Christopher Isherwood: A Personal memoir (18 page)

To visit Warren in his office, finding him in rather sombre mood, gloomy about the prospects for the HRC*, not uncritical by any means of the three whose resignations have caused all the uproar. I sensed that he was saying to himself: ‘Let these damn Yankees go home if they want to, they’re just making a good thing out of us.’ But what he did say, nostalgically, was: ‘There was a time when Texas was as English as Australia … .’

__________________________________     

[Joe is J.R. Ackerley. Warren is Warren Roberts, in charge of the HRC]

* Humanities Research Center.

Diary entry. Friday 5 February 1971.

Yesterday afternoon, getting more and more frustrated by the postal strike in England, I decided to ring London by telephone. I was amazed. I put the call through at 5.10 p.m. Austin time - ten minutes past midnight London time. I got through to Alexis, incredibly, in two minutes. I must have roused him in bed. He said at once: ‘How exciting!’ He assured me at once that everything was all right; that Rudy had had a miraculous cure for his rheumatism and was now gambolling around like a puppy; and promised to pass on my messages to Ros. and B. I said: ‘I’m happily installed in Austin, it’s a warm afternoon with the temperature at nearly 70°F.’ He said: ‘How marvellous!’

(Ros. and B. are my sisters Rosamond and Beatrix.)

Diary entry: Thursday 11 February.

I have been in much anxiety about the earthquake in California; and after trying all yesterday evening without avail, I managed to get hold of Christopher on the telephone. ‘Are you and Don all right?’ He replied: ‘Yes, we’re all right, but it was absolutely sensational. The tremors went on for a full minute, which is a long time for an earthquake. The whole house rocked and shook; of course it was not like being bombed, but we heard what we thought were violent explosions but it turned out to be the noise of pots and pans crashing to the ground in the kitchen. And then the tremors repeated themselves, but less violently, at intervals.’ I said: ‘You must have been terrified out of your wits.’ He said, ‘No, really we were paralysed with shock. The whole place of course is now full of refugees, living in schoolrooms and tents, with police cars going by just to see there’s no looting …. You remember where we took the wrong turning on our way to Santa Barbara? Well, the epicentre was just there.’

Austin, Texas, 8 March 1971 (letter from J.L. to C.I.).

I did appreciate your hospitality on my brief visit to Los Angeles, and the special effort you made introducing me at UCLA*. I hereby vow to
prevent
anyone asking you to introduce me on any future occasion. I was deeply touched by what you said, and I won’t have you exploited any more.

Also, how extremely pleasant it was to have a good talk with you and Don. I was thrilled to be able to see bits of 
Kathleen and Frank -
my appetite was terribly whetted. And I have ordered the Columbia booklet; but wait most eagerly for the Twayne book.

I had one of those ghastly journeys back. They turned us off the plane (due to start at 4.50 p.m.) as there was a tiny wire that wasn’t functioning. We didn’t take off till 6.30 p.m., so I arrived in Austin at midnight - to find the patient Morris still waiting. They fed us on beastly sandwiches of synthetic turkey.

Morris, who is still a bit under the weather with his cold, sends love, as I do to you and Don.

____________________________

* University of California, Los Angeles.

Diary entry: 10 March.

Last Thursday-Friday was my visit to Los Angeles, the lecture on V.W.* at UCLA, and the subsequent taking part in the seminar on Henry Green, with the teacher Carey Wall as my hostess and introducer. The lecture turned out, I thought, a great success, with a full hall (about 140 people) and interesting questions afterwards. Christopher, bless his heart, allowed himself to be sacrificed once more as introducer to me, and did me proud - too proud. The seminar was more like a bean-feast, the students arriving like children with the food, organizing everything (C.W. providing the drink), and washing up everything, giggling and shouting and carrying on and thoroughly enjoying themselves. I talked about Henry in general, and then they besieged me with questions. A good time, I think, was had by all. I was particularly interested and pleased to meet a young graduate student, a pretty and very intelligent dark, petite girl, who was doing a study of the feminine sensibility in the modern English novel, with a long chapter on Rosamond’s work. She seemed extremely perceptive and sensible, much admiring R.

I had the lunch period on Thursday with C. and Don, and then the evening after the seminar, and finally the morning on Friday. I thought C. in better form than last autumn, happier in himself, his blue eyes sparkling and darting, those spell-binding smiles perhaps a little less deliberate. I think he was very much relaxed by the enthusiasm with which his new book about his parents had been received by his publishers on 
both sides of the Atlantic… . We talked a lot about the earthquake, C. admitting that the after-shocks (all day long) were what began to get him down, and the paralyzing experience of the way the house groaned, clenched itself, and seemed to want to tear itself apart while the main shock was going on … . He showed me parts of the new book, which indicated that he was at last going to make no bones about his queerness. I thought it read excellently, and my appetite was much whetted. At the same time I was a bit worried that he had decided on the convention of speaking of himself as ‘Christopher’ all through, as if he found himself unable to speak without a mask. He defended himself by saying that if he had talked of his mother as ‘my mother’ irrelevant emotions would have been aroused; also that his childhood was so far away that it seemed like the childhood of a quite different person. At the same time, I couldn’t help feeling that the reader might find a slight element of ‘baby-talk’ in it.

I was, I admit, surprised at his revelations about Wystan, that he had never told me of before: that they had had an affair that even went on, on an occasional basis, right up to the time when they reached the USA in 1939 … . C. and Don retired to his study, and I heard C. dictating (the Frankenstein treatment
⁷
), and Don typing.

[I think the ‘new book’ referred to here must have been
Christopher and His Kind.
]

* Virginia Woolf.

Diary entry: San Diego, 5 November.

Douglas
⁸
has been gone one week now. I miss him very much, not merely for meals prepared and flat looked after, his welcoming me after late classes, but just for his presence.

We visited C. and Don at Santa Monica on 23 October.

C. his usual sweet self, very pleased with the excellent review I had brought him of
Kathleen and Frank
(for the
Financial Times
, by old Snow
^§
- who couldn’t resist a side-swipe at Bloomsbury). He presented me with a touchingly inscribed copy of
K. & F.
We talked a great deal of the reviews of
Maurice
, some of which have been very damp and stupid. I am growing fond of the house in Adelaide Drive, and when we left on Sunday felt a pang of regret, as if I had lived there myself a long time - or might never see it again.

______________________________

^§
C.P. Snow.

San Diego, 25 November (letter from J.L. to C.I.).

I did so enjoy seeing you on Monday, and having that long walk over the mountain ridges in the afternoon.

The evening was curious, as these occasions generally are, but I think the elderly ladies and gents in business suits were entertained to be reminded of something they had long forgotten - the
Alice
books. Anyway, it was preceded by a first-class dinner party in the home of the Chairman of the LA English-Speaking Union, in as beautiful a home as I have seen in this part of the world (not excepting George Cukor’s* house). A rich man, with enough to employ a truly first-class chef. Must be a member of the Mafia.

I enclose two more poems, as I threatened. When you have a moment, do let me know how they strike you.

 ______________________    

* The American film director.

Diary entry: Friday 26 November - aftermath of Thanksgiving.

I suddenly realized that there were now only three weeks left before my return to London for Christmas. Almost incredible.

Last Monday I spent the whole day (and night) in Los Angeles, giving two lectures, both on Lewis Carroll and Nonsense. In the morning at the College of the Immaculate Heart, which turned out to be ex-Catholic, no nuns, and now an independent ‘experimental’ college of about 500 boys and girls; situated on a beautiful, steep slope in Hollywood, with lushly flowering shrubs all through the grounds. A small, informal group, very friendly; my host, Fallon Edwards, seemed very happy with the talk.

Afterwards I was called for by Christopher, and he drove me up to the Observatory in Griffith Park, where we went for a long walk over the mountain ridges, and talked endlessly of cabbages and kings, and what the days of yore were like, and what the future will bring, it reminded me of the long walk we took together on the Isle of Wight, over thirty years ago. This time, too, he talked of what he planned to write: it seems that he is engaged in the long work of revising and expanding the diaries he had kept since arriving in the US all that time ago, particularly filling in details of sexual encounters - which he said returned to his memory extremely vividly as soon as he found the notes in his diary. His earlier diary, he confessed, had been an inestimable mine for all the books he had written, scarcely anything usable was left (though I do remember passages I was shown that were utterly fascinating and never used). Now for a new series of books based on these later diaries.

Then he took me along to P.M.’s where we had drinks, and then I rested; and after that he took me along to the house of the Chairman of the E-SU
⁹
-one of the most beautiful houses I have seen out here, as beautiful, in a different way, as George Cukor’s. A large gathering for dinner, which was one of the very best I have eaten on this side of the ocean, cooked as well as any Parisian chef could achieve. Derek Jewell, publishing director of
The Times
, was among the guests. He said he remembered me talking - so long ago - to the Oxford Poetry Society in the first year of the war; Francis King,
^§
even Sidney Keyes
⁹
, I believe, were present. Then I was driven to the Ambassador Hotel, in the ballroom of which I gave my talk to about 250 assembled members of the E-SU (the largest outside New York). Business executives mainly, I think, and white or blue-haired elderly ladies, with a sprinkling of younger people. Daunted rather by the ranks of wan faces; but soon Alice did the trick for me, and they came up with delight afterwards … . P.M. says I ought to do it much more often; well, I will - if they’ll make it more worth my while.

__________________     

^§
 The novelist and critic.

Diary entry: Friday 21 July 1972.

Yesterday I went with David Carver* to a Buck. House garden party. Much as ever, but the flower borders even better, I thought, than last year, a feast of colour, scent and shape. Couldn’t help admiring the performance the Queen puts on, the immense skill she shows. She goes through the pressing phalanx, she runs the gauntlet of the enormous crowds watching her, and has the selected groups presented to her: with the greatest ease and charm and dignity, has a word for every one of them, and behaves as if she were immensely interested and genuinely amused by the things they say to her! The timing is perfect.

Today, after an early lunch, to the First afternoon performance of
Cabaret
with Cousin Philip. The film has many faults: the cutting is bad, there is too much of the Master of Ceremonies, grotesquely amusing figure though Joel Grey makes him; and Liza Minnelli, in spite of an electrifying performance (it is really turned into a vehicle for her), is about as far from the original Sally Bowles as one can imagine - talk of not being able to get a part, even in the back row - she would have gone to the top right away! But the film is far nearer to the feeling of the original than the musical was, and Michael York gives a superb performance as the young Christopher: I was amazed at the likeness he managed to create by get-up and make-up, though the lips are too full and sensual to be exactly right. Very dishy indeed, one can’t help falling for him. I thought it a pity that the crazy American, Clive, had been turned into a young German Baron, but the invention that he seduced both Sally and C. is really rather effective.

(Cousin Philip is Philip Mansel, first cousin twice removed, whom I had first come to know when he was at Eton.)

____________________________

* Secretary to International P.E.N.

Diary entry: Saturday 10 January 1973.

Christopher rang this morning, to deliver his verdict on the parts (in draft) I have shown him of the Jack Marlowe book*. After a very short visit to London with Don (during the greater part of which he was cloistered with Don in David Hockney’s flat working on the script of the Frankenstein film), he is off back to Santa Monica again, after briefly seeing friends in Switzerland and Rome (Salka Viertel and Gavin Lambert). I have seen very little of him - he and Don came for an hour one evening to No. 85, and I went for an hour to the flat - but he claimed when I grumbled a bit that I have seen more of him than most of his friends. He has, I think, been suffering from one of his (absurd, but partly consciously absurd) ‘power’ fits; and yet, in relation to what he is really worth, what more absurd than these TV films on Frankenstein and an Egyptian mummy. I am dismayed by them; though given great hope and enthusiasm by what I think really matters: his work on his diaries. I have never been convinced that he is a good script-writer for films or plays, in spite of all the great gifts he can bring to bear on them. I have never seen anything of his in that line that I thought good enough - from him.