The Wheel of Fortune (68 page)

The town sparkled in a hot, bright foreign light, and beyond the beaches the sea was a rich glowing Mediterranean blue. We found a guesthouse in a cobbled alley in the heart of the town, and having shed our luggage we wandered through the narrow twisting streets to the harbor.

“I think the weather will stay fine now,” I said rashly, and despite this tempting of fate, the sun continued to shine. We became idle, heading every morning for the beach and returning every afternoon to the seclusion of our room. From our window we could watch the gulls swooping among the crooked chimney pots as the fishing boats returned to the harbor, and in the evenings when the town became bathed in its golden southern light, we would wander to the summit of the hill behind the town and watch the sun sink into the sea.

“We’re like pilgrims in a legend,” I said to her once, and we talked of Welsh legends and read about Cornish legends in our dog-eared guidebook. I told her about French legends too, and described my visits to France before the war when I had been studying modern languages up at Oxford. She asked about Oxford but could not quite imagine it. I told her about Paris. She could not conceive of such a place, but was enthralled. We never mentioned London.

“I’d like to travel one day,” she said. “I’d always accepted that I’d never leave Wales, but now that I have … oh, I must read books about travel, real books with hard covers; I shall talk to the lady of the traveling library and ask her advice, and then I shall read and read and read so that when I talk to you in the future—”

We looked at each other. She blushed painfully, but I pulled her to me. I did not want her hating herself for mentioning a future neither of us dared imagine.

When I had kissed her I said, “Of course I could never marry Constance now.”

She made no effort to disguise her relief, and in her honesty I saw how vulnerable she was. But still she had the courage to say: “You must do as you must. I don’t want you blaming me later and saying I ruined your life by spoiling all your fine prospects in London.”

“I don’t care about London anymore. I’m going back to Gower.” We were watching the sun set again. The sun was a brilliant red, the blue sky was streaked with gold and the sea was a glowing mass of fiery light. It was the most alluring prospect, the kind of prospect that would tempt even an unimaginative man to see visions of paradise, and I was by no means an unimaginative man.

“Now that poor child’s dead Oxmoon will come to me eventually,” I said at last. “My father may promise Robert out of kindness that Kester will be the heir, but that promise will die with Robert. My father prefers Harry to Kester, and besides … I know very well that my father feels closer to me now than he does to his other sons.”

After a pause Bronwen said, “But do you think you’re suited to a country life at Oxmoon?”

I was startled. “Why should you think I’m not?”

“I remember Huw saying after your wife died that he wasn’t surprised by your decision to go to London. He said he thought you’d become bored with being a gentleman farmer at Penhale Manor.”

“Being a gentleman farmer at Penhale Manor is one thing; being master of Oxmoon is quite another and would certainly provide me with the challenges I need to stave off boredom.” I tried not to sound annoyed. “That’s a jaundiced judgment from your brother-in-law!”

“Oh, you mustn’t think that,” she said quickly. “He admires you so much. But he finds you a puzzle—and so do most people, if you really want to know. ‘Mr. John’s a dark horse,’ they say. ‘Doesn’t seem to know what he wants. Up to London, back to Gower, up to London again—rushing around like an inklemaker in a drangway,’ as they say in their funny Gower English—”

“I admit I’ve been confused in the past. But if I knew I had Oxmoon coming to me, all confusion would be at an end.”

“Why? It’s only a house. How can stone and slate solve muddle and unhappiness?”

I made a great effort to express my complex feelings simply so that she could understand. “I feel I need a reward,” I said. “I want compensation for all those years I came second to Robert. I want compensation for all those years when I murdered my true self in a futile effort to please my parents as much as Robert did. I feel it’s only fair that I should get Oxmoon; I feel it’s owing to me.”

“What’s owing to you,” said Bronwen, “is love, but you won’t get that from Oxmoon. Nor can Oxmoon change the past. Forgiving your parents, not inheriting Oxmoon, is the only way you can stop the past from haunting you.”

I stared at her and as she stared back I was aware, not for the first time, of the extreme clarity of her mind. It was as if she saw a spectrum of reality that was entirely beyond my field of vision.

“But of course I forgive my parents,” I heard myself say. “I’m a good son, I always have been, so how can I not forgive them? To bear a grudge would imply I disliked and resented them—and how could I dislike and resent them, why, I’d despise myself, such feelings would be quite incompatible with being a good son.”

Bronwen said nothing.

“My parents were innocent victims,” I said strongly. “My grandmother’s the one to blame.
She’s
the one I loathe and resent as the source of all my unhappiness.”

Bronwen kissed me and said, “Forgive her.”

“How can I? If I don’t blame her for what went wrong I must blame my parents and I can’t—yet I’ve got to blame someone, I must, I’ve suffered, I went through hell, it distorted my whole life—”

“Yes,” said Bronwen, “it was dreadful. But you must break free, you mustn’t let it go on distorting your life, and the road to freedom isn’t the road to Oxmoon. You won’t be happy in a world where you think you need compensation, because the compensation will only chain you to the past.”

There was a silence. The sun continued to sink into the sea and we continued to watch it, but finally I turned aside and said, “My father may well live another twenty years, so Oxmoon’s not important now. What’s important is that I should return to Gower so that we can have a life together there.”

I saw her fear as clearly as I saw her joy.

“Of course,” I said, “we’d be married.”

She looked more fearful than ever. “But how would I manage?”

I kissed her. “We’ll both manage very well.” I kissed her again and began to sort through my pockets for coins. “Let’s find a telephone so that I can discover what’s been going on. I think I’ve got the courage now to return to the world we left behind.”

As we set off through the cobbled streets I heard a clock chiming far away by the harbor, and when Bronwen’s hand tightened in mine I knew she was aware of my thoughts. Anglo-Saxon time was waiting for us, and in that world of weeks, days and hours lay a crisis of catastrophic dimensions. I had realized, as I sent my last batch of postcards to my children, that I had been away for far longer than I had intended.

VI

“What the hell have you been doing?” shouted Robert. “Where are you? What’s going on? That bloody American of yours has been persecuting us for information and saying you’re supposed to be in London proposing to his daughter!”

“I’ve no intention of proposing to his daughter. I’m in Cornwall with the woman I love.”

“You’re
what
?” His voice receded; he had evidently turned aside to confide in his wife. “John’s gone completely off the rails.”

He readdressed the telephone. “For God’s sake, what woman?”

“Her name’s Bronwen Morgan, and she’s Huw Meredith’s sister-in-law. Robert, are you better? And how’s Ginevra? Do please forgive me for not telephoning you earlier—”

“Oh, don’t worry about us,” said Robert. “We’re now the least of your problems. Tell me, is there any chance of seeing you in the immediate future, or do you intend to ramble around Cornwall in a romantic haze indefinitely?”

“I’m returning to Gower tomorrow. I have to take Bronwen back to Penhale before I go up to London.”

“Good. I’ll have the straitjacket waiting,” said Robert, and hung up.

VII

“Of course you must realize,” said Robert kindly, “that you’re quite insane, but fortunately it’s nothing to worry about; this form of insanity is very common, and there’s no doubt you’ll recover—probably sooner rather than later. Now, the most important thing is that you should start to come gently down to earth. Take your children to the zoo or something. Give those appalling off-the-peg clothes to the nearest branch of the Salvation Army. Read a newspaper. Have a haircut. Do all those boring little everyday things which remind one constantly of how drab life really is. And above all, my dear John, abandon this romantic pose of the Celtic Twilight Visionary—set aside this nauseous Celtic mysticism and try to see the situation not with Anglo-Saxon clarity—I don’t ask the impossible—but at least with true Welsh hardheadedness and good sense. It’s only the English who think the Welsh spend all their time wandering around singing at a perpetual Eisteddfod, so if you must see yourself as a Welshman, for God’s sake see yourself as an intelligent one and don’t wreck your life while you’re not responsible for your actions.”

It was early evening, and we were alone in the drawing room at Little Oxmoon. Ginevra had tactfully left after giving me a brief embrace; I was relieved to see she was looking better. So was Robert. He was no longer bedridden and had returned to his wheelchair.

“Robert, you don’t understand. This is the way, the truth, the life I long to lead—”

“What way? What truth? And for God’s sake, what life? John, have you really no idea how absurd you sound? Look, I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Contrary to the romantic poets, I don’t believe falling in love is a random phenomenon—in my opinion it’s always the symptom of some underlying disorder of the personality.”

“If you think that,” I said, “then obviously you’ve never been in love.”

“It’s precisely because I’ve been in love that I know what I’m talking about. Sex should be a sport, not a destructive obsession.”

“You don’t seriously regard sex as a mere sport, do you?”

Robert stared at me. “Well, how do you regard it?”

“Sex is life—real life. Sport is just a way of keeping real life at bay—it’s just a poor substitute for what life’s really all about.”

“What an extraordinary remark! It’s hard to believe you ever went to Harrow. Have you by any chance come under the influence of that turgid little writer D. H. Lawrence?”

“My knowledge of modern English literature stops with John Buchan. Anyway why are we talking about sex? I’m talking about love!”

“Oh yes, yes, yes, of course you are—people who can think of nothing but sex always ennoble their emotion by calling it love, but don’t worry, I refuse to let myself be defeated by this problem. You’re my favorite brother and I’m very fond of you and I’m going to save you from yourself even if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Robert was at his most formidable. He was carefully dressed in a black suit with his Old Harrovian tie, and although his right side was too weak to permit him to sit entirely straight in his chair, he still gave the impression of being bolt upright. His thinning hair, neatly cut and severely parted, was the color of iron. His deep-set, somewhat hypnotic eyes were steel-blue. Even his useless right hand, curled inwards like a claw, seemed to express aggression, and I had to make a considerable effort not to be mentally pulverized by the full force of his personality in top gear.

“There’s obviously some lack in your life,” he was saying, “which has driven you to compensate yourself by escaping into this addle-brained Celtic sloppiness. Now, let me see. What is it that’s lacking? You’re rich, healthy and good-looking. You enjoy your work. You have two attractive children to whom you’re devoted. You have loyal servants and a wide circle of admiring friends—you even have a saintly mistress tucked away in Fulham who apparently never gives you a moment’s anxiety—and on top of all this quite extraordinary good fortune, you have an American millionaire who thinks you’re God’s gift to a middle-aged buccaneer with a paternity obsession, and you have a good-looking, cultivated girl who can’t wait to make you a matchlessly competent wife. Yet are you satisfied with this Elysium you’ve created for yourself? No, you’re not. You rush off to Cornwall with a cleaning woman from Cardiff, gaze into golden sunsets and talk twaddle about ways and truths and lives you long to lead. Very well, I give up, you tell me: what’s wrong with your London life? What’s missing?”

“Bronwen.”

“That’s no answer. That just restates the conundrum. Christ, give me some more whisky! It’s hard work providing a rational explanation for such thoroughly irrational behavior.”

There was a pause while I removed our glasses to the decanter and refilled them. It was not until I was adding the water that Robert said slowly, “But perhaps I’m entirely wrong. Perhaps there’s no lack in your life—quite the reverse. Perhaps there’s a superfluity. Perhaps you’ve simply decided you don’t need London anymore, and perhaps this raging love affair with a Welsh peasant is your peculiar way of celebrating your liberation. … But why would you feel you no longer need London?”

“All I care about is living with Bronwen in Gower.”

“You couldn’t conceivably be quite such a fool.”

“Robert—”

“You wouldn’t give up all for love—you’re much too ambitious. You’d only give up your present Elysium if you thought you saw another more attractive one on the horizon—and so the big question is, isn’t it, what’s more attractive to you than a million pounds and all the worldly success you’ve ever wanted?”

“Oh, for God’s sake! Listen, Robert—”

“No, I’m sorry, John, but you’re going to have to listen to me, because I’m now quite beside myself with horror. I can see that your whole behavior has been the result of a most disastrous miscalculation.”

“What the devil do you mean?”

“You’re not going to get Oxmoon, John. Not now. Not ever. Drink up that scotch. Pour yourself some brandy. And I’ll explain.”

VIII

He said he was going to make sure Kester was the heir.

“Well, of course you are,” I said without a second’s hesitation. “I’d do the same for my own son if I were in your shoes.” I took what I thought would be a sip of whisky and found myself draining the glass.