Chapter 41 - You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico

Jane Goldstraw first came into contact with Nico in the early 1980s, when her partner was rehearsing for a tour with the singer. The two women became close. ‘I was living in St Paul’s Road with my two children and their father. I’d fallen asleep on the futon couch, and I got shaken awake by Nico. I remember the first image I saw of her was how tall she was, this kind of looming figure! She picked me up by my shoulders and kissed me on each cheek and said, “You look like something out of a Mucha poster!”7 They were a set of art posters that were around. I was flattered.’

Goldstraw is a soft-spoken, gentle woman. Up until now, she has never been interviewed nor talked about her relationship with Nico, but over several emails and phone calls she opened up to me, providing precious insight into the singer. My interviews with her were some of the most important and eye-opening that I carried out, as she is one of the few females who knew the singer out­side of the mythology that always preceded her in later years. Not being an artist allowed Goldstraw to get to know Nico without any previous expectations or context, simply as an individual with no parameters.

‘At the time, my children’s father wasn’t a heroin addict, so I’m not sure what she actually came around for. They might have been talking about music, but I also think she needed some medicine [heroin]. Alan Wise was her manager, unfortunately. He brought her around to the house probably thinking that my partner would know where to get some.’

Goldstraw made Nico some coffee, thinking nothing of it. However, the singer quickly became a frequent visitor, finding sol­ace and a rare kindred spirit in the young mother. ‘Over the next few weeks, she started to come by more. She was living on Singleton Road, a couple of roads away from where I lived. I got to know her … on a different level [than other people around at the time]. I wasn’t in the band, I didn’t take drugs. It was just me and the chil­dren. She became my friend. I think she was depressed. Her skin had this very sallow, waxy colour and she didn’t wash her hair very much. I think she was a very lonely person. But so was I.

‘[Alan Wise] would make sure that this woman only had enough [money] for a couple of days’ worth of medicine [heroin]. He would write the most ridiculous lists [for her tours]: two quilts needed, two pillows needed, meal for sixteen … petrol. In other words, he was keeping all the money. [Wise] kept her so that she needed him for that small amount [of money] that she got. When she would come around, she would tell me how disgusting he was. He kept walking into her room and things.

‘I got hold of him one day and said, “What are you doing! Leave her alone!” He said, “Oh, she’s talking rubbish, she’s exaggerating.” I said, “No, she’s not. Leave her alone. She does not want you to touch her.” You know, people were there for who she was, but they never actually saw her for who she was. She played with my chil­dren; they loved her!

‘Apparently, I made her favourite soup – potato and leek. I would be cooking, and she’d just tell me funny stories. One day, she came into the kitchen and said, “I think your husband’s wife is a bitch.” I turned around and said, “Oh, okay.” Even though I wasn’t married [to him], I wondered what I had done. I said, “Why?” And she replied, “She left three children with him to bring up, and you have to bring the younger ones up.” And I said, “No, no, you’ve got it wrong. Those are our children.” She was completely freaked. She said, “Dirty pervert!” I actually laughed. I thought it was funny. She said, “No, no, you’re so young, this is not right!” I told her it was okay, but she just kept saying, “No, it’s not, he’s a pervert.” She was so funny at times, you’d have loved her [Jane was thirteen when she met her partner, who was twenty-one].

‘She really was my friend, a very interesting woman. She’d tell me all sorts of things about her childhood – having to step over Jewish people that had been shot and things like that,’ Goldstraw recalls. ‘When we were on our own, she’d play the piano. We’d sing together and we’d tape it … we used to have fun.’

Nico told Goldstraw that ‘She didn’t like women; she liked me. Apparently she fell in love with me … I had to fight her off! It was like, “No, listen, you’re my friend, that’s it. I’m sorry, I am not that way inclined.” She’d say, “Oh, you’re too shy. Why are you so shy?” I’d say, “I’m not shy, you’re my friend.” We’d go down to my local shops that I’d been going to for a few years. She’d put her arm around me and say, “This is my new girlfriend. I’m in love with her.” I’d just stand there. I’m quite small – I’m only five foot three – and she’d tower above me with her arm around me. It never bothered me.’

Goldstraw was not awed by Nico’s legend or status, simply view­ing her as a close mate, without any expectations. This allowed Nico to open up and feel accepted in a way she seldom experienced. ‘I think she liked me because she knew that I didn’t want anything off her. I wasn’t hanging around her for who she was and what she had,’ Goldstraw hypothesizes. ‘I hate using the word – it was nor­mal.’ It was the everyday rituals that Nico seemed to most cherish, as she had never had the chance to have such mundane experiences herself. ‘I cared for her, I really did care for her,’ Goldstraw says. To be the object of such unabated affection was rare for Nico, for whom gestures of kindness with no expectations attached were few. Goldstraw recalls one instance when Nico’s deeply buried need for this kind of interaction became visible: ‘I went into Manchester city centre one day, and this shoe shop had a sale on. I’d noticed that Nico’s boots were getting worn. I remembered that she liked espadrilles. I found these espadrilles in black that went right up to your knees. You could tie them, and they were size ten! I got them for her. She was so thrilled! She said, “I haven’t had a present for so long!” She actually looked like she was going to cry. She hugged me so tight, and I thought she was going to break my ribs! She never had them off her feet.’

This vulnerable, ‘real’ side of the singer was glimpsed by few throughout her life. Moments like those the singer had with Goldstraw were few and far between, yet they illustrated who the woman under the myth may have been, and how Nico’s uncon­ventional childhood may have stunted her ability to connect with people. Arguably, in her younger days, building the myth of Nico, not necessarily ardent passion, may have fuelled the same-sex rela­tionships – or at least the singer’s perceived need to include such anecdotes as part of the mystique surrounding her. However, later in life, it would have been a deep-seated need to be loved and accepted for the ‘Christa’ core that fuelled the forging of romantic entanglements, regardless of gender. Nico’s protective mantle and the later haze of addiction seemingly shielded her from further hurt and pain, while shutting off the possibility of the authentic young girl inside to heal and flourish. ‘I remember how badly treated she was too,’ says Goldstraw. This made any genuine connection that much more important to Nico.

With Goldstraw, Nico could just be, which must have been a rare occurrence. ‘I think sometimes she just craved to be herself, and she could be that with me because I didn’t want anything from her. We’d watch a film or sing. She rode her bicycle around Manchester, and we’d take my dog and kids and walk across the moors. One of her sayings: “I’m sick of this shit! All of these people just want to take from me.” Earaches, Nico suffered a lot of those. I remember her having cotton wool in her ears a lot. Tiger Balm was one of her favourite things; she would rub it on her temples and wrists for headaches. If she had a cold, she would rub it under her nose. She gave me my first tub of it. I would often make her fresh lemon tea with honey.’

Around the same time, another woman came into Nico’s life who would end up playing an important role. Barbara Wilkin met the singer through mutual friends at a concert. A year and a half after her first interaction with the singer, Wilkin was summoned to Nico’s hotel room while the singer was on tour in Amsterdam. A fan had left a ‘special’ cake heavily laced with hashish in her dressing room. The baked confection did not get to its intended recipient, as Wise ate it and proceeded to become gravely ill. ‘Alan had a very, very serious turn on that, because he never would touch any drugs like that,’ says Wilkin. ‘Emotionally, he was a bit unstable anyway, so that really sent him into panic mode. He suffered for about two years, I think. He never really recovered from that.’ Wilkin found Wise in bed and very ill. ‘Nico was sitting there [does impression of Nico], “Oh. He’s not well.” She had lit all these candles for him. Alan then said, “Could you come along and help with this tour?” I was already helping out on the road, a little bit here and there. The next thing I knew, I was on this European tour.’

Wilkin accompanied Nico on one of her attempts as an adult to reconnect with the Päffgens. ‘We tried, Nico and me, to see them [the Päffgen family],’ says Wilkin. ‘She wanted me to come with her because I was a German. Her German was good but a bit rusty. Nico said she still always hoped she had some kind of inher­itance from that side of the family. They owned the big brewery in Cologne and were very rich. We figured out where they lived; she had an address. Typical German house. It was a flat; we had to go up a couple of flights of stairs. We went to the door and knocked on it. We said who we were and it was just [makes dismissive noise]. We got the door pushed in our face. Door closed. There was nothing she could do.’