Liberation (20 page)

 

July 12.
Finished chapter 15 today. Maybe only two more, or, if there is a third, it'll be quite short. So it still seems possible to get through before my birthday.

Am happy working, as always. And happier than ever with Don. He is seeing a lot of Mike Van Horn, drawing with him and going dancing and to the club, all of which is good; Mike is a sort of ideal friend to have. So ideal in fact that we both find him a tiny bit mysterious.

A disturbing letter from Bob Chetwyn, telling us that it wasn't the fault of the Leicester theater at all, that the deal fell through. They were ready to come up with an adequate sum of money, Bob was quite satisfied with his share, but they did ask for two hundred pounds from the producers, and this Clement and Richard [Schulman] absolutely refused to pay! My God, we'd probably have agreed to raise the money ourselves if we'd been given the chance. But we weren't. Now we start to wonder, should we refuse to renew Clement's option when it comes up in a month. But how are we to find anybody else, from six thousand miles away? Meanwhile, Camilla Clay is very sweetly agitating to get the play read by Bill Ball of San Francisco.
¹²

 

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. Laing
¹⁶
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 Gib
¹⁷
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 Ananda
¹⁸
). 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 mind 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 Paco
²⁰
(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 Gray
²²
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 Vibramycin
²⁴
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[.]