Must You Go?: My Life With Harold Pinter

by Antonia Fraser

  Otherwise we had an extremely good time. Harold’s professional career, which had been in the doldrums here since the death of his friend and translator Eric Kahane, has been given a boost by a big interview in Le Monde in which he praised the French stand over the Iraq war. A pro-French intellectual! Just what they like.

  18 June

  Our party for Benjie’s City Poems (Benjie paid, we gave). I organized it brilliantly and unaided with the mere help of Amanda, a top-class caterer, Linda, my PA, Linda’s stand-in Lesley, Benjie himself, Swiftprint, Teresa and Tina and twenty-five waiters. As you see, unaided. The real feature of the party for me was the praise people heaped on the garden with pink climbing roses and the orange blossom still flourishing, pink and dark red geraniums (Barbe Bleue), grey senecio and notes of blue plumbago. Lilies just beginning to flower. About fifty copies of the poems were sold because Eliza, adorably fey in her white muslin First Communion dress, her flaxen hair, her elfin looks, accosted each guest as they entered: ‘You’ve got to buy a copy!’ Who could refuse? Benjie thanked Harold for ‘making him so happy’.

  20 July

  In Scarborough Harold gave a reading of War and was then in dialogue with the extremely amiable Alan Ayckbourn. Later he said he thought he must vary his act at Cheltenham in the autumn. We discussed returning to readings of his plays that he enjoyed doing so much. Celebration? Harold: ‘I always fancied my Suki …’ (the sluttish young wife). I wouldn’t have raised it if he hadn’t, but did feel that the Turin speech made on 27 November 2002 needed an updating, given the fact that the war had only been pending then.

  August 2003

  Kingston Russell, Dorset. The most exciting social event was the visit of Jude Law, who will star in the new film of Sleuth, produced by Tom Sternberg, directed by Ken Branagh, screenplay by Harold. Tom brought him down, arriving in a huge silver car which satisfied all expectations of glamour. As indeed did Jude himself, lying asleep under an apple tree in his swimming trunks like a young Apollo taking a nap. (Alas, Edna O’Brien, also staying with us, ordained that we ladies should not swim at the same time as Jude, lest we lose our mystery for him.) Harold worked with Tom and Jude on the script on and off all day. He’s really enjoying himself. One forgets that Harold regards screenwriting as an important art, quite a separate one from playwrighting, it is true, but not just a ‘my-house-needs-painting’ exercise, as an extremely famous playwright once put it to us modestly, about his own screen-work.

  24–28 August

  Cornwall. Harold lurked at the Abbey Hotel, Penzance writing Sleuth; Rebecca lurked upstairs in the farmhouse she had rented working on the proofs of her masterwork A People’s History of Britain. Edward and I lurked round the gardens of many country pubs taking the girls out for lunch. All parties very happy.

  October 2003. We went back to Paris for eight days for my research. Harold, owing to his political views being shared by the French, had a very happy time.

  16 October

  Harold read from the plays at Cheltenham, as planned, also three ‘political’ poems and three love poems. While he was enacting Gila in One for the Road, he had to suddenly shout back at the interrogator in a sudden fit of defiance from a helpless prisoner: ‘As it was!’ At which point a huge blond guide dog, sprawled fast asleep in the aisle in front of me leapt up and stood on guard against the attacks of the world. The dog remained extremely distressed until Harold’s ‘Gila’ voice once again softened.

  18 November

  Scene outside Quaker Meeting House apocalyptic and rather touching. Flickering candles. Lots and lots of police everywhere: this is for Bush’s arrival in London. The banner I liked best condemned Bush, Blair and Saddam. Harold made a short, passionate, well-thought-out speech on which he had toiled for nearly a week to get it right. Personally, however, I don’t go for this condemnation of Bush and Blair as ‘Christian gents’ any more than you should condemn al-Qaeda for being ‘Muslim gents’. It’s for your works not your faith that you should be condemned. Best of all was a schoolgirl called Verity who made a short speech and ended: ‘If I say any more, I’ll be repeating what I’ve said already so I’ll sit down.’ And she did. I hope she goes into politics one day.

  19 November

  Ken Livingstone’s Peace Party on the ninth floor of the so-called ‘gherkin’. Ken made an excellent speech stressing the amount of Americans he employed and his affection for the American people as opposed to the government. Plenty of old thespian radicals present including Corin Redgrave, Ken Cranham and Roger Lloyd Pack. Caryl Churchill told me about her short play at the Royal Court with Vanessa Redgrave as Laura Bush, seated graciously at an Iraqi children’s play group. Only all the children were dead. Laura Bush a.k.a. Vanessa: ‘And how did you die?’ Cooing at each one in turn. Vivid, horrifying – and not all that unfair.

  2004

  26 January

  Coral Reef Hotel, Barbados. We spend most of our meals with the Grays. And then to everyone’s delight, Harold proposed himself as director for Simon’s new play about Berenson and Duveen, The Old Masters. It’s also greatly to my surprise as Harold has persistently said he has no more energy left to direct.

  Looking back, I see this as a halcyon time. It was not our last visit to Barbados – that occurred a year later under far less propitious circumstances. But here was Harold offering to direct a new play by his favourite living playwright and favourite friend. It could not get much better. Meantime I was able to go to Mass at St Francis Church, where Father Michael Campbell Johnston who had performed our ceremony of marriage, now retired, was the parish priest. Happy-clappy Mass is never my personal choice in London where Latin and music are two essentials for me. But here it is absolutely correct and harmonious. Leadership of a strongly built black woman with a number of very young women in attendance, extremely beautiful, tiny skirts, high heels, choir of angels. Only upsetting moment when Victoria, a great animal lover, threw a banana down from her balcony to a family of eleven monkeys which filed past the pool at breakfast. A circular was issued: ‘Guests must not order extra bananas for monkeys … Guests who feed monkeys on their balconies and then leave the hotel … create unfortunate expectations … Monkeys do not understand the change of guests and become extremely aggressive towards the next occupants.’ Ghastly picture: bewildered and frightened guests, chattering disappointed monkeys. Question: ‘What do monkeys want?’

  3 February

  The deal is done. Harold is going to direct The Old Masters.

  Conferences, faxes, emails, etc. round the pool. He is so pleased. Given Harold’s level of exhaustion, Simon thinks none of this would have taken place if Harold had read the play in cold, dispiriting London instead of being surrounded by energetic monkeys.

  16 March

  Harold magnificent on Iraq in a one-year-on special on Newsnight. Preempted any possible statement to the contrary by saying how happy he was with the news given by BBC poll that the Iraqis now in principle content with their lot. His opponent, an American named Ken Adelman made the mistake of arming himself with lavish compliments to Harold’s plays in order to lure him into complacency and then blast him. But Harold doesn’t do complacency. ‘My plays are irrelevant,’ he snapped at the third lavish compliment.

  17 April

  According to an article in the Guardian, President Bush was asked at a press conference yesterday how history would judge the Iraq War. He replied: ‘History? We don’t know. We’ll all be dead.’

  25 April

  Harold gave a Larkin reading at the British Library, courtesy of Josephine Hart, a truly beguiling person with a passion for poetry.

  23 May

  Harold rehearsing Old Masters. Gets very tired, especially in the morning and afterwards but perks up, he says, when he’s actually working. His last direction. And this time he really means it. Actually he meant it last time but the excellence of this play, plus Barbados optimism, changed his mind. Harold: ‘It’s a wonderful play. And I can’t wait for it to be over.�
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  31 May–5 June

  Hyatt Hotel, Birmingham, for The Old Masters. A skyscraper. I felt as if I was in Toronto. Spent my time going to the cinema (Troy) and looking at pictures (Paul Nash), while Harold was working.

  27 June

  Harold has written a poem ‘To My Wife’. He has circulated it to friends and relations. Two friends, one female, one male, said they had crossed out the word ‘Wife’ and substituted their own partner.

  TO MY WIFE

  I was dead and now I live

  You took my hand

  I blindly died

  You took my hand

  You watched me die

  And found my life

  You were my life

  When I was dead

  You are my life

  And so I live

  It was published in the Guardian a few days later. Originally Harold and I agreed it was ‘too private’ but apparently I rescinded that decision late at night. Delighted I did so.

  18 July

  Sudden return of The Great Fear. I came back from tea with Soros grandsons, playing a mythological quiz, to find Harold with ‘abdominal pains’. We did go out and play bridge with Betsy Reisz and Haya Clayton, with me begging Harold to promise to call the doctor the next morning if he wasn’t better. He wasn’t and he ended up with an emergency appointment with the great Mr Thompson. Blood tests, etc. Tentative prognostication of scar tissue (there’s so little of Harold’s inside left, remembering the map Mr Thompson drew) bringing about problems. The pains got better slowly over the weekend, but the whole episode reminded me that, so far as I am concerned, The Great Fear is not dead but sleepeth.

  7 August

  Harold really pleased to be awarded the Wilfred Owen prize, specifically for War, the pamphlet and for his services to the anti-war cause. His pleasure is palpable – wrong use of the word but Harold uses it that way. He is so often accused of writing ‘doggerel’ in his anti-war poems. Personally, I make a distinction between his verse and his poetry. ‘Death’ for example is printed in War to give it gravitas, and that is a poem.

  23 September

  Harold at the Imperial War Museum in a debate on the war in Iraq. Pro-War: John Keegan. A clever Daily Mail journalist called Melanie Phillips then threatened all us women with burkas under a world-wide Caliphate and then argued the next day in the Spectator for adultery to have the stigma of public disapproval. Well, how about religious Islam as an ally if that is what you want? On with your burka!

  On our side Tony Benn was equally irritating by banging on about the Palestinians which, like homophobia, changed the subject. Harold got into full swing and spoke movingly about the actuality of death (re the civilians) although I thought he was wrong to describe the American empire as the most barbarous the world has ever seen: what about the Nazis, Pol Pot, etc.? Questions from the floor. Far the best came from Terry Waite: ‘Is violence really the best way to deal with militant Islam?’

  12 October

  Harold is extraordinary. He enacted Sleuth with Jude Law, playing the Michael Caine part. Jude arrived from the airport exhausted but, said Harold, his adrenalin visibly returned as the performance got under way ‘and his amazing eyes glittered’. They stalked each other round the Super-Study.

  15 October

  Harold and I went to the David Inshaw exhibition. There was a huge new cricket picture which we had been told David was keen for Harold to have. I have no idea how much money Harold has, but if he wants to buy a vast cricket picture, why not? He has every right to do so as he is always doing things for other people. All the same, I think he was a bit relieved when the picture didn’t fit the measurements of the Super-Study. Quiet supper. I watched two of the David Starkey Monarchy tapes for review on Front Row. I found Starkey good, firm, lucid, interesting but the format so cliché ridden. A falcon flies, a flag flutters, the sea heaves, knights thwack … Give me talking heads.

  3 November

  Too depressed to write.

  The results of the American election when Bush was re-elected was the reason for my depression.

  15 November

  Depression continued. Didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, on the whole I laughed when a huge parcel of my own books arrived from the US. No message. I assumed they were for signing but sent a message to enquire: ‘To whom should they be dedicated?’ Answer came back: ‘They are not for signing. I have sent them out of disgust at Antonia Fraser’s anti-Bush letter in the Guardian. I no longer want to possess them.’ Had to repress an instinct to respond: ‘Why don’t you give the huge postage money to the Children of Iraq? And bin the books.’ Resisted the temptation. Nevertheless I decided that I don’t mind being attacked in a good cause; I don’t positively enjoy it as Harold does, but after all my piece did contain the words: ‘I am Philamerican since WWII when we children knew the American soldiers had come to save us.’ Before denouncing Bush.

  25 November

  Feast of St Catherine. Decided the date was propitious to start writing Love and Louis XIV. I’m full of anxiety however. Can I bring it off? Wrote three pages of which only the first sentence pleased me. Harold suffering from diminished energies as he admits. He spends a lot of the day just sitting, not even reading. Worrying.

  2 December

  Everything is better. Michael Caine sends a message that he loves the Sleuth script. And I get positive messages from Sofia Coppola. She’s still on track to make Marie Antoinette.

  24 December

  Met Harold at Le Colombier. He’s clear of cancer and the leukaemia hasn’t moved. It’s wondrous.

  Christmas Day

  The youngest guest was Honor Fitzgerald aged nine and a half. As we were without babies, I seized the opportunity to have a proper poetry reading at lunch and No Speeches! Edward, who is a famous orator, did not like the ban. He said mutinously: ‘I can start my poem with a long dedication, you can’t stop me.’ Harold read from his favourite Gilgamesh as the theme was feasting. I read the passage from ‘The Eve of St Agnes’ when Porphyro pops out of the closet and lays out a feast for the sleeping Madeline.

  26 December

  The 9 a.m. news tells of a vast underwater earthquake, the fifth biggest since 1900, killing thousands with tidal waves all round the rim of Asia and the Far East. Apparently it’s called a tsunami. As I sometimes observe to Harold, even man cannot match God in destruction when he sees fit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  WORST OF TIMES, BEST OF TIMES

  The dawn of 2005 found Harold in rather frail health for no particular reason since he had been found free of cancer comparatively recently and the leukaemia was quiescent. The Great Fear was therefore more like a figure at a carnival, masked and in the doorway; you’re not quite sure who it is. Death, no, it can’t be … but it’s definitely something menacing. But it all got much worse. Altogether 2005 was the most extraordinary year of our lives together, leaving aside our meeting and all that followed, thirty years earlier. I might quote Dickens at the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by the time we reached the end of it: ‘The best of times, the worst of times’. Except that I think I would phrase the same words rather differently. Thus: it was the worst of times – and also by the way the best of times.

  10 January

  Barbados. Torrential rain. (This would turn out to be our last visit and it was, alas, dismal.) Harold developed a painful chest and heavy cough: he was tested for lung cancer on return which required hospitalization; mercifully that was one thing he did not have. My knee, following an operation the previous year, was extremely painful so I could not swim in my beloved sea, and hardly exercise in the swimming pool. The Grays came later. By the time they arrived, the rain had poured down on our enjoyment and we were seeking escape. But vainly. Everyone else wanted to escape. It was the epilogue to the tsunami, perhaps.

  11 January

  It is depressing, no doubt about it, when unordained rain comes to an ordained sunshine paradise. Pools everywhere, apart from cascading and dripp
ing water. People who should be on the beach congregate inside and play noisy card games. Me, dourly to Harold: ‘I am reminded of rainy Cornish holidays in my youth and the card games we played indoors, wet sand, our school macs over school shorts, all we had to wear.’ Only a visit to St Francis where I heard Father Michael Campbell Johnston preach an excellent practical sermon, made a difference. ‘The money collected today,’ he said, ‘will go directly to the Jesuits of Sri Lanka with whom we are already in touch: they plan to go where the political spotlight is not.’ I had just found an unexpected hoard of US dollars in an old wallet and gave them freely, guiltily, instead of buying fripperies in the hotel shop. Father Michael also talked of orphans just gazing helplessly out to sea where their parents had vanished.

  I am reading Margaret Macmillan’s excellent book Peacemakers interleaved with Alice Munro’s latest – she’s the best! And Harold is reading Chekhov interleaved with Anthony Sampson on the oil companies of South Africa. Judy Daish (my dramatic agent as well as Harold’s agent and our close friend) tells me from London that Sofia Coppola intends to start shooting Marie Antoinette the movie on 7 March. In my present mood, I feel there’s many a hitch … (four years since she signed the first option). Except that I have just seen a rainbow. And I love rainbows.

  All my gloomy predictions about Sofia – whom I liked and admired so much, and so did Harold whenever they met – were freely recorded in my Diary: they were wrong. She did start to shoot on 7 March, having always carried out everything that she said she would do, surely a record in the exciting, roller-coaster world of film, which normally I only knew about second-hand from Harold.

  9 February

  Sofia’s final script arrived. Harold read it first and pronounced it ‘brilliant, so economical’. I read it on return and thought: where people like me depend on the final gruelling scenes for evoking sympathy, she has the simple image of the sound of a guillotine falling. (Harold didn’t tell me how it ended and let it be a surprise – an extremely effective one.)