The Wheel of Fortune (131 page)

Meanwhile the family kaleidoscope kept shifting. After Aunt Celia died in 1940, her daughter Erika left her husband and disappeared. Long after the war we found she had been recruited as a British spy but had switched sides as soon as she had been parachuted into France. After all, Germany was her native land and she had always been partial to Hitler. Personally I thought her recruitment was a typical British balls-up, but at least it got Erika back to Germany, where she wound up making bullets in a munitions factory. Her husband Ricky Mowbray tried to evade the services but his pacifism was only a synonym for cowardice, and he was eventually drafted into the Pay Corps and lost at sea in the Mediterranean. Erika married a German after the war.

With both Aunt Celia and Erika wiped off the Gower map, Little Oxmoon became a billet for Canadian soldiers who did their best to wreck everything in sight. Bloody barbarians. Someone once tried to tell me that colonial soldiers were homesick and shouldn’t be judged too harshly. Homesick! How feeble! We British don’t believe in wrecking everything in sight just because we’re homesick. Quite the reverse. We build a little Britain wherever we go and then we never have any problems. No wonder we conquered the earth. We deserved to.

I’m not usually a rabid patriot but rabid patriotism was a form of survival in those days while Churchill breathed fire over the wireless and Hitler breathed brimstone across the Channel so I soon wound up hating all foreigners except Teddy. As far as I was concerned Teddy was the heroine of Penhale and deserved to be canonized.

She had recently had a great success in establishing a friendship between Bella and Anna. I was most surprised for they had no interests in common, but they were the same age and I suppose they enjoyed gossiping about trivialities just as all women do. I was used to Bella saying she didn’t like Anna, but I knew that was only because Anna was well read and intelligent and Bella as usual was afraid of being judged stupid. However one day I came back on leave and found Bella saying that Anna was “nice” and “sweet” and “rather fun after all.”

“This friendship will be very good for both those girls,” pronounced Teddy. “Now, Harry dear, while I’m straightening out this family, why don’t I do something about you and Kester? There you are, both bright intelligent personable guys, and what happens? Whenever you meet you behave as if you’re enduring the worst form of mental torture! Edmund honey, do you understand why your two nephews act like this?”

“Not in the least, darling. Both jolly nice chaps. Mystery.”

Since I could refuse Teddy nothing I eventually found myself in the library at Oxmoon with Kester while we drank whisky and wondered what the hell to say to each other. Making a supreme effort we discussed politics and music but then, God help us, we made the mistake of turning to religion. Kester said he and Anna were attending Quaker meetings. I said that was nice. Seconds later Teddy, returning with the girls from a walk in the grounds, found us sunk deep in an exhausted silence.

“I just don’t understand it!” she said aggrieved. “You two should be such friends!”

I looked at Kester, and as he looked at me we each saw the double image and the horror that had no name. Teddy continued her efforts to bring us together but it was useless; we both knew our relationship lay far beyond the range of Teddy’s innocent American optimism.

“Good luck, Harry,” said Kester much later when I left to go overseas, and as he spoke I pictured him safe at home in Gower, spending the war on the home front, once again leading the life I longed for but which seemed always to be beyond my reach.

“Thanks, old chap,” I said. “I’ll need all the luck I can get. God, I can’t wait to go! Sitting around on my arse in absolute safety isn’t my idea of fun at all!”

What a gibe. Talk about tempting fate. Oh, I deserved what was coming to me, no doubt about that, and no doubt Kester thought I deserved it too.

VII

Before I was dispatched overseas I went to Scotland for special training and there I learned how to survive in very adverse circumstances. I was even taught how to strangle a man as quickly and quietly as possible. That was when I knew the world had gone quite mad and that I was certifiable to have got myself involved in such lunacy. However because I didn’t want my father to worry about me I wrote and said I was having a wonderful time.

The one advantage of my rigorous training was that I emerged in tip-top physical condition for my final seventy-two-hour leave in Gower, and I was determined to break all kinds of sexual records in order to stop myself thinking about the future. Certainly when I arrived at the station in Swansea and saw Bella waiting for me I started thinking about fucking instead of fighting and that had to rank as an improvement.

By that time Swansea was wrecked. Swansea was an awful old place, a seaside settlement ruined by the industrial revolution, but in its own tough, bizarrely romantic way it had a vitality which against all the odds rendered it alluring. Perhaps the key to its seductiveness lay in the fact that beyond the seaminess of the industrial port lay the intellectual capital of South Wales. Swansea was a Welsh powerhouse, not just a city of Mammon but a city of the mind. Some of my most cherished early memories consisted of being taken to concerts there by Kester’s tutor and discovering the Welsh passion for music. I might have inherited my musical gifts from an Englishwoman but I was a Welshman, and for me Swansea
was
Wales with all its virtues and vices, beauty and blemishes, so that whenever I saw Swansea I felt that I’d come home.

But Swansea had been destroyed, raped by a full-scale blitz in 1941, and now so many landmarks existed only in my memory and there was no singing, only the sea gulls screaming over the ruins. It made me want to kill every German in sight; in fact it was when I saw ruined Swansea that I didn’t regret having been insane enough to volunteer for special duties.

It was now the September of 1942. My car had been laid up on wooden blocks for some time but Kester and Edmund were allowed petrol for the estate and Teddy had black-market contacts, so I wasn’t surprised to find that Bella had turned up to meet me in Edmund’s Bentley. The weather was warm. She was looking fresh as a daisy in a linen dress with plenty of cleavage, but no daisy had ever looked half so sultry. To my great relief she told me she had brought the inflatable mattress, so all we had to do was get clear of the city.

“For God’s sake drive like the wind,” I said, “before I melt all the buttons on my uniform.”

We found a useful cart track. Being in perfect physical condition I blew up the mattress and launched myself into action without even pausing for breath. I felt very much the all-conquering soldier for a change, and as I slammed away I idly pictured my remote ancestor Godwin of Hartland pursuing the same pastime during his career in the retinue of that Norman gangster Humphrey de Mohun. “Let’s call the next one Humphrey,” I said to Bella afterwards when our cigarettes were alight. “I rather like it.”

“But the next one’s going to be a girl,” said Bella. “I’m going to get my little Melody back at last.”

It was odd how she went on and on about that dead baby. I never gave it a second thought nowadays.

“How’s everyone at Penhale?” I said to divert her.

“Fine. Your father brought Francesca down to Oxmoon last weekend and she’s all set to be a land girl, but what she really wants to do is join the air force …”

Francesca, now nearly eighteen, had left school that summer and both her parents were anxious for her not to remain in London. I had often wondered if they too would leave but they seemed determined to stick it out. Constance was heavily involved with the Red Cross while my father, who had offered his services to the government at the start of the war, was leading some sort of cloak-and-dagger existence in high finance. On account of his linguistic and financial skills he had been assigned to help the Free French in London pay their bills—a somewhat sordid aspect of
La Gloire
and one that needed diplomatic talents of the highest order. Some indication of how important this liaison work was could be gleaned from the fact that he still ran his Rolls-Royce. A fawning government granted him an apparently endless supply of petrol.

“… and Francesca would look so sexy in a WAAF’s uniform,” Bella was saying.

“Hm.” Francesca was not my idea of a rampantly sexy girl but she was vivacious and pretty and I knew many men would find her attractive. It was one of the miracles of genetics that she had escaped Constance’s dreariness and bore more than a passing resemblance to her aunt Teddy.

“… and I did ask her to stay at the Manor,” Bella was saying, “but of course I knew she’d prefer to be at Oxmoon. She confessed she simply adores Kester.”

“What! Since when?”

“Since she was little, she said. But I’m not surprised, because Kester’s got such a flair for children. In fact, Teddy was saying only the other day—”

“Darling, stop talking about bloody Kester and let’s have another fuck.”

We had another fuck.

“You’re more gorgeous than ever!” sighed Bella later. “War suits you!”

“Of course it does. War brings out the best in men, as Machiavelli pointed out.”

“Who?”

“Some old bugger who ought to have been certified.”

We drove on to Penhale Manor. Edmund and Teddy were waiting to greet me and so was Hal who had been allowed to stay up late for the big occasion of the paternal visit. He was almost three. His blond hair had faded to Bella’s mouse-brown. Black lashes fanned pink-and-white cheeks as he stared bashfully at his toes.

“Come on; silly-billy!” said Bella to him. “It’s Daddy!”

“Don’t be shy, honey!” Teddy cooed.

Hal looked as if he were about to expire with embarrassment.

“That’s funny!” mused Edmund. “He’s not usually shy. In fact the other day when Kester was here he was chattering away nineteen to the dozen.”

“What’s for dinner?” I said abruptly, patting Hal’s head before I turned away. “I’m damned hungry.”

We ate some rabbit stew, which was very passable when accompanied by a prewar claret filched by Edmund from Oxmoon, and sat around talking for a while but everyone went to bed early. I took a look at Hal, Charles and Jack, all asleep and all looking as if they’d never had a naughty thought in their lives, and told myself I was on no account going to brood on Kester simply because my sister adored him and Hal chatted to him without constraint. After all I had more important things to do during my leave.

Having passed a strenuous night I fell asleep at dawn, and would have slept till noon if our offspring hadn’t decided to wreck our peace at seven. Hal had overcome his shyness. Charles obviously had no idea what the word meant. They howled into the room followed by Jack, who was crawling along like a miniature buffalo, and jumped all over the bed. Outside in the corridor Babs the Welsh nursemaid who needed looking after almost as much as the boys did was futilely begging her charges to return to her. The original nanny had long since given notice in despair and Bella had always refused to engage a qualified replacement who would have made her feel inferior.

Stark-naked and bleary-eyed I sat bolt upright in bed. “
Out!
” I shouted, making everyone jump. “I want my sleep!”

“God, how awful you are in the mornings!” said Bella, annoyed. “All right, come along, my angels—Daddy’s cross.”

Charles and Jack were both screaming but Hal was telling them to shut up. At least someone was on my side. Muttering “Good boy” I disappeared beneath the bedclothes but when the room was at last quiet I surfaced. Dark eyes just like mine watched gravely as I peered over the sheet. Hal and I faced each other across a mound of pillows.

“Are they always like that in the mornings?”

“Yes.”

“Good God.” I stared morosely at the ceiling as it occurred to me that fatherhood was not all drinking champagne, sending proud notices to the
Times
and patting an appropriate head occasionally. I glanced at Hal to cheer myself up and found he was still gazing solemnly at me. Nice little Hal. But why wasn’t he talking to me nineteen to the dozen? I tried to start a conversation with him. But I couldn’t think of anything to say.

In the end I got up and began to shave. Little footsteps pattered behind me. A small pajamaed figure scrambled onto the window seat for a grandstand view of the basin. I scraped away at my jaw but finally, unnerved by this enrapt attention, I paused to look at him and something about his solemn little face amused me. I smiled.

He beamed back in delight and then blushing in an agony of self-consciousness, he turned to peer out of the window.

Nice little boy. His silence in my presence suggested brains and tact. Or did it? No. More likely an inquiring mind overawed by novelty, but never mind that. The point was he wasn’t wrecking my peace. Good intelligent child. I returned to my shaving feeling pleased.

“Soldier,” said Hal suddenly.

“Hm?” Stepping to one side of the basin I glanced through the window and saw a uniformed figure pausing by the gates at the other end of the drive. Why should a soldier be snooping in the gateway of my home at seven in the morning? I decided he was a newcomer who had arrived in Swansea on some dawn train and was now hunting for his billet at Little Oxmoon. The uniform was Canadian.

“Damned foreigners,” I said automatically, finishing my shave.

“Daddy, look—he’s coming to see us!”

I returned to the window. The young soldier, carrying his kit bag, was wandering dreamily up the drive. He made no effort to hurry, and every few seconds he would pause to gaze at his surroundings.

“The fool thinks he’s at Little Oxmoon,” I said, exasperated, and with Hal scampering at my heels I ran downstairs to open the front door.

“You’ve got the wrong address!” I shouted at the soldier in what I hoped was a not entirely unfriendly voice. “If you’re looking for the Canadian billet …”

I stopped. I’d seen his green eyes. He stopped too. He stood there, tall and slim in his Canadian uniform, and although we were silent, holding our breath, I heard time shifting its gears and driving the past into the present like a battering ram. The present splintered, fell apart. Evan said, “Harry, how wonderful to see you again!” and as he spoke I lived once more in my most cherished memories and heard my magic lady using those same words to welcome me home.