The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “Upset! That word’s so shattering in its banality that I hardly knew how to respond!” It was now obvious that he had lost his grip on the situation. He could no longer pretend he was my lawyer; our new sexual intimacy precluded him from assuming his familiar role of platonic friend and my revelations had turned his role of lover into a nightmare. He was beside himself. He had nowhere to go. His only escape lay into rage.

  “You’ve consistently lied to me.” He could hardly speak. “You’ve tricked me, you’ve deceived me, you’ve—”

  “Every word that I spoke about Bobby was the truth!”

  “Oh yes! Just now! When you knew you had no choice! But last night—when I came to your room—”

  Amidst all my terror I knew that my one hope of saving us both lay in forcing him to face reality.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Robert!” I burst out. “How on earth could I have embarked on the truth last night? Don’t be so absurd! A woman doesn’t say to a man who’s obviously got nothing but copulation on his mind: ‘Oh darling, I’m so sorry but I slept with your father when I was sixteen and I was just the tiniest bit unfaithful to my husband later on!’ God Almighty! Wake up! This is no dream, this is—”

  “Reality. Quite. That’s precisely why I want to know how many men you’ve slept with.”

  “Very well, I’ll tell you,” I said. “I’ll tell you exactly how many men have slept with me just as soon as you’ve told me exactly how many women have slept with you.”

  He stared at me. In the baffled silence that followed I had a glimpse of that curious naivety which lay beyond his intellect at the hidden core of his personality.

  “But I don’t understand,” he said, too astonished to sustain his anger. “What have my mistresses got to do with you?”

  “Absolutely nothing, Robert. And my lovers and my husband have absolutely nothing to do with you either.”

  He was floored. And he hated it. He could never bear anyone to get the better of him, and as his injured pride streamed to his rescue I saw him once more go white with rage.

  But I stood my ground. I was convinced now I had nothing left to lose and in my sheer soul-splitting misery I wasn’t afraid of his rage and I no longer cared how much I shocked him as I used the truth in my defense. I heard him shout, “A man has a right to know the past of a woman he’s promised to marry—” but I cut him off.

  “Shut up!” I screamed. “Don’t talk as if my past is a closed book to you when you’ve just put me through hell by forcing me to recall every damned minute of it! My lovers meant no more to me than your mistresses meant to you, so what the hell do they matter now? The past is over, it’s finished, it’s done!”

  “But I was a bachelor—you were married! You had duties, obligations—”

  “We’re not talking about marriage; we’re talking about copulation!”

  “No, we’re not, we’re talking about marriage—your marriage—and what I want to know is—”

  “All right, just you listen to me! You’re a criminal lawyer, you say, you’ve heard it all before, you say, very well, just you listen to this and see if you can make head or tail of it, because I don’t think you’ve heard it all before at all! It’s no good trying to give you an orderly rational explanation of my marriage because there isn’t one. Conor and I were the victims of what’s popularly known as a grand passion except that grand passions aren’t as they’re described in story books, in real life they’re quite different, you hurtle around between heaven and hell until you want to commit murder—or at the very least a dramatic suicide—my God, no wonder all the famous lovers in history killed themselves, I’m not surprised, that sort of passion’s enough to drive anyone round the bend!”

  “You mean—”

  “I mean Conor and I fought and screamed and yelled and laughed and loved and were passionately happy and utterly miserable and he wasn’t faithful to me and I wasn’t faithful to him and he was a bastard and I was a bitch and we each got the partner we deserved and we were wild about each other and it was all awful and wonderful and chaotic and appalling—and thank God it’s over because I couldn’t have stood it much longer, and if you understand all that mess and muddle better than I do, then you really are brilliant and not just a man with a first-class brain which you’ve trained to go through legal hoops!”

  “But—”

  “The trouble with you, Robert, is that you know nothing about life. Oh, you know it all in theory—my dear, those criminal cases! Do tell me about the bestiality sometime!—but you’re always on the sidelines looking at other people, you’ve no idea what it’s like to be so damned involved that you can’t see the sidelines for dust. So don’t you pass judgment on me—you’re not in court now and anyway you’re not a judge. If you want to go back on your offer to marry me, then go back on it—God knows you’re entitled to revoke it utterly after all you’ve heard this morning and I certainly shan’t blame you if you do. But don’t start losing your temper with me just because I’m not the fairy-tale princess of your dreams—lose your temper instead with yourself for being romantic and foolish enough to propose marriage after a few hours’ reacquaintance and a passing victory between the sheets!”

  I stopped speaking. He was ashen. Nothing happened, but I knew I now had the upper hand and must ram my advantage home. A magnificent exit was called for so I swept out of the room across the landing, I swept halfway down the stairs—I was traveling on a tidal wave of emotion, but tidal waves don’t last forever and on the half-landing I found myself beached in the most intolerable shallows. I stopped. I knew I had to flounder out of the shallows but I knew too that I couldn’t go on.

  Drying my eyes I crept back and listened at the door.

  There was no sound.

  I went on listening and suddenly I could endure his silent grief no longer. What was unendurable was not that I’d made my lover miserable; all’s fair in love and war, and love can be as brutal in its own way as war can be. What was unendurable was that I’d made my friend unhappy. No one could have wished for a more loyal and devoted friend than Robert. I remembered how pleased he had always been to see me when he returned from school, I remembered his precocious letters sprinkled maddeningly first with Latin and then with Greek, I remembered him spending his pocket money on gifts for me when I was ill, I remembered the midnight feasts and the secret picnics and the illicit raids on the strawberry beds … And then I saw the road to Oxmoon, the lost Oxmoon of our childhood—and I knew that only Robert could lead me back there to the peace I so longed to find.

  I thought: Well, I may have been a disastrous mistress and of course I’ll never now be his wife, but at least I can still be a good friend and comfort him when he’s so unhappy.

  I tapped softly on the door and peeped in. He was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.

  “Darling Robert,” I said as he kept his eyes shaded. “How unkind I was to you, I’m so sorry. Isn’t this crisis a nightmare? I do so wish we could go off and plunder the strawberry beds and forget all about it.”

  He gave a short awkward laugh and let his hands fall. Of course his eyes were tearless. “If you can apologize to me,” he said in his best rational voice, “then I can apologize to you. You weren’t the only one who was unkind.” Then, movingly, he covered his eyes with his hands again and whispered in despair, “I feel so confused.”

  “Oh darling …” I put my arms around him and when he made no attempt to push me away I saw he had reached the end of his resources and had no idea what to do next. I saw too more clearly than ever that salvation was turning out to be a double-sided ordeal. He had saved me by playing the role of the detached attorney and eliminating all falsehood between us, and now I had to save him not only by insisting that he faced reality but by unraveling the complex emotional aftermath which he was far too proud to admit he couldn’t master.

  “Listen,” I said gently, taking his hand in mine, “I know the situation couldn’t be more confusing, but think of all the thing
s that haven’t changed. I’m still your friend and whether we marry or not I’ll still need someone loyal who’ll stand by me in the future.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “No, never mind marriage for the moment. Marriage is complicated. Let’s keep this situation very, very simple. We’ll be friends. We’re very good at being friends; I think we’ve got a unique gift for it—perhaps it’s because we’re like brother and sister without all the bore of being confined in a close blood relationship.”

  “True, but—”

  “No, don’t worry about bed. That’s not important at the moment either. If later on you find you do want to sleep with me now and then, well, that would be heaven because I thought we got on rather well in that direction, but meanwhile you probably feel that having me as a mistress would be too complicated for you, and don’t worry, I quite understand, we’ll just wait till the way ahead seems clearer.”

  “What makes you think the way ahead will get clearer?”

  “Well, it usually does, you know. One crashes around in a fog but eventually one does see a gleam of light in the distance—”

  “I never crash around in a fog.”

  “That’s the point, darling—that’s why you must trust me about this business: because I’m so much more used to crashing around in fogs than you are.”

  We smiled at each other. His hand tightened on mine. After a long silence he said unsteadily, “I love you,” and started kissing me. When he paused for breath he added more to himself than to me, “I’ve got to have you, I swore I’d have you, I’ve got to win.”

  “Well, that’s certainly what I want, darling, and don’t think for one moment it isn’t, but—”

  “Marry me.”

  “Of course I’ll marry you, but don’t you think it would be better if … Oh heavens, how difficult it is to know how to say this! Listen, Robert, I don’t want you turning on me later and accusing me of taking advantage of you while you were too confused to make the right decision. You’ve had some dreadful shocks this morning—and I don’t think you should marry me until you’ve recovered from them.”

  “Very well, I’ll wait six months. But not a day longer. We’ll marry at Christmas.”

  “Well, that would be wonderful, darling—wonderful … but only if you’re absolutely certain—”

  “I know what I want and by God I’m going to get it.” He got up, locked the door and began to unbutton his trousers.

  “Heavens, do we have time?” I couldn’t help saying nervously. “They’ll all be coming home from church soon!”

  “I don’t give a damn.”

  “Well, now you come to mention it,” I said, realizing that he needed a display of enthusiasm to shore up his confidence, “neither do I.”

  The next few minutes weren’t pleasant, but I wasn’t so naive as to expect rapture from a man who has been seriously hurt emotionally and who is far more angry than he can admit either to himself or to anyone else. As I forced myself to go limp I thought, Everything passes, even this, and sure enough it passed and afterwards his violent feelings were sufficiently purged to enable him to whisper a plea for forgiveness as he buried his face guiltily in my hair.

  I automatically reassured him, but as I spoke my thoughts were elsewhere. I had just realized that emotionally he was color-blind. I saw human relationships as a great glorious splodgy painting where every color in the spectrum was represented in unending ever-changing patterns. Robert saw human relationships as a black-and-white geometrical design which, being fixed, was always orderly and subject to rational interpretation. This meant that whenever he encountered a piece that was neither black nor white he was lost. He had no way of placing it in his design; he had no way of creating a new pattern that made sense.

  “You do love me, don’t you, Ginette?”

  “Darling, you know I do. Very, very much.”

  “Then nothing else matters,” said Robert, resolutely sweeping aside all the messy garish colors from his design and masterfully calling his black-and-white world to order. “I’ll go and see Mama just as soon as she arrives home from church.”

  Very well, that was reality as I remember it. But now for the gloss on reality; now let me write about what was—and is—really going on; now let me try and pin down the chaotic thoughts in my head.

  What do I truthfully think of Robert? Oh yes, we all know he’s six feet two and divinely glamorous, but what do I really think? How attractive do I actually find him? Robert said gloomily to me once that he would never be classically handsome and he was right, but nevertheless he is good-looking and far better-looking now than when he was a fierce lanky spotted adolescent. I like that tough mouth of his. How does it ever manage to relax into such a charming smile? A mystery. Yes I’m wild about that, and as for his eyes … Who would have thought that eyes the color of dishwater could be so alluring? Remarkable. Oh yes, he’s very attractive but not in an obvious way and I like that; I’m getting to an age when I can appreciate the more subtle forms of masculine appeal. Robert may not radiate sexual charm as Conor did, but do I really want a man who’s carnal knowledge personified? No. Not now. A brilliant good-looking man like Robert will suit me very well, thank you, and I shall adore living in London and basking in all the reflected glory of his inevitably dazzling political career. (Can’t wait to meet the Asquiths!)

  However … beyond all the divine glamour … oh, let’s be honest, I’ve no doubt he can be very tricky. There are bound to be times when I shall find him willful, selfish and thoroughly pigheaded, but so what? I shall only be faced with that extraordinary emotional simplicity—I’ll just need a bit of guile when he’s difficult, but that’s not a problem because I’m an old hand at the art of being beguiling. There’s something curiously endearing about that simplicity. It attracts me. Heavens, what a contrast to Conor he is! Conor’s emotions were as volatile as my own, and my God, that’s saying something. How restful it’ll be to live with someone so simple and straightforward! I feel quite entranced by the prospect.

  Am I madly in love with Robert? No. But that must be good. I’ve had enough of being madly in love, and besides, my feelings for Robert are far more stable than that. There’s our shared past, that old, old friendship which nothing can destroy, and that must surely be a good basis for marriage, far better than that lethal sexual affinity I shared with Conor.

  Yes, that’s the truth. That’s reality. Oh yes, I must marry him, I must! It’s the wisest decision I could possibly make. …

  “All’s well,” said Robert half an hour later when he returned to the bedroom. He embraced me with a smile. “She’s resigned herself to the inevitable and says she’s prepared to give us her blessing.”

  Clever, clever Margaret. I tried to imagine the depth of her horror and rage but my imagination failed me. I felt weak. In my overpowering relief that Robert still wanted to marry me my mind had neatly glided around the problem of how we were going to face his parents. Whenever I have a severe problem in my private life (which is most of the time) I always say, “I’ll cross that bridge later,” and put the problem out of my mind. So when Robert and I had been conducting our long crucial harrowing conversation earlier I hadn’t once thought, even at the end: My God, what are we going to do about Bobby and Margaret? I had remained acutely aware of the problem, just as one would be continually aware of a vast wardrobe in an underfurnished room, but I had classified it as a bridge to be crossed later. And now “later,” to my absolute terror, had without doubt arrived.

  “I’ll give you a blow-by-blow description presently,” said Robert, who was looking naively pleased with himself. Endearing emotionally simple Robert didn’t quite see the problem as I did, of course. He probably thought he had mastered the entire situation after a ten-minute chat with his mother. “But meanwhile Mama would like to see you on your own for a moment. She’s waiting in her room.”

  “Oh God.” I now felt so weak that I even swayed in his arms but Robert merely laughed, patting me kindly as if
I were a lapdog, and told me to stop being so melodramatic. I would have slapped him but I was too weak with fright. Instead I looked in the glass, smoothed my skirt and made sure that every hair on my head was in place before I sallied forth at a funereal pace to meet my future mother-in-law.

  The bedroom which by tradition belonged to the master and mistress of the house was a high wide sunny chamber which Bobby and Margaret, purging it after its occupancy by Gwyneth Godwin and Owain Bryn-Davies, had filled with their usual junk-shop furniture. At least, the furniture had been purchased new from a respectable Swansea store but it still looked as if it had been acquired in a junk shop because each piece was in such execrable mid-Victorian taste. Possibly Margaret’s nouveau-riche background among the Potteries of Staffordshire had given her a penchant for vulgar grandeur, but Bobby also had a weakness for oversprung comfort, and between the two of them they had accumulated a collection of objects, all of overwhelming ghastliness and all displayed against the background of a garish flock wallpaper. When I eventually became mistress of Oxmoon … but that was far in the future and meanwhile I had this dreadful bridge that had to be crossed. I knocked on the door, Margaret tranquilly bade me enter and somehow I found the strength to creep into her presence.

  Margaret was only fifteen years my senior but she looked older, partly because her clothes were always ten years out of date and partly because her hairstyle (which she never altered) had gone out of fashion at least ten years before she was born; her dull straight brown hair was parted in the center and drawn back into a bun at the nape of her neck. In spite of her lack of interest in fashion she was a feminine woman in appearance. She was very round, very curvy—but in a maternal, not a seductive way. Of course plenty of men like that overweight, motherly, comfortable look; although Margaret wasn’t in the least pretty I could see she did have her attractions. She had the most exquisite skin, flawless and velvet-smooth, and a mild benign expression, which she no doubt believed to be the essence of seemly femininity, but unfortunately this mildness was marred by that straight tough mouth which I found so attractive on Robert. It looked very odd indeed on a woman—and particularly odd on a woman like Margaret who in every other respect looked so cozy and conventional.