Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [111]
13 December
Resurrection Day. I took Harold to Wilton’s for the celebration of a year to the day of his diagnosis with cancer. It was terribly expensive and I loved doing it. After all Harold is still having the odd ‘hit’ at tennis.
He subsequently gave it up with great sadness: ‘Just too exhausting’. At the same moment our beloved Vanderbilt Club came to an end, as though in mourning.
2003
1 January
Harold took me to Anything Goes at the National Theatre. Magic evening. Me: ‘You can have Ibsen, Strindberg, Miller, Beckett, even Pinter … just give me Cole Porter.’ Harold: ‘I totally agree.’ This year I am looking forward to Natasha’s biography of Sam Spiegel, Benjie’s poetry, working on Love and Louis XIV and going to Paris again – and Harold’s increasing energies. Not looking forward to the war which no one wants, the grim world predicted by Blair today, financial downturn, people’s troubles all over the world in consequence.
15 February
The largest demonstration in British history: so said the papers, even the hostile ones. One million? Maybe twice that. I am so proud for Harold that he was one of the speakers. I think he was very nervous. The park was full of scurrying and walking and pushchair-pushing figures going to and from the large blue-purple baldaquin with its small platform for speakers. Getting inside the wire fence to reach the baldaquin was not easy. Once there we were herded into the ‘Green Room’, actually a small chrome caravan, full of people. One of these was Jesse Jackson, the wide-apart deer’s eyes of so many photographs. Naturally he was incredibly pleased to meet Harold and me, we got the impression that it made his day. Someone, probably George Galloway, was blaring away on the loudspeaker. Then Louise Christian, magnificent Brunhilde of a solicitor came in. Me: ‘What is George saying?’ Louise, cheerfully: ‘Oh, I’m not listening. I’ve heard it all before.’
On the platform Vanessa Redgrave, Bianca Jagger and beyond them the great sea of the crowd, banners and all. Everybody perfectly attentive. Perfectly in unison. Laughing when laughter was due. Cheering and clapping ditto. Otherwise listening in silence. An ocean of faces as far as the eye could see. Harold got tremendous cheers for his poem ‘The Special Relationship’ beginning ‘The bombs go off …’ Back to the chrome caravan while Harold spoke to Newsnight and thrill, thrill, I met Tim Robbins, he of the cherubic face, the curly hair and the devastating figure. Home, where Harold had a brief rest before setting off to address a demo about Cuba. Madness in my opinion. But admirable madness. I stayed home and listened to Don Giovanni from the Met on Radio 3 and thought about Tim Robbins.
23 April
Paris where I am researching for Love and Louis XIV. Professor Bruno Neveu, a portly fellow in his sixties, of great professorial dignity and charm, took me to see the Institut de France and showed me Mazarin’s tomb. Before that there was an amusing incident when I gave Professor Neveu lunch. ‘Je vous présente mon mari,’ I said, and idiotically never mentioned Harold’s name (he was a last-minute addition to the party as he had bronchitis and couldn’t go out). Harold and I are so famously married, to put it crudely, in England that I would not dream of mentioning his name at home. In fact the good professor had absolutely no idea who ‘mon mari’ was. At the end of lunch he asked Harold politely what his work was. Harold, astonished but equally polite: ‘I’m a playwright.’ Bruno Neveu: ‘And are your works performed?’ Mutters from me of: ‘Just the Comédie Française.’
24 April
Today Bruno had an elegant and perfectly prepared way of revenge. As we were in the great room where the new academicians are presented, he told