‘Did you see your mother after the accident?’
‘Not until Easter 1969 when Charlotte had me conveyed to the Brosna Estate on the Cape to recuperate between operations. She wouldn’t allow Harriet to visit me before then in case either of us failed to control ourselves in front of the hospital staff. She warned that at the faintest flicker of recognition from either of us she’d stop funding my treatment and throw us both out.’
‘She was a hard woman.’
‘I’d rather not talk about her,’ Sandy said decisively. ‘After the accident she destroyed what little relationship she’d allowed me, as Bobby’s childhood companion, to have with my mother.’
She offered him the letters. ‘These explain why Bobby acted the way he did.’
‘Aren’t they personal?’
‘Very,’ she concurred. ‘Which is why I’ve never shown them to a soul.’
‘Not even Andy?’
‘Especially Andy.’
‘Wasn’t he curious about his father?’
‘Yes. And, I always tried to answer his questions about Bobby as honestly as I could without mentioning you. Given Charlotte’s – personality – I thought it best to keep the secret of “Bobby Brosna’s” identity to myself. ‘
‘Wise move.’
‘I’m more grateful than you can know for signing the document that relinquished your paternal rights to Andy.’
‘Like you, I too was afraid of Charlotte and with good cause. I saw what she was capable of when I was growing up. Saw just how cruel she could be, especially to Bobby.’
‘Bobby told me some of it.’
‘Whenever Bobby showed affection, she’d punish him. To her love and affection were weaknesses.’
‘She’s dead and gone, Sandy,’ she reminded him softly.
‘But her legacy lives on,’ he said bitterly.
‘When Andy was small I told him his father was someone I’d met before he was born and didn’t want to stay with because I preferred living with just him. He grew up happy,’ she insisted defensively. ‘We live close to my parents. My brothers and sisters all live in the same town …’
‘I know.’ He reached down to the floor beside his chair and handed her the file he’d taken from Charlotte’s room.
Stunned, she leafed through the pages. ‘Bobby said Charlotte employed snoops but this …’
‘It’s Charlotte’s copy of one I commissioned. I wanted to ensure that you and Bobby’s son wanted for nothing. She simply wanted to watch you. Are you sure you want me to read these letters?’
‘Read them in the order they were written. The dates are on the envelopes. Although they were written weeks apart and one was sent from the States and the other Vietnam, I received both in January 1969. They had bounced around Swansea University, Art College and College of Further Education for weeks before they reached me.’
He removed the first letter and unfolded it.
Wednesday, 9th October 1968
Dearest, darling Penny,
I hope you get this letter. The only place I could think of to send it is your college. We never did exchange addresses. It didn’t seem important when we were living together. After all the arguments I had with Joe and Sandy about fighting a war no one believes in or wants, I’m a GI.
In between training I’ve had time to think about what Joe and Sandy said about caring enough for your country to fight in defence of decisions our leaders have made, because that’s democracy. I disagree with the war, most of my fellow GIs disagree with it too but, unlike me, they had no choice but to fight.
Now comes the difficult bit.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I regret getting drunk. The sour taste of guilt is with me every minute of every day. When I think of that night now, it’s almost as though it happened to someone else. Or else I’m watching it on film. Especially when I recall how I tried to wrench the wheel from Sandy’s hands.
I killed Kate, and from what the hospital told me this morning, almost certainly Sandy. When I telephoned they said the prognosis wasn’t good. They only admitted that much because I pretended to be Sandy’s father.
The sight of you unconscious in the road haunts me, as does the last image of Kate. She was on the verge, her body badly burnt, her neck broken. Drunk, shocked, not knowing what the hell I was doing, I tried to help a police officer drag Sandy from the wreckage. When we finally got Sandy away from the fire I thought he was dead too. His skin was blackened and peeling, his hair reduced to ashes on his head.
Horrified at what I’d done, I ran. It was a cowardly thing to do. The police shouted after me. I knew they wouldn’t follow because the ambulances had arrived and they were busy loading you and Sandy into them.
I had no idea where I was running to, but I took the road towards the town and saw a taxi. I flagged it down.
The driver opened his window and said, ‘Sandy Buttons?’
I told him I was and asked him to take me to Marion and Joe’s house. It was the only place I could think of. I could hardly return to the Beach House and I wanted to get as far away from the site of the crash and the Brosna Estate as I could.
In my shocked alcoholic state, and I’m not making excuses, simply trying to explain why I acted the way I did, I decided to atone for what I’d done by joining the army in Sandy’s place.
I know it doesn’t make sense. A brave man would have gone to the police and told them what he’d done. I lacked the courage.
I paid the driver. Marion and Joe’s house was in darkness. I went in – you know they never lock the door. I meant to go upstairs to look for Sandy’s room and find his draft papers because I didn’t know where he was supposed to report. It was only when I reached the top of the stairs that I realised I didn’t have a clue where Sandy’s room was. I opened the first door I came to. A figure sat up in the bed and Marion mumbled sleepily, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘I’m looking for my room.’ She said, ‘It’s on the right.’
I took Sandy’s bag and crept downstairs; someone was in the kitchen so I left the house, walked out of town, hitched a ride and kept on hitching until I reached the army base a few days later. I used Sandy’s name and said I’d lost my ID in a fire. They didn’t question my story because I had the letter from the draft board. They said they’d put me down as a volunteer instead of conscript to make the paperwork easier.
I watched the news after I arrived and heard an announcement that Bobby Brosna was close to death. I saw a police appeal for Alexander Buttons to come forward. The officers were joined by Sandy’s mother and Charlotte’s lawyer who stated that they knew the accident wasn’t caused by Alexander Buttons. It was only then I realised that the police, and presumably everyone else, including you, thought I was the one in hospital.
If Sandy recovers, as I hope and pray he will, it’s inevitable that Charlotte will find out about the identity switch. But I have a feeling that she’ll consider a grandson on the brink of death easier to control. After all, Sandy is also her grandson. My father may never have acknowledged him as his son but we have the same blood running through our veins, and as neither of us is related to Charlotte by blood, she’ll probably consider him a fair swap for me. People – especially family – have always been regarded by her as playthings.
I’ve telephoned the hospital every day. They told me you’d returned to Britain. I hope you make a full recovery, darling. I’m finding it very difficult to live with the tragedy and misery I’ve caused. Kate dead, Sandy in his Bobby guise seriously ill and not expected to recover, and you with broken bones and in pain …
I finished my training a week ago. Tomorrow we fly out to Vietnam. My fellow GIs are a friendly bunch. No one talks much about where we’re going, only about family and friends and where we’ve been. All I talk about is you (I don’t mention your name) and the summer we shared on the Cape.
I think if we were truthful we’d all admit we’re terrified at the thought of fighting the Vietcong. There are stories, horrible stories, being
bandied around the camp by some of the boys who’ve been out there.
I’m sorry for all the times I quoted Scott Fitzgerald and told you ‘I love you now’. I don’t know why I kept doing it. Perhaps in an immature way I thought life would be sweeter if I lived more on the edge.
I couldn’t have been more wrong, Penny. ‘I love you now’ isn’t enough and never will be. My country owns me body and soul for the next two years. I carry a dream that at the end of that time I’ll come and find you, and when I do, I’ll discover that you’ve found it in your heart to forgive me.
I imagine us living together in a small house like the Beach House, you painting, me making music. Having children, sharing our lives. Nothing out of the ordinary, just simple day-to-day living – and loving.
It must be the army that is making me this sentimental because all the boys are writing exactly the same sort of letter to their girls. Imagining their future as part of an ordinary family life. For most of them it will be a continuation of the life they’ve already lived. For me, an exotic new experience.
I love you, Penny, and I’ll keep writing to you until you reply. My army number is at the top. Please, please write, my darling. I know I’m asking too much of you to forgive me, especially when I consider Kate and Sandy.
If you have any feelings left for me at all try to think only of the good times.
I know now I will love you until the day I die – and afterwards, if there is an afterlife.
Your Bobby, who was too wrong-headed and stupid to realise what he had with you and won’t forgive himself for being stupid that night, and for what he did to Kate and Sandy, if he lives to be a hundred.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
‘Bobby was drunk that night.’ Sandy finally folded the letter and returned it to the envelope.
‘Being drunk isn’t a defence. Bobby chose to buy the brandy. Kate died horribly. You—’
‘You’re still angry with him.’ There was resignation in Sandy’s voice.
‘I thought that you, of all people, would understand why.’
‘Spending months in hospital while doctors struggled to rebuild my face and body has taught me patience. What happened, Penny, happened. Kate’s dead, Bobby’s dead. No amount of anger or resentment can change the past.’
‘I wish I could be as forgiving.’
‘You would have forgiven Bobby and taken him back if he’d survived Vietnam.’ It was a statement, not a question.
She thought about what he’d said. ‘Yes, I would,’ she conceded.
‘Charlotte turning up the way she did, issuing orders, letting George go, throwing people out of the guest houses although she had no use for the houses and they had nowhere else to go, drove Bobby mad. He’d had a taste of freedom that summer; working with ordinary people in the restaurant, making music in his spare time and most of all being with you. Charlotte stepped back into his life and tried to force him to live the life she’d chosen for him yet again – just as she’d done since the day she’d paid his parents to hand him over to her. She turned back the clock for him and he hated it. You’ve no idea what he had to put up with, growing up with her as his legal guardian. If he liked a nanny when he was small, she’d let her go and employ another who wouldn’t get too close to Bobby. If he made a friend in school, she’d ring the headmaster and ask him to move the boy out of Bobby’s dorm.’
‘He told me a little.’
‘Such a waste of a life.’ Sandy’s eyes grew damp behind the slits in the hood.
‘Read the second letter.’
He opened the envelope and carefully removed the letter that had grown brittle with age – and constant reading.
Friday, 1st November 1968
Dearest Penny,
I suppose it was too much to expect you to answer my first letter. Ever the optimist I hope, although I don’t entirely believe, your silence is down to the time it takes mail to cross the Atlantic.
No matter how much you may hate me you cannot hate me as much as I hate myself for killing Kate and Sandy and ruining your life. I feel guilty for living when Kate is dead and Sandy hovering on the brink of death.
It’s small consolation, but if there’s a punishment that fits the crime, it’s the hell that’s Vietnam. I understand why I have to suffer, what I can’t understand is why so many innocent boys are being punished alongside me.
I’ve been here two weeks and can’t begin to describe the conditions to you. Someone as sweet, gentle and loving as you shouldn’t be made aware of horrors. No film, training or lecture could possibly prepare for the reality. The smells and sounds are the worst. Gunfire, bombs, shells, grenades and human screams shatter our nerves daily. Not only because of the noise but because we know that somewhere close by a healthy body is being smashed, broken and torn apart. Possibly one we were talking to minutes earlier.
I find myself wondering if the next shell has my name on it. Silence is even more terrifying because we’re all waiting for an explosion to end it.
We’ve been told we’re being flown out tomorrow. We don’t know to where or for how long, but we can be sure that wherever it is, it will be Vietcong-occupied. As a result everyone in my platoon is writing letters to be sent on to their folks ‘in case’ of non-return or return in a body bag.
I now understand why some families insist on having an empty grave. It means their husband, son, father or brother’s name is recorded in stone. Proof they existed, and as the saying goes, ‘once walked this way’.
On to practical things before I get any more maudlin. I’ve named Charlotte as my next of kin. I was the one who got drunk. She was the one who drove me to it and I want her to know right away if I’m killed. Although I doubt she’ll shed a tear. I never meant as much to her as one of her pet dogs. But I’m not sending her a last letter. I’ve reserved that dubious privilege for you.
Even if you hate me, this letter will close the episode of your life we shared. If our story was a Hollywood film I’d write a lot of platitudes about you living on for both of us, remembering only the good times we shared and finding another man worthy of you. But this isn’t a film, and as you already know, I’m all too fallible.
I hate the thought of dying but most of all not being around to grow old with you. If there is an afterlife in which you can look down on people on earth, I’ll resent everyone who is able to see you, talk to you and, most of all, touch you.
The strange thing is at this precise moment I believe I’m immortal. In a few minutes I know I’ll feel different, but for now I believe – really believe – you’ll never read this letter.
Thank you for giving me the happiest days of my life. I’m desperately sorry for getting drunk and behaving like an idiot. I can’t bear to think of the pain I’ve caused Kate’s family and friends and Sandy. Or how much I regret dismissing the love you offered as if it wasn’t the most precious gift I’d ever been given.
I love you, Penny. I have from the very first moment I saw you. Sandy said he’d told you how hard I chased you after we met in Grosvenor Square. I knew then you were the only girl for me but I was afraid you’d take my love and reject it as Charlotte did when I was a child. I imagine us meeting again when this is over and I cling to the hope that we’ll have a future together.
Not goodbye, Penny, but goodnight. I will see you again, my dearest darling girl who I love now and will love always.
I carry you in my heart.
Bobby
Sandy stared at the letter for a long time after he read it. Finally he lifted his head and looked at her. ‘You’ve really never shown these letters to anyone? Never told anyone it was Bobby Brosna who died in Vietnam and Sandy Buttons who has been impersonating him for the last nineteen years?’
‘No.’
‘Not even your parents or Andy?’
‘Especially my parents and Andy. Given Charlotte’s wealth and power and insistence on keeping Bobby alive to the world, I thought the knowledge Bobby was dead, dangerous. She’s not a woman I wo
uld have ever wanted to cross.’
‘You knew me. Did you regard me as dangerous?’
‘Of course not. But very few people had seen you since the accident and then only when you were covered by a hood. I couldn’t even be sure that you were you, if that makes sense.’
‘It makes perfect sense.’
‘You appear to have been lucky with your parents.’
‘Very,’ she agreed. ‘I hid the letters and kept them in reserve as a trump card I would have been loath to use. Charlotte’s lawyers contacted me often about Andy when he was small, trying to get me to hand him over to her the way Bobby’s parents had Bobby. But your insistence on not claiming parental rights reassured me and I was grateful for it. Although I did wonder why you wanted Bobby’s name on the birth certificate.’
‘I knew Bobby was dead. That was my trump card. If Charlotte had pushed too hard I would have told the world I had no claim to Andy because I wasn’t Bobby Brosna.’
‘You would have done that for me?’
‘For you and Bobby’s son. Thank you for keeping these.’ He returned the last letter to the envelope. ‘And thank you for showing them to me.’
‘Apart from Andy they were all I had left of Bobby. Did Tim Garber know him?’
‘Yes, but in Vietnam and as Sandy Buttons.’
‘Bobby never told him who he was?’
‘No, but I did one night when I was drunk. It’s difficult being lonely and having no one to talk to. Which is probably one of the reasons I find it easy to forgive Bobby for what he did. Given Charlotte’s habit of employing “snoops”, I realise now he thought he couldn’t trust anyone. Not even me. For all he knew I could have taken Charlotte’s money.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘I’m surprised you feel the need to ask. Not that Charlotte didn’t offer. She did, several times.’
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