Touching From a Distance (4 page)

Ian was a big Bowie fan and had already managed to spend time in his dressing room at one gig. He had David Bowie’s, Trevor Boulder’s and Mick Ronson’s autographs, one of Woody’s broken drumsticks and a spare guitar string. Bowie was playing for two nights and as Ian and Tony had tickets for both nights, Ian arranged for his friends to pick me up and take me to meet him for the second gig.
This was the first time I had been to a proper gig. I was even excited about the support band, Fumble. I loved their rendition of ‘Johnnie B. Good’, not realizing that every rock band covers that song. When Bowie emerged wearing a one-piece printed outfit that resembled a legless babygro, we all gazed up in complete adoration. The stage was so small that he was extemely close to the audience, yet no one dared to touch his skinny, boyish legs.

Ian had had only one serious girlfriend before me. Bev Clayton was tall and slim with large eyes and waist-length titian-coloured hair. Yet from that night on, I was Ian’s girlfriend and stopped even looking at other boys. I felt honoured to be part of that small group. For a short time I did not regard Ian as an individual, but as a party of people who were fun and exciting and knew more than me about life itself. I didn’t realize that Ian’s King’s School friends were also receiving their first introduction to David Bowie, Lou Reed and perhaps the seamier side of Ian’s ethereal world.

I had attended primary school in the village of Sutton, in the hills of Macclesfield. My childhood weekends had been spent looking for birds’ nests, building dams across the river Bollin, and feeding orphan lambs. By the time I met Ian, I had abandoned my push-bike and stopped attending the church youth club, but was still leading a quiet existence. Suddenly, life seemed one long round of parties, pop concerts and pub crawls. It was a whole new scene for me and, like Ian, I gradually began to move away from my old circle. Ian never hid his interest for stars who had died young. Through him I began to learn about James Dean, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin. Anyone who had been involved in the young, arty medium of any form of showbusiness and found an early grave was of interest to him. When he told me that he had no intention of living beyond his early twenties, I took it with a pinch of salt, assumed it
was a phase and that he would grow out of it. He seemed terribly young to have already made the decision that life was not worth living. I thought that, as he matured, surely life would be so good that he would not want to leave it all behind.

Gradually we began to see very little of Tony Nuttall. Ian admitted
one day that Tony had agreed to let him date me on the condition that he looked after me. Though I felt like a pet with a new owner, my life was more interesting and somewhat more sophisticated with Ian, so I stuck with him.

Occasionally we put ourselves on the baby-sitting rota and looked after the children who lived in Victoria Park flats while their parents went out. This was by no means a mundane job. Once we cared for two small boys whose parents had recently settled down after working in a circus. There were circus posters on the walls and the children leapt around from one piece of furniture to another, like monkeys who had been let out of their cage. Another time a small girl climbed on to Ian’s knee and asked him if he would be sleeping with her Mummy that night and whether he was her Daddy.

Ian somehow managed to balance his life between his council-estate friends and his more affluent peers at the King’s School. I also tried to keep hold of my old friends, but I was not as successful, mainly because Ian strongly objected to them. Without me realizing it, he began to take control of my life very early on in our relationship.

My friend Elaine and I had Saturday jobs on a cheese and bacon stall in the indoor market in Macclesfield town centre. Ian wanted me to walk to his flat every lunch-time so that his mother could make me a sandwich. Instead of speaking up I allowed myself to be the victim of either Doreen’s misplaced kindness or Ian’s determination to keep tabs on me. He always met me and escorted me to and from the stall. Considering the time I spent at the flat, I rarely saw Ian’s sister Carole. She was like Ian in appearance, but was always ready with a shy smile. She had not passed the eleven-plus to go to the local grammar school, so I assumed she was not as academically gifted as Ian. Although she was only about thirteen at the time, I once suggested to Ian that it would be nice when Carole started going out with boys so that we could make up a foursome. Ian replied, ‘My sister’s never going to go out with boys!’

Ian would often spoil a pleasant evening by having an inexplicable temper tantrum. When half a dozen of us visited a friend’s home, one of us complimented our friend’s father on his house. The embarrassed
father blushed and spluttered a little before saying, in a self-effacing manner, ‘It’s better than living in Moss Side.’ Ian immediately leapt upon his soap box and said, ‘What’s wrong with Moss Side?’ While the poor man struggled to explain himself, Ian accused him of being racist, threw a punch at another guest and ended up crouching on the floor behind the settee. I remember kneeling down and trying to persuade him to come out, but he was as implacable as ever. Most probably it was Oliver Cleaver who eventually coaxed him into going home.

In the summer of 1973, Oliver’s parents went away on holiday, leaving Oliver to stay at a friend’s house. Oliver let us back into his parents’ house and we had a small but out-of-hand party which came to an abrupt end when Ian smashed his fist through the glass in the front door. No one knew why he was so angry, but the wound could not have been very deep as we were able to walk to casualty.

Autumn arrived and life was in danger of becoming boring again. However, while Oliver was drinking at the Park Tavern, he struck up a friendship with Robert from Copperfield Antiques and John Talbot who toured the antiques fairs. They were in the habit of throwing parties rather more frequently than anyone else we knew and the atmosphere of those evenings will remain with me forever. One of the happiest times of my life ensued. An impressionable sixteen-year-old, with Keats’s ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ ringing in my ears, I fantasized that one day we could all return to the days of wizards and knights in shining armour.

The antique shop was a listed building, barely in the town centre of Macclesfield. Each time we went to a party there, Ian tapped on the door and it was opened the smallest peep. For some reason I always anticipated rejection, but we were never refused admission. There would be a roaring coal fire in the grate, the firelight licking the stone walls and ancient paving stones, camp-sounding music and often something to eat. The food would be elaborately laid out like a feast, with a huge bowl of punch into which everyone poured whatever they had brought with them.

As the evening wore on, guests would disrobe and squeeze into the shower together. Ian was reluctant to join in with such antics – he was more likely to be found standing in a corner smoking. One evening a rather plain but nubile young girl slid naked between us while we were in one of the four-poster beds. Ian was horrified and kicked her out again. Yet Ian wasn’t always opposed to the presence of other females. When he disappeared for a long time one night I asked Kelvin to find him for me. When Kelvin also disappeared I began to search the house myself and discovered them both in a bedroom I had never seen before with Hilary, a blonde whose beauty was marred only by eyes that looked in opposite directions.

On one occasion, rather than make the long walk home, we slept over. The walls of the bedroom were unplastered and a wooden ‘chandelier’ with candles hung from the ceiling. Five of us tried to squeeze into bed but eventually Oliver was dispatched to sleep on the chaise longue. Ian insisted I lie on my side next to the wall and somehow he managed to lie on his back. He wouldn’t allow me to sleep next to John because he didn’t want us to touch and neither would he turn his back on John. I lay and watched the water running down the stone wall – it was a very long night. The next morning John leapt out of bed first, smeared his face with Oil of Ulay, and made coffee to warm us up. His pugs, Oscar and Bertie, were released from the kitchen and we sat shivering, the coals of the fire long dead and the revels of the party a pleasant memory.

The atmosphere was very ‘Noel Coward’ – there was a certain pride in its elitism. One evening a couple of Macclesfield yobs were barred entry. When they asked why, John replied, ‘Because you’re disgusting!’ At times it was insisted that the guests all wore hats or a particular type of clothing. The boys posed in the Macclesfield Arms wearing tailcoats, aloof and disinterested in the rest of the customers. All those dashing and handsome young men and most of them eyeing each other!

John Talbot regarded Ian as being quite ordinary, which he was in comparison to some of the eccentrics in the antiques world. Ian exercised a quiet enjoyment of these friendships and nobody seemed to
mind when they realized he wasn’t gay. While Ian did wear make-up, it was fashionable at the time and he didn’t stand out as being overly flamboyant in his dress and manner. To John Talbot it was Ian’s strong personality that projected itself and it was clear that nobody influenced him apart from his idols. Oliver Cleaver’s parents forbade him to visit John at the shop – in John’s opinion, missing the point that Ian Curtis had a much greater effect on their son. At the same time, Ian’s parents had begun to blame Ian’s lifestyle on Oliver.

It was well known that, after music, Ian’s second love was his clothes. He yearned to be noticed and he accentuated his imposing image whenever he could and with little difficulty. Shortly before Christmas 1973, Ian set eyes on a tiger-print scarf in the window of a men’s clothes shop in Macclesfield. He knew he wouldn’t have any spare cash until it was almost Christmas and so he kept going back to the window to check that the scarf was still there. I went in one day and bought it as a surprise Christmas present. My pleasure was spoiled because of the distress it caused Ian when he thought Oliver had been in the shop and beaten him to it!

People who knew Ian from that time remember him for his gentleness and thoughtful sincerity. Possessions never really meant a great deal to him and, although his passion lay with buying records, once the shine had worn off he would be amenable to lending or giving them away. He was generous to a fault and it seemed to give him much pleasure.

John Talbot said of Ian’s death: ‘I was confused because everything I read about him made him out to be a doom merchant and I don’t remember him like that. Music does propagate myths and people have tried to make that myth more than it was.’

Ian’s family moved away from Macclesfield in the late spring of 1973 when Ian was half-way through his first A level year. Ian had had enough of the King’s School and probably it had had enough of him. Once he decided to quit, there was no reason for the family to remain in Macclesfield, so they bought a house in New Moston, Manchester, from a friend of Aunty Nell. Ian’s intention was to continue studying for his History and Divinity A levels at St John’s College in the city centre, but after only two weeks he began to argue with his tutors and stopped attending lectures. He told me that he couldn’t agree with the views of his new tutors in the same way that he could with those at the King’s School. For a while he felt unable to tell his parents what had happened and spent two evenings a week walking the streets.

In the summer of 1973 I took a holiday job at Parkside Psychiatric Hospital in Macclesfield. I was interested in training to be an occupational therapist and thought that working there for a few weeks would give
me a good insight into the job. I had already worked there the previous summer, but since then there had been a staff change. The atmosphere was more oppressive than I remembered and the painful inertia of the patients was typified by an old lady called Eva. It had taken her a full twelve months to progress from peeing on the floor at the department entrance to sitting down and making a small teddy bear. Perhaps my depressing tales of the mental hospital spurred Ian on, but he began to think seriously about moving to London. When Jonathan King announced he was looking for talent, Ian went down to the big city and queued with the rest of the hopefuls. He took nothing with him; he had no demo tape, not
even a lyric sheet, yet he expected Jonathan King to recognize his obvious talent!

Ian saw an advert in a newspaper asking for young men to apply for jobs abroad. Again the interview was in London and Ian went down to find out what it was all about. The job turned out to be the position of gigolo in the South of France and Ian was asked if he would be willing to entertain rich old ladies. They photographed him while he talked. I don’t know whether he was offered the post, but he was allowed to bring home some of the pictures.

After I took my O levels, Ian set about persuading me to follow him and leave school altogether. He implied that he had no real wish to date a schoolgirl and, to be fair, it took little persuasion for me to leave. All my close friends were leaving and I was nervous about making new ones, so I gladly took the easy way out. The idea of studying elsewhere appealed to me and I was keen to start again in an establishment where I felt I could be more anonymous. I disliked drawing attention to myself and in retrospect I think that was one of my main assets for Ian. I was there as an accessory, with little danger of ever outshining him! I enjoyed the attention I thought he was giving me, genuinely believing that he knew best. I stopped wearing make-up because he said I looked better without it and tried not to displease him by going anywhere without him. ‘We’ll get married‚’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about a job. I’m going to make so much money you’ll never need to work.’

I passed seven O levels and looked at the local college of further education, intending to take my A levels there, but Ian seemed distressed at the idea of me having even more opportunity to mix with men. He balked when he realized that I wore a short skirt rather than jeans to look around the college and insisted that should I enrol at the college, I would not wear make-up. His anger frightened me, but I pushed it to the back of my mind. I told myself that he would change when he felt more secure in our relationship. Indeed, it was hard to reconcile Ian’s attitude towards me when other men were around and his attitude when we were alone. He liked to take me on long, rambling country walks. The solitude and the silence seemed to
make him happy and he was never more charming and loving than on these occasions.

I’m not sure Ian himself knew why he would suddenly become so angry. He seemed to have a great deal of hate inside that was always directed at those closest to him. In the autumn of 1973 we went to a Lou Reed concert at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool. My parents kindly offered to drive us there and visit relatives while we went to the gig. We had to leave Macclesfield quite early, so when they picked me up from my photography class at college, Ian was in the car. The familiar pout and glower were already in place. When he surreptitiously showed me the quarter-bottle of gin in his pocket, I realized that he was well on his way to oblivion.

Immediately on entering the theatre, he began to drag me around by the hand as if searching for something. The last place he pulled me into was a vast, white, bright room full of men, who turned around and shouted at me. I couldn’t believe that Ian had actually taken me into the gent’s toilet, but he decided that it was all my fault and turned on me. I still didn’t understand why he had drunk so much in the first place, but I knew I wasn’t going to enjoy the performance. By the time we found our seats I was crying, my head ached with the tension and I began to feel nauseous. A man in the row behind could hear Ian’s seething remonstrations and offered me some painkillers. Ian tried to prevent me from accepting, but I took them anyway and had to suck the pills because I couldn’t swallow.

I had a Saturday job in a lingerie shop in Macclesfield and in the evening I would take the train to Manchester and meet Ian at Rare Records in Manchester city centre. The Rare Records job was incredibly important to Ian. He swotted for the interview by reading all his back copies of the music press and was thrilled when he was offered the job in the pop department in the basement. Ian allowed me to use the train to Manchester because he wanted me to be there as soon as possible, but he insisted that I make the journey home on the bus because it
was cheaper. It was also twice as long and very cold.

Yet in some ways Ian could be very soft hearted. He was always
hungry and forever buying greasy food from dirty-looking street traders. One balmy evening we were walking through Albert Square in Manchester. There were hyacinths in the window boxes of the town hall and the scent was overpowering. Ian took one bite out of his hot beef pie before spotting a lone tramp huddled on one of the benches. Barely able to chew the piece in his mouth, he went over and handed the pie to the tramp.

After only three months of my A level course, Ian asked me to look for a job and start saving for our marriage. Already bored with study, I accepted a clerical post in quality control at ICI pharmaceuticals. During the week we spoke to each other every night on the phone. Sometimes he would hint that he might have taken another girl out, or that he was seeing someone else, but any attempt to make me jealous was foiled by the fact that I trusted him implicitly. Also, because of his overwhelming jealousy, I assumed that two-timing me would be the last thing he would do. Moving to Manchester had brought about a change in Ian – as far as I knew he had stopped experimenting with drugs. This was a great relief to me because I (mistakenly) assumed he was happy. As someone who had never so much as smoked a cigarette, I found his desire for escapism through drug-induced detachment incomprehensible.

Ian’s bedroom was the front parlour at his parents’ house and it was here we sat, hour upon hour, listening to Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. I didn’t mind this as I had developed my own favourites. The only album of Ian’s that I never took to was Lou Reed’s
Berlin.
One afternoon he decided to read to me from the works of Oscar Wilde. He chose ‘The Happy Prince’. It tells the tale of a bejewelled statue and his friendship with a swallow. The bird postpones flying south for the winter in order to help the sad prince. The swallow picks off the jewels and gives them to the people of the city who are suffering. ‘Dear little Swallow‚’ said the Prince, ‘you tell me of marvellous things, but more marvellous than anything is the suffering of
men and of women. There is
no Mystery so great as Misery. Fly over my city, little Swallow, and tell me what you see there.’ As Ian’s voice
neared the end of the story, it began to crack like the leaden heart of the statue and he cried like a baby.

A constant obstruction to the potential smooth-running of my life, Ian made it difficult for me to feel comfortable in my first job. His persistent questioning about the men I worked with would make me self-conscious about becoming friendly with anyone. He would telephone every night and interrogate me. We argued during one such telephone conversation and Ian deliberately put his foot through a glass door at his parents’ house.

He was my first lover but one evening his unfounded, obscene ranting and raving about my friendships with previous boyfriends got out of hand and I became ill. My father took time off work the next day to take me out to lunch. He and my mother hoped it was an end to my relationship with Ian Curtis. They had always found Ian strange, although up until then he had behaved towards them in a fairly innocuous manner. Initially, it had been the earring, the sunglasses worn in the dark and the Marlboro smoke that bothered them. What alarmed them later were his selfishness and his desire to be the centre of attention. Ian turned up in Macclesfield the following Friday. Knowing that my mother wouldn’t allow him over the threshold, he booked in at the George Hotel on Jordangate.

As we sat in Sparrow Park that night, I endeavoured to let Ian down gently. I suggested we stop seeing each other for a while or just not see so much of each other. He was distraught and kept on and on, begging me to reconsider. Eventually I gave in and agreed to carry on with the relationship, promising myself at the same time to try to finish it another day. The next morning, armed with a bouquet for my mother, he apologized to her. She did her utmost to feign forgiveness, but I knew she was still furious.

On 14 February 1974, Ian gave me another valentine card with a rhyme inside. It described a dream he’d had about me, walking alone and lonely on a deserted beach – definitely not a love poem. I threw the card away as I felt that he was trying to frighten me. Nevertheless, the dream was to come true in June 1980 in Carnoustie, Scotland,
where I holidayed with my parents and Natalie after Ian’s death.

Despite my earlier resolutions, Ian and I became inextricably tied and I couldn’t or wouldn’t imagine my life without him. He never forgot that I had tried to end our relationship. As a warning, he told me that I had no choice but to marry him since no one would want what was irretrievably ‘his’.

We got engaged on 17 April 1974. The engagement ring held half a dozen small sapphires surrounding a minute diamond and cost £17.50 from Ratners. What impressed me most of all was that Ian sold his guitar to pay for it. My parents had offered me either an engagement party for all of our large family, or an eighteenth birthday party for my friends the following December. Ian chose that we should have an engagement party. It didn’t seem to matter to him that owing to sheer numbers we would not be able to invite our friends. He was fond of telling me that his friends didn’t really like me, so it didn’t matter to me either. He also pointed out that an engagement party would mean presents for our future together, but an eighteenth birthday party would mean presents for me personally. His views seemed practical and the way he put it made it sound as if he only wanted the best for our married life. By the time he had finished, I felt selfish for even considering a birthday party. The only friend I invited was a close one from school, Christine Ridgeway. He had outlawed all my other friends.

My Liverpudlian family came to Macclesfield in its entirety. If anyone knows how to party, they do. No one had any intention of driving home, so there was no need to worry about how much anyone was drinking. They gathered in the kitchen and told raucous jokes, they danced in the dining room, and they chatted in the lounge. Meanwhile, Ian’s family sat perched uncomfortably on the edge of the settee. They didn’t drink alcohol but wanted endless cups of tea, which kept my mother tied to the kitchen.

As I downed a few drinks I began to get into the swing. While I was having a quick dance with one of my younger uncles, I didn’t notice Ian glowering at me through the doorway. When I joined him in the hall, he took hold of his Bloody Mary and threw it upwards
into my face, covering it and my dress in thick tomato juice. Christine tried to referee between us. There was no need because my main concern was that no one else should know what he had done. In fact I covered up for him. His family left shortly after I reappeared in a new outfit. My mother guessed what had happened, but I denied it.

Ian did try to join in with the fun, but he danced alone rather than with me. His stiff, contorted movements and static, staring pout assured him of a large if puzzled audience. As my relations looked at each other bemused, I experienced a strange mixture of embarrassment and glee at his individuality. The next tantrum came when Ian realized that we would not be able to have a room to ourselves for the night. In a three-bedroomed bungalow with dozens of guests looking for somewhere to put their heads, it wasn’t surprising. The next day, despite the not altogether innocent parties at the antique shop, Ian gave me a lecture on the excesses of drink and how various aunts should have conducted themselves. My grandmother went home convinced that Ian was ‘on drugs’. I only wish he had been; at least it would have provided me with an excuse for his behaviour. Even then, my mother voiced her fears about Ian’s split personality, but I was horrified that she could suggest such a thing. My relationship with Ian had almost become an act of defiance.

We did have a small engagement celebration with Kelvin Briggs and Elayne King when we went to Jilly’s in Manchester for a Bowie/Roxy Music night. Whether it was to save money or for devilment, I don’t know, but we took our own drinks hidden inside our coats and didn’t buy a round all evening. I was sorry that Helen and. Oliver weren’t invited and got the impression Ian thought getting engaged was ‘uncool’. Ian lived his life by a conflicting code that changed depending on who was there at the time and what he could gain from it.