The Wheel of Fortune Read Online Free

chandeliers.
    I thought of my mother saying long ago, “This is no fairy tale, Robert.” But who was to say now that my own private fairy tale could never come true? If I got what I wanted—and I usually did—then I would go home at last to Oxmoon, the Oxmoon of my childhood, and Ginette would share my life once more in that lost paradise of my dreams.
    The prospect stimulated such a powerful wave of euphoria that I almost wondered if I should become a romantic again, but fortunately my common sense intervened and I restrained myself. This was a situation that called for care, calculation and a cool head. The jilted hero who still yearned passionately for his lost love might possibly seem attractive in a French farce but it was quite definitely a role which I had no wish to play in public.
    Thinking of roles reminded me of the living I had to earn, and an hour later, masked by my barrister’s wig and gown, I had slipped back into my familiar role as the hero of the Old Bailey.
    But all the time I was thinking of Ginette.
    IV
    I survived a day that would normally have reduced me to exhaustion and arrived, clear-eyed and fresh, at my father’s club soon after eleven that night. The idea of a widowed Ginette was a powerful stimulant. I felt taut with nostalgia, prurient curiosity, sexual desire and impatience. It was a lethal mixture, and as I drifted through the rooms in search of my father I half-feared that I might be vibrating with excitement like some wayward electrical device, but fortunately all my acquaintances who accosted me assumed I was merely excited by the result of the trial.
    When I finally reached the corner where my father was waiting I found he had Lion with him. I assumed a benign expression and prayed for tolerance.
    “I hear you won your case, Robert!” my father was saying with enthusiasm. “Very many congratulations!”
    “Thank you. Hullo, Lion.”
    “Hullo, Robert—I can’t tell you how proud I am to be related to you! Why, I’m famous at the bank just because I’m your brother!” He sighed with childlike admiration, a huge brainless good-natured youth towards whom I occasionally contrived to feel a mild affection. It seemed preposterous to think that I could ever have wasted energy being jealous of him. Graciously I held out my hand so that he could shake it.
    “Well, Lion,” said my father mildly when further banalities had been exchanged, “I won’t detain you—as you tell me you have such trouble getting to work on time in the mornings I’m sure you’ll want to be in bed before midnight.”
    But Lion wanted to hear more about the trial and ten minutes passed before he consented to being dispatched.
    “Stunning news about Ginevra, isn’t it!” he remembered to add over his shoulder as he ambled off. “Won’t it be wonderful to see her again!”
    I smiled politely and refrained from comment, but seconds later I was saying to my father in the most casual voice I could muster, “Let’s see this wire she sent.”
    The missive was almost criminally verbose. I have come to believe women should be banned from sending cables; they are constitutionally incapable of being succinct in a situation that demands austerity.
    DARLINGS , gushed this deplorable communication, SOMETHING TOO DREADFUL HAS HAPPENED I HARDLY KNOW HOW TO PUT IT INTO WORDS BUT CONOR IS DEAD I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE IT ALTHOUGH I SAW IT HAPPEN HE MUST BE BURIED IN IRELAND SO I AM TAKING HIM THERE AT ONCE I CAN’T STAY HERE ANYWAY IT’S NOT POSSIBLE I’LL WRITE FROM DUBLIN ALL I WANT IS TO COME HOME TO OXMOON LONGING TO SEE YOU ALL DEEPEST LOVE GINEVRA.
    “Typical,” I said. “She squanders a fortune on a wire but still manages to omit all the relevant details of her predicament. She seems to assume we’ll know by telepathic intuition when she plans to arrive in Wales.”
    “My dear Robert, don’t be so severe! The poor girl’s obviously distraught!”
    “To be distracted is pardonable. To be incoherent