Lost Years (39 page)

I have tried to say the worst things about Frank Taylor first, so as to get them off my chest. Having said them, I can admit that Christopher very often enjoyed being with Frank and found him intelligent and amusing; very often agreed with him politically, for he was a model liberal; very often felt his charm. On two occasions, while drunk, he actually had sex with Frank
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33
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—though it isn't an experience I care to dwell on.

What really repelled Christopher—and what repels me today—about Frank was something which was none of Christopher's business; his dishonest, tricky bisexual posture. Frank bragged about his homosexual affairs and even sometimes demanded that they should be respected as serious love dramas. At the same time, he became maudlin over his marriage and his responsibilities as a father. Stephen Spender is deeply false in the same way, but not nearly as disgusting as Frank, because he is too shrewd to parade his sentimentality in public. They are both utterly untrustworthy—but then, one should know better than to trust them. On the positive side,
they were useful to Christopher as partial models for one of his worst and one of his best literary characters—Stephen Monk in
The World in the Evening
and Patrick in
A Meeting by the River.
I believe Frank Taylor took Stephen Monk personally and was offended. He never spoke of this to Christopher, but, after the book was published, they gradually lost contact. Stephen Spender wouldn't have been offended—he isn't petty in that way—though he may well have been hurt. But the bond between Stephen and Christopher was and still is too tough to be broken—whatever they may write and say about each other.

On October 14, Christopher brought Frank Taylor an outline for a movie he had written with Klaus Mann; it was based on the life of Han Van Meegeren, the painter-forger, and his dealings with the Nazis. This project was entirely Klaus's idea; he had studied Van Meegeren's career while he was in Holland. Frank wasn't interested; or, if he was, he failed to interest the front office. On November 12, Thomas Mann (see
Letters of Thomas Mann
) wrote to Klaus, “The starry-eyed one seems to have failed—anyone who counts on the movies is throwing himself on Satan's mercies.” (“The starry-eyed one” was evidently a family nickname for Christopher. Whether it just meant that his eyes were bright, or whether it referred to his supposedly excessive optimism, I don't know.)

On October 18, Christopher says in the day-to-day diary that he worked on
The Condor and the Cows.
He had already written some of this—the first two chapters were finished on board the
Groix,
but probably little or nothing since then.
³⁴
Christopher didn't finish chapter three until November 15.

On November 6 and 7, there are two more entries in the 1948–1956 journal—the first since May 29. They refer to a party given by Caskey and Christopher on November 4 and to the marriage of Vernon Old and Patty O'Neill
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on November 5, with Peggy Kiskadden and Christopher in attendance. The guests at the party were Jay Laval, Bill Bailey, Hurd Hatfield, Roy Radebaugh (better known as Richard Cromwell the actor), Lennie Newman (
see here
), Hayden Lewis and Rod Owens, Roger Edens (who was a high-up in the music department at MGM) with [a friend] Don Van Trees, and Jim Charlton. Jim now came to the house regularly,
often bringing a boyfriend with him and later screwing him in one of the two upstair bedrooms. Sometimes he showed up without having been invited; freeloading is a characteristic vice of Dog People. At thirty-eight, Radebaugh still had some of the cuteness which had made Richard Cromwell one of the homosexual pinup boys of the thirties.
³⁶
Now he had given up his movie career and taken to sculpting. He was a touching, sweet-natured tragic character who drank too much. He had a violent unrequited crush on Rod Owens. He was to die of cancer in 1960. Lennie Newman was still cooking for Jay Laval at his restaurant. Lennie had become Caskey's favorite drinking companion. They spent many evenings out on the town together.

Vernon Old and Patty O'Neill had been living together for some time already. I seem to remember that Christopher actually urged them to get married—or rather, urged Vernon to marry Patty, who needed no urging. If Christopher did indeed do this, his motives must have been largely malicious. He must have been harboring a grudge against Vernon, who picked up lovers and dropped them again with no regard for anything but his own convenience. Christopher must have wanted to see Vernon hog-tied, for once, by marriage.
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And this suggests that Christopher himself was feeling hog-tied and therefore envious and resentful of other people's freedom.

In the journal entry of November 6, Christopher writes that, “Caskey is endlessly busy, home building. . . . He never ceases to carpenter, sew, paint, cook.” Christopher adds, “Sometimes I ask myself uneasily, what will happen when the home
is
built?” Christopher says nothing against Caskey here but he goes on to express a lot of guilt and self-defensiveness about their way of life: “I'm being confronted, at last, with the problems of the Householder—and who ever dares to say they are less than the problems of the Monk? . . . No doubt the life in Santa Monica Canyon is empty, vain, trivial, tragic, indigent of God. But that's no reason not to live here and try to do the best you can.” The best Christopher could do was to make japam (not very regularly), see Swami now and then, and keep assuring himself that he would restart his novel as soon as
his bread-and-butter chore,
The Condor and the Cows,
was finished. Meanwhile he continued to drink too much and his guilt pressure continued to build up.

Christopher also refers in this entry to the surprise victory of Truman over Dewey in the elections—which took place, that year, on November 2. Like Salka, and many many others, Christopher rejoiced in the discomfiture of the pollsters even more than in the defeat of Dewey.

On November 19, Brad Saurin
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is mentioned for the first time. Brad was a very tall blond, amusingly attractive, more than somewhat crazy young man who had served with distinction as a pilot in World War II. He was queer, sexually wild, [. . .] and a joker. He looked deceptively “nice” and upper-class, especially when his pretty gold hair was smoothly brushed and he was wearing a uniform—he was still in the air force, or at any rate [in] the reserve. His father was (I think) a general, a good grey career soldier, courteous, intelligent. Brad's brother,
³⁹
a handsome heterosexual dark boy, was an avowed communist. His existence was a serious blot on Brad's military record, but one of the most impressive things about the Saurin family was that neither Brad, nor his father and mother, would express even a formal disapproval of his doings. They saw him frequently—I believe he had an academic job in San Francisco—and they publicly defended his right to his own political opinions.

At that time, Brad was having an affair with Jay Laval. On November 25, Brad invited Christopher and Caskey and Jay to a party at his parents' house. So I guess General and Mrs. Saurin were as broad-minded about Brad's queerness as they were about his brother's communism.

On November 29, Christopher finished chapter four of
The Condor and the Cows
.

On December 9, he finished chapter five.

On December 16, Denny Fouts died in Rome. I don't remember exactly when or how Christopher got the news. A letter written to Christopher by John Goodwin from Agadir, Morocco, on January 9, 1949, refers to a cable Christopher has sent him—so Christopher must have heard about Denny earlier than this. In his letter Goodwin says that he last saw Denny in Rome in November.
⁴⁰
Denny had had
a friend with him, Tony Watson-Gandy. It was Tony who later came to Paris, met John again and told him about Denny's death. “He had found Denny dead in the John and immediately rushed him to a hospital in case he should still be alive. There was an autopsy and it proved to be his heart. He apparently had had a bad heart for a long time and since I had left Rome he also had had a bad case of flu. It was
not
suicide nor
drugs
. Of course people will say so and it really makes no matter. Tony said that his face showed no pain so that it must have been a sudden attack without agony.”
⁴¹

On December 18, Christopher finished chapter six—and was therefore more than halfway through the book.

Gian Carlo Menotti is mentioned in the day-to-day diary as having come to supper that night. Menotti and Christopher had met each other for the first time back in July or August, when they were both working for MGM. Christopher was charmed by Menotti's vitality and they saw each other often. When Caskey arrived home, Menotti promptly made a pass at him, unsuccessfully. Christopher was a little annoyed by this but then decided that Latins will be Latins and must be excused.

On December 22, Ben Bok and his girl Coral were married, and Christopher was at the ceremony. Peggy disapproved of Ben's marriage even more than she had disapproved of Vernon Old's. She told Christopher in a tone of deep distaste that Ben and Coral were only getting married because they wanted sex so badly. Peggy also found Coral's family [not to her liking].

On December 23, Christopher went to Swami's birthday lunch at the Vedanta Center. In the evening, he had supper with Jim Charlton at the Santa Inez Inn. This may just possibly have been the
occasion of a scene which Christopher later adapted for
The World in the Evening
⁴²
:

While Christopher and Jim were drinking at the bar, before supper, they attracted the notice of two large drunken men. The men had probably guessed that Jim and Christopher were queer. They were intrigued and aggressive. One of the men said to Christopher, “How about us throwing you in the pool?” Christopher told them to go ahead, adding that he was in the mood for a swim. He wasn't at all afraid of the men, for their attitude was basically flirtatious; little as they were aware of this. The pool was heated, and Christopher was drunk enough himself to welcome the prospect of a dip and a mild scandal. One of the men picked him up in his arms, and began walking out of the bar. Christopher didn't offer the least resistance. He was showing off for Jim's benefit. Jim tried to interfere, but the other man blocked his path. Everybody in the bar was watching. A bartender uttered a ridiculously ineffectual warning that the pool was closed for swimming after sunset. Now, however, the manager or some other authority figure appeared and boldly told the man who was carrying Christopher that he was causing a disturbance. This was Christopher's opportunity to dominate the situation. Loud and clear and British, he said, “This gentleman is not annoying me.” This wasn't bar-room humor, so it failed to get a laugh from the bar guests—it merely puzzled them. It also puzzled and somehow deflated the high spirits of Christopher's would-be ducker. He put Christopher down and staggered off.

On December 28, there was a party on Stage 15 at MGM to celebrate the end of shooting on
The Great Sinner
. I don't remember anything about this party. Christopher probably got drunk to deaden his embarrassment at having to project optimism amidst his fellow members of this losing team—for it must surely have been evident by now that
The Great Sinner
would be a loser, or at best a nonwinner.

On December 31, Christopher saw the New Year in at Salka Viertel's. I think Montgomery Clift was there among others and that this was the night when Clift insisted on drinking blood brotherhood with Christopher. They had met several times already—Clift having been introduced into the Viertel circle by Fred Zinnemann who had directed him in
The Search
. Whenever Clift and Christopher met, they playacted enthusiasm for each other, but they were never to become real friends. Maybe Clift found Christopher cold and standoffish. Christopher found Clift touching but ugly minded and sick.

It seems strange that Caskey and Christopher spent this New Year's Eve apart—and ironic that Caskey spent it with Jim Charlton. Maybe Caskey was going bar crawling and Christopher just didn't want to come along. It doesn't seem likely that they had actually quarrelled because, on New Year's Day, they drove up to Ojai, taking Jim with them, and all three stayed the night at Iris Tree's ranch.

¹
Nevertheless, the two experiences were essentially different. Rio inspired an aesthetic excitement, Monument Valley [in northeast Arizona and southeast Utah] a primitive religious awe.

[
²
“The Postwar Years” in
D1
.]

[
³
Travellers crossing the equator for the first time are tried at a mock “Court of Neptune” and subjected to joke punishments.]

[
⁴
In
Down There on a Visit
.]

⁵
Caskey was more Minton's friend than Vaughan's. Indeed Minton was an ideal playmate for Caskey, with his wild high spirits, fondness for the bottle and generally erratic behavior. I think he found Caskey attractive. He did a drawing of him which is very flattering. Vaughan certainly liked Caskey too, but Vaughan was always shy and taciturn—all the more so when Minton was around. Christopher, at that time, would have loved to go to bed with Vaughan, but Vaughan definitely wasn't interested. No doubt Christopher's enthusiasm for his paintings pleased Vaughan, but I believe he rather despised Christopher as a human being. There is a coldly contemptuous reference to Christopher in Vaughan's
Journal and Drawings
, as he appeared to Vaughan during a dinner party at John Lehmann's on February 25, 1952: “C.I. casual, rather rasping in speech, sentimental, looking like a dehydrated schoolboy. Enormously interested in the superficialities of life.” [The dinner was February 24, 1952.]