Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [114]
25 April
Harold gave a Larkin reading at the British Library, courtesy of Josephine Hart, a truly beguiling person with a passion for poetry.
23 May
Harold rehearsing Old Masters. Gets very tired, especially in the morning and afterwards but perks up, he says, when he’s actually working. His last direction. And this time he really means it. Actually he meant it last time but the excellence of this play, plus Barbados optimism, changed his mind. Harold: ‘It’s a wonderful play. And I can’t wait for it to be over.’
31 May–5 June
Hyatt Hotel, Birmingham, for The Old Masters. A skyscraper. I felt as if I was in Toronto. Spent my time going to the cinema (Troy) and looking at pictures (Paul Nash), while Harold was working.
27 June
Harold has written a poem ‘To My Wife’. He has circulated it to friends and relations. Two friends, one female, one male, said they had crossed out the word ‘Wife’ and substituted their own partner.
TO MY WIFE
I was dead and now I live
You took my hand
I blindly died
You took my hand
You watched me die
And found my life
You were my life
When I was dead
You are my life
And so I live
It was published in the Guardian a few days later. Originally Harold and I agreed it was ‘too private’ but apparently I rescinded that decision late at night. Delighted I did so.
18 July
Sudden return of The Great Fear. I came back from tea with Soros grandsons, playing a mythological quiz, to find Harold with ‘abdominal pains’. We did go out and play bridge with Betsy Reisz and Haya Clayton, with me begging Harold to promise to call the doctor the next morning if he wasn’t better. He wasn’t and he ended up with an emergency appointment with the great Mr Thompson. Blood tests, etc. Tentative prognostication of scar tissue (there’s so little of Harold’s inside left, remembering the map Mr Thompson drew) bringing about problems. The pains got better slowly over the weekend, but the whole episode reminded me that, so far as I am concerned, The Great Fear is not dead but sleepeth.
7 August
Harold really pleased to be awarded the Wilfred Owen prize, specifically for War, the pamphlet and for his services to the anti-war cause. His pleasure is palpable – wrong use of the word but Harold uses it that way. He is so often accused of writing ‘doggerel’ in his anti-war poems. Personally, I make a distinction between his verse and his poetry. ‘Death’ for example is printed in War to give it gravitas, and that is a poem.
23 September
Harold at the Imperial War Museum in a debate on the war in Iraq. Pro-War: John Keegan. A clever Daily Mail journalist called Melanie Phillips then threatened all us women with burkas under a world-wide Caliphate and then argued the next day in the Spectator for adultery to have the stigma of public disapproval. Well, how about religious Islam as an ally if that is what you want? On with your burka!
On our side Tony Benn was equally irritating by banging on about the Palestinians which, like homophobia, changed the subject. Harold got into full swing and spoke movingly about the actuality of death (re the civilians) although I thought he was wrong to describe the American empire as the most barbarous the world has ever seen: what about the Nazis, Pol Pot, etc.? Questions from the floor. Far the best came from Terry Waite: ‘Is violence really the best way to deal with militant Islam?’
12 October
Harold is extraordinary. He enacted Sleuth with Jude Law, playing the Michael Caine part. Jude arrived from the airport exhausted but, said Harold, his adrenalin visibly returned as the performance got under way ‘and his amazing eyes glittered’. They stalked each other round the Super-Study.
15 October
Harold and I went to the David Inshaw exhibition. There was a huge new cricket picture which we had been told David was keen for Harold to have. I have no idea how much money Harold has, but if he wants to buy a vast cricket picture, why not? He has every right to do so as he is always doing things for other people. All the same, I think he was a