Liberation (113 page)

 

August 2.
Being sick, in the way I've been for the past few weeks, means that you experience the life journey as conscious effort. Instead of spinning along the road almost without effort, as if on a bicycle, you feel like a character from
The Grapes of Wrath
, coaxing your broken-down, rattling, over-heated Ford to keep going, mile after mile—hardly even expecting to reach “California” ever.

This is old age. And I must say I'm well aware that—despite all my complaints—I know I'm travelling deluxe. There is more love in this house now than there ever has been before. And, in a strange way, I feel Don's love and Swami's love as two combined forces, not always distinct from each other. I'm not expressing this properly, but my sense of it is powerful. Thinking about this love while I was walking in the park before breakfast today, my eyes streamed tears of joy. And, oh, the beauty of the breakers on the shore! My lifelong urge has been to plunge into them, but I don't really care if I never do again, because the weakness of the body is a merciful self-adjustment.

 

August 27.
Despite good resolves, I have been dragging on with my tiresome back, etc. However, ten days ago, after trying a nice but somehow unconvincing Japanese therapist with needles and other techniques, I came upon a Dr. Fichman, right here in Santa Monica, who got me walking without a stick after a week of therapy with ultrasound (I think it's called). I still have severe twinges if I make a wrong move, but I'm in better shape. But oh, if only this exhaustingly hot weather would let up!

I have to admit that I felt curiously scared on my birthday yesterday, to realize I was seventy-seven. Why, I don't know. The number must have some occult significance for me.

I also got into an utterly ridiculous flap over the prospect of renewing my driver's license. I nearly always flunk the written test, because I have convinced myself that I just cannot understand any kind of bureaucratic language (the secretly underlying assumption is that I'm “above” all that kind of thing). Well, I flunked this time. But the young black clerk at the desk helped me out, asking me additional questions verbally, in such a tone that he indicated the proper answers. He may have done this out of kindness of heart, or compassion for old folk, or contempt for the system as such. That doesn't matter. To me it was a victory, just because I had resisted defeatist impulses to surrender before I was defeated and simply resign myself to living the rest of my life without driving a car—no big deal for me but an extra load on Don, who is already carrying most everything else.

The only way I can repay him for all he's done is to get well
quick
and get on with my book. The first is easily said but not done. The second shouldn't be too difficult. Because what I basically have to begin with is to copy out
all
the material I need from the diary, just editing and annotating. I restarted work yesterday, continued today.

 

October 16.
Well, the moment has come when I must recognize and discuss the situation with myself, which means, as usual, writing it down and looking at it in black and white. I have got some sort of malignancy, a tumor, and that's what's behind all this pain. They will treat it, of course, and so we shall enter the cancer-recognition phase and its gradual retreat to the terminal. I shall get used to the idea, subject to fits of blind panic. The pain may actually be lessened but there will be the constant awareness of it. Before all, there will be the need to accept what is going to happen. My goodness—at my age, should that be so difficult? No, it shouldn't be. Yes, but it will be.

Don is heroic, heartbreaking in his devotion. He keeps me off the pain pills as much as possible, to prove to me that I can do without them—which I can, so far. But this isn't a problem of how to bear pain; you can at least relieve that with drugs. What I have to face is dying.

This ought to be easiest of all. I pray and pray to Swami—to show himself to me, no matter how—as we've been promised that he will, before death.

I feel that I wish I could talk to Krishna, or someone from the center who was really close to Swami. But to arrange to do this is a huge psychological effort, and it might not be a success. I get fits of being very very scared.

Don says I should work, and he is absolutely right. I remember how wonderful Aldous Huxley was, working right to the end. I have promised Don that I'll get on with my book.

The love between me and Don has never been stronger, and it is heartbreakingly intimate. Every night he goes to sleep holding the old dying creature in his arms.

 

1982

 

January 1.
A big gap here, because I gave way to the dreariest, most cowardly depression and thus stopped writing in this book. I couldn't settle down sensibly and matter-of-factly to having cancer—although Elsie Giorgi kept reassuring me that, practically speaking, I didn't have it, since it could be kept at bay indefinitely by the medication that she and Dr. Brosman have prescribed.

Then, on December 23, Dr. Brosman did a biopsy—sticking some kind of an appliance up my rectum and cutting a sample of tissue from the prostate—unpleasant but not as unpleasant as it sounds. Since then, I have heard nothing from him directly but Elsie called me on the 28th to tell me he'd called her and told her that the biopsy was negative. He has never called me, however, and Elsie thinks this is odd and insensitive of him. He
is
odd—kind of take-it-or-leave-it in his medical manner—yet, at the same time, I get the impression that he regards me with respect, even awe, as a writer. Maybe he's simply shy.

As a layman, I feel temporarily relieved but still quite unclear about my condition. Did I ever have cancer at all? Can cancer come and go so casually? Or did Brosman merely mean that he
thought
I had cancer, originally? (I had got the impression that his original diagnosis was based on an earlier biopsy performed while I was having tests at St. John's.)

Enough, Dobbin. If you can't be brave about all this and rise above it, then you must deliberately distract your mind from it by concentrating on your book—which is
still
only about one-third written—and that only in rough draft.

 

January 4.
This morning comes a charming pair of letters from Dodie and Alec Beesley, saying how pleased they were because Don and I called them long-distance on December 27. So glad we did. Dodie writes: “Again and again throughout the book” (this is the volume of her autobiography she's at present working on) “I have had a sense of happiness shared with you, followed by a sense of loss because those days were so long ago. And your unexpected call somehow restored the happiness, made me feel you are part of our lives for ever.” She and Alec are eighty-five and seventy-eight respectively. (Alec tells us this—I think it is the first time he has ever spoken of their ages.)

On New Year's Eve, Don painted Rick Sandford because it was his birthday. Rick asked me, “How long was it after you met Don that you and he had sex?” I said: “We had sex and
then
we met.”

 

February 19.
Today warm and windless—the first day I've walked down to the beach this year. I look so grotesque, with my huge belly and skinny arms, that I'm a bit embarrassed to show myself there—that's just senile vanity. Darling doesn't care how I look, as long as I look healthy—and I certainly am much better; my legs quite strong again, no excessive back pain, only a little nausea when about to eat.

Meanwhile—oh so slowly but fairly steadily—I progress with the
California
book—still only at page 94. I do believe that this is interesting material, though. Actually it's material I've always intended to use, in one way or another.

 

April 11.
Easter Day. Heavy rain all morning. We are still waiting to hear what is to be done about the Falkland Islands, toward which the British ships are speeding, with Prince Andrew on board—let the Argentine invaders beware of harming one hair of his adorable head!
⁵³

I still feel sickened by the smell of certain kinds of food and my back still aches a lot. Sometimes I feel the death fear bothering me again. I pray hard to Swami, asking him to make me feel his presence, “Now and in the hour of death.” The response I get from this is surprisingly strong. I'm moved to tears of joy and love. I pray for Darling also, seeing the two of us kneeling together in his presence. Religion is about nothing but love—I know this more and more. And who's to say exactly what I mean by “his presence”? As long as I feel love at the hour of death, then I pray it will save me from fear—and save Darling too.

 

May 3.
A slip of the tongue made by a radio newscaster today: “The British announce that the Argentine crooner,
General Belgrano
, has been sunk.”
⁵⁴

 

May 26.
This entry—just exactly three months before my birthday—is an attempt to establish the start of a diary-keeping period which I'll try to maintain unbroken till I become seventy-eight.

I've been as bad as I've ever been in a long while. Very little work on
Scenes from an Emigration
⁵⁵
(as I'm still calling it); I've only reached page 106. But I still find the material worth the work and I still want to go through with it. I'm certainly not being hindered by my health or external circumstances. My back is better, my legs are stronger—quite up to walking, even running; and I don't feel nearly so sick to my stomach. So now, let's see some improvement. Darling sets me such an example—drawing and painting tirelessly, and even seeming far less depressed than usual.

I do understand one thing: Instead of looking ahead into an obscure future—which means dwelling on death—I should keep quite short periods in view, just a few months, and try to fill them with effort to carry out clearly defined projects. Aside from this, my strength should be devoted to constant acts of recollection of Swami, his presence and his grace. That is the very best way, also, of showing my love for Darling.

 

May 31.
Memorial Day—on which I should certainly give thanks that I haven't to count a whole bunch of war dead among my dear ones. Indeed, my father, after all these many years, is still at the head of a very short list.

 

June 2.
Yesterday morning, we got the news that Roddy McDowall and Paul Anderson have split up. When I called them, they confirmed this, in tones of dignified regret, not giving me the faintest hint of a reason for the split. I guess we shall get the whole story sooner or later—probably from Vincent and Coral Price. Coral is said to dislike Paul intensely and to despise him for being such an ungifted actor. I am sorry for Paul. I like him and I think he stands to suffer more from the split. Roddy is pretty tough and can take care of himself.

Twice we've been to the Spago restaurant (formerly the Club Gala), which I used to regard almost as
my
club, in the early 1940s. Neil Hartley regards it as his club now, and Dagny Corcoran also. But now it's horribly overcrowded and has the atmosphere of a restaurant at which the management is no longer in complete control—the service is slow, the waiters wild-eyed, the food under- or overcooked. Why then do Neil and Dagny like it? Just
because
of the overcrowding,
because
of the uncomfortable tension, the feeling that
something is going on
. Our dear little local Casa Mia is often equally crowded in its tiny way—yet, the moment you sit down, you feel relaxed, snugly at home, taken care of.

 

July 5.
Well, this is the last day of the hateful threefold holiday. And at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that
Scenes from an Emigration
is restarted.

Yesterday our street was peacefully, very politely, invaded by dozens of darkly clothed Iranians, on their way out to the park to view the fireworks which are discharged from Santa Monica pier. Could they leave their car in our carport for an hour while they did this? I couldn't say no, because there's plenty of room now that our Honda is away, recovering from its collision with the blacks on Sunset Boulevard, June 29. The blacks were dignified and courteous—but their legal representative later disgraced them by claiming that a pregnant lady passenger in their car had perhaps suffered effects which would compromise her childbirth—which was about as cheap as you can get.

Well, anyhow, I told the Iranians that they could go ahead and park their car. Whereupon, their spokesman told me, “We are your guests.” He said this solemnly and his tone suggested that a state of mutual obligation had been declared. (When we returned, much later—after supper at Tony Richardson's—their car was gone.) Incidentally, the Iranians told me that they had come to this country after living in Manchester, England. (This struck me, for some reason, as being a good omen.)

The people in the house directly below us, facing on Mabery— that's to say, the young (federal?) police officer plus several male and female friends, spanned a tarpaulin over the tiny bit of their open back yard. I suppose this was done to get into the holiday mood—though why, I couldn't say. They then proceeded to barbecue. Alas, the wind wasn't blowing the right way. Clouds of smoke were trapped and driven back and forth and the tarpaulin became like the chimneyless roof of one of those miserable hovels one sees in the worst slums of South America—crammed with coughing, half-suffocated merrymakers.

 

August 16.
Shameful lapses—have failed to get on with my book (
Scenes from an Emigration
). My back is definitely better. Now it's up to me to celebrate my prebirthday week by starting work again, cheering up, damping down my death fears and taking (at least
some
) daily outdoor exercise. I have
no
excuse to moon and idle, especially considering how much Darling helps me. Yes—and
stop sulking
, you horrible old horse. You sulked so much yesterday because you had to see a film that didn't appeal to you,
Love Me Tonight
. A lot of my objection to musicals is sheer snobbery, and it's unkind to Don because he loves them.