by Liz Nugent
I was held to the ground outside as the guards were called. Brian crouched down beside me. ‘You are going to be locked up now, do you understand? I can’t help you with this. Why do you make everything so much worse? Why did you say that shit about Cillian’s dad raping Mum? You were supposed to bring her to the funeral!’
‘I said it because it’s true! Ask her!’ I shouted before I was bundled into the back of a garda car. I stayed silent then as I heard Brian discussing my ‘mental health issues’ with the guards. The effects of the pill were beginning to wear off and I was feeling queasy.
I don’t recall most of this and I have only other people’s memories from which to reconstruct this incident. I remember when I got out of the psychiatric unit two weeks later that nobody spoke of Jack Gogan’s funeral again, except I was forced to write to Jack’s widow and tell her my claims at the funeral weren’t true. Mum had denied the rape, even though William admitted privately to me and Brian that he’d known about it at the time. He said that was why Mum hadn’t wanted to do that play about the rape victim. But now she was denying everything. My brothers declared that we should let Mum deal with it her way. My mother took out a restraining order against me. So that conversation was the last one I had with her.
25
2003
I don’t remember the address of the flat I was living in. It was either in Rathmines or Ranelagh, or perhaps I was living in both places. It’s possible. I was back home in Dublin. I think the two flats must have been squats because I remember I had to get in through a back window in one place, and there was no hot running water. And in the other one, there were a few guys who stayed there, winos I suppose you’d call them, but I’d bring them cigarettes and booze and they put up with me. But these places were temporary dwellings. Everything was chaotic. After New York, I’d been stable for a while, but I couldn’t write music while I was on those meds. So when I felt well again, I cut down on them without telling my new psychiatrist, and then when I did see the psychiatrist, she kept trying to imply I was sexually abused as a child, most likely by my mother. Far from it, I told her: I’d been more or less ignored by my mother. She suggested I must have been so young that I didn’t remember it. I stopped going to see her.
And then I stopped taking the meds altogether. I hung out with ‘friends’ until they told me to leave, or to wash, or to contribute towards their bills, or not to smoke in their homes.
But I still had some income. Brian had sorted something with IMRO so that he paid income from airplay and public broadcast rights into my account every few months, but I blew through that money fairly quickly. There were some royalties from the record company too, but they were dwindling. I wasn’t selfish with the money. I took a homeless guy shopping in Brown Thomas once and spent €800 on a coat for him, but he begged me for the money instead of the coat and we had a row about it and both got kicked out of the shop. People were pointing. ‘That’s Luke Drumm,’ I heard them say. But I didn’t care. I’d just been trying to help the guy. It was cold, and the coat was cashmere. I don’t even remember what happened to it because I was so wasted.
Mum wouldn’t let me into her house since the time I’d set fire to her dressing room a few months previously, and she bolted the door when she saw me coming. I shouted through the letter box and asked her if she had molested me when I was a baby. I could hear her screaming at me to go away, so I did, but not before throwing a brick through the front window. I knew the glass would fall on to the chair she sat on when watching TV.
Mental illness has its advantages. Not that I appreciated them at the time, but when people think you are crazy, it gives you a licence to do anything you want, when you want, and people put it down to your mental state. But even in moments of lucidity, I knew I could get away with outrageous behaviour because it was what people had come to expect of me. I felt a certain freedom that I have never felt when well. My life had no boundaries. I could insult people to their faces instead of pretending I liked them. I miss that.
Some of the more muckraking journalists started to follow me, particularly in London, when I’d fly over for some imaginary meeting with record labels. At one stage, I’d convinced myself that EMI wanted me to record a duet with Frank Sinatra. I must have dreamed it or maybe Brian had suggested I should have done it. I forgot that Sinatra had been dead for five years.
I turned up at EMI’s plush offices in Manchester Square in London. The nervous boy on reception annoyed me by asking for my name.
‘I’m Luke fucking Drumm,’ I said.
He wanted to know who I was scheduled to meet with. When I told him I was there to record with Frank Sinatra, he looked confused and wanted to know who had arranged the meeting, did I have any confirmation email, which producer had I been in contact with. I rattled off the names of everyone I knew in the music business and eventually the boy asked me to take a seat while he went to investigate.
‘Aren’t you going to offer me a coffee?’ I shouted at his retreating back.
Two burly security men showed up and asked me to leave the building. I protested and started kicking chairs and then they got physical with me. By the time I was ejected from the building, the paparazzi were there, snapping like anoraked alligators. That was the first night I spent in a police cell.
Brian flew over to bail me out, armed with enough tranquillizers to get me on a flight home. I woke up in his house a few days later. It used to be my house. He was out, but he had hidden my shoes to stop me leaving. Either that or I had lost them. I was locked in the house, but I smashed my way out of the bathroom window and walked into the city centre, my feet bare and bleeding from the broken glass. I was wearing the clothes I had slept in and, even though it was definitely winter, I was somehow immune to the cold. People looked at me and looked away quickly, not wanting to engage with the crazy man, afraid of catching my eye, and who could blame them.
On Grafton Street, I stopped and listened to some buskers. One was a pretty girl in a school uniform. She was singing one of my songs. I approached and stood next to her. She was wary but didn’t stop and so I moved closer and sang with her. She did a double take and then smiled, recognizing me for who I was. A crowd gathered and some people with digital cameras began taking photos. After a few more songs, she stopped and thanked me. But her guitar case was full of money and I wanted my cut. In fact, I wanted it all because I had no wallet on me. I filled my pockets with change and invited her to the pub. She protested about the money and I called her a whiny little bitch, and then she got aggressive with me. I tried to walk away. I don’t hit people. But she jumped on my back and I violently shook her off, hearing her head thud on the concrete pavement behind me. I turned. There was blood and people shouting, and I ran. I hid around the corner, but an ambulance came and I was scared it was going to take me away.
I walked to a pub on the other side of the city, one where they didn’t care whether I had shoes as long as I could pay for my drink, and I sat there, drinking cheap cider, until my face filled the television screen in the corner. I was on the news. The guards were looking for me in connection with ‘an incident’ that had occurred on Grafton Street earlier that afternoon. I pointed at the television and told the four old codgers at the bar that someone was trying to frame me for something. I bought them all pints with the last of my change to buy their silence, but at least one of them was a traitor because twenty minutes later two guards strolled into the bar and each placed an arm on my shoulder and took me away.
I went quietly. I saw no point in resisting. One of the guards asked me for an autograph for his sister. They were kind. They had the full story of what had happened. I guess there were plenty of witnesses. But they wanted to bring me to a hospital, they said. My brother was waiting for me there. I asked if he was sick or injured and they humoured me. I knew what was going on, but I liked that they let me act like an innocent little boy. We all knew I was being taken to the nut house.
In St John of God’s, Brian met me and a
sked me to sign myself in. I was in a good mood and I didn’t want to upset anyone. Also, I was tired and I knew I could get tea and toast there, and I had a real yearning for the comfort of that. I felt bad about the girl. I agreed.
My tiny baby agreed too. By then I was talking to him aloud, but I knew that only I could hear or see him. I had established he was a boy baby. He gave me instructions and I carried them out. I was trying to get him to be a good boy, but he often got me into trouble. I could not tell whether he was friend or foe, angel or demon. He lived in the crevice of my neck below my Adam’s Apple, nestled into that hollow, never growing any bigger, but sometimes he took control of my voice. Occasionally, when I was in St John of God’s, he would go on holiday, and then I could get some rest.
That busking girl tried to sue me for assault. She had a fractured skull and spent a week in hospital. Even though witnesses all attested to the fact that she had assaulted me, they also said I had stolen her money. Brian said it was best to pay her off and so for the next few years he paid my rent and bills on a small apartment and gave me pocket money, enough to live on until I could pay what I owed the girl. My tiny baby hated that girl. He wanted me to hunt her down and break her skull properly, but then I met Kate, fell in love with her, and the baby disappeared. I thought if Kate and I had our own real baby, the ghost baby would vanish for ever.
26
2000
Sean slammed the door in my face when I turned up at his house one night. I thought he’d be my one true friend but then, after the record label dropped me, I called his wife a bitch after she said I was too difficult to manage and I told him I’d been fucking his sister for years. I was angry. I shouldn’t have said it. Sean dropped me like a stone. He had his own thing going on by then, managing far more ‘serious’ artists than me. It looked like my career was dead. But then Brian had stepped up and offered to be my manager and for a while it was great, because I knew he couldn’t run away from me.
In January of 2000, I was to write my autobiography. Well, that’s not strictly true, but a book was being produced that would have my face and my name on the cover. Brian had somehow negotiated a deal with a publisher so that a ghostwriter would write my story. I wasn’t really comfortable calling it an autobiography, but Brian said I was to keep my mouth shut about the other writer and pretend I’d written it myself. Her name was Kim, tall, blonde, mid-fifties, businesslike. She came to my house regularly over the course of three months and would bring with her various media interviews on video or newspaper clippings about my early life, first concerts, getting signed to a record label, etc. She asked me if everything in these articles was true, if there was anything I’d like to add. She wanted to hear the stories in my own words, as I had experienced various events. She asked me about the different people who popped up in the videos, former friends and band members. Were we still in touch? Were we still friends? The answer was nearly always no. There were some people, incidents and interviews that I couldn’t remember at all. I was clearly out of my mind in some of them. It was cringe-worthy to watch myself talking utter shit on subjects I knew nothing about.
As the interviews continued, she asked more personal questions about my childhood, my relationship with my parents, how and why my career had collapsed, my stays in various mental health institutions and so on.
I thought I was mentally stable at the time of doing this book. I was still living in my big mortgage-free home and my royalties paid the bills, but there wasn’t much money left over for the lavish lifestyle I’d been living. There was far less partying, far fewer girls, just a few glasses of wine in the evenings – well, more often a full bottle, sometimes a little more. But I felt like I was in control. Members of my family were all talking to me, which was a good sign. I even went to Mum’s for Sunday lunch on a semi-regular basis. The ghosts and visions that haunted me were still around but more in my dreams than in my waking reality. And prescription sleeping tablets usually eliminated them, though I was aware now that I couldn’t sleep without the tablets, and that bothered me a little.
I went to a weekly psych appointment and was normal enough to tell the shrink what I thought he wanted to hear, namely that everything was Mum’s fault, but I was a grown-up now and had to stop seeking her approval. And I genuinely felt this was all true. Mum and I had called a truce of sorts. Now that I was an unemployed pop star, I fitted perfectly into her role for me as a failure, and it suited us both.
I talked to Kim, the ghostwriter, about this. I wasn’t sure how much of it should end up in the book, but Kim assured me I would have final copy approval. She had ghostwritten books by sports stars and politicians. Her reputation was good and I felt safe telling her everything. Almost everything. No need to mention the phantom baby.
She became almost like a second therapist to me, but one without the need to comment or judge or diagnose. I felt she got emotionally involved in my story and was hugely sympathetic to my trials and tribulations, even while I was relating some of the more hair-raising acts of religious zealotry of my childhood.
At the beginning of April, she handed over a rough draft of what she had written so far, the halfway point. A copy also went to Brian and to my publisher. I read it over one weekend and I was appalled and horrified by what I had told her, what I had done, how utterly fucked-up I sounded. I felt like I was drowning in shame. Pathetic, whiny and friendless. And I hadn’t even told her the worst part.
I called her immediately and she came over and we sat down together and deleted or toned down entire chapters, added new chapters about the positive influence of my dad, my good encounters with other celebrities, anything we could think of to make me sound more normal. I asked Kim to stall the project. I needed time and space from my own life story. That night I drank two bottles of wine and cried myself to sleep.
Susan phoned and invited me to Daisy’s sixth birthday party. She and Will were throwing a kiddies’ bash, complete with a bouncy castle. Will called me later and told me not to arrive pissed. I wondered if everyone saw me as a drunk. I wondered for the first time if I might be an alcoholic. I decided to quit drinking. I gave away fourteen bottles of wine to some homeless guys who used to hang out in the lane behind my house. The next day, one of them knocked on my door and asked if I had any more. I didn’t have any more Châteauneuf-du-Pape but I gave him the half-bottle of gin I was saving for an emergency. I felt good and virtuous for a day or two, though edgy and nervous. I resolved to be a good uncle to Daisy.
She was a cute kid. I thought maybe I should spend more time with her. I liked her though she always favoured Brian over me. Brian knew how to talk to kids. I was slightly jealous of this.
I called Susan and asked her about Daisy’s favourite toys or cartoon characters. Brian had bought her DVDs of all the Disney cartoons and Donald Duck was her favourite. I went to enormous lengths to hire a life-size Donald Duck costume for the party.
When I got there, I got the required response from Daisy, who ran to me and hugged me. It felt good to be hugged by a little innocent kid, to be sober and in control. Then Susan led me down the hallway to their large atrium and I heard a lot of adult voices. Daisy ran out ahead of me into the garden and hurled herself on to the bouncy castle, colliding with some toddler who screamed, though the impact was slight. A concerned mother ran out and then they all turned to me. I hadn’t realized how big this party was. I knew there’d be other kids but I didn’t know their parents were invited too. Actors, directors, rugby players, faces I knew from TV, a guy from the Arts Council, journalists, artists, fashion designers. I felt ridiculous in my duck costume and immediately removed the large head. A few of them laughed and greeted me, not unkindly. ‘Luke! Well, you’re certainly getting into the swing of things, aren’t you?’
‘Where’s Will?’ I asked Susan, who seemed mildly harassed.
‘You tell me,’ she whispered. ‘He had a meeting this morning with some guys from New York, but he was supposed to be here two hours ago. I am so pissed w
ith him. Most of these people are his friends. Can you take the salads out to the table, please, Luke? And top marks for effort by the way. You look great.’
As I moved out to the dining room next door, with platters in hand, a number of people wanted to stop and chat, asking when my next album was coming out, reminding me that we’d met at some awards ceremony or backstage at some concert, or that I was in the same class in school as their brother. I was now sweating and uncomfortable in the costume and I eyed their glasses of wine jealously. A man, Tony I think, noticed and fetched a glass for me and filled it. I necked it and moved on in search of another bottle, but Brian stopped me and pulled the glass out of my hand. ‘For God’s sake, Luke, not today – or at least not until the kids have gone home. Will has gone AWOL. We need to help Susan with the lunch. He was supposed to be home by noon. And I need to talk to you later, about the book. I think it’s going to be great!’
Daisy appeared at his side, pointing at me, and then she looked up and saw my face instead of Donald Duck’s head and grew hysterical. Brian picked her up and tried to soothe her, whispering aside to me, ‘Go take the costume off! Can’t you see you’re upsetting her? I’ll calm her down, you help Susan with the lunch.’ He carried Daisy out towards the patio. I went to the upstairs bathroom to remove the rest of my costume, but the jeans I had on underneath weren’t too clean and I had sweated profusely into the T-shirt and had large damp stains down my back and under each arm. In a panic, I ran to Will’s bedroom in search of a clean T-shirt. Susan was in there by herself, obviously trying to get Will on his mobile phone. Will always had the latest gadgets. She saw me and hung up.