IT WAS DARK when we reached the house but I could still read the sign across the main gate: ‘Vieille Ferme des Guerchs’. The old farmhouse had originally belonged to a family called the Guerchs. It was a magnificent, rambling place. It would be Michael’s home, for all intents and purposes, for seven years, until he left us, and it will always be Michael’s home to me.
As we drove through the main gate, we came upon the two-bedroom caretaker’s cottage, surrounded by gorgeous trees and flowers. Sunflowers, Australian bottlebrush and grevilleas were scattered around. Michael had replaced the previous ageing pool and cabana and taken great pains to make sure that the surrounding grove of old olive trees was kept intact and healthy. At the same time he had ordered a new double garage, avoiding modern touches, of course—even in the garage doors—and his contractor had purposefully used large rocks and beams like those the villa already featured as well. Later would come a pool house, its style also in keeping with the architecture of the low-ceilinged, vine-wrapped villa.
The main building was an old farmhouse, although that description belies reality, as the villa, while earthy and simple in style, was rather grand. The numerals over the door suggested it was around 400 years old. There were six bedrooms, two upstairs with sea views. The kitchen, dining room, living room, playroom, music room and three more bedrooms were on the ground floor. The basement was extensive too, large enough for a two-bedroom apartment, and there were plentiful bathrooms throughout.
Even though it was winter, a tracing of bougainvillea in a brilliant magenta surrounded the front-door entrance. Michael’s house manager, Carol, greeted us and led us upstairs to choose bedrooms. Michael had requested that I take the second-largest bedroom, next to his. That way, when our divorced parents arrived with their new partners, the couples would have the choice of any other bedroom. Michael was being the diplomatic middle child and peacemaker that he was; he wanted both Kell and Mother to feel equally loved and valued. The fact that the remaining bedrooms were all similarly sized, he hoped, would symbolise that, and prevent either from the fear of looking as though they had ‘grabbed’ a superior room, thus snubbing the other. He was very concerned about this holiday being harmonious.
Before our arrival Michael had been away two months, so Rhett was occupying the master suite until his brother arrived. He raised the subject of why Mother had chosen to taken Michael to California all those years ago and not him. I knew Michael did not want any drama clouds over the villa, especially with his new romance, and Helena’s parents would be joining us too, so I discouraged the timing of that conversation needing to happen over Christmas.
Michael and I had agreed to take turns to cook, but I was in charge of Christmas dinner. He had given me a list of wines and liquors he wanted to stock up on. Haig’s scotch for Kell and Johnnie Walker Blue Label for Ross, and several bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the luxurious red that had been a family favourite ever since Kell imported it all those years ago to Hong Kong. And of course it was the holiday season, so it was imperative (!) that we stock the house with Moët & Chandon and Bollinger champagnes. Carol took us grocery shopping and I filled the pantry, the refrigerator and the liquor cabinet and with satisfaction went to bed.
Rhett had bought a Christmas tree and hung stockings for us all, which was so endearing. But I was mad in the morning when I realised he and some rowdy friends of his who were now comatose on couches around the place had attacked the liquor cabinet overnight, so I stashed the replacement stocks elsewhere.
All at once the remainder of the family was arriving. We were very busy as we shuttled back and forth between the villa, the airport and the train station as everyone came in dribs and drabs. Mother and Ross arrived first, and we barely had time to catch up before Michael’s driver and caretaker Claude came back from the airport with Kell and Susie.
After providing Michael with that lovely guitar in the Max Q days, Richard Ortiz, who had slowly become my friend, then my partner, arrived too. He brought Shawna, his daughter from a previous relationship, and Brent. The three of them had been dazzled by being swooped up by Michael and Helena in a limo from Paris airport the previous day and taken to a Christmas party at Helena’s modelling agency. Brent was nineteen, in his second year at college. I could just imagine his friends’ faces when he returned to school and they asked him, ‘Hey dude, what did you do on vacation?’
Since Helena was a Christmas Day baby, she was in Denmark to share her birthday with her family and wasn’t expected in Roquefort-les-Pins with her parents until Christmas night.
The dreadful toothache Michael arrived with necessitated a trip to the dentist en route to the villa. But this wasn’t enough to stop him dousing himself in Nice and Cannes night life with Rhett and Brent for the next few evenings.
The three men would arrive home in the early hours of the morning and sit in the kitchen, raiding the refrigerator, drinking more and laughing loudly. Early one morning I was shocked to see Brent with a deep, bloody cut on his forehead.
‘Uh oh,’ laughed Rhett.
Looking at my horrified face, Michael grinned and broke into a machine-gun James Cagney accent.
‘Okay sis, you got us. Dere were dees tree guys wid dere girlfriends see and one of der girls made a play for Brent and one thing led to anudda and we had to run for our lives!’
Actually Brent had just collected a low doorway leaving a club. As I helplessly watched these three young men I loved so much bonding so well, I couldn’t help feeling secretly delighted.
One night everybody turned in one by one till Michael and I were the only ones left standing talking in the kitchen. He raided the wine cellar as Richard joined us. Michael pointed out the site of his plans for a coming pool house with a shower, sauna and wet bar as we walked the slumbering garden under the moon.
‘We should … I know,’ said Michael suddenly. ‘You know what we should do? We should drive to Saint-Paul-de-Vence and wait for the sun to come up.’
We jumped into the jeep and drove up to a little village on the hill. Halfway up the winding road he pulled over and stopped and got out; Richard and I followed. We sat on the side of the mountain in the chill night air and took in the view. It was around two in the morning. The moon was quite bright, but there was nothing to see below except for the tops of trees and distant yellow lights from a small village. Michael began to speak softly, spinning us a story of horror and the heightened sense of smell. I’d have to say he enjoyed even our very small audience of two. We were spellbound, and never suspected that the tale of a perfumer’s trainee who lacked body odour himself but tried to create the perfect scent from the blood of virgins came from Perfume, the novel by Patrick Süskind. (Until later, when Erin dug out Perfume from his library and began reading it and the ruse was revealed.)
We continued up the mountain to sleepy Saint-Paul de Vence where we parked and followed Michael up and down the narrow walkways, round the church tower, resisting the urge to ring the church bell. Michael showed us the town cemetery where Marc Chagall lies. Michael and Richard kept hiding from me. We were children again, only now Michael was the carer, the teacher.
Saint-Paul de Vence is a tiny village, approximately seven kilometres square, but it didn’t take long for us to tire. We gave up on waiting for the sunrise and as we headed for home the men discussed music, and the future direction of INXS. Michael was feeling restless and uncertain about the band. He made a crack about the other band members getting too comfortable on their farms and in their cocoons, far away in Australia. He was ready for a new sound and was very concerned about what he felt was inertia.
They had already begun working with Mark Opitz on Welcome To Wherever You Are and there had been disagreements in the studio. Having habitually hunted down anything new, anything with a different polarity, Michael wanted to keep up with contemporary disruptions and felt the others weren’t much interested in that. In fact it was mainly only himself, Andrew and Mark showing up to work in the studio.
I wonder if his next chain of thought was inspired by the fact that the Nirvana song ‘Scentless Apprentice’, from their album In Utero, had been inspired by Süskind’s Perfume. He sighed with admiration as he raved about the Seattle band and their leader, Kurt Cobain. Not that he wanted to turn INXS into a grunge band. It just unnerved him that the other band members might refuse to move on from Listen Like Thieves, Kick and X—their trio of mega-successful albums produced by Chris Thomas. And he didn’t want to lose the fresh, experimental, slightly dangerous edge INXS had hit the ground running with, and had embraced on tracks like ‘Melting In The Sun’ from The Swing. His free-handed explorations with Ollie Olsen in Max Q had let in enticing visions and sounds, opened a door to musical freedoms that now seemed to be closing to him.
Despite the many good things in his life, professionally Michael was beginning to feel irrelevant. And that is dangerous for a performer.
Even if it is not true.
The sun was almost up by the time we arrived back at the villa. We three retired exhausted as everyone else was wandering down to breakfast.
The next couple of days were spent in a flurry of last-minute gift hunting and finding the ingredients for the familiar side dishes and desserts that would make us all want to do this again. It was going to be the best Christmas dinner ever. In my heart I was going for a typical American Christmas for my family, but I knew there were extras that would bring it home for the Aussie side. Erin was making her famous pumpkin pie and, since she was also adept at meringue by this time, I put her in charge of the pavlova shell. I had asked Mother to bring some tins of passionfruit—so difficult to find outside Australia back then. I tried out a sweet potato pie and a peach cobbler, and of course we did not forget the obligatory plum pudding and brandy sauce. We found some cranberries and I borrowed some sturdy sewing needles and thread from Carol, then sat Mother down with Shawna and got them started on a cranberry garland. A domestic goddess Mother was not.
‘Ouch … Darling, do we really need this? … Oh no look, I’ve got blood all over my white Chanel … Ouch! … Is it long enough now?’
Erin and I were doubling over with laughter in the kitchen. As well as tucking into doing some cooking, Michael took the men out to see more of the surrounding countryside and local taverns.
In Cannes Rhett spotted a poster for a Lenny Kravitz show that night. Lenny’s first album Let Love Rule had started as a slow burner in 1989, but had gradually taken off in Europe and indeed around the world. And his second album Mama Said, released a few months before this gig, contained the marvellous single ‘Always On The Run’, co-written with Guns N’ Roses’s Slash, who also played guitar on it.
Lenny was another act some music business honchos tried to push and pull around, like they did with INXS. They wanted him to conform, to fit into either rock or R&B pigeonholes. There was no need for that. Luckily both INXS and Lenny proved that thinking was passé. True artists make their own rules!
Michael was a fan. He made a call and we all (minus Kell, Susie, Mother and Ross) headed to the venue. When we got there, Rhett jumped out of the car first with Michael following closely and the rest of us running behind. There was a lot of noise and jostling as we made our way through a crowd in front of the venue, Michael incognito in a heavy jacket with the collar pulled up around his face. When Rhett got to the entrance he said something to the men on security and Michael flipped his collar down for identification. His face was our passport—thanks, Michael (and Lenny). They waved us all in.
Lenny Kravitz is a crackerjack performer and we adored his show. We mingled with the performers afterwards and Michael invited Lenny and his girlfriend to visit the villa, late on Christmas Day.
Christmas morning was ridiculous. We are not one of those families who sit around calmly opening one gift at a time. We were all so excited about playing Santa that the living room became a maze of discarded gift wrapping. Michael topped up mimosas all round while I followed up with plates of frittata in the hope that everyone wouldn’t be too bombed before we could finish opening our gifts.
We all took special care in dressing for a mid-afternoon dinner. Rhett was resplendent in the red, white and black striped suit that Michael had given him. It suited his effervescent flamboyance, fitted his tall, lean form perfectly and would become his go-to choice.
The long table was set for fourteen. Carol and Claude joined us with their little daughter, Marie, and Rhett had invited a girlfriend who was now staying at the house too. We began the meal with (very Australian) Sydney rock oysters, which Michael had had flown in. The wine flowed and there was much laughter, storytelling and forgiving. Helena called several times that day. I imagined she and Michael were anxious to see one another.
Actually, the phone hardly stopped ringing with calls from all over the globe. Michele phoned through her love and Christmas greetings.
‘Yep, getting out the cookbooks,’ Michael joked with her, ‘doing all the cooking for the family.’ He was so obviously relishing his new ‘patriarch’ role and had made a beautiful toast before dinner. I don’t think we have ever been happier as a family.
After we had stuffed ourselves, it was Ross, of course, who chased us into the garden with his camera. We might have complained about his insistence on capturing the moment, but thank goodness he did. That photograph of us all, lined up on the grounds of the villa, brings back one of the most joyful, fulfilled shared moments of our lives.
Helena and her parents, Fleming and Ilsa, arrived that evening, their luggage filled with traditional Danish Christmas treats: canned pickled herring, smoked salmon, klejner (deep-fried pastry strips sprinkled with sugar), a cabbage dish made with spiced fat and whipping cream, then finally sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar (how did Helena keep her figure?) and a potent drink called Akvavit, which was consumed liberally to the shout of ‘Skål!’ All extremely tasty and fun, but three hours later I woke up on the bathroom floor with Richard mopping my forehead with a cold washcloth.
Ilsa had arrived with many glossy magazines featuring Helena to show us. Naturally, she was very proud. Not only was Helena at the pinnacle of her trade, she was well educated, spoke five languages and kept up with global current affairs. Michael was very proud of her for all of that too.
The following day they drove to Nice to pick up Lenny and his girlfriend. We were all delighted to see him again, as he greeted us like long-lost friends. He wasted no time in getting to the house phone to call his little three-year-old daughter Zoë, who was in the USA with her mother Lisa Bonet—herself a real talent and recently Lenny’s musical collaborator. ‘Little’ Zoë Kravitz is now a sought-after actress (Big Little Lies, Californication, Mad Max: Fury Road), singer and spokesmodel (Vera Wang fragrances). Anyway, there was lots of gaiety and joshing each other as we shared the virtual second banquet of leftovers in the kitchen before Michael took the visitors off to his music room for a while. Lenny turned out to be a fun guy and we all ended up in hysterics, particularly about the tiny clip-on koalas he’d clipped all over himself, including on his massive dreads.
One day we watched a recorded interview with Helena on Michael’s television, which ran off a huge satellite dish. She was typically outspoken (one of the things that Michael loved about her). This time she was asked about her future plans, and what she thought about models continuing to work into their thirties. She referred to models over 25 as ‘old cows’, noting she would not stay in the business that long. Mother of course did a double-take. She herself had been on the catwalk modelling maternity outfits at 30, six months pregnant with Michael and looking fabulous!
I had purchased a movie camera and brought it to the villa specifically to get some footage of our big Christmas in the south of France. Richard shot a video on it in the crowded kitchen while I was cooking a meal. There’s dancing, singing, lots of ribbing and laughter. Rhett does his impersonation of a breakdancer and Kell flies by with a bowl on his head. Michael joins Rhett in the dancing, and, referring to my ancient history as a go-go dancer, yells, ‘Tina, get with it, on the table, baby, come on, you can do it!’ I did not jump on the table, not even for Michael, but I’ll admit to breaking out some go-go moves.
One evening we were invited to a magnificent home that belonged to a neighbouring family. They owned an art gallery in Saint-Paul de Vence. In the living room hung an amazing contemporary abstract that was somehow moving. Ripples of paint seemed to brim up to the side of the frame, ready to spill out, then just as they reached the top they’d drop down. There were no visible tubes or wiring. We were fascinated. Helena couldn’t help herself. She touched it lightly and a healthy portion spilt out onto the floor, which, luckily, was hardwood. She and Mother got such a shock. They instinctively huddled together to shield the damage from the rest of the guests. Luckily again, at that moment the hostess announced that we were to move to the dining room where her chef had a surprise. As guests began walking towards the door, Mother chivalrously removed her white cashmere wrap and dropped it onto the ooze on the floor. Helena bent down as if to scoop it up for her, surreptitiously wiping the red and purple mess into the centre of the ruined cashmere. Oblivious to the disaster, Michael approached them offering each an arm. In the adjoining room the chef wheeled out a large cake bearing the message, ‘Welcome to the Michael Hutchence Family’ in gold lettering.
We never heard anything about the artwork, so either it had happened before or the family was just too polite to mention its downfall.
Everyone was still at the villa for New Year’s Eve. Michael and Helena along with her parents, Ilsa and Fleming, spent the afternoon in the kitchen preparing hors d’oeuvres for the celebrations at the villa. Michael planned a barbecue and was very specific about the seafood and beef marinades—he insisted on making his own. A lot of tasting went on, of course, the sign of a good cook. It was worth it as the meal was delicious.
At midnight a great ruckus began on the balcony as Rhett and Brent set off the fireworks. It hadn’t rained for ages so the firewood stored below ignited and within minutes a very stressed-out Claude was running to hose down a blaze at the side of the pool. Considering the surrounding dry shrubbery, neighbouring villas and woods, it could have been disastrous, but there was actually very little harm done in the end. Michael laughed it off.
New Year’s festivities over, we all arrived back in Paris, where Richard and I planned a week of sightseeing with the children. Michael called our hotel and invited us to dine with him at the little restaurant on rue des Canettes with the resident English sheepdog. He had chosen it just for Brent’s benefit as they served delicous steaks. Surrounded by all of that rich, unfamiliar, gourmet French food, he knew his nephew had been craving a plain steak.
Michael was due back in Sydney to record Welcome To Wherever You Are with producer Mark Opitz. He and Helena were only staying overnight at their Paris apartment, so he gave me the keys and an open invitation to use his driver. It was very generous of him and I was overwhelmed.
Soon after Christmas Michael needed to replace his villa staff. He eventually hired Linda and Nestor, a wonderful couple from the Philippines, helping them obtain their papers to stay in France. Nestor came to love caring for the garden and Michael’s cars, while Linda’s cooking and cleaning was highly valued. Together they brought a whole new dimension and warmth to Michael’s appreciation for his home. One time when he returned home they had a surprise for him. Cherie, a golden labrador, had belonged to a neighbour who couldn’t care for her anymore. They begged him to let her stay on the property and of course he acquiesced. A dog was another first for Michael, who hadn’t had the time or stability to own a pet since having Tinkerbell and her kitten Tabitha as a boy in Hong Kong.
Michael had never had a garden before either. He took every opportunity to tend to it, side by side with Nestor, who patiently taught him about planting and cultivating plants suited to the region. There were paths lined with rows of lavender bushes and ivy-covered lamps leading you through gardens of herbs,vegetables and roses.
Michael had the olives pressed and their oil bottled, while Helena gave her personal touch to the labels. Together they seemed invincible there. Although both of them travelled for their careers, La Vieille Ferme was their primary residence. Michael was never more relaxed, more content than he was at his home in the French countryside and he made it abundantly clear that it gave him great joy to share this picturesque sanctuary with his family and friends. He was even in the habit of offering it to guests when he knew he was going to be away. He just wanted people to enjoy it. He thought it a waste if the villa was empty.
When Michael was in residence he was always up for guests, and Helena was his perfect partner and mistress of the house. She was unflappable. Bono’s arriving with how many people? Well, I’ll take Linda to Valbonne and we’ll pick up some supplies, and you get the wine. Music producer Mark Opitz said he always called if he was in France; he said you never knew who was going to answer the phone. Helena often filled the home with her friends and Mark remembered having a long conversation with Christy Turlington one day who passed the receiver to Yasmin Le Bon. In an interview with the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Helena’s friend, model Gail Elliott, said, ‘It was the ’90s and all very glamorous in a “Rock Star and Supermodel” kind of way. We’d go to his concerts and he’d come to our fashion shows. But Michael also enjoyed cooking and chilling out. I would stay with them in his beautiful house in the South of France.’
Four months after Christmas, Michael was at the A&M Records studios in Los Angeles, working again with Bob Clearmountain. Back then A&M, said by some to be the finest recording studio in the world, was located on the grounds of the historic Charlie Chaplin Studios on North La Brea Avenue, near Sunset Boulevard.
Michael and Bob were doing some final mixing on ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ and Richard and I were invited to take a listen. I sensed the rich history of the lot as Richard drove us through the gates. We sat quietly as Michael asked Bob to crank up the volume. Richard has pretty good ears, as they say in the trade. We listened twice and when Michael asked him what he thought, he replied that he thought the track would be even stronger if they cut out the fourth round of the chorus, in the intro. Michael immediately asked Bob to try it. The edit worked and the track stayed that way. That incident just shows you how inclusive and generous Michael could be, and what an open mind he had as to his music.