Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [51]
I was so pleased with the way Hurtwood was coming together that I wanted to create something like that for my grandparents. I found a beautiful cottage in Shamley Green and took Rose and Jack to look at it. They were delighted—at least Rose was; I’m not so sure about Jack. We had become a little distant from one another, and maybe he was a bit jealous. Rose was always so excited about the way my life was unfolding, but I don’t think he really understood what was so special about it all. He was a proud man, and although I would try to think of things to say when I saw him, when the time came, the moment would slip by without either one of us being able to express anything. It was such a shame. Nevertheless, Rose and Jack had many happy years together in that cottage, and for a good long time things were good.
I was seeing more and more of George Harrison during this period, especially since we were now virtually neighbors. George and his wife, Pattie, lived on a residential estate in Esher, about a half an hour’s drive away, in a sprawling bungalow called Kinfauns. It had round windows and a huge fireplace decorated by the Fool, the Dutch artists who had also painted murals everywhere. We started to hang out a lot together. Sometimes he and Pattie would come over to Hurtwood to show me a new car or to have dinner and listen to music. It was in the early days at Hurtwood that George wrote one of his most beautiful songs, “Here Comes the Sun.” It was a beautiful spring morning and we were sitting at the top of a big field at the bottom of the garden. We had our guitars and were just strumming away when he started singing “de da de de, it’s been a long cold lonely winter,” and bit by bit he fleshed it out, until it was time for lunch. Other times I used to go over to their place, to play guitar with George or just hang out. I remember them also indulging in a bit of matchmaking, trying to set me up with different pretty ladies. I wasn’t really interested, however, because something else quite unexpected was happening: I was falling in love with Pattie.
I think initially I was motivated by a mixture of lust and envy, but it all changed once I got to know her. I had first set eyes on Pattie backstage at the Saville Theatre in London after a Cream concert, and had thought then that she was unusually beautiful. This impression was strengthened by spending time with her. I remember thinking that her beauty was also internal. It wasn’t just the way she looked, although she was definitely the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. It was deeper. It came from within her, too. It was just the way she was, and that captivated me. I had never met a woman who was so complete, and I was overwhelmed. I realized that I would have to stop seeing her and George, or give in to my emotions and tell her how I felt. The overflow from all these feelings finally put paid to my relationship with Charlotte. We had been together for over two years, and I loved her as much as I was capable of really loving anyone, but she was in the way of someone else, who, even though I couldn’t have her, was commanding my every thought. She went back to Paris for a while and eventually began a long-lasting affair with Jimmy Page. I didn’t see her again for a long time.
I also coveted Pattie because she belonged to a powerful man who seemed to have everything I wanted—amazing cars, an incredible career, and a beautiful wife. This emotion was not new to me. I remember that when my mum came home with her new family, I wanted my half brother’s toys because they seemed more expensive and better than mine. It was a feeling that had never gone away, and it was definitely part of the way I felt toward Pattie. But for the time being I kept all these emotions strictly under lock and key, and buried myself in trying to sort out what I was going to do next musically.
When Cream broke up, it wasn’t like the Yardbirds, when I had another band to go to. I didn’t have anything else set up, and for a while I was in a vacuum, just playing