The preferred option of a holiday, to get away from it all, was to take my girlfriend away for a couple of weeks. She, having agreed when I was in hospital, now refused. I was devastated and could not understand why she wouldn't go, even though she had just begun a new job. Feeling even more desperate, I sank into a torpor of despair and wallowed in misery in my tiny house, until the most wonderful thing happened.
My great friend Lisanne Malone made a call to Los Angeles and her brother Ged, recently married to Jane Wiedlin, ex of the Go Go's. I had met Jane once and knew Ged, quite well. The upshot of the conversation was an invitation for me to convalesce at their home. I was on the plane to Los Angeles just four days later. I can never express my gratitude to them sufficiently. It was manna from heaven!
Heaven ?...Well Close Enough
The two weeks spent at Ged and Jane's ranch in the Santa Monica mountains was idyllic. I spent most of it swinging in a hammock reading and writing. I helped a little around the place, got to know a few neighbours, didn't drink, rode horses into the mountains with Eli, their Israeli ranch hand, rode his trail bike, played a little basketball, chatted and played with the three dogs. I didn't explore much, just wanting to soak up the sun and gather my thoughts. Close by was the Paramount Ranch, used by the film studio for location shots in cowboy films. We rode through the dummy town on our horses, whilst I fantasised about the Wild West. I discovered horses have variable accelerators too, as Eli taught me the collected canter. Until then I had thought horses had four speeds only, walk, trot, canter and gallop. By the time I flew back to England, relaxed in body, troubled in mind, my thoughts were crystallized. I would not return to work.
Blunt Scissors ?
It was the ninth of April, a Sunday, when I landed back in the UK. I was met at the airport by my girlfriend, who I thought was going to share the day with me. After we got to my house, she announced she was off to lunch with her brother and I was not invited. I flew into a temper at her inconsiderate attitude and told her we should stop seeing each other. She agreed it would be best. The pit of despair returned immediately. I had focused a lot of hope on our relationship and now my dreams were in tatters.
Monday dawned and I broke the news to my partners that I wanted out of our little building renovation business. This presented a problem all its own, because we were in the throes of suing a client for $60,000 dollars. He had with-held payment, citing all manner of faults with our work. Not only that, he had set out his stall to ruin us, because I knew he was deliberately trying to avoid payment for work properly done. I'd contacted the police to enquire whether his actions constituted fraud. They considered we were victims of what was described as "long firm fraud", a systematic method of avoiding payment to several people. Because it involves so much police time and cost for a relatively small return in terms of penalty to the convicted, they were not prepared to investigate further. Our client had got wind of this in June of 1987, thanks to our wonderful British clodhopping Cops, and was suing us and me for slander. None of this mattered to me any more, I wanted out. The costs of continuing to fight the case to right a wrong, paled into insignificance when compared to my life.
By Wednesday of that week, I was at my lowest ebb. I hadn't enough money available to disappear as I wanted to. So I hit on the idea of asking my ex-girlfriend for payment for much of the work I'd done to her apartment, whilst we were seeing each other. We met, incidentally, because she was a customer in July of 1987. Once our contract with her was complete, I'd decorated, plumbed and done all kinds of odd jobs. I thought the least she could do now, given her desertion of me, was help me to get my life back on track, as I had helped her. After all she was rich enough to say her family owned a bank. We met that evening.
Our meeting was disastrous. I have never been a Scotch drinker, but drank it copiously whilst she refused to give me as much as I needed. She'd offered half of what I assessed I would need to spend the summer in the islands. I thought this an unbelievable insult and broke completely. Tears streamed down my face as I ranted, until finally, I stormed from her luxurious apartment in Chelsea, drunk as a lord. I seared away from the curb as I roared, " I HAVE THE COURAGE NOW !", a reference to an earlier conversation I'd had with a friend, when I declared I could never find the courage for suicide.
At home in Twickenham, I gathered my sleeping pills together, counted fourteen, and swallowed them. I was incredibly drunk and dimly remember the phone call I made to her, just before I passed out.