Touching from a Distance Page 10

Between 24 January and 13 March 1979 Ian had several more grand mal attacks. During these, his body would twist violently and I would worry in case he bit his tongue or banged his head. He had attended Macclesfield Hospital for an electroencephalogram (EEG), where metal tags are glued to the scalp to record the electrical activity of the brain. His medical records state that no abnormalities were found. Presumably no one was any closer to finding out what was causing Ian’s illness.

  Gradually, his prescription was changed to try to bring the attacks under control. Each time Ian collected his new tablets he was full of renewed enthusiasm, convinced that this time the formulation would help him. Over the following months he took Carbamazepine, Phenobarbitone, Phenytoin and Valproate. Carbamazepine reduces the likelihood of convulsions caused by abnormal nerve signals in the brain. It has less of a sedative effect than similar drugs, unless mixed with alcohol. I lost track of which tablets he was meant to be taking and which ones he had finished with.

  There was so much happening in the Spring of 1979. It seemed that everything we had planned was finally coming to fruition, from the birth of our child to Joy Division’s first album. Rob Gretton was keen to tie up any loose ends and eradicate anything that might jeopardize the band’s future. The recording for the RCA subsidiary had long since been finished when Rob Gretton became the band’s manager, and Richard Searling raised no objection to his involvement as he felt the band needed someone who really understood what they were trying to do. The first thing Rob Gretton did was to suggest a complete remix.

  ‘Because RCA had shown quite a bit of interest, we didn’t feel that we wanted to do a remix. We felt that RCA would pick it up as it was and any remixes that needed doing would be done by RCA from their budget. But the guys were very determined. I’m sure they were right that they didn’t want to go with a major. They didn’t want to be seen as another Sweet, or Bonnie Tyler, or whatever.’

  Richard Searling

  The album was outmoded and under-produced and although Joy Division were quite right to request a complete remix, it would not have sufficed and there was not an infinite amount of cash available. They had reached a stage where they desperately needed Martin Hannett’s diverse ideas before they could go any further. So much time had elapsed since the initial recording that Joy Division were no longer the same band. In the ensuing inertia Richard Searling had lost control of the project and despite RCA’s obvious interest, a year after the recording was made it was decided to abandon the project altogether.

  One Monday evening in January, Joy Division, Rob Gretton, John Anderson, Richard Searling, his wife Judith and I met in the Portland Bars beneath the Piccadilly Hotel. The master tapes were handed over in return for £1,500 – the same amount of money that had been spent on the project originally. The publishing contract had never been signed, leaving the band free to re-record the songs if they wished and retain the publishing rights for themselves. The subsequent bootlegs appear to have been taken from a cassette copy and not from the original master, as has been previously suggested.

  Unknown Pleasures was recorded in April 1979 at Strawberry Studios in Stockport. This and the initial pressing of 10,000 copies were paid for by Tony Wilson. To say Ian was impressed by Martin Hannett’s work would be an understatement. He came home enthusing about the sampling of glass-smashing and hand-clapping. Hannett already had considerable experience recording unusual sounds and atmospheres, and his marvellous production of Joy Division’s drums became an integral part of the music. His ability to translate their thoughts and needs into a co-ordinated work of art was the catalyst Joy Division badly needed. Ian appeared to be happy with his new playmates, and I did everything I could to help him organize his life and reduce any stress he might be under.

  Whether it was intentional or not, the wives and girlfriends had gradually been banished from all but the most local of gigs and a curious male bonding had taken place. The boys seemed to derive their fun from each other. Ian intensely disliked foam rubber and hated touching it, and when Joy Division could at last afford flight cases, they amused themselves by pulling bits of foam from the insides and dropping them down the back of Ian’s neck. Nevertheless, he managed to overcome this fear when he had to help Candy out of trouble. One afternoon I arrived home from a hospital check-up to find the lounge ankle-deep in foam rubber. Heavily pregnant, I had walked all the way there and back and was exhausted – seeing what Candy had done to the settee made me want to cry. Ian got down on his hands and knees, picked up every scrap and restuffed all the cushions. Then he went out and bought me a box of chocolates – this was typical behaviour from the Ian I married.

  When things began to go well for Ian and his band, he thought of his old friend Tony Nuttall and decided to include him in the excitement. He wrote to Tony and invited him to design a sleeve for the album. Unfortunately Tony was in the final year of his degree and was unable to take up his offer. I was surprised to learn that Ian had been in touch with him as he never mentioned it.

  I confess I showed little interest in the recording of Unknown Pleasures. My main concern was that Rob Gretton didn’t book any gigs for the week the baby was due as I desperately wanted Ian to be at the birth. Ian was amenable to this. In October we attended talks at the ante-natal clinic and he never appeared remotely squeamish about the prospect. While some husbands were visibly panicked by the graphic video we were shown, Ian had an embarrassing fit of giggles.

  As the 6 April came and went my doctor decided that the birth should be induced on 16 April, which was Easter Monday. The evening before, Ian and I sat watching a documentary about the. Nuremberg trials when he suddenly turned to me and said, ‘I can’t imagine there being another person here with us.’ I thought to myself indignantly that he wouldn’t have to imagine for much longer! I went upstairs and climbed the stairs to our room. As I plonked down on the bed, my waters broke.

  Ian bundled me into an ambulance that night, but didn’t come to the hospital until the next day when the birth was imminent. I was the complete coward. I drew the line at an epidural, but took everything else they offered me. I screamed and swore and was so frightened I felt I would have done anything to keep the baby in. When it was all over, Ian said that if anything had gone wrong it would have been my fault as I had ‘done it all wrong’. I like to think that he wasn’t prepared for the strength of his feelings on seeing his own child’s birth. Ian’s initial fears turned to joy and the trauma was soon forgotten.

  Natalie was tiny; my father said he had seen bigger chickens. Her features and hands were like Ian’s in miniature. Everyone could tell she was our first child because we both spent every visiting time gazing into her face. Ian was completely enraptured. In those days new mothers were encouraged to stay in hospital for longer and everything seemed to be going well, until the afternoon when I told Ian we would both be coming home the following day. Suddenly Ian seemed extremely apprehensive and dismayed. He said nothing and I carried on talking, pretending not to notice his change of attitude.

  When I tried to ring him to ask him to come and collect us the next morning, there was no answer and he hadn’t gone to work. My mother and her friend had no trouble getting into the house as Ian had left the front door unbolted. He’d had a fit and cut his head during the evening.

  Natalie and I soon settled into a routine, but Ian was terrified something might happen to the baby. He was reluctant to hold her in case he had a fit and dropped her, and so could not bring himself to participate in looking after her as much as he might have done. I begged him to try to hold her for a short time alone, but he had convinced himself that it would endanger Natalie if he supported her unsupervised. Ian’s fits were never totally unexpected and shortly before each attack he would experience what is usually described as an aura. I pointed out to him that he could easily put the baby down if he had any such warnings, but he said he did not want to take the risk. I accepted what he said – after all, Ian knew more about it than I did.

  Instead
I had to look after the both of them single-handedly. At times this was both infuriating and tiring. Ian expected his evening meal to be ready when he came home from work and if Natalie was crying he would not even hold her while I dished out the food. To some extent I felt he was demanding his turn for attention from me, like a jealous child.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ON A ROZOR’S EDGE

  By May 1979, Joy Division were used to playing at the Russell Club in Hulme, Manchester. Tony Wilson hired what was in effect a social club for tenants of the council flats and once or twice a week its name was changed to the Factory. It was a bleak place, mirroring the area in which Ian had lived during his adolescence in Macclesfield. Hundreds of dark windows stared at the car park outside the club and I was forever haunted by the feeling that I was being watched. Of the many Factory gigs, this one was particularly important for me – it was my first evening out since having Natalie.

  Ian and I drove there together and after I had parked the car we walked across to the doors of the club. I was still half a stone overweight, but managed to squeeze into a pair of jeans. Ian put his arms around me, kissed me and said how proud he was of me. To him, I looked the same as before. It was a great set. The band were better than ever and they had built up a serious following. I stood in the audience admiring my husband with everyone else. I considered myself to be well organized in my new role. I felt self-satisfied and happy in my ignorance – I believed the depressive image and emotive lyrics merely to be part of the act. Joy Division were on the brink of success and despite other people’s misgivings, I was holding on to my husband and my baby. Even before Natalie’s birth, Mr Pape, my old boss at the County Court in Macclesfield, had warned me that I may not be able to have both.

  It would be wrong to say my personality didn’t change when I became a mother. My life was no longer centred on Ian. Now I had this small person who was totally dependent on me. I had always felt responsible for lan’s well-being, but when our daughter arrived I naturally expected him to adjust and make her the centre of his life too. Not that I stopped caring for Ian, but Natalie always came first and in refusing to help me I often felt that Ian was pressurizing me to choose between them. My mother would give me little hints such as, ‘Before he comes home from work, move the drying nappies away from the fire to make him feel welcome.’

  Joy Division were gigging regularly during May – at least one a week, sometimes two – and were even interviewed on Radio Manchester. It was hard for Ian as he was still working full time, and his doctor had advised him to get early nights and not to work too hard. On the evening of 24 May 1979 we were having a quiet night at home. He began to feel unwell and had four grand mal attacks, one after the other. I was unable to wake him from the fourth attack, so I rang my mother to come and look after Natalie and then called an ambulance. He regained consciousness in casualty and was kept in hospital for a few days.

  It was purely common sense that prompted me to call an ambulance and it appears I knew less about epilepsy than I thought. I read in a book, which wasn’t published until 1984, ‘Grand mal status epilepticus, in which the subject does not recover consciousness between generalized tonic-clonic convulsions, is a medical emergency.’ Following this, a brain scan was arranged at Manchester Royal Infirmary. This could have shown up cysts, scars and abnormal blood vessels in the brain, or even have identified a tumour – but the results were normal.

  Ian did not have any epileptic attacks during June 1979 and he did try hard to settle down into the relative tranquillity of family life. We lived a very short distance from South Park in Macclesfield and on warm summer evenings we would take Natalie in her pram and walk the dog. For me at least, these times were idyllic.

  In July, Mick Middles reviewed a Factory gig for Sounds and obviously saw something in Joy Division’s music which he had not previously noticed. After calling them ‘orgasmic and mind-blowing’, he went on to say:

  ‘During the set’s many “peaks” Ian Curtis often loses control. He’ll suddenly jerk sideways and, head in hands, he’ll transform into a twitching, epileptic-type mass of flesh and bone. Suddenly he’ll recover. The guitars will fade away, leaving the lonely drummer to finish the song on his own. Then, with no introduction, the whole feeling will begin again. Another song, another climax.’

  Once, when interviewed, Ian commented:

  ‘We don’t want to get diluted, really, and by staying at Factory at the moment we’re free to do what we want. There’s no one restricting us or the music – or even the artwork and promotion. You get bands that are given advances – loans, really – but what do they spent it on? What is all that money going to get? Is it going to make the music any better?’

  If Ian hadn’t argued with his manager he would have been very unusual. Musicians often behave like children and any manager will find himself acting as a father figure, solving problems and generally smoothing things out. Ian wasn’t the only person to fall out with Rob Gretton, but sometimes he did react rather badly. One argument culminated in Ian stalking up and down the rehearsal room with a drum case on his head. The more he stalked the more mad Rob became and the more the rest of the band laughed. Ian’s impractical approach to money always caused him difficulties. It was a concept he never understood. Once, he rang me from a hotel in the south of England. He was presented with a bill for £5 – the exact sum he had in his pocket. Furious with Rob Gretton, he blamed him for not warning him about the cost of hotel telephone bills.

  ‘He had a lot of responsibilities, didn’t he? I wouldn’t count myself as any different now, because I’ve got responsibilities, but youth is blind. We thought, “Why doesn’t he just shut up and get on with it?” That’s what you do when you’re young. You don’t think about the ramifications.’

  Peter Hook

  Ian’s quest for extra pocket money for himself was never ending. He even stooped to cleaning the rehearsal rooms as the rest of the band could afford to pay him. When Factory pressed the first Durutti Column album, Return of the Durutti Column, Tony Wilson needed someone to glue the sheets of sandpaper to the sleeves and Joy Division were drafted in. Ian did most of the job himself because the others became engrossed in the porn movie hired to alleviate the boredom and Ian needed the money for his cigarettes.

  When the time came for Joy Division to start their own publishing company, it was decided to credit all the songs to Joy Division rather than any individual. The song-writing royalties were split four ways, with each person then paying Rob Gretton 20 per cent as his manager’s commission. At the time I was stunned. Initially, I helped Ian financially, emotionally and practically to follow his chosen career, but when Rob started managing the band I became very much an outsider. I assumed epilepsy to be the main cause of Ian’s silence, but, unknown to me, he had painted Rob a grim picture of his home life.

  Yet Ian still thought enough of me to come back for consolation when he realized that the other members were not going to give him the credit he was expecting. I was out of touch with their song-writing methods and, as far as I could see at the time, Ian was a substantial contributor. As I understood it, he wrote the melodies and the lyrics – I thought he deserved at least half the credit. He was sad when he told me what had happened and although he accepted the situation, I think he must have felt he had sold out for the sake of friendship, otherwise he would not have even mentioned it. Yet, he never expressed any dissatisfaction to the band. Perhaps I was guilty of idolizing him in the same way as the press. Despite the fact that he had ceased to help in the home, to me he was still perched up there on his pedestal. When the press tried to present the band as ‘Ian Curtis and Joy Division’, Ian fought against it. Press interviews had always been traumatic and serious. As Ian was more approachable than the others, journalists began to ask for personal interviews.

  Unknown Pleasures was released in June 1979. Packaged in a black linen-look sleeve with a white Fourier analysis in the centre, the sides were called ‘Inside’ and ‘Outsid
e’. ‘Inside’ contained ‘Shadowplay’, ‘Wilderness’, ‘Interzone’ and ‘I Remember Nothing’. ‘Outside’ contained ‘Disorder’, ‘Day of the Lords’, ‘Candidate’, ‘Insight’ and ‘New Dawn Fades’. The tracks ‘Auto-suggestion’ and ‘From Safety to Where … ?’ were recorded initially as part of the album, but were rejected and appeared later on Fast’s Earcom 2 with other contributions from Basczax and Thursdays.

  Nearer to the truth than most people imagined, Unknown Pleasures was reviewed in Sounds under the headline ‘Death Disco’. The reviewer wrote a short story around the album; his opinion was that if one was contemplating suicide, Joy Division was guaranteed to push you over the edge. Initially, I disliked Unknown Pleasures. This may have been owing to my jealousy at being gradually ousted from the ‘tightening circle’, or a genuine apprehension about the morbid dirges. As I became familiar with the lyrics, I worried that Ian was retreating to the depression of his teenage years. He had been inordinately kind to me during my pregnancy and yet these lyrics had been written at the same time.

  ‘But I remember when we were young’ – Ian sounded old, as if he had lived a lifetime in his youth. After pondering over the words to ‘New Dawn Fades’, I broached the subject with Ian, trying to make him confirm that they were only lyrics and bore no resemblance to his true feelings. It was a one-sided conversation. He refused to confirm or deny any of the points raised and he walked out of the house. I was left questioning myself instead, but did not feel close enough to anyone else to voice my fears. Would he really have married me knowing that he still intended to kill himself in his early twenties? Why father a child when you have no intention of being there to see her grow up? Had I been so oblivious to his unhappiness that he had been forced to write about it?