The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  But someone mentioned to me the other day that Raymond’s problem was that he was without ambition. Perhaps Raymond too is convoluted and disordered beneath the shining surface of his life. How little we know even of those who are closest to us. How can we hope to know those with whom we’re barely acquainted?

  I’m becoming pessimistic again, so I must stop. But I can’t help it, I’m still very worried indeed …

  All’s well. Thank God. Robert’s decided to give up criminal law, since it undoubtedly feeds his obsession with death, and move to chancery chambers specializing in trusts. However that will take time to achieve, and while this rearrangement is taking place he’ll start pursuing a political career in earnest. He’s dining again this week with Raymond, and with them will be two successful Liberals of their own age, “Bluey” Baker and Edwin Montagu. At least Robert has first-class political connections, and I’m sure it won’t be long before he’s adopted as the prospective Liberal candidate for some promising constituency.

  I couldn’t be more pleased by this evidence that Robert’s recovered his equilibrium. Really, I can’t think why I let myself get so upset! I might have known that brilliant rational Robert would be able to sort out his problems efficiently in the end …

  Robert’s just told me he wants to give everything up—the law, London, any hope of a political career—and live cheaply in the country so that he can afford to return to mountaineering.

  I realize at once that this is some form of delayed nervous breakdown so I don’t have hysterics. I keep very calm and ask him what we’re going to do about money, because even the smallest gentleman’s residence in the country can hardly be run on a shoestring.

  He tells me there’s only one solution. We must live at Oxmoon—not in the main house, he hastens to add (no doubt I looked as if I were about to faint), but on the estate. He can ask his father for a portion in advance of his inheritance, and if Bobby cedes him one of the major farms, then the farmhouse itself can be improved and extended into a residence suitable for a gentleman; Bobby would probably even offer to pay the cost of the alterations because he would be so pleased to have Robert back in Gower. Then we could rent the house in Ebury Street to boost our income, and it would certainly need boosting even though Robert thinks he might be able to earn the odd sum here and there by writing, first about his famous trials and later about his mountaineering. However he has a little capital, I have the income from my trust fund and we would both have the small income from our future farm, so, as Robert himself points out, we wouldn’t starve; he would be able to return to the mountains, and whenever he came home I would be waiting for him at Oxmoon, just as I’d been waiting in the old days, and then the Oxmoon of our childhood would finally be recaptured and we would live happily ever after encased in a glowing aura of romantic nostalgia.

  I’ve asked for time to consider this ridiculous fantasy—I really can’t dignify it by calling it a plan—and Robert has said yes, of course I must have time, and of course he realizes what a shock he must have given me, and he’s very, very sorry but he can no longer go on living a meaningless life.

  Quite.

  Oddly enough now that I’ve stopped burying my head in the sand and telling myself that everything in the garden’s lovely, I do feel much better. This is because I’m no longer worrying about what might happen; I’m worrying about what has happened and can concentrate on solving a specific problem. For of course I can’t let him make this catastrophic mistake. I’ve got to stop him, and as far as I can see my only hope of doing so lies in presenting him with the brutal truths he’s apparently unable to face.

  We’ve been married eight weeks today. What a mess. Never mind, once we’re over this crisis, matters must surely improve. God knows they could hardly get any worse.

  “Robert, before I start I want to apologize for what I’m going to say. I’d never be so brutal unless I honestly felt I had no alternative.”

  “Go on.”

  “I can’t live on your parents’ doorstep. But that’s not my major objection to your plan. My main objection is that I don’t believe you could live on their doorstep either.”

  There was a silence. We had cancelled our evening engagement and were alone after dinner in the drawing room. Robert was standing by the fireplace, his eyes watching the flames flickering in the grate, but as the silence lengthened he turned to face me, one hand remaining on the mantelshelf as if he felt the need to steady himself. I was sitting on the edge of the sofa. We were some eight feet apart.

  “It’s no good you pretending that we can ever have a normal relationship with your parents,” I said, “because we can’t. It’s impossible.”

  He said evenly, “I’ve forgiven my father. He’s a deeply damaged man. I must forgive him.”

  “I was damaged too. And he damaged me.”

  “That’s all in the past now.”

  “That’s exactly where you’re wrong, Robert. We may all pretend everything’s forgiven and forgotten, but that’s just to keep ourselves sane. The reality is much more appalling than you’ve ever allowed yourself to acknowledge but if we were to move to Gower you’d have to face that reality every day, and quite frankly I don’t think you could do it.”

  “I—”

  “The truth is that every time I see Bobby and Margaret I remember—we all remember—all that past horror lives again in our minds. I admit you’re a latecomer to this horror, but no matter what you say you can’t persuade me you’re unaffected by it. I think you’re very affected by it, but you’ve managed to gloss over the problem in your mind because we’re two hundred miles from Oxmoon and living a life in which your parents have no part to play. You forgive your father, you say. That’s admirable. But is it true? You’re a jealous possessive man and I don’t believe you could ever tolerate for long the company of a man who you knew had gone to bed with me. I suppose you think that with sufficient willpower anything’s possible, but I think this is the kind of situation, Robert, that could break your will in two, put us all through hell and wreck our marriage.”

  He made no effort to dispute this. After a protracted pause he said with distressing awkwardness, “You don’t think that if we were both back at Oxmoon we could recapture the magic of the lost Oxmoon where we were so happy?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s a romantic and sentimental notion which has nothing to do with reality. I can’t take you back to that magic Oxmoon, Robert, because the magic was destroyed and can never now be recaptured. I’m sorry but I can’t work that particular miracle for you.”

  “Yet sometimes,” he said, “in your company, I see those days live again.”

  “Well, you certainly wouldn’t if we removed now to Oxmoon. All you’d see in your mind would be your father crawling into bed with me and pulling up his nightshirt.”

  He flinched and turned away. Jumping up I ran to him. “Darling, forgive me, I’m being so cruel, I know I am, but I’ve got to make you see—”

  “Won’t you ever want to go back?”

  “Yes,” I said. “When Bobby’s dead and Margaret’s pensioned off somewhere and you’re Prime Minister, I shall be delighted to spend part of the year there. We can make it into a weekend retreat for all the most famous people of the day!”

  He gave a small painful smile and said nothing.

  “Darling …” I put my arms around him. “Don’t think I’m unsympathetic about the mountaineering—I do understand how much it means to you; but treat it as a hobby. To devote your life to it would be to give way to an obsession—it would be most unhealthy. Why don’t you at least give politics a try? I can’t understand why you’ve recoiled from it like this.”

  “Raymond was talking the other day of the futility of it all.”

  “But he’s been adopted as the prospective candidate for Derby!” I was now definitely having second thoughts about Raymond Asquith. I wondered what his wife had to go through whenever he suffered a bout of nihilism.

  “Raymond’s feelings
are very complex,” said Robert. “But it can’t be easy to be the son of the Prime Minister.”

  “Well, at least you’re spared that problem! Maybe you should see less of Raymond and more of someone like Edwin Montagu, who’s so brilliant and so ambitious and thinks politics is the only life for a man.”

  Robert said nothing.

  “Darling …” I kissed him. “Please—for my sake—do nothing rash. Do nothing you might regret later.”

  He nodded, still mute. I kissed him again and suggested we went to bed, but he said he wanted to think a little more so I went upstairs alone. Naturally I was too nervous to sleep. I lay awake and at last, well after midnight, he joined me.

  “Do you love me?” he said as we lay beside each other in the dark.

  “Darling, you know I do.”

  “Then all’s well,” said Robert. “I’d give up everything for you, even mountaineering.”

  “But I’m not asking you to give up mountaineering!”

  “I couldn’t treat it as a hobby. Either I devote my life to it or I don’t, but so long as you love me I don’t much care about anything else. Anyway, if we can’t go back to Oxmoon I can’t afford a removal to the country, and if we can’t live cheaply in the country I can’t go back to mountaineering. Problem solved.”

  He began to make love to me with his usual efficiency but the performance went wrong, and afterwards I had to hug him tightly to show I didn’t mind. Conor would have said, “Holy shit!” and hugged me back before falling asleep, but Robert was silent and tense in my arms, and I knew he was racked by a sense of failure.

  “Darling, don’t worry, please don’t—I know ten seconds isn’t such fun as ten minutes—or longer—but no one can be perfect in bed all the time!”

  “What about Kinsella?”

  I knew a moment of horrified panic but I somehow managed to answer briskly, “Good heavens, Robert, surely you know hard drinkers aren’t always perfect in the bedroom!”

  That satisfied him. He went to sleep but I continued to lie awake, and despite the renewal of his decision to enter politics, I knew our marriage was still in very great trouble indeed.

  I’m praying that was rock-bottom. Surely after this matters can only improve. If only Robert doesn’t have to wait too long for the opportunity to enter Parliament! I’m sure that once he reaches Westminster he’ll be thoroughly happy and then our worst problems will be at an end—or at the very least considerably eased.

  Meanwhile his career at the bar is still worrying him. He’s decided he would be a fool to leave his common-law chambers, since it would inevitably entail a drop in income while he built up a new reputation for himself as a chancery lawyer, and anyway he thinks he’d be bored to tears with trusts or tax. In his opinion he would be better off staying with the criminal cases and trying to specialize in nonviolent crimes such as fraud, but I do wish he could get right away from crime. However in a few years’ time it won’t matter because he’ll be in the Cabinet with a substantial salary and then he can retire from the law altogether.

  But first of all he must get into Parliament. Since the Prime Minister’s taking such a benign interest in him I doubt if he’ll have to wait long, but any wait is tiresome, particularly in these nerve-racking circumstances, so I’ve made up my mind to do all I can to make life smooth for Robert at home.

  I’m counting not only the pennies but the ha’pennies and farthings in the generous allowance he gives me, and I’m drawing up elaborate accounts so that he can see how clever I can be with money when I put my mind to it. I’m also refusing to go anywhere near Harrods. In fact I’m at the point where all I need is polish for my halo, but it’s such hard work being parsimonious that I’ve barely had the strength to tackle the problem of the boys.

  Nevertheless I managed to dredge up sufficient nerve to tell Declan that if he could survive till the end of term without being expelled I’d let him spend the Easter holidays in Ireland. So now he’s in Dublin. It was the only answer, as my marriage couldn’t have stood another onslaught from Declan at the moment. However Rory I summoned to London, and now here he is, good as gold without Declan and enjoying his outings with me to galleries, museums and picture theaters. I must say, I feel rather dashing going to picture theaters—so amusingly déclassée! Robert doesn’t approve of me going to a darkened room frequented by the lower classes, but he quite understands that darling Rory would punch any man who tried to be uppish with me when the film broke down.

  I’m much happier about Rory, and I really think he’ll survive this chaotic year intact. He does moan that he hates school, but I’m not going to be upset by that (a) because I can’t afford to be and (b) because Rory’s gregarious and I honestly think that once he’s thoroughly settled he’ll enjoy school very much. He’s not as clever as Declan but he’s good at games, and in an English public school this is a guarantee of happiness; the poor little love said they stopped calling him Yankee scum when they realized he was good at rugger.

  I did say I was willing to spend Easter at Oxmoon but Robert just said, “No, that’s not necessary,” so I think my speech about the ever-present nature of the past horrors must have sunk in. We’ll have to go down for Christmas, of course—there’s no way out of that obligation, but I’ve told Robert I accept this and that he’s not to worry about me when December comes. What a relief to have that situation clearly defined! I can face Oxmoon once a year. Just.

  Bobby visits London regularly, but although Robert conscientiously sees him, I don’t. I must say, I do admire Robert for maintaining the trappings of a normal relationship with his father. I’d love to know what he says in his weekly letters to his mother but Margaret in her elaborate replies gives little clue. After transforming the task of saying nothing into a high art, she always sends her love to me and she never, never reproaches either of us for avoiding Oxmoon. This makes me feel so guilty that I try not to think of her, but even this coward’s course isn’t available to me at the moment because she’s just written to ask if we can have Lion to stay. He’s got a new post in a City bank, and he needs a roof over his head while he finds himself some bachelor chambers.

  Lion is traditionally accepted as being Margaret’s favorite, and this, of course, is why she writes to me with her request and not to Robert. She knows Robert would make some excuse not to have Lion, just as she knows I can’t possibly refuse her, but nonetheless Lion’s arrival will create an awkward situation because Robert is very possessive at the moment, it’s as if he has to be constantly reassured that I love him, and this means I have to give him my undivided attention whenever he comes home. He won’t want me to be distracted by any visitor, least of all Lion. Personally I adore Lion and I can quite see why Margaret turns to him in relief after struggling with the more tortuous-minded members of her family, for Lion’s nature is so simple and open. He’s always cheerful, always bursting with high spirits, always exactly what he appears to be—ingenuous, naughty and, beneath the bombastic manners, as gentle and kind as Edmund. Yes, darling Lion is blissfully straightforward and darling Lion must definitely come to stay, but to keep the peace I’ll need every ounce of diplomatic skill I possess.

  Was there ever a first year of marriage like this one? Honestly, I think if I survive to celebrate the first anniversary I ought to be given a gold medal—or perhaps one of those ghastly silver cups awarded to Robert during the course of his morbid and sinister career as a winner …

  Darling Lion has confided in me. He is a pet. He says he doesn’t think he was designed by nature to earn his living, so he’s had a brilliant idea: he’s going to marry an heiress. He tells me this as if no penniless young man had ever thought of it before, and adds quickly that his only requirement is that he must be passionately in love.

  “However,” says sunny-natured Lion, beaming at me from ear to ear, “that’s no difficulty because I fall in love all the time, nothing to it, easiest thing in the world. I’m sure I can very easily fall in love with a girl who’s rich if I p
ut my mind to it.”

  Robert tells me Lion’s being ridiculous because no rich girl in her right mind would dream of marrying him.

  But I’m not so sure. Lion may be plain and he may be brainless, but he’s six feet five in his stockinged feet and he has a splendid physique to complement his engaging personality, and I think there might well be an heiress who’ll find him irresistible.

  Anyway I’ve promised to do all I can to help. It’ll take my mind off my marital problems; and besides … poor darling brainless penniless Lion really does need all the help he can get.

  Life has been transformed—salvation is at hand! A Labour M.P. has dropped dead in South Wales, and Robert has been adopted by the Liberal Party as their candidate in the inevitable bye-election! The only trouble is that although Wales is a Liberal stronghold, this constituency of Pwlldu beyond the Rhondda Valley is so impoverished that the dreaded Labour Party has gained a grip on its voting population. The area is so scarred with coal mining that it looks like a fouled desert, the long bleak streets are lined with terrace-house slums, the children are barefoot, the women are old at thirty and the men are wizened and choking with coal-dust disease.

  What can Harrow-and-Balliol Robert, one of Britain’s charmed elite, say to such people? The new Labour candidate is a man of the working classes, a Welsh-speaking demagogue who wants people like Robert exterminated and the nation’s wealth redistributed. I shudder but Robert is greatly stimulated. What a challenge! He can’t resist it. Soon he’s forgotten all his problems. He’s too busy perfecting his rusty Welsh by hiring a tutor to converse with him, too busy planning strategy, too busy going respectfully to Mr. Lloyd George for tactical advice.