Lost Years (38 page)

Christopher used to be fond of saying, at that time, that happiness is simply the breaking of contact with pain, since it is in our nature to be happy whenever the reasons for being unhappy cease to exist. A highly subjective statement which smells of Disneyism, it is perhaps true in this particular instance. If Christopher was especially happy that day, it was basically because he had no immediate woes or worries. He was in perfect health. He was earning plenty of money at the studio. He had the clear conscience of a wage earner on holiday who knows that his work is up to schedule and is giving satisfaction to his employers. He was released from all the anxieties which arose whenever he was with Caskey. At the same time, he had no reason to be anxious about Caskey in his absence, for Caskey wrote regularly and would soon be returning to California.

But all this was on the negative side merely; the negating of causes for unhappiness. On the positive side was Jim himself On this day and for this kind of outing, he must have seemed to Christopher to
be the absolutely ideal companion. Christopher was fascinated by Jim's conversation and by his stories about his life. He found Jim romantic, ridiculous and delightful. He was hot for Jim and knew that Jim would have sex whenever he wanted it. Above all, he realized instinctively, even then, that Jim wouldn't present any problem in his relations with Caskey. Christopher felt he could let himself go and indulge his crush on Jim to the utmost, because there were no strings attached to him.

Jim probably felt very much the same way about Christopher.
²⁹
While they were together at Lake Elsinore that day, Jim muttered, “No wonder people fall in love with you!” The way he said this made it sound like an accusation—but that was as near as Jim could get to sentiment. He certainly found Christopher exciting to be with. And he enjoyed going to bed with him. As for the existence of Caskey, I'm sure that didn't worry Jim. Being a Dog Person, he could attach himself to a couple just as readily as to an individual. Which is what he later did.

The next weekend, Christopher got three whole days off from the studio, September 11–13. On the 11th, Jim and Christopher drove to Laguna Beach again; this time, they stayed with Chris Wood. On the 12th, they drove down to Mexico and stayed at the huge old Hotel Pacifico in Ensenada. They had some drinks and then decided to take a shower before supper. Under the shower, Jim grabbed Christopher and began kissing him. They must have kissed for at least half an hour without stopping. Then they dried themselves, fucked and fell asleep. Several hours later, Christopher awoke and, as he did so, had a minor psychic experience. It is described in
The World in the Evening
(part two, chapter three):

(There is, of course, one falsification here. Stephen, in the novel, is said to be looking down on a male and a female body—not on two male bodies, as Christopher was. Could one actually be in doubt as to one's sex? I suppose it's possible. But that wasn't Christopher's experience.)

Next morning, they went on the beach—huge and (in those days) deserted. Christopher admired Jim's powerful swimming. (He was also a daring surfer.) As they drove back toward the border, Jim suggested stopping near the edge of a big cliff overlooking the sea. Jim had explored this cliff on a previous visit and said that its slope was full of small hollows where you could lie hidden and sunbathe—in other words, fuck. Christopher vetoed this idea—I forget why, but I am sorry he did, because this would have added another happy memory to his memories of their trip. Making love with Jim in the open air always seemed particularly suitable; he was not only a Whitman Nature Boy but also a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, who opened his houses—including their bedrooms—to the outdoors.

This was the period in which the Wright Revolution was making its influence visible at the grass roots level; all over the Los Angeles area, soda fountains and hot-dog stands began to appear which were crude but recognizable distortions of Wright's style. Until Christopher met Jim he had known nothing about the Wright philosophy and would probably have dismissed it as pretentious double-talk if it had been explained to him by an academic outsider. But with Jim it was different. He was an authentic disciple. At the Taliesins he had seen a vision, and Christopher could respect visions. Wright's slogans and phrases didn't repel Christopher when Jim repeated them; they seemed part of Jim's lovable absurdity. Christopher sometimes accused Jim of not wanting people to live in the houses he designed—because people were so messy, they choked the rooms with furniture, cluttered them with cooking pots and books and violated the purity of their wall spaces by hanging pictures. Jim grinned, half admitting that this was how he felt.

At the same time, Christopher admired Jim enormously, just
because
he was a truly dedicated architect. Jim made Christopher understand, for the first time, the interrelation of landscape and architecture and taught Christopher how to look at architecture in a new way, as an expression of various philosophies of life. (When they drove back from Mexico, that day, Jim showed Christopher the
dining room of the old Coronado Hotel.) Jim even dreamed architecture. Often, when he and Christopher had been sleeping together, he would wake up and describe in great detail some vast building and its adjoining gardens in which he had been dream-wandering, drawing pictures to show Christopher exactly how it had looked.

Part of the fun and excitement of being with Jim was that he felt free to inspect any building which was under construction. If people were at work on it, he would enter with such an air of authority that he was very seldom questioned. He would climb all over it, occasionally uttering scornful grunts or exclaiming, “
Jesus!
” or kicking disgustedly at its walls. Sometimes he would go so far as to knock over an insecure partition, saying indignantly, “What's this goddam thing supposed to be for?” or, “Who do they think they're kidding, for Christ's sake!”

The next weekend, Saturday the 18th and Sunday the 19th, was the last that Christopher and Jim spent together. They didn't leave town. On Monday the 20th, Bill Caskey arrived. He had bought a station wagon (secondhand) in the East and had driven it out to California. The station wagon had been christened “The Blue Bird” by its former owner, and its name was painted on it. (Later, when people asked Caskey what “The Blue Bird” meant, Caskey would answer with his southern grin and drawl, “Honey,
we
bring happiness!”)

Caskey had found a driving partner to come with him, a boy named Les Strang.
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30
]
In his first enthusiasm, Caskey had written to Christopher that Les was “like a blond German discus thrower.” Whereupon, Christopher had become jealous and had written back to Caskey that he didn't want to meet Les, if Les and Caskey were still having an affair by the time they arrived in Los Angeles. Christopher's jealousy seems quite sick, considering his own involvement with Jim—even now, I'm at a loss to explain it. However, Caskey replied reassuringly—from some town on their route—that he had already lost his romantic interest in Les, who was “behaving like a mad queen.” I seem to remember that one demonstration of Les's mad queenishness was that he had [shat] in the corner of a motel bedroom!

Christopher took a larger room at the El Kanan for Caskey and himself, until they had chosen a house to rent. Their first night together, Christopher found that he couldn't make love to Caskey at all; his memories of sex with Jim were still so powerful. Caskey took
this very calmly. Either he minded but was determined not to show it, or he knew instinctively that Jim wasn't a real rival. If the latter, he was absolutely right. When he and Jim met, a few days later, they became friends at once. Indeed, it was as if Caskey had established, there and then, a ménage a trois agreement with Jim. That winter, whenever Caskey wanted to go out for the night, or to bring in someone to sleep with, he would say to Christopher, “Why don't you spend the night with Jim?” I don't think that he and Jim had sex together—at least not often. Jim wasn't his type. As for Caskey and Christopher, their sex life was resumed almost immediately, without any further hang-ups.

The house which Caskey and Christopher decided to rent was 333 East Rustic Road,
³¹
down in the bottom of Santa Monica Canyon. It belonged to Lee Strasberg, the director, and his wife Paula, and was fairly adequately furnished. I don't remember how much the rent was, but undoubtedly Paula Strasberg drove a hard bargain; she was a real Jewish landlady—who, at the same time, kept protesting that she was an artist and didn't understand business. There was a sagging bridge over the creek; it was the only entrance to the house and Caskey and Christopher were obliged to get it repaired. Mrs. Strasberg avoided paying for this by ignoring the letters Christopher wrote her about it. She also ignored the problem of a rust-eaten old car which a young actor friend of hers had abandoned on the creek bank beside the house. Christopher had to pester him for months before he bothered to find its pink slip, and then someone had to be persuaded to tow it away. (A teenager finally did and then proceeded to spend several hundred dollars, making it driveable.)

Caskey and Christopher moved into the house on September 28, and at once started receiving visitors. That same night, they had Jim Charlton, Hayden Lewis and Rod Owens to supper. Caskey was happy to be cooking and entertaining again.

Next day, Lesser Samuels came down, to discuss an idea he had had for another film story. The day-to-day diary doesn't give a title, but I think this must have been
The Easiest Thing in the World.
More about it later. Christopher was still working on the script of
The Great Sinner
but only intermittently; it needed just a few finishing touches.

On October 1, the day-to-day diary says vaguely that Christopher went “to see [a friend], with Phil Curry.” I think Phil Curry was a lawyer and that this must have been a visit to the downtown jail, where [the friend] was under arrest. He had got into trouble because
a teenager he had had sex with had later denounced him. The teenager was, in fact, no innocent rosebud but an experienced hustler who had been picked up by the police and had got himself off the hook by naming names. Frau Mann rose magnificently to this occasion. She too went downtown to see [the friend], and declared to all and sundry that she found the idea that he ought to be punished absolutely ridiculous. “
Absolutely ridiculous!
”—I can still hear the brisk indignant tone in which she said it—this famous and highly respectable old lady defiantly heckling the Los Angeles police on behalf of her son's [. . .] friend. However, despite her efforts, [the] poor [man] got sent to a prison camp. Christopher and Klaus Mann visited him there on December 19. He was released on February 12.

On October 6, shooting began on
The Great Sinner
. On the 9th, Christopher temporarily finished work at MGM. Stephen Spender stayed that night with Christopher and Caskey, so this may have been the day when he came out to the studio to watch the shooting. It was a scene in Gregory Peck's attic room. He is lying asleep, exhausted after an epileptic fit. Ava Gardner (Pauline) enters, rearranges his bedclothes, then becomes aware that the desk is piled with pages of manuscript. To quote from the screenplay: “In happy surprise she whispers under her breath: ‘Fedja . . . you've written.'”
³²

Admittedly, Ava Gardner's diction left something to be desired. Stephen bitchily pretended that he thought she said: “Fedja . . . you're rotten.”

During the early days of the shooting, Christopher spent a lot of time on the set. At first, he and Gottfried both had high hopes of Robert Siodmak, a director they greatly admired. But it soon became evident that Siodmak felt somehow ill at ease making this costume picture. He didn't seem to understand the style of the period or the kind of acting that should go with it. Even his lighting was wrong, it suggested one of his modern thrillers. When the doctor came into Peck's attic, the set was so dark that you couldn't see it. And then the doctor spoke his line, “I need more light”—which made everyone who watched the rushes roar with laughter. The scene had to be reshot.

Christopher had had such misgivings about Peck before the film started shooting that he now reacted in the opposite direction, simply because Peck didn't immediately disgrace himself in his first scenes. Christopher tried for a while to believe that Peck was going to be very good, and he said so to all his friends. Ivan Moffat had soon perfected a fiendish imitation of Christopher describing Peck's performance: “It's really wonderful, you know, because he does it so simply. He opens his eyes and he says, ‘I've seen Christ'—just like that.”

I should write something about Frank Taylor (
see here
) at this point. Frank Taylor had now settled in Los Angeles and was working as a producer at MGM. He was tall, skinny, boyish. His hair was very short and he dressed neatly, in Ivy-League-college-kid style, usually wearing a bow tie. He had professionally sincere blue eyes and lots of Madison Avenue charm. He was quite desperately enthusiastic about everything which he believed to be “in,” at any given moment. A positive thinker, he abounded in money-making schemes so grandiose that one kept expecting him to become a millionaire. His sexuality was compulsive and rather scary, he pursued his (always male) prey like a spider and seized it with his long, obscenely thin arms and legs. His wife Nan tried desperately to keep up with [. . .] him. She was small and (I guess) cute. [. . .] They had, at that time, three or four small children, all boys. [. . .]