Saving Amy (21 page)

When she comes back, she peers at the green-coloured cocktail I am drinking and asks what’s in it.

‘You wouldn’t like it – it’s not sweet,’ I tell her.

She tries it anyway, but makes a face. Then asks, ‘Does
it have alcohol?’

When I admit that it does, she raises the glass again to her lips. Within seconds she has drained two-thirds of my drink. Mitch and I exchange glances. Has she swapped one addiction for another? Is she doing it to punish him? Herself? Why?

Then Amy starts to chat with me about her piercings. She tells me that the one on her mouth is not painful and can be removed. She opens her mouth wide to show Mitch and I both sides of the piercing. Then she shows us the piercing on her nose.

‘This one I did it myself …’. She sees my expression, and adds, ‘No it wasn’t that painful …’

Then she tells us that she didn’t have a problem removing the piercing from her nipple. ‘But the one I have here’ – she points to her vagina – ‘is harder to remove. But one day when I had sex with Blake – when we finished – I looked at the cushion and found the piercing lying there … It just got out.’

She continues to talk about Blake, who is currently suing for divorce and is also alleged to have got another woman pregnant. From the way she discusses him, in a dry, detached tone, I don’t get the impression that it is her one and only obsession to see him at that time. But my feeling is that she does not actually understand that a real divorce is happening back in England. On the other hand, Blake’s name is obviously not taboo. Not even in Mitch’s presence – Mitch, who has been pushing for the divorce – trying to save her.

Later Mitch confides to me that he is worried because Amy is such a lovely warm person that she speaks to everyone about everything and anything. This is a new problem for Mitch: ‘I am anxious [about] whom she is going to speak to, so my worries have changed slightly. Whereas six months ago my worries were different.’

‘Six months ago you thought she might be dead?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know about that – but she was certainly on the verge of being ill, so … the progress that she has made has been astonishing.’

‘You say she speaks to everybody openly. She doesn’t have the judgement, right? She is too open.’

‘Perhaps,’ Mitch says quietly.

‘It’s still a very bumpy road …,’ he says to me. ‘There have been many relapses [since around Christmas]. She didn’t [give up drugs] all of a sudden; she was talking about it for two or three months. Then she checked all the options and favoured going to substitute drugs.

‘Look, there will be more relapses,’ he continues. ‘But who would believe, six months ago, that we’d be at this stage? That she’d be walking, laughing, hosting dinner for you, singing? It’s amazing. My daughter seems happy.’

But is she happy, I wonder?

On the island, over the next few days, Mitch seems to continually waver between telling everyone how much
better Amy is doing – that she’s wonderful, especially now she is finally about to start recording – and then becoming more and more edgy about the forthcoming jazz festival and Amy’s condition.

He says, ‘Why did I agree to this? Maybe she should never perform … just record. … It is like it used to be. But instead of drugs, it is alcohol. She will never be better.’

On the night of my birthday, Amy hugs me as we make the short journey between our villas. She has pulled out all the stops, and has dressed up in high heels and a minuscule dress. So tiny that it has upset Mitch.

Amy holds onto me, complaining as we walk together: ‘My Dad thinks it is too short.’

‘But of course!’ I say to her, ‘All Dads are like that. They [do] not like their daughters to look … inviting.’

And I add that she should take it as a compliment because she looks so sexy. Amy loves this and suddenly what she has previously perceived as a rejection by Mitch is turned into something more positive.

As I start greeting friends, I overhear Amy telling someone, ‘
Daphne said I am sexy. She said I am sexy
!’

We open a bottle of champagne to toast my birthday. While everybody is waiting to be served, Amy drinks one glass – bottoms up – in one rapid swallow. She then looks
at me and, obviously recalling my tongue-in-cheek request of earlier that day, she starts to sing – imitating Monroe’s famous ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President …’.

For a few seconds, the shaky insecure Amy of moments earlier becomes so powerful, so strong. I am relieved that she still has such a fantastic voice and is such an obvious talent. We give her a standing ovation. Amy bows to me; then to her father and our friends.

Then she runs off to change the mini dress that her father has so disapproved of.

We are going to dinner at a restaurant named Big Chef as Amy wants to celebrate my birthday there.

When we arrive – without Amy – we are offered menus, but Mitch seems very reluctant to order. He seems uncomfortable, on edge and anxious about whether Amy will turn up, or not. I say, of course she will. He is so exhausted at this point that I add: ‘Let’s order. Let’s not wait for her.’

A bodyguard shows up, informing us that Amy is not coming. While Mitch’s face begins to show his anger at this news, Amy, giggling, shows up – this time in an even shorter dress, which is red with a pink zipper at the back. She comes and sits next to me, acting like a naughty little girl. She hugs me as I point to her dress and say in wonder, ‘Amy! … another Hervé Léger dress! I have many of his dresses and none of them is
that
short!’

Amy asks me to stand up and then – in the middle of the crowded restaurant – she starts undressing behind me,
showing me how she has folded the Léger bandage dress from a knee length outfit to sit just below what would make you blush. I tell her that knee length would make her look much sexier but she ignores my suggestion, complaining instead that she doesn’t have a new dress for her performance at the May jazz festival. ‘I mean all the dresses I have here are not good. I have worn them already,’ she says.

To appease her, I tell her not to worry: I have a couple of new Légers in my luggage and she can have one as a gift. They are very expensive, straight from Paris, and this seems to make Amy feel much better. But, as it turns out, this is only for a short while.

Less than half an hour later, Mitch is very upset once again. Amy has been rude to a guest – the female executive from Universal, it seems, who offered Amy food.

Our whole table is upside down as Mitch scowls at his daughter, who looks at him, upset, waiting for a sign of his obvious disapproval.

Amy finally walks away, looking like a little girl who is being punished by being sent to the corner. She comes over to me, hugging me as she starts to cry. ‘I need to go right now,’ she murmurs, in between tears. ‘My Daddy wants me to go.
I have been a bad girl.
I drank too much …’

She is obviously extremely upset and leans against me as she weeps. I try to calm her down, commenting that all of us do many things ‘too much’ at one time or another, like eating and drinking, and the mature thing is to deal with it and move on.

As Mitch passes by, I almost force Amy to face him. ‘Your father loves you very much!’ I add, as I urge her
towards him. She is sobbing. Mitch still looks very angry. Even when we go outside to take my birthday photographs, he is reluctant to hug his daughter or do anything that might signal his approval. She hugs me instead – tightly.

She needs to be loved and approved of. But as Mitch says to me later that night: ‘I
can’t
approve [of] her addiction and drinking. She should know that.’

And frankly – he has a point.

On the way out of the restaurant Amy, who has been clutching a deck of tarot cards the whole evening, stops me. She sits herself down at a table near the entrance and starts shuffling the cards.

Amy explains that her Nana Cynthia knew how to ‘do it’.

‘To read the future?’ I query.

‘Yes,’ Amy says. ‘Cynthia knew …’

‘I heard about your grandma Cynthia and how close you were,’ I comment.

‘Yes,’ Amy replies. ‘I miss Cynthia.’

Both Mitch and Janis have spoken at length about Cynthia and her influence on their daughter. I recall Mitch saying that Amy’s behaviour and attitude began to noticeably deteriorate after his mother’s death in 2006.