Amy, My Daughter (24 page)

It was only later that Amy told me the full story of how she had met film director Reg Traviss. His parents ran a pub on Devonshire Street, near Bryanston Square, and Reg had been sitting outside it one afternoon, having a cigarette, when Amy and Andrew passed him. Amy cast Reg a look and walked on; Reg knew who she was but didn't return her look as, he told me later, he didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. Amy glanced over her shoulder for a second look at Reg, then went on up Devonshire Street.

About fifteen minutes later Reg was in the pub with some friends when Amy and Andrew walked in. Reg didn't know it at the time, but Amy had been visiting the pub quite regularly over the past few months and had also been working out at the same gym as Reg's mother and brother. She went over to talk to Reg's brother. Reg walked casually up to the bar and Amy, bold as brass, came up to him and said, ‘I like your shoes.' They were retro tan loafers, which Amy would have been into, but I think now that he could have been wearing football boots and she'd have gone over to start a conversation.

Over the following weeks, Amy went to the pub several times and chatted with Reg. It was a convenient place for them to meet, as they both lived within walking distance, and it's not one of those pubs with loud music where everyone's getting drunk. It's a nice, quiet, traditional pub where you're as likely to see customers drinking coffee and eating a sandwich as you are to see them with a pint of beer.

One day Reg wasn't there so Amy left her number with a note for him to call her, which he did. Reg couldn't be more different from Blake. He's a film director but, with his immaculate greased-back hair and stylish retro clothes, he looks like a 1950s American movie star. Amy thought he had the look of my father Alec and his brothers; perhaps that was the initial attraction.

The night before her first date with Reg I saw Amy – she looked great and was very excited to be going out with him. Initially I was careful not to read too much into it. Of course I was desperate for her to move on from Blake, but I didn't want to blow anything out of proportion. Blake hadn't stopped calling her all the time, but she had told him that they should see other people as their relationship was over. Not only was Amy going on a first date with a new guy, she was seeing Blake off.

Amy's first date with Reg had gone well and they planned to see each other again, but when Amy had got home that night Blake called her and they had a row. I couldn't have wished for a better reaction from Amy. Blake had told her he was taking heroin intravenously, but instead of getting drawn into it, she had told him that, though she felt very sorry for him, she wouldn't consider reconciliation. I felt relieved and proud that she was staying so strong.

I can't say that Reg was the sole reason why Amy was able to dismiss Blake, but I think he had a lot to do with it. When I first met Reg a few weeks after he and Amy had started going out, I could see why she liked him. He was everything Blake wasn't, and his warm, quiet and polite manner was appealing. He also seemed to have a fair grasp on how to deal with things relating to Blake. Reg understood that Amy would need to talk about him and was happy for her to do so. Things weren't going well for Blake so he was bugging Amy; he was living in Sheffield, but whenever he needed help, whether it was money or a shoulder to cry on, he called Amy. Reg was tremendously supportive and patient with this.

On one occasion Blake wanted to come to London to meet Amy. She was unsure whether she should see him or not, and when she asked Reg for his advice, he suggested that she meet Blake to put the whole thing to rest. Amy asked Reg to go with her, and while he didn't really want to, he said he would. He thought the meeting might be easier if he wasn't there and was concerned that Blake and Amy might feel inhibited in saying what they needed to say in front of him. After several discussions, Amy told Reg that Blake wanted to meet him. Ultimately, it didn't matter. When Amy and Reg went to the meeting, Blake didn't show up.

In the end, Reg helped to put Blake out of Amy's mind once and for all. Being with Reg changed her whole perspective on Blake. As she told me, she'd finally realized just how immature he was. She thought he saw her more as his mother than his ex-wife. Even so, the time had come for her to cut herself loose from him. She changed her phone number and the contact petered out. The last time they spoke Blake asked Amy to send him a postal order for two hundred pounds. Reg suggested she agreed only on the understanding that she never heard from him again and, as far as Reg and I know, she never did.

I'd spent so much time and energy worrying about Blake and his influence on Amy. I'd blamed him for her drug problems. I'd been looking forward to this moment for so long and it had finally arrived. Strangely I felt nothing, perhaps because I had her drinking to worry about – and, unlike her drug addiction, there was no one I could blame for that.

There's no question that Reg was a stabilizing influence in Amy's life, and I know they talked about getting married. I also know that if Amy had become pregnant, and Reg told me she'd thought she was on two occasions, they would have got married straight away – it might have saved her life.

 

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With Blake out of the picture, and Reg in Amy's life, it felt like we had turned another corner in her recovery. Amy looked much stronger in herself and she was determined to get better, but she was still drinking heavily. In many ways I felt she was moving beyond help.

On 11 May Amy was meant to meet Lucian Grainge at Universal to discuss progress on her recordings and how close they might be to a new album, but she was too drunk to go. By the middle of May she was back in the London Clinic. When she got there she had been vomiting all day, and Dr Glynne called me to say that he was shocked by Amy's appearance. She claimed she had a virus and that was why she'd been vomiting, but I told her, quite simply, that I didn't believe her and knew it was drink related. We argued.

‘I've lost patience with you,' I told Amy. ‘When you were high on drugs I couldn't tell you anything because you wouldn't have heard me, you wouldn't have listened, but you can bloody well hear me now. I am sick and tired of the same thing every day. Will you be drunk or won't you? You need to stop lying to yourself and everyone around you. You need to listen to your doctors.' And I left.

Amy called me later to apologize and, as she was sober, we had a reasonable discussion about her drinking. But by now I thought that talking was a waste of time: she was beyond the point at which she could help herself, and I just didn't know what to do next.

Amy stayed at the London Clinic for a week. During that time she didn't drink and she didn't leave the hospital. But the next week, back at home, she seemed out of control again: some days she was drunk and other days she was sober. It was impossible to know which Amy I would find when I rang. Reg's presence moderated her drinking, but when he wasn't with her she drank a lot more. Added to which, alcoholics are crafty about their drinking, I'd learned, and if they want you to think they're not drinking, or drinking less than they are, they'll find a way. Amy continued to drink every day until 10 June, when she was once again admitted to the London Clinic.

‘Did they stamp your loyalty card?' I asked. I was so fed up I had to make a sarcastic remark, but in truth I was angry.

I kept thinking she'd reached rock bottom, but time and again she proved me wrong. This was different from when she'd been taking class-A drugs. Drugs were illegal, expensive and required privacy. Alcohol was freely available, and she could drink wherever and whenever she liked, mostly without public criticism. As a consequence, her lack of inhibition about drinking was yet another problem – it was moving beyond serious, and if she carried on, her illness might end up killing us both.

For ten days after she'd left the Clinic, Amy remained dry, but I felt a lapse was probably around the corner.

On 20 June, I played a gig at Pizza on the Park, one of London's top jazz venues. I had the honour of being the last act ever to perform on the stage there because, sadly, after thirty years the place closed. The venue was packed for my performance. A lot of my friends and family were there that night, including Amy with Reg. Amy looked fabulous and, at the end of the night, joined me for three duets, much to the delight of the audience. It was a wonderful evening that went down a storm and, to top it off, Amy remained sober throughout.

On 1 July, Amy, Jane, Reg and I went to see Tony Bennett perform at the Royal Albert Hall in Knightsbridge. He was absolutely fantastic. We went backstage after the show to congratulate him and all agreed that he was not only a superb performer but also a lovely guy.

The next night Amy and I went to see Tony Bennett again, this time at the Roundhouse in Camden Town. The previous evening, I had told him that Amy and I were going to his second show and he asked us to have dinner with him afterwards. I was really looking forward to it. He was due on stage at eight forty-five so I went to pick Amy up from Bryanston Square at seven to ensure that we wouldn't be late – I knew my daughter when it came to getting ready. Amy said she still wasn't drinking, but after she took her medication her whole persona seemed to change: she just kept messing about and wouldn't get ready. I was going mad at her and we ended up not leaving the flat until nine fifteen – by which time I suspect she had had a drink.

When we arrived Tony Bennett was already onstage singing, and as we walked in everyone was turning round to look at Amy. As if that wasn't bad enough, while we were walking to our seats, Amy started clapping and wolf-whistling. ‘Be quiet, Amy,' I told her. It was very embarrassing.

Finally we sat down, but Amy continued to be disruptive: she was standing up in the middle of the songs, and clapping or whistling at inappropriate moments. ‘If you don't sit down and keep quiet, I'm going to leave,' I told her. But she wouldn't, so I left.

‘You're just trying to spoil my fun,' Amy shouted after me, drawing yet more attention to herself.

After the show Amy went backstage again and Tony Bennett asked her where I was. She told him the truth: we'd had an argument and I had left. I'm not sure she told him what it was about, though. I was so angry with Amy that night: I knew it was the drink that made her behave that way, but while it wouldn't have mattered as much in a loud club, it had been neither appropriate nor acceptable that evening.

About a week later Amy called me with a lovely surprise. She'd had a session with her band at a rehearsal room, the first for some time. ‘Listen to this, Dad. I've written some songs and we bashed something out today.'

She played bits of a couple of songs down the phone to me on the MP3 player she'd used to record them. I couldn't make much out, apart from an upbeat reggae sound. I told her they sounded great, as I knew how much my approval meant to her at that time. It wasn't clear to me why my opinion mattered so much then, when it didn't at other times, I just tried to fulfil her need. She went on to tell me she had had a few drinks the previous night but had not got drunk and had had no alcohol at all that day.

‘You're doing great, Amy. Well done.' I said.

‘Yeah, thanks, Dad,' she replied.

 

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At the beginning of August, Amy's drinking was still a big problem but I needed a break. With Reg on the scene, and Amy channelling her obsessive nature into their relationship, I felt I could now devote some time to my lovely wife and to looking after myself a bit. Jane and I went on holiday to Spain.

While I was away I heard lots of stories about Amy's drunken behaviour; the press were having a field day. On 3 August a journalist contacted Raye to say he'd seen Amy drunk in Soho at ten in the morning. The next day I got a call to say Amy had run away from a cab drunk and not paid her fare. Two days later there was a report in the
Sun
that Amy had insulted the King of the Zulus, with photos of her falling asleep in Reg's lap in the middle of a speech he had made to open a Zulu restaurant.

While Jane and I were in Spain I became very ill. When we arrived back I was taken straight to hospital. I had developed Septicaemia and felt terrible. I had an MRI scan, which revealed I needed to have my gall bladder removed; the scan also showed that I had Mirizzi syndrome, a rare complication that meant it couldn't be dealt with using keyhole surgery and that I would have to have a full-blown operation, but this couldn't happen until the Septicaemia had been dealt with. Throughout my nine days in hospital, Amy and Alex came to see me every day; they were there from first thing in the morning to late in the evening. I don't know if it was my being ill, or Reg's talk with her after her behaviour at the Zulu restaurant, but Amy had been sober for nearly two weeks, which cheered me up immensely.

The following week, she was drinking again. Alex and his girlfriend Riva had recently got engaged and were having a party at the end of August to celebrate; I hoped I'd be well enough to attend, and put off my operation until after the event, but I was worried how Amy might be at the party. I spoke to her about it and she promised me that she would stop drinking four days beforehand and not drink at the party. She really wanted to be there. I told her I didn't believe she could do it.

On the day of the engagement party, Amy agreed to meet me so I could assess the state of her sobriety. She knew that if I detected she had been drinking, I wouldn't let her go. I saw her in the afternoon and she hadn't had a drink, so I told her she could be there.

When she arrived, she was a little tipsy; she wasn't drunk, but she'd definitely had something to drink. She told me she'd had to have a drink to stave off alcohol withdrawal, but she wouldn't have anything at the party. She was as good as her word, but when she got up to sing, she wasn't very good, and I heard people muttering that she was drunk. I was too weak from my time in hospital to respond as I normally would, but I was disappointed with her behaviour.