her at seven thirty and I’d arrived just after that, which meant that Jevan probably wouldn’t have checked on her again for another fifty-five minutes. Thank God I’d arrived when I had. If I hadn’t, I think Amy would have died.
I paced up and down. Nobody was telling me anything. I kept asking what was going on. They told me that the doctor would come and see me as soon as he could.
I was driving myself mad. There was a sign saying no mobile phones but I needed to talk to Jane, so I phoned her. She calmed me down a bit and asked me if I wanted her to call Janis. I said that I would call her when we had more information, but I phoned Raye and told him to manage the press. He called Chris Goodman at the Outside Organization straight away.
Still nothing was happening. I kicked up so much fuss that eventually security threatened to throw me out. After a while a nurse came and told me I could see Amy.
‘How is she?’ I asked, desperate for anything.
The nurse mumbled something and scuttled off. In my fertile imagination I convinced myself that she felt uncomfortable telling me just how bad Amy was.
I didn’t know what to expect and was shaking when I walked into the room. Amy was in bed, asleep, with an oxygen mask over her face. She was hooked up to about a hundred tubes and there was a machine monitoring her heart. The doctor was there; he told me he’d have a better idea of her condition when they got the blood-test results. I couldn’t get anything else out of him. His bleeper went and he was gone and I was left alone with Amy.
So what had happened? Another seizure? Had she overdosed? I had no idea, but she was alive and I prayed that she was going to be okay.
I picked up her hand. What had happened to my little girl? She’d been doing so well and now this. I felt faint. I let go of her hand and poured myself a cup of water from the jug next to her bed. My hands were shaking so much that, by the time the cup reached my lips, most of the water had spilled down my shirt.
I sat down hard on a chair next to the bed and put my head in my hands, not knowing what more I could do to help Amy if she survived; and what I would do, God forbid, if she didn’t.
My head was pounding and I stood on wobbly legs, took deep breaths and gave myself a good talking-to. I poured another cup of water and sat down. It was now ten forty-five and I was preparing for a long vigil.
I was dog-tired and, as hard as I tried to stay awake, I dozed off. A clap of thunder woke me just before midnight. The lightning lit up the whole room as rain pounded the windows, but Amy slept on. What with the thunder and lightning, and the shadows bouncing off the walls, I felt like I was in a Hammer Horror film.
Eventually the rain stopped and I pulled myself together. I needed to go to the lavatory but I didn’t want to leave Amy, so I crossed my legs and slumped back in the chair.
At about half past midnight Amy woke up. She lifted her head from the pillow, looked around her, pulled off the oxygen mask and simply said, ‘I’m starving, Dad. Fancy a KFC?’ She looked at me a bit strangely and said, ‘Dad? Why are you crying?’
I was in floods of tears.
When I’d gathered myself back together I told her what had happened. She had no recollection of any of it. I asked her if she had taken any drugs, but she didn’t want to talk about it and I couldn’t press the issue. Then she thought for a moment, and said she remembered asking someone for headache pills; she couldn’t remember if she’d taken them or not.
Apparently there had been people in and out of the house all day. ‘Perhaps somebody slipped me something, Dad,’ she suggested. Either on purpose or by mistake, I thought. The last thing she remembered was listening to music in her room.
I thought about asking the doctor if Amy could have something to eat but as the answer would probably be no I decided not to bother.
There was a twenty-four-hour KFC just up the road from University College Hospital and that was where I went. There were loads of paps outside the hospital, and on my way back in one asked how serious Amy’s condition was. I held up a bag of KFC and said, ‘That’s how serious it is.’
We both loved KFC, so I’d bought buckets of it, and by one fifteen Amy and I were tucking in. She seemed fine and was remembering more of what had happened. Someone had given her some temazepam, a sedative used to relieve anxiety. We found out later that Amy had had an adverse reaction to it, which had caused a fit. After we’d eaten, Amy said she felt fine and wanted to go home. I told her I’d ask, and I did, although I knew what the answer would be: the hospital wanted to keep her in for observation.
15
CLASS-A MUG STILL TAKING DRUGS
The next day the news was out that Amy had been taken to hospital, and I got a lot of calls and messages from well-wishers. Amy was in good spirits and Andrew took her home around lunchtime, where Jevan looked after her until I arrived to take her for a five o’clock appointment with Dr Tovey. She kept messing around and wouldn’t get ready, and I was getting annoyed. I didn’t want to shout at her after what she had been through the night before, but I was already having problems with Amy’s doctors, so I didn’t want her to miss the appointment. The doctors kept contradicting each other. One would say that Amy must be treated in a clinic, and another would say it was best for her to be treated at home. I didn’t know who to believe. To add to the problems, Amy didn’t like most of her doctors so I was contemplating starting again with a new set. I had faith in them, but it was imperative Amy did too. As Dr Tovey was prescribing the Subutex, I decided that, for now, I would go with his advice. In the end he agreed to come to the house, where he examined Amy and prescribed her more Subutex.
A couple of days later Amy was meant to see Dr Tovey again, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the house. She knew she only had three more days’ supply of Subutex so at some point she would have to go and see him. Of course, I could have asked him to come to the house again, but I didn’t want to make it too easy for Amy. I thought it was important for her to be proactive in her recovery. I’d observed that she felt vulnerable on the street, where paps and temptations lurked, but I didn’t think she should hide away at home.
During the first week of August Janis had a minor car accident and was hospitalized at Barnet General Hospital, north London. Thankfully, it wasn’t too serious, but Amy, Alex and I all went to visit her – I was encouraged that Amy was able to leave the house for this. It seemed that almost every day something bad was happening to my family, and it was taking its toll on my health. I was anxious, I was short with people, and poor Jane bore the brunt of everything. I needed a break but I was scared to go away, fearing that something terrible would happen if I wasn’t there. That feeling stayed with me for the next three years and in the end, sure enough, I was right.
Later that week Amy missed her appointment to visit Blake in prison because she couldn’t get up. She was very agitated and angry with herself, until Jevan administered the last of the Subutex. Then she calmed down quickly and we ended up having a nice afternoon together, looking online at potential properties for her to rent in the country. Leaving the house was a real problem. She had wanted to play at the upcoming V Festival gigs in Leeds, and at Chelmsford the following week, and I knew she needed to prepare herself, but she couldn’t even face the idea of a walk. I made a mental note to put Raye on standby to cancel her appearances, and started to wonder if Amy’s staying in was a sign of something deeper.
A couple of days later Amy was due to visit Blake again – he’d been moved now to Edmunds Hill Prison in Suffolk, about sixty-five miles and an hour and a half’s drive from London – but she had been up the previous night until two and again couldn’t get up in the morning. She and Andrew were late leaving, and about halfway there they realized they weren’t going to arrive in time, so they turned around and drove home.
Jevan called later that day: a drug-dealer was hanging about outside the house. I called the security guy and told him not to let the man in. By the time I arrived the drug-dealer was nowhere to be seen and Jevan had gone home for the day. Amy was alone, deserted by her ‘friends’ now that she wasn’t doing drugs. She was lonely and wanted to go out, but couldn’t persuade herself to leave the house. It was heartbreaking to see her like that. She’d always been such a strong character, always at the centre of every gathering, and now she was quiet and on her
