And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) (48 page)

Her portfolio was actually a scrapbook in which she had neatly pasted newspaper photos and stories about herself and Sid, as well as publicity shots of the two of them.

“Don't I look beautiful in this one?” she asked.

In it, she was by Sid's side, one fist clenched at the camera, teeth digging into her lower lip. Sid was shirtless and snarling.

“So beautiful,” Sid agreed, putting his arm around her proudly.

“It was taken at a press conference,” she said. “The photographer told me I could be a professional model if I wanted.”

She looked half dead in the picture. The statement was so pathetic I winced.

“I bought her those shoes,” Sid pointed out. “I bought her everything she ever had.”

She showed us the other pictures in her portfolio. Some of them predated Sid. There was the photograph of her with Debbie Harry, a picture of our cats, a picture of her friend Sable.

“Oh, Sid!” she exclaimed suddenly. “You haven't seen my baby pictures!”

She went to the desk and got out her baby pictures. There was one snapshot of her curled up nude on our bed at seventeen months that was particularly cute. Sid gazed at it fondly. So did I.

“Wasn't I adorable?” she asked him.

“So pretty,” Sid said. “So, so pretty. Debbie, may I keep this? I want it.”

Frank and I exchanged a look. Frank nodded.

“Sure, Sid,” I said. “It's yours.”

He happily slid it into the pocket of his black leather jacket. Then he yawned. It was about eleven o'clock. I again suggested taking them to the hotel. Sid said he'd like that. I drove them while Frank, Suzy, and David cleaned up.

Nancy positioned Sid in the back seat, where he immediately began to doze. Then she joined me up in front.

“Great to be back, Mum,” she said as I pulled out of the driveway.

“Nice to have you.”

“Hated the bloody weather in England. Damp. House looks nice.”

“Thank you.”

“How come you have sliding glass doors in the kitchen now?”

“It's easier.”

We drove in silence for a while.

“So when are you going back to New York?” I asked.

“Sunday night. That okay?”

“Fine.”

“We have to find a methadone clinic on Monday.”

We said nothing the rest of the way to the Holiday Inn. We really had nothing to say to each other.

The parking lot was deserted. Businessmen usually stayed there, but not on weekends. I pulled up right next to the front door.

“Come on, Sid,” Nancy commanded. “We're here.” She got out, clutching Suzy's cookies, and opened the door for Sid, who followed us inside groggily.

The desk clerk stared at them, incredulous.

“I registered you under your real name,” I told Sid. “I thought it would be better.”

“That's fine, Debbie,” Sid said.

I filled out the registration form for them. For their address, I put down “Chelsea Hotel, New York, N.Y.” Then Sid signed it. I paid for the room. The clerk handed me the key, still staring at them. They seemed not to notice. They never did.

“Do you … do you want a bellboy?” the clerk stammered.

I said no. Then I turned to Nancy and Sid.

“Well, I guess I'll be seeing you tomorrow,” I said. “What time should we pick you up?”

“Wait, Mum,” she begged. “Walk us to our room. Please.”

They were like two lost, frightened children standing there in the Holiday Inn lobby. I wondered how they had survived for so long on their own. I helped them find their room. Then I unlocked the door for them and put the key on the bureau. I half expected Nancy to ask me to tuck them in.

Sid immediately started to get undressed for bed. Off went the leather jacket. As I mentioned, he had nothing on underneath it. He had a hairless, concave chest. His ribs stuck out. There were a couple of long, thin scars on his back and side. Knife wounds, possibly.

“So what time should we pick you up tomorrow?” I asked.

“Call us at noon, please, Mum,” Nancy said.

We kissed each other good night.

Sid started to take off his pants. I headed for the door.

“Wait, Mum,” Nancy said.

“What is it, Nancy?” I asked.

“You forgot to kiss Sid good night.”

I went over to him, averting my eyes from his unbuckled trousers. I turned my face. He kissed me lightly on the cheek. I shuddered.

“Good night, Mum,” he said.

“Good night, Sid.”

Then I drove home.

The dinner dishes were all cleaned up.

“So when are they leaving?” Suzy wanted to know first thing.

“Sunday,” I replied.

“Early?” she asked.

“Late,” I answered.

“He's not nearly as threatening as I thought he'd be,” David observed. “He's too zonked.”

“I'll tell you one thing,” Frank said. “If he can make a million dollars with that guitar-playing of his, I should be able to make a hundred million.”

“At least she's calm around him,” I said. “Motherly, almost.”

We went to bed. As he turned out the light Frank said, “Every time I look at the two of them, I keep thinking the same thing.”

“What's that?”

“That neither one of them looks like they're long for this world,” he said sadly.

I couldn't sleep. I just lay there in the darkness, thinking, groping toward some kind of grasp on Nancy's relationship with Sid, her only lasting relationship.

They were two lost souls who had found each other. Their relationship came out of their inability to find what they wanted in the outside world. They were on the same wavelength. They fit each other's needs.

Both had trouble getting along with most people. Both were troubled and angry. Sid had the capacity to lash out in anger at others. Nancy tended to direct her anger at herself. She needed to have everything her way. Sid needed to have somebody tell him what to do. She was bright and aggressive. He was, seemingly, withdrawn and not particularly verbal. If you'd have asked Sid what sort of social statement he was making by the way he performed and looked, he'd have been hard-pressed to articulate a response.

They were dependent on each other. They cared for each other. To them, what they had together was genuine love. It was the only time for Nancy. Sid was the one great love of her life. She was twenty years old, he a year older. They were basically the same age
Frank and I had been when she'd been born. That was hard for me to imagine. They seemed like children to me, immature and incapable of taking care of themselves—much less another human being. Maybe Frank and I had been, too, when we were that age, and just hadn't known it.

No, I refused to believe that. We had not been Nancy and Sid. We had devoted ourselves to building, not tearing down.

I tossed and turned the entire night.

Happily, it was bright and sunny the next morning. I phoned them at noon and woke them up. Nancy asked me to call back in an hour. I did and woke them again.

“We'll get up,” Nancy said. “Come for us in an hour.”

David picked them up. They weren't in the lobby when he got there, he later informed me. So up he went up to their room and knocked on the door. Nancy called for him to come in. They were still in bed, naked, watching Saturday morning cartoons. When David walked in they got out of bed, put on their rumpled clothes from the previous night, and took a swig each of methadone from the Fairy Lotion bottle. Then Nancy said, “Let's go.” Neither of them got washed or brushed their teeth.

David said he walked fifty feet ahead of them down the corridor and out to the car. He noticed the people noticing them. He was, he said, embarrassed to be seen with them.

About halfway home Sid tugged at Nancy's sleeve and whispered something to her.

“Sid wants a hamburger,” Nancy informed David.

“McDonald's be okay, Sid?” David asked.

Sid whispered his reply to Nancy.

“That'd be fine,” Nancy told David.

David pulled into McDonald's and waited outside in the car while Nancy and Sid went in to get Sid's hamburger. As he waited the people who came out were all pointing inside in amazement, laughing, pulling their hair straight up. After a few minutes Nancy and Sid came out with Sid's hamburger, blinking at the sunlight.

Sid picked at his hamburger as they drove home. He was still working on it when they arrived.

Nancy wanted to swim. Neither she nor Sid had suits. I gave her one of mine. David found a pair of jogging shorts for Sid, who could barely keep them on, he was so thin. He legs were incredibly pale. I doubted that they'd ever been exposed to the sun before.

They jumped in the pool. We sat by the side and watched them.
They splashed and frolicked like two little kids. They dunked each other and giggled and tossed a beach ball and attempted zany dives off the board. They were without a care in the world. It was a typical suburban scene, just like a million others you'd have seen around America that summer afternoon. The only difference was that we were the only suburbanites in America who had Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols in our swimming pool.

He was exhausted within ten minutes.

The two of them stretched out in the sun on lounge chairs. Suzy had made plans to visit her friend Laura, so she left. Frank, David, and I had lunch on the patio. Nancy and Sid said they weren't hungry.

He was green after five minutes in the sun.

“I don't feel very well,” he said weakly.

“He's probably not used to the sun, Nancy,” I said. “Maybe he should sit in the shade.”

She helped Sid move to a chair in the shade. When he still felt ill, I suggested she take him inside where it was air-conditioned.

“Stretch out on the sofa in the den, Sid,” Frank said.

“May I watch the telly?” Sid asked.

“Sure,” Frank said.

“Any cartoons on, Frank?”

“Don't know. Probably.”

“How about
Sha Na Na
. Is it on?”

“Tonight, Sid,” David told him. “At seven.”

Nancy took him inside, laid a towel down on the sofa to protect against his wet suit. He stretched out. When I came inside she was sitting on the end of the sofa, stroking his head, which was in her lap.

“How does he feel?” I asked her.

“A little better,” she replied.

“Does he want something cold? Sid, would you like a drink? A cold drink?”

“Please, Mum.”

I brought him some juice. He thanked me and drank it. Then he sat up and lit a cigarette. Nancy turned on the TV and found some cartoons for them to watch. They sat there on the sofa for the remainder of the afternoon, chain smoking, staring at the TV, glassy-eyed. They seemed stuporous. Occasionally they would nod off, lit cigarettes in hand.

After the first time a live ash had tumbled onto the oatmeal
tweed sofa and begun to smolder, I stayed in the den with them, watching them carefully, vaulting across the coffee table every once in a while to catch the falling ash in an ashtray before it did any damage.

Toward the middle of the afternoon Suzy returned with her friend Laura. They were very close, and Suzy wanted her to meet her big sister. Laura had been prepared for how they looked, and acted as if she didn't notice.

“Hi, Nancy!” exclaimed Laura, so cute and perky, so alive.

“Hello,” said Nancy quietly, barely noticing her.

“And this is Nancy's boyfriend, Sid,” Suzy said. “Sid, this is Laura.”

“Pleased to meet you, Sid,” she said.

Sid didn't notice her at all. He just looked right through her.

There was an awkward silence. Then Suzy and Laura went outside.

A little later the phone rang. It was a friend of David's, a fellow counselor from camp who happened to be visiting some relatives in Huntingdon Valley. David suggested he drop by for a few minutes.

I wish I had a picture of Bob's face when he walked into the den, unsuspecting, to find Sid Vicious on the sofa with our daughter. Bob's eyes widened and for a moment he looked as if he were going to choke. Then he swallowed and, with terrific effort, held on to his cool. After exchanging pleasantries with us, he was introduced to them.

“Hi, Nancy,” Bob said.

She nodded.

“Nice to meet you, Sid,” Bob said, sticking his hand out.

Sid stared at the hand, uncomprehending for a moment, then up at Bob. Finally he stuck out his own hand and they shook.

David took Bob outside to shoot some baskets. As they went out the back door I could hear Bob saying, “I can't believe it! Sid Vicious is in your den watching cartoons!”

It
was
pretty hard to imagine.

Another ash fell onto the couch.

“Nancy, your cigarette!” I cried.

“Huh?' she said.

“Nothing,” I said, swatting at the dead ash on the upholstery. “Forget it.”

I went into the kitchen—stomach knotted, teeth clenched—to find something to do. I couldn't sit there anymore looking at the two of them.

What I really wanted to do was shake her and scream, “Look
what you've become! You're not my Nancy! Where's my Nancy? I want my Nancy back!”

There was no point in saying anything to her. I couldn't reach her. She was lost to me. My arms ached to hold the baby Nancy, ached for a fresh start.

I didn't know how much longer I could stand having them there. I wanted them gone.

Suddenly Nancy appeared behind me.

“Mum, would you take me to the hospital?” she asked.

“What for?” I demanded, alarmed.

“I, uh, got beat up by the Teddys a few weeks ago and they pulled my ear off. A doctor sewed it back on, you know, but I forgot to get the stitches out. Just remembered.”

“Here, let me see,” I said.

She pulled back her hair and turned so I could get a good look. First I noticed the yellowish bruises and open sores along her hairline. Then I saw the ear. Revulsion swept over me as I saw the row of stitches that ran along the back of her ear, all the way from the top, where the ear met the skull, to the bottom, where it joined the neck.