Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [17]
23 November
I went for a walk in the bright park. On my return I heard a whistle in Victoria Grove. It was Harold in a black leather jacket. He kissed me passionately in Hollywood style. At that moment a passer-by stopped and engaged me in trivialities on some neighbourhood issue, regardless. She paid no attention to Harold. We agreed that our mood was restored from the torturing troubles of previous days. Told me he had been going to rip open dramatically the invitations to our Xmas party and show me the wording: Harold and Antonia invite you … ‘That’s our declaration to the world,’ he said.
Throughout all this time Vivien’s divorce action was pending; we warned the teachers at the various schools. At the last minute she withdrew it, being too ill to appear in court. The press ran a story saying that Hugh and I were reconciled which would have been grimly funny – it was so very far from being true – if it hadn’t been so painful for all concerned.
5 December
Dada’s seventieth birthday party. Since Harold was specifically not invited, and we had been officially living together for nearly five months, I decided to send a present – a thriller which Dada likes – but not attend. Harold persuaded me that I would regret not attending. Actually he was wrong. I deeply regretted going because there was the most boring family row (nothing to do with me) at dinner with a glass of champagne being thrown by A over B. Longed to be back in Launceston Place with Harold. I did choose to wear a red dress for fun. Laurence Kelly got the point: ‘Here comes the scarlet woman,’ he said, boomingly.
9 December
Harold and I went to Nottingham to see Gemma Jones in A Streetcar Named Desire: Harold had booked the Byron suite at the Albany Hotel. Told Harold Byron’s story, my version, including Augusta. Harold thought I would have liked Byron: and so I would, but not for the reason he thought: rather for his essential wildness. Inspired to go to Newstead Abbey. When we reached Byron’s own room, the caretaker coughed and proceeded to quote from Don Juan: ‘the lucid lake’. By the time we walked out, the lake was grey and misty with birds rising off it as we passed.
12 December
Dinner at which the Evening Standard Drama Awards were decided. Went, amply prepared with notes, feeling rather nervous because of ‘personal connections’. But a most satisfactory evening. Although The Fool nearly won, Otherwise Engaged actually won in the end. No Man’s Land also mentioned with respect by Bernard Levin, while Milton Shulman felt no hesitation in attacking it.
Back home, rang Simon Gray (who sweetly kept on about No Man’s Land losing) and Michael Codron the producer of Otherwise Engaged.
17 December
Harold heard that his brilliant son had got a scholarship to Oxford. A really good piece of news. Before Harold and I met, when he was about sixteen, Daniel had chosen to change his surname from Pinter. Harold couldn’t understand but I could: Pinter is such a distinctive name that he must have got tired of being asked, ‘Any relation?’
19 December
Meeting with Bob Silvers, Editor of the New York Review of Books, and Grace Dudley; Harold likes them both very much. Grace is the most elegant woman I know: always has been. Bob looked marvellously handsome, now that Grace has dressed him so well and his black head is slightly greying. Eheu fugaces, the slouchy young man in a mac I first met with Emma Tennant.
21 December
Our Xmas party. Harold could remember nothing the next day except for a warm glow of feeling that everyone had enjoyed themselves – which was true; I think. I wore my Yuki silk jersey dress; Harold after a good deal of talk – ‘I’m at home: I shall wear my black jersey’ – did wear a black suit and the red shirt I gave him in Paris. The first silences of the first guests were broken by Sir John Gielgud, who