Although Bon returned to Australia from late 1979 to early 1980, he did not make any public appearances. This photograph shows his last performance on Australian soil, an impromptu one at a party for AC/DC at the Cremorne Strata Inn in Sydney, February 5, 1979. Left to right: drummer Ray Arnott, Angus, Malcolm, Bon, and George Young on bass. (Philip Morris)
15. FEBRUARY 1980
Bon arrived back in London at the start of a new year and a new decade. He had just over a month to live.
Before anything else, he found a flat in Victoria, not far from Buckingham Palace. Located in a block called Ashley Court, it was small but nice. Silver lent him a few things to help set up house. He liked things neat and tidy.
Bon then went off to France, to play seven gigs in seven days (January 16–23) and still manage to drop in on the annual MIDEM music industry convention in Cannes, where AC/DC collected a pile of precious metal records. France awarded them two golds—one each for If You Want Blood and Highway to Hell—Canada gave them a gold, and Britain, a gold and silver for Highway to Hell.
Returning to London, there was little on the calendar to interrupt time designated for writing songs for the new album. Bon was very excited about that, constantly scribbling on scraps of paper and in little blue exercise books that he carried around, in and out of the studio where he was working with Malcolm and Angus, manning the drums. The band still had to honor ticket holders to the two gigs that were cancelled on the last tour, the Newcastle Mayfair and the Southampton Gaumont, which were rescheduled for January 25 and 27 respectively. A Top of the Pops appearance was also being organized, to promote the current single “Touch Too Much.” And Angus’s wedding to his Dutch girlfriend Ellen was on. But that was all.
A great deal of this time Bon spent with a Japanese girl he met known as Anna “Baba,” who moved in with him. Anna was a friend of Ian Jeffery’s Japanese wife Suzie. They had been at boarding school together in London in 1976. Anna went back to Japan to complete her education and as soon as she was able she returned to London, which she loved so much. “The best time in my life it could be. Indeed it was. The best thing and the worst thing happened to me there then.”
Anna got in contact with her friend Suzie as soon as she arrived back in London. On January 27, she was invited over to the Jefferys’ for Sunday dinner, and afterwards, maybe they’d go to Southampton to see AC/DC.
ANNA: “Had a Sunday dinner with Bon and Jefferys and ridden in the bus to Southampton with them. When their show starts, I mean, when the singer turn up the stage with shiny smile and rhythm, I knew I was naturally in it. After the music over, all the audience gone and the roadies fixing all the instruments on the stage. Busy. Bon stands there with contented smile. How did you like the show? It was beautiful.
“Back to London, highway to the town. By the time bus stopped around his flat, I’ve seen him being quite high with a bottle of booze in his hand. Being drunk but not so quietly and gentle. And his back going home alone, unsteady on his feet.”
The next morning, Bon phoned Suzie to ask her to ask Anna if she’d like to come over to his flat and cook him a Japanese meal. Anna obliged. Bon wooed her “like the sweetest gentleman.”
After going with him to the BBC on February 7 to tape the band’s Top of the Pops appearance (they performed “Touch Too Much,” which would prove to be so prophetic), Anna spent her first night with Bon: “Waking up in the morning with him playing Billy Preston. ‘Get dressed,’ he says, ‘We go to your place and get a couple of things.’ We got a cab to Finsbury where I was staying then, but on the way back not a couple of things but all my belongings were with us.”
Mick Cocks had by then moved into a flat in Kensington with Joe Furey. “I ran into Bon in Victoria; I went to a gig there one night, and after the gig I just bumped into him. He said, Come back for a drink, so I said, Okay. He was into sake because his girl was Japanese. We’d just be sitting on the couch, and she’d come out with this warm sake in a pot, and we’d get rat-arsed. And then she’d cook. It’d just arrive, so we’d eat.
“She couldn’t speak English. Bon was teaching her a bit, and he was learning a bit of Japanese. She was more like the mothering type. She was a sweet girl. Bon liked her. I think he was experimenting. But it was fairly obvious she wasn’t going to satisfy any of his deeper needs.
“Drugs were rampant at the time, but I know drugs were not a problem for Bon. It was alcohol, it was a social thing. I’m not saying Bon didn’t have the odd toot . . . everyone did, but he was busy writing the new album. He was really positive. He wanted to experiment with his lyrics. He was always reading them to me over the phone, and I was encouraging him.”
Bon’s last appearance with AC/DC, performing “Touch Too Much” on Top of the Pops, February 7, 1980. (©LFI)
JOE FUREY: “He was constantly having to simplify stuff to fit in with the Youngs’ format of the band. Lots of stuff he just didn’t even bother showing to them. Like, that line, ‘She had the body of Venus with arms’—that would have gone straight over their heads. Like, Who’s this Venus, some chick without arms?”
SILVER: “For quite a while after we broke up, I still cashed his checks for him. It was probably only a matter of a couple of months he’d been doing that sort of stuff for himself.
“Getting that flat was a big thing for him. He was kind of really proud of that. I lent him a lot of stuff, because he didn’t have anything, you know. But he was quite pleased with himself.
“He was probably a bit more tired in that last while. I think his health just started deteriorating very early in his life.”
Bon was in fact seeing a doctor for problems with his liver.
ANNA: “Just the way things seemed to rush us. Going to Albert Hall, London Zoo, horse riding he’d teach me how, and to Hyde Park to listen to the Sunday speeches there, and this summer, just drive through Europe by bike without a map. How wonderful! And more and more Bon suggest: We go there too. Never made it.
“I realized, in those days, that when we were holding hands, he often take fast hold of my hand like he’s saying something doing that. Something not for our bright future but something so hopeless. Maybe in a tormented hell.”
Bon was drinking heavily, as Anna testifies: “Waking late in the morning, start with a glass of Scotch and music.” He was listening to Eric Clapton’s Slowhand, John Lennon’s Imagine, the Pretenders’ first album, which had just come out, and Tchaikovsky.
Suddenly though, something snapped inside Bon. He told Anna she would have to leave. He said he had to start working. Anna was devastated. Bon had told Ian Jeffery that Anna was distracting him. Suzie explained to Anna that she was smothering Bon.
ANNA: “So next morning, before he wakes up, very quietly I packed my suitcase and left. I went to the shop on the street to get some fresh milk, as it was running out and he always liked it in the morning.”
Anna rang Suzie from the public phone in the shop to ask if she could stay with her that night.
ANNA: “She says, Okay, but Bon just phoned and said you’re gone. Going back to the flat, and just taking time opening the door as it’s heavy, hard to unlock always. And there was Bon’s back at the record player, playing “Wonderful Tonight”, my favorite song on Slowhand.
“Where are you going? Bon seeing my suitcase packed. Just trying to get close to the moon, I answered. Who’s gonna cook for me if you go? Bon said. And the plans for coming days. This Sunday, he wants to invite his friends from Paris, Trust, for Japanese food party.”
Bon had dropped in on his French friends while they were doing a session in London on February 13. It was then that he made his last recording, a version of “Ride On” that would eventually be released in 1998. “That’s why I’m lonely,” he bawled. “So lonely . . .”
ANNA: “Till then, I said to myself, I’d be with him here just till then.
And another day busy being happy . . . He said, It’s been the best for a while, like he’s angry with it.”
Trust came to dinner on Sunday. Mick Cocks was there too.
ANNA: “It was like the Last Supper. Had lots of fun. Bon seemed that he didn’t want me to smoke though. Why?”
The next day was Monday, the 18th, Bon’s last. He left the flat in the early afternoon. Anna got dressed after about an hour, and left too. She bumped into Bon on the way out. “My bank is closed,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
“Do you want me to cook something?” she asked.
ANNA: “Quick cooking of Japanese soup and fish cake. Doing dishes, I turn back and saw him giving me such a sad look as if he’s the one who’s hurt separating tonight. Dishes done, he calls my name, says, Thank You. Too formal, we’ve never been like this. And, See you, he said firmly.”
Anna went over to the Jefferys’ in Maida Vale.
ANNA: “Ian came back, said nothing. Plug, the roadie who’s staying there, came back later, said that Bon didn’t come to the studio. About 11 o’clock at night, he phoned and says: How are you doing?
‘Fine.’
‘Just checking if you are okay.’
‘Fine, I’m fine. How are you?’
‘Just sitting on my own. Drinking and writing lyrics. I didn’t go to the studio today, maybe tomorrow. (That means I can’t see you tomorrow either?) Do you have a blanket?’
‘No, I’m sleeping in the sink. No, I have a blanket. And you? Do you have a blanket?’
‘I have too many for one.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, I just wanted to check if you were okay. Is Ian there?’
“And he spoke to Ian and the night fell. I was wrapped up in a blanket that Plug left on the couch. In the middle of the night or before dawn, I woke up and saw this white light coming through the door. Pain in the abdomen but it went through to the window next second and back to sleep unaware. Maybe I was dreaming.”
Next day, in the afternoon, Anna went shopping with Suzie. But all her strength had left her. The city seemed dusty and unreal. Back at Maida Vale, when Ian came home, he said Bon hadn’t shown up at the studio again. When Plug came back later, he was irritated. “Where the fuck’s Bon?” he demanded.
ANNA: “Suzie suggest I phone him at the flat. I was afraid. Say no. But can’t face this. Decided to ring him up at 12:00 a.m. Up to 12:00, I’ll wait for him. No phone rings. Time goes slowly. And finally at 12:00, when I put my hand to the phone, I jumped back for fear. The phone started to ring. Suzie nod. So I pick it up. Is Ian there? Not that dear voice, husky, but the biting businesslike manner. I handed the phone to Suzie and left the room.
“After a while, I heard some sort of screaming. I walked into the room. And there Suzie is sitting with Ian having his arm around her and crying.
“For some tragedy she was crying. I fell down on my knees, asked, Is it Bon? She took my hand and nod. Her face furrowed by tears. Has Bon died? I asked again.
“Soon, many people walked in the sitting room. They all look tamely. But no one aware that a petal of the cyclamen Ian gave to Suzie on Valentine’s Day fell down without a sound.”
