Liberation (13 page)

 

April 9.
Still this wretched cold, though no snow. Yesterday afternoon, Catherine Cook came round again, masochistically drenched (she hadn't brought a coat) and maddeningly apologetic. I rattled off a lot of glib answers to her thesis questions and caught sight of myself in the mirror, doing it. It's high time I got out of this place and stopped prancing and settled down to work while I still have my health.

Lunched yesterday with Nick Furbank. He brought me xerox copies of two more of Morgan's stories. When he arrived he seemed drunk, maybe he wasn't. I get along well with him and feel at ease. I find it very hard to believe that his book on Morgan will be good, but he is one of these quiet, perhaps deadly, mice and you can
never
tell what they will or won't produce.

With Cecil Beaton to see
Conduct Unbecoming
, a melodrama about the British Army in India in the 1890s. It's silly and farfetched and Paul Jones kept slipping right out of period during the trial scenes and bullying the witnesses exactly like a modern district attorney in an American film.
⁴⁵
But, just the same, some kind of magic was made. Later Cecil took me back to his house and we had supper there with Patrick Procktor, who seemed a bit crazy and was so full of blatantly insincere compliments to us both that I didn't know where to look. Was he always like this? Maybe so.

A letter from Don arrived yesterday, with many enclosures—six pages of a translation Swami has made of Shankara's “A Garland of Questions and Answers”
⁴⁶
(which I'm to fix up; Don calls it a “Dubtask”); a letter from the Society of Authors' Representatives, urging me to write to a senator about the Copyright Revision Bill;
⁴⁷
a drooling letter from David Smith to Don about his show; a letter from George Hayim (whom we met with James Fox and Andee Cohen) saying he has written a book;
⁴⁸
an application for amateur rights to perform
Black Girl
at Harvard and a brochure from
One
, announcing a preview of a film called
That's the Way It Goes
with an actor named Dale Stephens; the brochure has two shots from the film; in one of them, an Hawaiian-looking youth in a flowered shirt is starting to make sex with Stephens, who is naked to the waist, with his pants open and his shorts pushed down by the youth's hand, baring his belly right down to the bush and groping to pull out his cock. Stephens stands languidly passive, with his arm around the youth's shoulder. The story of the film is described as being, “The search for love by a young boy being used—as only grown men can use the young—getting tossed aside like a used and tired condom after each encounter, but the search continues—only to momentarily stop—then it continues, continues.”

Don writes that Jim Gates deeply offended Jack Larson the other night during an argument about astrology—Jim Bridges and Nellie [Carroll] were also there. “I, too, though I thought Jim surprisingly articulate and sensible, thought him the tiniest bit glib and impertinent. I am still (or again) undecided about him. Every once in a while I hear the sound of Goody Two-shoes being punctuated by a cheeky kind of arrogance, a faint smug intellectual pride. . . .”

Later.
Clement called to say that a director named Robert Chetwyn is “enthusiastic” about the play but “doesn't understand” the lighting. We are to have a talk the day after tomorrow.

When I spoke to Dodie Smith on the phone she said that she wanted me to stay in England and Don to come here. “I have a strange feeling that you will. I'll try and do something about it.” I begged her not to attempt any of her Christian Science magic. “Remember ‘The Monkey's Paw,'”
⁴⁹
I said, “suppose they fulfil your wish
literally
. All they have to do is wreck the 2:00 p.m. train on Monday for Manchester. Then Don'd come over for my funeral.” Does Robert Chetwyn's interest mean that Dodie's spell has begun to work already?

Have just seen Christopher Isherwood off. He's a disc jockey from Bristol who wrote me several times. He has a Beatle haircut and spectacles, is very thin, energetic, has very bad teeth, is thirty-five years old, married, with a daughter. He has just got a job on a Mediterranean cruise boat for the whole summer. He says of himself that he loves being in front of an audience. He has also managed a building company, been a professional photographer and in the air force. He has a sort of egocentricity which seems quite attractive and wholesome, not at all repulsive. Only, it's hard to imagine that he could be a good entertainer; one doesn't feel he has enough temperament.
^*

The car he was driving in broke down, so he arrived nearly three hours late, and fucked up my day. A cute youth, a would-be disc jockey, had been driving him. Christopher Isherwood said of him, “I'm his idol.”

 

April 10.
I'm ashamed to say I got drunk last night, having dinner with Richard Simon. That was stupid and unnecessary, because I really do like him. He seems genuinely good-natured. The fact that I found him nicer than I remembered may be partly due to the fact that he is very happy with a boyfriend.

Before we left for the restaurant (Provans, where the beautiful tall girl-boys with their flowing locks now know me well and greet me with discreetly understanding smiles) I was talking about
Kathleen and Frank
and said something that seemed so good to me that I wrote it down, namely that we sail out into life with, as it were, sealed genetic orders. When we finally break the seals (as I did, so to speak, by reading through Frank's letters), we find that the orders have often already been obeyed. For example, Frank “wanted” me to go and visit Vailima for him, and Japan too.
⁵⁰

 

April 11.
Still horribly cold but at least a little pale sunshine today without rain. Walked up to the bag shop to pick up my bag; it mysteriously got a slit in it during our French trip.

Yesterday I had lunch with Amiya; she came up to London specially. (She remarked that she'd sold a piece of furniture in order to do so but I think she is talking a poor mouth partly in order to convince herself that she must not give money to [her sister] Sally and her other greedy relatives and hangers-on. Anyhow, I paid for our lunch, which we ate in a gaming club called The Nightingale in Berkeley Square; a peculiarly dreary place, as I suppose they all are, reeking of polite gangsterism: they addressed Amiya as “My Lady.”)

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' Bells
⁵⁶
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!