Читать книгу It's Only Rock 'n' Roll: Thirty Years with a Rolling Stone - Jo Wood - Страница 12

Oh, please, Jamie don’t you cry

your mummy will get by

things will be hard

but I know you’re a card

and we’ll get by.

Oh, little one, you look so sad

things really aren’t that bad

life is rough

but I know you are tough

and we’ll get by.

Oh, Jamie, cheer up now

we’ve got through and how,

it’s because I knew

it was all for you

and we got by.

* * *

It was around ten o’ clock on the second night after my escape to Eric’s when his front-door intercom buzzer sounded. He picked up the handset, listened, then turned to me.

‘Now, Jo, don’t panic, but Peter’s here.’

Immediately, I panicked. ‘Oh, God, what does he want? What am I going to do? Don’t let him in!’

‘He’s the father of your child,’ said Eric, calmly. ‘We have to let him in.’

Moments later Peter burst into the room. He scowled at me. ‘Where’s Jamie?’

‘In there,’ I said. ‘But he’s asleep …’

Peter shoved his way past me and went into the bedroom. A moment later he came back into the room carrying Jamie, who was by now awake and looking around him in a daze. Then he walked straight past us and out of the flat with my gorgeous boy in his arms. I went to chase after them, but Eric called me back.

‘Don’t stop him,’ he said. ‘You don’t want Jamie to be in the middle of a scene.’

I cried my heart out. Eric was right, of course, as it would have been terrible for Jamie to see us fighting, but at the same time I knew that Peter had no idea how to look after our one-year-old son. He’d never changed a nappy, never prepared a bottle, never put him to bed. He didn’t even know about Jamie’s Night-night, the white cotton comforter that he never went anywhere without – except he just had, because Peter had left it lying in his cot! (‘Night-night’ was even Jamie’s first word.) How on earth would he get to sleep without it? And where had Peter taken him? I had a sleepless night, imagining all these terrible scenarios, but early the next morning my mum called.

‘Josephine, I’ve been sworn to secrecy, but I wanted to let you know that I have Jamie here with me.’

‘Oh, thank God!’

‘But you mustn’t let Peter know I’ve told you.’

I agreed to play along – but really! As if my own mother wouldn’t tell me that she’d got my child! So Jamie started his little life at the Old Vicarage – and within a few days I’d gone down to join him. It just wasn’t going to work with Eric: as wonderful as he was, I was an emotional mess and I needed to be with Jamie.

Mum’s attitude to me escaping my marriage was ‘I told you so’. Dad was just pleased I wasn’t with Peter any more. And they both adored Jamie.

After that, I barely saw Peter. One Friday evening, shortly after I’d moved down to the Old Vicarage, I’d been working in London but I was so broke I didn’t have the train fare back to Essex. In desperation, I went and knocked on the door of our house.

‘Hello, Jo.’ If he was surprised to see me he didn’t show it.

‘I’m sorry, Peter, but is there any way you can lend me some money? Just five pounds for the train back to Essex? I haven’t got a penny.’

‘I won’t give you the money,’ he said, ‘but I’ll cash you a cheque.’

With no alternative, I wrote him a cheque for fifteen pounds, then watched him take a thick wad of notes from his pocket, slowly peel off three fivers and hand them over. I felt so humiliated and I guess I deserved it. But I vowed never to ask Peter for anything again. And I never did.

We divorced when I was 21. Peter remarried and had two beautiful daughters, Sophia and Lucy, who I am very close with. Years later he moved to Spain, where he lives to this day.

* * *

With my baby happily settled at the Old Vicarage, my priority was getting work. My parents couldn’t afford to support Jamie and me and I had no savings because I had always given my earnings straight to Peter (and I clearly wasn’t going to get a penny from him) so I had no choice. Plus, of course, I loved modelling. I was just lucky that Mum was still young – my sister Lize was 10 at the time – which meant she could easily take care of Jamie.

I started accepting every job (and party invitation) that came my way. I was only 20, remember, and determined to catch up on all the fun I’d missed while married to Peter. Two girlfriends above all helped me in this mission. The first was Lorraine Dellal – to this day my closest friend. She is the daughter of the flamboyant London property developer, Jack Dellal, known as ‘Black Jack’ for his love of gambling. I had first met her when I was still with Peter and she was about to marry a friend of his, a charming guy named David Morris. Now we reconnected, as Lorraine was in charge of booking the models at my agency.

My other partner in crime was a fellow model named Susan Harrison, whom I’d met at a fashion party. She had the most beautiful face, with wonderful lips, high cheekbones and a Romanesque nose, but an accent and down-to-earth attitude that were straight out of Coronation Street. Sue and I hit it off immediately. Her sister, Stephanie, had a house in Wandsworth but she was dating the motorbike champion, Barry Sheene, leaving the house empty, so Sue suggested that we rent it together. It was a perfect arrangement: we got the place cheap, as otherwise it would have been sitting vacant, and I could go down to the Old Vicarage at weekends for kisses and cuddles with Jamie. Life was about to get wild …

* * *

Sue and me. Double trouble. Sue was brunette, I was blonde, but we had our hair cut in the same long, shaggy style. I bought a little orange VW Beetle on hire purchase, the first car I owned, and we were out every night in it, zipping from Morton’s to Monkberry’s to a party at so-and-so’s house. We’d only go out on dates if we could take each other so we knew we were protected. A message Sue left for me around this time is pretty typical: ‘Arrived home to the phone already ringing again, some bloke from the States – friend of Clive’s – wants to take us out. Can’t handle all these bloody men …’

A few days after Christmas in 1976, Sue and I were at some party just off Hyde Park, chatting to Bryan Ferry – who by then was enjoying solo success after finding fame with Roxy Music – and Monty Python’s Eric Idle. It was getting late when Eric turned to us and said, ‘Come on, girls, we’re going back to Bryan’s place. Why don’t you come too?’ Well, Sue was up for it, obviously, because she was seeing Bryan on the quiet, but I was thinking, Sue’s got Bryan – which means I’m going to have to do it with Eric! No bloody way … So I told him it was late and we had to be going home, but Eric was so persistent that in the end I agreed we’d come, but that Sue and I would follow them in my Beetle as I didn’t want to abandon it in town. We set off in convoy with Bryan and Eric out in front. We were driving around Hyde Park Corner roundabout when suddenly I swerved off towards Knightsbridge at high speed – and the boys couldn’t follow us because it was one-way. Sue and I were in hysterics all the way home. When we got back to Wandsworth, the phone was already ringing. It was Eric.

‘What happened to you?’

‘Oh, we just decided to come home,’ I said. ‘We’re both tired and I’ve got to get up early tomorrow to see my parents before New Year’s Eve. Sorry.’

‘Come on, girls, come on over,’ he said. ‘There’s no turkey left, but there’s plenty of stuffing!’

* * *

We didn’t do much in the way of drugs at this time. Partying was mostly about the booze, although if someone had some coke we might do the odd line. In those days it was so much purer that you didn’t get wired or zombied-out, it just gave you a little boost of confidence. I never went completely mad – that came later. But one night I was in Monkberry’s with Sue when our gay friend, Colin, called us over. He was holding out his hand and at first glance it seemed empty, but when I looked closer I saw this tiny little square, like a windowpane.

‘It’s acid.’ He grinned. ‘Want to try it?’

‘Come off it, that tiny thing? That’s not going to do anything!’

‘Believe me,’ said Colin. ‘This stuff works.’

So Sue and I took it – and, WHOOSH, we were off!

My abiding memory of my first acid trip is lots and lots of laughter. After Monkberry’s we piled into my Beetle (yes, I drove, can you believe it?) and ended up at a punk club where a bloke started chatting me up. He was coming on strong and, for a laugh, I told him, ‘I won’t have sex with you unless you do it with my friends Sue and Colin as well. We come as a package.’ He must have been keen because he agreed on the spot. Then Colin piled in: ‘We can’t have sex with you before we check out the goods.’ So that bloke came to the Ladies with us, dropped his trousers and showed us his willy. Well, that really set us off. Hysterical with laughter, we ran outside and got back into my car – but then the bloke appeared, trousers still round his ankles, and started banging on the window. As I tried to start the engine Colin locked the doors and eventually we drove away, screaming our heads off.

At some point we ended up at Colin’s flat on Harley Street. We lay around for what seemed like hours, arguing over who was going to make a cup of tea, when suddenly the door flew open and a naked African guy was standing there holding a tray perfectly set with cups, saucers, teapot, sugar and a jug of milk. Am I hallucinating?

‘Where did he come from?’ said Sue.

Colin looked up. ‘Umm … I think he might be a friend of mine.’

At that, the guy put down the tray and left the room.

At some point the next day – or possibly the day after that – Sue and I drove back to Wandsworth. This was where things got a bit scary. I remember sitting in the bedroom with Sue, staring at our reflections in the mirror, convinced we had thick white makeup all over our faces. We sat there, rubbing frantically at our cheeks, getting increasingly frantic; we had to talk ourselves through it so we didn’t totally lose it. I hated that total loss of control so much – the feeling of being on a runaway train that you can’t get off – that I never did acid again.

The last thing I remember is driving to the King’s Road early in the morning with Sue and getting some T-shirts made that read, ‘I love Ruby Morris.’ This was in honour of a little acid poem we’d made up at some point during those crazy hours.

When you walk through the door, chuck,

Cup of tea and biscuit, luv,

Your pound’s worth more at Ruby Morris.

Where else?

The ‘chuck’ bit came from Sue, because she was northern, the tea – well, you know about that part, we liked the name Ruby, and Morris came from David Morris, who was now Lorraine’s husband. Sue had once had a bit of a fling with him. God, she was naughty.

Having said that, I wasn’t exactly living like the Blessed Sister Josephine either. I had a succession of boyfriends. There was Richard North Lewis – still a friend – who worked for the company that produced model cards for the big agencies – probably because of the access it gave him to an endless stream of gorgeous girls. Women loved Richard: he was so utterly charming and good-looking, with big dark eyes and an infectious smile. He was incredibly naughty, and although I was his girlfriend for a while, I think I was probably just one of many.

Then I went out with Dodi Fayed. I had a mad crush on him. For our first date he took me to a private screening of a movie he had just produced. I must have been partied out, because the last thing I remember was fighting to keep my eyes open before falling asleep. Oops. Dodi and I saw each other for a few dates, nearly always at Tramp. I even went on a couple of dates with the footballer, George Best. He was pissed out of his brain both times I saw him. On our second and final date we were sitting in a bar when he turned to me and slurred, ‘Marry me, Jo.’ I just laughed. You’ve got to be joking.

After a while Sue and I had to move out of the house in Wandsworth and, soon after, Sue got engaged to the singer Lulu’s brother, Billy Lawrie. Meanwhile, I moved to a flat in Fulham to house-sit for some friends and started seeing a guy called Flavio. He was Colombian, mad as a hatter and always had huge amounts of money and coke, although it didn’t occur to me that he might be a major-league dealer, even when he announced one day that he was off to Bali for six weeks and was going to leave his ‘stash’ in my Fulham flat for safe-keeping. I watched as Flavio hid this catering-sized Maxwell House jar of coke in a recess in the chimney, out of my reach, ‘so you won’t be tempted, darling’.

Fool!

As soon as he’d left I was on the phone to my friend, Max. ‘Flavio’s left all his stash here, down the side of the chimney!’

‘Right, I’m coming over,’ he said.

We spent the whole of the next two days trying to reach that damn jar. We’d have a break for a bit, smoke a cigarette, then get back to the job. Eventually, using a tool fashioned from two bent coat-hangers, we managed to pull it out. We stood the jar on the table, then carefully unwrapped it, remembering how it was put together so Flavio wouldn’t know we’d opened it. Take off the paper, peel off that bit – easy does it! – and finally we unscrewed the lid. It was crammed to the brim with the purest fluffy white Colombian coke. Carefully, I took out a scoop for me, a scoop for Max, we packed the jar back and then we were off. Tramp, Monkberry’s – we went crazy! A couple of days later we finished it, so we went and got some more. After a while we just attached a piece of string to the jar so we could pull it out whenever we wanted. For the next six weeks we were the most popular people in London, but suddenly Flavio was due to return and the jar was barely a quarter full. Oh, God, what was he going to say? I panicked, refilled the jar with flour, carefully wrapped it up and put it back in the chimney.

A couple of nights later I was in Tramp and one of the barmen told me there was a phone call for me.

‘Hello?’

It was Max. ‘Flavio’s back!’ he hissed. ‘Why the hell did you put that flour in the jar? You’ve messed up his stash. He’s looking for you, Jo!’

‘Well, I thought if I mixed it up a bit he wouldn’t be able to tell! Do you think—’

I didn’t get any further. Just then there was a tap on my shoulder. I turned round and there was Flavio.

‘Oh, heeeey, Flavio! It’s so great to see you!’

He didn’t look as if he felt the same. In fact, he looked a lot like a Colombian drugs baron who’d just found out he’d been robbed.

‘You ’ave ruined my stash,’ he said, quietly.

Fuuuuuck. ‘I’m so sorry, Flavio, but, you know, you left me there with all that coke, it was a bit of a risk …’

He was furious. But after he’d ranted for a bit, his anger faded and he was remarkably reasonable about the whole thing. He didn’t kill me, after all.

And that was the last I saw of Flavio until a few months later, by which time he was still doling out the good stuff, but my life had changed again, this time beyond all recognition.