The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  But Uncle John wasn’t listening. He was watching Harry play “The Blue Danube.”

  “Bayliss supervised, of course,” said Uncle Edmund, who could ramble on happily without encouragement. “It was a tremendous task. Ginevra, what was the name of that kitchen maid whom Ifor eloped with in the end?”

  But my mother wasn’t listening either. She was standing by Uncle John, and she too was watching Harry play “The Blue Danube.”

  Uncle Edmund would have been happy to go on reminiscing by himself, but at that moment Aunt Teddy swept up to him and cried, “Dance with me, darling!” and whirled him off around the ballroom floor.

  “Oh God, no more of that old-fashioned rubbish!” shouted Thomas, emerging from his corner. “Play ‘The Black Bottom’ and let’s have some fun!”

  The gramophone began to blare “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.”

  “A Charleston—how divine!” shrieked Marian, and boldly grabbed Rory’s hand.

  “Whoopee!” shouted Rory, who needed no encouragement, and began to kick up his heels.

  “Kester,” muttered my mother, “ask Erika to dance.”

  “Must I?”

  “No, it’s all right, Harry’s just asked her.”

  I sourly watched Harry doing the done thing. Of course he danced perfectly. I disliked modern dancing and thought it a low stupid activity riddled with nasty innuendos.

  When the Charleston ended Rory put on a slow fox-trot, and Uncle Edmund and Aunt Teddy immediately slid into a hot embrace.

  “Torrid!” said my mother, blowing smoke rings at the chandeliers.

  Thomas and Eleanor started chewing each other’s faces again.

  “I wouldn’t mind some of that myself!” said my mother, who was rather tight. “But not with Thomas, of course.”

  Finding all this kissing tedious as well as disturbing, I edged away to the dark corner where Thomas and Eleanor had earlier been demonstrating their prenuptial bliss and stared gloomily out of the window. The moon had risen. The garden was bathed in a mystical light. I pictured myself walking there chastely one evening in the remote future with the Princess of My Dreams while a full-scale orchestra in evening dress played Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto beneath the glittering chandeliers of the ballroom.

  “Hullo, old chap,” said Cousin Harry, slinking up behind me and destroying this romantic vision instantly. “Not much of a party, is it? I’ve decided I’m not quite desperate enough to kiss Erika but almost desperate enough to masturbate in the nearest lavatory. What are you up to, mooning around here like a half-baked poet? Are you in love with anyone yet?”

  “Certainly not!” I said outraged. “Don’t be so revolting!” Because of my secluded life I had never heard the word “masturbate” before, but I had reached the age when I felt I could guess all too easily what it meant.

  “What’s wrong with being in love?” said Harry, giving me a pitying look as if I had expressed the wish to be a vestal virgin. “Or are you in love with that pansy Warwick Mowbray? God, he’s so wet you could wring him out six times and still have enough water left to fill a rain barrel!”

  “What a filthy disgusting swinish slander!” I shouted. “How dare you say things like that about Ricky Mowbray!”

  “Oh, sorry, old chap, I had no idea you were so absolutely passionate about him.”

  “I am not passionate about—”

  “—about sex? Well, obviously! Tell me, are you going to have false balls fitted to replace the ones you were born without?”

  I swung back my fist to smash it into his jaw but he was ready for me. He slipped aside, I swiveled in pursuit—and we both found ourselves confronting my mother who, anticipating trouble, had crept up on us unawares.

  When my mother was moderately angry she became fiery and histrionic, but when she was beside herself with fury she was glacial. She was glacial now; her voice was colder than permafrost in the tundra.

  “I think you forget yourself, Harry,” she said. “This isn’t the lavatory of your school. If I ever hear you talking like that in this house again, I’ll go straight to your father and tell him not to bring you back here until you can behave like a decent civilized young man.”

  Harry flushed. “I’m sorry, Aunt Ginevra.” Swallowing hard he added in a low urgent voice: “Please don’t tell my father.”

  “I’ve no intention of spoiling John’s evening, no. But just remember what I’ve said. Now come along, both of you, remember your manners and ask the girls to dance. Harry, you can dance with your sister. I think she’s had quite enough dances with Rory. And Kester, I’m sorry but you really must dance with Erika. Poor Aunt Celia’s in such a state that the least you can do is be nice to her daughter.”

  We slunk back onto the ballroom floor to do the done thing, but all the while I was trying not to tread on Cousin Erika’s toes I was thinking with shame and anxiety how much I loathed the whole bizarre subject of copulation.

  III

  No one had ever given me a comprehensive catalogue of the facts of copulation, although my mother had once said that Uncle John would talk to me on the subject “later.” This threat had horrified me so much that I had never sought further information from her for fear she would refer me to him, and I had lived in dread that “later” might finally arrive. I did not in the least mind my mother referring in her frank, casual way to double beds and mistresses, but I balked at the thought of Uncle John revealing exactly what he did to his own mistress in his own double bed. Uncle John was a hero, and heroes, as I well knew from my reading, never discussed sex; they acted as if their genitals behaved immaculately at all times.

  However although as I plowed into puberty I became prepared to believe a hero might possibly consider it his moral duty to talk about sex to a boy for whom he was responsible, I remained convinced that I never wanted to hear about copulation from Uncle John. This puzzled me, for I realized Uncle John could be considered an expert on the subject, but looking back now I can see what was beyond my grasp at the time: Uncle John’s private life was so saturated with public disapproval that even the most innocuous question about sex, I felt sure, would put him in an awkward position. When I overheard him say to my mother on the terrace after Bronwen’s departure that Harry had never asked him about sex I immediately thought: Yes, I’m not surprised.

  However Harry, being a schoolboy, was in a better position than I was to acquire information on this vital subject and when we were twelve I tricked him into revealing a few gory details.

  (The technique of pretending to know more than I did in order to glean information was one which like eavesdropping I had long since perfected to supplement my formal education.) Moodily I watched animals copulating on my estate. Intelligently I pieced together the garbled information Harry had given me, and with an effort of my fertile imagination I had little trouble persuading two and two to make a very horrid four. The sum seemed like, the vagary of a sick mind. How could any member of the human race perform such antics? I remembered that Rupert of Hentzau, dashing villain of The Prisoner of Zenda, had broken his mother’s heart by having too many girlfriends; did this mean he had actually copulated with any of these fortunate and immensely privileged women? Surely he had just kissed them over a glass of champagne and gone swashbuckling on through Ruritania! The prospect of my romantic vision being cut to ribbons by such a sordid reality was so much more than I could bear that I had shut the subject from my mind, but now Harry’s crude remarks about Ricky Mowbray had opened up a new vista of horrors. Could men go to be bed with men? Surely it couldn’t be the done thing! I was nauseated. Tossing restlessly in my bed I fell asleep exhausted in the early hours of the morning but woke in a frenzy at six. What was I to do? Could I ask Simon to explain? No, absolutely not. Simon’s fiancée had jilted him during the war, and he disliked talking even about normal sexual occupations such as getting married.

  I felt in despair, but as soon as I acknowledged this I felt better. In despair I always had one person I could
turn to. She wasn’t a man, and I was sure it wasn’t the done thing for a boy to discuss sex with his mother, but I couldn’t help that. I was too desperate to care.

  I found her drinking her early-morning tea in bed as usual and reading a novel called Love’s Passionate Flower by someone called Cynthia Digby-Rawlinson.

  “Hullo, pet,” she said. “Just a minute, I’ve got to find out if she can get him to kiss her.” She read on and then shut the book with a bang. “Hopeless. The poor girl has no idea. Well, what are you up to? Do you want to cadge some tea?”

  “No, thanks.” I settled myself on the edge of the bed and sighed gustily. “I say, Mum, I’m jolly worried about all this sex business.”

  “Quite right, darling,” said my mother, never batting an eyelid. She added an extra lump of sugar to her tea. “I’ve very glad you’re taking it seriously and not sniggering over it like Harry.”

  “Well, yes, talking of Harry … Mum, he implied men can copulate with men but gosh, surely that can’t be true! Or can it?”

  “Oh yes, occasionally. Women can copulate with women too. After all, God made everyone different, so why should everyone be sexually the same? But quite frankly, darling, I’ve never been able to understand why anyone should want to copulate with their own sex. Think how dull it must be to make love to someone who looks just like oneself! There’d be no surprises, would there? However live and let live. Chacun à son goût.”

  “Well, I think it’s absolutely beastly to want to copulate with one’s own sex, even beastlier than wanting to copulate with the opposite sex—oh Mum, how can one reconcile the beauty of True Love with all the sordid ghastliness of pounding away on a double bed and chewing each other’s faces?”

  “One of the most interesting things about sex,” said my mother cozily, “is that although it can be awful it can also be sublime. After all, if it were always awful no one would bother to do it, would they, but most people do it and wind up panting for more.”

  “But I simply can’t imagine—”

  “My dear,” said my mother, “trust me. Start with an attractive girl who you think is wonderful. Proceed with roses and champagne in accordance with the best romantic tradition. Then the pounding away on the double bed will follow as naturally as night follows day, and—listen to this, please—the pounding will be just as romantic as the roses and champagne. Divine romance and thrilling realism will then be inextricably intertwined in one glorious shattering whole.”

  “Gosh!” I said.

  “Any other questions?” said my mother, casually sipping her tea.

  “No. Well, yes. Mum, do you think I’ll be all right? I mean, I’m a bit odd, aren’t I? Supposing—”

  “You’ll do,” said my mother.

  “Truthfully? You’re not just saying that because—”

  “My dear, I’m fifty-four years old and I haven’t spent all my life in a convent. I know,” said my mother, and as I sagged in relief she added briskly: “Don’t worry if you feel more drawn to men at the moment. That’s normal. Of course you’d rather discuss Shakespeare with Ricky than seduce scullery maids—good God, darling, you’re only fourteen! If you were rushing around copulating now I’d have a fit. Sex is an adult pastime,” said my mother, suddenly very grave, “and no one under the age of eighteen should indulge in it. Children can get very hurt if they’re drawn into grown-up games before their time.”

  I felt as if an enormous weight had rolled off my shoulders.

  Three and half years of blissful chastity stretched ahead of me to my eighteenth birthday.

  “What a relief!” I said. “I’m sure you’re right and falling in love’s stunning, but actually I don’t think I really feel like doing it just yet.”

  Within, the year I had fallen passionately in love with Anna.

  IV

  I was sitting in the Blue Rabbit tea shop in Swansea after a visit to the dentist. It was mid-December and my mother and I had spent the morning Christmas-shopping before lunching at the Claremont, At three o’clock she had departed for the hairdresser’s salon while I had kept my appointment with the dreaded Chair. We had arranged to meet again at the Claremont at five.

  “Fizzy lemonade, please,” I said to the waitress.

  The teashop, situated in an alley near the Market, was warm and cozy and three-quarters full of gossiping old women. I found it restful. During my visits to Swansea I always went there if I had time to kill because I knew I would be able to think in peace. Places like the Claremont Hotel were always riddled with people who knew my mother or Uncle John.

  I was thinking about my new novel. I may have implied earlier that writing was the central activity of my life; let me now state unequivocally that I consider writing the entire justification for my existence and without doubt the only reason why God could have seen fit to purloin Robin and leave me alive to enjoy a considerable private income which I didn’t deserve. I knew it was most unlikely that I would write a masterpiece before I was thirty, but that didn’t matter. I wrote for fun. It was simply the most satisfying way I knew of passing the time. My mother sympathized with this eccentricity because she had always enjoyed writing herself; I often wished I could have read her novels, written in the manner of Elinor Glyn, but much to my horror she had burned the lot. I was determined to destroy nothing, and each minimum opus was consigned on completion to a locked trunk in the attics.

  Naturally I never bothered a publisher with my handwritten rubbish. I was quite intelligent enough to know that my stories would be despised by grown-ups. Besides, supposing a publisher accepted one of my efforts? (I did have my vain moments occasionally.) How on earth could I have explained such a deviation to my family? Perfect Godwins don’t write books—or if they do, they pretend writing’s just an amusing little whim which tickles their fancy occasionally, like playing croquet on a Sunday afternoon.

  Anyway, there I was, sipping my lemonade through a straw and wondering how illegitimate Rodrigo could get himself legitimized in order to marry ravishing Lucasta, the princess of his dreams, when someone came into the tea shop and sat down at the table next to mine. I did vaguely notice that this person was female, but the details of her appearance were lost to me because I was immediately transfixed by the sight of the book in her hands.

  It was The Prisoner of Zenda.

  “Yes, miss?” said the waitress.

  “Fizzy lemonade, please,” said the girl, “and a currant bun.” She spoke in a rich somber contralto with a tragic foreign accent and sounded like Greta Garbo.

  I nearly bit clean through my straw.

  The girl, I now saw, was young, perhaps a little younger than I was. She had dark hair, rather lank, a sallow skin and a nose that was large, like mine. Her dark eyes were set wide apart in a heart-shaped face. Opening the book with a sigh of content she settled down to read.

  I knew just where she was. I recognized the width of the pages before and after her place and managed to read a few of the words upside down. The hero Rudolph Rassendyll had just clashed finally but inconclusively with the villain Rupert of Hentzau, and Rupert was riding off into the blue. “Thus he vanished,” said the voice in my memory, “reckless and wary, graceful and graceless, handsome, debonair, vile and unconquered.”

  “Oh!” said the girl involuntarily, devastated to think she wouldn’t meet Rupert again. Her eyes filled with tears, just as mine once had. I knew she was enjoying herself hugely.

  “I say,” I said before I could stop myself, “don’t worry—there’s a sequel.”

  “Is there?” I had made her day.

  “Yes,—it’s called Rupert of Hentzau.”

  She almost fainted with delight.

  “I read both books when I was eight,” I said, “but I was much too young then, and although I was fascinated I only understood about one word in twenty. However I reread them when I was twelve and I’ve been rereading them ever since. I’m mad about Ruritania.”

  “So am I!” said the girl.

  This w
as so promising that I couldn’t resist saying: “You sound as if you come from Ruritania yourself! Do you live in Strelsau?”

  “No—Zenda!”

  We laughed uproariously. Life was suddenly gay, vivid, thrilling.

  “Actually,” said the girl, “I come from Berlin. We left last year after Hitler came to power. My father’s a doctor and my name’s Anna Steinberg.” She looked down into her lemonade as if she were shy. “I’m Jewish.”

  “Gosh, how exciting!” I said. “I’ve never met anyone Jewish before. My name’s Kester Godwin. Kester’s short for Christopher and it’s spelled K-E-S-T-E-R. I’m fifteen years and one month old and I live out in Gower, near Penhale. I like reading and my favorite Shakespeare play is Antony and Cleopatra and I admire Tennyson, Wordsworth and Elizabeth Barrett Browning—but not to excess, of course. I’m wild about the entire history of art, and I like music too—my favorite composers are Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky and Johann Strauss the Younger—oh, and Rachmaninoff; I’ve worn out two sets of records of his Second Piano Concerto and I hope to get a third set for Christmas. I’m quite interested in God too, and philosophy and all that sort of thing, and I like to meditate on Nature, like Wordsworth—I love watching the sea crashing on the rocks at the Worm’s Head and swirling across the sands of Rhossili Bay. In short I believe in Beauty, Truth, Art and Peace, and if there’s ever another war, which God forbid, I shall be a conchie because I don’t believe war can ever be justified. I think that’s all. Oh, I do write a bit, I have to tell you that, but you needn’t worry because I’ll never talk about it. Could you come to tea tomorrow?”

  She gazed at me. Then she closed The Prisoner of Zenda with a bang, took a deep breath and said, “How do I get there?”

  V

  “Mum!” I cried triumphantly, surging into the Claremont Hotel ten minutes later. “I’ve just met the Princess of my Dreams!”