An enduring love relationship that started with a question

“He looked at me with those amazing, extremely bright eyes. ‘Must you go?’ he said. ‘No, it’s not absolutely essential’ I said.” This in spite of her heavy household duties as wife of a politician and mother of six children. He gave her a lift home having stayed on till 2.30 am at the party long over. She invited him in and they shared Champagne till 6 in the morning. “… but of course the real recklessness was mine.”

That is somewhat the beginning of Antonia Fraser’s diary style biography Must you go? My Life with Harold Pinter, Doubleday, 2010, 328 p. The Times comment as given on the back cover reads: “Neither autobiography nor biography but a love story, romantic, poignant and very funny, illuminating her husband’s character and creativity.” The Observer: “Unremittingly delicious: strange, rarefied and frequently hilarious.” I found the book absorbingly interesting,

gently tugging heart strings, often joyful, at the end unbearably sad; giving insights to the theatre and people of the time (1975 – 2008). It’s all about Harold Pinter and their life together with bits coming in about Antonia Fraser – her writing and family, as they cohabited for five years totally disregarding family and societal censure and gossip, until Pinter’s wife finally consented to a divorce and they married. They were together for thirty three and a half years; the attraction and love for each other unchanged, the literary successes for both mounting with Pinter crowning it all with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005.

Biographer – She

The author’s full name and title are: Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, CH, DBE, FRSL. She is listed as a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She was born in 1932 to Frank Pakenham, Seventh Earl of Longford and Elizabeth Longford, who also was a well-known biographer whose autobiography The Pebbled Shore, I read recently. In 1956 Antonia married Major the Right Hon. Sir Hugh Fraser MBE, MP and Under Secretary for the Colonies in 1960-62. She writes she was “happy in her marriage” in spite of her husband lacking “emotional intimacy and preferring detachment.”

She was a devoted mother to their six children; she too having been in a large family. She was already an acknowledged author at age 40 when she met Harold Pinter – rising theatre actor, playwright, director and film screen writer. She admits she was impressed when twice she saw him previous to their meeting at the party given by her sister to mark the first night of Pinter’s The Birthday Party. She had been promised a lift home so when it was time to leave with her friends, she said she would say her goodbyes to the chief guest. Then ensued the question he asked and her acquiescing answer pushing aside all the chores needed to be done as preparation for her children’s school day and husband’s day in Parliament.

One strong impression I got was that Antonia is a generous and good-at-heart person. Never does she fault a person or write maliciously. Not a word of complaint or blame on Vivien Merchant who maligned her and was cruel in not giving Harold a divorce while their marriage had long been on the rocks, mostly due to her tantrums and excessive drinking, I surmise. No airs at all in Antonia, though of distinguished lineage.

Biographee – He

Harold Pinter was born in 1930 to a Jewish tailor of London’s East End in a working class area. He attended a local school, then studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1948, but left before the course was over to join a repertory company as a professional actor. After 1956 he began his writing career, his first attempts being the one act stage plays The Room and The Dumb Waiter. He was influenced by Samuel Becket and his Theatre of the Absurd method. Pinter’s first full length play was The Birthday Party in which he introduced his particular styles of understatement, small talk, reticence, even silences; theatrical devises used to indicate the substance of a character’s thoughts. He was soon considered one of the most outstanding playwrights internationally and much in demand as a theater director/producer and screenwriter.

He married actress Vivien Merchant in 1956, a year older than him and had one son who soon was estranged from Harold and though later Antonia and her elder children attempted drawing him into the family, did not respond. He changed his name not wanting to bask in Pinter publicity and did not attend his father’s funeral. About his wife Pinter told Antonia, which she recorded in her diary and later book: “…That he had never been in love before, but once loved Vivien very much, her essential vulnerability inspiring him with a wish to protect her, before other matters drove them apart.” She seemed to be a very difficult woman, almost paranoid though Antonia does not once write ill of her nor blame her. She was very nasty to Antonia, refused to divorce Harold and took to drinking heavily. She died of alcoholism in 1982, aged 58.

Book

In the Preface, Antonia makes clear that her book is based on her diaries she kept since October 1968 “when I suffered from withdrawal symptoms after finishing my first historical biography Mary Queen of Scots.” She also used recollections and conversations remembered, and quoted Harold. She ends her one paged Preface with: “Harold and I lived together from August 1975 until his death thirty three and a half years later on Christmas Eve 2008. ‘O! call back yesterday; bid time return’ cries one of his courtiers to Richard II. This is my way of doing so.”

The fact that the narrative is staccato-like being quoted or referred to diary entries, long and short interspersed with a couple of long passages, does not mar the enjoyment of reading it. For me, the love story which it really is, moved smoothly. I was amused, touched with tinges of sorrow, more so at the end and also enjoyed all their travels. People from the theatre and film worlds of Britain and Hollywood; politicians including Prime Ministers; those of the aristocracy and socially elite; even Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles are referred to; some at length, some passingly. Thus the greater draw of the book to me.

The style of writing is informal, almost a friendly conversation at times, and Pinter particularly emerges as a real person whom the reader almost sees, so well captured are his dynamism and cleverness.

He and she together

Their relationship can be summed up as a very deep and devoted, passionate love affair that did not dim nor admit conflict or fade away. It would have changed from passion to caring but it was strong through the entire 33 years they were together. They would have faced plenty nasty music when they decided to live together. Her mother and others warned Antonia that Harold was not the marrying kind. Pinter had had his affairs and one strong, but Antonia brushed that aside with admitting she too had had her dalliances. He integrated well with her large family.

Another talked about inappropriateness was the social disparity – one of working class origin and the other near aristocracy. However they hit if off well and she met often his parents whom he settled well in life.

Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in 2001 and underwent surgery and immense suffering. He was cleared of the cancer but developed other complications and was in and out of hospital, but valiantly was on stage: acting, reading or receiving honours and felicitations; Antonia and her children always at his side. He died seven years later.

Pinter catered fully to the romantic in her – constantly gifting her expensive jewellery and flowers. He wrote several poems to her, his first a burst of love and his last:

I shall miss you so much when I’m dead
The loveliest of smiles
The softness of your body in our bed
My everlasting bride….

Antonia’s October 11, 2008, diary entry goes thus: “At times Harold issued poignant apologies along the lines: ‘I know I’m not the gallant you married’ to which I would reply perfectly correctly: ‘And I’m not the romantic beauty you married.’ Both statements were true.”

She then quotes: “The truest lines on love that Shakespeare ever wrote, and I have always thought absolutely appropriate to us in these last years.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds.”

The final paragraph in Antonia Fraser Pinter’s biography/memoir reads thus:

“I leant forward and found no breath. He looked white and dead. I sat for a while. Then I kissed him. His dear body was already quite cold. Must you go? Yes, it was time. Before I left the room, after another last kiss, I said ‘Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing you to your rest.’”