Touching From a Distance (15 page)

Ian was already downstairs. I followed him down and tried to attract his attention. I don’t know if he knew what was coming or if he had already decided to ignore me, but I played right into his hands and threw my handbag at him in temper. He blinked and carried on talking. Someone whispered to me that Ian had intended coming home with me that night, but had consequently changed his mind. The frustration was intolerable. I was desperate for any kind of communication. I was still too much in love to think about ending the marriage for myself. Tony was heard to tell Ian to ‘rise above it’.

I drove away from the club alone – by coincidence, in parallel with Tony’s car, now loaded up with various Certain Ratios and Ian. As we reached a roundabout the two cars parted and we were taken in different directions. Ian stayed with Tony Wilson for almost another week.

Natalie’s first birthday was on 16 April 1980 and I was saddened that Ian still hadn’t come home. My mum made a cake and we had a small party without him. I could hardly believe that he had forgotten his daughter’s birthday, but still did not confide in my parents. As far as they were concerned, Ian was working.

Understandably, towards the end of the week Lindsay began to feel depressed herself. Ian’s inanimate state was more than she could bear and she vented her feelings by screaming and shouting at Tony that Ian had not moved all week. Tony didn’t appreciate that Ian needed specialist help and took the view that Ian and Lindsay were both ‘nutters’ who were driving each other round the bend by being together in the house all day.

When Tony and Lindsay came back from a short trip to Stratford, Ian had left. He returned briefly the following Monday to pick up
some clothes that Lindsay had washed for him. She tried to impress upon him that he could stay, but he wouldn’t. He seemed unaware of all the people who were trying to help him. Rather than appreciate Lindsay’s attempt to provide the time and space for him to think, he came home and sulked because they had gone out for a day. He complained: ‘Tony left me with a pile of Hendrix LPs and some dope.’

Grateful for his return, I was afraid to try to discuss anything and to some extent he appeared more like his old self. We were still stony-broke, but he suggested that during this ‘calm’ period we go for another Chinese meal in Alderley Edge. This time we were able to talk. Ian complained about hangers-on and the difficulties of being on the road. I told him not to worry about me because I had already begun making a new life for myself. I told him I had made new friends and that I would be able to cope while he was away on tour. He wasn’t taken aback, but warned of the danger of letting people get too close. He said there were people who, once they had a hold of you, would not let go. I took this to mean Annik in particular, but talking to the band one gets the distinct impression that Ian was more susceptible to hangers-on than the rest of the lads.

The video for ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ was recorded on 25 April 1980. Anything to do with Ian’s personal life had been put on hold, yet there was always plenty of time to arrange recordings and gigs for the band. No matter how he felt inside, to the onlooker he had become a music-business puppet.

The one good thing to come out of Ian’s attempted suicide was that an appointment was made for him to see a psychiatrist at Parkside Hospital. Amazingly, when the day came for Ian’s visit to the psychiatrist, we went together. On the way there he told me how unhappy he was in the music business. He said that when ‘Transmission’ and
Unknown
Pleasures
had been released, he had achieved his ambitions. Now there was nothing else left for him to do. All he ever intended was to have one album and one single pressed. His aspirations had never extended to recording ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ or
Closer.
As I drove along, he told me how he wanted to leave Joy Division and join a circus. I comforted myself with the knowledge that we were on our
way to visit the psychiatrist and shrugged off the wider implications of having a husband who wanted to act out the cliché of ‘running away’. He had also told Steve Morris of his desire to leave, but Steve was under the impression that Ian wanted to live in Holland.

It felt strange going into the gates of Parkside Hospital. It seemed not to have changed in all the years since I had worked there as a schoolgirl – now here I was taking my own husband into the building. When we reached the hospital reception, Ian was embarrassed. He had misread his appointment card and turned up about two weeks early. His next visit would be very different.

As I had suspected, the suggestion that Joy Division would cut down on gigging for a while didn’t come to much. Throughout April and May 1980, they always seemed to be busy playing or rehearsing when I especially thought they should have been resting for the forthcoming American tour, so when Ian said he was going away for a break I wasn’t surprised. He said he’d chosen to stay in a small pub in Derby and I asked him if I could go with him. He explained gently that he needed time alone and I accepted this.

He’d only been gone for two days when I began to wonder. It struck me that, yet again, I had no way whatsoever of contacting him, so I rang Rob Gretton to see if he had left a telephone number. Rob seemed annoyed with me. ‘What is it with you two?’ he said. ‘Can’t you talk to each other?’ I was devastated. His exasperation had obviously got the better of him and he sounded so annoyed that I was hurt by the tone of his voice. All I really wanted was for someone to tell me what was happening. I hung up – the secret had festered long enough. Unable to stand the loneliness, I telephoned my parents. By the time Rob tried to ring me back, I had left the house.

In fact Rob was short tempered because Ian and Annik had been sitting in his and Lesley’s flat when I rang. They’d run out of money and landed themselves on his doorstep, asking him to solve their financial problems. Ian had suddenly gained an insight into how it felt to have no money at all. It still irritates me intensely that this fact had eluded Ian for so long.

The next morning my father rang Ian’s parents and told them what had been happening. They were astonished as they’d had no idea that we’d been having problems. Annik caught the train back to
London and the episode culminated in Ian’s parents, Rob and Lesley watching Ian pace up and down our living room in Barton Street. He refused to speak to anyone. I knew he would be angry with me because I had ‘told’ or ‘informed’ on him to our parents, as we had an unspoken agreement to keep it all a secret and sort it out between ourselves, like naughty children.

I took it for granted that once the secret was out I would lose him for ever, but it was different now. It was clear I would have to lose him in order to start living again, and deep down inside he must have wanted to lose me too. I suddenly felt angry with Annik. She had a sexy accent, a job at the Belgian embassy and seemingly enough time and money to follow Joy Division around Europe. I felt that as Ian’s wife and the mother of his child I deserved more status, but it hadn’t worked out like that. I had been well and truly ousted. In an attempt to redress the balance I rang her at the embassy and screamed at her that I was divorcing Ian and would be naming her as co-respondent. She falteringly replied that she would do whatever I wanted. Having worked at Macclesfield county court, I regarded being named as co-respondent terribly shameful.

It was difficult initiating the divorce, but once I had made the decision it felt wonderful. It seemed as though a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. For that short time, I honestly believed that Ian was not my problem any more. As far as I was concerned, I could leave Rob, Tony and Annik to try to sort out Ian’s life. I believed I had done him a favour by eliminating one of his biggest worries – me. If Ian didn’t have the guts to concede the end of our relationship, I did. I admitted to myself that I had made a hash of my life and began to make plans to wipe the slate clean and start again. I borrowed a dress from my sister, rang Jeff, told him what had happened and arranged a date for that very evening. At the age of twenty-three, for the first time in my life, a man called for me in his car and took me out for a drink. It felt fantastic. I was young and I began to feel wanted again. He treated me as a human being, a feeling person and provided the much needed shoulder to cry on. Not that we had a wonderful or romantic time, as I needed to talk and couldn’t help
discussing the previous events. He was there to listen.

One of the girls tried to persuade me to drop the divorce application. She told me I should hang on for a while as Joy Division were about to make a fortune and it would be more lucrative to divorce Ian when he was rich. I decided my pride was too valuable an asset.

Ian stayed with Bernard Sumner and his wife for a short time. To Sue Sumner he appeared quiet and depressed, but he did talk to Bernard a great deal. When Bernard commented on how fortunate it was that he had not gone through with his suicide bid, Ian said, ‘I didn’t go through with it because I heard that if you didn’t have enough tablets you get brain damage.’

Ian would stay up very late at night while he lived with Bernard and Sue, but that was something he had always liked to do. He suffered from dizzy spells and a rash, which may have been shingles. Talking was useless. He would agree with whatever anyone said and then fall into another depression.

Before Ian died, he returned to live with his parents for a while. Even before his illness, Ian had never been mentally equipped for living alone. He had lived with his parents up until our marriage and afterwards with friends. Daily, routine life never touched him. Although he seemed to enjoy solitude, it was not a state in which he could exist as he was incapable of fending for himself. It’s not surprising that the restrictions of epilepsy depressed him and exaggerated his dependency on others.

Eventually it was time for Ian to attend his psychiatrist’s appointment. This time Terry Mason was dispatched to drive Ian and Rob Gretton rang to tell me so that I could be there. Terry was shocked at my arrival at the hospital, but I felt I owed it to Ian to make this one final attempt to help him. I requested to see the psychiatrist alone, before Ian’s appointment, as I didn’t see how he could be properly assessed if no one knew the details of his behaviour. I tried to explain coherently what had been happening in our lives – the lies, the contradictions – but by now I was weeping uncontrollably. My wailing and raving made it seem as if I was the one who needed treatment.
To make matters worse, when Ian entered the room he was so cool and calm one would have thought we had never met before. When asked if he was going to return to live with me he replied: ‘I might, I might not.’ I left the room and sat outside with Terry. This was Ian’s chance to break down and tell a professional how he really felt. This was the best opportunity he’d had to get help.

When Ian finally came out he looked down at me with all the hate in the world and said, ‘I’m never coming home.’ I thought he was referring to the fact that I had brought his behaviour and his illness out into the open, that he believed I had betrayed him and his staying away was my punishment. I was sorry for him and completely helpless. I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t taken into hospital where he could be put under the care of one professional person, rather than be pulled in different directions by a bunch of amateurs. I began to question my own sanity, to wonder if perhaps I was the one who needed help. I thought people might see me as the jealous wife, insisting that her husband was mentally ill because he had dared to find another woman. The hierarchy at Factory made me feel like some kind of obstruction to Ian’s imminent fame and, more importantly, fortune.

Joy Division played their final gig on 2 May 1980 at High Hall, Birmingham University. It was there that Tony Wilson had his last conversation with his protégé. They discussed what Tony considered to be Ian’s tendency to use ‘archaic English language and nineteenth-century grammatical constructions’. Talking like two elderly scholars was one way of avoiding the real-life issue. Perhaps this helped to take Ian’s mind off his personal problems, but the climax to the scenario could only be postponed, not cancelled altogether.

Rob Gretton tried to forestall any difficulties that may have come up during the American tour by appointing Terry Mason as Ian’s minder. It would have been Terry’s job to look after Ian, making sure he took his tablets, didn’t drink and got plenty of sleep. All the fun and games bands on tour have would have been out of bounds for him.

Three months in hospital would have been a better idea. When
someone close to you needs that kind of help, it’s very difficult to recognize and even harder to admit. Any attempts to change the direction in which Ian was going would have been thwarted by his inability to accept responsibility for his own actions. No matter whom Ian was speaking to at the time, he was always able to name a scapegoat for his problems. Unable to face making decisions himself he asked friends, notably Bernard Sumner, what he should do. Quite rightly Bernard declined to choose between Annik and myself on Ian’s behalf. Bernard also walked Ian through a cemetery one day and pleaded with him to realize that this was where he would have ended up had his first suicide attempt succeeded.

Ian would have made a gifted actor. He convinced us all that the conflicts in his life were caused by outside influences and that the stress he was suffering was a direct result of the lifestyle he was leading. Truly, as his own judge and gaoler, he had engineered his own hell and planned his own downfall. The people around him were merely minor characters in his play.

Ian had his last appointment at the epilepsy clinic on 6 May 1980. As fate would have it, he saw a different doctor than usual and left an overall impression of a man who was finally getting his life together and looking forward to the future. Terry Mason and Rob Gretton accompanied Ian to Macclesfield on this occasion and he brought them to the house to collect a few things. He gave Terry Mason much the same impression that he gave his doctor that day. He told Rob and Terry that he had sorted everything out and we were going ahead with the divorce. He gave Terry a sleeve for his copy of
An
Ideal
for
Living
as he didn’t have one. Terry was also offered some of Ian’s records, including his copy of the Sordide Sentimentale single ‘Atmosphere’/‘Dead Souls’, which had the serial number 1106. Ian’s sudden whim to give away his possessions might have provided a clue to his intentions, but his generosity had been legendary in the past and could sometimes be overwhelming if he was in the right mood.

Living with his parents and having little or no contact with me must have been good for him, because he had not had a fit in four
weeks. On Tuesday 13 May, Ian came to Macclesfield to see me and Natalie. When I came home he had already let himself into the house. He had washed up and put fresh irises and freesias in his blue room where he used to do his writing. I was puzzled rather than pleased and thought this would be the last time I saw him before he went to the States. I also thought Joy Division would be hugely successful there and that Ian would forget about his family in Macclesfield. Before he left I insisted on taking one last photograph of Ian with Natalie. She lay on her changing mat kicking her legs and rather than pick her up, he leant down and put his face next to her. The picture shows him pale and haunted. When I collected the photographs from the developers after Ian’s death, that shot was missing and I had to ask them to reprint it.

Ian, Bernard and Paul Dawson (an old friend of Bernard’s) played pool in a pub in Manchester on the following Thursday. Paul, the Amazing Noswad, would-be magician, was able to make Ian laugh. It was the first time Bernard had seen him laugh in a long time, so it was arranged that they should all meet again on the Saturday.

Peter Hook saw Ian on Friday, when he dropped him off at his parents’ house. They both spoke excitedly about the American trip.

Rather than ringing to confirm the Saturday arrangements, Ian rang Bernard and said, ‘I can’t make it. I’m going to see Debbie, I want to talk to her. I won’t be able to make it. I’ll see you on Monday morning at the airport.’ He sounded calm and Bernard wasn’t worried about him, but that was the last time they spoke to each other. I also heard that he told Rob Gretton he was coming to Macclesfield to watch a film on TV which he felt would upset his father if he watched it with him. This turned out to be
Stroszek,
a Werner Herzog film
about a European living in America who kills himself rather than choose between two women. The last line of the film talks of a dead man in the cable car and the chicken still dancing, which is why the run-offs to
Still
include ‘The chicken won’t stop’, ‘The chicken stops here’ and chicken footprints walking between the grooves.

I believe Ian chose his deadline. It was important to keep up the charade in front of the band in case they tried to dissuade him. The only reason he was no longer worried about the American trip was because he knew that he wasn’t going.