I suppose my newfound vigor was inspired in part by the events of the winter of 2000. Back then, The Cure had embarked on a short tour of the United States in support of its new album Bloodflowers. The Los Angeles show was held at the Palace in Hollywood, an older theater I knew well.
A few months earlier, I had written Robert a long letter. It was an admission of guilt with respect to our breakup and consequent legal troubles, and I expressed my willingness to make things right again between us. After all, we had been friends before the band, and I reasoned that we could be friends after it, too. Despite all the pain and destruction, I wanted to believe there was still a beating heart of true friendship.
I outlined in my letter what I had discovered in the past few years in California and explained that I had a progressive and deadly disease that would certainly kill me if I didn’t take action to treat it. However, I had found a solution, and part of the solution was to make amends to people I had harmed. In other words, to right the wrongs that I had done to others.
I had made many of the amends on my list and had discovered that it was a wonderful process to go through—liberating and redemptive in a way that I had never experienced before. It had, in fact, given me a new life. I resolved to do the hardest one of all as soon as I could, which of course was Robert. In my letter I explained that when I next saw him I would like to talk and make peace personally. I had found that this was the best and most meaningful way to do it, both for myself and the person I was making amends to. Words in a letter can be powerful, but face-to-face is always preferable.
Robert had replied to my letter and asked that I come and meet him when The Cure played the Palace on February 19, 2000. Cindy and I left for the Palace that evening without having made any arrangements with Robert. We simply arrived at the venue just as the audience was about to enter, without a contact number or any kind of pass to get in. I hadn’t really thought about that, as I had never needed to worry about getting into a Cure gig before!
However, arriving at the backstage entrance, I realized that I needed to convince whoever was guarding the door of my credentials. I didn’t see any of the old Cure crew working the gig and quickly realized that getting through to Robert was going to be a humbling and difficult experience. I smiled as I stood at the backstage gate. It seemed to me that I should come the correct size to our first meeting, so I swallowed my pride and knocked at the gate.
“Yeah? What do you want?” a suspicious security guard asked.
I told him who I was and who I had come to see. He scuttled off to find someone from The Cure’s party to verify my claims. They duly appeared, but it was someone I had never worked with before so they didn’t recognize me. They were rightly skeptical of my bona fides. It’s surprising how many people turned up at Cure gigs claiming to be our brothers/cousins/long-lost uncles or even, in extreme cases, us, in order to gain entrance to the hallowed backstage areas of a Cure gig!
So with a scowl born of seeing off many impersonators, they went to tell Robert and see if this was genuine. Meanwhile, some fans who had been lining up noticed me standing there.
“Hey, Lol!” they said and some even produced stuff for me to sign. As I started chatting with them, the switch flipped, and I felt like a teenager in Crawley again, the first time someone told me how much they liked what we played and what a difference it made to their lives. I relaxed and chatted with the people who had given me my whole life. The Cure’s loyal fans will always be special to me in a way I am eternally thankful for.
Suddenly at the backstage gate the unknown crew member was back, panting because he had run directly from Robert, and hastily undoing the locked iron gate.
“Wow, I’m sorry, Lol. I didn’t realize it was you, mate!” while flashing his credentials to the rather bemused security guard and the now fairly large group of assorted fans who had come to wish me well and say hello.
“See you, Lol!”
“Yes, you will!” I said and gave the nearest one a hug. Thank you, Cure fans, you are the best.
We ascended the stairs to the dressing room and in it I saw Robert for the first time since we had looked across the courtroom floor. Without a word needed, we hugged, and then he turned and said to everyone else in the room, “Would everyone mind leaving us for a moment?”
Everyone began filing out, and then it was just us. Together again after so many years.
The single light bulb in the room hung from a wire with no shade, reminding me of the start of all this madness. As soon as the room was empty, I said, “I have to make my amends to you, Robert, and I’d like to do that now, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay,” he said.
I proceeded to pour out my part in what had happened to me and how sorry I was that I had hurt him and The Cure, and if there was a way to make recompense for my actions I would gladly do whatever he deemed necessary. The smell of Lysol wafted up from the freshly scrubbed bathroom and I felt my friend’s hand on my shoulder.
“Hey, slow down, it’s okay. We have time for all of this.”
I looked up in midstream to see Robert’s smiling face and realized I had already been forgiven. The prodigal son could finally return home.
I watched the Palace gig from the floor of the theater.
The last time I’d been there had been a few years before, when I was at a Cure convention I had been invited to. It seemed weird at the time, like trespassing on another life, and I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. I liked talking to fans, and for that it was worth it, but my heart was uncertain, and I had not yet learned how to balance all of my emotions about The Cure, and Robert in particular, in a way that an audience might enjoy.
At the start of the second encore I heard Robert call out, “This is for Lol! This is ‘The Figurehead!’”
It felt good to know I was back in the good graces of the band I loved and had always loved, despite all the chaos and pain I’d caused.
After the gig I talked to everyone in the dressing room and we renewed our bonds. Simon was just the same as always. Simon is one of the most authentic people I know. I’ve known him since we were teens, and he is always true to himself and his beliefs, which is no mean feat in a business that is full of posers and pretenders. He’s the genuine article. It was good to reacquaint myself with him after the debacle in the courtroom, where for three weeks we sat just yards apart from each other but never talked. Absurd is the only word that comes close to describing how strange that was.
The dressing room was clearing out, and Robert asked me if I’d like to come out with them all. They were going to a club for a drink, and he wanted to know if Cindy and I would ride with them.
I got into the band van. It was the simplest thing, but like Neil Armstrong’s small step on the moon, it was a gigantic moment for me. I was coming back to the people I knew and loved, and it felt right.
In the club it was interesting to watch people’s faces as they came up to talk to the band, especially those who knew the story about the court case. I would watch their eyes dart from Robert’s face to mine and back again, looking for clues as to why we were here sitting in a club in Hollywood side by side and not at each other’s throats. It’s one reason I don’t go out of my way to meet my heroes: I’m afraid of being disappointed by the reality of their ordinary selves.
I don’t blame people for wanting to know the smallest details about the people who make the music they feel passionately about, but I don’t really want to see the cracks, either. I’d prefer to keep my illusions, thank you. People have all kinds of ideas about The Cure that don’t match up to reality. I’m sure that night in the club after the Palace gig must have confused some, but they shouldn’t have worried, as it was all for the good. It marked the beginning of a new phase in my friendship with Robert.
Later that night Robert and I were deep in conversation at his hotel on the Sunset Strip.
“You know,” he said, “the saddest thing was when we drove out of the Royal Courts after the judge gave his verdict. We drove right past you sitting on the curb. I don’t think you saw us and you looked so sad and dejected,” Robert said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I think that’s when it finally hit me that the only winners were the lawyers.”
“When I told my dad about the case he said, ‘Well, have you been paying Laurence?’ I said, ‘Of course!’ I just couldn’t understand why you went through with it!”
“You know, I didn’t really understand it myself,” I said, and I still didn’t, but I’d managed to climb out of the hole of anger and destruction that I had dug for myself, and that was the only thing that mattered now.
Robert and I talked for hours. Laying the foundation for forgiveness and healing. When I left the hotel I drove home across Los Angeles down to my house by the sea just as the sun was coming up. I felt like a huge weight had been removed from my shoulders. In due course this feeling would fully manifest, and an even more wondrous and healing event would come to pass.