Saving Amy (22 page)

The next day, Mitch comes to my villa. He is obviously distressed and looks tired and fed up. ‘Amy has been
drinking from [early this] morning,’ he says.

‘I don’t think I will come here, again,’ he says wearily. ‘… She said to me today “Dad, thank you for pulling me out of drugs” and I said to her, “No, I didn’t.… I was there for you. I am your father. But you are the one who decided to pull out. You can do it again and stop drinking.”’

I do feel for Mitch at that point! One can’t really judge a father who looks so exhausted after battling his daughter’s addictions.

‘Look,’ he tells me. ‘I knew it will be a bumpy road. I knew there [would] be relapses. But after she almost died twice, to see her walking, smiling … she has progressed so much.

‘If you saw her in that dark room, in bed … you couldn’t believe we would be sitting here and she [would] be hosting [a] dinner for you. But now, if it is alcohol instead of hard drugs – I don’t think I can go … through the same thing [again]. I decided to distance myself – and whatever happens, happens. It is her life. It is her career. It is her decision.’

By Monday, the tension between them is palpable. And Mitch is not just worried about Amy’s behaviour and drinking but also about the effect of her ‘new best friends’ on his daughter.

I decide to reciprocate and pay back Amy’s hospitality. I am going to throw a barbecue at my villa or Mitch’s for everyone – Amy, her producer and engineers, the security detail, and Mitch and his close friends. They all love the
idea, including Amy, it seems. The guys ask for lots of ‘chicken wings’ … not KFC …

Part of the reason for having a barbecue is that I have observed that Amy can’t handle a sit-down meal, where people are watching and are looking at your plate. With a barbecue, it is more relaxed and people stand around and come when they want to. We decide to hold it at Mitch’s villa since his swimming pool is bigger.

I bump into Andrew, Amy’s bodyguard, in the bar, and discuss the barbecue with him. Amy is also there, already drinking even though it is still quite early. She is sitting with her new best friend Vicky and is already quite drunk. Amy’s body language is quite hostile and she mumbles that she and her band are far too busy to attend the barbecue that just a little while ago had got her so excited. She probably will have to record all night, she says, although by her current behaviour, she’s not really in a fit enough state to record anything. The musicians and bodyguards seem quite used to her sudden change in mood.

She deliberately turns her back on us. Her behaviour is becoming increasingly nasty. Then she begins to talk loudly about her parents to Vicky. She says dismissively, ‘
Forget
my father. You are the one I am going to consult about my clothes and about which music I should pick for my records, for the jazz festival.’

Vicky is delighted at this and seems to encourage Amy in her nasty behaviour. Amy tells her that Janis is coming out on the 3 May and that she can’t wait for her friend to meet her mother.

However, just moments later, when Mitch makes an appearance, Amy asks him loudly, ‘When is Mum coming
out?’ – as if she can’t recall. She then informs Mitch she wants to practise with the band in the recording studio, at exactly the time that we are scheduled to film her there, so Mitch tells me that we can’t film there but we can record him instead by the pool.

Enough is enough!, I think. Mitch is obviously upset with Amy but he doesn’t treat her like she is a 25-year-old woman, rather more like a five- or six-year-old child, and he doesn’t tell her that her behaviour is unacceptable in this instance. So
I
tell Mitch that as we hadn’t planned to film him again, and I don’t see the point of taping Amy if she is being difficult and unpredictable, that ‘filming is over’.

Mitch, looking as if he is about to explode, rushes off to the studio to confront his daughter. After about 30 minutes he comes back, extremely red faced, and says to me that it’s all OK now and that we can film. ‘Amy’s expecting us …’, he adds.

‘Are you sure?’ I ask.

With some trepidation, we head over to the studio with our TV crew and stills photographer. I am quite nervous, I have to admit, as I can’t judge what will happen next. Mitch admits to me later on that, although he had strong words with Amy, he also wasn’t sure what to expect!

As we head into the studio, Amy, who is still obviously drunk, rushes up to me and hugs me sweetly. The girl, who had previously appeared so hostile to me, less than hour ago, is now smiling. She dances for my TV camera crew and photographer. When she finally stops performing, she glances at Mitch and says to the other musicians, ‘Let’s put on that song.’

When the music starts again, Mitch’s eyes become moist. He is almost crying. The song is ‘Daddy’s Home!’

Amy is now sitting on the drums, obviously drunk, but trying to play along to the tune. She nearly falls over.

Then she says, ‘Dad, Dad, come here …’

She motions to Mitch, and gives up her seat at the drums to him. When he starts playing, Amy picks up the guitar and plays with him. Then she runs to him and gives him a kiss full on the lips.

It is heartbreaking. Becoming sweet Amy, once again, she is trying so much to please him and she is so drunk. All I can think is, ‘Wow! Why is she doing this to herself?’

Mitch is very emotional. Amy won’t let us leave the studio before she’s hugged me tightly. She tells me so politely: ‘I
will
see you at the party. We are
all
coming!’ She motions to her band. ‘I am looking forward [to it]. When are you expecting us?’

Later that day, we are at the barbecue by the pool and it is a relaxed atmosphere. Mitch has been talking about Amy’s record and how he believes it will be out in September 2009. Some of the band members are already there and it is clear they don’t share his optimism.

From time to time I hear him asking where Amy is. My producer tells him that he bumped into Amy outside Mitch’s villa. She had told Erbil how happy she is about ‘Daphne’s party’! But Erbil thinks she seems frightened and insecure about when and how to come to the barbecue.

There is still no sign of Amy and although Mitch is trying hard to relax and enjoy himself, it is obvious that he can’t. He is on edge. Suddenly we hear the clatter of high heels on stone and there is Amy, making what can only be described as a Hollywood entrance!

She is dressed, as usual, in a short dress, this time with one shoulder. Her hair has been put up elegantly. She looks very glamorous.

‘Wow!’ I tell her. ‘Amy, you look beautiful!’

Amy looks really pleased by my comment. She says quietly, ‘I
did it for you.’

Mitch tells me later that he has told Amy that she looks really well. ‘It is important to give her compliments from time to time and build her confidence,’ he adds.

Amy is still carrying the tarot cards with her and she begins to shuffle the pack. This brings us back to the subject of her grandmother, Cynthia. When I remark that Cynthia was a beautiful woman – Mitch showed me photographs and cine footage when we first met of Cynthia and I had then commented on how gorgeous his mother was – Amy says proudly: ‘Listen! If Frank Sinatra [had] ever met my Nana Cynthia, Ava Gardner would
never
have had a chance with him!’

We talk about how Amy was so close to her grandmother and suddenly she begins to cry. Moments later, she is posing for the camera in a series of sexy positions, sitting first on one of the musician’s laps, then her father’s. After that, she perches on the laps of Mitch’s friends.

Then she runs inside the villa and brings out her laptop to play some old, romantic songs to the guests. Amy tells us
that after she married Blake, he chose the music. She imitates some of this and makes it clear that she doesn’t think his taste is great. I sense that Amy is angry with her husband, perhaps because she still doesn’t understand why he is divorcing her. I notice Mitch can’t meet my eyes.

Later, Amy, who is drinking red wine (she has been drinking it all evening), decides that everyone should have ice cream. She insists on getting it from the fridge herself and also on serving it to us, tottering around the pool on the alarmingly high heels she is wearing. She watches me carefully to see if I’ll eat the dessert.

While she is serving another guest, the inevitable happens: she trips and falls over, injuring herself. While we rush around, trying to find the first aid box, Amy is dismissive of the wound. She sits on Mitch’s lap and murmurs, ‘I don’t want to spoil Daphne’s party …’ We put a plaster on it, all the same.

It is very late. Mitch is scheduled to leave the island the next day but my team and I have another day here just to relax and unwind; even knowing this, I am so exhausted, I need to go to sleep.

Then the subject of Amy’s forthcoming performance at the jazz festival on 8 May comes up. Amy suddenly remembers that we both love Hervé Léger and that I had told her earlier she could have one of my new dresses as a gift. She starts urging me to bring a couple of them over so she can try them on now. I tell her that it really is too late and that she can come to my villa tomorrow and pick one.
But Amy is on a mission: she must come to my villa NOW. Nothing else is acceptable.

Mitch is trying to intervene, but Amy won’t be stopped. She has to get into my closet! She grabs my hand, holding it tightly, and drags me over to my place – my entourage, her entourage, all following …

Mitch also tags along, shooting me apologetic looks as we enter my villa. Amy runs upstairs at an alarming pace to my bedroom, with me in tow. She is reverting back to her earlier behaviour and is becoming nasty, saying horrible things about her parents: ‘People are trying to get through to me through my mother. My mother is handicapped and she is lonely.

‘They will try to get me to sign papers. Each time my father is here people want me to sign papers.’ I am surprised that even so boozed up she seems fairly astute. Mitch has brought people with him to the island to discuss Amy’s business, but as of yet he hasn’t accomplished anything. Amy obviously knows this. She understands more than people give her credit for.

She picks two of my Hervé Léger dresses: a purple one, which is short, but even more so when Amy rearranges it to suit her, and a black-and-white one, which is more elegant and which I hadn’t expect her to pick. She tries on the purple one first, folding it up to her crotch. I tell her, ‘Amy, I would leave it down … otherwise you don’t need to bother about a dress …’.

She ignores me and instead keeps saying, ‘My Daddy is always bringing people [here] for business. … Why don’t [these] people talk to
me
?’

She is now naked and she looks at me in what I guess is
meant to be a seductive way, which would be funny as she is so drunk, but it is actually heartbreaking.

She continues, ‘Daph, if people want to do business with me … they shouldn’t go through my parents.’

She then repeats that people are taking advantage of her mother, who is lonely. Janis, Amy tells me, doesn’t have a boyfriend! Amy says this to me as if it is the end of the world to be without a man.

At this point I could tell her that Mitch has said that Janis does have a new boyfriend – but it’s none of my business. That’s between them. But it’s odd that Amy, who claims to be so protective of her mother, so close to her, doesn’t know this.