At first I thought Stephen was trying to remember some do I’d been to with him, or at which I’d met him, and I did manage to dredge up a dim memory of a reception at Claridge’s, for Richard Burton (or was it Mrs Gandhi?)—and another on the Martini Terrace of New Zealand House where I had a good chat with Monica Dickens when she was one of the Authors of the Year. I think I behaved quite nicely on that occasion. But then as I read on I realized I was on the wrong tack altogether. HO wasn’t Harriet Osborne at all, it was Ho Chi Minh. Silly me. There was a lot more HO later on in the diary. Though what he had to do with Claridge’s or the Carlton or New Zealand House remains obscure. I’m sure he never went to parties at such places, did he? Did he ever come to England at all? I’ve no idea. Perhaps Stephen was planning to employ a little artistic licence and introduce a scene into his play with Pol Pot and Ho and Chairman Mao all dining in Claridge’s with Richard Burton and Mrs Gandhi and Monica Dickens. Why not?

He was at least half planning to write a play. I found one page laid out as a sort of screenplay, with camera directions. It was set in a Paris apartment, rue St André des Arts, 1952. POV Khieu Ponnary, POV Saloth Sar alias Pol Pot, that sort of thing. They were talking about regicide and how to get rid of Sihanouk. This Ponnary person appeared to be Pol Pot’s fiancée. I didn’t know Stephen knew the lingo for TV plays. Point of View, and all that. He never let on about it. I used to try to talk him into doing TV scripts, all those years ago, back in the seventies, when we both needed the ready, but he never would. He wasn’t interested. He said he’d had his bellyful of the cinema, translating subtitles when he was Down and Out in Paris in the sixties.

The rue St André des Arts rings a bell. I wonder if it’s where we went to see Maxence and Claudine. Bill and me. Or was it Harold and me?

Stephen seems to have been reading Macbeth as well as Victory. There were quite a few Macbeth quotes dotted about. Some in red ink. Very pretty. Bleed, bleed, poor country. Blood will have blood, they say. The unmentionable play. Was Ponnary a sort of Lady Macbeth figure, perhaps? Screwing Pol Pot to the sticking post?

They said Aaron Headleand’s new version of Coriolanus is worth seeing. I really ought to make an effort and get to it. He’s one of the up-and-coming. I liked his Squeaking Cleopatra. The boy Cleopatra. Bit Stoppardian, but not bad.

And from the blown rose, many stop their nose

That kneeled unto the bud.