The Wheel of Fortune (44 page)

“Darling Robert!” I said afterwards as we held hands in the cab that drove us home. “I know you think I’m loathing everything you do at present, and up to a point I am, but I’m truly glad if you’re so much happier.”

“And I’m truly sorry if I’m making you so miserable,” he said, and I knew, in one of those moments of comradeship which had become so rare between us, that he was just as sincere as I was.

Our concern for each other still survived, and as I saw our old friendship, bruised, battered but apparently unbeaten, still shining amidst the ruins of our marriage, I heard myself say strongly, “Friends must stick together. I shall be all right.”

“Friendship’s forever?” said Robert, smiling at me.

“Apparently!”

We laughed, kissed and were happy, but after we had arrived home he said with a yawn, “I’m afraid I’m hopelessly sleepy—too much claret, I suppose,” and I knew I had been rejected again. It was as if a curtain had descended abruptly on our friendship and I was alone once more in our unhappy marriage.

He sensed my feelings and immediately the marital tension began to grind between us.

“Well, never mind the claret,” he said. “Perhaps I can wake up after all.”

As soon as he said that, I wanted to snap back: “Oh, please don’t bother—I really couldn’t care less.” It was so obvious that he was only doing his duty as a husband, and I felt both humiliated and repulsed. However I knew it would be fatal to refuse him. If I did that he might not offer again, and besides I spent so much time resenting his lack of desire for me that I could hardly fly into a sulk on one of the rare occasions when he felt obliged to make amends.

We undressed in our room. Drearily I trailed to the bathroom, drearily I performed my dreary rites with the vinegar and sponge and drearily I returned to bed. He performed some more dreary rites to ensure that his body did what he wanted it to do, and since there was no serious impediment, like my pregnancy, which prevented his body from obeying instructions, copulation drearily ensued for precisely sixteen seconds. I was counting for lack of anything better to do while I waited for it to be over.

“Sorry about that,” said Robert, acting the perfect gentleman. “I’m afraid the claret told after all.”

“Never mind,” I said, and in fact neither of us minded in the least. Trailing to the bathroom I prepared for more tedium, but was awoken from my stupor of distaste by finding that the little flesh-colored thread had become detached from the sponge while the sponge itself had been shoved beyond the reach of my longest finger.

I sighed, prayed for contortionist skills and returned to the fray but in the end I gave up. I spent some time debating whether I should use the douche again, just as I always did, but in the end I was too nervous. Supposing I washed the sponge so far up that I had to have an operation to remove it? I shuddered. I was unsure what went on in the nether reaches of the feminine anatomy, but I pictured some unspeakable nastiness taking place among the ovaries. Wholly repelled I abandoned all thought of douching and toiled exhausted back to bed.

Men have no idea what women have to go through sometimes, no idea at all.

The lost sponge has finally turned up. Thank God: Really, that sort of incident is enough to put anyone off sex for life.

Robert’s having his hand X-rayed, although what good that will do I don’t know. Robert now tells me he’s been unable to move the middle finger of his right hand for three days, and with a shock I suddenly realize how sinister this is. Could he be suffering from a series of minor strokes? It seems unlikely but this recurring weakness—we don’t call it paralysis—must surely mean there’s something wrong with the part of the brain that controls the muscles. Or does it? I don’t know. Robert doesn’t know. The doctor doesn’t know.

It’s all very worrying.

We’ve found someone who wants the house but I can’t think of that at the moment. I’m too worried about Robert. He’s recovered the full use of his hand but the specialist says he must have a thorough examination, and as I’m terrified of illness I’m now in a great state.

No wonder I’ve missed this month. Supposing Robert has a brain tumor? Supposing he only has three months to live? Supposing he drops dead tomorrow? I could do without my husband but how could I manage without my friend? Even if we eventually separate once Robin’s grown up, I must have Robert in my life. Who else would stand by me through thick and thin? Who else would always be there when I needed him?

I panic. I’m demented with anxiety. In fact I’m in such a state of hysteria that I even go to Brompton Oratory, where I used to take the boys to Mass, and make a feverish attempt to pray.

Robert’s all right. Oh God, the relief! The exhaustive examination found nothing—no brain tumor, no stroke, no diabolical illness. Very strange about his hand, but I suppose it was just one of those inexplicable physical vagaries like the double vision.

Odd how these little ailments come and go. …

“Oh my God!”

“Robert—what is it?”

“I’ve got that double vision again. Damn it,
damn
it—I thought I’d finished with those bloody doctors …”

He’s seeing another specialist. Oddly enough I’m not so worried this time. After all, the double vision can hardly be connected with the trouble in his hand.

Or can it?

I’m suddenly so frightened that I can’t even get to Brompton Oratory to pray.

I did go to the Oratory later but I couldn’t feel God listening so I walked down the road to Harrods instead. There was a fruit stall on the corner of the Brompton Road and I automatically bought two pounds of oranges. Then I came home.

Five minutes ago I finished eating my third orange and now I want to eat a fourth.

I know what that means. It means I made the wrong decision when I failed to reapply the douche after that dinner at the Ritz. It means that sixteen seconds of unwanted copulation has had a very unwanted result. It means … but no, I simply can’t face what it means.

I’ll think about it later.

“Ginette, I’m afraid I wasn’t entirely honest with you when I came home from Harley Street just now.”

We were in the drawing room having tea and I was eating a slice of gingerbread. My hand paused halfway to my mouth. “What do you mean?”

“The specialist wasn’t encouraging.”

I put the gingerbread down on my plate. On my right the fire was burning, warding off the chill of a dank April day, but all the warmth seemed to have vanished from the flames.

“What did he say?”

“He thinks I have some obscure illness, but there’s no method of proving the diagnosis. We can only follow an Asquith policy of ‘Wait and See.’ ”

“Oh.”

Robert continued to drink his tea. His vision had returned to normal before he had seen this second specialist, and his hand was once more unimpaired. He looked fit and strong, glowing with good health.

“But why didn’t this specialist believe as the other one did that the trouble was caused by mental strain?” I said baffled at last.

“He didn’t rule out that possibility. He merely said this odd combination of disorders in the eyes and hand suggested that a specific illness was responsible.”

I finished my tea. “What is this illness?” I said as I put down my cup.

“He didn’t go into detail. He said it involved paralysis but apparently remissions are common and people can suffer the disease yet have few symptoms.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, does it,” I said relieved. “How long does one take to recover?”

“Oh,” said Robert, “one doesn’t recover. But one needn’t die prematurely either. He said the moderate cases could experience a normal life-span.”

I looked at my empty teacup. I looked at the spring flowers on the sill. I looked at the pale afternoon light beyond the window. And I felt Death lay his finger on us gently, very lightly, from a long, long way away.

“There are three possibilities here,” said Robert, summing up the situation with unperturbed logic. “One: this diagnosis is wrong and my physical troubles are resulting from a stress which will ease once we remove to Gower. Two: the diagnosis is right but I experience a continuation of the remission I’m enjoying at the moment. And three: the diagnosis is right but my remission isn’t sustained. This uncertainty is without a doubt most tedious but one fact at least is crystal-clear: if I do have this illness I can never go climbing again. Even if I were temporarily capable of doing so it would be too dangerous because I could be stricken with paralysis at any time.”

My mind was in such chaos that I hardly knew how to reply but I managed to stammer: “I’m sorry. I know how much climbing means to you—”

“Yes, well, don’t let’s wallow in sympathy just yet. I may not have this illness. I may recover completely, and meanwhile it seems to me all we can do is continue with our plan to remove to Gower.”

I struggled to match his calmness. “You still won’t consider staying in London?”

“That would be no more possible financially if I were ill than it would be if I spent my time mountaineering.”

“No, I suppose not. I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to nag you again about London—”

“Besides, I want to go home. If I can’t climb at least I can still go back to Oxmoon and give my son the kind of life I had when I was young.”

“I understand.” I thought of him still yearning for that lost Oxmoon and my throat began to ache. I knew no mere physical removal to Gower could recapture it, nothing could recapture it, it was lost and gone forever.

Robert finished his tea. “There are two matters of immediate importance,” he said briskly as if he suspected I could barely contain my emotions. “The first is that I don’t want anyone to know about this or else I’ll have everyone staring at me as if I’m an animal at the zoo. And the second is that we must stop the builders at Martinscombe. We must have new plans drawn up in order to provide for every eventuality.”

I was struggling so hard for self-control that I could only say, “What kind of plans?”

“I think it would be better to abandon the farmhouse and build a bungalow nearby. A single-story dwelling would be easier for a wheelchair.”

In the grate the fire now seemed to be raging. I was so overwhelmed by the heat that I thought I would faint.

“I’ll open a window,” said Robert as I put my hand to my forehead.

He flung wide the casement and as he paused beside it I was able to say, “You think you do have this illness, don’t you. What’s it called?”

“Oh, it has some hopelessly long-winded medical name which for the life of me I can’t remember.”

I knew what that meant. It meant he didn’t want me to look it up in the medical dictionary. It meant he himself had looked it up and been appalled.

Panic overwhelmed me.

“Darling …” I hardly knew what I was saying. “Forgive me, obviously we must talk more about this, but I’m afraid I simply must go and lie down for a while; I’m feeling thoroughly worn out.”

He said he was so sorry and of course I must rest and he did hope I would soon feel better.

I escaped.

I’m much too frightened to think about the future, my mind shies away from it, so I ponder instead about whether God intends me to find some deep meaning in the fact that I’m pregnant while my husband is incurably ill.

For of course I know Robert’s ill, just as I know I’m pregnant. I know it, feel it, I don’t have to wait for a diagnosis.

After prolonged meditation I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no deep meaning in this situation and almost certainly no God. I haven’t truly believed in God anyway since the Battle of the Somme, but if God does exist and has some purpose in mind for this baby, I’d very much like to know what that purpose is. As far as I can see, this pregnancy is quite the most pointless thing that’s ever happened to me; I’ve got to endure the removal to Gower and Robert’s illness and I just can’t face any additional ordeal; I can’t bear it. But I’ve got to bear it, haven’t I? Can’t face an abortion, too squeamish; couldn’t. Other women can do as they like, I don’t mind, let them get on with it, they should be able to do just what they like with their own bodies, but I know what I can do with mine without going mad with guilt.

I could arrange to erase this embryo physically but I could never erase it mentally. I’d remember it every year on the anniversary of the day it was never born—or perhaps on the anniversary of that dinner at the Ritz—and I’d picture it, as adorable as Robin, holding out its arms to me and asking to be loved. Yes, that thought’s hideously emotional and hideously sentimental but it also happens to be hideously true. It’s what would happen. I know myself, I know the kind of woman I am and I know I can’t get rid of this child, I’ve got to endure it.

Can I endure Robert taking years and years to die of this unnamable paralytic disease? That question reminds me of the time I asked myself if I could endure a country life on his parents’ doorstep. The obvious answer is “no” but one has to try to be constructive.

Perhaps I could survive with someone who was hopelessly ill, but my state of mind would have to be so radically different from its present state that I can’t begin to imagine it. How does a woman who loathes illness stick with a sick estranged husband who insists that she remain a conventional wife? A brave woman would stick it. A religious woman would stick it. A strong woman like Margaret would stick it. But I’m neither brave nor religious nor strong. I’m cowardly, agnostic and feeble. I’m not cut out to be a heroine. All I’m cut out to be is a broken reed and a mess.

“I’m going to be a heroine when I grow up!”

“I want to be a hero!”

Dear little Robert, what fun we had …

“Friendship’s forever!”

How sad to think of us saying that. For of course friendship’s not forever. Friendship can be destroyed by adverse circumstances just as Robert’s body can be destroyed by this illness. Nothing’s forever, nothing—except the memory of Oxmoon, that lost Oxmoon of our childhood, the memory that no adverse circumstances have ever been able to destroy.

I think I’m on the brink of imagining the unimaginable, but wait; I must beware of sentimentality; I must deal only with what is real and true.