‘It was then Bobby broke down. He shouted, “Don’t you understand, boys our age are dying over there. And when you die, that’s it! The end! Black! Nothing! No feeling! No thoughts! Nothing! I’ve seen their graves and so has she.” He pointed at me. “Some of them aren’t even in their graves. All they have is an empty plot of earth and a headstone with a name. The army told their relatives they were missing. But given what’s happening in Vietnam, I don’t believe there was enough left to send home and bury. Tell them, Pen. Tell them we saw the class of ’64 buried next to the class of ’65 buried next to the class of ’66, and now the class of ’67 and ’68 are being shipped home in boxes.”
‘Even then Joe wouldn’t let it go. He taunted Bobby calling him “rich boy” again and said the real men knew what they were fighting for in Vietnam even if Bobby didn’t.
‘It ended with Joe and Bobby fighting. Joe hit Bobby on the chin. Bobby fell over and Paul and Marion pulled Joe off before he could close in with another punch.
‘Sandy helped Bobby to his feet. Bobby moved towards his car. Sandy snatched Bobby’s car keys from his hand.
‘Bobby protested and said he had to fetch his clothes from the Beach House. Sandy said that as he had to take the car back and straighten things out with Charlotte Brosna’s butler he may as well take Bobby with him so Bobby could pick up his things.
‘Sandy saw I was worried and reassured me that he wouldn’t let Charlotte see her grandson in the state he was in. He’d drop Bobby off at the Beach House so he could pack, then, after he’d left the car with Charlotte’s butler, he’d walk down from the main house and pick up Bobby. He asked Marion to ring a cab company and ask them to send a driver to pick him and Bobby up at the entrance to the Brosna Estate in an hour.
‘Marion agreed. Bobby staggered to the car and climbed into the driving seat. Sandy heaved him out of it, dropped him into the back and fastened him in with a seat belt.
‘Bobby was shouting for me so I climbed into the back and sat beside him. Kate refused to be left behind so she took the front passenger seat.
‘Sandy turned the ignition and we drove up the road.
‘Bobby passed out before we left Main Street. Sandy drove quickly but he was careful to observe the speed limit because he suspected the police would be on the lookout for Bobby’s distinctive car.
‘We were about a mile from the Brosna Estate when Bobby woke up. He sat up with a start, and although it was dark I could see his eyes wide, staring. He was obviously disorientated. He looked around, saw the back of Sandy’s head, unbuckled his seat belt and shouted, “Damn car thief!” He leaned forward and tried to wrest the wheel from Sandy. They fought for control. I wrapped my arms around Bobby’s waist, and using all the strength I could muster, tried to pull him back into the seat. The car was swerving from side to side. The headlights swept round in arcs, illuminating undergrowth one minute, tarmac the next. I saw a tree looming closer and closer … there was an enormous bang, a flash of light, an explosion … then nothing.’
The rainstorm had quietened to a soft patter of drops on the window panes and sills. It was so still in the kitchen Penny could hear the dogs breathing.
‘You were unconscious?’ Jack asked.
‘I came round in hospital the following afternoon. As to what happened after I was knocked out, if you’ve read the press reports you know as much as me.’
‘It was nineteen years ago, Penny. And I didn’t know you that well then.’
‘The police were at my bedside. They told me the car had hit a tree and burst into flames. I didn’t remember the fire, presumably because it didn’t start until after I was out of it. They asked where I’d been sitting in the car. I told them I’d been sitting behind Sandy who’d been driving. Kate was sitting beside Sandy in front of Bobby. Neither Bobby nor I were wearing seat belts. The officers said it looked as though Bobby and I had been flung out of the car on impact. They didn’t tell me that Bobby had been catapulted headlong into the fire. When I asked, the police admitted that they were on the scene within seconds. They had, as Sandy suspected, been following us.
‘The doctor arrived and sent the police away. He informed me I’d broken both my legs, three ribs and my left arm. I asked about Sandy, Kate – and Bobby. He tried to fob me off with platitudes. When I became agitated, he gave me a shot of morphine.
‘The next time I came round my father, mother and Uncle Haydn were in the room. Anything a Brosna did was news in the States and one of the local reporters had asked around Hyannis for the name of Bobby’s girlfriend. It hadn’t taken him long to find out. As soon as Uncle Haydn heard about the accident he cancelled his show in Las Vegas. He and my parents arrived at Boston airport at the same time.
‘They told me Bobby was badly burnt and not expected to live. Kate had been killed and Sandy had disappeared. No one knew where he was and not even the police could find him.
‘I felt as though my world had come to an end. The man I loved was dying, my best friend was dead. I would never ever see them again. I also felt desperately sorry for Sandy. I knew how guilty he’d be feeling, although the accident wasn’t his fault but Bobby’s.
‘Charlotte Brosna walked into my room before my father finished telling me about Kate. We found out afterwards that she’d paid one of the nurses to inform her of my progress.
‘She tried to give my father a cheque to cover my medical expenses, the cost of flying Kate’s body home and Kate’s funeral. My father refused to take it. Then she demanded I sign an undertaking that I would never try to see or contact Bobby again.
‘Uncle Haydn called a doctor and demanded he remove Charlotte Brosna from my room. I believe it was the first time Charlotte Brosna had met her match. The staff were reluctant to order a Brosna to do anything but Haydn was insistent. Three days later, when the doctors agreed I could be moved, Uncle Haydn arranged to have me flown home by air ambulance.
‘I thought the worst thing that could happen to me in life had. But that was before I faced Kate’s mother. She was more than grief-stricken; she was broken, distraught. She and Kate had been very close. But you know she died of cancer not long afterwards.
‘After Kate’s funeral, which I went to in a wheelchair – but you were there with Rich so you know – I tried to pick up the pieces of my life. I began by going back to college. A week after I returned I fainted and was taken to hospital. The doctors in Swansea thought it was down to trauma and stress from the accident.
‘They ran a battery of tests and discovered I was pregnant. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I hadn’t taken my birth control pills since the night of the accident.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
‘Did you ever find out what had happened to Sandy?’ Jack’s voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silence that had fallen over the kitchen.
‘Not for months. The first police officers on the scene saw him. In fact, one of the officers insisted that he couldn’t have pulled Bobby from the burning wreckage without Sandy’s help. But, by the time Bobby and me had been loaded into the ambulances he’d gone.’
‘Did the police look for him?’
‘At first – because they believed he was responsible for the crash. After I told them it had been Bobby’s attempt to wrest the steering wheel from Sandy that had caused the accident they appealed for him to come forward as a witness. Marion, Joe, Paul and Mary visited me in hospital. They told me the police had searched their house the morning after the crash and taken Kate’s and my bags for safekeeping. They hadn’t found Sandy’s. Bobby had never moved any of his things out of the Beach House so I presumed they were still there.’
‘Your things were returned to you?’
She thought of the rusted tartan bag in the attic of her barn conversion, the sketch books she’d filled that summer. Somehow they were more evocative than the photographs she’d taken. Sketches she hadn’t been able to look at for years.
‘The police brought my bag to the hospital.’
‘Didn’t you think it
odd that Sandy didn’t come to see you?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I was worried about him. As I said, I knew he’d be guilt-stricken and devastated over Kate’s death and Bobby’s and my injuries. Before I left the hospital a nurse told me that a man telephoned several times a day enquiring about Bobby and me but he wouldn’t leave his name. Later, Uncle Haydn discovered that the police had attempted to track the calls, but they’d all been made from payphones in different states. Charlotte Brosna issued a statement through her solicitor asking Sandy to come forward. She stated that she knew he was in no way to blame for the accident. Sandy’s mother, Harriet, filmed a television appeal. It was heartbreaking to see her crying, begging Sandy to get in touch and reassure her that he was all right. With Kate dead and Bobby close to death I think the police and Harriet believed Sandy to be a suicide risk.’
‘I recall that Bobby Brosna wasn’t expected to live.’ Jack stirred the fire into life and placed another log on the flames.
‘He hovered on the brink of death for months. Charlotte Brosna had the best and most experienced burn injury surgeons flown into the States from Europe to treat him. As soon as he was pronounced medically stable she had him transferred to a Boston hospital, but that was four months after I’d flown home. And by then the police had discovered Sandy’s whereabouts. He’d joined the army as a volunteer and told the officers all his personal papers had been destroyed in a fire – which I suppose in retrospect they had been. He gave his real name, Alexander Buttons, but no one made the connection between him and the man wanted after a car accident on Cape Cod.’
‘So he did serve in Vietnam.’
‘As a volunteer not a conscript,’ she confirmed. ‘After six weeks’ basic training he was shipped out. I don’t know if he expected to die, but I thought it ironic that he’d named Charlotte Brosna as his next of kin. Possibly he thought the news of his death would be easier for his mother to bear if Charlotte broke it to her.’
‘How long was he in Vietnam?’
‘Less than two weeks. Marion sent me a newspaper cutting from the Cape’s local paper. Alexander “Sandy” Buttons died in a helicopter crash on November 2nd 1968 in South Vietnam. She was worried sick because Joe was out there and she expected him to get killed at any moment. Marion told me in a later letter that Sandy’s body was shipped home and Harriet Buttons buried him in a cemetery on the Cape. He was only twenty-two. Just one of sixteen thousand, five hundred and eighty-nine Western casualties of the Vietnam War in 1968.’
‘I’m so sorry, Penny.’ The fact that she could recall the exact figure indicated how much Sandy’s death had affected her. ‘Did you have much contact with Bobby after the accident?’
‘No. Charlotte must have set snoops to watch me because when my pregnancy became noticeable she sent a solicitor’s letter asking if the child I was expecting was her grandson’s. Bobby was in the Boston hospital at that time but as I didn’t know anything about his condition other than the official bulletin which stated “he was gravely ill” I asked my father to answer the letter for me. I told him to tell Charlotte the child was Bobby’s but I intended to bring him or her up alone. And I didn’t need or want help from anyone, especially her.’
‘And she never came back to you?’ Jack said in surprise.
‘She persisted, offering me money to give up my child, but I was adamant that after the way she’d treated Bobby she was not going to get her hands on his son or daughter.’
‘A lot of money?’ Jack fished.
‘Millions – dollars not pounds,’ she said quickly. ‘But I remembered what Bobby had said about being brought up by nannies and sent to expensive boarding schools and summer camps. There was no way I wanted that kind of childhood for my child. But even after I refused, Charlotte kept writing and even sent an American lawyer to my parents’ house. About a month before Andy was born I wrote to Cosmo and asked him to find out how Bobby really was and if he was still in the hospital that had issued the bulletins. Cosmo, bless him, phoned me as soon as he received my letter. He told me Bobby’s injuries were severe but the doctor’s believed, no longer life-threatening and he had years of corrective surgery in front of him. I sent a letter to the hospital in Boston where Bobby was being treated and marked it urgent and personal. A nurse wrote a reply for him as he didn’t have the use of his hands at the time. He promised to speak to Charlotte and respect my wishes regarding our child’s upbringing, which he did and has done since – apart from sending me an obscene cheque after Andy was born. I returned it and told him I would never take his money.’
‘Andy was his son too, Pen. Money means nothing to the Brosnas …’
‘That’s the point, Jack. The Brosnas have so much, they believe, really believe, money can buy them anything they want, even people. I didn’t want Andy beholden, especially financially, to anyone with that philosophy.’
‘Bobby’s written since?’
‘Several times and always offering money. I returned his letters with my refusals.’
‘You haven’t wanted to see him again?’
‘So we could relive that awful night when Kate died?’ she shivered. ‘No.’
‘You said there were happy times.’
‘There were, but after Andy arrived I had to move on, make a life for both of us.’
‘You succeeded,’ he complimented. ‘You say you sent Bobby’s letters back. Will you return the one you received this morning?’
‘No, because Andy has to read it.’
Jack left his chair. ‘Tragic,’ he mused. ‘Sandy may have died in Vietnam anyway, as he was intent on going there. But the rest of you. Three young lives ruined—’
‘Two lives ruined,’ she interrupted. ‘I came out of that crash comparatively unscathed. When I was carried away from that car wreck on a stretcher I had my life, I was able to regain my health and had Andy the following year. I’ve never stopped grieving for Kate or regretting her loss. She was my best friend. We had no secrets from one another. And her memory has made me grateful for every day I’ve lived since that night. If Andy had been a girl I would have called her Kate.’
‘I remember her as a pretty girl, full of life.’
‘She was.’ Penny smiled unconsciously as she recalled Kate bouncing into the common room with the news about America. ‘As for Sandy, you’re right. He may well have died in Vietnam as a conscript. 1968 was the worst year of the war for casualties. Bobby’s life was certainly ruined that night. Not because he was maimed and crippled by the fire but because his injuries enabled Charlotte to regain control of his life. I wonder if they became reconciled. Knowing the way Bobby felt about her, I doubt it. I think that’s why he chose to live on the Brosna Estate. It’s easier to become a recluse when you have several houses to choose from. I doubt he ever lived in the main house with her.’
‘Bobby never wanted to see Andy?’
‘He never asked. I never offered. Possibly he was afraid how Andy would react to his disfigurement. Bobby respected my decision to bring up Andy as a John. He never caved in to the pressure I knew Charlotte brought on him to claim a father’s rights, but he did ask me to name him as the father on the birth certificate in return for relinquishing all claims on the child. After checking with my father and his solicitor that the declaration Bobby sent me giving up his father’s rights to Andy would hold up in court, I did. I felt it was little enough. The one thing I wasn’t prepared for was how I’d feel about Andy after he was born.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘No you can’t, Jack. You think you can, but no one knows how emotional they’ll be about their own child until they’re holding it.’
He looked back at the fire.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised when she realised how cruel her words must have sounded. ‘There was another casualty that night only he wasn’t affected until years later.’
‘There was?’ he asked in surprise.
‘You. I know how much you wanted a family of your own.’
‘I
accepted a long time ago that I couldn’t have you and a family of my own.’
‘It was selfish of me. I should have sent you packing.’
He smiled. ‘You did, several times, but I kept coming back. The proverbial bad penny.’
‘And I was weak and selfish enough to take everything you offered and give you nothing in return.’
‘You gave me the time you could spare, Pen. It was enough, although I always sensed the ghost of Andy’s father hovering between us. Thank you for explaining about Bobby. You must have missed him when you were bringing up Andy. Does he look like Bobby?’
‘A mirror image. I’ll show you photographs some time. As for missing Bobby. I did for years. And sometimes, late at night, I still regret the “might have been”. But I’ve you and Andy, my parents and a lot to be grateful for. The worst was just after I returned to college. My parents supported my decision to return there as soon as my legs healed. I worked hard on my portfolio, crammed in as much as I could before Andy was born, and afterwards my parents paid for a rented house and a full-time nanny while I sat my finals. But it was dreadful. Because I’d lost Bobby, Kate and Sandy I didn’t want to leave Andy for a minute. As soon as I qualified I gave the nanny notice, returned here with Andy and the rest you know.’
‘Andy has to make a tough decision. I don’t know what I’d do if someone handed me the Brosna millions.’ Jack opened the oven door and checked the cottage pie.
‘Since he was old enough to steal my father’s and brother’s stethoscopes and play with them he’s wanted to be a doctor like his grandfather and uncle. I hope for his sake he makes the right decision.’
‘And for you that would be medical college and a place in your father’s practice.’
‘Would that be so awful, Jack?’ She looked up at him through misty eyes.
‘It’s a decision you have no say in. Andy’s a grown man. It’s time you allowed him to act like one. But this conversation is getting too serious and too full of imponderables. The pie’s ready, it’s time we ate and afterwards we can do whatever you want. Listen to music, watch television, play chess, or you can choose something to watch from my magnificent video collection.’
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