Amy.
* * *
I went to the police station and showed them that there was no way a large payment could have been made from Amy’s bank account. I’d been a bit nervous going in, but I knew we were innocent of any wrongdoing so I explained how the accounting worked and the measures we had in place to protect Amy. Walking out of there, I felt relieved that neither Amy nor I was implicated.
Feeling optimistic about the outcome, I went to see Amy at her flat in Bow to discuss the rehab options, but she was in bed and I couldn’t get her up as she was suffering from the after-effects of drink and/or drugs. Would every day be like this? Although Blake was in prison – and Amy wanted to get clean – she was horribly addicted and might remain so. I resolved to ask the professionals what else I and the rest of her family should be doing to help.
I spent the next hour or so walking around aimlessly, trying to make sense of everything and planning my next move to help Amy. The first step was to book her an appointment with Dr Ettlinger for eleven o’clock the next day.
Raye took Amy to the appointment, but she wasn’t particularly communicative and couldn’t wait to leave. I phoned Dr Ettlinger and arranged another appointment for the following day. I would be bringing her, I told him, and would like to sit in on the consultation. I also made an appointment for Amy with Dr Pierides, the clinical psychologist; we would see him first, then go on to Dr Ettlinger. She went to both, but neither appointment proved very productive. While she was receptive to Dr Pierides, she shut down when Dr Ettlinger began to talk to her about the harm she was doing to her body. She refused to hear what he had to say.
A few days later, I called Amy’s flat in the afternoon. Alex Foden was with her and told me she’d been sleeping all day. While that wasn’t particularly unusual at the time, I decided to drive over to make sure she was okay. By the time I got there, Amy was awake, but not very coherent. After a while she came round a bit and we talked more about looking for a rehab place where she would feel comfortable.
It seemed that we were going round in circles. When Amy wasn’t high, she wanted to get clean. Then she would get high and forget she wanted to get clean. I felt that the people going in and out of the Bow flat were a bad influence on her as, quite clearly, a lot of drug-taking was going on there.
And there were constant stories in the media. I’d had a call from Alex Foden to say that Georgette had sold a story to the Daily Mail for three thousand pounds. I was furious – Amy had enough problems without getting upset about press coverage – but I later found out the story was about Blake and hardly mentioned Amy. Then, in the first week of December, there were pictures of Amy, supposedly running through the streets near her flat dressed only in a red bra and jeans. I was fuming: as usual, there was a big gap between what the pictures implied and the truth.
What had happened was that at about four a.m. Amy had wanted a cup of tea and one of her friends had gone to the all-night garage at the top of the road to buy some milk. The flat was inside a gated community, and when Amy’s friend went out he left the front gate open by mistake. There were paps outside it day and night and they wasted no time in taking advantage of the open gate. They banged on Amy’s front door and Amy, thinking it was her friend coming back, opened it. Flash, flash, flash, flash, flash – they had pictures of Amy in her bra. So, she was not running through the streets in her underwear, simply opening her front door.
Tuesday, 4 December, was my birthday. My son Alex called me but I didn’t hear from Amy and I was too fed up to be upset. Over the next couple of days there were more pictures of Amy in the newspapers, this time with Pete Doherty. One was of them standing outside the flat in Bow, supposedly at four a.m. Just hours later Amy was meant to be visiting Blake in Pentonville; she missed the visit because she overslept. Blake might have been bad, but Doherty wasn’t much better – this time I felt sorry for Blake.
When I talked to Amy about the missed visit, she offere
d no excuses. I was disgusted with her and told her so. ‘You can’t let someone down like that. I was glad to walk out of there after just half an hour when we went to see him, so what must it be like being stuck in there twenty-four hours a day? You’d want your own wife to understand that and make sure she stuck to her visits.’ I couldn’t be bothered to tell her I was upset that she’d forgotten my birthday.
Later she phoned and asked me to meet her in the West End. I told her I didn’t want to see her because I was still fed up with her. The truth was I now felt that the situation was hopeless and I didn’t want to see her when I might end up saying the wrong thing.
Two days later Amy had a VO to see Blake. She made the trip this time, but got there too late and wasn’t allowed in. I had a meeting with the Outside Organization, Amy’s PR company, to discuss how we could get more positive press for her. Looking back now, it seems we didn’t do very well.
Not long after that meeting an open letter to Amy from Janis was published in the News of the World. Janis didn’t write it, but she approved its contents. In it she virtually begged Amy to get clean. I understood why she said everything she did and it wasn’t entirely her fault – she’d been told the day before, possibly erroneously, that the News of the World would be publishing an open letter to Amy from Georgette – but it really upset Amy. Janis had Amy’s best interests at heart, but this was another reminder that we had to be really careful how we handled the press. It showed how manipulative they could be.
* * *
When I next met with Drs Ettlinger and Pierides they were both very concerned about Amy’s health. At this stage I was still trying to persuade her to go to rehab but nothing was agreed or accomplished. She was very thin and both doctors commented on it. Amy herself said that during her most recent visit to Blake he’d told her she should try to put on some weight and stop taking drugs.
I went home feeling depressed. Even a call from Raye to say that Amy had been nominated for six Grammy Awards didn’t lighten my mood. ‘They want her to perform at the ceremony in LA on the tenth of February 2008,’ he added.
‘What did she say when you told her?’ I asked.
‘She was really excited, Mitch. She really wants to do it. She couldn’t believe she’d been nominated for so many awards. I haven’t heard her sound so happy in ages.’
‘Hang on a minute, Raye,’ I said. ‘She’s not going to get the visa, is she?’
Raye replied, ‘She says she’s going to get clean in time.’
‘Well, that won’t happen.’
I rang Amy to congratulate her. She was really, really happy about the Grammys, and we ended up having quite a long conversation – one of our best in ages.
‘Who’d have thought, when you were sitting in your bedroom in Spain playing that little guitar, those songs you were writing then, you’d be going on to win Grammy Awards? It’s unbelievable, Amy.’
‘I tell you what, Dad…’ She went quiet. For once in her life Amy was stuck for words. ‘Do you know what, Dad? This is just the beginning. I need to start writing again.’
I got off the phone and thought, Well, let’s see, shall we? One step at a time – she’s got to get there first.
Shortly after this, though, Amy officially became a suspect in Blake’s case. This had come about because Blake had admitted he was going to pay £200,000 to James King so that he wouldn’t testify in the GBH case. Blake obviously didn’t have that kind of money and the only person it could have come from was Amy. As I’ve said, Amy couldn’t have got that kind of money out of her account without a counter-signature so, although I was worried about this latest development, I knew nothing would come of it.
As Amy was now a suspect in the case, she was not allowed to be physically with Blake any more: their visits had to take place with a sheet of glass between them. Amy was very upset – I had tried to protect her from the details of what was going on, but there was no avoiding this. Amy’s solicitor advised again that we should prepare a statement and take it to the police, rather than waiting for her to be arrested, which, in his view, was imminent. A couple of days later he arranged for Amy to attend Shoreditch Police Station in east London where she was arrested. It’s common practice, under English law, for a suspect to be arrested before they can be questioned by the police, and Raye, who had accompanied her, was also arrested after an altercation with paps outside the police station. The charges against him were subsequently dropped. After questioning, Amy was released on bail without restrictions, and when I spoke to her later she was coping much better than I’d expected.
I suggested that she should consider going on holiday with some of her friends while we tried to sort everything out. Surprisingly, she agreed and called me later to say that she would like to go to Mustique with Tyler, then rang back to say she’d like to take Juliette and Lauren too. I was delighted and began to make the arrangements.
Tyler was a good influence, and I knew that Juliette and Lauren simply wanted the best for Amy. They had always been close to her, but recently, because they disagreed with the way Amy was dealing with her drug problem, their relationship had suffered. I suppose you could say their solution was tough love. They seemed to think that Amy should be locked up in rehab, but Amy would never have gone along with that – and I’d never thought things were that simple. I’d always favoured the supportive approach, encouraging her in her desire to quit and comforting her through the bad times. Again and again Amy had shown that she’d get drugs if she wanted them.
It didn’t matter whether my approach or theirs was right. I just wanted my Amy to get better – and I was happy that she wanted to take her friends on holiday. On 20 December I gave Amy four thousand pounds for her trip to Mustique. She was set to leave on 28 December with Tyler and Juliette; in the end Lauren didn’t go.
Christmas Day was soon upon us and we were all due to go to my sister Melody’s house for lunch. Alex Foden was supposed to be bringing Amy, but by two o’clock they hadn’t arrived and my calls to Amy and Alex Foden went straight to voicemail. I had predicted that Amy wouldn’t come to Mel’s and assumed she was asleep after, probably, being high the previous night. I tried to put it to the back of my mind but at seven o’clock, when there was still no word, I drove to her flat in Bow.
When I knocked on the door, there was no answer, but I peered through the window and could see her lying on the couch in the living room. I banged on the glass again – nothing. I was on the point of breaking the door down or smashing the window when one of Amy’s friends came out of the bedroom. She woke Amy and opened the door. Amy couldn’t understand what all of the fuss was about and was a bit tetchy with me. At times like this, it became frighteningly apparent that she had no idea how much worry she caused all of us.
Three days later, Amy, Juliette and Tyler flew to Barbados, where they spent a few days, then travelled on to Mustique. I hoped she would be okay and have a good holiday. I felt relieved that other people now had the responsibility of looking after her. That might sound a horrible thing to say but twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, was exhausting me when I still had to earn my living and be a husband to Jane and a father to Alex. I began to relax – until I took a call from a ‘freight company’ to say that Amy had left her bag at the airport and they wanted a forwarding address in Barbados. The lengths the paps will go to for a story…
As the year ended, a number of clinics all over the world contacted me to tell me they could help Amy. Each said they were right for Amy. One even guaranteed that their treatment would rid Amy of her addiction. I gave Dr Ettlinger the details and he told me that, although he was sceptical of so-called guarantees, he would look into it.
Not long ago, I would have dismissed all such claims, but times were getting harder by the day. It was difficult to imagine surviving another year like the last. My diary entry for the last day of 2007 reads: ‘Frank now Platinum, meaningless unless Amy gets better. Please God help me to make 2008 a better year for my darling daught
er.’
12
‘AGAIN, SHE’S FINE, THANKS FOR ASKING’
I resolved that 2008 would be the year we helped Amy get clean. Heroin and crack cocaine must become a thing of the past. I knew that everyone who cared about Amy’s wellbeing felt the same and, with Blake still in prison, we had a fighting chance of making it happen.
New Year’s Day started well, with an early-morning call from Amy in Mustique, where she was staying with the singer Bryan Adams, whom she’d met in London some time before. She sounded fine and told me she was having a lovely time. However, Raye had heard a different story. Amy told him she wanted to go back to Barbados, where she could stay with Salaam Remi’s father, but Raye dissuaded her – he was convinced she only wanted to go back to score drugs. Amy didn’t tell me how much she was suffering. I know she really struggled on Mustique, but she was a fighter and stuck out the terrible pains of withdrawal. Bryan Adams was concerned about her weight – she was being sick a lot.
Her trip lasted about a week. Then Amy decided she wanted to come back to show Blake that she was off heroin, but I didn’t believe her. It was more likely that she wanted to come home specifically to get some heroin. When she arrived, I arranged for Dr Ettlinger to examine her, and he told me that, in his opinion, she would go back to drugs the minute she could get hold of them. We were back to square one.
Meanwhile it came to my attention – it doesn’t matter how – that Amy owed a certain drug-dealer twelve thousand pounds and this dealer was going to the Bow flat to collect. I made sure I was there when the dealer arrived and I said, in no uncertain terms, that neither I nor Amy would be paying a penny. There was no argument and the dealer left. When Amy found out, she was angry with me because I had cut off one of her lines of supply.
Amy, My Daughter Page 12
