The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “Sorry about that,” said Robert, acting the perfect gentleman. “I’m afraid the claret told after all.”

  “Never mind,” I said, and in fact neither of us minded in the least. Trailing to the bathroom I prepared for more tedium, but was awoken from my stupor of distaste by finding that the little flesh-colored thread had become detached from the sponge while the sponge itself had been shoved beyond the reach of my longest finger.

  I sighed, prayed for contortionist skills and returned to the fray but in the end I gave up. I spent some time debating whether I should use the douche again, just as I always did, but in the end I was too nervous. Supposing I washed the sponge so far up that I had to have an operation to remove it? I shuddered. I was unsure what went on in the nether reaches of the feminine anatomy, but I pictured some unspeakable nastiness taking place among the ovaries. Wholly repelled I abandoned all thought of douching and toiled exhausted back to bed.

  Men have no idea what women have to go through sometimes, no idea at all.

  The lost sponge has finally turned up. Thank God: Really, that sort of incident is enough to put anyone off sex for life.

  Robert’s having his hand X-rayed, although what good that will do I don’t know. Robert now tells me he’s been unable to move the middle finger of his right hand for three days, and with a shock I suddenly realize how sinister this is. Could he be suffering from a series of minor strokes? It seems unlikely but this recurring weakness—we don’t call it paralysis—must surely mean there’s something wrong with the part of the brain that controls the muscles. Or does it? I don’t know. Robert doesn’t know. The doctor doesn’t know.

  It’s all very worrying.

  We’ve found someone who wants the house but I can’t think of that at the moment. I’m too worried about Robert. He’s recovered the full use of his hand but the specialist says he must have a thorough examination, and as I’m terrified of illness I’m now in a great state.

  No wonder I’ve missed this month. Supposing Robert has a brain tumor? Supposing he only has three months to live? Supposing he drops dead tomorrow? I could do without my husband but how could I manage without my friend? Even if we eventually separate once Robin’s grown up, I must have Robert in my life. Who else would stand by me through thick and thin? Who else would always be there when I needed him?

  I panic. I’m demented with anxiety. In fact I’m in such a state of hysteria that I even go to Brompton Oratory, where I used to take the boys to Mass, and make a feverish attempt to pray.

  Robert’s all right. Oh God, the relief! The exhaustive examination found nothing—no brain tumor, no stroke, no diabolical illness. Very strange about his hand, but I suppose it was just one of those inexplicable physical vagaries like the double vision.

  Odd how these little ailments come and go. …

  “Oh my God!”

  “Robert—what is it?”

  “I’ve got that double vision again. Damn it, damn it—I thought I’d finished with those bloody doctors …”

  He’s seeing another specialist. Oddly enough I’m not so worried this time. After all, the double vision can hardly be connected with the trouble in his hand.

  Or can it?

  I’m suddenly so frightened that I can’t even get to Brompton Oratory to pray.

  I did go to the Oratory later but I couldn’t feel God listening so I walked down the road to Harrods instead. There was a fruit stall on the corner of the Brompton Road and I automatically bought two pounds of oranges. Then I came home.

  Five minutes ago I finished eating my third orange and now I want to eat a fourth.

  I know what that means. It means I made the wrong decision when I failed to reapply the douche after that dinner at the Ritz. It means that sixteen seconds of unwanted copulation has had a very unwanted result. It means … but no, I simply can’t face what it means.

  I’ll think about it later.

  “Ginette, I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest with you when I came home from Harley Street just now.”

  We were in the drawing room having tea and I was eating a slice of gingerbread. My hand paused halfway to my mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “The specialist wasn’t encouraging.”

  I put the gingerbread down on my plate. On my right the fire was burning, warding off the chill of a dank April day, but all the warmth seemed to have vanished from the flames.

  “What did he say?”

  “He thinks I have some obscure illness, but there’s no method of proving the diagnosis. We can only follow an Asquith policy of ‘Wait and See.’ ”

  “Oh.”

  Robert continued to drink his tea. His vision had returned to normal before he had seen this second specialist, and his hand was once more unimpaired. He looked fit and strong, glowing with good health.

  “But why didn’t this specialist believe as the other one did that the trouble was caused by mental strain?” I said baffled at last.

  “He didn’t rule out that possibility. He merely said this odd combination of disorders in the eyes and hand suggested that a specific illness was responsible.”

  I finished my tea. “What is this illness?” I said as I put down my cup.

  “He didn’t go into detail. He said it involved paralysis but apparently remissions are common and people can suffer the disease yet have few symptoms.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad, does it,” I said relieved. “How long does one take to recover?”

  “Oh,” said Robert, “one doesn’t recover. But one needn’t die prematurely either. He said the moderate cases could experience a normal life-span.”

  I looked at my empty teacup. I looked at the spring flowers on the sill. I looked at the pale afternoon light beyond the window. And I felt Death lay his finger on us gently, very lightly, from a long, long way away.

  “There are three possibilities here,” said Robert, summing up the situation with unperturbed logic. “One: this diagnosis is wrong and my physical troubles are resulting from a stress which will ease once we remove to Gower. Two: the diagnosis is right but I experience a continuation of the remission I’m enjoying at the moment. And three: the diagnosis is right but my remission isn’t sustained. This uncertainty is without a doubt most tedious but one fact at least is crystal-clear: if I do have this illness I can never go climbing again. Even if I were temporarily capable of doing so it would be too dangerous because I could be stricken with paralysis at any time.”

  My mind was in such chaos that I hardly knew how to reply but I managed to stammer: “I’m sorry. I know how much climbing means to you—”

  “Yes, well, don’t let’s wallow in sympathy just yet. I may not have this illness. I may recover completely, and meanwhile it seems to me all we can do is continue with our plan to remove to Gower.”

  I struggled to match his calmness. “You still won’t consider staying in London?”

  “That would be no more possible financially if I were ill than it would be if I spent my time mountaineering.”

  “No, I suppose not. I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to nag you again about London—”

  “Besides, I want to go home. If I can’t climb at least I can still go back to Oxmoon and give my son the kind of life I had when I was young.”

  “I understand.” I thought of him still yearning for that lost Oxmoon and my throat began to ache. I knew no mere physical removal to Gower could recapture it, nothing could recapture it, it was lost and gone forever.

  Robert finished his tea. “There are two matters of immediate importance,” he said briskly as if he suspected I could barely contain my emotions. “The first is that I don’t want anyone to know about this or else I’ll have everyone staring at me as if I’m an animal at the zoo. And the second is that we must stop the builders at Martinscombe. We must have new plans drawn up in order to provide for every eventuality.”

  I was struggling so hard for self-control that I could only say, “What kind of plans?”

  “
I think it would be better to abandon the farmhouse and build a bungalow nearby. A single-story dwelling would be easier for a wheelchair.”

  In the grate the fire now seemed to be raging. I was so overwhelmed by the heat that I thought I would faint.

  “I’ll open a window,” said Robert as I put my hand to my forehead.

  He flung wide the casement and as he paused beside it I was able to say, “You think you do have this illness, don’t you. What’s it called?”

  “Oh, it has some hopelessly long-winded medical name which for the life of me I can’t remember.”

  I knew what that meant. It meant he didn’t want me to look it up in the medical dictionary. It meant he himself had looked it up and been appalled.

  Panic overwhelmed me.

  “Darling …” I hardly knew what I was saying. “Forgive me, obviously we must talk more about this, but I’m afraid I simply must go and lie down for a while; I’m feeling thoroughly worn out.”

  He said he was so sorry and of course I must rest and he did hope I would soon feel better.

  I escaped.

  I’m much too frightened to think about the future, my mind shies away from it, so I ponder instead about whether God intends me to find some deep meaning in the fact that I’m pregnant while my husband is incurably ill.

  For of course I know Robert’s ill, just as I know I’m pregnant. I know it, feel it, I don’t have to wait for a diagnosis.

  After prolonged meditation I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no deep meaning in this situation and almost certainly no God. I haven’t truly believed in God anyway since the Battle of the Somme, but if God does exist and has some purpose in mind for this baby, I’d very much like to know what that purpose is. As far as I can see, this pregnancy is quite the most pointless thing that’s ever happened to me; I’ve got to endure the removal to Gower and Robert’s illness and I just can’t face any additional ordeal; I can’t bear it. But I’ve got to bear it, haven’t I? Can’t face an abortion, too squeamish; couldn’t. Other women can do as they like, I don’t mind, let them get on with it, they should be able to do just what they like with their own bodies, but I know what I can do with mine without going mad with guilt.

  I could arrange to erase this embryo physically but I could never erase it mentally. I’d remember it every year on the anniversary of the day it was never born—or perhaps on the anniversary of that dinner at the Ritz—and I’d picture it, as adorable as Robin, holding out its arms to me and asking to be loved. Yes, that thought’s hideously emotional and hideously sentimental but it also happens to be hideously true. It’s what would happen. I know myself, I know the kind of woman I am and I know I can’t get rid of this child, I’ve got to endure it.

  Can I endure Robert taking years and years to die of this unnamable paralytic disease? That question reminds me of the time I asked myself if I could endure a country life on his parents’ doorstep. The obvious answer is “no” but one has to try to be constructive.

  Perhaps I could survive with someone who was hopelessly ill, but my state of mind would have to be so radically different from its present state that I can’t begin to imagine it. How does a woman who loathes illness stick with a sick estranged husband who insists that she remain a conventional wife? A brave woman would stick it. A religious woman would stick it. A strong woman like Margaret would stick it. But I’m neither brave nor religious nor strong. I’m cowardly, agnostic and feeble. I’m not cut out to be a heroine. All I’m cut out to be is a broken reed and a mess.

  “I’m going to be a heroine when I grow up!”

  “I want to be a hero!”

  Dear little Robert, what fun we had …

  “Friendship’s forever!”

  How sad to think of us saying that. For of course friendship’s not forever. Friendship can be destroyed by adverse circumstances just as Robert’s body can be destroyed by this illness. Nothing’s forever, nothing—except the memory of Oxmoon, that lost Oxmoon of our childhood, the memory that no adverse circumstances have ever been able to destroy.

  I think I’m on the brink of imagining the unimaginable, but wait; I must beware of sentimentality; I must deal only with what is real and true.

  Robert asked me once if we could recapture the magic of Oxmoon and I just said brutally, “I can’t work that particular miracle for you.”

  But that in fact is what I now have to do. I somehow have to lead us back into the world we knew as children because that’s the one world which no tragedy will ever be able to annihilate.

  How do I do it? We’ll go back to Gower, but as I’ve already realized, that removal by itself means nothing. I have to re-create something intangible, a world that exists only in our heads but a world that is as real to us as Mount Everest is to a mountaineer.

  It’s all a question of friendship in the end, isn’t it? The marriage can’t help us. That’s dead, and our present friendship is such a maimed pathetic affair that it’s small wonder I’ve been tempted to discount it. But we gave friendship a unique meaning at Oxmoon, that lost Oxmoon of our childhood, and if that old bond’s recaptured we’ll go home again at last.

  “Are you asleep?”

  “No, come in, darling, I’m about to get up. I must have a word with Cook about dinner.” As he entered the room I rose from the bed and drew back the curtains. It had turned into a beautiful evening and below us in the courtyard the daffodils were blooming in the jardinière.

  “Are you better?”

  “Yes. Sorry I collapsed like some feeble Victorian heroine.”

  “Unlike a feeble Victorian heroine you had good reason to swoon. Ginette, can we have just one honest conversation before we go on?”

  “Why not? Life’s so awful at the moment that the prospect of an honest conversation doesn’t even send a shiver down my spine.” I straightened the bed and we sat down on it. “Where do we begin?”

  “Where we left off. With the illness. Ginette, I do think I’ve got it. What’s more, I suspect this is going to be a far worse experience than anything we can begin to imagine, so what we should do now is try to work out how we’re going to face it.”

  All I said was “Go on.”

  “You loathe illness; it repulses you. You enjoy physical love; the prospect of you being tied to a cripple is ludicrous. You love London; the thought of a country life appalls you. To sum up, I can’t believe you want to continue with this marriage and therefore I think it’s only right that I should offer to release you from it.”

  “Robert—”

  “Wait. I haven’t finished. You must hear me to the end. Our marriage has been a failure. You know that—I know that. We’ve both been very unhappy, but at least I still love you enough to do all I can to put matters right. I can’t drag you through this ordeal that lies ahead of me—well, to be frank, I don’t think you could stand it, so if we’re going to part it’s far better that we should do so now. We’ll forget about Martinscombe. I’ll live at Oxmoon with my parents and that’ll mean I’ll have sufficient funds to maintain you in London—in a flat, though, I’m afraid, I couldn’t afford a house. As for Robin, he must be with you while he’s young although I do hope you can bring him to visit me. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to come often, as I know how you hate seeing my parents, but the occasional visit would mean so much to me, and—”

  “Darling—”

  “No, you must let me finish, I’m sorry but you must let me have my say. The occasional visit would mean so much to me, and I would find it easier to bear the divorce if I knew I wasn’t going to be entirely cut off from you both. Now, it’ll be awkward about the divorce, because neither of us have any grounds, and even if I manufacture some infidelity you can’t divorce me on the ground of adultery alone, but once we’ve lived apart for two years you could claim both adultery and desertion and then you’d be entitled—”

  “No,” I said.

  He stared at me. “No what?”

  “No divorce.”

  “But
surely—”

  “No divorce, Robert.”

  “Well, I admit it would be far less messy if we merely entered into a legal separation, but—”

  “No. No legal separation.”

  He was dumbfounded. “No legal separation either? Oh, but I think you should consider it for your own sake. It’s best to tie these things up formally—you should see a solicitor, have the legal situation explained to you.”

  “That’s unnecessary. I want to remain married to you.”

  “For Robin’s sake, you mean? But … how could we sustain a normal marriage?”

  I said nothing. We went on sitting on the bed, he looking at me, I staring at the rings on my wedding finger.

  “It would be impossible for me to be a conventional husband to you,” said Robert. He paused to consider the logical deductions which could be drawn from this fact. Then he said with his characteristic simplicity, “Therefore I couldn’t expect you to be a conventional wife. That wouldn’t be fair at all. That wouldn’t be playing the game.” And as he paused again, frowning as he tried to imagine the complex relationship which lay far beyond the bounds of the marital game as he perceived it, I covered his hand reassuringly with mine.

  “There are all kinds of marriages, Robert. Ours will simply be a little different from most marriages, that’s all.”

  “Yes, but … well, it wouldn’t be a marriage at all, would it, because it would be absolutely essential to me that you lived entirely as you wished—”

  “It would still be a marriage, Robert.”

  “—because, you see, I couldn’t bear it if you came to hate me for blighting your life—”

  “I understand.”

  “—and that’s why I shan’t mind if you can’t bring yourself to visit me much—I couldn’t bear you to look at me with loathing—or repulsion—or worst of all pity—I’d rather set you free altogether, no matter how much I came to miss you—”

  “Very well. Set me free. But set me free within the bounds of our marriage.”