Liberation

by Christopher Isherwood

  Amiya seemed much fatter, quite piggy, and drunk of course, but with her skin still white and smooth. She rambled on without stopping, about herself, her tears and tribulations and spiritual insights and good deeds and general belovedness; I barely got to talk to her. The funny thing, though, is that she is lovable, her egotism somehow doesn’t matter, and though she only talks about herself she actually makes you feel that she cares for you.

  Later in the afternoon I went to the notorious Strand Sauna, to pass the time and to get in out of the cold and rain. It was very disappointing. Two dreary-looking young men in the sauna handled their own cocks as a signal to each other and then retired to the toilet to make out, where they were watched by a third, but without much apparent interest.

  Then to the ballet, with David, Peter, their friends Mo [McDermott] and Celia [Clark] and Patrick Procktor’s friend Ole [Glaesner]. Wayne Sleep danced Puck in The Dream. As before, I cried most of the way through—though not so much at the end.* Wayne was absolutely enchanting. He was so erotic with Oberon that you couldn’t imagine why Oberon wanted the little changeling. He was also ridiculously girly as a Scotsman in Façade. David Ashmole (a very attractive boy), danced in the Lament of the Waves, replacing poor Carl Myers who was hurt in an auto wreck.

  Later. Had lunch with Marguerite and [her companion] who told me that Kate Moffat has been having an affair with a young man named Peter [Townend] (who has written a book which has been accepted by the publishers),51 because Peter makes her feel attractive and because Ivan doesn’t love her and she doesn’t love him. Ivan has gone off to Spain to think things over. Marguerite predicts that he will return to Kate but will punish her for humiliating him in public and that later they’ll split up. [Marguerite’s companion] predicts that they will split up now, because Ivan is getting to enjoy his freedom. It seems that Kate complains that Ivan has become so stuffy and conventional. Now [Marguerite’s companion] expects him to turn into a bohemian. [He] feels rather smug about all of this, I could see. He feels smug that his [relationship] with Marguerite is one of the very few successful ones. “Only three or four of the [women] we know don’t have lovers,” said Marguerite. “Present company excepted,” said [her companion].

  April 12 [Sunday]. Yesterday afternoon, Robert Chetwyn and Clement came here. Chetwyn talked quite intelligently about the play, asked searching questions and seemed really interested, though I feel he has reservations still. He seems a nice man, middle thirties perhaps, but with a face too old for his long hair. He is to read the novel today.

  Then I phoned Don. He is eager to come back and ready to leave on Thursday, if I can assure him before then that Chetwyn definitely means business. It’ll be awkward to do this, as I’ll be up with Richard and will perhaps have to call him from Wyberslegh— cables sent from the country are so unreliable. Well, we shall see.

  Saw Widowers’ Houses last night, alone.52 It is surprisingly shocking. You feel the real naked evil of being a slum landlord, and the cruelty and vicious anger of Blanche, the spoilt daughter, was shocking too. (Nicola Pagett played her very well.) This play made me respect Shaw from a slightly different angle—respect him as a man. He isn’t kidding. This is no shit. He really is indignant.

  It’s raining mournfully and God bless dear David who is coming with Peter to take me out to lunch with the artist who wants to illustrate my “Gems of Belgian Architecture”; it’s for the same publisher who did David’s illustrated book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The artist’s name is Howard Hodgkin.53

  April 13. We reached Howard Hodgkin’s house after a long drive;* it’s away off in Wiltshire, on the road to Bristol and then down winding lanes—an eighteenth-century building which used to be a mill, by a stream. The place was full of men, women and children. Kasmin and his wife were there. I liked Hodgkin, he has greying hair and a ruddy face and paints near-abstract interiors, landscapes and portraits, in very bright pleasing colors. (Keith Vaughan, whom I saw at Patrick Woodcock’s later, doesn’t think much of them.) I can’t imagine how he will illustrate my story, but he certainly wants to. We all went for a real (rather self-consciously) country walk, crossing the stream, splashing through wet meadows and slogging across ploughed fields, and climbing up through a wood. There was also much lifting of, and crawling under, barbed wire.

  A rather tiresome “expert” on country matters talked to me about the habits of crows, which only nest in elms or beeches, never in oaks or conifers. He also told me, more interestingly, that the kind of “battlement” on the gables of Wyberslegh is called “crowsteping” (I wrote this with two “p”s in my notebook and he instantly corrected me.)54

  The rain had stopped by then and we had a beautiful drive home, the country suddenly looked marvellous. A tall obelisk and a white horse cut in the downs.

  Then supper with Patrick Woodcock, his friend David Mann and Keith Vaughan. The evening degenerated into pot and was rather a bore,* later. Patrick was charming as always but Keith was rather prissy. He had met Dodie Smith and Anthony Page at a lunch in the country. Anthony had apparently spoken quite favorably of our play.

  April 14. Yesterday afternoon I came up to Disley to stay with Richard and the Bradleys. We are both in the tiny hot sitting room, writing our diaries. The weather is suddenly mild, with pale sunshine, and I feel reprieved; now that it is warmer I realize how passionately I have been loathing the climate here. Could I ever bear to settle on this island again?

  This afternoon I am to phone Don from Wyberslegh—a terrific production. Richard thinks it may take hours or perhaps a whole day and night before we get through. But I have to lay all the pros and cons before him. I talked to Chetwyn again yesterday before leaving London and I’m sure he’s scared by the vagueness of the situation; that we have no cast as yet. Also he has a job in New York in August, directing a play by Tom Stoppard.

  April 15 [Wednesday]. I talked to Don yesterday and got the strong impression that he will come right away, be here when I talk to Robert Chetwyn on Friday, in fact—the day after tomorrow. Got through to Los Angeles in about forty-five minutes.

  Yesterday was quite mild, but the tomb chill inside Wyberslegh was as deadly as ever and I had to get it out of my bones by walking briskly back to the Bradleys’. Yet Richard spends hours in the house, sort of communing with it. Mrs. Bradley says he doesn’t realize, or rather simply isn’t aware, of what terrible shape it is in. He invited some Americans (alleged distant cousins) to see over it and Mrs. Bradley was dismayed because she felt it had been a shock to them. She says that Richard is really unwilling to have it repaired in any way.

  This time I feel the spirit of place very powerfully here. And it is a spirit or it’s nothing. Physically, Disley is just a rather smug little suburb. When I looked at postcards, down in the village, to which I also managed a quick walk yesterday morning, the hills seemed flattened and utterly undistinguished, the Ram just another little pub, Lyme Cage a tiny dump and Lyme itself quite lacking in grandeur.55 And yet, despite the cheerless ugliness of the stucco and brick villas which are steadily crowding in, the spirit of place is powerful indeed; the rooks caw fatefully around the church with its big gold ball below the weathercock, the little sweet and cigarette shops seem stoically North Country, the Ring o’ Bells56 is so sturdily ancient, Lyme Cage is sinister and numinous, and the air of the hills is still poignantly refreshing and stirs longings—even if they are longings for escape!

  April 16. The Apollo 13 astronauts are wobbling back toward earth. For the past two days we have been watching their troubles on the telly—or rather, we have watched various types of grim ham reporters telling us about them. If this produces a really violent reaction against these money-wasting public circuses I suppose it will have been almost worthwhile. But what a nightmare way to die!57

  Yesterday afternoon I took a walk right up to the crest of the Old Buxton Road. There was a strong wind and the grey clouds streaming across England, the Cage against a yellow steak of light, the chimneys of Manchester like
huge mysterious monuments in the blue beyond. I told the shaggy horses in the field that Kitty is coming to be with us again.

  Later. 6:30 p.m. Back at Moore Street, to find a cable from Don saying he’ll come immediately the director says yes. Am disappointed of course, because I’d felt sure he would come anyway, but it’s the only sensible decision unless he feels he wants another visit here. Because it’s by no means certain that Chetwyn will say yes, and if he says no I may well be on that plane home on Sunday. The great thing now is to get a definite answer from Chetwyn, so I’m pressuring Clement to make Chetwyn’s agent say how much Chetwyn will cost, if he does say yes; there must not be any last-moment backing down because he’s too expensive.

  Meanwhile Nicholas Thompson, who has done absolutely nothing for us, is leaving for New York tomorrow. Fuck all agents[.]

  I’m having supper with Richard Le Page tonight, chiefly because he made such a thing out of it and is coming up to London on the train to see me (well, partly at least).

  Spent much of yesterday and the day before reading Kathleen’s diaries for 1936 and 1937—all that sorry tale of my efforts to get Heinz a new nationality, and of how Kathleen was induced by me to pay the thousand pounds to Salinger to give to the Mexicans.58 I must say, it now seems to me more probable than ever that the money ended up in the pockets of Salinger and Gerald [Hamilton]. Oddly enough, Richard rather opposed this idea and kept raising points to prove that it couldn’t be true. His points were all based on ignorance of the facts; it was his attitude that interested me. Goodness knows, I don’t feel particularly vindictive toward Gerald—and as for Salinger he was punished by other circumstances, far more than I could ever have wished.59 I was a silly little ass, anyhow, thinking I could fool around with these sharks and not get nipped, and it was I who made Kathleen go through with it.

  Kathleen disliked Heinz, because he was socially unsuitable and a nuisance. She really hated Olive Mangeot, as a domestic subversive influence. She had a life-long feud with Nanny. She latterly referred to Amiya as “that bitch”; she also disliked Richard’s “adopted aunt,” Miss Colvin. She was very impatient with me when I got so ill in 1937 and writes that I behaved like a pasha or sultan, I forget which. She deplored Wystan’s untidiness. She mistrusted Edward. Perhaps Britten is the only one who gets her top marks as a guest.

  In a way I’m rather sorry I read these two diaries. They disturb my image of the younger Kathleen and also that of the old woman with whom I became affectionate again from 1947 onwards. They remind me of the mother figure I often hated so much throughout the twenties and thirties. And I want to forget her. I have no use for her, whatsoever; she doesn’t come into the scope of my book.

  Before I left this morning, Dan Bradley told me that he expected Richard would have a big booze-up tonight or tomorrow as a release of tension after staying dry during my visit! The joke is that I too was staying dry during my visit to Richard, not to impress him but just because it was a convenient excuse for taking a rest.

  This morning saying goodbye I was struck once more by the sweetness and innocence and real goodness in Mrs. Dan’s face.

  Patrick Woodcock has just (7:50) been by to see me, to hear about the latest developments connected with our play. He doesn’t recommend Gielgud as a director (this was an idea of Clement’s) because he’s losing the power to concentrate. Noël Coward is far worse; when he starts out alone to visit someone he often arrives not knowing who he’s visiting. He can’t remember who he had lunch with, that same day. The experts, Patrick says, recommend giving the ageing brain cells a workout by learning something altogether new, like a foreign language.

  Patrick quite approves of another idea of Clement’s—that we should try getting the play put on by a theatrical group—like the Hampstead Theatre Club. They have done good things and they often go on to the West End.

  Patrick says he is anxious to reassure people about dying. He hates it when he hears that someone “died in agony”—“that’s nonsense.” He thinks lung cancer is the best, today he told a very intelligent patient (sixty-two) that she had it. There is no pain and no breathlessness.

  I feel a great warmth from Patrick, nowadays. He says of himself that all he cares about is intimacy.

  April 17. Last night I had supper with Richard Le Page at Odin’s. David, Peter, Kasmin, Ossie and [Celia]60 Clark and a lot of others were there. David was drawing them and giving away the drawings; he gave me one of Peter. Then Wayne Sleep arrived. The other night he was at Odin’s with just a few other people—I suppose it was very late —and he got drunk and stripped all his clothes off and danced stark naked on the tables. Too many strangers were present for him to do it yesterday evening, however.

  Later we all went back to David and Peter’s flat, where they presented me with an album full of pictures taken during our tour in France and stay at Tony’s—a marvellous thing to have. I believe I can give them a suitable counter-present; a copy of the big illustrated book on Klimt.61 Kasmin was very drunk and desperately eager to belong to the gang; he wanted to strip and dance with Wayne!* [Don’s friend] was also there, but we avoided each other except for polite smiles at parting.

  It was so late that I urged Richard Le Page to stay the night, which he willingly did. There was some necking later, also quite willing on his part, though he obviously didn’t want anything beyond that. We parted very friendly after a sausage breakfast.

  Am now reading The First Circle with much more pleasure. It seems to me to pick up at chapter 34 with Nerzhin’s interview with his wife Nadya; and all the stuff about the daughters of Makarygin, the State Prosecuting Attorney, is interesting so far.

  April 18. An old lady, hobbling briskly along, said, as we passed each other on the street this morning, “Isn’t it awful, getting old? I’m absolutely worn out. How old are you?” “Sixty-five.” “Oh, you’re a baby. I’m eighty-five.” I said: “Do you think they ought to finish us off?” “Oh, I shouldn’t like that at all! Well—at least we can laugh about it, can’t we?”

  Later. Have just had lunch with Robert Medley. He told me that Eliot sent Rupert Doone an earlier draft of Murder in the Cathedral which was in prose and Rupert told him it was a bore and why didn’t he write it in verse, since he was such a good poet! Also, that Eliot once told Rupert that he was a genius.

  There is a bitter layer in Robert. He talks bitterly of Keith Vaughan, how prim and cagey he is. Robert is lonely of course, but he says he finds his relationship with Gregory [Brown] and his wife satisfactory and permanent.

  I have cancelled my flight back to Los Angeles for tomorrow and indeed I really believe we have got Robert Chetwyn; the only remaining obstacles are financial. After talking to him at some length yesterday, I’m now at least ninety-five percent convinced that he’s the right man for us, intelligent and cooperative and not a trickster. Now the question comes up, how soon can I risk telling Don that it’s okay for him to take off ?

  Supper with Neil Hartley and Bob last night—at Odin’s again, I seem to live there. I didn’t get drunk but I did drink too much, which I do so loathe doing; it results in my not remembering anything that was said. All I have left from the evening is an impression of Neil; very weary, really worn out by his life, gentle and rather beautiful in his (perhaps terminal) exhaustion. He alluded to Tony’s cantankerousness—Tony was in one of his “anti-Anna” (O’Reilly) moods. Neil said he didn’t want to see Tony while he was like this, but of course he has to be with him constantly. On the other hand, I felt great warmth toward me from Neil—perhaps a kind of fraternity in decrepitude, but anyhow pleasing because I am really fond of him.

  April 19. It’s an unsatisfactory day. Phases of weak sunshine followed by sunless cold. Have had to switch on the heating. But the tree outside the window is in leaf.

  Have talked to both Clement and Bob Chetwyn (he wants to be called Bob) this morning, trying to get them to commit themselves sufficiently so I can tell Don how soon to come, when I call him this evening. I now b
elieve that Bob does mean to go ahead; Clement refuses to commit himself until he has talked the deal over with Richard Schulman tomorrow morning.

  Richard Le Page was here again last night. David had invited him to come to the ballet and when he showed up he had his overnight bag with him and made it clear he expected to stay with me, not with the friend he has in Clapham, where he usually stays. However, after the ballet, and supper at Odin’s, he decided to go off to a party—one of the dancers in La Boutique Fantasque (Anthony Rudenko) who came to supper with us, had invited us all but I didn’t feel like going. So I didn’t see Richard again until this morning, when I fixed him scrambled eggs. I like him, and could easily get to like him a lot more, but I rather doubt if I ever shall. Circumstances are against it. We may see each other in California, however, when he comes out to lecture at UCLA, later this year.

  The ballet seemed insipid. Not one of the dancers appealed to me especially. This is the touring company; the regulars (including Wayne) are off in New York. From Waking Sleep features the Buddha; Lazarus, Jesus.62 They are both deathly respectful and serious but, at the same time, their style is essentially campy. That’s what is wrong with them, I guess.*

  I gave David and Peter a copy of the Klimt book. Peter was annoyed with David during supper, and no wonder. David keeps retelling, somewhat braggingly, the story of how they met, to semi-strangers at table, and then fondles Peter with thoroughly self-satisfied possessiveness. He also announced that, when Peter goes to California, he’ll go too—although Peter doesn’t want him to come, as he freely admits. Once, when David put his arm around Peter, Peter jerked angrily away. Sooner or later, David will have to face the fact that their relationship is in quite considerable danger. I have seldom seen such a clear demonstration of the very mistakes I have made—and still sometimes make—with Don. Ought I to speak to David about them? Probably not—unless Peter asks me to.