Saving Amy (18 page)

This is the first time that Erbil has met Amy in person and she is the consummate professional, very down-to-earth and very respectful of these people. When they leave, Erbil stays where he is and the door closes again. Minutes later, Amy appears again, this time dressed in a red jacket, clutching a couple of cigarettes. She walks past him to the end of the hallway where she disappears. Through the half-open door, Erbil can see Janis, sitting in the room; she looks worried. She tells Erbil that Amy hasn’t said anything to her and obviously doesn’t want to spend time with her as she has walked out of the room, leaving her mother behind.

Erbil says, ‘She’s the patient … And she’s not going anywhere. Just getting … some air. Don’t worry! She will be back soon. Just sit down and relax. You are her mother. You are here to invite her to the event. Show her the dress you plan to wear and ask her opinion.… See if she wants to join us. And then we’ll go. In the meantime, just be patient. Let her be herself. She has just woken up from a long, deep sleep.’

Janis calms down and Erbil now has the time to take in the room. It is depressing, like most hospital rooms, and is small. Although it is obviously a private room, it hasn’t got any windows. It is like a box and Erbil wonders how long Amy will agree to stay there.

Now Amy has left her room, Beatrice reappears, obviously pleased that her dirty work of waking up Amy has been done by someone else. Erbil is puzzled, however, as Beatrice brings in about half a dozen medium-sized shopping bags, containing food and bottles of drink, which she places next to the bathroom door. Amy doesn’t eat that much, so who is all this for? And what else do the bags contain?

Amy doesn’t seem to be that protected if anyone, family or strangers, can arrive unannounced and get into her room. Janis wasn’t expected and Erbil could be anyone – a drug dealer even – as far as anyone knows. Amy is meant to be under surveillance 24–7 from what we all understand.

Suddenly Amy reappears, passing the nursing station, where she stops to talk to them briefly. She sees Erbil and gives him a polite but warm smile, as she speeds towards her waiting mother. Minutes later, Janis leaves the room, her expression blank. Erbil thinks that Janis must have told Amy about the party and asks her what her daughter’s response is. Much to his surprise, Janis says that they haven’t really discussed anything. Erbil asks Janis outright if she’s invited Amy to the party and had a mother-daughter talk. Janis looks so dejected that Erbil leads her back to Amy’s door. This time, he tells Janis to go in and tell Amy exactly why they are here and to show her the dress.

‘Just spend some time with your daughter’, he tells Janis. She cannot leave now. Erbil assures her that Amy will be happy to hear about the party and to see her choice of dress. She will want to hear all the details of the evening and share in her mother’s excitement.

Janis goes back into her daughter’s room and – at last – shows Amy the dress and tells her about the party. They start to have a proper conversation and about 10 minutes later Erbil is invited into the room. Amy is shy but polite. She doesn’t speak much but seems happy to see Erbil, who reiterates my invitation. He tells Amy that I wouldn’t mind a ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ outing either. Amy is obviously surprised and she says, ‘Tell Daphne, let’s have a Kentucky Fried Chicken soon. Tell Daphne to come here.’

It may seem odd that Erbil mentioned ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ during his first conversation with Amy, but he knew what he was doing when he said it. Erbil was referring to something that Mitch had already told us. When Mitch comes to see her, Amy always says, ‘Daddy. Let’s go have a KFC!’ or ‘Daddy, bring some KFC!’ And this is her way of breaking the ice between them, so Erbil turns this round on her.

Erbil replies, ‘Daphne would love to have a Kentucky Fried Chicken with you! I promise to introduce you to Daphne!’ Amy gives him a cheerful smile and agrees.

There is one thing that strikes me quite strongly about Janis’s visit to the hospital. Here is Amy’s mother, visiting her sick, only daughter, something that she isn’t able to do every day – and she hasn’t brought her anything. I am not talking about bringing a gift for a stranger, but a present for her own daughter, something that she knows Amy might be missing – some food that she’s cooked for her or a special cream that Amy uses. Similarly, if Amy is suddenly able to
come to the party, what will she wear? Janis hasn’t brought her a dress or heels. Amy has these white heels, so high you would need to be an acrobat to walk in them, and even I know they are her favourite shoes, but Janis hasn’t brought them with her.

I have absolutely no doubt that Janis loves Amy, but it doesn’t occur to her to do these things for her daughter. Perhaps because Janis is so alone and so grateful for any attention given to her, something she makes clear when we pay her compliments or make her feel special in any way, she fails to see that Amy also craves that same attention and love. Or perhaps she is just scared of being rejected by her daughter.

Supported by Erbil, Janis leaves the hospital happy. She has achieved her mission and has delivered the invitation to the party to Amy and when she leaves her daughter, Amy is smiling. Janis comes to my hotel nearby, where she goes through hair and make-up in my suite. When she shows up at the party, everybody is buzzing about her appearance.
‘Look how beautiful Janis is!’

Janis talks to Amy’s assistant, Chivan, and then to a bodyguard.
Now,
she has the courage to ask them to make sure that Amy ‘really knows she is invited – and welcome’. I leave Janis with my team, and a new confidence.

Amy’s mother, who looks so much like Amy, clings onto me while an impatient Mitch makes a speech to family and friends about filming
Saving Amy.
His pretty wife, Jane, is hugging him as he explains about the documentary. He
flatters me, telling the audience how I have interviewed Nelson Mandela and Prince Charles and played host to Hillary Clinton in my home. He thanks Erbil, Bitu and also my brother, who helped design a website for Mitch. He says,
‘Our family has been facing this very painful experience …’.

At that moment I push Janis forward towards Mitch, saying to her ‘
It is your daughter’.
I say this in a very friendly manner as she is an essential part of this as well, but Mitch doesn’t have the brains to include her. Janis takes the microphone and speaks from the heart just as Mitch does. It is an extremely moving scene – a family pulling together for their child – and everyone is applauding because Mitch, Janis, his ex-wife, and Jane, his second wife, hug each other, united as they pray for Amy’s recovery and for other families to avoid what they are going through. Only Amy is missing.

Mitch carries on speaking, this time about his wife and ex-wife who stand next to him:
‘Okay these women are just fantastic. They are strong women, Janis and Jane. I love them both. Only Jane just a little bit more…’

It is an awkward moment and everyone looks uncomfortable. Poor Jane is standing there all lovely and smiling, trying to support her man and be nice to Janis, but while Mitch and Janis talk, she says nothing. She quite often says nothing.

Then Mitch starts singing Sinatra. He has a good, powerful and full voice. It is very clear where Amy gets her voice and passion for music from. He is entertaining and it’s no surprise that he has a record deal now.

While Mitch is singing songs including ‘Strangers in the Night’ and ‘New York, New York’ and his family and
friends are dancing, Erbil is busy talking to Amy’s people at the hospital. On the one hand, it is clear that Mitch doesn’t really want his daughter to be at the party and embarrass him on his Big Day. On the other hand, and I feel Janis and the others agree with me, it is only fair that Amy is invited, and is not made to feel a lesser being because of her addictions. If she feels up to coming, she should do so. So, while I am hosting Mitch, Janis, Alex and his lovely girlfriend, and family and friends, Erbil and Amy’s people are debating whether she should attend.

The final decision is that she is not well enough. I think,
‘Let it be. This is what Mitch wants, anyhow
…’

I ask Jane and Melody, Mitch’s sister, to serve him the huge birthday cake that has been prepared. I call out to him,
‘Mitch, make a wish!’

Before blowing the candle, a tearful Mitch says:
‘Well, everyone here knows what my only one wish is …’
Of course, he is talking about Amy getting better.

A few minutes later when we are having photos taken and are being entertained by Mitch’s musician friends, I spot him sitting by himself. He is a very lonely figure.

As I join him, I ask him if everything is OK.

When he sees me, he tries to perk up, saying, ‘Oh Daphne! Great party. My family and friends love it. I am
so
grateful.’

Then he adds quietly, ‘… But I
miss
my daughter.
I wish she could be here.’

The morning after the party, Mitch and Jane, who have slept over at my hotel as usual, are having coffee with us. Mitch tells me that the doctors have called him as Amy wants to leave the hospital! Of course, Mitch needs to blame someone and he says,
‘It’s because Erbil and Janis visited Amy’.
I had told him about their visit earlier in the evening, when I explained to him that we had invited Amy but she wasn’t well enough to attend the party.

Mitch says ‘Daphne if
she
came to the party, it would be embarrassing for me.’ I look at him disapprovingly, so he quickly adds, ‘And – she [wouldn’t] have anything to wear.’ I am slightly confused by Mitch’s attitude. Hasn’t he just gathered his family and close friends to tell them all about our
Saving Amy
project? And he also talks of how he wants to help, ‘at least one family …’. Mitch doesn’t mind discussing Amy’s problems publicly but even amongst his own family, he is apparently now ‘embarrassed’ by her?

Jane also surprises me by having strong opinions about Amy attending. I feel sorry for Janis, as she is Amy’s mother and it isn’t really Jane’s business. But Jane has had a tough few weeks, having to deal with being made redundant, although she has now found a new job. While Mitch is at the hospital much of the time with his daughter, Jane has had to cope with the loss of her job largely by herself.

During that time, when Mitch says, ‘I have to go to Amy’s hospital’, I hear Jane exclaim on at least five or six occasions, ‘Oh, no!’

This is not because Jane dislikes Amy, but rather that she isn’t always able to deal with the constant battle for Mitch’s attention, not just with Amy but with Janis as well. She wants a normal family life with Mitch.

Amy’s trip to St Lucia in December is born of this dilemma. Amy doesn’t want to stay in hospital anymore and has confronted the doctors about discharging herself. They can’t force Amy to stay in the hospital because she isn’t sick – at least, not physically.

There is also the question of where she will go. Janis is scheduled to go to Miami for medical treatment for her MS and Mitch and Jane are meant to be going to the Canary Islands for a much-needed break. Mitch has also been looking for a new house for his daughter. He and Janis don’t want Amy to go back to her old home, just in case Blake is released from prison and goes back there – but that house isn’t ready yet.

I look at Mitch and voice what I think is a natural solution to their problem, that he and Jane postpone their trip until January, after Amy is installed in her new home.

‘What is the big deal?’ I say. ‘It is not as if you have a 9 to 5 job, right? Your job is to save Amy.’

Mitch immediately pipes up, ‘No. No. I can’t. Jane will divorce me. We have already promised friends. We
have
to go.’

At that point it isn’t even about Jane’s schedule at work because she is about to be made redundant. It’s about Jane – and Mitch’s promise to her that they will go.

‘Jane will divorce me. I promised Jane,’ he repeats.

Their marriage has a lot of problems and it is very easy to lay them all at Amy’s door, but Mitch is essentially torn between at least two women on a day-to-day basis – his second wife and Amy (three, if one includes Janis).