I wasn’t angry with Alex Haines. After all, I would much rather Amy was with him than with Blake. Raye was understandably upset that one of his employees would do something like that. He came back from LA and sacked Alex Haines. When I spoke to Amy about what had happened, she was a little ashamed, but as she saw that I wasn’t annoyed with her, she opened up: it had been more of a fling than an affair and she was no longer seeing Alex.
The end result was that Raye decided to pull the Bond gig and cancel everything booked for the near future. I agreed with this and he left me to tell Amy. She was very upset, but so was I.
‘You know who’s to blame for this, don’t you?’ I carried on. ‘It’s you. And I tell you something else. If you want to work again you’re going to have to stop living this druggy life.’
‘Dad, can’t you talk to Raye? I really want to do this Bond thing.’
‘Look,’ I sighed, ‘if you behave yourself during the next few days, we’ll see.’ I thought about what was coming up in the week ahead. ‘And another thing, don’t forget you’re going to see the police drugs counsellor at the end of the week and that if you don’t go you could end up in jail.’
‘The police are just bullying me into going, Dad.’
‘Nonsense,’ I said. ‘They couldn’t have been more caring or helpful to you.’
She agreed to try her hardest and I said I’d talk to Raye, try to persuade him to hold off pulling the Bond gig.
Amy did behave herself for the next few days, and on 29 April I went to pick her up from Prowse Place to drive her to Henley to continue with the Bond song. When I arrived the house was full of ne’er-do-wells, hangers- on and drug-dealers. I threw them all out, getting the usual protests from Amy, ‘No, Dad, no, Dad, no, Dad,’ which I ignored. One of the hangers-on got a bit shirty so I punched him, and the others left as fast as they could. Again, it was my frustration coming out. Despite the presence of the lowlifes, Amy was completely sober but said she was too upset to go to Henley.
The next day there was bad news about the
I met with our solicitors Brian Spiro and John Reid, and the two police officers who were in charge of the crack-cocaine video case. Fortunately the press didn’t know about the meeting and there wasn’t a pap in sight. The policemen were very nice, but annoyed with Amy because they felt she was making idiots of them. They told us that the following Wednesday she would be charged with ‘allowing her premises to be used for taking drugs and the intent to supply drugs’. To make matters worse, there was another assault complaint against her.
The next day I explained to Amy what the police had told me, and she agreed to go back to Henley to finish recording. After she had been to see Blake in Pentonville Prison, I drove her back to Prowse Place to pick up a few things. I talked to her about her options – there weren’t many. I tried to put a positive spin on it but deep down I couldn’t see how she would avoid prison. On the way Amy received a ‘helpful’ call from Blake, telling her not to be bullied into doing anything I told her to do.
When we got back to Prowse Place Amy started messing about, and after an hour or so, I could see that she had no intention of going to Henley, so I left, feeling very down. I called Raye and told him to cancel the Bond gig.
In many ways I was resigned to whatever was going to happen. Her attitude disgusted me. It was one thing for her to be disrespectful to any number of people, including herself, but now it was clear to me that she thought she was above the law. I couldn’t see her recovering personally or professionally from this. I wrote in my diary: ‘If she carries on taking drugs like this she will die and Blake will be responsible.’
Early on Thursday, 1 May 2008, I found out that Amy had gone to Henley at three a.m. Hurriedly I called Raye but he already knew. Fortunately he hadn’t made the call to cancel the Bond song. However, the next day Mark Ronson was on Sky News saying that Amy wasn’t fit to work and he doubted the Bond song would go ahead. I knew how upset he had been but I didn’t see why he’d needed to go on television news to talk about it.
Amy was working at Henley, but it didn’t last long. A few days after she arrived, the
The next day Raye rang: Amy was flipping out at Henley. She had hit someone and cut herself. I shot down to Henley. I had never seen Amy so bad. She had cuts on her arms and face; she had stubbed out a cigarette on her cheek and had a bad cut on her hand where she had punched a mirror. She had been on a two-day bender and, during the course of it, had told Blake she had slept with Alex Haines. What had happened at the Sanderson Hotel was happening all over again: out of shame and guilt she had cut herself.
All this was still going on when I got there and I had to force her on to her bed to stop her harming herself even more. I held her in my arms until she finally calmed down, then got a nurse to patch her up and to stay with her. I wrote in my diary, ‘This has been one of the worst days of my life. I don’t know what to do next. Please God, give me the strength and wisdom to help Amy.’
Every day brought a new set of horrors.
The following week Amy presented herself, on schedule, at Limehouse Police Station, accompanied by Raye and Brian Spiro, to talk to them about the crack-cocaine video. Of course, she was high on drugs and drink. Amy was charged and bailed to return there later that month. When I mentioned rehab, all Amy could say, in her drink- and drug-fuelled state, was, ‘I’m not going to any facility, I want to go to Holloway,’ meaning the women’s prison in north London.
Although the Bond song had now been cancelled, a couple of days later Amy wanted to go back to Henley to work on other stuff, so I arranged for her to go while I stayed in London. Over the week, I checked in regularly with Dale Davis, her bassist and musical director. Some days they were getting work done, on others Amy was being yelled at on the phone by Blake so she’d get high to console herself.
I drove to Henley to see for myself how she was getting on. When I got there, Amy greeted me with news that I’d heard all too often before: she wanted to quit drugs. I had little faith in this but went through the motions and talked to her about the best way for her to do it. While I was there Raye rang: Salaam Remi wanted to come to Henley the following week to work with Amy. She was delighted, and I was pleased when she told me that she had been drug-free for three days! The nurse confirmed this.
Salaam Remi’s presence enhanced Amy’s good streak. They worked at Henley during the weekend and laid down a track, which Amy told me I would like. She hoped it would be on her next album, which would come out who knew when – not that there was any pressure on her from the record company to complete it. Much to my surprise, she sounded fine when I spoke to her and still hadn’t taken any drugs. I supposed only time would tell me if this was the truth.
14
DRUGS – THE ROCKY ROAD TO RECOVERY
The few days that Amy worked with Salaam Remi did her a lot of good and Raye came back making lots of positive noises about what he’d heard. But when Salaam had returned to the US, there was no reason for Amy to remain at Henley and, once more, she was back in London. She came with a more determined attitude and I felt that things were gradually changing for the better.
Later that week she told me she had made an appointment to see Dr Mike McPhillips, a consultant psychiatrist and an expert in the treatment of addicts, from Capio Nightingale. For me this showed major progress: first, Amy had chosen to see a doctor; second, she’d made the appointment herself; and third, she turned up. Dr
