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Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia: love match of the decade
Marigold Johnson27 May 2009
As the National Theatre prepares to celebrate Pinter, his wife's friend Marigold Johnson gives an insider's view of the relationship that scandalised London in the Seventies...
Antonia was my link with Harold. For almost 60 years, since our first day at Oxford, she and I have shared both good and bad moments.
It was a good moment in 1956 when she told me she was going to marry Hugh Fraser, but also a good moment nearly 20 years later when she described her meeting, the previous night, with Harold Pinter.
"I may have to do what he wants and take off with him, Marigold. What an upheaval that would be!" On this occasion I was not asked to provide cover and could truthfully tell the paparazzi, who came knocking at our holiday house at Wivenhoe in search of the couple that I had no idea where she was.
It was a bad moment when, during a lunch in 1975, at the invitation of Antonia's father Lord Longford, for whom I had worked (as an assistant on the Porn Report and editorial consultant at Sidgwick & Jackson), he became very agitated and said: "If I meet that man in the street, I fear I might try and knock him down. Surely, Marigold, you can persuade Antonia to leave him as quickly as she ran off with him."
My husband Paul and I contrived to remain good friends of both Hugh and the famous literary couple. Their hectic relationship began so fast that it was a tentative exploration of each other for some time after the elopement.
Despite never being able to agree politically, Lord Longford grew very fond of his new son-in-law once he found out Harold's passion for cricket, and was, as always, happy to make a little speech for the couple's anniversary.
The first time I saw them together was one Sunday in summer 1975 when Harold was playing cricket at Uxbridge. Could Antonia bring him to lunch with us at Iver?
I scoured the fridge, found some cream cheese and recalled my mother's "Hungarian" recipe: stir in some paprika and caraway seeds. Harold was charming in his whites and blazer, even to some of my children who were awed into silence.
"This is the most delicious cheese I ever remember," he said, calling down the table. "Antonia, get the recipe!" Even Paul was aware Antonia had never been known to boil an egg, let alone consult a recipe but we kept straight faces until they returned to the cricket.
Food, even in the agonising months of his last illness, was one of Harold's great pleasures; but preferably eaten in whichever was "their" restaurant of the moment.
As in politics or plays, his likes were emphatic but dislikes still more so. He never sampled an Indian restaurant but the last time he came to our house, he ate an entire plateful of cubed rare beef fillet.
For a while, the runaway couple lived in the prettiest street in Kensington.
During some spat with Paul, I remember being urged to come round and after the first outpouring of my angry tears, and doubtless a consoling glass of his always excellent champagne, Harold suggested he read a short account of a day-trip to Brighton, preceding his parents' move there; I have always assumed that The Birthday Party is set in those back streets.
In minutes, his purring voice and our giggles had restored my normal sanguine self, and I bravely refused the offer of a sofa-bed and went home to Paul, to whom I have now, despite turbulence, remained lovingly married for 52 years.
Harold's mixture of abrasiveness and good manners, of wolfish irascibility and gentle contrition, would have done credit to a penitent Catholic.
A year or two ago, I bumped into him at a party after he had been quoted as saying he had finished writing plays and was intending to concentrate on poetry and speeches.
Unwisely, I asked who he would be writing speeches for, and got the fierce reply: "For myself, of course!" Next day, I mentioned this to Philip French, who suggested I recommend to Harold a wonderful little book, possibly entitled Hyde Park Corner.
This, again unwisely, I mentioned to Antonia, only to receive from Harold a bulky envelope, hand-delivered, with a covering note: "Dear Marigold, I understand you wish to give me advice about writing speeches. I enclose a few written without your help. Yours, Harold."
This was dismaying, as were several of the speeches, urging the impeachment of Tony Blair for invading Iraq, condoning torture, befriending Bush and other major crimes.
Not for the first or last time, the Johnsons and the Pinters did not agree. I at once got from Philip French the title and author of the book in question and wrote a somewhat grovelling reply to Harold. By return came the following letter: "My Dear Marigold, I must apologise for a complete misunderstanding. The book you meant me to read is by one of my oldest friends, with whom I once worked on a play. I know it well, and admire it greatly. Thank you for your intended kindness and with lots of love, Harold."
Antonia tells me, characteristically, that many of his letters were apologies.
If you knew Harold only from his writing, you would, of course, spot the wit and the savagery underlying it. You might find his poetry rather lacking in subtlety unless you happened on loving lines recently written "To Antonia".
His acting talent, in my view, almost surpassed his playwriting but he may have enjoyed directing even more. He certainly enjoyed directing conversation at dinner.
He often began very quietly, watching, then would suddenly erupt, silencing the room until soothed by Antonia or one of her daughters.
It was at one of their weddings that I first danced with Harold. If you had been swept around in true palais de danse style by him, you never forgot the pleasure.
Again, the contrast is what fascinated me - maybe the actor in Harold loved to switch behaviour to extremes, maybe the agony of losing touch with his son had to be rapidly relieved by a forced change of mood.
Even as one of her closest friends, I can never question Antonia about the no-go areas of his feelings, any more than I could trample on her brave sense of privacy. What we are allowed or forbidden to know, of them both, is enough to keep a great relationship alive.
Taken from the current issue of Areté magazine, which celebrates the life and work of Harold Pinter. Available at selected book shops or by subscription.
Contact Areté Ltd, 8 New College Lane, Oxford, OX1 3BN. (01865 289 193, aretebooks@gmail.com)
The National Theatre is presenting a celebration of Pinter's work on 7 June. Tickets: 020 7452 3000.
Reader views (1)
You have no control who you fall in love with, they were the lucky ones, this page is covered in my tears as I sit and play trying to find my way back home. Jane York sister of steve York Haroldis cousin.
- Jane York, sydney Australia, 28/05/2009 10:24
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