The Wheel of Fortune (11 page)

How he had come to enter the world was a mystery to me, and not a pleasant mystery, either. In fact I had been much disturbed when in my mid-twenties I was informed that my mother was expecting another child. My feelings arose not because I felt it was in poor taste for my mother to indulge in parturition at an advanced age; at that time she was still only forty-two, a curious but by no means preposterous age at which to embark on pregnancy. The truth was that I was disturbed by the news because it seemed my father had lied to me about his private life.

I was twenty when I found out he was unfaithful to my mother. There was no dramatic scene. The denouement arose from my observation that he had formed the regular habit of going up to town once a month and staying three or four days at his club. My mother said this was a good idea because he tended to work too hard at home and now that he was older she felt it was important that he should go away to relax occasionally. I thought no more about this reasonable explanation for his absences, but one day during the long vacation when he and I were out riding together I said casually, “What do you do with yourself when you’re up in town, Papa?” and he had answered with regret but without hesitation: “I knew you’d ask me that one day and I made up my mind that when you did I’d be honest with you.”

He then told me he kept a woman in Maida Vale.

“Of course,” he said, “your natural reaction will be to think me a hypocrite after all I’ve said to you on the subject of reserving that sort of pleasure for marriage but in fact my views haven’t changed. I don’t like what I’m doing and I don’t ask you to condone it. All I ask is that you should try to understand and not judge me too harshly.”

He said the intimate side of marriage had become repugnant to my mother and added that this was hardly surprising after so many pregnancies.

“… certainly I don’t blame her, how could I, she’s the most wonderful wife in the world and I’m the luckiest man on earth and I love her with all my heart, as you know. But … well, on religious grounds your mother don’t hold with anticonception, and as for chastity that’s a gift I don’t possess, not at the age of forty after twenty-one years of perfect married life.”

He revealed that my mother herself had suggested that he kept a mistress.

“She said she wouldn’t mind so long as it was a business arrangement conducted a long way from home—she said it would even be a relief to her because the last thing she wanted was to make me unhappy. So … well, we thought London would be best. I didn’t want to go into Swansea. In fact I couldn’t. You see, my father used to go into Swansea and …” He stopped. As usual he could never bring himself to talk about his father but this time I saw to my horror that he was about to break down altogether. There were tears in his eyes. Hastily I gave him my word that I quite understood his predicament and thought none the worse of him for his solution.

The conversation then closed and I never raised the subject again until he told me Thomas had been conceived.

“But my dear Papa, I thought you told me that side of your marriage had ceased!”

He laughed and said quickly, “It was the night of our silver wedding—just an isolated occasion.”

“But you said my mother—”

“Oh, now that she’s had a rest from childbearing she’s anxious for one final pregnancy.”

I was a trained lawyer by that time but an inexperienced one; it was not until later that my professional instincts told me my father had had something to hide. This fact by itself, however, was neither remarkable nor a cause for alarm for there was no reason why my father should have told me every salient detail of his private life, particularly as any marriage is a very private affair. But what troubled me was that I sensed my father had brought off a
tour de force
which I could only regard as sinister: I suspected he had blended fact and fiction with the skill of an uncommonly gifted liar.

As soon as I had formed this judgment I dismissed it as ridiculous, but Thomas always reminded me of it and I knew I was more abrupt with the child than I should have been. Making a mental note to bestow the toy dog on him with my blessing I remembered the message he had brought me. It was time for battle again at Oxmoon. Smoothing my hair I looked in the glass to ensure that my appearance was immaculate, and then I set off to wage war with my mother.

IX

“HULLO, DEAR,” SAID MY
mother, barely glancing up as I entered the room. She was seated at the dressing table and sifting through one of her jewel boxes for a suitable adornment for her dowdy evening gown. As I closed the door she retrieved a dreary trinket, studded with jet and began to pin it on her ample bosom. “Do sit down,” she added as an afterthought, nodding at the customary victim’s chair nearby.

I moved the chair back against the wall so that it stood facing her but out of reach of the triple looking glass. Then I manifested nonchalance by sitting down and crossing one leg over the other but immediately she readjusted the far mirror until against all the odds my reflection was recaptured. Embarking on a study of the ceiling I prayed for patience and heartily wished myself elsewhere.

I wondered not for the first time if she really had told my father to take a mistress or whether my father had invented this magnanimous gesture in order to gloss over the wifely failings that had driven him elsewhere. Anger pierced me suddenly. I sensed she had made my father unhappy, and if she had rejected him I felt I could only find her attitude repellent.

It also occurred to me, as I continued to observe her, that her rejection showed a lack not only of charity but of gratitude. A plain middle-aged woman should surely be so thankful to have a handsome successful devoted husband that she should make every effort to accommodate him. I remembered how my father never uttered one word of complaint about her
nouveau-riche
background and her appalling relations in Staffordshire. He had married beneath him when he had married her, and although her Midlands accent had long since disappeared and her more unfortunate social attributes had been ironed away by a formidable air of refinement, she could never be his equal in rank. The marriage had been arranged to save Oxmoon from bankruptcy. If my father had been older and if his mother and Owain Bryn-Davies had been less desperate for money, I had no doubt that my father would have looked elsewhere for a wife.

However the marriage had been successful enough in its own way and my mother did have many virtues. Reminding myself how fond I was of her I made renewed efforts to be charitable.

“What did you wish to speak to me about, Mama?” I said, knowing perfectly well that she had diagnosed the state of my heart with unerring accuracy and had resolved to advise me against marrying Ginette.

“Well, dear,” said my mother, poking around in her jewel box, “I just thought we might have a little chat before Ginevra arrives tomorrow. Your father told me of the conversation he had recently with you in London.”

“Ah yes,” I said; “I did wonder if you’d think his report needed clarification.”

We exchanged smiles.

“Oh no, dear,” said my mother. “You told your father, I believe, that you had every intention of behaving like a mature intelligent man. What sentiment could be more clearly expressed? I simply wished to reassure you that like your father all I want is your happiness, Robert. I wanted to reassure you of that in case you were harboring some suspicion that I had every intention of making you miserable.”

“Far be it from me, Mama, to suspect you of such an unworthy aim.”

We laughed politely together. There was a pause. I waited.

“I do so disapprove,” said my mother, extricating a pair of jet earrings from the jewel box, “of mothers who meddle in the lives of their grown-up children, so you need have no fear that I’m going to meddle. After all, why should I? You’re a man of the world. You don’t need your mother to remind you of the hazards of marrying a widow of thirty-three with two growing sons and a somewhat … unusual past. Nor do you need your mother to tell you how much better you could do for yourself. Nor need I point out to you the danger of relying on illusions which bear no relation to reality—naturally you’re well aware of the dangers of carrying an adolescent infatuation forward into adult life. So all in all, Robert—bearing in mind that you’re a supremely rational man and thoroughly experienced in the Ways of the World—I have decided to say nothing whatsoever on the subject and to hold my peace in order to display my utmost confidence in the ultimate triumph of your good sense.”

There was another pause. When I was sure I had my temper in control, I said, “Mama, it’s hard to believe you’ve never studied Cicero. One of his favorite oratorical tricks was to declare, ‘I shall say nothing about this’ and then to say everything in the most excruciating detail.” Standing up abruptly, I moved beyond the range of the triple looking glass before saying, “You seem to be implying I’m a complete fool.”

“It’s a sad fact of life, dear, that not even men of a brilliant intellectual caliber are incapable of making a mistake where affairs of the heart are concerned. Indeed quite the contrary, I’ve always thought.”

“I’m not interested in your opinion of some idiotic state of mind which as far as I’m concerned exists only in the pages of romantic fiction.”

“Oh my dear Robert—”

“I’m sorry, Mama, but really this skirmishing is exhausting my patience!”

“Then let me be direct.” Leaving her dressing table, she moved swiftly to my side, gripped my shoulders and spun me to face her. “Let me speak straight from the heart. Your father believes you when you imply you’ve recovered from Ginevra, but you haven’t recovered, have you, Robert? I think you’re bound to see Ginevra’s bereavement as an opportunity for you to rewrite the past and wipe out the memory of that time when you were humiliated. You’re such a very clever man, but very clever men can be capable of such disastrous emotional naivety!”

“Why are you so against Ginette?”

“When she visited Oxmoon five years ago, I had the chance to sum her up and I saw exactly what kind of a woman she had become.”

“A beautiful woman necessarily finds it hard to win the approbation of her own sex—”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me! I don’t disapprove of her because she’s the sort of woman who wouldn’t think twice about being unfaithful to her husband—such women often manage to sustain successful marriages. No, I disapprove of her as a wife for you because I think she’s a complex woman with all kinds of problems you couldn’t begin to solve.”

“Mama—”

“You see, I know you, Robert. I know you better than you know yourself. You’re like me. At heart your emotional tastes are really very simple.”

“I’ll be the best judge, thank you, Mama, about what my emotional tastes really are. And if you think I’m like you then all I can say is that I can’t see the resemblance.”

There was a silence. For a moment we stood there, inches apart, and stared at each other. Then she covered her face with her hands and turned away.

“Mama …” I was immediately appalled by my cruelty. “Forgive me, I—”

“It was my fault,” she said levelly, letting her hands fall and moving back to the dressing table. “I shouldn’t have meddled.”

“I do have the greatest respect and regard for you, Mama—”

“Oh yes,” she said flatly. “Respect and regard. How nice.” She found a garnet ring, shoved it onto her finger and snapped shut the box.

“I have always entertained the very deepest affection—”

“Quite.” She made no effort to respond as I stooped to touch her cheek with my lips. I had a fleeting impression of eau de cologne and anger. Her plump cheek was cold. When she said abruptly, “Hadn’t we better go downstairs?” I made no effort to detain her, and after opening the door in a formal gesture of courtesy I followed her in silence from the room.

 X

UNABLE TO SLEEP THAT
night I lay awake remembering the aspersions which my mother had cast on Ginette’s capacity for marital fidelity.

In the old days Ginette had been conspicuous for her loyalty. I could remember her standing shoulder to shoulder with me in the nursery, writing to me at school every week without fail and even after her marriage keeping in touch with me when a less faithful friend would have permitted the relationship to become moribund.

Yet although I did not question her capacity for loyal friendship I knew well enough that sexual fidelity was a game played to different rules. Friendship might be forever but people fell in and out of love, and marriage was far from immune to this well-known ebbing and flowing of desire. Would I blame Ginette for being unfaithful to Kinsella? No, of course not. A man like Kinsella deserved an unfaithful wife. But I wasn’t Conor Kinsella and my marriage would be played to different rules.

Not only would I give Ginette no cause for infidelity, but I would make it clear to her from the beginning that she was to behave as a wife should. Like servants, women need to be told what to do; they like firm guidance, and that is why I am so unalterably opposed to votes for women. In reality it would not mean independence for females. It would mean that all the masterful husbands, lovers, fathers and brothers would have two votes instead of one. A woman’s talents are limited to managing a home and bringing up children. One can no more expect a woman to show independence of mind by casting an intelligent vote than one can expect a woman to debate an important issue in the House of Commons with implacable oratorical skill.

I thought of my mother reminding me of Cicero, the greatest orator of all time.

But that proved my point. All my mother had ever wanted to do was to manage a home and bring up children. My mother was a clever woman, possibly the cleverest woman I had ever met, and she had no interest whatsoever in women’s suffrage.

When I finally fell asleep it was well after midnight but by six o’clock I was already awake and picturing Ginette asleep in her cabin on the steamer that had been carrying her overnight from Dublin to Swansea. Would she be nervous? She had been nervous when she had returned for her visit five years before, although she had tried to hide her feelings behind a mask of exuberance.