Smash hit

I present her with a set of lip glosses that I’ve brought as a gift, but she can’t open the little box and quickly loses patience. When I open it for her, she asks one of her security men to bring her a lip pencil and then shakily tries to outline her lips.

She is childlike in her need for affection, constantly coming up to hug us. Yet all through the evening she keeps disappearing for a smoke or — as her father suspects — a drink. Then another vanishing act — but this time she doesn’t return.

As we walk back to my villa later, Amy suddenly reappears with her bodyguard. She has changed her dress for another, a skimpy blue number.

She looks at me hesitantly, unsure what to say. It’s as if the grown-up world is too complicated for her. When I thank her for dinner, she is visibly relieved and hugs me ferociously.

Saturday, April 25

Today is my birthday. I meet Amy — in gold bikini top — at the bar next to the beach. She says she is planning a celebration. I ask her teasingly whether she is going to sing Happy Birthday to me, à la Marilyn Monroe to JFK. Amy says she’s sorry — she doesn’t have the right outfit with her.

She orders food, then disappears, only to return with a three-year-old boy called Ricky. And she starts feeding him — instead of eating the food herself. When he drops his lollipop, she rushes out to wash it for him. Ricky’s parents don’t seem to be around and Amy has taken over the role of mother.

Even so, she runs off every few minutes, asking her father to watch the child. Later someone spots her at another section of the bar, gulping down drinks.

When she comes back, she peers at my green cocktail and asks what’s in it. I say: “You wouldn’t like it — it’s not sweet.” She tries it and makes a face. “Does it have alcohol?” she asks. I admit it does. Within seconds she has drained two-thirds of my glass. Mitch and I exchange glances. Has she swapped one addiction — to heroin and crack — for another?

Later he confides: “It’s still a very bumpy road . . . There have been many relapses [since around Christmas]. She didn’t [give up drugs] all of a sudden; she was talking about it for two or three months. Then she checked all the options and favoured going to substitute drugs.

“Look, there will be more relapses. But who would believe, six months ago, that we’d be at this stage? That she’d be walking, laughing, hosting dinner for you, singing? It’s amazing . . . My daughter seems happy. ”

I ask whether Amy is still in touch with her estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, who admits he introduced her to hard drugs and who recently instigated divorce proceedings.

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