The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  But Swansea had been destroyed, raped by a full-scale blitz in 1941, and now so many landmarks existed only in my memory and there was no singing, only the sea gulls screaming over the ruins. It made me want to kill every German in sight; in fact it was when I saw ruined Swansea that I didn’t regret having been insane enough to volunteer for special duties.

  It was now the September of 1942. My car had been laid up on wooden blocks for some time but Kester and Edmund were allowed petrol for the estate and Teddy had black-market contacts, so I wasn’t surprised to find that Bella had turned up to meet me in Edmund’s Bentley. The weather was warm. She was looking fresh as a daisy in a linen dress with plenty of cleavage, but no daisy had ever looked half so sultry. To my great relief she told me she had brought the inflatable mattress, so all we had to do was get clear of the city.

  “For God’s sake drive like the wind,” I said, “before I melt all the buttons on my uniform.”

  We found a useful cart track. Being in perfect physical condition I blew up the mattress and launched myself into action without even pausing for breath. I felt very much the all-conquering soldier for a change, and as I slammed away I idly pictured my remote ancestor Godwin of Hartland pursuing the same pastime during his career in the retinue of that Norman gangster Humphrey de Mohun. “Let’s call the next one Humphrey,” I said to Bella afterwards when our cigarettes were alight. “I rather like it.”

  “But the next one’s going to be a girl,” said Bella. “I’m going to get my little Melody back at last.”

  It was odd how she went on and on about that dead baby. I never gave it a second thought nowadays.

  “How’s everyone at Penhale?” I said to divert her.

  “Fine. Your father brought Francesca down to Oxmoon last weekend and she’s all set to be a land girl, but what she really wants to do is join the air force …”

  Francesca, now nearly eighteen, had left school that summer and both her parents were anxious for her not to remain in London. I had often wondered if they too would leave but they seemed determined to stick it out. Constance was heavily involved with the Red Cross while my father, who had offered his services to the government at the start of the war, was leading some sort of cloak-and-dagger existence in high finance. On account of his linguistic and financial skills he had been assigned to help the Free French in London pay their bills—a somewhat sordid aspect of La Gloire and one that needed diplomatic talents of the highest order. Some indication of how important this liaison work was could be gleaned from the fact that he still ran his Rolls-Royce. A fawning government granted him an apparently endless supply of petrol.

  “… and Francesca would look so sexy in a WAAF’s uniform,” Bella was saying.

  “Hm.” Francesca was not my idea of a rampantly sexy girl but she was vivacious and pretty and I knew many men would find her attractive. It was one of the miracles of genetics that she had escaped Constance’s dreariness and bore more than a passing resemblance to her aunt Teddy.

  “… and I did ask her to stay at the Manor,” Bella was saying, “but of course I knew she’d prefer to be at Oxmoon. She confessed she simply adores Kester.”

  “What! Since when?”

  “Since she was little, she said. But I’m not surprised, because Kester’s got such a flair for children. In fact, Teddy was saying only the other day—”

  “Darling, stop talking about bloody Kester and let’s have another fuck.”

  We had another fuck.

  “You’re more gorgeous than ever!” sighed Bella later. “War suits you!”

  “Of course it does. War brings out the best in men, as Machiavelli pointed out.”

  “Who?”

  “Some old bugger who ought to have been certified.”

  We drove on to Penhale Manor. Edmund and Teddy were waiting to greet me and so was Hal who had been allowed to stay up late for the big occasion of the paternal visit. He was almost three. His blond hair had faded to Bella’s mouse-brown. Black lashes fanned pink-and-white cheeks as he stared bashfully at his toes.

  “Come on; silly-billy!” said Bella to him. “It’s Daddy!”

  “Don’t be shy, honey!” Teddy cooed.

  Hal looked as if he were about to expire with embarrassment.

  “That’s funny!” mused Edmund. “He’s not usually shy. In fact the other day when Kester was here he was chattering away nineteen to the dozen.”

  “What’s for dinner?” I said abruptly, patting Hal’s head before I turned away. “I’m damned hungry.”

  We ate some rabbit stew, which was very passable when accompanied by a prewar claret filched by Edmund from Oxmoon, and sat around talking for a while but everyone went to bed early. I took a look at Hal, Charles and Jack, all asleep and all looking as if they’d never had a naughty thought in their lives, and told myself I was on no account going to brood on Kester simply because my sister adored him and Hal chatted to him without constraint. After all I had more important things to do during my leave.

  Having passed a strenuous night I fell asleep at dawn, and would have slept till noon if our offspring hadn’t decided to wreck our peace at seven. Hal had overcome his shyness. Charles obviously had no idea what the word meant. They howled into the room followed by Jack, who was crawling along like a miniature buffalo, and jumped all over the bed. Outside in the corridor Babs the Welsh nursemaid who needed looking after almost as much as the boys did was futilely begging her charges to return to her. The original nanny had long since given notice in despair and Bella had always refused to engage a qualified replacement who would have made her feel inferior.

  Stark-naked and bleary-eyed I sat bolt upright in bed. “Out!” I shouted, making everyone jump. “I want my sleep!”

  “God, how awful you are in the mornings!” said Bella, annoyed. “All right, come along, my angels—Daddy’s cross.”

  Charles and Jack were both screaming but Hal was telling them to shut up. At least someone was on my side. Muttering “Good boy” I disappeared beneath the bedclothes but when the room was at last quiet I surfaced. Dark eyes just like mine watched gravely as I peered over the sheet. Hal and I faced each other across a mound of pillows.

  “Are they always like that in the mornings?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good God.” I stared morosely at the ceiling as it occurred to me that fatherhood was not all drinking champagne, sending proud notices to the Times and patting an appropriate head occasionally. I glanced at Hal to cheer myself up and found he was still gazing solemnly at me. Nice little Hal. But why wasn’t he talking to me nineteen to the dozen? I tried to start a conversation with him. But I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  In the end I got up and began to shave. Little footsteps pattered behind me. A small pajamaed figure scrambled onto the window seat for a grandstand view of the basin. I scraped away at my jaw but finally, unnerved by this enrapt attention, I paused to look at him and something about his solemn little face amused me. I smiled.

  He beamed back in delight and then blushing in an agony of self-consciousness, he turned to peer out of the window.

  Nice little boy. His silence in my presence suggested brains and tact. Or did it? No. More likely an inquiring mind overawed by novelty, but never mind that. The point was he wasn’t wrecking my peace. Good intelligent child. I returned to my shaving feeling pleased.

  “Soldier,” said Hal suddenly.

  “Hm?” Stepping to one side of the basin I glanced through the window and saw a uniformed figure pausing by the gates at the other end of the drive. Why should a soldier be snooping in the gateway of my home at seven in the morning? I decided he was a newcomer who had arrived in Swansea on some dawn train and was now hunting for his billet at Little Oxmoon. The uniform was Canadian.

  “Damned foreigners,” I said automatically, finishing my shave.

  “Daddy, look—he’s coming to see us!”

  I returned to the window. The young soldier, carrying his kit bag, was wandering
dreamily up the drive. He made no effort to hurry, and every few seconds he would pause to gaze at his surroundings.

  “The fool thinks he’s at Little Oxmoon,” I said, exasperated, and with Hal scampering at my heels I ran downstairs to open the front door.

  “You’ve got the wrong address!” I shouted at the soldier in what I hoped was a not entirely unfriendly voice. “If you’re looking for the Canadian billet …”

  I stopped. I’d seen his green eyes. He stopped too. He stood there, tall and slim in his Canadian uniform, and although we were silent, holding our breath, I heard time shifting its gears and driving the past into the present like a battering ram. The present splintered, fell apart. Evan said, “Harry, how wonderful to see you again!” and as he spoke I lived once more in my most cherished memories and heard my magic lady using those same words to welcome me home.

  VIII

  My little serf had found his way home. He had no connection with the Canadian billet at Little Oxmoon. He was based in Surrey. This was his first forty-eight-hour leave since his arrival in England, and after catching a night train from London he had snatched a couple of hours’ sleep on a bench at the station, walked off into the Gower Peninsula and thumbed a lift to Penhale on a passing farm cart.

  He knew nothing. I had never been sure whether to believe my father when he had told me he had no communication with his family in Canada, and his threat to me about his three sons there had made me suspect that some form of contact was being maintained but now I found out that the contact was only financial, money transferred through banks, just as my father had said. Evan had thought my father was still living at Penhale Manor. He had had no idea that my father had resumed his marriage, and I could see that the news was a bad shock to him. His sensitive serious face acquired a bleached look. He said, “In that case he won’t want to see me, will he.”

  “Nonsense!” I said, feeling sorry for him; I had really been very fond indeed of my little serf. But as I spoke it occurred to me that my father might well be anxious to avoid a drama in which Evan turned up on Constance’s doorstep and gave a star performance of the Prodigal Son.

  “Sit down and relax, Evan,” I said. We were in the drawing room and I had dispatched Hal to the kitchens to find Bella. Evan was now in a state of shock. He stared around with a glazed expression in his eyes while I tried to tell him I had married old Oswald Stourham’s daughter, but at last he managed to say, “I’m sorry, it’s that piano … I remember you sitting there and playing. ‘The Blue Danube’ and teasing Dad because it was the only tune he ever recognized. … Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m in pieces, I can’t get a hold of myself at all. … Who did you say’s living here now?”

  “My wife and I, my three sons, Uncle Edmund and Aunt Teddy. Richard and Geoffrey are away at Harrow.”

  Evan nearly passed out. “Teddy? That’s the sister, isn’t it? I must go at once.” He leaped to his feet. “I’ll go to Oxmoon. I know Aunt Ginevra wouldn’t mind if I turned up.”

  I grabbed him. “Steady, Evan, she’s dead.”

  “Dead!”

  “Yes, Kester’s living there now with his wife.”

  “Wife? Kester’s married too? Gee, didn’t you both marry young! Is she nice? I guess she must be if Kester married her. Oh, I can’t wait to see Kester again! Kester was the great hero of my childhood—he used to call me his acolyte—”

  “What? Here, wait a minute—I was the great hero of your childhood! You helped me with my experiments in the potting shed—you collected all those conkers for me every autumn—”

  “Oh sure—but you were away at school most of the year and anyway you didn’t really want me around, you just put up with me. But Kester spent hours and hours playing with me, even though I was so much younger than he was—”

  The door opened. In walked Teddy, gorgeously clad in a scarlet kimono and attended by Bella, Hal, Charles and Jack. Edmund, a notoriously late riser, was no doubt still snoozing upstairs.

  “Hi, fellas,” said Teddy. “What’s all this about a Prodigal Son?” Intelligent little Hal had obviously repeated my message verbatim: Tell Mummy my brother Evan’s turned up from Canada.

  What a scene! Evan’s bleached look returned and he was too paralyzed with embarrassment to speak. Bella’s eyes were as round as saucers. God knows what I looked like but I felt wary to say the least. Teddy had told my father after his return to Constance that she was willing enough to let bygones be bygones; but I thought a bygone was rather more than a bygone, when it turned up in a Canadian uniform hoping to find its father.

  “This is my brother Evan, Teddy,” I said for lack of anything better to say. “Evan, this is Mrs. Edmund Godwin.”

  “Right,” said Teddy, thriving on the opportunity to “fix” a problem that would have defeated anyone born without American dynamism. “Now, before we all have the vapors and start passing out right, left and center, let me call a spade a spade so that we can relax and say What the hell. Okay, young man, you know who I am, your father made me very angry once, but that’s all over now, he went back to my sister and he’s still with her and that’s that. Finish. Now, you look like a nice clean-cut well-mannered boy to me, and you’re Harry’s brother which must definitely rank as a big plus, so maybe you and I could get along. Why not? I get along with most people, don’t I, Bella honey?”

  “You’re wonderful, Teddy!”

  “See? She says I’m wonderful. Okay, I’m going to be wonderful. We’ll get Kester and Anna to come over with all the champagne they’ve still got and then we’ll have the time of our lives killing the fatted calf. Harry, go call John and tell him to get the hell down here at once in that god-awful Rolls-Royce.”

  So that was that. Leaving Evan looking utterly shattered, I went to the telephone in the hall and placed the call to London.

  IX

  “Good God!” said my father, but he wasn’t as surprised as I’d anticipated. He added: “I wondered if something like this would happen one day.”

  “Teddy’s being wonderful,” I said. “She’s almost adopted him.”

  “Ah yes,” said my father, and revealing the antipathy towards Teddy which he usually managed to conceal he added cynically: “Another Armstrong exercise in power.”

  “It was she who suggested you should come down at once!” I protested, automatically defending her against the slur of insincerity.

  “Of course. Power’s no fun unless you can maneuver people all over the board. All right, thank you, Harry. Put the boy on the line, would you? I assume he’s there beside you.”

  “No,” I said, but then I found that he was. Passing over the receiver I retired to the far end of the hall but somehow I couldn’t quite persuade myself to step out of earshot. I was thinking of Evan being Kester’s acolyte. An acolyte! What a nasty pansyish word, redolent of emotional melodrama. Typical Kester. And I didn’t like the way he was encroaching on my family, purloining the odd member here and there whenever my back was turned. My little serf—an acolyte! I felt as outraged as a conservative historian who had seen his subject rewritten by a Marxist.

  “Yes, she said I must be sure to look you up, but I was too nervous to make a phone call or write a letter—I thought it would be better if I just turned up. … Well, I guess I was scared you mightn’t want to see me, but I thought that if I stopped by without warning at least I’d see you …”

  Pathetic. Poor old Evan, poor old sod … Three sons in Canada. Maybe they were all Kester’s acolytes. How would I know?

  “… yes, she’s very well, thank you. … Yes, we’re all well. … Oh, that would be wonderful—I don’t want to cause any awkwardness but of course I’d love to see you …”

  Poor little devil, he was so pleased. In fact it was really rather touching, if one was prone to be touched by that sort of thing.

  “Okay. ’Bye,” said Evan, and hung up. He turned to me, his face transformed with happiness. “He’s coming,” he said as if he hardly dared believe it. “He’s coming right away.�
��

  “That’s absolutely marvelous, old chap,” I said warmly. “I couldn’t be more pleased!” But although I knew that the muscles of my face never betrayed me, I felt the knife of jealousy revolve below my heart.

  X

  The grand reunion began. The only blot on the sentimental landscape was Francesca, who flatly refused to meet Evan and said she would stay secluded at Oxmoon until he had left the neighborhood.

  “Best let her be,” said Teddy soothingly, but Kester was most upset and said he did hope Francesca would change her mind.

  Kester had arrived directly after breakfast.

  “Kester!”

  “My acolyte!”

  Damn it, they even embraced. I can’t stand to see grown men embracing. Disgusting.

  “Evan, you look so like Bronwen now you’re grown up! It’s the cheekbones!” said Kester, fawning over the boy as if he were a pet dog.

  “Oh Kester, I’ve thought so much about those wonderful times you gave me at Oxmoon—I’ll never forget how you used to call it Magic Oxmoon and talk about Beauty, Truth, Art and Peace …”

  More embraces. The conversation continued in this sick-making vein for some time before Kester said, wallowing in emotion as usual, “Now, Evan, you’ve got to tell us all about Bronwen—I’m sure Harry’s already asked you, but I can’t help that, you’ll just have to repeat yourself all over again.”

  But I hadn’t asked. I’d wanted to but couldn’t. It was easier to think of her as dead. It was the best way to bear the pain of her absence.

  “Ah; I did love Bronwen … I cried when she left …”

  That was Kester speaking. Not me. Kester. And as I again looked at him and saw my double image, I suddenly had a vision of our lives running side by side in time. That made my blood run cold, although why I didn’t know. There’s nothing sinister about parallel lines—unless they defy the laws of geometry and graze against each other. Maybe I was going mad. I certainly felt mentally disordered. It was as if the world I knew had slipped out of focus and was about to disintegrate before my eyes.