The Wheel of Fortune (116 page)

“But Kes,” objected Ricky, “how could any man be madly in love with a girl who looks like Donald Duck?”

“I don’t think she looks like Donald Duck,” I said. “I think she looks like Mae West playing Snow White.” Although I had always thought Belinda plain I suspected that Harry would never have looked twice at any woman who couldn’t be ranked as a sex goddess, so I was obliged to make a hasty revision of my past judgment.

The wedding at Llangennith was not large but all the family were there so I felt there was a cast of thousands. At the reception Uncle John very kindly came up to me and inquired how I was getting on. I told him everything was absolutely wonderful, and smiled radiantly. Uncle John said nothing could please him more. After that I realized I had drunk too much champagne and retired to the cloakroom to be sick. We left early.

A week later, just as I was congratulating myself that I had fully recovered from this ordeal, Harry and Belinda returned from their brief honeymoon in the Wye Valley and sent us a Christmas card.

“Oh God,” I said. “We’ll have to send them one.”

“Should we invite them over for a Christmas drink?”

“Yes. But we’re not going to.”

The telephone rang. It was Cousin Harry, very charmingly inviting us to have a Christmas drink at Penhale Manor. I might have known he would outshine me as usual by doing the done thing no matter how adverse the circumstances.

“Thanks, Harry,” I said, wishing Christmas could be abolished. “We’d love to come.”

We arrived at six thirty and stayed exactly one hour in the drawing room, which was shabby and untidy but otherwise much as it had been when Bronwen had lived at the Manor with Uncle John. The main addition to the room was an expensive radiogram which I immediately coveted. Harry was a wireless addict and apparently unable to face life without continual concerts on the airwaves.

Despite the hour neither of them had bothered to change into evening clothes. Harry, wearing baggy gray trousers, a crisp white shirt and an old tweed jacket with leather patches at the elbows, looked very much the country squire who was pretending to be short of money, while Belinda, wearing a skirt which looked as if it had been made out of a tablecloth and a somewhat shrunken pullover which emphasized her Mae West bosom, looked like nothing on earth. Anna and I, discreetly clad in the products of Harrods and Savile Row, could only feel grossly overdressed. We all eyed each other very watchfully indeed.

“One gin-and-French, one gin-and-It!” said Harry, flashing Anna a smile as he handed us our glasses. “Now, Bella, what are you going to have?”

I was still digesting this unlikely Victorian sobriquet when Belinda gave him such an erotic look from her hot brown eyes that I nearly had an erection. Perhaps Harry did have one, but he had his back to me so it was impossible to be sure.

“Oh, just give me some of the usual jungle juice, darling,” said my new cousin Belinda, confirming my suspicion that she was the last word in rampant sex appeal. (Why had I never noticed this before Harry had picked her out? I supposed I had been too busy dismissing her as an imbecile.)

“Well!” I said to Anna as we escaped on the dot of half-past seven. “No prizes for guessing what
they
do in their spare time! What do you think was going on underneath that tablecloth she was wearing?”

“Nothing,” said Anna. “You’re going to win that bet with Ricky.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Pregnant girls drink milk and look as if they want to redesign the nursery. They don’t drink jungle juice and look as if all they can think of is copulation.”

She was right. I won my bet. Seven months later Belinda was without doubt pregnant but it was plain too that she was nowhere near giving birth and the baby was eventually born a respectable ten months after the wedding.

Meanwhile there was still no sign of little Christopher on the horizon. His absence had become a constant monthly disappointment to us, and although Anna begged me not to worry I felt my demons were pursuing me again, the demon of inadequacy, the demon of problems I feared I had no power to solve, and so as time passed I flung myself more wholeheartedly than ever into the glorification of Oxmoon—until in its growing beauty I saw my power redeemed.

IV

Oxmoon!

My myth, my dream, my magic house—and I’m the magician waving my magic wand, I’m the rich man writing endless checks, and every time I sign my name another dream comes true.

I’m close to Robert Godwin, eighteenth-century Robert Godwin, the dreamer who met Robert Adam and saw a vision in Welsh stone and slate. His architect’s plans are still in the library and so are his own drawings and his letters, the estimates and the bills. I’ve seen his dream as clearly as I’ve read his writing; it’s as if he were walking again through the house that he created, and now I’m walking to meet him in the palace of our dreams. He’s been dead for a hundred and forty years but we’ve beaten time, we’ve beaten death and in my mind he lives again.

Can you hear me, Robert Godwin, can you see me as I see you? Then rest in peace, your dream’s reborn, your vision was not in vain.

That rat-infested Victorian mansion, that casual Edwardian country house, that shabby postwar ghost of a past splendor—they’re all fading, all dissolving as I wave my magic wand. And in their end is your beginning, and in your beginning is my inspiration and in my inspiration lies the resurrection of that brilliant house beyond compare.

V

My first ambition was to go back to the eighteenth century and re-create the house as it had been originally but soon I realized that my own tastes were too powerful and too urgent to allow me to recapture with perfect fidelity the Oxmoon of Robert Godwin the Renovator. However what I did do, with Toby’s help, was to create a strong eighteenth-century atmosphere to act as a magnificent showcase for all the beautiful things that I loved. Meissen, Worcester, Chelsea, Derby, Ch’ien Lung, K’ang Hsi—ravishing pieces surfaced in the salesroom, I waved my magic wand and then they all came to Oxmoon, radiant ravishing Oxmoon, to take their part in the mighty Resurrection of 1939.

The pictures came too, not only the Gainsborough which Robert Godwin might have known but the romantic landscapes of Sawrey Gilpin and the vistas of Welsh mountains by John Varley and the portraits of beautiful women by Lawrence and Millais. I toyed with the idea of buying more modern paintings but for the most part I left them alone; modern painting interests me but it seldom speaks to me and the only novelty I purchased in this style was a blue mess called
Woman with a Cornflower
by that Spaniard Picasso. The only trouble was that it looked out of place in the eighteenth-century ambience, so in the end I hung it in the lavatory where, it looked wonderfully cheerful and made even the dreariest routine of life an aesthetic experience.

Meanwhile Toby and I had turned our attention to furniture. Out went all the ghastly Victorian whatnots and overstuffed armchairs. Down from the attics came Robert Godwin the Renovator’s eighteenth-century walnut chairs with matching settees which had originally been upholstered in caffoy (cut wool velvet—ravishing and rare). Unfortunately the caffoy had perished, but Toby suggested new fabrics based on eighteenth-century designs and soon the drawing room was transformed. Gilt gesso girandoles and side tables added luminous finishing touches. The Gainsborough, my pride and joy, hung above the newly-imported Adam fireplace. It was a touching portrait of a young girl not unlike Anna with a sensitive mouth and misty romantic dark eyes.

Toby continued to pursue our policy which could loosely be described as Chippendale and civilization, but gradually, as time went on, our passion for Chippendale was exhausted and only Civilization, now spelled with a capital C, remained.

“Dear boy, I’ve found this heavenly Axminster carpet for the drawing room …”

I sanctioned the heavenly Axminster carpet.

“… and perhaps
Italian
marble for the hall …”

I sanctioned the Italian marble.

“… and dear boy, I’ve found these two divine swags of fruit carved in the manner of Grinling Gibbons—not the master himself, I’m sorry to say, but a really first-class eighteenth-century effort—I thought the pair of them would look so well in the dining room now we’ve decided on the eighteenth-century oak paneling …”

I sanctioned the two divine swags of carved fruit.

“… and I was at this auction the other day, dear boy, and I heard a whisper about this simply celestial chandelier coming up for sale next week—I know it would transform the hall into an absolutely major masterpiece …”

I sanctioned the celestial chandelier.

“… not too much change in the ballroom, I think, dear boy—it’s all so
fragrant
in there, as dear Noel would say … Some of the mirrors need resilvering and the floor needs attention but apart from that I recommend only decoration in white and gold—oh and dear boy, I’ve just had the most godlike inspiration: how about a white-and-gold grand piano to match?”

I sanctioned the white-and-gold grand piano. I sanctioned everything. I was in heaven.

However unfortunately heaven can be uncomfortable when invaded by an army of builders and decorators, so presently I decided to whisk Anna off to London for a few weeks. After all, why not? I had dear old Simon to attend to my minor correspondence whenever he wasn’t recataloguing the library (Simon’s health was failing, but he still loved to feel he was useful), and I had Ricky, my Devoted Factotum, to supervise my house and estate. Adam Mowbray was always available to attend to any boring legal or financial problems that cropped up, and although my bank manager Mr. Lloyd-Thomas had been surly of late, that never worried me because I knew Adam could handle him. Adam also dealt directly with the estate manager Stanley Bland (rechristened Champagne Sasha by Ricky after a particularly amusing party we gave to welcome him to Oxmoon). Sasha was twenty-four and had only recently qualified as an estate agent, but he certainly seemed to know all the answers. He was Adam’s first wife’s sister’s nephew (or something), and Adam thought very highly of him. Meanwhile, Adam himself had exchanged his white Lagonda for a sleek black Daimler, and everyone said how well he must be doing at the racetrack.

Anyway, there I was in London with Anna and of course we stayed at the Savoy but then I had a marvelous idea and took a lease of a flat that overlooked Hyde Park. Anna thought it was wonderful, and when she returned from her fittings for the new wardrobe of clothes which I was giving her, she said she felt so like Cinderella that she had almost ordered a pair of glass slippers. That made me very happy. I sent her two dozen red roses every day and we drank champagne every night and we saw all the best plays and films in town and life was glorious, vivid, thrilling. We bought more treasures for Oxmoon too, some very rare Chelsea chocolate cups and a Ming vase which looked spiritual in the moonlight. Then I had an inspiration and remembered the Oxmoon library which was crammed with Victorian sermons and almost crying out to be restocked with dozens of leather-bound editions of our favorite books.

“We’ll order the entire works of Anthony Hope!” I exclaimed, nostalgically recalling our first meeting over
The Prisoner of Zenda,
and we settled down to draw up a very long list of books that we deemed essential to our survival.

When the books had been ordered we thought it was time to see what was going on at Oxmoon, so we drove back to Wales in my new Daimler (inspired by Adam Mowbray’s last acquisition). The house was still in chaos but I didn’t mind because that was just dreary old reality and I could see the Beauty, the Truth, the Art and the Peace evolving steadily behind it.

Dreary old reality, however, was by this time increasingly trying to impinge on my golden vision.

“All kinds of people are panting to see you, Kes,” said Ricky.

“Oh, you deal with them—I want to write.” My detective story
Lady Sybil’s Alibi
had just been rejected by yet another undiscerning publisher, and I knew the only way to obliterate my searing sense of failure was to begin another novel without delay.

“But who’s going to sign the checks? Do you want to give me a power of attorney?”

“Well …” I was reluctant to hurt him by displaying a lack of trust but I knew it would be unwise to give access to my bank account to a man who always seemed to be short of money. I was just thinking in panic that I couldn’t cope when I had a brain wave, a plausible excuse which I knew he would accept. “Ricky, don’t be hurt,” I said cleverly, taking the bull by the horns, “but I really think I ought to give the power of attorney to Simon. Dear old Simon, you know how much it means to him to be useful and how he hates to feel as if he’s living on my charity.”

Ricky knew how I felt about Simon and believed me. The crisis was averted, and telling everyone I had to have absolute seclusion I embarked on yet another detective story featuring the Honorable Jonathan Courtney-Sherringham and the woman he loved, the adventuress Penelope Michaelis. This time I was determined they should go to bed without being married and to hell with the conventions of detective fiction.

Within half an hour even Robert Godwin’s eighteenth-century vision had vanished from my mind.

“I say, Kes—”

“Oh God, Ricky, what is it now?”

“Adam and I had rather a dustup with Lloyd-Thomas this morning in Swansea and Adam says you’d better put the brakes on the spending spree. The most ghastly people are starting to call here for money.”

“How awful,” I said, but I wasn’t really listening. The beautiful Penelope, who had just donned a purple tea gown, was busy spraying an erotic perfume above her Mae West décolletage.

VI

Writing!

I was nineteen years old and writing junk. Most people do at that age. So how can I explain how mesmerizing my junk was to me as it emerged from my brain to form little black lines and curves on virgin sheets of paper? A mature writer is under an obligation to be enthralled by the creation of a masterpiece; any layman can accept that. But what laymen so often fail to understand is that it’s
the act of creation itself
which generates this powerful excitement. Thus the writer at work on junk is as vulnerable to ecstasy as the writer at work on a masterpiece. They both know they’re experiencing the most exquisite pleasure the human soul can know.