Liberation: Diaries:1970-1983

by Christopher Isherwood

  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 Emigration55 (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.

  August 17. Supper last night with Marguerite [Lamkin and her companion]—just the four of us—at La Scala. There is something snug about that place, even when it’s crammed. And I felt a real affection from [her companion]. (He confessed, for no particular reason, that he suffers terribly from vertigo.)

  We’ve received a joke present from Jim White—a broken cup which is inscribed: “I got smashed in Texas.”

  August 19. I found a piece of paper slipped in between the pages of one of my journals: “Why ever do anything you don’t want to? The moments of joy are life in the present—no matter with Auden or Heinz. The rest is apprehension, guilt—which helps absolutely nobody. When Christopher went off with Heinz he should have constructed an absolutely self-contained world and lived in it. One thinks one is atoning for something when one is miserable and guilty. Actually one is just a bore.”

  On the other side of the paper is written: “Just as people poured their superior scorn on Christopher’s homosexuality so they scorned his belief in Vedanta.”

  My guess is that these two statements are notes for a book I was writing—most probably for Christopher and His Kind. Both statements seem crude and flat and obvious—the second even more so than the first. That’s partly perhaps because some kind of psychological block often seems to prevent me from setting down exactly what the point is of the note I want to make. (Why should this be so? Because of an ingrained secretiveness, which makes me subconsciously regard such notes as “classified material” which has to be obscurely expressed because it might possibly fall into “enemy” hands?)

  And yet there are insights here—not very extraordinary but quite valid, I think.

  One of the dangers that threaten me as a writer is of lapsing into self-accusation. Self-accusation is often necessary and valuable as long as it confines itself to answering the question: “Wha
t did I do wrong?” A gym-instructor who has fallen off a trapeze may make his slip educational for his pupils by explaining to them exactly what the mistake was which caused his fall. And one may analyze literary slips in the same manner.

  August 20. How I love our flowers on the deck! Never before have we had so many, so beautifully blooming—cineraria “Dusty Miller,” yellow and orange French marigolds, chrysanthemums, “Busy Lizzie,” scarlet sage, sweet alyssum, and the coleus, which are my favorites. I feel a strong communication with them—as if they were animals rather than vegetables. I feel that they are aware of my presence.

  September 1. Just back from a walk in the park, which I love. The park always makes me aware of old age—probably because there are so many old people walking there. And the sea makes me think of death, but without terror—this is death in the aspect of an element which receives—takes you to its bosom soothingly. It nearly always brings Edward Upward to mind, because he, too, lives by it. I say to myself: “We’re two old men looking at the sea.” (He sent a cassette of himself reading some short stories—his voice still so clear and strong, with that same melodious subtly ironical Mortmere tone—a tone which seems to be always between quote marks.)

  September 12. Am starting to struggle out of a sloth block—I let myself get into the usual jitters. Nothing new in that. But I do detect the possibility of a more serious senile state. It’s absolutely necessary that I refuse to recognize any excuses based on old age. I must get on with my work for the sake of getting on. No other reason is required. My health is improved, actually.

  Both Don and I were instructively impressed by an evening at David’s house, the day before yesterday. He seems to be less than himself. He continues to work but it’s somehow forced—a token demonstration—not up to his standard. The place seems full of spongers. Don thinks he’s taking quite a lot of cocaine.

  Of course I know the unreliability of such subjective impressions. David has his characteristic kind of strength—quite different from ours. He has never minded living in a crowd. And he seems to suffer spongers gladly—well, anyhow, he suffers them. None of this is really dangerous, no doubt. He is immensely strong and probably he’s relaxed inside of himself in a way I can’t even imagine.

  October 1. I can’t record that my sloth block has been struggled out of. I have messed a little with my book but I still haven’t given myself the decisive order to pull myself together and get the hell on with it. Very well—that order has now been given. Really, I have no excuses. I can’t pretend that I am sick or incapacitated in any way. Sure, my back hurts a bit, but not when I’m sitting down.

  Death thoughts hover around continually, but I only feel fear now and then. Darling keeps me going—sometimes by his sweetness, sometimes by his scolding—he is always a massive support. I know that he is terribly rattled by Ted, who is indulging in what Ted calls a “high.” A short while ago—with infuriating self-indulgence—he attacked an elderly woman and got himself locked up. His trial for this is to take place soon. One simply can’t take him seriously as a madman, although I realize that he just possibly might get into a crazy state in which he would harm Darling.

  I’ll try to describe—just as a psychological observation—something which I’ve experienced several times lately, while doing my morning “sit.” I pray to Swami, as usual, to “be with me and take away my fear when I am dying.” At first, when I’d said this prayer, I felt reassured and soothed. Then doubts began. The doubts scoffed at the prayer. “Why do you assume that Swami is present and can answer your praying?” But then I knew how to answer the doubts: “Swami really is present within me because I remember him. Why shouldn’t I remember him when I am dying and get strength and reassurance from that memory? In the last analysis, strength and reassurance are all I’m asking for. Looked at from this point of view, my problem doesn’t have to be solved by “faith.” I just have to relive one of those powerful experiences of reassurance which I quite often had in his presence while he was still alive. My memory of this reassurance is gradually getting dimmer, of course. But it is right here inside me, just as vivid as my memory of Auden or Forster, or any other inspiring human being. By dwelling on it, I think I can make it last my time.

  October 23. The last few days have been astonishingly hot. Nearly no wind. I’m not in a good state. Death fears—that’s to say, pangs of foreboding—recur often. They seem to be part of a quite normal physical condition; the pangs of a dying animal, thrilling with dread of the unknown.

  Darling is probably under greater strain than he has ever been. I’m so dull witted and forgetful and often so sulky—and then he has to cope with his senile mother in the nursing home, and with Ted who is busy having a “breakdown”—partly self-advertisement, partly jealousy of Darling. He bashed on the carport gate so hard that he cracked its wood. This rattles our nerves of course, until we long to have him taken away and locked up some place for the rest of his life. There is very little I can do to help Don, even when I’m in a relatively unselfish mood. I just try to keep assuring him how much I love him.

  1983

  January 1. Yesterday I was in one of my lousiest negative moods. A boy named Dan Turner sat for Don. He carried on about the treatments he’d had for cancer and created a quite powerful death gloom, which he thickened by showing us two lesions on his legs.56 I allowed myself to get into a kind of sulk, in which I hated him for doing this and felt that this whole vital and decisive New Year’s Eve was being hexed. We went on to a couple of parties, at which 1983 was drunk to and I sulked and said to myself that we’d gotten off on the wrong foot, just because of this jerk. (Only I don’t seriously believe that.)

  February 7. Heavy rain, depressing and yet work inspiring. Darling has gone out and there is no reason why I shouldn’t get my book restarted, having wasted one whole month already. He is so good—urging me to work and setting me such an example by working so tirelessly himself—he seems never to be idle.

  April 14. This is a mere token restart.

  What have I been doing? Failing to get on with my work. Old age, viewed from this angle, is nothing but an excuse for laziness. I’m not feeble or fragile. I walk in the park with vigor and enjoy my walks and thoughts. I adore my Darling and feel the keenest interest in his thinkings and doings. I’ll only be seventy-nine in August—there’s a whole year tucked away in there, inviting me to show the wonders I can perform before I’m eighty. Even my tendency to senile melancholia seems to have weakened. All right, come on, you idle Naggin, gee up!

  Now a bit of senility—just for laughs. I picked up the torn-off top part of my ballot ticket for the April 12 primary elections, printed in English and Spanish, and dull-wittedly took the Spanish—elecciones primarias—to mean “prime ribs”!

  July 4. Yes, it’s that certain day. Don’s with a sitter in the studio and I’m at the table on the deck, having decided to waste my time doing something which at least belongs in the category of work—writing in this book.

  It’s classic Canyon summer holiday weather—grey skied, warm, blah. Hardly a firework heard so far. Only one flag visible.

  The joy of being with Darling remains almost constant, nowadays—expressed by huggings, kisses, loving jokes. There is a constant sense of communication between us. What we communicate to each other is that we’re sharing a day-by-day experience of life; everything happens to both of us. This is, of course, far from being true, but it’s true enough.

  Have just finished a draft of a letter to Stephen, congratulating him on having been knighted. He hasn’t written to me about this but he let me find out about it through his friend Br[y]an Obst.57 I think I entirely understand Stephen’s feelings. I had to be told, and yet he felt apologetic, maybe remembering how he’d smirked and sneered when Wystan was awarded the King’s Gold Medal for poetry and had to go to the palace to receive it.58

  (Edward Upward, in a letter, made us roar with laughter by quoting Banquo’s line: “Thou hast it now. . . .”59)

 
[Isherwood made no more diary entries. He died of prostate cancer on January 4, 1986, after many months of illness. Bachardy gave up his other sitters during the last six months of Isherwood’s life, and he drew Isherwood almost daily. He was with him, drawing him, when Isherwood died, and he drew several more drawings after he was dead.]

  Glossary

  Abedha. American disciple of Swami Prabhavananda, born Tony Eckstein. He spent many years at Trabuco and at the Hollywood Vedanta Society, but never took sannyas and eventually left to work for Parker Pens.

  Ackerley, J. R. ( Joe) (1896–1967). English author and editor; he wrote drama, poetry, fiction, and autobiography. He is well known for his intimate relationship with his Alsatian, described in My Dog Tulip (1956) and We Think the World of You (1960). Other books include Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal (1932) and My Father and Myself (1968). He was literary editor of The Listener from 1935 to 1959 and published work by some of the best and most important writers of his period; Isherwood contributed numerous reviews during the 1930s. Their friendship was sustained in later years partly by their shared intimacy with E.M. Forster. Ackerley was also close to his sister, Nancy West, who was a great beauty and a drunk, as Isherwood records. Ackerley appears in D.1 and D.2. and is mentioned in Lost Years.

  ACLU. American Civil Liberties Union, non-partisan, non-profit organization founded in 1920 to protect and preserve individual liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and its Amendments.

  Addis, Keith. Hollywood agent, educated at Columbia University. When Isherwood first mentions him in 1977, he was working with Bobby Littman at The Robert Littman / Keith Addis Company. In 1980, he founded his own agency and later, in 1989, co-founded Industry Entertainment, which manages major film and T.V. stars and produces films and T.V. series.