‘He won’t, Dad. He doesn’t want people to think he’s a sponger.’
Unlike Blake, I thought, but didn’t say.
‘But I don’t care, Dad,’ she carried on, ‘because he’s not, you know that.’
‘I do. We all like Reg. He’s a great bloke. You’ve got to keep at it with him, and you’ll get there, darling,’ I said.
On a more positive note, Amy hadn’t been drinking, although I worried that, with Reg still away, she might start again. She didn’t – well, not that day.
Looking back, 6 March seemed like another turning-point for Amy. Riva called me from Camden Square to say that Amy was drunk and self-harming. Jane and I immediately drove to the house. When we arrived Amy wasn’t very drunk, but she had cut herself. She said it was a delayed reaction to not seeing Reg and a response to something that had happened with Blake. My heart sank, but as soon as I’d heard she’d cut herself, I’d known his name would crop up. A week or so earlier he had been arrested by Leeds Police and charged with burglary and possessing a firearm. Amy was convinced it was related to drugs.
Riva talked about trying to get Amy sectioned, but I told her that we had to let this play itself out. We had been unable to get Amy sectioned when she had been a thousand times worse than she was now, so I knew it would be a non-starter. I stayed with Amy for the rest of the day and when she’d sobered up we had a long talk.
She told me some of what had happened the previous night, but it wasn’t what I’d expected. ‘When I was in the pub toilets, some girl came up to me,’ she said. ‘She asked me if I’d come and say hello to her friend who was a big fan and that. I went to the table and sat down and she was in a wheelchair. I talked with her for a while, and I asked her to be honest. Was she finding it tough to get by? I knew she was so I ended up giving her all the money I had on me. It was nearly a hundred pounds. She didn’t want to take it but I told her she’d got to. I insisted. That left me with nothing to pay my bar bill.’
‘That’s a lovely story, Amy, and it was very kind of you,’ I said. ‘D’you remember when you met that disabled kid in Nice airport?’
‘Nice?’ She looked puzzled. ‘Oh, yeah, the mum said she was scared to come over in case I hit her. Ha ha ha. I was doing that then, wasn’t I?’
‘You weren’t doing too well then, no, but the mum got in touch with me after and said you were great with her daughter. You spent an hour talking with her and she was thrilled. You’re a good girl, Amy.’
She sighed. ‘Dad, seeing that girl last night made me realize how lucky I am. I really, really am fed up with all this,’ she added. ‘I’ve decided I’m done with drinking and I mean it this time.’
I took it with a pinch of salt – I’d heard it so many times before, first with drugs and then with alcohol – but I can’t deny that part of me still clung to the hope that this might be the start of the final stretch in Amy’s recovery.
For the next few days she stayed away from drink, and when Raye came over to see her she still hadn’t had any. She had an important decision to make: Tony Bennett had arranged to sing with her on his second album of duets, and Amy was due to choose the song that morning. Tony had given Raye five or six for her to pick from. Amy chose ‘Body And Soul’, her reason being, ‘My dad loves it.’
I was very flattered. ‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘Do you know the words?’
‘Of course I know the words, Dad.’ She laughed. ‘I’m your daughter. You’ve been singing “Body And Soul” to me for twenty-seven years.’
That was true. I’d belted it out in the car when I’d picked her up from school loads of times.
I was pleased when Amy told me her non-drinking was continuing and we spoke about her flat in Jeffrey’s Place. Naomi had lived there for a while, but now that she was with Amy, it was empty. It had fallen into disrepair and looked dilapidated. Jane and I were still living in Kent, and Amy said that, during her recovery, she would be happier if we lived closer to her. She suggested that we get the flat fixed up and that Jane and I could stay there, for at least part of the week. I thought that was a great idea, and when I ran it past Jane, so did she.
April began badly. Amy’s drinking lasted just a day, but it was enough to depress me. She seemed to recover fairly quickly, but she was angry with herself. She told me that things were getting better with Reg, but she still didn’t see him as much as she’d like to. Reg’s work ethic meant that when he was working on a project he totally threw himself into it, often losing track of time. One evening he’d told Amy that he was going to pick her up at ten to go out for dinner. Amy was dressed and waiting, at what she said was ten (but, knowing her, was probably more like eleven), when Reg phoned to say he was still working and was going to be about an hour late. According to Amy, he didn’t arrive until two.
‘You need to try and understand how Reg is with his work,’ I told Amy.
‘I know, Dad,’ she replied. ‘I’ll give it a go.’
The next morning Amy called to say she wasn’t feeling well. Dr Romete was with her, recommending that she be admitted to the London Clinic as her detox might be causing her to feel ill. I went there about an hour later. Amy wasn’t too bad that day, and I stayed with her, chatting, until eleven thirty p.m. The next day she was tetchy as alcohol withdrawal had really kicked in. I was learning these were temporary mood swings, and by 11 April it seemed that she had won the battle. She was well enough to leave the London Clinic for a short time and went to her gym at the Camden Square house. On doctor’s orders, she was back at the hospital by eight thirty that evening. The next day Amy told me she couldn’t stay in the London Clinic for ever and checked out. I agreed with her and drove her home.
I went to Camden Square on 15 April where Chris, a fairly new member of the security team, told me that Amy had woken up at four a.m. and drunk a bottle of wine. She’d woken again at eight and drunk another. When I arrived at ten thirty she was totally out of it and at midday she was still asleep. When I went back again at seven she was awake and acted as if nothing had happened. This led to a big argument and I left feeling frustrated and angry.
The next day was worse. I arrived at Camden Square mid-morning and found Amy collapsed on the kitchen floor. I got her upstairs and into bed. She was ready to go out and get more booze, but she couldn’t even stand up. She did lots of shouting and swearing, and I was just as bad. I didn’t know what to do: Amy was determined to get more drink, but in that state, God knows what might have happened to her if she’d got out. Fortunately it wasn’t long before she fell asleep, and she remained asleep until the following morning. I told Chris that, in future, if he could do it without Amy seeing, he should water down her drinks. It seemed an unlikely trick to work, but anything that might make her drink less must help.
The next morning when I arrived at Camden Square, Amy was sitting in the garden sipping a latte. Considering the amount of alcohol she had consumed, she looked remarkably well. Neither of us brought up her behaviour of the previous day – I didn’t have the energy for another argument – so we had an unusually awkward conversation, both dancing round the subject.
‘Did I tell you? Me and Jane are going to Tenerife again next month,’ I said to her.
‘Oh, that’s good, Dad,’ she replied. ‘Oh, yeah, Anthony’s had to call the air-con people. It’s on the blink again. Must be nice in the cab when it’s warm like this with the air-con.’
‘Oh, it is. I’m taking the cab in for a service on Friday.’
I got up and walked to the end of the garden and looked back at the house, jingling the change in my pocket. It was fabulous. Everything Amy had had done made it very special, the first proper grown-up house she’d owned. I called to her, ‘The place looks great from here, doesn’t it? A real home for you.’
‘Yeah, I know, Dad. I love it so much, I can’t see me ever moving out.’
It was time for me to go. As I was leaving, Amy stopped me. ‘Dad, sorry about yesterday.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It’s just part of getting better.’
‘Aaaah, thanks, Dad,’ she said. She got up and ran over to give me a big hug, in the inimitable Amy fashion.
On 21 April Amy told me again that she was through with drinking. I’d heard it all before, and was fully prepared that, after two or three days, she’d start again, but at least she was still acknowledging she had a problem: six months or a year previously she wouldn’t accept it and insisted she could stop whenever she wanted to. So, in reality, Amy’s statement didn’t mean she was going to stop drinking: it meant that she was beginning another period of abstinence, which, every time, I hoped would last longer than it had previously.
Over the next few weeks Amy did really well. Dr Romete was seeing her regularly, and kept telling me how
