In reality each was living out a dream via the press. Each was living up to a press-created image. I couldn’t understand why anyone cared to read about them. The Sid and Nancy story was not one I myself would have read in the newspapers. But others, apparently, did.
The most painful story came out in the Philadelphia Inquirer a few days later. The newspaper had followed up the arraignment photo and story by assigning a reporter, Julia Cass, to probe into Nancy’s past. She succeeded in opening up our private odyssey with Nancy to the public—by going around us. She spoke to Nancy’s friend Karen, to Mr. Sylvester at Darlington. She retraced Nancy’s route to Avon, then to Colorado and back again.
And she spoke to Nancy in London. She asked Nancy if she was a groupie.
“I am not or never have been a groupie,” Nancy replied in the article. “If a groupie came up to Sid, he’d kick her in the face.”
She asked Nancy about her domestic life.
“I sleep all day and go out to the shops, you know, for bread and milk. I don’t cook. This place isn’t a pigsty or anything, but I’m not into cleaning.”
She asked Nancy about her future plans, now that the band had broken up.
“I never think about the future,” Nancy replied.
Nancy then asked the reporter to send me a copy of the article when it came out. She wanted me to see how well she was doing.
We were extremely hurt and angry over this article. It is one thing to give up your privacy. It is another to have it taken from you. We felt victimized, like our family’s dirty laundry had been snatched and hung in public. Moreover, we couldn’t understand why anyone would want to read about us. But read they did.
At the office the following day I could tell that everyone had seen the article. They didn’t say so, but I could tell. They looked embarrassed. They should have been. It was none of their damned business.
We began to get obscene phone calls as a result of the article. David, who was home sick with the flu, took one from a man who said, “Tell your parents it’s all their fault. They should have taken the Pill.” Other callers simply cursed at him and hung up.
We also got obscene mail. One was simply a copy of the Julia Cass story with various words circled and obscenities written next to them. We called the police.
This public response baffled and upset us even more. Sixteen-year-old David took it upon himself a few days after the publication of the article to phone Julia Cass at the newspaper. He told her that she had hurt our family, that we’d been receiving obscene calls and letters, and that it wasn’t justified based on the relative unimportance of the story. We were glad that David called. We appreciated it. We also thought it was a mature thing for him to do. He had something he’d wanted to get off his chest and he had. Julia Cass vigorously defended the story to him, though she later admitted to me that his call had affected her profoundly. By then we had become good friends. Still are. I can now ask her why anyone cared about Sid and Nancy, since I still cannot fathom it. And she, a veteran journalist, can simply reply, “They were the ultimate tabloid news story—amusing, amazing, freaky.”
David spoke to Nancy a few days later. She called to find out if the story had come out. David told her it had, and that we’d been suffering as a result. She apologized, then asked him for a copy of the article for her portfolio. Then she said Sid had something important to say, and put him on. What Sid had to tell David was that while he’d been touring America with the Sex Pistols, he’d had sex with a transvestite. All of the gory details followed.
Soon after our unpleasant brush with the press and notoriety, I received one of the two letters I got from Nancy while she was abroad. Actually, what she sent me was a Mother’s Day card. It was only March, but the British celebrate Mother’s Day earlier in the year than we do. It was a standard Mother’s Day card with a couple of standard rhyming verses about how sweet and thoughtful a mom I really, truly was. Underneath and across the back, she scrawled:
Dear Mommy,
Happy Mother’s Day from both of us. I guess this card pretty much sums up the way I am and I feel. If you don’t know it, Sid thinks the world of you, too. Believe me, that’s rare. He rarely takes a liking to anyone. And he wants to meet you very much.
I miss you very badly and I hope we’ll see each other soon. You know, just between us, that you’re the only one in the family that I really care about. Now, I have two best friends that I love—you and Sid. I hope you’re happy your daughter finally found a guy and settled down! It’s our anniversary on March 11th. One year already since we met. I can’t believe it. But we both love each other very much and take care of each other and we have a very beautiful relationship that you would be proud of.
The reason my writing is so shaky is because my Sidney is playing bass right next to me and the bed is bouncing like hell. Well, enough about us. Have the happiest Mother’s Day of anybody. We’ll be thinking of you. We both love you, Mommy!
Love, XOXOXOXO
Nancy
Underneath, in his own childlike scrawl, Sid wrote:
Luv from Sid XXXXXXX
And underneath that, Nancy added:
P.S. We both love you again and hope we’ll be together soon!
I read the letter over several times in amazement. This was clearly not the letter of a girl who was repudiating her upbringing. Far from it; this was a girl who hoped her mother was happy that her daughter “had finally found a guy and settled down.” Had I not known the circumstances, I’d have been justified in jumping to the conclusion that her “Sidney” was a nice Jewish dentist.
Something else about the letter amazed me—its tone. It was unfamiliar. After I’d read the letter over again, I realized what it was.
Nancy was genuinely happy—possibly the only time she had been in her entire life.
She stayed that way for a short time. A very short time. The life that she and Sid had together was constructed around drugs and his fleeting fame and wealth. They could stay happy only for as long as they were able to hold on to their health and his money.
She phoned me from Paris that spring, her voice filled with childlike enthusiasm.
“I’m traveling, Mum,” she exclaimed. “Just like I always wanted to. It was so bloody moldy in London and it’s so beautiful here.”
“It sounds wonderful, sweetheart,” I said.
It did sound wonderful. I’d always dreamed of being able to go to Paris in the spring.
“Oh, it is! My Sid bought me real French underwear. Black.” She giggled. “And shoes. Charles Jourdan. And we eat every night in this great little restaurant and have wine and they’re so bloody nice to us. They don’t make any kind of big deal over us or anything. They’re just nice.”
I got a postcard from her a few days later. It was a picture postcard of the Eiffel Tower. On the back she wrote:
Dear Mom,
Love Paris. It’s a really beautiful city with pretty parks and squares. Have been here for 3 weeks, so we had a chance to really look around. I bought so many things—clothes, French make-up, jewelry, etc. Send my love,
Love, Nancy and Sid
Now it sounded like she and her dentist were on their honeymoon.
She and Sid spent an idyllic month together in Paris. Inevitably things began to turn sour for them when they got back to London.
First Nancy’s health gave out. It was sometime in June, a few weeks after they got back. A hysterical phone call woke me in the middle of the night. A child was screaming and crying.
“My baby! She’s my baby! She’s in pain! My baby’s in pain!”
I finally realized that child was Sid.
“Sid? Is that you?”
“Yes, Debbie,” he sobbed. “Nancy. She’s in pain. I don’t know what to do. Tell me. Oh, please. Tell me.”
“What is it, Sid? What’s bothering her?”
“Her insides!”
“Have you called a doctor?”
“A doctor?”
“Can yo
u call a doctor, Sid?” I asked, very slowly.
It was morning there. The doctors would be in their offices.
“Yes,” he replied. “Yes. A doctor.”
“Okay, Sid. Take Nancy to a doctor. And have the doctor call me. Can you do that, Sid? Can you take Nancy to the doctor?”
“Yes, a doctor. I’ll do that, Debbie. I’ll do that.”
The doctor phoned me a few hours later to say that Nancy was suffering from a severe infection of the fallopian tubes.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to hospitalize her, Mrs. Spungen,” he said. “But she’ll be fine, I think, in a few days. And there’s a very nice young man here who’s very worried about her.”
Nancy stayed in the hospital until she was well enough to want out. Sid took her home to their little house in Maida Vale and vowed to be her nursemaid. He also promised to call me every day at the same time to report on her progress. He kept both promises.
“She’s already doing better, Debbie,” he said on her first day back. “I fed her yogurt with a spoon and gave her her medicine. I’m taking care of her. I gave her lemonade. Here, she wants to talk to you. Here’s Nancy. Here’s our little girl.”
Nancy got on the phone.
“Hi, Mum,” she said weakly. “He’s so sweet, isn’t he? Isn’t my Sid sweet?”
“Is everything all right, Nancy?”
“I’ll be okay. My Sidney’s here. I miss you, though. Can’t you come over? Can’t you be here to take care of me, too?”
“I … I don’t know. I’ll have to let you know.”
I wanted to see her. I hadn’t seen her for fifteen months, and she was ill. But I was afraid. She’d told me about the beatings she and Sid had suffered.
“Would I be safe?” I asked.
“Nobody will touch you, Mum,” she assured me. “I’ll watch out for you.”
I wasn’t so sure. Hers was an alien life. There was danger in it. I was against going—until I got a letter from her a few days later. This was her second and last letter from abroad. Actually it was a list. She catalogued the twenty-one places she wanted to take me in London, everywhere from Trafalgar Square to Harrods (“the English Bloomingdale’s”) to Knightsbridge (“fancy shopping area”) to Oxford Street (“more shopping”). At the bottom of the list she concluded, “Don’t forget to bring this list with you. Can’t wait to see you. Everything is fine here.”
Now I was thinking I would go. She seemed so up and anxious to see me. We could have a good time together. A mother-daughter time.
I was just about to check out the fares to London when Nancy called me with a complete change of plans.
The second problem had arisen to doom Nancy and Sid’s little life together: Sid’s career. The Sex Pistols had broken up and he was having trouble catching on as a solo act in London—understandable, considering his lack of talent. He’d cut a single called “My Way,” but it failed to take off. His money was running out. Meanwhile, Malcolm McLaren had apparently lost interest in his creation. Clearly, Sid’s novelty value had passed. (And genuinely talented performers—from Elvis Costello to Graham Parker to the Clash—had emerged to grab hold of the punk audience.) But Nancy and Sid failed to see it that way. They both thought he was a bona fide rock star, one who was simply in need of fresh, inspired management.
“I’m managing Sid’s career now, Mum,” Nancy told me over the phone. “He’s gonna be even bigger as a solo.”
In retrospect, here was a pathetic show business fantasy, one akin to Norma Desmond’s hopeless dream of a return to screen glory in Sunset Boulevard. It wasn’t going to happen. In retrospect, here was also rather touching loyalty. If Nancy had simply been a groupie, as some still suggest, this would have been the time to dump Sid—his career, such as it was, had ended—and move on to greener pastures. But she didn’t. She stuck by him.
“He’ll do better in the States, I figure,” she declared firmly. “So we’re comin’ back for good. End of August or so. As soon as we get to New York, I’ll bring Sid down to meet the whole family. We’ll stay for a while. Won’t that be great?”
Nancy was coming home.
The prospect stirred bad memories. Not memories of the public Nancy, the punk Nancy, but memories of our private Nancy, the one we’d grown up with. That experience was far more frightening than anything I’d ever read about the punks.
Nancy was coming home.
I was afraid. I was afraid of my own feelings. I was afraid I’d get hysterical when I saw her, that I’d cry for that sweet-smelling baby, that lost Nancy.
Nancy was coming home.
We could not deny her that right. All we could do was try to control the situation. We decided to put them up at a nearby Holiday Inn rather than have them stay in the house with us. It made practical sense anyway, what with Nancy’s room now being Frank’s office.
I informed Nancy of this when she called just before she and Sid cleared out of London. She got very upset—she thought I was telling her she couldn’t come. I explained that she and Sid were welcome to stay as long as they wanted, but that we’d thought they’d be more comfortable at a hotel.
“Oh, okay, Mum,” she said. “That’s all right. Listen, I’ll be sending some of our stuff to your house to keep until we get a flat in New York, okay? We’ll be staying at the Chelsea when we get in. Our flight is on August the twenty-fourth. That’s a Thursday. We’ll check in at the hotel, then come down Friday. Doesn’t that sound great?”
A knot formed in my stomach as a response.
Everyone in the family grew more and more anxious as the day approached. It so happened that at this time Suzy was in the process of moving into her own small studio apartment in Philadelphia. She was now nineteen. Her year off from school had been good for her confidence. She had applied to and been accepted by several art schools. She’d chosen the Phildelphia College of Art and was all set to start that fall. Since her classes were early in the morning, she’d decided to take an apartment in the city. I kept myself occupied during the days before Nancy’s return by helping Suzy furnish it. I helped her pick out a platform bed and table. We bought a shower curtain. We packed up her clothes and things and Frank moved them by the carload.
It was a little sad helping her move. It meant that there was only one child home now. David, who’d spent the summer away as a camp counselor, was about to enter his senior year of high school.
Suzy was about halfway moved into her own apartment the day that Nancy and Sid came to visit in suburbia.
Chapter 20
Frank and I were at the Trenton train station on time, but the train from New York was twenty minutes late. I was so agitated I couldn’t sit still. Same with Frank. We paced up and down the platform in opposite directions, each of us lost in our thoughts.
“I hope the weather’s nice this weekend,” Frank mused aloud at one point when our paths intersected.
“What?” I snapped.
“The weather. Nice.”
“What for?”
“So they can use the pool.”
“Oh, right.”
We resumed pacing.
The train pulled in. Commuters spilled out of the doors and shoved their way across the platform to the escalators. I craned my neck in search of my Nancy. I couldn’t spot her.
Then the air was pierced by a loud “Mum!”
It was Nancy’s voice. My eyes sought her out and found her.
I was not prepared for how much she’d deteriorated—even from when I’d seen her on TV. She looked like a Holocaust victim. She was much thinner. Her skin was a translucent bluish white. Her eyes had sunk deep into their sockets and had black circles under them. Her hair was bleached white, and along the hairline there were yellowish bruises and sores and scabs. She wore a black leather jacket with a torn, filthy T-shirt under it, tight black jeans, and spike heels. Around her neck was a charm necklace—silver charms of gargoyles and snakes.
She looked like the walking dead.
Behind her
lurked Sid. I say “lurked” because he was at least a foot taller than her, and his spiky hair stood straight up on his head. He too was bluish white and painfully thin. He wore a black leather jacket with no shirt under it, black jeans, black motorcycle boots, and a matching black leather collar and cuffs with pointed metal studs.
Frank and I just stood there gaping at them. We weren’t alone. Everyone, but everyone, on the platform was staring at them. They stood out as much as if they’d just arrived from another planet. There was a total absence of life to them. It was as if the rest of the world were in color and they were in black and white.
They were totally oblivious to the scene they were causing.
Nancy came toward me and I toward her. We met halfway and embraced.
“My mum!” she cried as she held me tight. “My mum.”
But it wasn’t my Nancy I held in my arms. I felt as if I were holding a stranger. I wanted my Nancy back. But my Nancy was gone. A sob welled up in my throat.
We released each other.
“Mum,” she said, “this is Sid. Sid, this is my mum. Isn’t she beautiful? Just like I told you.”
He stuck out his hand. I shook it. It was wet and limp, a boy’s hand. He was a boy, shy and more than a little confused by the strange surroundings.
“ ’Allo, Mum,” he said quietly.
“Hello, Sid,” I said.
He wasn’t so evil-looking once you got used to the sight of him. It was partly his drooping eye that made him appear so malevolent. His presence, however, was not malevolent. It was subdued. My initial impression was that he simply wasn’t very bright.
“And this is my dad, Sid,” Nancy said. “Dad, this is Sid.”
“Pleased to meet you, Sid,” Frank said, shaking Sid’s hand vigorously. Sid’s arm seemed as if it were made of rubber.
“Pleased to meet you,” Sid said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
Frank grabbed their bags and we found our car, blazing a path straight through the stunned crowd on the platform.
And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) Page 33