The Wheel of Fortune (21 page)

I went to the piano.

“How well you play!” said Bobby in my mind, the Bobby I could bear to remember the man who was always so kind and good with children. Another Bobby had existed but he could be allowed no place in my memory. Sometimes he tried to slip in—he was trying to slip in now—but fear made me strong and I shut, him out. The road to remembrance was guarded by a terrible coldness and as soon as I shivered I thought, I won’t think of that. Yet I was always terrified I would. I was terrified now. I knew I was going to have to remember that other Bobby but I did not see how I could speak of him and remain conscious. I thought I would die of the shame.

To distract myself I began to play “The Blue Danube,” but I was in such an agony of terror that all the notes came out wrong, and I had just broken off in despair when the inevitable happened; footsteps echoed in the corridor and Robert walked into the room.

I struggled to my feet. He was expressionless but exuding a businesslike efficiency. My terror deepened.

“Sit down, please,” he said, gesturing to the table.

We sat down opposite each other by the window. There was a pile of sheet music between us, and as I stared at the treble clefs they became meaningless, mere recurring symbols between those recurring parallel lines.

“Now,” said Robert briskly, “this is what we’re going to do. You’re going to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Then once the truth is established beyond all reasonable doubt I shall reduce it to order so that we can conduct a rational survey of our dilemma. However before I begin … Are you listening?”

I whispered that I was.

“Then look at me.”

I somehow raised my eyes to the level of his watch chain.

‘That’s better. Now before we begin there are two points I wish you to understand. One: don’t lie to me because I’m on my guard now and I’ll be able to spot a lie almost before it’s spoken. I’m trained to recognize lies, and in fact although I shut my mind against the knowledge I knew earlier that my father hadn’t told me the whole truth; he was very plausible but I noticed how he relaxed in relief when he thought his big lie had been safely delivered. … So you see, you must always tell me the truth because if you don’t I’ll know and that’ll mean the end.”

“Yes.” I heard the word “end” and realized dimly that he spoke of it not as if it were in the present but as if it were in the future, and not just in the future but in a future that was not necessarily inevitable. I was apparently being granted some fearful stay of execution. I thought of the rack and disembowelment and began to see the advantages of a simple beheading. Perhaps Mary Queen of Scots had been luckier than I had ever realized.

“Very well, that’s the first point I want to make,” said Robert, “and the second point is this: whatever the truth is don’t be frightened of confessing it to me because I can’t possibly be shocked—I’ll have heard it all before. May I remind you that I don’t just defend murderers at the Old Bailey. I go out on circuit, and at the assizes I defend people accused of robbery, assault, rape, sodomy, bestiality, incest and any other criminal offense you care to name. You do see what I’m trying to say, don’t you? You do see what an enormous advantage my profession gives us here?”

I managed to nod but I still couldn’t imagine how I was ever going to speak of the unspeakable. However Robert saw my difficulty and tried again.

“If you can help me by doing as I ask,” he said, “then I can help you. Regard it as a new charade to play: I shall think of you as my client, someone in great trouble who requires all my professional skill, and you must think of me as your lawyer, the only person on earth who has a hope of getting you out of this mess.”

I suddenly understood not only his proposal but the logic that lay behind it. He was trying to distance us from the horror by making it impersonal. We were no longer lovers. We were lawyer and client. I was in ghastly trouble but he could help, he had seen it all before; he was calm, he was professional, he could cope. All I had to do to survive was to trust him.

“This sort of case is in fact not uncommon,” said Robert, shoring up my confidence. “You may be surprised to hear that there’s even sometimes on the part of the child a degree of acquiescence which can amount to encouragement. I say that not to imply that this was true in your case but to reassure you that I’m wholly familiar with such incidents. Now … shall we begin?”

I nodded but was immediately plunged into panic again. As far as I could see no beginning was possible.

“Ginevra.” That snapped me out of my panic as abruptly as a slap in the face for he never called me Ginevra as everyone else did. “You must trust me,” he said, and when I looked into his eyes I found I could not look away. “You must.”

“Yes … I will … I do … but I can’t see where to begin.”

He smiled. Like so many juries I had surrendered my mind to his and the first hurdle had been overcome. I was so relieved to see him smile that tears came to my eyes, and when he offered me a cigarette (a noble gesture from a man who hated women smoking) I nearly wept with gratitude.

When our cigarettes were alight he said, “The first matter I want to clarify is the chronology. This case is all mixed up with your first encounter with Kinsella, isn’t it? What I’d like to establish is whether the two incidents were related or whether they were merely running concurrently. Let’s start with Kinsella. You met him at the Mowbrays’, didn’t you, in the May of 1896, shortly after your sixteenth birthday?”

“Yes.” This was easy. I thought of Conor and how divinely glamorous he had looked at twenty-four, a fascinating rough diamond in a pearls-and-primness setting. “It was a grown-up dinner party,” I said. “I wasn’t ‘out,’ of course, but it didn’t matter because it was just a gathering of old friends. The Porteynon Kinsellas came with Conor, and the Bryn-Davieses were there as well. I remember saying to Conor, ‘Mr. Bryn-Davies’s father and my cousin Bobby’s mother were involved in a simply scorching grand passion!’ and Conor was very entertained, but Margaret overheard and was livid with me afterwards.”

“What was Bobby’s attitude to you at this time?”

“Normal.” I was grateful to him for using Bobby’s first name instead of any word that would have underlined their relationship.

“Very well. What happened after this dinner party when you created such a deep impression on Kinsella?”

“Nothing. There was no deep impression. You see, I was so young, I still wore my hair in plaits—I hadn’t a hope of winning any serious attention from a sophisticated man of twenty-four. Besides, he was after his cousins’ money—the money that went to that wretched dogs’ home in the end—and so he had to be on his best behavior. He couldn’t afford any unwise flirtations.”

“But he did like you.”

“Oh yes, I think he found me amusing but I soon realized nothing was going to come of it. Margaret hadn’t cared for him at all so I knew he’d never be invited to Oxmoon.”

“Very discouraging for you. What happened next?”

“I mooned around at home, shed a few tears of frustration and decided my life had finished at the age of sixteen.”

“All very normal behavior, in fact, for a young girl in the throes of calf love.”

“Oh yes, everything was absolutely normal. But then …”

“Just take it in strict chronological sequence. There you were, you say, shedding tears like a lovesick heroine—”

“—in the summerhouse, yes, I was just weeping over my volume of Browning when … when Bobby turned up with Glendower—or at least the Glendower of seventeen years ago. He asked me what the matter was and when I poured out my heart to him he was so kind and understanding.” This was the Bobby I could allow myself to remember. I was able to speak the words without difficulty.

“Was there any manifestation of an abnormal interest at this stage?”

“No, but after that he became nicer and nicer to me, and I kept meeting him by accident at odd moments—only of course the meetings were no accident—”

“I’m sorry, I’ve lost track of the time here. Is this still May or are we in June?”

“It must have been still in May. I met Conor at the beginning of the month, and I don’t think this unusual interest from Bobby went on for more than a fortnight or so—three weeks at the most.”

“But there was still no hint of impropriety?”

“No, I knew his interest was unprecedented but I just thought he was making an extra effort to cheer me up.”

“He didn’t kiss you here in the music room, for instance, when no one was around?”

“No, never. But it’s odd you should mention the music room because he did come here more than once when I was practicing the piano.” I tried to recall the incidents. I had spent so many years trying to forget that my memory had become shadowy, but I now found as a matter of pride that I wanted to dispel the shadows in order to impress Robert with my courage. “Wait a moment,” I said to him. “I must try and get this right.”

“Take your time.”

I went on thinking. I now felt no pain, no fear, just a consuming desire to confess as accurately as possible, and as I sat there in silence the past seemed no longer an emotional nightmare but an intellectual puzzle which I felt morally bound to solve.

At last I said slowly, “I think the truth is probably this: Bobby may well have wanted to kiss me—or hold my hand—or something—by that time, and I think if I’d been older I’d have realized that he was thinking of me sexually, but I didn’t realize and he didn’t actually do anything.”

“Very well, I accept that.”

“You see, when it did happen it was as if I’d had no warning …” My voice shook and I had to stop.

“Yes, I understand but don’t jump ahead—keep to the sequence. Margaret went away at about this time, I think.”

“Yes, to Staffordshire to see Aunt May whose baby had died. Poor Aunt May, she was so nice—trust awful old Aunt Ethel to be the sister who survived—”

“A tragedy, I agree, but don’t let’s be diverted by Aunt Ethel’s indisputable awfulness; let’s concentrate on the May of 1896. Now: Margaret was away in Staffordshire and Kinsella, presumably, was still at Porteynon. How did you manage to see him after Margaret left?”

“I didn’t. I never saw him. That story of the clandestine meetings was invented by Margaret later to hush up what had happened.”

“I see. Very well. So there you were at Oxmoon, but you certainly weren’t alone with Bobby. You had your governess and Celia bobbing around you whenever you weren’t being pestered by the babies in the nursery, so Bobby must have had to choose the moment for the seduction very carefully.”

“Yes. He did.”

“If I were Bobby I’d have gone to your room at night.”

“Yes,” I said again. “He did.” As I crushed out my cigarette I heard myself say rapidly, “That was what was so awful, Robert, about last night when Bobby interrupted us. Of course I knew perfectly well he only wanted to find out how likely I was to marry you—I knew he had no sinister purpose in mind—but when he came in it was as if the past was repeating itself—oh God, I can’t tell you what a nightmare last night was—”

“It was a nightmare for all three of us. But let’s return to the nightmare of ’96.”

“That’s why Margaret didn’t put me in my old room this time. She knew—she understood—”

“Never mind 1913. We’re in 1896 and Bobby’s come to your room to show he can no longer think of you as a daughter.”

“Yes, he … he kissed me and … I’m sorry, I
will
be able to go on in a moment—but you’ll have to ask me another question; I can’t see where to go next—”

“Did he seduce you then or did he merely set the scene for a later seduction?”

“Oh God, the answer’s both yes and no. I’m sorry, I know that sounds ludicrous, but—”

“Not at all. He seems to be conforming to a well-known pattern. What you’re saying is that he did seduce you but he didn’t—he left you a virgin physically but not mentally and emotionally.”

“Yes, it was all so … oh, so indescribably awful,
awful
because … because … well, you did say just now, didn’t you, that in such cases the child sometimes acquiesces to the point of encouragement … and I did acquiesce, it was because he frightened me. I knew it was wrong, but what shattered me was that I could see
he
knew it was wrong yet he couldn’t stop himself—and when I saw him like that, a changed man, a stranger—oh God, it was so terrifying, all I wanted was to put things right. … He said he was unhappy, you see, so I thought that if only I could make him happy he’d become the Bobby I knew again—”

“Did he explain why he was unhappy?”

“He said that with Margaret away he was afraid to sleep alone because he knew he’d have nightmares, and he asked if he could sleep with me for a little while to keep the nightmares at bay. And the awful thing was, Robert—”

“He was telling the truth. He was genuinely desperate and of course you longed to help him—oh yes, the really consummate liars of this world always use the truth as far as they possibly can! Very well, so the truth gave him the excuse he needed to get into bed with you, and you were much too terrified by this revelation of the unbalanced side of his personality to do anything but consent. I accept all that. Now—”

“He did say he wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want him to do, but the trouble was … well, I didn’t really know what he meant, I’d never discussed passion with anyone—‘sex’ as Mr. H. G. Wells calls it—well, you just thought it was soppy, didn’t you, and Margaret had only said she’d have a little talk with me later before I had my first dance—of course I had inklings of what went on because of all the animals, but I was still so ignorant—”

“I understand. Now, what was Bobby’s reaction afterwards? Did he immediately ask if he could return the next night?”

“Oh no—no, quite the reverse! Robert, he was horrified, absolutely appalled—and of course that made me more terrified than ever because at that point he seemed irrevocably transformed into someone wicked who did terrible things. He sat on the edge of the bed and said, ‘I’ve done a terrible thing and no one must ever know about it’—oh, God, how he frightened me! Then he got in a state about the sheet because … well, I said I’d sponge it off but he didn’t trust me, he had to do it himself. He was in a panic. He said, ‘You mustn’t worry, you’re still a virgin, I haven’t harmed you,’ but when he looked at my expression he saw how he had harmed me, and he said, ‘Oh God forgive me,’ and I thought he was going to break down but he didn’t, he just repeated he’d never do such a thing again, and then he left.”