Touching from a Distance Page 12

  Ever since I had known him, Ian had always had little catchphrases which he insisted we both use. These seemed to me to be a kind of obsessive insurance against anything going wrong between us. For instance, ‘good-bye’ on the telephone could never be just ‘good-bye’; it always had to be followed by both of us saying ‘I love you’ in exactly the same sequence. Any deviation and Ian would begin the whole process again. If I ever went anywhere on my own, the last thing Ian would say to me was, ‘Watch yourself.’ This wasn’t to signify that I must look out for my safety, but rather that I must not speak to any other men. As the band began to be away from home, these little overprotective touches disappeared. When I asked Ian about groupies he said, ‘As if I could. I’d probably have a fit.’ There was no reassurance there. In fact, he turned the situation around and told me that Bernard was in the habit of bringing girls to the room for them both and pushing Ian into sleeping with them. I wasn’t impressed with him trying to blame Bernard for any extramarital sex, so typically I pressed no further. I preferred my state of ignorance.

  *

  On 16 October 1979, during a break in the Buzzcocks tour, Joy Division played Plan K in Brussels. They had understood the venue to be an oil refinery with an arts centre, but it turned out to be a sugar refinery which had been magically transformed into an arts centre by the addition of two or three bars. A hotel was not forthcoming and instead they were given cramped rooms in a hostel, where the only windows looked out on to a corridor. Yet this didn’t excuse Ian’s behaviour when he was unable to find the toilet. Having been caught urinating in a huge floor-standing ashtray, he proceeded to try to placate the member of staff in slow, loud English.

  It is purported to have been at this gig that Ian first met Annik Honoré, though some say it was at one of the London gigs. Either way, having an attractive girl around must have provided some much-needed excitement during an arduous two months. Rather than not mention her at all, he told me about a chubby Belgian girl who was a ‘tour arranger’, although Steve Morris says she was posing as a journalist and she was certainly not chubby! Ian said he felt sorry for her and had taken it upon himself to act as her protector against Rob Gretton’s cruel wit. Knowing Ian’s caring nature, I thought nothing more about it.

  During the time he spent with Annik, Ian’s personality became more serious. She seemed to have quite an influence on him and almost managed to talk him into becoming a vegetarian. At home, Ian stopped sharing his life with me. Rather than tell me amusing stories and gossip, he began to name drop and use catch-phrases which meant nothing to me.

  The day before the first Apollo gig, I fell down the stairs at home while carrying a kettle of boiling water up to the baby bath. I sat in the Apollo dressing room with my bandaged, scalded foot and wearing the clothes my mother had bought for me. I was totally unaware of my husband’s mistress looking me up and down from across the small room. Naturally, Ian removed me from the dressing room as quickly as possible. After introducing me to a few people who seemed embarrassed and befuddled, he announced that he was going to buy a portion of chips and left me in the crowd. After the gig, I found my way backstage with the other girls.

  Presumably to celebrate playing their home town, there was a party being held in one of the upstairs dressing rooms and Ian was reluctant to go. Not realizing why he had been so difficult on the first night, I decided not to go to the second gig, and Lesley Gilbert and I spent the evening at the flat she shared with Rob Gretton. I consumed a more than sufficient amount of wine, and when we telephoned the Apollo and I realized that Ian did not want to come home with me, I had even more to drink. My parents were baby-sitting and I wanted to get home at a reasonable time. Whether I was thick skinned or thick headed I’m not sure, but I couldn’t believe that Ian did not want me with him. Rob Gretton managed to get Ian away from the party and Annik. He and Lesley spent the rest of the evening arbitrating between the two of us and Rob eventually persuaded Ian to go home with me. By then I was in no fit state to drive and Rob paid for a taxi to take us all the way back to Macclesfield. Neither of us uttered a word throughout the journey and it was left to me to give an explanation to my fuming parents. This was impossible for me as I didn’t understand the situation myself. I still didn’t know about Ian and Annik’s relationship.

  The signs are so obvious now that I’m embarrassed at my stupidity. The cricket match Ian went to which no one else knew about, but everyone was supposed to have played in, should have at least pointed me in the right direction. When I found Ian pressing his own trousers I should have been suspicious. I was hurt when he said he was going to see Eraserhead without me, but terribly worried when he didn’t come home. One of his greatest fears was to be arrested for drunkenness if no one realized that he’d had a fit. I rang his parents and everyone in the band, but he was nowhere to be found. Peter Hook gave me Terry Mason’s number, but by the time I dialled the digits, the line was already engaged. His father and I rang local hospitals and police stations to see if he had been taken in. When he strolled in later the next day, he was very angry that I had told anyone about his disappearance. I never found out where he’d been.

  November should have been a particularly happy time for us. Ian had had only two attacks in two months and these were probably owing to the fact that he had been unable to take his tablets for a couple of days. We were relying heavily on my parents to do more than their fair share of baby-sitting and so journeys between our house and theirs became frequent. One sleeting afternoon while taking Ian on a rare visit to my parents, I skidded on Catherine Street, right into the back of another car.We weren’t going at any great speed, but it frightened Ian enough to make him curl up in a ball and hide in the foot well under the dashboard – not easy for someone who was over six feet tall.

  By the end of 1979 the downward spiral of our financial situation had reached the bottom. Each member of the band was on a weekly wage, Ian having negotiated an extra £15 per week.This was slightly more than the others and was given on the understanding that when the real money began to come in, Ian would pay them back. I was grateful for that concession, but it still didn’t compensate for the loss of both our wages. I gather from the rest of the band that he argued frequently with Rob over this payment. From what Ian told me it wasn’t the fact that Rob didn’t want to part with the money, but rather that he couldn’t comprehend the need for regularity. I asked around and heard that they were looking for bar staff at Silklands, a local disco. My mother offered to baby-sit while I earned some money in the evenings. As Ian had been so overly protective in the past, I thought he would try to dissuade me, but he didn’t seem remotely concerned. It was just as well, as we were desperate for the money. It was a very tiring time. I looked after the baby from early in the morning, working evenings, returned home late and then waited for Ian to arrive so that I could make sure he was safe in bed. Ian was either asleep or out. It didn’t matter how little money was in my purse for food, he still took it for cigarettes. My parents fed me and Natalie on Sundays when Ian was rehearsing, and took over the bills for the car, letting me use it when I needed.

  Meanwhile, Joy Division continued wih their support spot on the Buzzcocks tour. Joy Division were fairly new to the type of stunts touring bands pull, so when Buzzcocks warned about tricks on the last night at the Rainbow Theatre, they took their task seriously. The Buzzcocks were tame enough to remove the battery from Steve Morris’s syndrum, but Joy Division had more radical things in mind. Piles of maggots were placed on the lighting and mixing desks, every window of the crew bus was covered with shaving foam and six mice were released inside the bus for good measure. Trying to leave the theatre was also hazardous, as Joy Division circled around in Steve Morris’s car throwing eggs at whoever was there. The most disgusting trick of all happened in Guildford. After removal of the fluorescent light tubes in the gents toilets excrement was smeared over the light switch and the taps.

  Chris Bonn’s review of the Rainbow Theatre gig accused the
Buzzcocks of scuppering Joy Division’s sound because they were more competition than the Buzzcocks had bargained for. Despite the vast improvement in actual sound quality when the Buzzcocks came on, it was to no avail. Joy Division had already won their audience against the odds: ‘they treated their guests to a lousy sound, which dampened Ian Curtis’s passionate vocals, throwing him into an uneven struggle with superior forces of technology. Inevitably, he lost, but the spirit of resistance was there.’

  *

  On 13 December 1979 my parents gave us the money to dine out. We celebrated my birthday at a small, cold Chinese restaurant in Wilmslow. Ian was miserably silent and merely ate his food in slow motion. I hadn’t ordered a first course, so I sat looking at him and thinking. As a couple we had long since ceased to socialize with other members of the band and I still hadn’t figured out why. Any suggestion of a night out with them was shot down, often with the excuse that Ian disliked one of the girls in particular. In fact he ridiculed her so viciously that I guessed she would be next to follow Stephanie into the cold.

  Ian seemed to regard the meal as a duty, part of his function in life. I observed what a lonely couple we were and felt he must be very ashamed of me to want to keep me away from his friends. I rubbed the goose-pimples on my arms and looked back at him. His own-body body appeared to be unaffected by the temperature of the room. He was miles away and I wished I was too. ‘Why don’t you hurry? Why don’t you speak?’ I snapped at him. He recoiled with a startled expression as if I had struck him, then carried on eating.

  The Paris gig later in December was attended by a young Frenchman called Franck Essner. After hearing ‘Transmission’ on the radio, he and his friends had tried to set up publication of a fanzine and intended to use this as a means of acquainting themselves with the band that wrote the song they loved so much. Towards the end of the afternoon, Franck managed to talk Rob into the idea of an interview and they exchanged addresses. Later, he sat next to Ian for dinner and they became friends.

  We had Christmas dinner at my parents’ house. Our late arrival and the uncomfortable atmosphere caused my family to think we had fallen out, but now I think that Ian was probably missing Annik.

  The 1979 Factory New Year’s Eve party took place in Oldham Street, Manchester, above a shop which was near what used to be Woolworth’s until it burned down. Certain factory bands, including Section 25, played that night to a small private audience. Ian had a particular interest in Section 25 and wanted very much to be their producer. When someone began to make a racket during their set, Ian decided to do something about it. For some reason he glanced at me before he went in punching, as if to make sure I was looking. I’d never seen him fight before and had just waded in to try to rescue him when he was knocked to the floor and kicked.The next morning; Ian’s eye resembled a large blue egg. In contrast to midnight two years earlier, the New Year was not so much welcomed in as acknowledged. Most people were too busy jealously guarding their image to make any show of affection. The proceedings were dampended even further when a girl was rumoured to have had a cigarette stubbed out on her face after foolishly kissing a Certain Ratio who didn’t belong to her! Used to being more flamboyant on New Year’s Eve, I asked Peter Hook for a kiss but he refused. In the event, the closest I got to anyone at that party was when I pinched Richard Boon’s bottom!

  After stopping off to visit some relatives of Donald Johnson (A Certain Ratio’s drummer), Donald and Tony Wilson drove Ian and me back to Macclesfield. As we passed through Prestbury – the millionaire village of Cheshire – Tony waved his arm, gesturing towards the large, salubrious houses and remarked to Ian that next year he could be living in one of them.

  Realizing that something was wrong between us was the easy part. None of the literature sent to me by the British Epilepsy Association had prepared me for Ian’s behaviour. I didn’t know where to turn to for help or even if the epilepsy was indeed the culprit. Ian had always had an eccentric, schizophrenic personality and it was this difference which I had found so attractive in my teenage years. Now the nasty and deceitful side of him appeared to be winning. My only communication with the rest of the band was through Ian and, although he was causing them some concern too, I felt they blamed me for many of Ian’s problems. People weren’t as friendly as they used to be and it was understandable. Ian had fallen into a routine of telling his comrades how unhappy I was making his life and, as Peter Hook told me, putting over an uncomplimentary image. Our marriage was over and he hadn’t told me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I KNEW MY LIFE IS GETTING HARDER

  It was January 1980 and Joy Division were about to start their European tour. Ian’s case was packed and we were standing in the living room at Barton Street waiting for the rest of the lads to turn up. In Park Lane, which ran parallel to Barton Street, there was a very large house which had been converted into flats (now a hotel). As we stood there together looking out of the window, Ian suddenly suggested that we sell the house and move into one of the flats. The reason he gave was that a flat would be cheaper to maintain. I pointed out that it wouldn’t be as pleasant living in a flat and that Natalie and I would be stuck there alone as he was away so much. I was a little puzzled, but it didn’t occur to me that maybe he was looking forward to his share of the equity on the sale of the house. I didn’t realize that he wasn’t intending to move into the flat with me. He then said that Hooky had told him that he should get Natalie and I out of the house as we had no right to be there. This puzzled me as I still wasn’t as conversant with my marital problems as the band were. Ignoring what was staring me in the face, I promptly forgot about his silly suggestion and asked him if I had time to nip to the corner shop for something before he left He promised to wait until I returned, but insisted I take Natalie with me.

  As I came out of the shop I saw the car coming down the road towards me. The driver slowed down as if he was going to stop to allow Ian to say good-bye (as they were going to the Continent for about ten days), but Ian’s stony face turned the other way and the car carried on, just as though we had fallen out and weren’t speaking. Unknown to me he was setting the scene for taking Annik on tour with him. I was genuinely surprised that he never telephoned me or even sent a postcard during the entire trip.

  Ian hated travelling, but he hardly complained. He disliked his movements being restricted and his long legs would ache if he was unable to stretch them out. Rob Gretton hired a twelve-seater minibus for the band and crew, and a three-ton truck for the equipment. Luckily they crossed the Channel by hovercraft, so Ian had no need to tell anyone about his fear of flying.

  The tour was particularly arduous, with a performance every night and little time to sleep, never mind recuperate. Coupled with this was the fact that Ian had brought Annik with him. Rob Gretton’s reason for banning wives and girlfriends (for some reason she wasn’t counted as either) dissipated rapidly, as her presence meant that Ian had less opportunity to relax with the boys. Tony Wilson remembers: ‘It’s always a problem in this industry – having a home life as well. What happens is that when they get a mistress or go for somebody else, far from finding somebody easier, they usually find someone harder. That was the feeling with members of Joy Division. They used to go out of the frying pan into the fire.’

  When Ian came home we practically passed on the doorstep, as I was on my way to work. I had already dropped Natalie off at my parents’ and whenever she was there Ian never made the effort to go and see her, even if he had been away on tour. I returned after midnight and found the house strangely quiet, but eventually located Ian lying on the floor of the blue room. He had consumed most of a bottle of duty-free Pernod and so was difficult to rouse. I was annoyed to find him incoherent and when he gained consciousness he spewed all over the carpet. He didn’t raise any objections when I insisted he clean it up himself, then he sloped off to bed. I noticed weals on his body, but could not be sure if they were recent or not.

  After he had gone I picked up the Bi
ble and the knife which were lying on the floor. The Bible was still open. Chapter two of The Book of Revelation of St John the Divine was gouged from top to bottom. I read the still-legible words referring to Jezebel and flattered myself into thinking he had been worried about my fidelity while he was away. Ian had not discussed suicide with the other members of the band and neither did they know of Ian’s first overdose when he was fifteen. However, he did embellish this incident and relate it to the lads. Steve Morris was suitably underwhelmed and jumped to a different conclusion than I did.

  ‘He told us about cutting into the Bible, but he talked about it as though he’d had some strange religious experience, where I’d say he’d just got blind drunk and cut himself up. The way he told it, it was just one of those stories. It was only after he took the overdose that it turned into a chain of events. We were concerned, but no one knew what to do because we thought he was sorting it out.’

  Steve Morris

  ‘He wouldn’t have told me he wanted to die young because he was my investment. He wanted to be a romantic hero and he succeeded. If Ian had lived, you would have had a tough ten years. Natalie has been deprived of a father – your life would have been hell either way. Ian got what he wanted.’

  Tony Wilson

  By now Joy Division fans were dressing in the same austere 1940s style – the depressives dressing for the Depression. I thought it an unlikely fashion, especially as out of necessity I was dressing dowdily myself. When Ian told me that the band were going to stop gigging for twelve months, I wasn’t pleased. It was a sensible enough decision, but I knew that it would not be carried through and believed it to be a mere pacifier, designed to calm Ian down. Sure enough, an American tour was soon announced – not only that, but a string of British gigs were arranged in preparation.