Liberation

by Christopher Isherwood

  July 19. It turned out that Bill Ball is away, so Camilla said we should show the play to Ellis Rabb. (We have always supposed that Ellis read the play a long time ago and didn’t like it, but Ellis told Camilla no, he had never even heard it existed.) So I made a great fuss with Chartwell to get them to xerox some copies in time to give one to Ellis last Monday, the day before he returned to San Francisco, and I talked to Ellis on the phone and he declared he was longing to see the play and—since then, not one word! Even Robin French hasn’t condescended to call and tell us how he likes the revised version. However, Ellis returns here this coming week, so at least we’ll hear something from Camilla, who’ll be seeing him.

  We never replied to Clement’s letter, to punish him a bit. Since then he has written another, obviously feeling a bit guilty, to say that he has sent the play to Paul Scofield, now that Scofield won’t presumably be playing Diaghilev in the Nijinsky film (since Tony Richardson is no longer directing it). (Which reminds me, Neil Hartley wrote and asked if I could “use my influence” to get Woodfall [Productions] the film rights to Passage to India!13)

  Kathleen and Frank drags on. My unconscious resistance to this long chapter of copying letters and diary extracts is terrific. “I” make mistake after mistake, get the order of the extracts mixed up and generally do “my” best to sabotage the whole project. “The Devil” really is much more tamas than rajas.14 However, it is going ahead. I am halfway through chapter 16, which will cover Frank’s last nine and a half months. After that, there’s the chapter about Kathleen’s life immediately after his death until the end of 1915. And then one or two more chapters, concluding. I still don’t see why I shouldn’t finish all this before my birthday, in a rough draft.

  On the 15th, a stranger called me from New Jersey. (I couldn’t quite get his name but I think it was Scott Dancer.15) He said he lived in a farm near Sussex and that he had a friend named Eric who he’d lived with for many years and that he’d had a vision in which he saw what death is all about and what the answer to it is, and he knew he had to get in touch either with R.D. Laing16 or with Auden or with me. “And now,” he said, “what are we going to do about it—are you coming to me or shall I come to you?” I tried to wriggle out of this, suggesting that he should communicate with me telepathically rather than physically. He said, “I can tell from your voice that you’re tense, you’re holding back.” I said, “Of course I’m tense, I’m trying to get on with my writing.” He then suggested he should call me when I was more relaxed—why not that evening? “This evening,” I told him, “I’m going to see my guru.” I knew this would shake him up and it did, having a guru is a kind of checkmate move in dealing with this type of communication, because of course Mr. Dancer was in fact offering to be my guru, himself. However he wasn’t discouraged. He told me, in a “hypnotic” tone, repeating each sentence three times, that I mustn’t resist, I must open myself to what he had to tell me, I must give up writing, writing was no good for me, I had come to the end of writing, and now I must act. “Tell your guru everything I’ve told you.” I promised I would. “And, before you go to see him, smoke a joint.” I told him severely that my guru strongly disapproves of grass. However, we parted quite friendly, after I’d assured him that I would let him know instantly when I got a “sign” from him. He had told me he would send me one.

  I really was going to see Swami that evening—he’s staying at the house on the Old Malibu Road where he was last year—and I did tell him about Mr. Dancer. He laughed, but he was much more amused by a letter he had had from that exhibitionist clown, Peter Schneider. Peter said he was worried because he found that he sometimes repeated “his” mantram (he hasn’t got one, since he isn’t initiated yet) “automatically”! His letter ended, “I love you.” (A couple of weeks ago, Peter wrote Swami asking if he could come to Trabuco but stipulated that it must be sometime when Cliff Johnson wasn’t there. This didn’t displease Swami because he thinks Cliff is such an egomaniac and alienates everybody—which may well be true; but just the same I rebuked Peter for writing it.)

  Swami told me how he was lying in bed, not long ago, in the middle of the night, and his little finger began to twitch, and suddenly the thought came to him: I have no control over this body, it is the Lord who controls it. And this made him ecstatically happy and he was awake for a long time, “having a wonderful time.” He also told me that often while he is meditating he imagines that he is in the Ramakrishna loka: “They are all there and I am their servant.”

  July 23. Such a strong disinclination to write up this diary and yet I want to, really; there’s so much to record. I’ll try doing a very little, but something, each day. Yesterday I finished chapter 16, which is almost entirely copying. The war material speaks for itself. So will chapter 17, which is Kathleen’s account of her efforts to find out what had happened to Frank. This nearly makes me cry whenever I read it. It mustn’t be commented on, or I shall spoil it. I think one more chapter after that will finish the book. I see that I can’t write very much about Christopher at the end; it would be beginning another story.

  Today is Gavin’s birthday, so we’re taking him out tonight to have dinner at La Grange. Not a word about our play, either from Ellis Rabb or from England, but now we have the top copy and a xerox from Chartwell. From Robin French we hear that the Chris in the filmscript of the Cabaret film is homosexual but makes it with Sally! Also that Gertrude Macy’s lawyer has started dickering to get back part of the money that’s being withheld from her, rather than accept arbitration. Robin says this proves she knows that her case is weak.

  July 24. What’s the use of getting up at half past six to turn off the alarm? I stagger back to bed, and then we snooze (sensually speaking, this is the most beautiful part of the twenty-four hours) and then we do get up at maybe half past seven or more likely a quarter to eight, and then there’s a bleared “meditation” (anyhow as far as I’m concerned) chiefly concerned with thoughts about my book, and then breakfast on the deck (beautiful, too) and then around nine we’re ready for action. . . . Well, now it’s just after eleven and what have I accomplished? Called Cukor to apologize for not having shown up last night with Gavin for a birthday drink (we didn’t get out of the restaurant till ten forty-five), arranged with Swami for Jim Gates to visit him on Sunday next with his adored Gib17 who is down for the weekend from up north (this visit will probably be regarded by the powers of Vedanta Place as a flagrant breach of security regulations and I shall be blamed by Ananda18). Then I’ve been to the mail and found a letter from Bob Chetwyn more or less offering to find us another producer if we ditch Clement. And now I’m writing this diary before starting work on chapter 17.

  Cukor took advantage of our talking on the phone to ask me [to] come for a drink to meet some clergyman he knows from Vancouver, which sounds too tiresome. When I politely said of course I’d like to come, in the first place because I want to see you again, Cukor obviously meant to return the compliment, but what he said was, “I want to see me again too!” Now and then he seems quite gaga. He also contrived to wish on me the chore of refusing to organize a T.V. show about Aldous [Huxley], which Laura [Huxley] had suggested he should do!

  The birthday evening with Gavin was quite a success. We opened the bottle of Dom Pérignon which Jennifer [Selznick] gave Don for his birthday and this pleased him as a symbolic act, though he didn’t finish his glass. Dinner was good too, at La Grange, which is in many ways the best restaurant we know around here. Gavin was probably feeling a bit depressed because he has just had a fuss with Christopher Wedow [. . .].19 Christopher descended on him a short while ago and I think Gavin already feels stuck with him and anxious to get him out of the house.

  Jim Gates, talking to me on the phone the other day, said, referring to his job at the Goodwill: “I’m really a good employee because I’m so likeable.” This is a perfect specimen of his sincerer-than-thou dialogue, the tone of voice which so disgusts Don. Me rather, too—but I can never quite make up my min
d about Jim, and I am fond of him in spite of it.

  Poor Jim Bridges is threatened with appendicitis and may have to have an operation; he’s being examined today. Jack is also suffering, psychologically, from being bitten by his beloved Paco20 (whom we hate). Paco was apparently about to hurt herself on a saw and Jack grabbed her from behind and she bit him in the chin. It pains Jack that Paco should bite him under any circumstances but he excuses her by saying she was hysterical because of all the workmen in the house. The workmen were, and still are, there because dry rot has been discovered in some of the woodwork. That miserable house of theirs seems to be chronically damage prone but they go on pouring money into its repairs.

  A third Jim, Charlton, has been much in my thoughts lately. It often astonishes me how much I still love him, or rather, how romantically I still feel toward him. Camp-romantically almost, since I also see him preeminently as a comic figure. Nevertheless, there’s something unique in this feeling. It’s not at all that I want to see him often. I most definitely do not regret that we never lived together. My romanticism about him is concerned with his essential aloneness. When I think of him alone, I love him; when I think of him married or otherwise involved with either sex, I laugh at him. But some memories of being with him—driving up to Palomar or down to Mexico in the old days, or spending nights at his apartment on the beach, or visiting that waterfall last year on Oahu,21 even—are still astonishingly vivid and beautiful.

  July 25. Have stayed in all day. I seem to be starting a cold, have taken two Coricidin tablets. Have got as far as Kathleen’s entry for June 24, when she receives the notification from the Red Cross that they have found Frank’s identity disk. Must pause here to give Hugh Gray22 time to find out what “siche” means; “siche 5” is engraved on the disk.23 Hugh seems to love finding out things like this; the only trouble is, once he starts explaining he can’t stop—a complaint made also by Don about a certain old Horse.

  Don and Mike Van Horn made an agreement, each to do a group of paintings; each group was to have its own general theme, or manner. Don did some of his movie heads; these were of Barbara Stanwyck and two of them at least were quite remarkable, one of these, Don says, shows him an approach to a whole new way of working. Mike took some pieces of canvas, had them stitched together in various arrangements (two were like outlines of a very fat man’s trousers) and then treated them with gesso and then dyed them. I am very happy that Mike and Don are turning each other on like this. But alas part of the arrangement is that each can pick one of the things the other did, so Mike (who has very good taste) is pretty sure to take away Don’s best painting and we shall have to find a place to hang up one of Mike’s rather large canvasses!

  July 30. My cold came on quite bad, I even missed two days of work on the 27th and 28th and spent a morning in bed. (Now I’m on Vibramycin24 capsules and feel much better though still shaky.) However, yesterday I finished chapter 17, a short chapter consisting almost entirely of Kathleen’s diary entries down to the end of 1915 and her final acceptance of the fact that Frank is dead. And it’s clear that I have only one more chapter to finish the book. The problem is, just how shall I finish it? At present I think the logical ending is a description of Christopher’s attitudes towards Kathleen and Frank. But it will be hard to cover Kathleen’s later life briefly and yet not make the reader feel cheated. I must give some significant glimpses of her in later life, but where can I find them? Perhaps I can get more from Richard, if I can ask him the right kind of questions. And I’ll dig into my diaries to see if there’s anything there.

  Don has gone down to Laguna Beach today to see Jack Fontan and Ray Unger, and Mike Van Horn has gone with him. I am so happy they are seeing so much of each other; tomorrow Mike going with him to Santa Barbara to draw with Bill [Brown] and Paul [Wonner] and maybe stay the night. I am as happy with Don right now as I have ever been—sometimes when I can draw back for an instant and look at us both I am absolutely awed at the miracle of having him with me. We had a wonderful talk the other day and seemed to achieve a real advance in frankness with each other, but I don’t want to write about that, not yet. I want to let more time pass and see what develops[.]

  A letter from Charles Thorp, head of the National Students Gay Liberation Conference, asking me to go and talk to them in San Francisco on August 23. “Give a short talk and then just rap with us. What I’d like is to have you come ‘hold-our-souls,’ hold our hands.” Instead of “my best regards” or whatever, he writes “my gay-love.”

  I feel quite strongly tempted to accept this invitation (as indeed I’ve often wanted in the past to accept others like it). I highly enjoy the role of “the rebels’ only uncle” (not that I would be, this time—for there are scores of others—and Ginsberg their chief ) and, all vanity aside, I do feel unreservedly with them, which is more than I can say for ninety percent of the movements I support. But something prevents me from accepting. Oddly enough, it all boils down to not embarrassing Swami by making a spectacle of myself which would shock his congregation and the women of Vedanta Place! I can admit this because I am perfectly certain there’s no other motive. I am far too sly and worldly-wise to suppose that I’d be injuring my own “reputation” by doing this. Quite the reverse; this is probably the last opportunity I’ll ever have of becoming, with very little effort, a “national celebrity.” And I hope I’m not such a crawling hypocrite as to pretend I wouldn’t quite enjoy that, even at my age!

  July 31. Suddenly there’s so much to record, or so it seems.

  Yesterday I had a classic day of failing to get started with the last chapter of Kathleen and Frank. I made every possible excuse: I couldn’t begin without consulting my diaries, until I’d got a letter from Richard answering my questions, until I’d read through the whole manuscript first. But this last alternative just depressed me so much that I ended by rereading the script of The Monsters25 and “Afterwards”26 and doing nothing. (The two chief characters of The Monsters seem utterly unconvincing but just the same I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing didn’t play well and even have a success with a West End matinée audience; the twists of the plot are still fairly surprising. “Afterwards” in its present form won’t do at all. Wystan was right, the chief character is so unpleasant. Anyhow, I’ve used much of it far more successfully in A Single Man.)

  In the evening I went down and had supper with poor old Jo. And by God she has two new subjects for moaning, and one of them is truly serious. First, less seriously, Ben’s father in Florida has had a stroke and won’t be able to live alone any longer, and Jo would so gladly have rushed to him (“he really cared for me far more than he did for Ben, and I just adored him”) but no, she couldn’t, because Ben and Dee are on their way there. Jo says that of course they ought really to bring Dad back with them, but even if they did they’d be hopeless at looking after him. So now, the old wound is open again and Jo, who was beginning to get used to the situation, she says, hates Dee more than ever because, just because she exists, Dad won’t get properly taken care of. Ben had called Jo when he got the news—probably half hoping that somehow Jo could be conned into coming along with them to Florida and taking charge—and when he found she wasn’t about to, all he could say was, “I’m so sorry about everything” . . . But what’s ten million times worse, what is really ghastly, is that her old enemy Louis [Gold], the owner of the Tumble-Inn and the motel opposite, has decided to build a three-floor block of apartments on the parking lot right smack outside the windows of Jo’s apartment! She won’t be able to see anything, except the channel at one end and the street at the other,27 her view of the sea and about one third of the daylight will be cut off completely and people will be staring in on her. Jo was in tears and no one could blame her. Of course she’s got her little house, she can turn the tenants out of that and move in, but she doesn’t want to, says it is too big for her alone and besides she’d be “away from everything.” Curiously enough, she really loves all the noise and traffic and hippie music on Ch
annel Road! So poor old Jo, I’m glad I went down to see her.

  This morning I did finally manage to get the chapter started and then I went to the gym and then I took Forster’s short stories to Gavin, who’s been sick. He was being visited by a young man who dances at the Honey Bucket and the young man came on very strong in the Sincere Young Nature Boy style, asking me what I thought of him when I came out into the garden and saw him and why it was that I didn’t look at him while I talked to him, so I said, you mean why didn’t I flirt with you? So then the conversation got quite relaxed. The young man (wish I could remember his name) is actually far from being a simple little enormous stud nude dancing boy; he’s an actor with quite a lot of experience in the theater up in San Francisco and he’s been in films and whatnot, and I kind of think Gavin is considering him for the lead in that adaptation from Colette, The Cat, which he originally did for Clint [Kimbrough] (Christopher Wedow is out!28)

  Yesterday Don went down to see Jack Fontan and Ray Unger, as I said. What happened down there is what I mostly want to write about—but that must wait until tomorrow, because it’s so late, tomorrow in fact. Today, I mean yesterday, Don and Mike drove up to Montecito together to draw with Bill and Paul and they’re spending the night and coming back after breakfast.

  Oh, one other piece of news, we did hear from Ellis Rabb, expressing great interest in our play; he excuses himself for his silence by saying he’s been trying to get it put on up there but he wants to see if he can do anything for it elsewhere, etc. We neither of us think, from reading his letter, that he likes it.