Lost Years

by Christopher Isherwood

  Christopher’s first journal entry of the year, on March 6, consists of self-reproaches and complaints. “I’m dull and wretched, so weary of my stupid aging slothful self in its alienation from God. It comes to me, again and again, how I have deteriorated into a dull-witted selfish useless creature. . . . Swami stands ready to help me if I’ll even raise one finger. But I won’t. I won’t go to live at Trabuco.” (However, despite this talk about sloth, Christopher had finished chapter four of his novel a few days earlier.) These moanings are followed by the old complaints about Caskey—how he comes home at all hours, brings people home with him and disturbs Christopher’s work.

  In the middle of March it turned warm and they went swimming, which no doubt temporarily relieved the tension. (Talking of swimming and warm weather reminds me of an incident which I can’t date. It happened on a cold day—during a weekend, probably—when Christopher, Caskey and a party of friends had a big drunken lunch and then went for a walk on the beach, fully dressed. Christopher was in a characteristic, half clownish, half hostile mood. He let the others go on ahead, sat down on the sand and stared at the ocean. Then an idea came to him—it might have been inspired by an illustration to some nineteenth-century novel: a shore in winter, cold rough waves, deserted beach, a clothed, drowned body rolling in the surf. . . . When Caskey and their friends returned, Christopher was awash, face downward in the water, in his leather jacket and shirt and corduroys. The guests were suitably startled, but Caskey said with his comical grin, “Ignore him,” and led them up the path to the house, leaving Christopher to follow in his drenched clothes. He was warm with alcohol and didn’t catch a chill.)

  On March 14, Christopher mentions that he is working on a “story about Basil Fry”; this was maybe his first attempt to write what became “Mr. Lancaster” in Down There on a Visit. On the 17th Christopher finished chapter two of the annotated translation of Patanjali’s yoga aphorisms. On the 18th and 19th, he was in town, staying the night at the Hartford Foundation, where he saw Speed Lamkin, who had just arrived. I think that one of Speed’s chief motives for coming to live at the foundation was that he wanted to get to know Christopher better and adopt him as his Elder Friend, which indeed he quickly did.

  On the 24th, Christopher and Caskey went to a party at the Chaplins’. This was the first time they had visited the Chaplins in nearly ten months. It was to be their last meeting. (See here.)

  On the 25th (Easter Day) Christopher and Bill were back in Laguna. Steve (see here) came down to see them with his latest lover, Jack Garber.[1] Steve didn’t seem much changed and Christopher still felt affectionate toward him. Jack Garber was a good-looking blond boy, whom Christopher found attractive but a bit pretentious. There seemed to be tension between him and Steve; the relationship didn’t look as if it would last long.

  After supper they left, to drive back to Los Angeles. Then, very much later, Lennie Newman arrived. By this time, Bill was snoring in bed, drunkenly asleep. But Christopher, also in bed (have I ever mentioned that he and Bill had separate beds in the same room?), heard the knocking and got up to let Lennie in. Christopher had been drinking all evening. Lennie, no doubt, was drunk as usual. As usual, they hugged and kissed. But then the unusual began to happen. Kissing prolonged itself into tongue kissing. Their hands moved down each other’s bodies and started to grope buttocks and loins and cocks. Christopher, who slept in the raw, was naked already underneath the bathrobe he had put on to greet Lennie. He merely had to throw it off.

  Meanwhile, when already well on his way to Los Angeles, Steve had found that he must have left his wallet behind at Monterey Street—I forget how or why. Back they had to drive. Getting no answer when they knocked, they came in—to find the lights on in the living room and bedroom, Caskey still asleep in one bed, Christopher and Lennie lying naked on the other—Lennie on his belly, with Christopher on top, fucking him. Christopher and Lennie talked to them while they looked for and found the wallet, but Christopher didn’t withdraw his cock from Lennie’s asshole and continued the fuck in low gear, with deep slow thrusts which Lennie countered with movements of his buttocks. When Steve and Jack Garber had left again, the fuck gathered speed to its climax.

  (Christopher’s exhibitionism, in making love to Lennie in the presence of Steve and Jack Garber, is strangely paralleled—now I come to think of it—by the party at Denny Fouts’s apartment on June 3, 1945 (see here) at which Willy Tompkins and the lieutenant had sex in public and [one of the guests] urged Christopher to do likewise with him. I don’t know how Steve was affected, if at all, by seeing Christopher fuck Lennie. Jack Garber was rather turned on. He later wrote to Christopher, telling him that he was “a Triton amongst the minnows”—which was certainly intended as a compliment and not as a reference to the line in Coriolanus III: i.[2])

  Lennie was so agreeably surprised by Christopher’s performance as a sex partner that he told Caskey and other friends about it. Christopher was equally pleased, but not particularly surprised, to find that Lennie was a marvellous lay. All his natural sweetness, his wholesomeness, even the positive aspect of his Mormon upbringing was expressed in his sex play. As a fuckee, he couldn’t have been less passive; he was yin with the maximum of energy and cooperation. He had developed such control of his sphincter muscle that he could massage and milk his partner’s cock most excitingly.3

  Christopher had had a motive for going to bed with Lennie, but he only became aware of this after he had done it. He had always been a bit jealous of Lennie, much as he liked him, because Caskey’s friendship with Lennie seemed so exclusive. Lennie was the companion whom Caskey usually chose when he wanted to get away from Christopher and go off on a binge. By going to bed with Lennie, Christopher cured himself of his jealousy in the best possible way. Now Lennie and he had a relationship of their own. This didn’t mean that they had to keep having sex together—they only did it once again—or even that they saw much more of each other than before. But now there was a real lasting warmth between them. Caskey didn’t in the least resent this.

  On March 31, Bill Caskey started a gardening job, according to the day-to-day diary. I don’t remember anything about this.

  April was a seemingly uneventful month which nevertheless brought Christopher much nearer to the climax with Caskey. He struggled on with the novel—“this horrible bitch of a book,” as he calls it in the large thin notebook on March 28. He drove to Los Angeles on April 21 and stayed two nights at the Huntington Hartford Foundation. He saw the people he usually saw—Jo and Ben Masselink, Peggy Kiskadden (with whom he still maintained a surface friendship although, underneath, they thoroughly disapproved of each other), Dodie and Alec Beesley, Frank Taylor, Speed Lamkin. Caskey, meanwhile, went off on his own. I seem to remember he had a particular buddy amongst the marines and was actually able to spend nights at Camp Pendleton. Maybe they had guest rooms for relatives and friends.

  As usual, various acquaintances and sex mates (of Caskey chiefly) came by for drinks or meals or to stay the night. The nicest of the sex mates was a herculean boy [. . .], a navy frogman, stationed at San Diego, who had been over to Korea several times, where he had taken part in dangerous underwater missions, attaching mines to enemy ships in harbor, etc. He had an unusually sweet, gentle nature. His way of introducing himself to you was to get you into bed with him. When he came to the house he went to bed with Bill, Christopher and any of their guests who were available; and he made them all love him a little.

  Talking of love—it was probably during this month that Caskey made a declaration to Christopher. I can only recall that it was made in their bedroom. As so often, the memory of Christopher’s emotional reaction is related to an object or objects. In this case, Christopher is looking at the bureau and the mirror above it while he hears Caskey say, “I’m not in love with you anymore. I’ve been in love with you for a long time, but now it’s over.”

  I suppose Caskey meant by this that he no longer felt romantically toward Christopher. He probably said
so in order to counteract Christopher’s tendency to express insincere sentiments. Christopher, at that time, really rather hated Caskey but he wouldn’t admit to it. Whereas Caskey, I think, never wavered—never has wavered—in his love for Christopher. He wanted Christopher to admit, now, that he wasn’t any longer in love with Caskey. I don’t believe he made his declaration in order to cause a permanent break between them, or even to stop Christopher wanting to have sex with him now and then. Caskey, as he later proved, continued to want to have sex with Christopher when he was in the mood. Quite possibly, however, Caskey was beginning to feel that he would like to get right away from Christopher for a longish spell. (Not long after they split up, he decided to go to sea.) After that, he was ready to resume a loving friendship, unromantic but occasionally sexual, for the rest of their natural lives.

  I don’t remember if Christopher made any reply to this. Most likely he just looked hurt and sulked.

  And now a new chapter in Christopher’s life opened. That is to say, during May 1951, two of Christopher’s immediate problems began to solve themselves. Also, something happened—quite unplanned, unforeseen by him—which was to make a big difference to his literary career and economic future.

  The Caskey problem began to solve itself when Christopher left Monterey Street and moved, for the time being, into the Huntington Hartford Foundation. The problem of Christopher’s novel began to solve itself, thanks to Speed Lamkin. The unforeseen happening was John van Druten’s decision to make a play out of Christopher’s character Sally Bowles and some other parts of his Goodbye to Berlin.

  The domestic break with Caskey was inevitable, I suppose. Yet Christopher will hardly admit this to himself, even in the last of the journal entries (May 6) preceding it. The furthest he will go is to write: “There is absolutely no doubt, I really ought to leave Bill. I am only plaguing him. And yet, somehow, to leave—just like that—as the result of a ‘sensible’ decision—or in a towering rage; both seem wrong.”

  Writing in the journal, on May 28, about his move to the foundation on May 21, Christopher merely states that, “I moved because life with Billy had become unbearable. It doesn’t matter just how, or why; and it is certainly no use passing ‘moral’ judgements.” In other words, Christopher refuses to discuss what happened, even with himself Later, in another journal entry (August 22), he alludes to “that dreadful party on May 20 when I decided to go to the foundation.” But what was so dreadful about the party?4 From the day-to-day diary I see that [the herculean navy frogman] was there, not to mention Peter Darms, of whom Christopher had always remained fond. It’s probable that it was Christopher himself who behaved badly, not any of the guests; he must have been in one of his ugly sulking moods and made a scene with Caskey, later—perhaps bringing up old grudges and threatening to leave. If so, Caskey, who never gave way to threats, would have answered: okay, suit yourself.

  Caskey’s attitude was negative, almost neutral. He would never have urged Christopher to leave him. Neither would the Masselinks or the Beesleys or Jim Charlton. They merely stood ready to help, if needed—which was, indeed, all that Christopher expected of them. He had had quite enough attempted interference in his life, already, from Peggy Kiskadden and others. Early in May, he had written a letter to Jim—“a cry for help”—and then burned it.

  And yet, Christopher was open to interference—by the right person. And that person proved to be, astonishingly enough, Speed Lamkin. Speed could influence Christopher because Christopher didn’t take him, or his concern for Christopher’s future, seriously. It all seemed camp—yet, of course, camp itself must have, according to Christopher’s definition, an underlying seriousness. What was one to make of this niggery, flirty, shrewd, frivolous, perceptive young person? Did he mean anything he said? Even when he was talking obsessively about himself, boasting of all the things he would accomplish in the world, he couldn’t help giggling. And now he had made Christopher one of his projects. Christopher had to leave Billy—with whom, however, Speed was on the best of terms—and come to live at the foundation and put his future in Speed’s hands. If he did that, Speed guaranteed to make him a Success, the success he ought always to have been. (Speed was unimpressed by Christopher’s literary career to date. Christopher had never been properly appreciated, Speed said, because he hadn’t known how to promote himself.)

  As I shall have to keep repeating, the power of this extraordinary tempter was in his absurdity—combined, of course, with intelligence and considerable sex appeal. An aspect of Speed’s camp was to let it be supposed by everybody at the foundation that he and Christopher were having an affair. Well, weren’t they? No—not exactly. But they were clowning an affair, and the clowning sometimes became nearly realistic. Occasionally, it climaxed with the two of them naked in bed together; tickling, biting, groping, laughing, kissing. (I don’t remember that they ever actually had an orgasm.) Or else, embracing in Speed’s parked car, they would imagine a glamorous love life, with a New York apartment and a Bel Air home with two swimming pools. Certainly, Christopher never seriously considered living with Speed for one instant. But he did enjoy their intimacy, and mentally playing house with him.

  I think Speed was already working on his second novel, The Easter Egg Hunt, although it wasn’t published until 1954. They must have talked about this. But Christopher was preoccupied with the difficulties he was having with his own novel. And Speed was eager to deal with them—for this would strengthen his influence over Christopher. Speed had already read and greatly admired the first chapter (which would be published next year in New World Writing); now Christopher showed him the rest of the manuscript. Next day, May 29, Speed delivered his verdict: “The refugees are a bore.”

  The sentence was like an axe stroke, cutting the novel in half; but the operation was life-giving, not destructive. Because, as Christopher now saw, the novel had been two novels, self-destructively, chokingly intertwined—the story of Stephen, Elizabeth, Sarah and Jane was one novel; the story of Sarah and the refugees was the other. They would never form a whole. (It now seems that the second will never be written.)

  Nobody had condemned the refugees before. The Beesleys were probably dubious about them but hadn’t wanted to upset Christopher by upsetting the applecart. Speed with his ruthlessness had disregarded Christopher’s feelings and expressed his own. Christopher could never be grateful enough to him. And how quickly everything now fell into place! The large thin notebook has an entry for June 1 which shows that, after a series of discussions with Speed and the Beesleys, the main outlines of the novel in its final form have already been decided on.

  Yet the revised manuscript of The World in the Evening didn’t go off to the publishers until November 30, 1953!

  Meanwhile the Beesleys had been working on Christopher’s behalf in a quite different area.

  As has been recorded, neither of them liked the Speed Lamkin–Gus Field play based on Sally Bowles. Now, while they were driving together to visit John van Druten at his ranch in the Coachella Valley, Alec got the idea that John should be persuaded to take on the project. Dodie writes (August 25, 1975): “I have such a vivid memory of Alec (by arrangement) putting his head out of John’s swimming pool and saying, ‘Why not make a play out of Sally Bowles’—and then diving down again, leaving me to get John going.”

  (Dodie’s letter was written to correct my misremembered or, rather, invented version of the facts in my introduction to The Berlin of Sally Bowles,[5] published in 1975.)

  Once John’s inventiveness had been challenged, the rest was predictable. John quickly produced a first draft. And now the news was told to Christopher. On May 28, John, Starcke and Christopher had supper together and John read his play aloud. It was then still called Sally Bowles.

  I have no memory whatsoever of the impression made on Christopher by that first reading. I think he disliked the character of Christopher Isherwood from the beginning and never changed his opinion. I think he also objected to most of the speeches
about the persecution of the Jews which John had written in, and to several of John’s jokes. But what mattered to him chiefly was that this play would almost certainly be performed and would probably make money. And, already, he saw the glitter of footlights ahead of him and felt the thrill of escaping into the New York theatrical world.

  Christopher was obviously the person who had to tell Speed Lamkin and Gus Field—since it was he, after all, who had to accept the responsibility of deciding to authorize John van Druten’s play and reject theirs. Speed could not have behaved better. He assured Christopher that he quite understood the situation. In Christopher’s place, he would jump at this chance. He was happy for Christopher and knew that the play would be a terrific hit. As for Gus, he would explain everything to him. It would be easier, Speed said, for him to do it himself than for Christopher to do it.

  So Christopher felt more warmly toward Speed than ever—as did the Beesleys, partly perhaps because they were suffering from slight guilt. They invited Speed to their house, several times, with Christopher. And Speed charmed them; he had nice southern manners which he could use when he wished. Also, he continued to create a most peculiar relationship with Alec Beesley. Declaring to Christopher, in private, that Alec was one of the handsomest men he’d ever set eyes on and that he’d bet Alec wasn’t that hard to get, he began flirting quite openly but inoffensively with Alec in Dodie’s presence. Neither Alec nor Dodie could object to this because Speed was such an avowed faggot that his behavior seemed no more than natural. But it amused Christopher to realize that Alec was not only slightly embarrassed by it but also coyly pleased. Alec even tried to learn Speed’s language—that is to say, he tried to get Speed to explain to him what “camp” is. But Speed’s teasingly misleading definitions left him nowhere. Alec ended by deciding that camp is any kind of irresponsible unmotivated behavior. Therefore, one morning when Speed and Christopher had been invited to lunch, they found that Alec had prepared for their arrival by throwing all the garden chairs into the pool, where they were floating. “It’s a camp!” Alec explained, obviously pleased with himself, like a proud pupil expecting praise.