Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [22]
I swam in the sea. At noon all the Easter bells in Dubrovnik rang out. I had made such a fuss about Mass that I had to go. The sermon was twenty-five minutes in Serbo-Croat and reminded me why I don’t (always) go to Mass: I just hate being preached at, even in Serbo-Croat when I don’t understand.
19–23 April
At Eilean Aigas. I managed to swim in Yugoslavia and Scotland on the same day.
24 April
Harold’s Beckett reading. His voice started to go. Michael Foot was a VIP guest and I asked him what he, as a politician, did for the voice. ‘I ask for the actor’s remedy,’ he said. So Harold the actor took the MP’s advice and gargled with port.
26 April
Harold flew to New York for four days to cast two plays he would direct in the autumn. Took Natasha back to St Mary’s Ascot. Sister Bridget tackled me about the situation, so I told her: ‘No question of marriage for the time being.’ Sister Bridget: ‘Well, that’s honest. You were always honest.’
4 May
The filming of The Collection for TV in Manchester. Laurence Olivier, Alan Bates, Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren. ‘Not a bad cast,’ says Harold modestly. Indeed, not. The most striking thing about these great stars and their recording is the abominable way they are treated by the system or the technicians or both. These long, long takes and then the boom in the way, a flare, a tea break. All are extremely patient, including Olivier who is quite frail and having difficulty manipulating a bottle top of whisky which is never replaced properly; he remains admirably courteous with an occasional dramatic wince. He is even more courteous at the dinner after the recording given by the producer Derek Granger. Although Derek actually pays, Olivier behaves as the genial host, ordering lots and lots of expensive drink.
Olivier to Harold: ‘Is it true that if I hadn’t been ill, I would have played Hirst in No Man’s Land?’ Harold smiles enigmatically. Actually, it is not true. Oddly enough, Gielgud also believed another version of it, as he said to us once: ‘I only got the part of Spooner because Larry was dead, I mean ill.’ The personal spell cast by Olivier over his contemporaries! Helen Mirren wears a white voile skirt, tatty high-heeled shoes, a white cricket shirt, a black leather jacket and looks fabulous. She is a card. The contrast between her image as the svelte Stella of TV, stroking her white cat in an elegant royal blue evening dress, could hardly be greater.
6 May
Harold had a drink with Beckett at lunchtime, before we went to the first night of Endgame. They discussed Harold’s situation; Harold told me it was the closest he had ever felt to Sam, whom he reveres. Later: to Jocelyn Herbert’s for a supper party for Beckett. I was knocked sideways by Beckett’s physical appearance, the elegant severity of his tall, spare figure; thick grey-white hair and aquamarine eyes. Later I dreamed about him leading us through streets of blossom – not quite what you expect after Endgame! That night, Beckett played the piano; Haydn, I think. Something so lively and vigorous there, that you could not detect in his personality the anguish of his play.
Somehow during that long, hot summer, I got back to working on King Charles II and even re-entered the British Library.
24 May
Harold continues to face a barrage of attacks from Vivien.
30 May
Dinner with Tom and Miriam Stoppard. The latter tackles Harold about the swearing in No Man’s Land: ‘This must be something in you, Harold, waiting to get out.’ Harold: ‘But I don’t plan my characters’ lives.’ Then to Tom: ‘Don’t you find they take over sometimes?’ Tom: ‘No.’
My first proper expedition to watch cricket. As usual, triumph and tragedy, or just drama, attends Harold in all he does. I took along Alison Lurie and her friend Edward for company. Alison showed a few American tendencies like ringing up on a clear if grey day to know if we were venturing to go in view of the weather … Picnic at Roehampton. Harold posed with his bat as W.G. Grace for Alison’s camera but laid it down hastily when his team came out from the