Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [111]
In the months before Lori’s baby was due, I had come to realize that this was the one thing in my life that something good could come of, and I had been making some attempts to restore the relationship with her. On my return from recording in LA, I went to visit her in Milan a few times, and eventually, a few weeks before the birth, she returned to London, having told me that since I was English, she felt the baby should be born in England. I rented a small house in Chelsea for her, where I used to visit her every day.
Conor was born on August 21, 1986, at St. Mary’s, Paddington. As soon as I heard that Lori had gone into labor, I rushed to the hospital, determined to be in at the birth, though more than a little frightened of what I was going to experience. As it happened, he got stuck upside down, so they had to perform a last-minute cesarean. They put a screen around the bed and a nurse came and stood beside me. She told me that men often faint in these situations. I was determined to try and be present for this. I just had an incredible feeling that this was going to be the first real thing that had ever happened to me. Up till that moment, it seemed like my life had been a series of episodes that had very little meaning. The only time it had seemed real was when I was challenging myself in some way with music. Everything else—the drinking, the tours, even my life with Pattie—it all had an air of artificiality to it. When the baby finally came, they gave him to me to hold. I was spellbound, and I felt so proud, even though I had no idea how to hold a baby.
Lori spent a couple of days in the hospital. While she was there, I remember going down to Lords to watch the cricket. The great English cricketer Ian “Beefy” Botham was playing, whom I knew through David English, former president of the Robert Stigwood Organisation, and after the match he raised a glass of champagne to me in honor of Conor’s birth. By that time it had begun to sink in that I was a father, and that it was time for me to grow up. I considered all my previous irrational behavior to have been reasonably excusable, because it had been conducted with consenting adults. Whereas with this tiny child, so vulnerable as he was, I suddenly became aware that it was time to try and stop fucking around. But the question was, how?
Conor’s birth was commemorated with the release of the new album, which I called August, and which turned out to be my biggest-selling solo album to date. It had a hit single in “It’s in the Way You Use It,” which was featured in the Paul Newman film The Color of Money, and also included “Holy Mother,” which I had dedicated to Richard Manuel, the great keyboard player of The Band, who had hanged himself in March 1986. One song I decided not to include was “Lady from Verona,” which I had written specially for Lori. That might have been too much for Pattie to bear.
Lori returned to Italy soon after the birth, the idea being that I would go over and visit her and Conor for a few days whenever possible. The problem was that my drinking had become full blown again, and I was finding it harder and harder to control. I really loved this little boy, and yet, when I went to visit him in Milan, I would sit and play with him in the daytime, and, every second of that time, all I could think about was how much longer it would be before Lori would arrive to feed him and take him away to bed so that I could have another drink. I never drank in his presence. I would stay white-knuckle sober all the time he was awake, but