Amy, My Daughter (9 page)

‘What were you fighting about?' I asked, while she climbed back into bed.

‘Not now, Dad,' she replied. ‘I'm tired.'

Upsetting as it was, I knew she wouldn't tell me any more, but my most pressing concern was that she was okay. ‘As long as you're all right now.'

She was drowsy and murmured, ‘I'm fine, Dad. Let me sleep.'

There was no doubt in my mind that the fight had been drug-fuelled, even though there was no drug paraphernalia in the room. I wanted to wait for Blake to come back so I could talk to him. How could someone treat my little girl in this way? When Amy fell asleep, I went downstairs and checked into the hotel. I had to keep an eye on them in case there was a repeat of the previous night's events, and I was frightened for her.

That afternoon I found out that Blake's parents had arrived as well; they were staying at the Monmouth Hotel, in nearby Covent Garden. As much as I disliked them, I decided to go and see them. I hoped to persuade them to try to talk some sense into Blake. They were out, so I left a message for them to contact me. They never called.

I went back to the Sanderson and was informed by the concierge that Amy and Blake had left the hotel arm in arm to go for a walk. I felt helpless and, unusually for me, unsure what to do next. Until now, I'd known what to expect from Amy in any given situation, but I was out of my depth. There is no way to describe how it feels to wake up to photos of your daughter covered with blood on the front page of the newspaper. It was unimaginable that we had gone from the excitement of
Back to Black
to this, yet here we were.

The drugs made her behave erratically, and I was living on a knife edge. Anything might happen. In the end I went back to my room and told the front desk to inform me immediately if any trouble was reported from Amy and Blake's room. It was a quiet night.

The following day Georgette, Giles and Blake's younger brothers, then thirteen and fourteen, arrived at the Sanderson. Georgette left the boys with Amy and Blake while we went off for a talk. It was a waste of time: the Civils wouldn't accept that Blake had introduced Amy to class-A drugs and blamed her for Blake's addiction.

The next day the Civils told me they blamed Amy's career and record company for her and Blake's problems. Even now, when I look back, I can't get over their behaviour. For me, they came to epitomize everything I disliked about Blake and what he'd done to Amy.

Later that afternoon I went up to see Amy and Blake and found out they had spontaneously decided to go on holiday to St Lucia. They had been in touch with Juliette to ask her to bring their passports and some money to the hotel. They were planning to leave the next day.

‘What are you thinking?' I asked Amy, when I found out. ‘Are you mad?' I couldn't believe what I was hearing. ‘You two need to go back to rehab, to Osea Island, not swan about on some bloody beach.'

‘And you need to mind your own business,' said Amy, laughing – she and I both knew that I never would.

I'd been keeping Jane, Janis, Alex and Raye up to speed with everything that was happening in the hotel, and they laughed too, when I told them what Amy had said. I suppose it was quite funny, really. A couple of hours later Juliette arrived with the passports and three thousand pounds in cash; I overheard Blake on the phone arranging to go to Hackney, east London, to pick up some drugs.

That was it. I'd had enough and told him as much. I didn't care about the consequences, I said, I was going to the police to tell them what I'd heard. That seemed to work: he didn't go to Hackney that afternoon. Instead, out of the blue, he accused Juliette of stealing a hundred pounds from the money she had brought them, which Juliette would never do. There was a horrible row and I tore into Blake – in front of Amy for the first time. And then Juliette left.

The next day Amy and Blake flew to St Lucia. Amy texted that they'd arrived safely and, I have to admit, part of me felt relieved. I wasn't foolish enough to think that all of the problems were over, but at least they were a bit further away; I needed to forget about the past couple of weeks and spend some time with my wife, whom I'd been neglecting. I poured into my diary everything I'd seen and felt to get it out of my mind. I didn't know where else to turn.

The following Tuesday the Civils did an interview with Radio 5 Live and told listeners not to buy Amy's records: if they did, they would be encouraging a drug addict. Giles accused Amy's record company of working her to the bone and implied that we, Amy's family, had a vested interest in them doing just that.

Things were getting out of hand. I felt the only way to protect Amy was to tell the truth, rather than have people listen to strangers' lies about her. I decided to have my say as well. Later that day, on Radio 5 Live, I told Victoria Derbyshire how much worse things had become since Amy and Blake had been married: I was getting no support from the Civils in helping Amy and Blake, and if they had turned up at the Matrix Studios meeting instead of going to the pub, they would have seen for themselves how caring and understanding Amy's record company was.

Over the next few days I did a lot of radio and television interviews, trying to set the record straight about Amy and her problems. It was probably a waste of time but it made me feel a little better.

On 31 August I received a text from Blake:

 

By the way, if it eases anyone's minds, we are on an island where it is impossible to get heroin – I read that somewhere, look it up! We are on a posh resort where we haven't even been offered a spliff. Don't worry about us, we're doing fine with delicious cocktails instead. Love, Blake & Amy.

 

‘What a load of crap!' I wrote in my diary.

The next day I got another text:

 

We're ok papa, phone's a little tricky here but texts are ok. Love you to xs, lots of xxx's. Tell me u love me.

 

It was from Amy's phone, but I knew it must have been from Blake – Amy would never have used words like that in a text to me. Later that day I went to the Jewish Burial Grounds at Rainham, Essex, to visit the graves of my father, my grandparents and my uncle. I was looking for comfort and solace and peace, which I found.

Unfortunately, the news worsened. On 2 September the
News of the World
ran another horrible and shocking story about Amy. They had pictures of her that showed what appeared to be track marks on her arms, which suggested she was now taking drugs intravenously. Devastated, I called Dr Ettlinger straight away. He believed that the marks on Amy's arms were from the cuts she had inflicted on herself and were definitely not track marks. I was relieved for a moment – yes, people around the world might think that my darling daughter was injecting herself, but at least it wasn't true; that was one more problem that I knew I wouldn't be able to deal with.

The same day the
Mail on Sunday
ran a story about the Civils. I hated going to the newsagent's every morning and seeing Amy's face plastered across the front pages of the papers. It was like living in a glass house, with the world picking over every scrap about Amy's life. But this one cheered me up a bit. In May 2007, just days after Amy and Blake had got married, Georgette and Giles had been convicted at Grantham Magistrates' Court in Lincolnshire of disorderly behaviour and using threatening and abusive words likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. The
Mail on Sunday
reported:

 

The couple were found guilty by the magistrates and were given a one-year conditional discharge after headmaster Giles and his wife Georgette were involved in a furious incident on a village school's football pitch.

The court heard how the Civils threatened the assistant manager of their village junior football team, Neil Swaby, and his wife Jane. Mr and Mrs Civil stormed on to the touchline and berated Mr Swaby for telling off their youngest son. Then Georgette hit him across the face with a bunch of car keys. The couple were found guilty by the magistrates and were given a one-year conditional discharge. Mr Swaby told the
Mail on Sunday
: ‘The problem is that Giles and Georgette blame everyone else.'

 

I can't say that any of this surprised me – I knew they were nasty people and now everybody who read the
Mail on Sunday
did too – but it did make me wonder what else they might be capable of. Sadly, I didn't have to wait long to find out.

On 3 September Amy and Blake came home from St Lucia. I couldn't wait to see Amy but at the same time I was a bit nervous of what I'd find. I went to see them at Blakes Hotel in Kensington, south-west London. Amy looked fine, if a bit thin: I made a mental note to talk to her about it – another thing to worry about. I realized I hadn't seen her eating like she used to recently, and put that down to the drugs. Blake, meanwhile, was slurring and a bit out of it; he looked like he'd taken something.

Seeing them together, I had no illusions that much had changed. I felt plunged straight back into battle. All I could think was that I had to do something: act, act, act, whatever it took to fix my daughter. Clearly whatever I'd tried so far hadn't worked so I had to do something different, even if that meant being nice to Blake and telling Amy I'd altered my opinion of him.

When Georgette arrived we agreed to call a truce. Perhaps as a result, and with Amy and Blake still in holiday mood, we had a more rational conversation in which Amy and Blake said they wanted to get clean. I was delighted when they agreed to embark on daily counselling. It didn't last a day.

That evening we left Blake in the hotel while I took Amy for a full-check up with Dr Ettlinger at his surgery in Upper Devonshire Place in London's West End. On the way there I had a text from Blake:

 

I can't tell you how grateful I am to you personally, that you and my mum made a truce. It's very positive and means a lot to me. Your second son, Blake x

 

Five minutes later he sent me another:

 

I will always do my best for Amy, you have my word. She is my world. Blake x.

 

I showed the texts to Amy straight away. ‘Okay, let's give him another chance,' I lied. ‘On the face of it, these texts tell me he's actually a nice guy.'

Dr Ettlinger examined Amy, and said she was okay, but reiterated that she must not take any drugs for fear of another seizure. He also told her that she was very thin and needed to put on some weight. When we got outside, the pavement was swarming with paparazzi.

‘Dad, how did they know I was coming here?' Amy asked. I shook my head. I had no idea.

 

*   *   *

 

In just two months so much had happened. None of us knew how to help Amy – nothing we tried seemed to be working. Raye and I both thought that getting back to work would be the best thing for her as it would break the routine of the last few weeks. We thought it was unlikely she'd be writing any new songs, so there was no reason to push for another album, but she loved having a guitar in her hands and being with her band. I knew those boys weren't drug-users so it would be good for Amy to be around them, and away from Blake, for a while.

Earlier in the year Amy had been nominated for a Mercury Music Prize for
Back to Black
, and on 4 September I went with her to the awards ceremony at Grosvenor House on Park Lane. She was beaten by the Klaxons, but she was on absolutely top form and sounded fantastic when she sang ‘Love Is A Losing Game' with just an acoustic guitar, reminding everyone – including me – just how great her voice was. I was pleased that the drugs hadn't changed that. The audience went mad for her and, for a few minutes, I could forget all the recent nastiness.

She came back to our table and I gave her a big hug. It didn't matter that she hadn't won. To me, seeing the expression on her face as she sang the song, and the silent rapture of the fans around the room, had been worth everything. When I looked up at her on the stage that night, I saw my little girl again, possessed by nothing but her incredible music. There was so much love in the room for her. This cheered me up: she was in there somewhere – she wasn't gone, just a little lost. But at the end of it all she still went home to Blake.

To add to my problems, Jane was worried about my health. I hadn't had much time to think about myself lately, but I had noticed I felt nervy and tired all the time. The least little thing would set me off. For example, if I was going to work in the cab and heard on the radio that there was a traffic jam at Trafalgar Square, a busy location in central London, I would just go home. I couldn't take the thought of sitting in traffic. Any excuse, I guess – there's always a traffic jam at Trafalgar Square. It turned out I was suffering from anxiety.

Adding to my worries, Amy's company had had to bear unanticipated expenses, with bills piling in for the recovery treatment, the holiday and the hotel stays Amy and Blake were racking up. If this continued, we would have a short-term cash-flow problem until Amy received her next royalty cheque. Of course, if that happened, I'd find the money somehow to fund Amy's doctor's bills. I was already working all the hours I could spare in the cab just to earn my living but I'd call in a favour or two if I had to. My friends would never let me down.

When I saw Amy's accountants, there was a bill from the Causeway Retreat for £21,000. I wasn't going to pay that one. I was still furious with them about drugs getting into the facility while Amy and Blake were there. I'd lodged a complaint and they had promised me answers; until I got them that bill would remain unpaid. (The Causeway Retreat closed in 2010 after it was refused registration by the Care Quality Commission. In November, Twenty 7 Management, which had run it, pleaded guilty at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court to running an unlicensed hospital and was fined £8,000, plus £30,000 costs. District Judge David Cooper said the firm's standards ‘would really shame a third-world country'.)