Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [131]
At a moment of considerable distress – physical – Harold suddenly said he would ask Tony Astbury of Greville Press to print a pamphlet of all his love poems to me, starting with ‘Paris’ and ending on ‘I’ll Miss You So Much’ … Should it be Six Poems for A or Six Poems to A? Tony tells us that according to the poet Anne Ridler, ‘ “For” is for the living and “To” is to the dead.’ So it’s ‘For’. I like this distinction and find it cheering.
On another occasion, listening in Dorset to an exquisite late-night Prom of Bach Cantatas, we discussed whether Bach’s belief in God validated Him. Evidently not, if God does not exist, which is Harold’s position some of the time. My point however is that Bach’s belief in God does mean that Harold (who worships Bach as God) can’t dismiss all people who believe in God as hopeless nincompoops. At one point I declare: ‘I wouldn’t care if Bach voted for Mussolini, this is the most perfect music I have ever heard.’ It’s the old Wagnerthe-anti-Semite argument: does Wagner’s anti-Semitism stop him being personally great? Yes. Does it stop his music being great? No. In all these discussions Harold is careful to say that he respects my personal position. I reply by saying that I admire Jesus Christ for the social message of the New Testament and that, more than the precepts of the Church, is what guides my life, even though I seldom, if ever, manage to live up to it.
30 September
Mitsuko Uchida was like a dragonfly skimming over a lake in her gauzy attire as she played Mozart’s Piano Concert No. 27 at the Barbican. We had wonderful seats from where we could see her miraculous hands. It may be the last concert Harold ever goes to (the physical strain of reaching the auditorium was so great) but what a concert!
Friendship with Mitsuko Uchida and her partner the diplomat Robert Cooper with whom we played bridge and drank wonderful wines provided by them, I note from my Diaries, were among the solaces of these years.
11 October
The day after Harold’s birthday. The vengeful Gods were listening when I recorded yesterday, his seventy-seventh birthday, that Harold was really in good nick, given the weakness of his legs caused by the (essential) injections of steroids. I gave him the Letters of Graham Greene, one of his heroes. And there was a special showing of Sleuth in Soho, a film of which Harold is very proud. The next day Harold didn’t feel too well, which I put down to birthday-roistering. I was wrong. In a restaurant with Kevin and Rachel, Harold collapsed in front of our eyes and disappeared to the floor. I felt his forehead: it was ice cold and clammy where it had been burning in the morning. Terrifying hours passed in Casualty at St Mary’s, followed by intensive care for eight days. One 4 a.m. call from a doctor suggested that Harold might not recover (I was of course alone in the house) and if he did, he might not be in too good shape … The answer was prolonged internal bleeding leading to a terrifyingly low blood count. It had to be stopped. Harold did in a sense recover and so, I suppose, did I, although never totally. The Great Fear now walked with me everywhere and I guess it accompanied Harold too.
There were very few light moments during the rest of the autumn, very few beautiful ones, although the arrival of Six Poems for A was one of them. There was the pleasure of sending it out, not as a memorial, as had seemed likely since the pamphlets arrived on 11 October, the day Harold fell ‘dead’. At least Harold retained a grim sense of humour having yet another brain scan. Harold to scanner: ‘Do you know what’s inside this brain?’ Busy scanner: ‘No.’ Harold: ‘Masses of unwritten plays.’ I like it: a nice concept.
At times Harold issued poignant apologies along the lines: ‘I know I’m not the gallant you married–’ To which I would reply perfectly correctly: ‘And I’m not the romantic beauty you married.’ Both statements were true. All the same,