Amy, My Daughter (13 page)

 

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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 daughter.'

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.

‘Too bad,' I said. You've got to be cruel to be kind. The way I saw it, it was one less person Amy could buy from. I took out my frustration with Amy and her behaviour on the people I found hanging about the flat and probably got too much enjoyment from kicking them out forcefully. I thought it would do Amy no harm to see how angry she made me sometimes.

She needed any distraction from drugs that we could give her, so we were all excited by the news that Raye had arranged for Amy to sing the title song for the next Bond film,
Quantum of Solace
. Amy was very excited about it. She'd really liked
Casino Royale
, and immediately started making plans to work with Mark Ronson, who would be writing the music. That was exactly what she needed: to start thinking about music again – a new project for her to work on. I wondered how she'd deal with deadlines and a brief that she had to fulfil.

The hope was that we'd be able to make that distraction last long enough to keep her clean for her drug-test. Dr Ettlinger felt that Amy was improving but he decided to prescribe Valium to help her relax, which she was finding harder and harder to do. However, he explained that there was a problem: after 15 January Amy could not take any drugs at all, including prescription drugs, if she was to pass the drugs test to enable her to get her visa to enter the US to perform at the Grammy Awards the following month. The appointment for the drugs test had been made for 22 January.

Although it was only for a week that Amy couldn't have any medication, it would seem like a lifetime to her. I didn't know if she could do it. The only thing keeping me optimistic was a conversation I'd had with Tyler. He'd been
with her through her withdrawal in Mustique and was encouraged by her efforts to quit drugs. He agreed to keep an eye on her.

On the drive home I stopped several times, for Amy to get out of my cab to buy sweets, a mobile phone and finally fish and chips for both of us. She even bought portions for the paps that were following us. Each time she was mobbed by fans. It was great to know that they saw her as herself and not as the Amy the tabloids had created. It was hilarious and Amy was on top form. We had a lot of laughs – at one point I was laughing so much I had to stop the cab. Amy jumped out of the seat next to me and into the back, as if she was a passenger.

‘Where to, madam?' I called over my shoulder, playing the game.

‘To my flat in Camden Town, my good man, and don't spare the horses.'

‘To Jeffrey's Place?'

‘It's mine, not Jeffrey's,' she said, and I laughed again. This was my girl, the way she used to be, before drugs. I went home feeling uplifted for the first time in ages. Maybe she could pull it off, after all.

A day or two later I heard from Tyler that Amy had taken drugs. When I confronted her, she admitted it was true and told me Alex Foden had given them to her. I was furious but kept my temper in check and did nothing about Foden. The next day was meant to be the start of the drug-free week and there was no way round it. If she failed the test, she wouldn't be admitted to the US. My hopes dimmed again when I went to see her at the Bow flat and, lo and behold, Geoff was there again.

The following morning Raye landed me with a bombshell. The
Sun
newspaper had told him they had pictures and videos of Amy taking drugs. Upsetting as this was, I tried to stay calm: this just confirmed what everyone already knew.

On the day we'd scheduled for the US drug test, the
Sun
published the story, complete with pictures of Amy apparently taking crack cocaine. To make matters worse, the video had been set up by two of Blake's friends who had sold it to the
Sun
. I expected Amy to be mortified, but she maintained, in the face of all the evidence, that she hadn't been set up, and said, ‘What do I care? Everybody thinks I take drugs anyway, Dad.'

After the story appeared, I was inundated with calls from the press. I naturally wanted to protect my daughter and said that Amy was now in treatment and that we were all proud of her progress.

We postponed the US drugs test until the following week but, drugs test or not, we had to get Amy focused. She was scheduled to perform a concert in Cannes, France, on 24 January; Jane and I were to go with her. However, in the wake of the photos surfacing in the
Sun
, Raye and I met with Lucian Grainge, at Universal Records. He told me he would not allow Amy to perform. Furthermore, unless Amy went into rehab, he would not allow her to perform at the Grammys or the BRIT Awards either. His concern was that Amy would make a laughing stock of herself. She might have been number one in the charts in France, Germany, Spain and Italy, but he was worried about the fallout for Universal.

This was serious. While he was not talking about Universal dropping Amy, he was insistent that she had medical treatment in rehab. It was clear that his intentions were good and that he, like all of us, just wanted to see Amy back to her best so she could use her talent. I had been through so much with her over the last year that I had serious doubts about her agreeing to go to rehab. Lucian, though, was adamant, telling me to bring Amy to a meeting at Universal at one o'clock the following day. If she failed to show up, no excuse would be acceptable.

The next day I went to collect Amy to take her to the meeting. Of course she wasn't ready but after a lot of messing about we eventually left. On our journey Raye called to say that Amy was going to be arrested on drugs charges relating to the
Sun
video. We finally arrived at Universal an hour and a half late. I could feel the tension the moment we walked into the room. Lucian, Raye, Alan Edwards and Chris Goodman from the Outside Organization, Dr Ettlinger and Dr Pierides were all there.

For once, a doctor wasn't leading the discussion, which might have been helpful. Lucian laid down the law, instructing Amy that unless she went into rehab that day he would stop her working. Resistant as she was to the idea, she couldn't ignore the threat to her career. With that, and reinforcement from everyone else in the room, she reluctantly agreed to be admitted to Capio Nightingale, a leading private psychiatric hospital in London's St John's Wood.

That day I drove her there, but it wasn't long into the journey that she started to change her mind, pleading with me to stop the cab and turn round, swearing she'd beat it herself and didn't need to go into hospital. In the end I didn't literally have to drag her in, but it was a struggle. She calmed down a bit but once she was in her own room, she kicked off again and threatened to kill herself. I didn't believe a word of it because I'd heard all this in the car, but the doctors ran in from the corridor, now convinced that she was a threat to herself, and told me they would section her, which meant she would be compelled to remain in hospital if she tried to leave. For someone to be sectioned, their doctor, clinical psychologist and the local area health authority have to agree to it, which, given the state Amy was in, they would have done.

During the initial consultation I broke down several times. What a terrible thing it was to see my baby in that situation, but I knew she was in the best place. It was breaking my heart to see her so distressed and I had to bury my natural instinct to scoop her up and take her away from what was scaring her, and the horrible days ahead. I knew this time I couldn't fix it and that she had to go through each step of the recovery process. On her own.

Later that evening Kelly Osbourne came to see her, and I left them to it while I drove back to Bow to collect some things Amy needed. When I got back to the hospital at about eleven o'clock, she seemed more settled, which was good for everyone. I learned later that if she had left the clinic, she would have been arrested over the
Sun
crack-cocaine video. I stayed until she fell asleep, kissed her goodnight and left.

To stop unwanted calls or callers at the hospital, we devised a password system. The password was ‘Gordon', my mother's maiden name. I called the hospital early the next day and spoke to Dr Pierides, who said that Amy had had a comfortable night and they were sedating her so she could rest. He thought it was best that she had no visitors that day.

Rest was a crucial part of the programme for the first few days, and Amy spent quite a bit of time sleeping. At one point, Raye spoke to Blake who surprisingly said he was pleased that Amy was in hospital. As much as I didn't care about his opinion, it would be important for Amy that she had his support in her recovery when she got out.

His mother, though, was anything but supportive. As Amy was trying to get clean, a different drama was unfolding around Blake. Once again he had been refused bail. Before Amy had gone into treatment, Georgette had been hounding her about paying his legal fees. Given Amy's position in relation to Blake's case, no one thought that was a good idea. Numerous solicitors had said as much. While Amy remained a suspect, it could be detrimental to her case to pay Blake's legal fees. Still, Amy wanted to help Blake, and I'd attempted several times to talk her out of it. Eventually she agreed, reluctantly, to wait until she was cleared of charges before she paid for Blake.

Needless to say, Georgette was not happy about any of this. On Sunday, 27 January, an interview with Georgette and Giles was published in the
News of the World
. They referred to me as the Fat Controller, which I thought was quite funny. What was not funny was that they went on to accuse me of taking money from Amy. These stories in the press were anything but helpful, and a lot of the ‘facts' published around that time were inaccurate to say the least.

As it turned out, Amy couldn't pay Blake's legal fees anyway. Her accountant, Margaret Cody, informed me that she couldn't afford to. Of course, the money problem was only short term as a lot of royalties were due to be paid later, but our discussion highlighted the fact that Amy wasn't working. The royalties were coming in, but there was no plan for what would happen when they ran out. Something had to change.

 

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I visited Amy as often as I could at the hospital. When you're dealing with someone who's recovering from drug addiction, you look for small signs of progress wherever you can find them, such as when I saw her eating. That pleased me because she desperately needed to put on some weight.

After only a few days, it was clear there were other positive effects. On one of my visits, Dr Pierides mentioned that he was pleased with Amy's progress, and Amy was also pleased with it. She was beginning to feel a little better and, to my surprise, she said she wanted to stay in the hospital. She also said she wanted to move out of the Bow flat as she felt the people there were a big part of her problem. I thought this was a major turning-point for Amy, and that she'd come to it after so long left me feeling more relieved than I'd been in days, if not weeks.

The following day Dr Ettlinger called me to say that they were transferring Amy to the London Clinic, in the West End, not far from Harley Street, which is stuffed with high-end private medical practitioners. She was admitted for rehydration as she had lost a lot of weight through vomiting. The plan was that she would stay there for three or four days, then go back to Capio Nightingale. I went to visit her at the London Clinic; I knew the place well as I'd dropped punters off there. The entrance was imposing but old-fashioned, in that red-brick London way, but I'd never been inside and was impressed by the clean modern lines. Amy told me she was feeling a lot better and didn't want to go back to Capio Nightingale. I said she had to, and she reluctantly agreed. My worst fear was that she would go back to Capio Nightingale, then just walk out, which would leave her open to arrest over the
Sun
crack-cocaine video. The police were now saying they were willing to drop the drugs charges against Amy – if she was willing to name the people who had taken the video of her so they could be arrested for drug-dealing. Now definitely wasn't the time to put this to Amy though.

Sadly, despite the progress she'd made, her leaving was a very real possibility. And if Amy wanted to leave, no one could stop her because she had improved to the point at which they could no longer section her. Amy was feeling so much better that she thought she was cured. Of course, she was far from that. I knew that if she left Capio Nightingale, it wouldn't be long before she was back on drugs. I really didn't know what to do and it seemed that no one had a solution. It was sending me round the bend. The people I thought would know best what to do, how to help Amy, how to heal her, could only do so much, and then it was down to her.