His final bow

As the taxi wound into Mayfair,Leane didnt believe McQueen was dead at age 40,and in that way. He loved Lee Alexander McQueen,had known him 20 years,had drank and cried with him. Why,only two Saturday nights past,they had done their old haunts on Old Compton Street. But as Leane knew,McQueens soul was as deep and powerful as an ocean,even as his reserves of happiness were always drying up. He said: You cant just move on and think that the problems will go away. I think thats what caught him up.

On February 2,McQueens mother,Joyce,had died after a long illness. In the mid 90s,when fashion writers were expressing disgust at his extreme fashionthe low-riding bumsters that became one of the most influential garments of the decade,the slashed clotheshis mother,the hub of an East End family,was in the backstage making sandwiches and tea. Her approval,so plainly and freely given,was essential to McQueen,a gay man and the youngest of six. McQueen had a feeling for beauty,for greatness,for never being quite happyand it undoubtedly had its roots in his relationship with his mother and with another woman,Isabella Blow,the alarming-looking stylist-aristocrat. She gave him friendship,books,approval. When she died,in 2007,taking her own life,people said McQueen had let her down. Later,when he met someone making a film about her life,he broke down sobbing.

In the last three years,however,since the show that he dedicated to Blow,McQueen seemed to reach a real point of clarity. He and Leane travelled to India,from which came the jewel-like Girl Who Lived in The Tree collection.

At the New Year,McQueen was skiing in Val-dIsère,France,with Annabelle Neilson and two other friends. A wild thing,with a small body and dark eyes,Neilson and McQueen were well matched. He liked familiarity amongst those he loved,he liked home,he often took vacations with his sisters. Neilson recognised that need for intimacy and encouraged it. She said,I was sort of married to a gay man.

When McQueens mother died,he told Leane that he couldnt bear to see her buried. Her funeral was on February 12,in East London. He had also recently learned that one of his dogs,the oldest,Minter,which he had from Hoxton,was sick with cancer. Leane told him,Well get through this together. And he seemed to.

On Tuesday,February 9,McQueen spent much of his time working on his new collection. He also spoke briefly with Verkade about plans for his mothers funeral. She had booked a table for that evening at J Sheekey,a restaurant in Covent Garden. They planned to go togetherLeane,Burton,Verkade and Neilson,who spent the evening of February 9 with McQueen in his flat,leaving at 3 a.m. She was probably the last to see him alive.

Daphne Guinness recalled the scene in his Paris hotel room in October,when friends gathered after his remarkable show: I had never seen him happier or so full of ideas. In one sense,though,McQueens suicide wasnt a surprise. Statistically,according to mental health studies,he fitted the characteristics of those most likely to kill themselvessingle,middle-aged men who are under severe stress,which bereavement would certainly cause. Suicide is also a means of escape. McQueens friends believe he couldnt deal with the pain of losing his mother,after losing Blow.