30

    Golden Prison

    He lives in a golden prison

    Surrounded by those who care

    He lives in a golden prison

    While people crowd out there

    He draws out of his golden window

    To the reality of life outside

    He watches from his golden room

    While inside he has to hide

    He lives in his golden prison

    And plays to a world so wide

    Up there on his golden stage

    He’s free and full of pride

    And when the golden show is over

    He’s ushered into a golden car

    Back to his golden prison

    Away from a world so far.

When you become famous you live your life in a bubble, completely separate from the rest of society and, over time, that bubble becomes increasingly secure and detached from real life. You go to a restaurant and have security sitting at the next table; you are whisked from airport to hotel in a blacked-out limo; at home you’re hidden away behind high walls and solid gates. You’ve got everything you want and have an army of staff to ease your path through life. This might sound like a wonderful way to live – and in many ways, it is – but in return for all the luxury and ease you have to give up your freedom. Of course, unlike the boys in the band, I could easily step outside and nobody would have a clue who I was, so I was always far freer than they were, but Ronnie’s life was completely inside that bubble so at the end of the day that was always where I would have to return.

After I got over the initial shock that my marriage really had ended, that I had lost the love of my life and my best friend, my biggest fear was of how I would cope with life in the outside world after 30 years in that golden prison. To say I was devastated was an understatement. My Stones support network literally vanished overnight: I was completely on my own. Not only that, but it was now plainly obvious to me that I’d largely put my own passions and interests aside to devote my life to Ronnie. As the summer days stretched ahead of me, silent and empty, I realized I would have to build myself a completely new life. I was going to have to fend for myself, just as I had done at 16. And that was the really scary bit . . .

After Ronnie left, I spent the rest of the summer sitting at home on my own. Most of my friends had gone on holiday and many asked me to join them, but I couldn’t face leaving the house. I would wander from room to room, looking at pictures, photos and furniture – every item a testament to our life together – wondering how on earth we were going to disentangle it all. It wasn’t like these were Jo’s things and those were Ronnie’s things: they were ours.

Those months were so hard. I’m not a depressive sort of person, but I was intensely unhappy. I felt utterly lost. For most of my adult life, I had been defined by my relationship with Ronnie and with the Stones. I had been part of them and protected by them. Now, not only was I losing my husband, I was effectively losing my identity. I had been ‘Jo Wood, wife of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood’; the thought of being known as ‘Jo Wood, ex-wife of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood’ was just horrible. The only positive to come out of the whole awful mess was that I completely lost my appetite and dropped to a size eight. I might have had a broken heart, but I had a great arse. My state of mind was something like this: ‘Wow, I’m getting so skinny! But, oh, Gawd, he’s goooooooone . . .’ (Cue more tears.)

I barely talked to Ronnie over those months and the kids didn’t hear from him, either. It was like he’d disappeared off the face of the earth – except, of course, he hadn’t, because in every newspaper I’d open there would be pictures of Ronnie and Katia walking on Primrose Hill, Ronnie and Katia having a coffee, Ronnie and Katia going to Tesco. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look with her, Ronnie? I would think, sadly.

It was a sunny Sunday morning in late August and I was sitting up in bed reading a stack of Sunday papers. I was drinking my second espresso of the day, but hadn’t had any breakfast. The heartbreak diet was still proving highly effective – I’d cooked myself a nice dinner last night but had managed to eat just one prawn. As usual, I had nothing planned for the day. Jamie had been on the phone the day before, clearly running out of patience with my low mood.

‘Mum, you need to get it together,’ he had said. ‘You can’t spend the rest of your life moping around at home.’

But how could he possibly understand what I was going through?

I was flicking through one of the supplements when a letter on the agony-aunt page caught my eye. It was from a reader who had been separated from her husband for five years, yet was still struggling to deal with the heartache. ‘I miss him so much,’ she had written. ‘I can’t even sleep on his side of the bed.’

Jesus, I thought. That poor woman! I glanced to the side of the bed where Ronnie used to sleep. I could almost see him lying there still, his black hair contrasting against the white of the pillow. I felt another wave of unhappiness begin to wash over me, but rather than surrender to it and let the tears flow again, I checked myself. I could either become that woman in the paper, pining away for her lost love, or I could pick myself up and get on with my life. And with that I moved straight over to Ronnie’s side of the bed–my side of the bed, I thought, with the ghost of a smile.

Reading that letter proved a turning point for me. Having reclaimed the bed, I turned my attention to the rest of the house. Ronnie had covered the walls of our downstairs toilet with loads of scraps of paper – press cuttings, sketches, photos of himself – and the clutter drove me mad. That afternoon I ripped it all down. Standing in that little room, ankle-deep in the confetti of Ronnie’s memories, I felt the stirrings of hope for the first time since he had left.

But although I was starting to tackle the outward evidence of our lives together, I knew I would need some extra help to sort out what was going on in my head. I’d never really been one for therapy, but I went to see a counsellor to talk through the split. Only for about a month, but it was long enough for me to accept what had happened and begin to move on. One of the best pieces of advice I took from our sessions was that, if I wanted to get over the split, I needed to concentrate on me.

‘It’s all about you now, Jo,’ the counsellor had said.

At first, I didn’t really understand what she meant. Concentrate on me? Um . . . how? Like many women with families, I’d got so used to putting everyone else first that I had forgotten how to focus on myself.

‘Well, what do you enjoy doing?’ the counsellor asked.

And that was when I hit upon the idea of getting fit–really fit. For the past few years, exercise had been an important part of my life. When we’d first moved to Holmwood I had started seeing a fabulous yoga teacher called Tina, who gently coaxed me into a regular yoga and meditation practice. I loved it so much I turned one of our spare bedrooms into a yoga room, where I could cut myself off from the hectic household for an hour or so.

Then, as I got fitter and wanted more of a challenge, I’d found a personal trainer, Mike, who would also come and work with me at home. During one of our first sessions I had been lying on the floor while Mike leant over me to manoeuvre my leg into a stretch, when Ronnie burst in through the door, blind drunk. ‘Caught you!’ he roared – and staggered out again. He clearly thought that Mike and I were working up a sweat by doing more than just a few sets of crunches, although the next day he’d forgotten about catching the two of us supposedly in flagrante.

So, when I found myself with all this spare time, the first thing I did was to step up my sessions with Mike. At first I really struggled with our workouts – not because I was especially unfit, but because when Mike put on music every single song seemed to be about love or breaking up, and my poor, raw emotions just couldn’t cope. I eventually hit upon the solution of exercising to Brazilian music, of which I couldn’t understand a word.

The workouts played a huge part in boosting my self-esteem in the wake of the split. As my energy levels soared and my body toned up, I started to feel more confident and positive about myself. To this day I still work out regularly, now with Jon Denoris – last year I even took up boxing with Dino when I was in Miami – and am now fitter than I was in my forties or even thirties.

Phase Two of Operation Me-time was to give myself a make-over. I didn’t want to look like the woman who had been married to Ronnie any more. Inspired by a portrait of Brigitte Bardot I’d had on my wall for years, I tried styling my hair into a sixties sex-kitten bouffant. I didn’t wash that man right out of my hair – I backcombed him out. I loved the way it looked and it went perfectly with the sooty, smoky eye makeup I always wore: I wasn’t giving up my Mac eyeliner for anyone.

By now I was so skinny that none of my clothes fitted me so obviously I had to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe. As I have said, I had always loved vintage fashion and just so happened to have befriended a wonderful woman called Mairead Lewin, who was an antique-clothing dealer. As I wandered among the rails and rails of beautiful dresses in her Notting Hill home, I thought, Who needs men when you’ve got fabulous clothes?

On the advice of a friend, I also went to see a life coach, who shared several pieces of advice that proved invaluable. To start with, he taught me the importance of forgiveness. To forgive, this man told me, is to set yourself free, as in doing so you release yourself from all your anger and negativity. I can’t say it happened overnight, but as I started to regain my confidence and feel better about myself I found I could let go of my anger towards Ronnie.

More importantly, the life coach showed me that, rather than being a helpless victim (which was how I’d been feeling about myself), I still had control of my own destiny. ‘If you really want your husband back, I’m sure you can get him back,’ he said to me. ‘But you’ve got to think, Is that truly what I want? If not, then you have to make your own life.’

Well, that got me thinking. I was already well aware of how nice it was not to have someone shouting at me, not to have that constant twitchy feeling of anxiety in the pit of my stomach, not to spend hours cooking a meal, then watch it get pushed aside after two mouthfuls. When I realized that I’d never have to cover for Ronnie, make excuses for him or clear up after him ever again, it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. So when the life coach asked if I really, truly would want Ronnie back, I realized that perhaps I wouldn’t. And that was when I thought: Okay, I’m going to build myself a new life on my own.

The first night out I had after the split – my first as a single woman in well over 30 years, was at the GQ Men of the Year Awards in September. Jerry Hall, who had been such a fantastic support since Ronnie left, invited me along as her date. I spent ages getting ready, furiously backcombing my hair and choosing a floral sixties dress that clung to my skinny 9-stone figure, yet still I felt very timid and uncertain as we pulled up outside the Royal Opera House. It was the first time since my early twenties that I had been invited to something as just Jo, rather than as Ronnie’s wife Jo, and I had no idea of who this new person was – or, rather, I had no recollection of what she used to be like. Also, I didn’t have a clue how people would respond to me now I didn’t have my Rolling Stones gang – or my husband – to provide my identity.

But as I stepped onto the red carpet in front of the paparazzi, clinging to Jerry for support, there was an explosion of flashes.

‘Hey, Jo, look over here!’ Snap-snap-snap. ‘Turn this way, Jo!’ Snap-snap-snap.

And as I posed for the cameras, stunned and delighted by the warmth of everyone’s response, I began to relax and enjoy myself. Oh, yeah, I remember how to do this. I felt like I was starting from where I’d left off all those years ago.

I had made a decision during the long, dark weeks that summer that I wouldn’t have any alcohol until I felt strong, but that night I had a glass of champagne with Jerry. I was ready to get back out there and start rocking again.

Just before Christmas, Emily called with a request from the charity Save the Children for me to decorate an eco Christmas tree. The offer combined my two favourite things, children and anything eco, so I accepted at once.

I was very proud of the tree I created, which was sustainable (of course!) and covered with recycled decorations and threaded garlands of popcorn, but when the invitation arrived for the charity’s dinner at the Natural History Museum I couldn’t find anyone who would be free to come along as my plus-one. The idea of going by myself was terrifying – what if I didn’t know any of the other guests? Who would I talk to? Who would I sit with at dinner?–but I couldn’t just not turn up: I’d designed a tree for the event. I had no choice: I would have to go on my own.

On the evening of the dinner I sat in the car outside the Natural History Museum, watching the other guests walk up to the grand entrance. Some were in twos, others in larger groups, but I didn’t spot anyone arriving solo. I wished more than ever that I had someone with me to hold my hand, but I was on my own now – tonight, and for all the other nights. I had to prove to myself that I could do it.

I checked my makeup in the rear-view mirror one last time. Right, get out there, Jo . . .

Trying to look more confident than I felt, I walked up the steps, gathering up my long forties floral dress so I didn’t trip. (I figured the only thing worse than arriving on my own would be arriving on my own and falling flat on my face.) I hovered by the entrance and scanned the crowd, hoping to find a familiar face, but couldn’t see anyone I knew. I had a sudden flashback to a party another lifetime ago when I’d been delighted to discover that I was in a roomful of strangers. Now, however, the prospect terrified me. But, just as I was wondering if I should creep out and go home, an immaculately dressed guy in his twenties who was standing nearby beckoned me over.

‘Hi, Jo!’ he said. ‘My name’s Michael, and this’–he gestured to an outrageously handsome man standing next to him–‘is David. Can we get you a glass of champagne?’

My knights in shining armour turned out to be Michael Evans, a flamboyant club promoter, and the supermodel, David Gandy. The pair of them took me under their wing for the rest of the night. Like me, David is from Essex, born in Billericay, so we hit it off instantly, while Michael has since become one of my loveliest friends. It was a fantastic night – and it reminded me of how much fun it can be meeting new people.

From that day on, I accepted every invitation that came my way. I hit the town, going to parties and after-parties and clubs until 4 or 5 a.m., often seven nights in a row. I was going to the proverbial opening of an envelope – and proud of it! I remember applying my makeup one evening, so tired that I was barely able to focus, and thinking, I really should stay in tonight . . . But off I went anyway. There are some really embarrassing paparazzi shots of me falling out of clubs around this time. On one particularly memorable night I went to Mahiki with Sarah Harding, then back to her house and played Nintendo Wii until the sun came up.

Leah and her husband Jack were living at Holmwood at this time, and one night I staggered in, long after they’d gone to bed, to find a terse email from my daughter:

Mother, I really don’t think you should be going out like this. Don’t you realize that you’re 53 years old – and a grandmother?

I knew Leah was just looking out for me, but I wrote back:

What do you want me to do, darling? Get out and make some new friends? Or stay home on my own and do some knitting?

She went quiet after that.

I’d been far too busy finding myself to worry about finding a man, but when Jerry suggested, in a very roundabout sort of way, that perhaps I’d like to go out for a drink with a friend of hers, I tentatively agreed. He was an actor, a really lovely guy, and we had a few dates. It was so wonderful to be showered with compliments and lavished with attention by a smart, handsome man. We would sit and talk for hours about the world, culture, spirituality – everything. It made me realize how few conversations I’d had in my marriage. And here was someone who was not only talking to me about anything – from outer space to organic farming – he was asking my opinions and listening to my replies! We only saw each other for a few dates as it was far too soon for me to get into another relationship, but it was such a huge help in building myself up again and we’re still friends.

I had been on my own for six months when my best friend Lorraine and her husband Simon came over to London from the States for a visit. We were driving to lunch one day when I realized we were passing near Ronnie’s new flat and suggested we take a quick detour to have a look at the place. We pulled up outside the building and I sat in the car staring up at the window.

My husband is in there with a 19-year-old girl, I thought. How weird is that?

I waited for the familiar rush of sadness or anger, but it didn’t come. All I felt was a sense of how surreal the situation was; that I had been with someone for all those years and now here he was, living in this unfamiliar place, leading a totally separate life. It was just . . . bizarre.

‘You okay, Jo?’ Lorraine was looking at me with concern.

‘Yes,’ I said, with a smile. ‘I’m really fine.’

And I really was.

The first Christmas without Ronnie was strange. The hardest part was waking up in Holmwood on my own; all the kids had spent Christmas Eve with their own families, but Leah had put Polaroids around the house with little messages–‘Morning, Mummy!’ ‘Happy Christmas!’–and they joined me later for a big Christmas dinner.

A few days later, Jerry and I took all our kids on holiday to a beautiful little safari lodge in Kenya. Early one morning we set off through the bush to hike up a nearby mountain, and as I started to climb, feeling a little daunted by what was ahead, I suddenly remembered the date. It was 2 January – my wedding anniversary. Right, I thought. If I can get to the top of this mountain, I can do anything. With a burst of determination, I stormed up to the top, reaching the summit just as the sun rose, and as I stood there taking in the incredible views across the endless miles of African bush I felt utterly elated. I can do anything . . .

Later that holiday we flew to Manda Bay, one of my favourite beach spots in the world, and it was there that I had an idea for a project that I’m still involved with. I had mentioned to Leah’s husband Jack that I’d been to this great place in London called the Double Club.

‘Oh, yes. It’s a pop-up nightclub,’ he said.

I’d never heard the term before. ‘Pop-up? What’s that?’

As Jack started telling me about the explosion of pop-up clubs, restaurants, shops and galleries, I had a light-bulb moment. I should turn Holmwood into a pop-up organic restaurant. I could use the vegetables from my garden and eggs from my chickens. Arthur Potts Dawson, who had done such a great job with the food at the Harrington Club, could be the chef. I would talk to everyone who came about sustainable living and prove that an eco lifestyle could be luxurious. I was so excited that I couldn’t wait to get back to London to get started. Jamie thought it was a terrible idea, but I went ahead and did it anyway.

The following summer I opened Mrs Paisley’s Lashings at Holmwood for three weeks. The name was inspired by something I’d seen in a magazine: ‘Mrs Marmite’s Lover’. I loved getting the house ready, laying the tables with all my mismatched crockery, using jam jars for glasses and tin cans to hold the flower arrangements. As they enjoyed a pre-dinner cocktail, diners could watch Arthur walk to my vegetable garden and pick the food that they would be eating in a couple of hours. All the ingredients came from within a five-hour radius of London. As well as celebrities like Kate Moss, Heston Blumenthal, Noddy Holder and Gary Kemp, I hosted people from the eco world and members of the public – it was open to everyone.

At first I think people just came to have a nose around the house, but as it became obvious that this wasn’t a gimmick, word of mouth spread and they came for the food. I even had a couple from Mexico who had read about the restaurant online and flown over especially for dinner!

On the first three-week opening of Mrs Paisley’s Lashings we had 25 people a night, but by the fourth and final three-week stint we had built that up to nearly 60. As I had proved to myself that morning on the mountain in Kenya, if you put your mind to it, you really can do anything.