Lost Years (11 page)

February 4: “Swami had lumbago, van Druten lectured. With Bill to Beesleys'. They went to see house. Van Druten to supper. Said goodbye to Bill.”

John van Druten's lecture at the Vedanta temple that Sunday morning was probably a version of the article by him called “One Element” which later appeared in our magazine
Vedanta and the West
and was then reprinted in our anthology
Vedanta for Modern Man.
I remember that John wanted to quote directly from
Androcles and the Lion
and wrote to the Shaw estate for permission to do so. This permission was refused; so, in the article, he has been obliged to paraphrase Shaw's dialogue.

Since this was Christopher's last day with Bill Harris, the Beesleys found an excuse to leave them alone together after lunch. This is the significance of, “They went to see house.” (The Beesleys really were about to move, however; their house hunting wasn't fictitious.) It was one of those warm California winter days, and Bill and Christopher were able to have sex out on the lawn, near the swimming pool.

Thus their affair ended. When they met again, it was as friends—by which I mean chiefly that their relationship had ceased to be tense, reproachful, embarrassing. Had they ever been lovers? Not really. I much doubt that Bill was ever anything but friendly in his feelings toward Christopher; also a bit flattered, perhaps, by all the fuss Christopher made over him. He found Christopher sufficiently attractive, sexually—but then, he found all manner of people sufficiently attractive. I don't think he was really turned on by anyone who wasn't taller than himself.

As for Christopher, I don't think he was in love with Bill. I think what Christopher felt was a sort of compulsive craze. While Christopher was still intending to become a monk, Bill represented The Forbidden. Also, he was The Blond, an important myth figure in Christopher's life—Christopher had a strong belief that he was, or ought to be, automatically attracted to spectacular blonds. (No
reason for this occurs to me at the moment; if I think of one, later, I'll insert it as a footnote [below].)
²⁰
Also—and this is very important—Bill was introduced to Christopher by Denny. For Denny was another myth figure at that period; he was Satan, the tempter, the easy-as-an-old shoe friend who is so comfortable to be with because he knows the worst there is to know about you; the captive audience which holds its entertainers captive, demanding relentlessly to be surprised and amused. Christopher's Satan held Christopher in his power by provoking Christopher to indiscretion. Having dared Christopher to start an affair with someone—“I bet you can't get him,” Satan says—he wheedles and flatters Christopher into talking about the new lover. So Christopher finds himself giving a blow-by-blow and word-for-word description of their affair; and thus the affair turns into a theatrical performance. (When the other person involved knows that this is going on, he will object violently
—if he really cares for Christopher. Bill did know and didn't object.)

But why did Christopher need a Satan in his life? The answer can only be that the affair in itself didn't satisfy him; he could neither enjoy it nor even believe in it until his Satan had helped him turn it into a theatrical performance. On the rare occasions when Christopher did become seriously involved, he lost the desire to talk about it, even to a Satan. So the expected performance was cancelled, and Satan's feelings were hurt. (This happened to Denny, when Christopher met Bill Caskey.)

I even suspect that Christopher wasn't greatly attracted to Bill Harris sexually. From Christopher's point of view, The Blond
had
to be possessed “because he was there.” His possession was a status symbol, like owning a Cadillac. And the mere fact that a lot of people envied you—or so you liked to believe—was in itself sexually exciting, up to a point. Nevertheless, The Blond, if he was a perfect example, was too beautiful to excite Christopher for long. Christopher was like a Cadillac owner who really wanted a quite different make of car but wouldn't admit it to himself. (Vernon Old continued to excite Christopher partly
because
his figure wasn't perfect.)

Furthermore, Bill Harris was too feminine for Christopher's taste. I write the word and reject it immediately. “Too smooth” suggests itself as an alternative, but that doesn't explain what I mean. Let me put it that Christopher was certainly able to feel violent lust for a feminine type of boy, provided that he had also a certain grossness, coarseness about him—thick curly hair on his chest and belly, for instance; even a roll of fat could be exciting. . . . Enough about this for the present; the subject will keep coming up.

Auden says that it's important, in considering a sex relationship, to say exactly what the partners did in bed. Christopher used to fuck Bill, belly downwards. Bill never fucked him. (In general Bill only liked to be fucked—but on one occasion at least he made an exception; a teenage boy fell for him and Bill used to fuck the boy, telling Denny and Christopher that it made him (Bill) “feel like a man.”) Bill set great store by having what he called “a perfect orgasm”—both partners coming simultaneously. This happened the first time he and Christopher went to bed together, which Bill took to be a very good sign of compatibility.

No memory remains of their sex acts, other than fucking. I suppose they sucked cock and rimmed
^[
21
]
each other. What I do clearly remember is a remark Bill once made: “Really, it's ridiculous how some people think it's unhygienic to share a toothbrush, and yet
they've been licking each other's shitty assholes!”—meaning that he was in favor of doing both. (But I'm sure that Bill's asshole, and everything else about him, was always kept thoroughly clean.)

February 5: “Bill left for New York. Drove down with John van Druten and Tamara to AJC Ranch.” Tamara was a Russian lady who worked for a while as John's housekeeper; I think she was, or claimed to be, a duchess or princess in the old Russian aristocracy. John was fascinated by her at first—he would have had the same reaction if she had been a well-known ex-actress, and indeed her behavior could not have been more theatrical; she was full of archness and corny temperament. Later, the relationship soured, I seem to recall, and Tamara left them, feeling rejected and deeply offended.

Christopher stayed at the ranch until February 12, when he drove back to the Vedanta Center with John van Druten and immediately went to bed with one of his inflamed throats. The throat infection had started two days before this, but the visit was probably very enjoyable otherwise. Carter had a birthday on the 7th, and on the 8th they all drove up to the cabin near Idyllwild.

Christopher always enjoyed the climate of the ranch, its dry relaxing heat. He and John would chatter away together, exchanging their British jokes, making up bits of verses, looking up half-remembered quotations in books, lying by the pool or floating in it, under the palm trees, with the flat cultivated fields all around, dotted with Mexicans at work. They entertained each other charmingly, affectionately, like two no longer young ladies, and complimented each other on their writing. Meanwhile, Carter Lodge came stamping in and out, in boots covered with dust, very much the man of the house, and full of ranch problems and local gossip.

Evidently trying to recapture some magical moment of this visit, Christopher wrote in a notebook—the same one in which he made the notes about the burlesque show: “The sun went down behind the mountain in a reek of chicken fertilizer.” Also in this notebook, there is a quotation from Proust which must have been written down about this time: “I was not unhappy—save only from day to day.” This, Christopher chose to interpret as: I was not unhappy underneath, only disturbed on the surface by temporary unpleasantnesses—which he felt was a good description of his own mental condition, I suppose. He later made a resolve to read right through
Remembrance of Things Past
before 1945 was over. John Collier was probably responsible for this.
²²

The February 12 issue of
Time
magazine contained a review of the Prabhavananda—Isherwood Gita translation, combined with an article about Swami, Christopher and the Vedanta Center.
²³
As was to be expected,
Time
got several of its facts wrong—the statement that the Vedanta Society had an “alabaster temple” became a household joke for months, as did the ten-minute meditation and the “dispassionate ceremony.” But Christopher found the article more embarrassing than funny—and especially the photograph of Swami and himself which illustrated it; the two of them standing on the steps of the temple, captioned, “In their world, tranquillity.”

As for the story that Christopher was the model for Larry,
Time
may not have invented it, but it was certainly responsible for the letters Christopher now began to get, asking was this true. He wrote a letter to
Time,
denying it, and Maugham himself denied it later, but the story lived a long while.

If Christopher had indeed been solidly settled down at the Vedanta Center, resolved to become a monk, he could have taken all this
publicity in his stride, as part of the process of dying to the world. But here he was, just about to leave!
Time
made his position false—before, it had been merely insecure. Now he seemed to be posing as a monk and a saint.

On February 13, Christopher notes that he has started to read Wilkie Collins's
The Woman in White,
which Warner Brothers wanted to make into a film. My impression is that they had had various producers and writers working on it already—indeed, it seems to me that John Collier had been on the script for a time, gotten tired of it and suggested Christopher as a replacement.

On the 13th, Christopher was still in bed with his inflamed throat. The 14th was Ramakrishna's birthday celebration, that year. Christopher, who hated pujas, remained in bed and only got up for vespers, after a visit from Dr. Kolisch. Kolisch's attitude toward Christopher was friendly and hardboiled, which Christopher found ideal. (On one occasion, while Christopher was still living at the center, his penis developed a painful constriction around the middle. Although Kolisch had every reason to suppose that Christopher was observing chastity, he said the constriction was due to excessive sex intercourse. He always made such diagnoses with a perfectly straight face and matter-of-fact manner.) After seeing Kolisch, Christopher usually got better at once. Next day, the 15th, he went off to Warner's, to interview James Geller, who was then the story editor, and Mr. [Louis] Edelman, who was to be his producer.

February 17: “Lunch with the Beesleys at their new house.” The Beesleys had moved into a house on the Pacific Coast Highway, belonging to Anatole Litvak; it was number 19130, between Santa Monica and Malibu. Like nearly all the houses in this area, it was built to look only one way—straight out to sea. The beach was rocky and narrow and the tide came right up to the house—and under it, if I remember rightly. But the house was fairly attractive inside, somewhat nautical in design, with a circular staircase(?)

February 21: “Went to work at Warner's.
²⁴
Lunch with Matthew Huxley. Supper with Sam.” Matthew Huxley had a job in the readers' department at Warner Brothers; he had to read novels and make reports on them, so producers could decide if they were suitable for filming. Matthew scorned this work and made apologetic jokes about it. He was full of fun and very popular with his colleagues—his pinkness and freshness and his British accent appealed to a lot of the girls. Christopher went to visit him sometimes in the
office and they played what Christopher refers to as “the category game.” I don't remember what this was.

Sam was Sam From.
²⁵

February 22: “Cycled to and from Warner's. Talk with Edelman.”

I think Christopher usually hitchhiked to work at that time; cycling took longer and car drivers were mostly very cooperative—picking up riders was regarded as part of the war effort. Christopher soon found himself taking these rides for granted, as a form of public transportation; once, he heard himself saying curtly to a driver, “Be as quick as you can, I'm late!”

He must have been working alone on
The Woman in White
—if he had had a collaborator, I should remember. Edelman was a pleasant, easily pleased producer, but I don't think he was much help.

Christopher greatly enjoyed working at Warner's. The writers welcomed him warmly. The Writers' Building was very much a club; very conscious of its importance and very ready to defend its rights. It was said that Jack Warner and the other front office executives were afraid to venture into the building. When James Geller got into a fight with the front office, because he was supporting the writers' point of view, and resigned from his job, the writers signed a strongly worded letter approving his action and pinned a copy of it on their bulletin board.

When a writer left Warner's at the end of his assignment, he would give a party to his fellow writers and their secretaries, during office hours, complete with liquor (which was officially forbidden) and dancing. There would be a party almost every week.

Christopher's particular friend at Warner's was John Collier. (I think maybe they had met sometime before this—perhaps at Salka Viertel's.) Everyone who tried to describe John ended by using the same image: a toby jug. He was small and square, with close-cropped
hair, a bright red face and round bulging blue eyes. His expression was humorous and yet oddly ferocious; in his youth he had been a boxer. He was British, through and through.
²⁶

Here are some items from the before-mentioned notebook: