Carnival of Light || Paul McCartney/Beatles

16. The Hollywood Climate

Carnival of Light (Part 2)

16.

29 August 1967

West Hollywood

Labor Day Weekend was approaching, which was a whole production in America from what I'd been told. There were rules associated with it, like how you weren't supposed to wear white after. That seemed a bit of an arbitrary rule to me, though I suppose I came from a family that shuddered at the thought of confusing evening dress with dinner dress. Anyway, I learned all about American Labor Day from an exceptionally handsome actor I met at a party on the beach in Santa Monica one night at the end of August.

The next morning I woke up with a pounding head and a dry mouth, the actor's warm, strong body pressed against my back as he kissed my shoulder. He started to run his hand up my thigh but I swatted him away, feeling a shiver of revulsion over being touched. I shuffled out of bed to snatch up my dressing gown, a garish pink and orange kimono from Paraphernalia that seemed like a good idea when I was shopping while tripping on acid. Like everyone else, I took a lot of acid in the summer of 1967.

I tied the sash with a quick tug and fluffed my hair from the collar impatiently.

"Woah," the actor shot me a wounded look. "What's up, babe?"  

"I've got a busy day," I said, reaching for my cigarettes on the bedside table. I looked at him as I freed one from the pack and slid it between my lips. He had romantically wavy black hair and striking blue eyes. I had no idea what his name was but I seemed to remember him telling me he was under contract at Warner Brothers and had a role as a bank robber in the new Bonnie and Clyde movie with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

"If you don't mind," I waved at the open bedroom door, which led out to the sitting room of the suite I'd taken at the Chateau Marmont. I'd been living here since I arrived in Los Angeles about three months earlier, with nothing but the clothes on my back and a few pages of a new novel crammed into my handbag.

I got very drunk that first night, feeling horrendously lonely and terribly confused about whether I'd done the right thing in leaving. Then the next day I found my stiffest upper lip and got to work. I rang my Hollywood agent Marty Swartz to tell him I'd moved to Los Angeles and was available to write screenplays if his offer still stood, and the summer that followed could best be described as drug-fuelled but productive.

My dream of a quiet bungalow in Laurel Canyon where I could write undisturbed was a fantasy I never played out. I frequently found myself at parties on Lookout Mountain and had plenty of artist and musician friends living in that quiet little oasis above the city, but the very distracting Chateau Marmont had become my home. There were parties by the pool every night and mostly quiet daytimes for writing. The chaotic, transient pace suited my state of mind that summer.

Whether I was writing anything good was up for debate. The novel I'd started during my last days in London remained in a drawer, but I was churning out screenplays for whatever batty idea a studio executive had pitched me that week. My screenplays were never turned into movies, but the studios paid well because I was celebrated author Beatrix Beauford with a New York Times Bestseller that didn't look likely to stop selling anytime soon. It was hardly creatively satisfying writing someone else's idea for them, but it kept me busy and that was good enough for me.

"I thought we had a connection, man," the actor huffed, grabbing his trousers off the floor.

I ignored him and pushed the curtains open wide, closing my eyes as the California sunshine streamed in, warming me up and making me feel sick as death. I would never have thought I'd wish for rain but I did then. Not just a drizzle but a downpour.