On November 19, Brad Saunders 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,1 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 Saunders 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. Saunders 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.2 Denny had had 1 Named Henry(?)
2 About this visit, John Goodwin writes: “. . . once I told him very brutally that why he had lost all his friends (as he constantly complained of it) was that he was not himself any more. He asked in his strangely rational and yet hazy way just in what way was he different. It was hard to tell him for I meant really saying that he was not at all rational, that his habits of lying abed and living a ¾ 1948 ¾
173
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.”1
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 kind of Poe existence made it difficult to share anything of the world with him.
But he seemed to see finally what I meant and for a week until I left, though his habits didn’t change, he wanted to live, which was something he hadn’t cared one way or another about for a long time. He was seriously considering going to England or America to a psychiatrist which I was all for, even though I admitted to him and he agreed that they were only a very last resort.”
1 A sequel to Denny’s death was described to Christopher much later––it may be partly untrue: Tony Watson-Gandy was said to have adored Denny and to have done his best to look after him as long as Denny was alive; but Tony refused absolutely to take drugs. However, after Denny’s death, Tony found a hypodermic syringe and some heroin in Denny’s suitcase. In his misery and grief, Tony decided to try it. As a result he became a dope addict. He went back to England and died a few years later.
Tony took Denny’s dog Trotsky back with him. And so that adventurous dog life, which began in a conscientious objectors’ camp in the California mountains, ended in one of the stately homes of England.
174
Lost Years
occasion of a scene which Christopher later adapted for The World in the Evening1:
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.
1 Part three, chapter one.
¾ 1949 ¾
175
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.