The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  I said nothing. Pregnancy to Robert meant not being the center of attention. Not being the center of attention meant not winning. And not winning to Robert meant a failure he couldn’t endure.

  I knew him so well that I could see so clearly each contorted fold in that powerful mind which his reason was powerless to iron smooth. I was powerless too. I was seeing truths he was too emotionally simple to recognize. I was seeing a gory pattern which had no place in his rational black-and-white world.

  “So the truth is this,” said Robert, moving from one statement to another with matchless but impotent logic, “I love you, I want the child but for the moment I can’t express these feelings in bed. Of course,” he added carefully, “all will be well again after the child’s born.”

  I no longer had the strength to cling to the eiderdown and he was able to ease it away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said rapidly when he saw my face, “but I had no idea beforehand that this would happen.”

  I merely waited for him to go but he lingered, fidgeting with the cord of his dressing gown and twisting it continuously between his fingers. At last he said humbly, “Won’t you come back to bed? Despite everything I don’t want to sleep on my own.”

  “Don’t you?” I said. “I’m afraid I do. Indeed I’m afraid I must. I can’t go on sleeping chastely with you night after night like this; it’s driving me mad.”

  He was too shattered to speak.

  “I accept that I can’t change you,” I said, “and I accept that all will be well after the baby’s born, but meanwhile you must let me choose my own way to survive this horrible crisis as best I can.”

  He managed to stammer, “But you’ve no right to reject me like that!”

  “Why not? You’ve rejected me!”

  He crept away without another word.

  Robert comes back at dawn in a terrible state and says he’s been quite unable to sleep because he now realizes he’s being a bad husband, failing in his marital duty to make me happy. He says he’s sorry, desperately sorry, he knows he’s deserved every ounce of my anger but please, please could I forgive him because he so much wants to make amends.

  But I see only that he’s locked into the most disastrous competition with a dead man and that he can’t rest while he feels he’s coming second.

  I beg him to leave it for a night or two. I say I do want him, but we’re both tired and upset and it would be far better to postpone our reunion.

  But he can’t listen to me. He daren’t. He’s got to prove himself, he’s got to win, so he gets into the single bed with me and then, inevitably, the worst happens, probably one of the worst things that could ever happen to a man like Robert, and we wind up in a far worse mess than before.

  “I don’t understand, I simply don’t understand—”

  “Darling, listen for a moment, listen. There’s only one thing to do with a nightmare like this and that’s to come to terms with it. We’ve got to accept that our marriage has been dislocated and that the dislocation will last until next spring. That’s ghastly, I agree, but it’s not permanent and fatal, it’s transitory and curable, so we must both make up our minds to endure the present in the knowledge that we can look forward to the future.”

  “But why am I failing like this? I just can’t understand it—”

  “Well, it’s no vast mystery, Robert! You said frankly earlier that you didn’t find me desirable.”

  “Yes, but I want to! I’m willing myself to! So why can’t I succeed?”

  “Robert,” I said, “there are certain situations in life which aren’t subject to the power of your will, and very unfortunately this seems to be one of them. Let it be, I beg of you. Let it rest.”

  “Was Conor ever like this?”

  With horror I noticed the change of name. My first husband was no longer “Kinsella” to Robert, no longer a cipher who belonged to a past which could be conveniently forgotten. He was a rival. He was present. And he was winning.

  “Oh Robert, please—”

  “I can’t help it, I’ve got to know. Did Conor ever fail you as completely as this?”

  “Oh God, yes, lots of times!”

  “You’re lying, I don’t believe you.”

  “Robert, he drank! He drank too much too often! He was often far from perfect in bed—why, I told you that before; I distinctly remember telling you—”

  “But was he ever actually—”

  “Oh, of course he was impotent occasionally! He wasn’t a machine, he was a man!”

  “But what did he do when he suffered from impotence?”

  “He usually said ‘Holy shit’ and went to sleep.”

  “And at other times? What did he do then?”

  “I think you’d call it breaking the rules.”

  “You mean—”

  “No, Robert, I absolutely refuse to say any more—”

  “I don’t mind breaking the rules. I’d never normally suggest such a course to my wife, but if you don’t mind then I don’t care.”

  “I do mind—I don’t want to do with you what I did with Conor!”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, because … because Conor had this knack of making forbidden things come right, but they weren’t the sort of things I’d normally—”

  “You mean he was better in bed than I am.”

  “No! Oh God, no, no, no—”

  “You loved him so much that you didn’t care what he did, but you don’t love me so much so you do care!”

  “No! No, no, no!”

  “You love him—you still love him—you’ll always love him—and you love him better than you’ll ever love me!”

  I screamed and screamed in denial but he had already stumbled from the room like someone maimed.

  Horrors. Robert’s wrecked, I’m wrecked, the marriage is wrecked, and all the time the little baby is growing millimeter by millimeter, fluttering every now and then to remind me how joyous I should feel.

  Of course we’re keeping up appearances, but I’m now in such a state that I’m quite incapable of answering my problem letters, so I telephone Julie with the excuse that my doctor’s advised me to take life at a more leisurely pace until the spring. Julie says never mind, I can always come back to the work later, and how lovely it is to think of someone having a wanted pregnancy for a change.

  I immediately start weeping into the telephone. Julie says, “Meet me at The Gondolier at one,” and as soon as I’ve controlled my tears I rush off to Kensington High Street.

  “What shall I do, Julie? What on earth shall I do?”

  “Take a deep breath and calm down. I agree the situation’s awful but you’re going to get out of it.”

  I had been weeping all over my steak-and-kidney-pie-with-two-vegetables but when Julie gave me this hope for the future I managed to control my tears again. I knew then that she was the best woman friend I would ever have. Every woman needs a special friend of her own sex with whom she can “have a haircombing” about everything from menstruation to male monsters, and Julie had become that kind of special friend. It made no difference that she had never been married. She was a woman of the world and she had an intuitive sympathy that was almost telepathic in its grasp of a situation. I hadn’t had to regale her with every detail of my horrors; I’d merely sketched the outline and she’d penciled in the rest.

  “For a start,” she was saying, “forget about the truth, whatever the truth is. It doesn’t matter which of those two men you love best. All that matters is that Robert should believe it’s him.”

  “But what can I say to convince him?”

  “Anything. You’ve got to mount a propaganda campaign in his favor. Forget about bed—obviously you can do nothing there at the moment—but treat him as if he’s God and be passionate about him.”

  “But won’t he be suspicious and skeptical?”

  “Don’t be silly—he’ll be weak with relief and only too willing to believe every word you say!”

  “But suppo
sing he drags up the subject of Conor again?”

  “I agree Conor’s ghost will have to be exorcised. But Robert’s not going to try—he’ll be much too scared. You’re the one who’ll have to perform the exorcism.”

  “Oh God, Julie—”

  “No, don’t panic. All you have to do is to convince him that it’s a compliment, not an insult, that you don’t want to do with him what you did with Conor. Tell him you never liked what Conor did when he was drunk, although you wanted to believe out of sheer wifely loyalty that anything he did was right. Then say you simply couldn’t bear the thought of Robert the Greek god feeling driven to descend to Conor’s pagan Irish level. What explanation could be more rational and comforting?”

  Hope now succeeded despair and overwhelmed me. Once more I began to weep into my steak-and-kidney pie, but afterwards I felt so encouraged by this conversation that I even had the energy to walk to Harrods to buy a present for Johnny and Blanche’s second baby. It was due to arrive at any moment, and I told myself it would never do if I were so preoccupied by my troubles that I failed to have a gift waiting to welcome the baby into the world.

  More ghastliness. Blanche had a little boy but he only lived a few hours. The clergyman came as soon as it was realized that death was inevitable and the baby was christened John before dying in Blanche’s arms. I feel very, very upset and condemn myself utterly for my past cattiness about Johnny and Blanche when I mocked them for being a couple who were much too good to be true. I was just jealous because the marriage is so blissfully happy—and there’s no charade going on there either; they’re both far too young and innocent to fool a cynical old hag like me.

  The tragedy has made me nervous about my own baby although Dr. Drysdale assures me that all is well. Certainly the baby feels healthy enough. I’m always so excited when the baby becomes active, and despite my troubles I’m excited this time too. I can picture the baby gritting his toothless little gums and flailing away with his little legs and wondering where on earth he is. Why do we think of the womb as cozy? I think it must be terrifying, a dark padded cell. Poor little baby. But never mind, he’ll be free soon, and once he’s free Robert and I can begin to emerge from this nightmare which has overtaken us.

  It’s quite a challenge trying to treat Robert as if he were God, display endless loving solicitude and still keep the charade reassuringly sexless, but I’m battling on. Julie was right when she said that Robert would be relieved. He is. No doubt he imagined he would be burdened with a frustrated sulky lump for the remainder of the pregnancy, so in his gratitude he’s sending me flowers every day and giving me extra money to spend at Harrods to ensure that I keep smiling.

  Of course he feels guilty because he’s made me miserable, and of course I feel guilty because … Well, I made him miserable too, didn’t I, but I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I got in a panic and said the wrong thing, that’s all. Darling Robert, what a dear little boy he was; I can see us picking those strawberries in the kitchen garden, I can hear him saying, “I’ll always come first with you, won’t I?”—oh yes, I love Robert so much, he does come first, and Conor’s just a skeleton in the closet who periodically rattles his bones too loudly.

  That’s the truth. That’s reality … or is it? Yes, of course it is, and I shall now prove it by conducting the conversation that will triumphantly exorcise Conor’s ghost once and for all. …

  “… and I can’t believe any decent woman would approve of such behavior, but because he was my husband … well, it was my duty as his wife to obey him, wasn’t it, and he did have the right to do what he liked in bed …”

  Would Conor have recognized this description of our marriage? No. He would have burst into incredulous laughter, but I couldn’t stop to think of that. I didn’t dare.

  I struggled on.

  “… and that’s why I was so horrified when you suggested … well, you do understand, darling, don’t you? I didn’t want our marriage dragged down to that level, and I didn’t want you dragged down to that level because I think of you as a much finer person than Conor, far more civilized, far more … well, to be frank, far more the sort of man I want to be married to.”

  I paused. I decided it was time I gave him an honest look so I dredged up my courage and gave him one. We were sitting side by side on the sofa in the drawing room before dinner. I had had to conduct the interview before dinner because otherwise I would have been unable to eat.

  Robert’s eyes were steady. “I see,” he said. “Yes. Thank you.”

  I almost collapsed with relief. The hard part of the story was over. All I now had to do was to add the finishing touches.

  “I love you better than I ever loved Conor,” I said, and added in a rush: “Oh darling, you do believe that, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes,” said Robert. “Of course.” And as soon as he spoke I knew how deeply I’d lied—and what was far, far worse, I knew he knew how deeply I’d lied. For one terrible second we were back in the music room at Oxmoon in 1913. I could hear him saying brutally, “Always tell me the truth because if you don’t I’ll know and that’ll mean the end.”

  To my horror I started to cry. “I’ve told you the truth,” I whispered. “You’ve got to believe it’s the truth, you’ve got to—”

  But he stopped me from betraying myself further. His mouth closed protectively on mine for three seconds, and when he withdrew I found myself beyond speech. I could only listen as he said with perfect calmness, “We’ll both accept that what you’ve said is true, shall we? And I think we should also accept that although we’ve been distressed we’ve discussed the matter satisfactorily, with the result that we can now put it behind us once and for all.”

  I nodded dumbly, still weeping. He passed me his handkerchief.

  “Oh Robert …” I felt my tears flow faster than ever.

  “My dearest, think of the baby, calm down and be sensible. I love you just as much as I ever did, and I’m sure everything will come right in the end.”

  It’s a lie. The entire conversation was a lie. He knows it, I know it, but because we love each other we’ve invented this charade which will enable us to go on. I can’t ask myself how long we can go on or where the charade is going to end. I can’t ask because I can’t face the answers. I can’t even confide in Julie. I’ll just tell her all’s well—and so it is, in a way. Robert’s affectionate and considerate; I’m loving and cheerful, but it’s all an act, it’s false through and through, and beneath the falsehood I can feel our marriage disintegrating.

  I must be very near my time because I’ve joined in my housemaid’s spring cleaning. I can’t sit still, I’m turning out my wardrobe, I have to be constantly busy. Conor said I was like a bird who had suddenly realized at the last moment that it had forgotten to feather its nest. Now I’m rushing around feathering it.

  I do wish the baby could be a girl, but Robert would never love a daughter, not a hope, he’d simply regard a daughter as a failure to have a son, so it’s got to be a boy and I must reconcile myself to the fact that I’m destined to be the mother of sons.

  Stop. I feel the first twinge. Oh God, how thrilling this is, and how sad, how very very sad that Robert can’t share my joy.

  “Is it a boy?” I gasped, and when I heard it was I fainted not from the ordeal of giving birth but from relief. However panic returned the instant I recovered consciousness. “Is he normal?” I said wildly. “Is he deformed? A cretin? An imbecile?”

  My kind Dr. Drysdale hastened to end these agonized inquiries, and while she was speaking the midwife placed the baby in my arms.

  He was washed, shining, serene.

  “Oh!” I was speechless.

  “Isn’t he lovely?” said the midwife pleased. “I don’t see them like that every day, I can tell you!”

  I felt confused still after the gas and I had the dreadful desire to hide the baby from Robert as he entered the room a few minutes later, but I soon stopped feeling terrified. After he had kissed me he gazed d
own at our immaculate pink-and-white infant, so different from the messy red-faced babies who had cluttered up the nurseries at Oxmoon, and to my joy I realized he was stupefied with delight.

  “What a tour de force!” he exclaimed with complete sincerity, and as I wept with joy I thought, If we can survive this we can survive anything. Yet despite all my euphoria I knew the fate of our marriage was still very far from being resolved.

  I’m taking infinite trouble. I’ve decided (with reluctance) not to breast-feed because I sense Robert would find this repellent. I’ve bought a new brassière—how on earth did we manage before with those awful camisoles?—and I’m lacing myself daily into a fiendish corset so that I can regain my figure as quickly as possible. I’ve bought a gorgeous nightgown, wickedly décolleté, for the coming seduction. I’m reading the parliamentary reports from end to end so that I can be an interesting companion. I display unflagging absorption in the news of all Robert’s activities, I hang on his every word, I pet him, cosset him and utterly exhaust myself with the effort of being the perfect wife.

  It’s such a relief to be with the baby because then I don’t have to be perfect, I can just be myself. Dear little baby, he’s quite adorable, and we’ve decided to call him Robin. He’ll be christened Robert Charles after his father and grandfather, but to address him as Robert would be too confusing and of course there’s no question of calling him Bobby. Robert did say that “Robin Godwin” sounded odd and the baby might well object to it in later life, but I said we’d cross that bridge later.

  Why worry about the future? There’s quite enough to worry about in the present because although Edmund’s safe in hospital again, this time with an attack of typhoid, Declan’s still on the run in Ireland, and meanwhile the war gets worse and worse. The food shortages have now begun in earnest. I’m bribing both the butcher and the grocer so I’ve had to ask Robert to increase the housekeeping money, but this was inevitable anyway because food prices have soared out of sight. There’s some demented Food Controller at the Food Ministry at Grosvenor House who’s covered up the Rubens murals to protect the virgin typists from corruption and is issuing a stream of orders forbidding the consumption of crumpets. It gives a new mad dimension to a life of rushing into the Underground stations to escape from the latest air raids, skimming through the casualty lists and writing the mechanical sympathy letters. To conform to the new regulations, The Gondolier can now only serve a two-course meal in the middle of the day, but I don’t mind because I’m banting.