On the tour bus, Amy was fine, except she couldn’t stop talking about Blake. From her behaviour, it seemed that she hadn’t taken any drugs, and she didn’t have a drink while we were driving, so things started well. Raye had filled the bus with Amy’s friends to boost her morale, and I noticed how different the atmosphere was without Blake.
Before the show I went into Amy’s dressing room to wish her good luck and she still seemed fine, apart from her usual pre-gig nerves. Despite the triumphs of the last year, she still hadn’t conquered stage fright. Half an hour later when she came out onstage it was a different story. She slurred her way through the songs and staggered around the stage. She was definitely drunk and the audience hated her for it. They booed and jeered, but instead of walking off the stage, Amy responded.
‘First of all, if you’re booing, you’re a mug for buying a ticket,’ she told them. ‘Second, to all those booing, just wait till my husband gets out of incarceration. And I mean that.’
Standing at the side of the stage, I could hardly believe this was happening. It didn’t feel like I was watching Amy. I was sobbing and there was nothing I could do.
Afterwards I told Raye the whole tour should be cancelled. He agreed with me that this had been the worst show he’d seen Amy do, but he waited until she sobered up to ask her what she wanted to do about the rest of the tour. More than fifty thousand tickets had already been sold and the tour was expected to gross more than ?1.25 million. If Amy pulled out, she’d be stuck with a big bill.
When I walked into Amy’s dressing room, she was giving a friend’s mother a ?20,000 watch as a present. Why? Because she was drunk. I cleared the dressing room, and the look on Amy’s face told me everything. She was in a terrible state. With everyone out of the room she became very tearful, apologizing for her performance and for what she had said to her audience. ‘Give me a cuddle, Dad,’ she said, like a small child, as if somehow I could make everything right again.
I hugged her tightly, and she said, ‘I’m the luckiest girl in the world to have my family, I really am.’ I didn’t know what to do, what to say. I knew that lecturing her or stating the obvious wouldn’t help. I wanted to support her, so I just carried on holding her.
The next day at about four o’clock I got a call from the BBC telling me they’d heard a rumour that Amy’s show in Glasgow had been cancelled. I phoned Raye and he said that the show wasn’t cancelled but that Amy had been upset because of all of the paps at Glasgow airport. The show went ahead, and Raye called me as the first set ended. He held the phone so that I could hear what was going on. ‘Listen to this!’
The audience were going wild for Amy. They were chanting, ‘Amy, Amy, Amy,’ over and over.
At the end Raye called me again and I could hear the crowd, still cheering Amy. It had been a great show, but what made it even better was that Amy had taken no drugs and drunk no alcohol. The more emotional songs, ‘Wake Up Alone’, ‘Unholy War’ and ‘Back to Black’, had been dropped because Amy found them too difficult to sing while Blake was banged up, which seemed to have helped. I spoke to Amy and told her how proud of her I was, that she was a fighter. Amy’s reply? ‘Aaah, thanks Dad.’
A few days later, Amy put on another great show, this time in Newcastle, with the audience again chanting her name in between songs. The best news of that day wasn’t the show but what happened afterwards: Raye called me to say that Amy had told him she wanted to clean up and go to a clinic as soon as the tour was over. Raye was hoping to work something out so that she could have help during the tour.
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
