Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [7]
25 April
Harold is leaving Vivien for Sam Spiegel’s flat in Grosvenor House ‘So that murder shall not take place.’ It’s difficult to comment on this because up till the other night I had thought their marriage a happy one (albeit not perfect … because perfect marriages if they exist are immune from late-night romantic encounters). So I don’t understand anything at the moment.
28 April
Harold moved into Sam’s flat. Tried to liken it to a ship: large for a ship. Actually quite large for a flat. But the point is really, the grimness of anyone leaving their home where everything is arranged to their satisfaction, to live in a place where it isn’t. Harold very low. The prospect of Paris seems to cheer. But I’m sure the missing of home remains an eternal thing.
5–15 May
In Paris at the Hotel Lancaster. What can I write? (I’m back in London.) However, here goes. We had our suite, Harold’s famous emphasis on suites! A sitting room, três charmant, a large bedroom and another one for me, I insisted on that for telephonic reasons. Harold met me at Charles de Gaulle Airport, I floated up in the new moving passageway as in a dream towards him. Chauffeur-driven car (another great obsession). Thereafter we lived in our suite and went to restaurants and never really did anything at all for ten days. Very restful that, doing nothing. We did take very small walks in the truly wet and freezing weather (I bought two umbrellas when I was in Paris) ending fairly rapidly in bars. Like Hirst in No Man’s Land, Harold drinks a hell of an amount. Mostly we talked, sometimes good talks, sometimes ‘a good talk’ about the future. Occasionally Harold whirled into jealousy about the past.
We met Barbara Bray, the translator and literary critic with whom Harold had worked on the Proust screenplay for so long, Beckett’s girlfriend. Despite avowed Women’s Lib feelings, Barbara maddened Harold by looking and talking all the time to him, never me. I didn’t notice so wasn’t maddened. Finally she said: ‘I should be interested in you as a writer because you’re a woman, but of course it’s Harold I’m interested in.’ ‘So that’s two of us,’ I said. Much more fun was the ravishing Delphine Seyrig who failed to turn up as a cool blonde as I had hoped (see The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), but emerged as a frizzy red-haired biker holding a helmet. She was nevertheless delightful, very warm to me, and her beauty could not be quenched.
On Sunday evening Harold said we were swimming nearer and nearer the sea, in a series of rock pools. The ocean was ahead. Someone I adored was Harold’s translator Eric Kahane: a kindred spirit. (We became lifelong friends.) Once back, Harold went to Sam’s flat at Grosvenor House, me to Campden Hill Square. But Harold found a lawyer’s letter from Withers & Co. informing him that his wife was suing him for divorce, the cause being his own admitted adultery with me. This was the one thing we were sure would never happen, even though Vivien had written to Paris to announce what she would do if he didn’t return. Harold to me: ‘Tell your husband that my intentions are strictly honourable.’
16 & 17 May
Harold in a terrible state about money although he seems to me to earn a fortune, enough anyway not to worry. I think worrying about money is a substitute for worrying about the future. Harold has written me a magic poem called ‘Paris’: it ends ‘She dances in my life.’ I cling to that. What will happen next?
PARIS
The curtain white in folds,
She walks two steps and turns,
The curtain still, the light
Staggers in her eyes.
The lamps are golden.
Afternoon leans, silently.
She dances in my life.
The white day burns.
Chapter Two
PLEASURE AND A GOOD DEAL OF PAIN
22 May
Long, long talk with my mother at her Chesil Court flat about everything. She showed much brilliance, unlike some, in achieving her objective, which was to keep me approximately married to Hugh. ‘You note