\n‘I think I’m doing very well,’ she chirrups. ‘I’d normally have had six shots by now. Today I’ve only had two.’ And she smiles – that big, heartbreaking smile which is eight parts of sorrow and two of joy.
\nIn this quiet resort, popular with families and honeymooners, you really cannot miss Amy. With her curly hair and huge gold-hooped earrings, she could not look more out of place. She is unwashed, barefoot and looks in need of a good meal.
\nOn Sunday, make-up has run across her face and she is wearing a bright-pink bra under a cropped Nike top.
\nYou can see scars which indicate that she has been self-harming – cutting herself – again and there are two cigarette burns on her stomach, which are healing.
\nAmy, who is 25 and was hailed as the most exciting vocal talent of her generation, is living in two villas which cost her record company about \u00a32,000 a night each and come with their own butler and maid.
\nIt’s a curious, dissolute life and Amy, lonely and drunk, seems quite lost in her Caribbean idyll.
\nShe has company: half-a-dozen minders who have been engaged by her record company at a cost of \u00a3250 a day each. This week, she also has her cousin, Lauren, and her boyfriend, who have flown out to try to stop her from ‘being bored’.
\nIn truth, they are trying to keep Amy sober enough to work – and trying to steer her into the recording studio which has been installed in the second villa at eye-watering cost.
\nSome \u00a3500,000 has been spent so far by Universal Records on accommodation, staff and equipment for Amy’s Caribbean jolly.
\nThe hope is that Amy can again create an album like Back To Black, the multi-award winning phenomenon which sold 11 million copies after the songs seemed to tumble out of her during an extraordinary two-week period in 2006.
\nWhat are the chances of success, though? In recent months, Amy has been hospitalised three times after alcoholic benders lasting up to three days. One time, she ended up on a drip for dehydration.
\nThis week, Amy was so keen to get her shots of tequila that she sneaked great gulps straight from the bottle when the barmaid’s back was turned. It’s no surprise to find her this way: a performance at the St Lucia Jazz Festival earlier this month was an utter disaster. She was late, drunk and ‘too emotional’ to sing.
\n‘Singing in St Lucia brought back too many painful memories,’ said her spokesman – presumably of her broken marriage.
\nAmy also cancelled plans to fly to Britain to sing at a concert to celebrate the 50th birthday of her record label. She also failed to take up an invitation from legendary producer Quincy Jones to sing on his album. And she’s been working on new material for her third album for two years, seemingly without making any progress because of her battles with addictions – to heroin, to crack, to cocaine, to Blake. And now to alcohol.
\nSo will she ever return to form? And can anyone save Amy from her new fight, against an addiction to alcohol which seems to be raging just as dangerously out of control as her previous dependencies on narcotics?
\nHer father Mitch has flown back to the UK, saying his daughter needs to save herself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"