Lost Years (43 page)

On April 2, Christopher finished writing
The Condor and the Cows
.
⁷
On the 4th, he and Caskey mailed the manuscript and the photographs—two copies of each—to Methuen and to Random House.

Caskey had worked really hard on the photographs, developing, enlarging and cropping them himself and making a dummy of the illustration pages which showed the exact relative sizes for each picture to be printed. He had also designed a photographic montage for the jacket—the two ceramic bulls they had brought back from Pucará in Peru superimposed on a view of the marble column topped by a carved condor (in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela) which commemorates the foreigners who came to South America to fight for Bolívar. And he had done a pen-and-ink drawing of Cuzco as a frontispiece for the book.

On April 5, David Kidd (one of Christopher's [friends]) brought Sara Allgood to the house. Christopher had the advantage of being one of the few people in Los Angeles who had seen her in the
original London production of
Juno and the Paycock
. So he was able to delight her by saying (ninety percent sincerely) that her “Sacred Heart o' Jesus” speech was one of his favorite theatrical memories. She loved his flattery, and the little onions which Caskey kept for the martinis—indeed, she ate nearly a whole jar of them. Christopher loved her ladylike airs and her wonderful rich voice—indeed, he found himself talking to her with a slight Irish accent. Their meeting was a huge success and was repeated.

On April 6, Caskey photographed Thomas Mann—this was one of his best sets of portraits.

On April 7, Christopher sent a reply to an invitation to take part in a conference for world peace which was being held in Los Angeles under the auspices of the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. He refused to attend, on the grounds that this wasn't a genuine peace conference but a political demonstration with a pro-Russian slant. Christopher's letter is very well constructed, it makes telling points and its main accusation is really unanswerable.
⁸
(Before
sending off his letter, he had gotten in touch with the local Quakers and found that they entirely agreed with his stand.) What makes me a bit uncomfortable, rereading it today, is to remember that it was written in the midst of the McCarthy era. The senator and his committee were attacking these people for holding the peace conference, and what they were saying against it was more or less what Christopher was saying—that it was red. Christopher loathed the Soviet government for disowning the attitude toward the private life prescribed by Marx, and for persecuting its homosexuals. He somewhat disliked the Jewish parlor-communist intellectuals who were members of the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. But he also loathed McCarthy and the red-hunters—and it is humiliating to reflect that they might have approved of his letter or at least decided that it showed he was rather more on their side than the other. (Christopher was certainly more a socialist than he was a fascist, and more a pacifist than he was a socialist. But he was a queer first and foremost. I remember a discussion he had with Caskey and some others around that time on the question: “If you could produce positive proof that McCarthy is queer—would you use it to ruin his political career?” Their unanimous verdict was, “No—because all queers would be harmed if it became known that he was one.”

On April 8, Christopher and Caskey had a birthday party for Jim Charlton. And Christopher restarted
The School of Tragedy
for the third time, after an interval of twenty-two months. This opening is perhaps the most promising one he ever made. Stephen is writing a letter—or maybe a journal in letter form—addressed to someone called Edward. I have no idea, now, if Edward was to have been a major or a minor character; but the tone of voice of this extract suggests the literary tone of Edward Upward, and Stephen seems to be much livelier, more amusing, less sentimental and self-pitying than the character he will later become.
⁹

On April 11, Christopher worked at MGM on what the day-to-day diary describes as “retake changes.” I can't remember what these were.

On April 19, Christopher saw Dodie and Alec Beesley, who had recently moved into a house on Cove Way, behind the Beverly Hills Hotel, just off Benedict Canyon. This was to be the last of their Californian homes.

On April 29, he drove with Swami to Trabuco, for the day. This probably means that some monks from the Hollywood Vedanta Center were already living there, cleaning the place up and getting it ready for its official opening.

On May 3, the day-to-day diary notes that Rita was “released.” I think this refers to Rita Cowan's release from prison—for I dimly remember that her husband or boyfriend, a black man, was shot dead by the police and that Rita regarded this as a murder and made some kind of [. . .] protest scene which ended with her being locked up.

On May 20, Christopher had another contact with the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions. The writer Paul Jarrico had previously written him about the blacklisting of Albert Maltz, who was under prosecution by the U.S. government for refusing to testify before the Committee on Un-American Activities. As a result. Twentieth Century-Fox had decided not to produce a film based on Maltz's novel
The Journey of Simon McKeever
. Jarrico had asked Christopher to write a letter in support of Maltz which could be read aloud at a meeting of the film division of the council on May 25. Christopher wrote and sent them a letter—he couldn't do otherwise.
¹⁰
But, as before, his anti-Soviet sentiments showed between the lines. Also, his resentment at having been made to read Maltz's boring and insipid novel—
why
did the vast majority of these literary martyrs have to be without talent?

On May 21, Klaus Mann killed himself in Cannes. I can't
remember how soon Christopher got the news; probably almost at once, because of being in touch with the Mann family. I do remember that Christopher had to tell Harold Fairbanks, and that Harold was obviously much more upset than he would admit.

The day-to-day diary records that Christopher finished writing, on that day, a foreword to Luise Rinser's novel
Die Stärkeren
. I think he did this for an English translation of the book which Bill Kennedy was trying to get published in the States—as far as I know, it never actually was. Although Christopher did the job for money, he really liked the book, partly because it made him feel nostalgic. He very seldom read anything in German, and the language itself brought back unexpected memories.

On May 22, there is another isolated entry in the 1948–1956 journal. And in it, for the first time, Christopher discusses the possibility of leaving Caskey. This possibility he rejects because (1) there is no one else to go to and (2) he isn't prepared to return to live at the Vedanta Center. In other words, Christopher is definitely not prepared to face the prospect of living alone.

After writing this, Christopher makes resolutions:

There is one sentence which exposes the futility of Christopher's resolutions: “It is not possible if it's done as an act.” But how else
could it possibly have been done? Relations between Caskey and Christopher could only have been improved if one of them had made an unconditional surrender, and left it up to the other to be as generous or ungenerous as he chose. But Christopher didn't dream of surrendering. He was merely proposing to adopt a strategy, and a strategy must necessarily be some kind of an act; it can never produce behavior which is spontaneous.

Christopher and Caskey still loved each other, up to a point—but not nearly enough to make their relationship work. In this May 22 entry, Christopher compares the state of affairs between them to “the mood of 1940, in which I was bubbling with resentment against Vernon.” This calls attention to a weakness which Christopher showed on both occasions—he found it almost impossible to break off a relationship even when it was making him miserable. It was Vernon who finally had to leave Christopher (on February 17, 1941), though it was Christopher who had prodded him into doing so. And it was Caskey who finally had to force Christopher to leave him; Christopher always hesitated to take the decisive step. He was to go on hesitating for two more years.

How about Caskey? Was he miserable too, at this time? He certainly didn't seem so, to Christopher. But then I am only now beginning to realize how little Christopher knew—bothered to know—about Caskey. Caskey wore a mask of frivolity, camping and wisecracking, which Christopher never saw behind. Their occasional drunken scenes of emotional contrition and forgiveness actually revealed nothing. Christopher never got a glimpse into Caskey's reverie or his fantasies. I don't believe he ever tried to find out what Caskey was thinking about, what kind of myths he was celebrating, as he drank and danced for hours, alone, in the dead of night, to his favorite records.

I now believe that Caskey
was
suffering—but in a way that was only indirectly related to Christopher. He was suffering from guilt because he didn't love his father and sisters and was maddened by his mother, because he had broken with their religion, because he found it a terrible strain to play the unrepentant queer black sheep of the family. All that Christopher offered him was another sort of family life, which didn't work. Caskey was being forced to face the fact that the only security for him was in complete independence. Christopher would never help Caskey achieve this, for Christopher himself was afraid of being alone. Lennie Newman and Caskey's other playmates would never help him, even if they could, for they wanted him to keep on playing his role of the madcap hostess, and for that Christopher's money—and therefore his presence—was
necessary. So, sooner or later, Caskey would have to take the initiative and make his own move. In the meantime, Christopher sulked and Caskey danced.
^[
11
]

On May 29, 1949, Catherine Caskey arrived, to begin a visit which was to last into the middle of August. The day-to-day diary entries make it seem clear that she didn't sleep at 333 East Rustic, even to start with. But she had a room somewhere nearby, and Caskey and Christopher felt a constant obligation to entertain her.

Christopher could afford not to mind this, because Catherine had no power to embarrass him, and because Caskey resented Catherine's presence so violently that Christopher was obliged to play the opposite role and be her advocate. It was Christopher who suggested that the U.S. edition of
The Condor and the Cows
should be dedicated to Catherine; the British edition was being dedicated to Kathleen. This put Catherine and Kathleen into a relationship with each other, of which Catherine was coyly aware. They were an unsanctified pair of mothers-in-law. The dedication delighted Catherine. It gave her a share in this South American project which had launched Caskey as a photographer—a thoroughly respectable career, of which the whole Caskey family could approve. Whether any of them can possibly have approved of the Caskey-Christopher relationship is more than doubtful, but Catherine was determined to pretend that they did. She even quoted a male relative as having said, “It was a lucky day for Sonny when he met Christopher Isherwood.” (“Sonny” was a family nickname for Caskey which Catherine persisted in using; it made Caskey wince and grind his teeth.)

On May 30, Christopher had a visit from a young Canadian named Paul Almond. I suppose he was an admirer of Christopher's work. Paul was blond and apple cheeked and tall, an all-Canadian boy who played championship ice hockey and belonged to a rich family. He returned to the house three or more times during June, and was exposed to the camping of Caskey and the double-meaning jokes of Stephen Spender (who came to stay two nights, June 14 and 15, bringing with him the young writer Bill Goyen, on whom he had a crush, and Goyen's friend Walter Berns). But Paul was either very innocent or very self-absorbed; he saw only what he had come to see, a nice middle-aged celebrity and his charming friends. Later that same year, Paul went over to England, taking with him a letter of introduction from Christopher to John Lehmann. John, on the make for Paul, started dropping arch hints about Christopher's way of
life—as Christopher had fully expected that he would. Paul was incredulous and indignant. He wrote to warn Christopher that John Lehmann was a false friend who was spreading horrible lies, accusing Christopher and his companions of being “homosexualists.”

(Many years later, Paul married the actress Genevieve Bujold and directed her in a film,
Act of the Heart.
They are now divorced.)

On June 1, Christopher bought a Tarascan statuette, dug up in the Mexican state of Colima; a seated figure with its right hand covering its mouth. Christopher paid Stendahl's (an expensive dealer who sold a lot of pre-Columbian art to Charles Laughton) about eighty dollars for it; it would probably now cost at least a thousand. The statuette was a present for Caskey, on his twenty-eighth birthday, next day. But Christopher ended by owning it, when he and Caskey split up and divided their possessions, a few years later.