Nico’s attic flat, perched high above Prestwich, was immaculately tidy. She sat crosslegged on the bed, typewriter at her knees, working on her autobiography, her life and her house in order. Once a week she’d nip to the local chemist to get her methadone prescription filled and pop it in her bicycle basket along with her groceries, like a Gothic hausfrau. But she still disturbed the neighbours. Though she smiled now as she chatted about the pleasures of cycling and the benefits of a healthy diet, the silver skulls on her black leather bracelet, the small ivory death’s-head hanging from her neck and the ineradicable needle scars all over her hands and arms suggested a less conventional history.
The relentless desire for self-degradation had abated and the all-enshrouding cloak of her addiction had lifted. She was now the middle-aged spinster lady who lived next door, the one with the interesting past.
Although Demetrius had found Nico the flat and had got her on to the methadone programme, now that she was tidying everything up she felt his substantial frame took up an unnecessary amount of room in her life. Though her existence appeared outwardly normal Nico remained devoid of conventional notions of loyalty. Friendship, in the traditional sense, imposed too much upon her privacy. There were those, however, who remained steadfastly loyal to her, despite her lack of sentimentality.
Lutz Ulbrich had been Nico’s companion from ’74 to ’78, when they lived together in the Chelsea Hotel. He’d accompanied her on guitar at her concerts throughout that period. It was also at this time that she’d become addicted to heroin. Lutz chose to break free of the drug scene and so they split up. He became an independent musician, involved in performance projects in Berlin. One such project was a music festival called Fata Morgana he was organising at the Berlin Planetarium. He commissioned Nico to perform a specially written piece and suggested that she do it in tandem with me.
Demetrius still saw himself as Nico’s manager, but unfortunately Nico didn’t, and she saw no reason why she should pay him a percentage of an independent commission.
My phone never stopped ringing with accusations from Demetrius of disloyalty and subterfuge, but I kept reminding myself of the ‘missing millions’ from his Behind the Iron Curtain neo-bootleg. I was just pleased that my fee had suddenly increased from £100 to £300.
As ever, Nico only had a few sketches, so we recruited Henry and Dids to lend substance. Nico grew bored with even the idea of a rehearsal and so we were left working much of it out in the sound-check.
Without Demetrius and the old team there, the whole thing assumed an air of workmanlike quasi-professionalism, something I’d only experienced before in Japan, but without its dazzling disorientation. In other words – dull.
Nico’s new positivism also implied a more self-conscious awareness of the music and it affected me to the degree that, for the first time in a long while, we were both paralysed with stage-fright.
‘I think I’m going to have a heart attaack,’ she said.
Our nerves weren’t helped by the fact that the dressing-room was in an annexe of the main Planetarium building. We had to climb out of a back window, through a fire exit and then walk down a corridor which ran round the building’s circumference. We spun on to the stage.
There were two shows. The first was an audience victory. What’s great and terrible about the Germans is that they believe in what they do, even when they’re just listening. We were unnerved and outfaced. Because the building was a dome the sound kept whirling round the walls so everything would get repeated by a delayed echo. I didn’t know who was playing, me or my shadow.
By the second show we’d figured out the way from the dressing-room. We turned up the volume and gave it a go. The Planetarium people switched on the universe and we all got cosmic. It wobbled out of time and Nico wailed out of tune and the asteroid showers could be a little disconcerting, nevertheless the audience could tell we were giving it our best shot.
They demanded an encore. Nico asked me what I wanted to hear and she sang my favourite of all her songs,
When I remember what to say
When I remember what to say
You will know me again
You do not seem to be listening
You do not seem to be listening
The high tide is taking everything
And you forget to answer.
(‘You Forget to Answer’)
It was the last song she ever performed.