The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  I twisted his arm, shoved him forward and bent his little spine so that from the waist up he was lying flat along the back of the sofa. Then I hit him six times with my belt.

  He was pathetically brave and only whimpered at the end. I hated myself. I hated him for making me hate myself. In fact I was so upset I could hardly bring myself to speak but I did manage to close the incident by saying, “Now, let that be an end to all talk of Kester and let that be an end to your intolerable behavior towards me.”

  He rushed away, blundering against the doorframe, and disappeared.

  After a while I found myself in the ballroom nearby, but I saw it through a haze of pain and felt that its beauty was far beyond my reach. Instinctively I headed for the piano. I knew that everything would be well again once I started playing “The Blue Danube,” so I sat down on the stool and raised my hands above the keys. But no notes sounded in my head. I could remember the tune but I couldn’t hear the notes in that special way I had to hear them in order to play by ear.

  My gift was gone. I was musically deaf. I couldn’t play.

  X

  The gift came back. Of course it came back. I’d given myself a fright but within twenty-four hours I was playing again and once I could play I felt better. Meanwhile Hal had calmed down and was treating me politely, so I told myself I must put the wretched incident aside and refuse to dwell on it. Later I even told myself that Hal was probably grateful to me for taking a firm line. Children like to know just how much they can get away with; I’d no time for the modern theories which declared parents should let children do what they like. What a recipe for anarchy.

  The rest of the holidays passed smoothly but I saw little of the boys because I was so preoccupied with the estate. Taking control of unfamiliar farms is a nerve-racking experience, but the deeper I dug into the unfamiliarity the uneasier I became. There was no doubt that those farms were undermechanized. Overmechanization may be the more serious trap for the twentieth-century farmer to fall into, and I had long since learned for myself the hazards of tying up capital in a machine that was used for only two weeks of the year, but undermechanization meant higher labor costs and labor costs since the war had been rocketing out of sight. Also the laborers were getting Bolshie and wanted their cottages to have indoor lavatories. A nineteenth-century crusader like Rider Haggard would no doubt have cheered them on, but I wasn’t a nineteenth-century crusader and I had to pay the plumbing bills. No doubt they’d all be demanding free television sets in the end. No wonder the country was going to the dogs.

  However I was more worried about Oxmoon going to the dogs than Britannia sinking beneath the waves so I curbed the desire to think like a conservative reactionary and tried to work out how I could drum up the capital to make a substantial investment in mechanization. The short answer was that I couldn’t—not without selling off the Penhale Manor estate. My first instinct, born of sentimentality, was to say “Never!” but I got over that. Oxmoon was now my first priority and only if I sold the Manor could I shore up my new estate effectively against the ravages of the mid-twentieth century.

  I sold the Manor.

  It was a wrench but once I’d done it I felt better. I paid off my debts, straightened out my income tax and plowed the money into Oxmoon. I was still sorry I wasn’t able to incorporate the Penhale Manor Home Farm in the Oxmoon estate, but it was better to have a smaller estate running at maximum efficiency than a larger estate gobbling profits as the result of undermechanization.

  Having straightened out my financial affairs so successfully I was able to enjoy the great family Christmas of 1951 when I took care to continue the tradition of lavish hospitality at Oxmoon. I even spent rather more on champagne than I should have done because I didn’t want my family thinking I was less generous than Kester, but fortunately nobody seemed to be thinking of Kester at all.

  I thought of him continually. He was still staying in Dublin with Declan and I wasn’t in touch with him, but news filtered through to me from Marian, whose rocky marriage to Rory never quite ended in the divorce court. According to Rory Kester was trying to write again. That sent a predictable shudder down my spine but I told myself not to be neurotic. Kester was a writer. Let him write. Nothing, I said to Marian, could please me more than to hear he was taking advantage of his new freedom to do exactly as he pleased.

  I had written to Kester to ask him not to communicate with Hal, and although I’d received no reply I realized he had honored my request; the headmaster reported that no letters from Ireland arrived for Hal at Briarwood, and certainly none arrived at Oxmoon. Poor little Hal. But in fact he’d soon recovered, and in retrospect I couldn’t think why I’d allowed myself to get into such a state about him.

  Humphrey went off to Briarwood in the September of ’51 but I was slaving so hard trying to pull Oxmoon together that I barely had the chance to savor my childless bliss. Of course I never met a woman who wasn’t eager for a guided tour of Oxmoon, but all the same I couldn’t stage guided tours morning, noon and night. Oxmoon didn’t give me the time. In fact I began to see Oxmoon as a highly demanding mistress, beautiful, extravagant, rewarding, inspiring—and exhausting. I spent most of my time feeling satisfied but worn out.

  In the new year it turned out I wasn’t the only one with a demanding mistress, because Gerry asked me if he could borrow the fabled cottage at Rhossili. Although I now let it to holidaymakers every summer it stood empty in the winter and I was willing enough to let Gerry use it when he pleased. In fact I was so sorry for him still being obliged to live at home that I even offered him the cottage on a permanent basis. Flats were scarce in Swansea, and although he was due to qualify as a solicitor that summer, I suspected that even when he was earning he would have trouble finding a place that suited him.

  However Gerry at once rejected my offer by saying he couldn’t possibly give Acceptable Parties for the People Who Mattered if he was reduced to living in a hovel in the back of beyond, and I was so annoyed that my generous gesture had been so peremptorily refused that when Marian called to see me a week later I said to her, “That Gerry’s got ideas above his station. In fact that boy,” I concluded after I had told her what had happened, “has a very cheap vulgar streak in his nature. All he can think of is social climbing.”

  “Well, darling, what can you expect? Bad breeding always tells.” Marian, who looked rather ill bred herself after her latest reconciliation with Rory, knocked back her pink gin and glanced at her watch. Having taken a week off to recuperate from the strain of renewing her married life, she was staying with the Bryn-Davieses in Swansea. “I say!” she exclaimed impulsively as she rose to her feet. “What’s this cottage like? Maybe I’ll take it over next time I leave Rory! Does it have a lavatory or is there just a nasty hole in the garden?”

  The upshot of this somewhat banal conversation was that Marian told Rory I didn’t know what to do with the cottage, Rory told Declan, Declan told Kester and Kester, poor old Kester, poor pathetic exiled old sod, wrote me a rueful charming letter saying how he just couldn’t write in Ireland and he was longing, absolutely longing for a little cottage by the sea in Gower where he could live quietly, getting in no one’s way and being as good as gold at all times. Would I be very, very kind and let him have my Rhossili cottage? Of course he would pay me rent. He did hope I wouldn’t object because it would mean so much to him and he was sure all the family would understand his request and sympathize with it.

  I knew a threat when I saw one. I went straight to Dafydd. “If I don’t let him have the cottage, he’ll go whining to the family that he’s been victimized—and I can’t afford that, not when I’ve finally got them eating out of my hand. I’ll have to agree. But what the hell do you think he wants?”

  “A quiet life.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! He’s had a quiet life in Ireland and now he’s ready for action again!”

  “You’re off your rocker.”

  “You’re off yours if you think he doesn’t mean
trouble!”

  We stared at each other. Finally Dafydd said, “Okay, so he’s on the warpath again after cooking up some plot with bloody Declan—he’s dreamed up a scheme where he can crucify you without crucifying himself. But what is it? You tell me that. Just what the hell can he do?”

  “God knows.”

  “Exactly. You’re imagining this, Harry. It’s all in your mind. Kester’s finished. Beaten. Washed up.”

  “Yes. That’s right. Of course.”

  “So you don’t have to worry.”

  “No. I don’t have to worry.”

  I went away telling myself I wasn’t worried, not a bit of it, hadn’t a care in the world.

  But my God, what the bloody hell was Kester going to do next?

  9

  I

  I COULDN’T REST. I couldn’t sleep. I was afraid to consent to Kester’s request but equally afraid to turn it down. Finally I summoned Gerry. I decided it was time Wonder Boy stopped beating his brains out to be Accepted and started beating his brains out on my behalf once more.

  “Don’t just say he can’t touch me,” I said as we conferred in the library. “Try and think of a legal way he could get Oxmoon back.”

  Gerry obligingly began to check off the possibilities. “One: he could claim there was some technical defect in the deed—but I’d say it was impossible that Roland and I, Fairfax and Carmichael were all blind to some huge howler.”

  “Go on.”

  “Two: he could claim he was insane when he signed the deed.”

  “Possible?”

  “Most unlikely. Insanity’s a very sticky legal wicket and he’s never been certified—in fact he hasn’t even been in a mental hospital this time around. I know he’s claiming he’s had another breakdown, but as far as hard evidence is concerned—”

  “All right, forget insanity. What have we got left?”

  “Well …” Gerry examined a fingernail. “Of course there’s that hoary old chestnut duress but we don’t really believe Declan Kinsella’s Irish fairy tale, do we?”

  “Certainly not. But if Kester could prove duress—”

  “Oh, he could get Oxmoon back.”

  I got up and began to pace around the room.

  “But Harry, why should you be so sure Kester’s on the warpath? If he was, wouldn’t he communicate with you through his lawyers? Why go through this charade of pretending all he wants is to hole up at Rhossili and write a new masterpiece?”

  “Okay, I’m crazy.” I went on pacing around the room.

  We were silent for a moment before Gerry said with impressive delicacy, “Harry … I know there was no duress involved, but couldn’t there … maybe … have been a little wholly insignificant persuasion?”

  I made a quick calculation. Qualified or not, he was in the position of a lawyer who had to respect a confidence. I had no wish to confide in anyone but I felt I had to find out where I stood.

  “He could claim duress,” I said abruptly, “but the fact is he daren’t. He committed a crime and I knew of it. Moreover I’ve got the evidence that convicts him.”

  Gerry blanched. I could see him instantly trying to work out how he could steer himself clear of this mess which was so very far from being Acceptable.

  “I didn’t hear that,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

  “Harry, don’t think I don’t want to help you. Look, maybe I could negotiate with Kester on your behalf—fix some kind of deal in which he got the house back but you went on running the estate—”

  “Don’t be a bloody fool. I’ve sold my home. I’ve sunk all my money in Oxmoon.”

  “Oh, some kind of financial reparation would of course be made,” said Gerry glibly to help us skate past this vista of an unthinkable future. “Rather a tricky situation, old chap”—Gerry’s BBC accent was really much improved—”but perhaps it’s better not to dwell upon it further at this stage. We’ll have to wait till Kester shows his hand—if he’s got a hand to show—and meanwhile you ought to stop this crazy talk about crimes and so on, I mean, I don’t take you seriously, I know there’s nothing in it, but other people might think—”

  “Quite.” I got rid of him and went in search of my henchman. “Dafydd, I think the worst’s going to happen and Kester’s going to call my bluff.”

  Dafydd stared at me. “He can’t. Daren’t. Remember the poker.”

  “I know. But Dafydd, supposing he just says sod the poker. What’s a poker with a bit of blood on it? Even if the forensic scientists prove Thomas’s blood group was the same as the group of blood on the poker, that still doesn’t prove conclusively that the blood’s his.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Dafydd, if I accuse Kester of murdering Thomas he’ll deny it. If I start waving the poker around he’ll just say it’s nothing to do with him. Furthermore, it’ll look as if I’m a certifiable paranoiac—or, as you would say, off my bloody rocker. And in the end—” I drew a deep breath as the nightmare unfolded in my mind. “—Kester could even turn the whole story around and cast me as the villain from start to finish. He’d say I was unbalanced by the war. He’d say I first killed Thomas and then threatened to kill him too unless he kept quiet. He’d say that was why he left Oxmoon—because he was too bloody frightened to stay any longer!”

  “Wait. Don’t forget you couldn’t have used the poker. It came from his bedroom, he said—”

  “Oh, what the hell, he’ll say I killed Thomas with the golf club, he’ll say I took the poker in an attempt to incriminate him, he’ll say bloody anything! The poker’s meaningless, Dafydd! Declan probably saw that at once as soon as he’d coaxed Kester to confess. Outsiders often see a horrific situation more clearly than people who are in it up to the neck.”

  “Well, if I was a murderer like bloody Kester, look you,” said Dafydd calmly, “I wouldn’t take the risk of calling your bluff. Too dangerous. Keep your head, Harry. Don’t play into his hands by doing anything stupid. Call his bluff and say he’s welcome to have the cottage rent-free for as long as he wants—act as if your conscience was as clear as bloody crystal.”

  This struck me as good advice. Certainly no other advice was on offer so I sent the note agreeing to Kester’s proposal and he wrote back by return. I left the breakfast table and retired to the cloakroom as soon as I saw the flowery writing on the envelope. It seemed an elementary precaution against queasiness.

  With the cloakroom door locked and the basin within retching distance I opened the envelope and read: My dear Harry, many thanks! I can’t wait to see that wonderful view of Rhossili Bay—now I know I shall be able to write a masterpiece! I’m planning to arrive on May 5th—let me know if this isn’t convenient. Could you leave the keys at the hotel at Rhossili so that we don’t have to meet? True Doppelgängers should never meet face to face, you know. Ever your enthralled mirror image, C.G.

  I didn’t vomit but my bowels felt as though they’d been sliced to ribbons so it was some time before I unlocked the cloakroom door. Scared shitless. Literally. Hadn’t had that happen since the war.

  “Dafydd, take a look at this.”

  He took a look. “Off his rocker. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “Look at the signature—‘C.G.’ ”

  “Well, Christ, that’s his name, isn’t it? Christopher Godwin!”

  “But don’t you see? He’s not just poor old Kester, poor old sod anymore. He’s Christopher, my formidable cousin Christopher—clever, cunning, powerful, violent—”

  “Oh, fuck off, Harry, for Christ’s sake—this is just a crazy bugger who likes writing stories!”

  I got a grip on myself. But then the sores began to break open on my back. I felt as if I were ripe for the padded cell—or at the very least a hospital bed and a shot of morphine, but I couldn’t break down, there was no time. We were behind with the spring sowing, some fool had buggered up the bloody tractor at Daxworth and I was having rows with everyone in sight. Thank God I g
ot the boys off my hands at the end of April, but I’d only just finished soothing the housekeeper, who was threatening to give notice after packing four school trunks, when another old nightmare surfaced. Dafydd reported that a little note in childish handwriting had been slipped under the door of the cottage to await Kester’s arrival.

  Steaming open the envelope I read: Dear Kester, we’re all so thrilled you’re coming home to Gower. Gwyneth and I can’t wait. She wears Anna’s locket every day in memory of you. I’ve read Wuthering Heights now and you’re right, it’s wonderful, much better than The Prisoner of Zenda! I can’t wait to talk to you about it. I’ve wanted to talk to you about so many things and I wish I could have written to you although I knew you were right in that last letter you sent when you said I had to obey my father like in the Ten Commandments, but what I want to know is, does one always have to obey orders? Can’t one be excused if one knows the order’s wrong? Please could you explain all this to me when we meet next holidays. With love from your friend HAL.

  I read this letter slowly and painfully. Had I known that Hal had read Wuthering Heights? No. I hadn’t even known he’d read The Prisoner of Zenda. And had Hal obeyed me by having no communication with Kester over the last year? No, he had obeyed Kester who had seen how our conflict was disturbing Hal and had moved to defuse it by citing the Ten Commandments. Kester emerged from the mess as an unselfish hero, I as a boorish maladjusted parent. Bloody hell. I was in misery again. How was I going to stop Hal visiting Kester whenever my back was turned? I couldn’t. He’d be rushing off to Rhossili to play the acolyte as soon as he returned from school for the summer holidays.

  I wanted to tear the letter up but I stopped myself. That would have made me a worse parent than ever and alienated me from Hal for good. So I resealed the envelope and told Dafydd to replace it in the cottage. But my rash now started to suppurate.

  May came.

  So did Kester.