Friday, April 24, 2009

I am standing by the pool wondering when Amy Winehouse is going to emerge from her villa. Then, suddenly, a small figure jumps on me, clinging and showering me with kisses as if I am her oldest, dearest friend.

It’s Amy, in a bikini top and tight shorts. I notice a huge bruise on one of her legs.This is not the first time we’ve met; I’m here in St Lucia with a television crew to complete a documentary we are making about Amy and her family — the working title is Saving Amy.

We’ve been given a beach villa in a row of four that are patrolled day and night by security. Amy has one, her father Mitch and a couple of his friends have another, and the third is a recording studio where Amy is doing work for her new album and a concert she is about to give on the island as part of the St Lucia festival.

After kissing my producer, she decides to throw a welcome dinner for us. She seems very excited, rushing back to her villa, then popping straight back to count how many of us there are. And she talks in salivating detail about all the delicious food we’ll be having.

In the evening Mitch leads us to the restaurant. Amy — dressed in a mini-mini orange dress — is already there, looking anxious. She hugs me and introduces me to “my close friend Wiki”.

It turns out that Wiki, who lives in St Lucia, has just returned from the funerals of two people she knew who were recently killed in an accident. “But Amy asked me to come. I couldn’t say no to her.”

Amy whispers to me: “That’s when you know that somebody is your friend. She’s my close friend. ” Amy has known Wiki for all of two weeks.

Her other new friends arrive: an Italian couple and their daughter, aged about seven, and one of her girlfriends. Immediately, Amy leaves the table, chasing them and teaching them how to dance. She may be 25, but her physique is so slight that you could easily mistake her for one of three little girls. There are whoops of laughter as they play for the next two hours; it’s obvious that Amy feels much more at home with these girls than she does with the grown-ups.

Later she turns her attention to me, covering my dress with a series of napkins. Everyone is staring. She keeps saying: “Daphne, I want to take good care of you.”

When the food arrives she insists on serving us. Everyone, she announces, has to start with rice on their plate. As she starts dishing it out, I notice her hands are shaking so badly that she can barely hold a plate.

Because she is busy feeding us, no one seems to notice that she isn’t eating; she is just pushing the food around her plate. I wonder, not for the last time, if she has truly overcome her anorexia.

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