Liberation by Christopher Isherwood Read Free Book Online Page A

beloved Paco 20 (whom we hate). Paco was apparently about to hurt herself on a saw and Jack grabbed her from behind and she bit him in the chin. It pains Jack that Paco should bite him under any circumstances but he excuses her by saying she was hysterical because of all the workmen in the house. The workmen were, and still are, there because dry rot has been discovered in some of the woodwork. That miserable house of theirs seems to be chronically damage prone but they go on pouring money into its repairs.
    A third Jim, Charlton, has been much in my thoughts lately. It often astonishes me how much I still love him, or rather, how romantically I still feel toward him. Camp-romantically almost, since I also see him preeminently as a comic figure. Nevertheless, there’s something unique in this feeling. It’s not at all that I want to see him often. I most definitely do not regret that we never lived together. My romanticism about him is concerned with his essential aloneness. When I think of him alone, I love him; when I think of him married or otherwise involved with either sex, I laugh at him. But some memories of being with him—driving up to Palomar or down to Mexico in the old days, or spending nights at his apartment on the beach, or visiting that waterfall last year on Oahu, 21 even—are still astonishingly vivid and beautiful.
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    July 25. Have stayed in all day. I seem to be starting a cold, have taken two Coricidin tablets. Have got as far as Kathleen’s entry for June 24, when she receives the notification from the Red Cross that they have found Frank’s identity disk. Must pause here to give Hugh Gray 22 time to find out what “siche” means; “siche 5” is engraved on the disk. 23 Hugh seems to love finding out things like this; the only trouble is, once he starts explaining he can’t stop—a complaint made also by Don about a certain old Horse.
    Don and Mike Van Horn made an agreement, each to do a group of paintings; each group was to have its own general theme, or manner. Don did some of his movie heads; these were of Barbara Stanwyck and two of them at least were quite remarkable, one of these, Don says, shows him an approach to a whole new way of working. Mike took some pieces of canvas, had them stitched together in various arrangements (two were like outlines of a very fat man’s trousers) and then treated them with gesso and then dyed them. I am very happy that Mike and Don are turning each other on like this. But alas part of the arrangement is that each can pick one of the things the other did, so Mike (who has very good taste) is pretty sure to take away Don’s best painting and we shall have to find a place to hang up one of Mike’s rather large canvasses!
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    July 30. My cold came on quite bad, I even missed two days of work on the 27th and 28th and spent a morning in bed. (Now I’m on Vibramycin 24 capsules and feel much better though still shaky.) However, yesterday I finished chapter 17, a short chapter consisting almost entirely of Kathleen’s diary entries down to the end of 1915 and her final acceptance of the fact that Frank is dead. And it’s clear that I have only one more chapter to finish the book. The problem is, just how shall I finish it? At present I think the logical ending is a description of Christopher’s attitudes towards Kathleen and Frank. But it will be hard to cover Kathleen’s later life briefly and yet not make the reader feel cheated. I must give some significant glimpses of her in later life, but where can I find them? Perhaps I can get more from Richard, if I can ask him the right kind of questions. And I’ll dig into my diaries to see if there’s anything there.
    Don has gone down to Laguna Beach today to see Jack Fontan and Ray Unger, and Mike Van Horn has gone with him. I am so happy they are seeing so much of each other; tomorrow Mike going with him to Santa Barbara to draw