Babylon Confidential: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Addiction (36 page)

Those rules helped me, but they also created a whole new series of problems. Social drinking is so common in London that I found myself coming up with a litany of excuses to explain why I couldn’t go out drinking with friends at other pubs. I’d started by saying that I was driving but once people learned that I didn’t have a car I had to come up with something else.

“I’m on antibiotics. I’m pregnant. I’m allergic.”

I’d say anything to avoid being conspicuous, and in doing so made myself incredibly conspicuous. Keeping to my self-imposed rules was hard. Having a glass of wine with friends is one of my favorite things in the world. Wine loosens the lips and helps people relax and unwind. You laugh more, you confide secrets, hopes, and dreams. I missed that. Then I’d remind myself that the same stuff can turn you into a screaming bitch or a bona fide whacko, and I didn’t miss that at all.

I finished the apartment, and as if on cue more roles magically appeared. They were in crappy action films made in Eastern Europe. I was glad to have them, but I just couldn’t seem to land any more parts in the UK. There were about a dozen Americans and Canadians in London—like Gillian Anderson and Elizabeth McGovern—who’d lived there for years and seemed to book all the expat gigs.

Not allowing myself to drink also made it hard to make friends in England. I had no work or social life and the flat was finished. I tried working on my social life. People were more formal and reserved than in L.A., so I found it hard to strike up conversations with new people. God knows I tried. I would blabber on and smile like an idiot, but even in the grocery store or in elevators people would ignore me.

I began to feel invisible, a feeling accompanied by a mild paranoia. Was it London or was I going slightly mad from alcohol withdrawal? Self-discipline is all well and good when it comes to drinking, but at the same time life seemed to have lost some of its color. That feeling wasn’t helped by the long, wet London winter. I began having dreams about riding my motorcycle down Sunset Boulevard, the warm L.A. wind rushing over my face carrying the smell of orange blossoms and the beach. I wasn’t sure how much of my depression was me and how much was the weather, so I actually went and got light therapy at a place where they stick you in a little box and zap you with UVA rays.

I started going stir-crazy. I had to do something, so I jumped on a plane back to L.A. for the family Christmas party.

During my time in the UK I’d travel back to L.A. every year for pilot season.

I’d prepare well in advance, getting totally sober and as fit as I could manage. I’d pack my bags and head back to Hollywood with big expectations. I was going to book something. It was comeback time, baby!

I’d look great and feel great and sit in this Archstone apartment that I was paying $3,000 a month for and wait for the phone to ring. I didn’t get one audition, let alone an actual part. I had a shitty manager who promised me the moon and delivered nothing—not one meeting or audition.

One year I stayed in L.A. for four months. The apartment complex was filled with people who dreamed of working in Hollywood, wannabes and stage moms, their heads in the clouds, and at one point I realized that I was no different from them. I couldn’t book work, I was back at the beginning, all I had was a dream and an ever-deepening hole in my savings. As I sat by the phone I could feel myself becoming increasingly drawn to the bottle with each passing moment. It would only be a matter of time. I needed to keep moving.

So I started treating Los Angeles as I treated London. I’d do little day trips. I thought that if I took the pressure off waiting for the phone to ring, it might actually ring. Sometimes it works that way; this time it didn’t. Then I got a call from London. There was a meeting. A producer wanted me to come in and read for a part.

“I’m in L.A.”

“I need you here tomorrow.”

“I can’t. Christmas is coming. I’ve just rented a place. I just can’t.”

It seemed that I just couldn’t catch a break.

The year I went back for the family Christmas I was in for a pleasant surprise. It was in Aspen and it was snowing. Everyone made an effort to be nice, there were no fights, and I managed to stay sober. But I was bored, and my dreaded fortieth birthday was bearing down on me like a runaway car. I felt like I’d been possessed by Bridget Jones. I stared out the window at the falling snow. The last five years of my life had rushed by in a blur.

I was due to fly back to London, and I resolved to do something, anything to shake things up and reclaim a social life. I needed distraction, I needed friends, I needed a sex life. And so, like any modern girl who has trouble meeting people, I dove headfirst into the world of online dating.

London was a different place from when Dodi was alive. Back then it had been sensuous and classy. My new London was bleak and lonely, so I joined an exclusive dating service for the super rich and those of royal peerage.

To weed out gold diggers the membership fee was $25,000 U.S., but there was a loophole. If you were attractive, were sane, lived in an upmarket area, and had no criminal record you could join for much less, something close to $50. This ensured that rich old men who paid the full fee wouldn’t be stuck dating rich, ugly women. I sent in one of my
Playboy
shots, cropped to show me from the shoulders up, and within a few days found myself in the offices of the dating service undergoing a psychological test. They checked my passport to verify my age. I had to sign statutory declarations that I had no criminal convictions. I felt like I was interviewing for a position at Scotland Yard.

What the fuck am I doing here? Am I this desperate?

It was a bizarre experience, but still better than inviting my old dinner date, the monster, out for a good time. No, better to keep her locked safely away. I was so desperate to stay out of trouble with her that I didn’t mind stepping into a little trouble when it came to dating real people.

“Claudia, you’ve passed the initial screening. Now we’d like to conduct a home inspection.”

“Seriously? You just photocopied my passport. What more do you need?”

“We like to take every precaution. A member of the nobility has already expressed an interest in you.”

“After all this, it had better be bloody Prince Charming.”

The home inspection was carried out by a flamboyant Russian woman who bounced around my flat with the energy of a meth head.

“Ure antiques are so lubely. Your garten, it is so beautiful. We are soooo embarrassed to intrude but the gentleman is veddy particular.”

They pored over my things. I felt like a Mongolian mail-order bride being checked for fleas.

The prospective date called me the next day. He sounded terribly uptight, the kind of guy Basil Fawlty would have dreamed of welcoming in his hotel.

Fuck it, I’m already in for fifty bucks. I might as well get a free dinner and come out ahead.

He picked me up on time, which was good, but he had a Herman Munster head, the kind that looked like it had gotten caught in an elevator door. As we left my flat and walked toward his Bentley I warned him that he should be careful parking in my neighborhood, because the parking inspectors were brutal.

“Those fucking wogs. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.”

I was not amused. Nor was I amused when he berated the waitress or when he snapped his fingers at the sommelier. Even less amusing was the goodnight kiss, which was delivered with an octopus embrace and a straining erection poking against my leg. I gingerly extracted myself from his tentacles and hurried into the safety of my flat, slamming the door behind me. So much for Prince Charming.

You’d have had a much better night if you’d gone to the pub next door. It’s still open. Why not drop in for a quick one?

I told the monster to shut the fuck up.

The next day I got a polite inquiry from the dating service regarding my status: “Still single?”

I could sense the bewilderment of the Russian and her business partner. Why hadn’t I fucked the aristocratic pinhead, moved into his castle, and started spending his money?

My reply read: “Still single. The one guy you sent was a putz, and I haven’t met anyone else in the last twenty-four hours. Next time send a photo and bio first.”

And they did. None of them was young, spiritual, or
sportif
, yet they all claimed to be a combo platter of Lance Armstrong, Donald Trump, and the Dalai Lama. All in all I went on a half-dozen lame-ass dates. It seemed that having lost one Dodi Fayed, it wasn’t so easy to find another.

Then I made the mistake of agreeing to go away with a guy I’d never even met in person. We started emailing and then talked for hours on the phone. He had a northern accent, and I struggled to make out every other word, but he seemed funny and nice.

I was doing a play at the Edinburgh Festival and he offered to travel to Scotland, see my play, and take me to dinner. It sounded romantic, so I agreed to meet up. That night I made the colossal mistake of falling off the wagon and ended up in the sack with him and in the bathtub with him and on the floor with him and hanging over the balcony with him. I apparently did things to him that no woman had ever done before, and now he wanted to take me to Cyprus.

I don’t even know how it happened. When I woke up the next morning I had only a sketchy recollection of the night before—my memory was a blacked-out city—nothing. The monster was gathering power, and I was getting a little frightened. It was like something out of a fucking Stephen King novel, the kind where you have an evil-twin personality who takes you over and does stuff without your knowing. Scary shit.

I’d been seeing a talented actor in Edinburgh, a young fellow who performed improvised skits in ancient Sanskrit to drunken highbrow audiences. I liked him a lot but, hey, Cyprus beckoned, so I returned the call.

The good news was that Cyprus was lovely. The bad news was that I couldn’t recall a single detail of my lovefest with the northern guy, so I had no idea what he expected or even what he looked like naked. I had a feeling it involved something anal, otherwise the poor guy wouldn’t be so bloody excited. And one thing was certain: I wasn’t going to touch a single fucking drop of alcohol.

We’d both been dreadfully sick on the flight over. My body just quit after a month of work on the play, and he contracted food poisoning. But now that we were in the five-star luxury resort being massaged and eating fabulous food, things would improve. Right?

Now I’m the last one to judge people’s behavior whilst they’re imbibing. I’ve fallen asleep at my own dinner parties and slept with far too many strangers to be the one pointing the finger. But I’m usually a happy lush, never mean-spirited or cruel. This guy wasn’t a mean drunk, but he was a whining drunk. After he’d had a few he started complaining about everything. I laughed too loud, the service was dreadful, the pool was too cold, the room smelled. None of this was true; we were in a Cyprian paradise and I was a sober little church mouse on her best behavior. Really.

I figured that I must have been way toasted the night we had sex, because now the beer goggles were off and I could barely stand to look at him. I was struck with horror by his yellowed, crooked teeth, his calloused feet, and his fungus-infected toenails. I wanted to scream in frustration at his wardrobe of different-colored but otherwise identical golf shirts. I was back in hell, and I hadn’t even had a drink.

Luckily the diarrhea that went with his food poisoning kept on running like Niagara Falls. He hadn’t approached me sexually, but as in a B horror movie, you know it’s coming. It’s just a matter of time until the hand creeps over and goes for the grope.

When the moment came he couldn’t get an erection, and I thought the horror flick was over until he leaned in close to me and said, “Maybe if you did to me what you did in the bathtub that night we first met . . .”

He was talking about the night I’d blacked out. What the fuck had I done to him in the bathtub? It didn’t bear thinking about; I had to get out of there. I offered my condolences about his inability to perform and locked myself in the bathroom for a few hours on the pretext of secret women’s business. When I came out he’d gone to the bar and I made a hasty retreat to the next village, where I booked into a shithole hotel, then flew back to London the next morning.