Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [77]
I remember Harold’s grief when he heard of Beckett’s death at Christmas 1989; Harold had visited him in his Paris nursing home earlier in the year and they had spoken on the telephone only a short while before (Harold was excited that Beckett told him the Kafka screenplay was beside his bed). At the time I drew attention to Beckett’s lack of despair – ‘I’ll go on on’ – to Harold.
20 May
I tell Harold in a conversation on our balcony after Mass, aided by a convivial glass of champagne, that I went and wrote to Father Michael Campbell Johnston, wanting at least to know if a Catholic marriage is possible. Me: ‘The idea was originally that we should wait for your parents to die because it might upset them, but now I do believe they would accept anything we choose to do, and secondly, I am glad to say they are not going to die. They’re both extremely well.’ Harold: ‘It’s not as if I have to be a Catholic.’ Hardly!
1 June
Went to Catholic Institute for International Relations Third World Mass, concelebrated by Cardinal Hume with numerous Third World priests. Red vestments. The Cardinal waved his crozier about most skilfully; it occurred to me that it was a tradition going back to Cardinal Wolsey and beyond. Harold commented afterwards that he was impressed by the multiracial nature of those on the altar (although after Mass I often report that impressive fact back to him about the congregation at the Carmelite Church). ‘And how everyone knew exactly what to do.’ Told him, with hyperbole I dare say, that I would know where I was in the Mass if plonked down blindfold anywhere in the world. Cardinal Arns, from Brazil, preached; this was a great thrill for Harold who had just been reading about his courageous stand in logging the names of the Disappeared. The Cardinal related the work of the CIIR (on it’s fiftieth anniversary) to that of the Holy Spirit and Pentecost – the ecumenical nature of Whitsun.
At the reception afterwards we were received by Cardinal Hume, who behaved as an Ampleforth gentleman to me, apologizing for not recognizing me (actually we had never met). I asked him about Communion in two kinds which I hadn’t taken as, apart from anything else, I was feeling faint from taking cortisone for my skin allergy: ‘We don’t have it generally, such a big place, so many people, but it would be expected by the CIIR people from overseas.’
Later supper party at home to celebrate PEN’s Writers’ Day. Cold salmon and salad. A visit to the Super-Study after dinner where Harold read James Fenton’s Ballad of the Imam at the Well, that wonderful disquisition on the ascending growth of prejudice. Then Bernice Rubens persuaded him to read it again. Nadine Gordimer was tiny, calm, poised, friendly. Then there was Larry McMurtry, to whom I had taken a great fancy at a previous PEN conference at Maastricht, also to his works, another happy coincidence of the person and the prose.
2 June
Nadine Gordimer spoke marvellously well and clearly; she has such elegance of language, which is what I’ve always adored about her books. Larry managed the difficult task of both being funny (fundamentalist story of the 1850s in Texas) and serious. Both never stopped bringing in Salman Rushdie, which was good. Questions 99 per cent favourable to Salman this year. (Last year many more hostile to him.) Only one foolish woman talking about the ‘need for self-restraint’ we all have in our lives. But people generally seem to have settled into an understanding that for writers this is the serious issue of our time. William Shawcross told me at lunch that he would have withdrawn The Satanic Verses if he were Salman. Me: ‘But you’re not Salman, you’re not a creative writer; you’re a brilliant polemicist.’
8 June
Went to Farm Street to talk to Father Michael Campbell Johnston. Felt rather nervous. Harold: ‘Finally I would do it because I want to make you happy.’ Father Michael greeted us in grey shirt and trousers and sandals, although the weather was very cold. ‘I can’t get used to jackets or