The Wheel of Fortune (99 page)

I paused. The car was going much too fast. I knew, even before it screeched to a halt, that something was very wrong. When Uncle John jumped out I saw that his face was a grayish white. Pushing back his disheveled hair, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and stumbled up the steps to the front door.

I hared down the corridor, plunged into my room and found that the housemaid, thank God, had left the window wide open. Below me on the terrace my mother was sipping her first pink gin of the evening and browsing through her latest copy of
Glamorous Romances.
As Uncle John blundered out onto the terrace, I sank to my knees beside the window seat.

“Johnny—my dear—did you—was it—oh God, I’ve been thinking of you so much …”

Without hesitating, I jumped up to look down at the scene below me. They were embracing. My mother was even stroking his hair, and then as I watched in stupefaction he drew back from her to pull out a sodden handkerchief, and I had my first glimpse of his overpowering grief and despair.

3

I

I
FELT AS IF I WERE WITNESSING
the end of the world—or at least the end of civilization as I knew it. To see Uncle John—my heroic Uncle John—reduced to tears was shattering enough, but when I realized that the tears must indicate some unparalleled disaster I was terrified. Kneeling on the window seat, I trembled from head to toe.

“I can’t bear to think I’ll never see her again,” said my uncle, making a futile attempt to wipe away the tears that were streaming down his face. “I can’t bear to think of my children growing up without me. And I can’t bear to go back to that house—it’ll be worse than it was after Blanche died—I can never live in that house again—”

“No, of course you can’t. Stay here for a while. I thought you might feel like this and I’ve had your old bedroom prepared for you. Sit down, my dear, and I’ll get you some brandy.”

My mother steered him to the wrought-iron chair next to hers and disappeared into the drawing room. As Uncle John sat down and buried his face in his hands, I noticed for the first time that his hair was graying at the temples. He was forty-one.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without them,” he said as my mother returned with the brandy. “I just can’t think what I’m going to do.”

He wasn’t the only one. By this time I had realized that Bronwen had left him, and I was feeling sick. How could I bear to lose Bronwen and Evan, the two best members of my family apart from my mother? Evan—my acolyte—my hero-worshiping almost-brother … I felt as bereaved as if he were dead.

“I’ve made such a mess of my life,” said Uncle John in between mouthfuls of brandy. “I’m such a failure.”

“But my dear Johnny—”

“Never call me that again!
She
called me that. If you go on calling me Johnny you’ll simply remind me—”

“Yes, of course, I’m sorry. But John, you’re not a failure, you’ve just been terribly unlucky—that wretched woman in London—”

“I’ve lost everything that made life meaningful. That’s failure.”

“Rubbish,” said my mother, and suddenly I saw her as someone who knew what tragedy was all about, someone—perhaps the only person—who could help my uncle at this darkest time of his life. “You must think of the children that you still have,” she said. “Think of Harry and Marian. And at least Bronwen’s children aren’t dead—like Robin. They’ll just be absent for a few years—as Declan was. They’ll come back to you in the end, just as Declan came back to me.”

“Yes … I daresay you’re right I’m sorry, I know it’s unforgivable, breaking down like this—”

“Oh, what rot, it’s healthy! God knows if you bottled up your troubles as Bobby did you’d soon be mad as a hatter!”

“I feel mad now, I feel demented—oh God, maybe if I were to go after them—give everything up—”

“John, listen. I know we’ve been over all this a dozen times, but let me go over it once more so that you’ve got the truth firmly nailed up in front of your eyes. Bronwen’s being immensely brave and emigrating to Canada so that those four children can have the chance of a normal life. If you go crashing after them now you’ll mess everything up, make a mockery of Bronwen’s courage and ruin their lives all over again.”

“I know but—”

“Remember what she said to you: ‘If you love us you’ll let us go.’ Now, you told me she said that, didn’t you, and you also told me you thought she was right—”

“If only she hadn’t said no letters, money by bankers’ order but no letters—I know I could bear it better if only I had their letters to look forward to—”

“But my dear, I thought it was you who said it must be a clean break because anything else would be too difficult and too painful?”

“Maybe they’ll come back. Maybe it won’t work out. Maybe if I were to go after them later I’d find—”

“John,
you must let those children grow up in peace.
Think how poor little Evan’s suffered!”

“Oh Christ—”

“I’ll get you some more brandy.” She disappeared with his glass. Uncle John blew his nose on the sodden handkerchief and wiped his eyes on his sleeve and pushed back his hair distractedly again. When she returned he said in despair, “I don’t know how I’m going to tell Harry and Marian.”

“Well, personally, my dear, I think they should both have been told last holidays and I think those four little ones should have been told too.”

“But we couldn’t face it—how could we have explained—so much pain—all the agony—the misery—”

“I know, I know, and don’t think I don’t sympathize, but I do so strongly believe it’s better to be honest with children, John, no matter how difficult it may seem at the time. … I assume you’ll be going to Harrow to tell Harry?”

“But I can’t upset him now! He has his exams soon—and several very important cricket matches—”

“My dear,” said my mother, “some things in life really are more important than cricket, and this is one of them. Harry can barely remember Blanche. Constance doesn’t count. Bronwen’s the only mother he’s ever known. You simply must see him as soon as possible to explain.”

“I can’t!” cried my uncle, obviously in a dreadful muddle and still too beside himself with grief to think clearly. “He’ll blame the whole disaster on me—he’ll feel I’ve let him down, he’ll be so disillusioned—”

“Well, he’s fourteen years old—it’s about time he realized parents are flesh-and-blood people, not angels with halos!”

“But what can I say? How can I possibly explain?”

“Just tell him the truth, for God’s sake! Tell him you and Bronwen are acting for the sake of the children. Damn it, go the whole hog and say Bronwen got so upset that she didn’t want to go to bed with you anymore!”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly tell him that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, we just don’t talk about that sort of thing.”

“But he must have asked you about sex by this time!”

“Oh no, he never asks anything like that. Anyway I’m sure he’s picked up the facts at school. I mean, if not why hasn’t he asked?”

“Perhaps he was waiting for you to say something. Perhaps he was embarrassed by the knowledge that you and Bronwen weren’t married. Perhaps—oh John, do go to Harrow and talk to him!”

“Very well. All right,” said my uncle, appearing to sink even deeper into despair. “But if I tell Harry I’ll have to stop afterwards in London to talk to Marian, and Marian will want to know—”

“—if you intend to go back to Constance. Yes, of course she will—now that Marian’s come out a stepmother like Constance would be very useful to her, but just declare your intentions firmly so that she doesn’t cherish any false hopes. Unless … heavens, John, you wouldn’t go back to Constance, would you?”

“Ginevra,” said my uncle, all despair at once annihilated by his rage, “I swear to you I shall never,
never,
NEVER,
so long as I live, go back to that woman!”

He went back to her six months later.

II

“No!” I said appalled when my mother broke the news.

“My dear, yes!” My mother was equally shattered.

“But that’s impossible!”

“Quite impossible, yes. But he’s done it.” My mother adjusted her spectacles and began to read Uncle John’s letter again as if she feared she was suffering from a hallucination.

I had gone to her room to share her early-morning tea, and so I had been present when the parlormaid came upstairs with the post. It was November; outside it was drizzling and I was enjoying the coziness of the room’s thick carpet, sensuous paintings and energetic little fire roaring gamely in the grate. My mother, propped up on mounds of snowy pillows with her thick hair cascading around her shoulders and her reading spectacles perched on the end of her nose, looked like a Roman empress examining a communication from a particularly recalcitrant Christian who was insisting on being thrown to the lions.

“But why’s he done it?” I demanded.

“Well, pet, he
says
…” She consulted the letter again. “ ‘I have decided to do this so that Harry and Marian can have a normal home at last and also, of course, to make amends to Francesca for all the years I’ve been away;’ ” After reading the words in a wooden voice, she refolded the letter, removed her spectacles and reached without comment for her tea.

“But you don’t believe that, do you, Mum?” I said, watching every line of her face for clues.

“Oh yes,” said my mother, “I believe it. But I don’t think this is the whole story—in my opinion it would take an earthquake to send John back to that woman, and I don’t think this decision can conceivably be explained away by saying he was overwhelmed by the desire to do the done thing.”

“But what do you think’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” said my mother, “but if John doesn’t intend to confide in me, I shan’t pry.” Then she made a remark which I was to remember long afterwards in very different circumstances.

“We know so little,” she said, “about even those who are closest to us. We know so little of what really goes on in other people’s lives.”

Since Bronwen had departed the previous May Uncle John had been living a secluded life at Oxmoon, and his one diversion had been the estate, which he had proceeded to overhaul. Thomas remained the salaried manager but while Uncle John was concerning himself with Oxmoon Thomas was temporarily dispatched to run the estate at Penhale Manor, and in October Uncle John installed him in the Manor itself as a caretaker. Uncle John had at first decided to sell the house but in the end could not bring himself to do it. Then he had decided to let it but couldn’t bring himself to do that either. It was accordingly a relief to him when Thomas offered to look after the place, and as a consequence it was Little Oxmoon, not Penhale Manor, that eventually fell vacant in 1933. Martinscombe Farm was already let to tenants and now Uncle John decided to let the bungalow as well once it had been spruced up after Thomas’s four-year occupation.

While these changes were taking place I found I had to endure eight weeks of the school summer holidays in the company of Cousin Harry, who joined his father at Oxmoon in July. Fortunately Marian, who had been staying with her great-aunt Charlotte in London during her first season, now retired to Scotland with Aunt Daphne and Elizabeth, so I was at least spared her pea-brained presence but Harry threatened to ruin my entire summer. I even wondered in despair if he and I were to be condemned to live under the same roof indefinitely. My mother said Uncle John would find another home of his own as soon as he had decided what to do with himself, but I was beginning to think Uncle John rather enjoyed living at Oxmoon.

However when one expects the worst one is often pleasantly surprised when the worst is better than one has dared hope, and as it turned out Cousin Harry spent most of his holidays keeping out of my way. He used to disappear every day on solitary expeditions to the Downs, and in the evenings he would shut himself in his room with his wireless set and listen to music. I was delighted. Nothing could have pleased me more. Prompted by my mother I made an effort to talk to him occasionally but when he showed no interest in being sociable I gave up. Once I did ask him if he minded that Bronwen and the little ones had gone for good, but he was very offhand and gave the impression that he couldn’t have cared less.

“Well, it was the done thing, wasn’t it, old chap?” he said. “Of course Bronwen had to think of the children so obviously emigrating to Canada was the right thing—indeed the only thing—to do.”

Callous brute. Tears still came to my eyes whenever I thought of Bronwen and my lost acolyte.

In the following year at Easter my mother decided to hold a huge family reunion at Oxmoon, not exactly to celebrate Uncle John’s return to Aunt Constance but to celebrate the end of the schism that had rent the family when Uncle John left her for Bronwen. The ballroom was cleaned in anticipation of evenings spent dancing to the gramophone; all the spare bedrooms were made habitable; extra help was engaged from the village, and on the Wednesday preceding Good Friday the guests began to arrive.

I had not seen Uncle John since the previous November. After his reconciliation with Aunt Constance he had briefly returned to Oxmoon to pack up his possessions and commit the estate once more into Thomas’s hands, but as soon as that was done he had vanished into Belgravia. Harry and Marian had spent Christmas with him and Aunt Constance in London. Marian wrote sketchily to my mother that everything was “too divine,” but in the new year she went to stay with Aunt Daphne again, and after Harry returned to Harrow, Uncle John took Aunt Constance and Francesca to the Riviera for the remainder of the winter. It was March before they returned to England, and as Easter approached I found myself wondering if I would find him greatly changed when I saw him again. I pictured him white-haired, bent double with the burden of doing the done thing and shuffling along with the aid of a stick. I was fourteen by this time but my imagination, far from being dimmed by the passing years, was burgeoning to new heights of prurient speculation.

“Will they both sleep in one bed, Mum?”