Bobby's Girl (32 page)

‘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.

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 would 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.'

‘That last afternoon she offered me money to leave Bobby alone.'

‘Charlotte told me she'd tried to buy you. In fact her
last words were “stupid girl, how dare she refuse me”.'

‘I annoyed her?' Penny smiled.

‘Everyone who refused to dance to her tune annoyed her. When I returned to the Cape to recuperate, Charlotte wouldn't allow Harriet and I to meet without a witness present. Generally her. As I couldn't speak to Harriet about my change of identity, that left Tim. He survived the helicopter crash that killed Bobby and wrote to me when he was invalided out of the army, telling me he'd been Sandy Buttons' buddy in 'Nam and was in desperate need of a job. I wanted to help him for Bobby's sake. He accepted my invitation to visit and I discovered he knew almost as much about Bobby, or Sandy, as I did. Bobby had talked to Tim about the grandmother who brought him up and the English girl he was in love with and was going to search for when he was discharged from the army. Tim's a good man, I'm glad Bobby suggested he look me up.'

‘And now we've found one another again,' she murmured.

‘Have we, Penny? Do you really want to be part of my life in the future?' Sandy asked seriously.

‘Yes. I would like to have your friendship.' She took the letters he handed her.

‘That, you've always had.'

‘How much do you want to tell Andy?'

He left his chair and walked slowly and awkwardly to the glass door and looked over the veranda before turning back to her. ‘I think it's time I stopped living a lie and told, not only Andy, but the world the truth about his father, don't you? That way we can arrange to have
Bobby's name added to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington.'

‘But the Brosna inheritance. If Andy turns it down …'

‘He won't.'

‘You're very sure of my son's reaction.'

‘If Andy rejects it, it will all go to the Republican Party.'

For the first time she detected a trace of humour in his voice. ‘It's an obscene amount of money, Penny. Miracles can be conjured with millions of dollars. Research centres given funding so they can find and test cures for diseases. Children's education programmes can be sponsored which will enable bright kids to go to college. And I haven't even started on the Third World. Wells can be dug in drought-stricken villages, starving people given the means to farm land …'

‘Charity needs organising.'

‘Tim has overseen our military veteran programme for years. I work on the charity side of the Brosna Foundation. We have some good people on our payroll.'

‘And Andy's medical studies?'

‘The Brosna Foundation funds a medical school in Harvard.'

‘He was hoping to go to Guy's.'

‘He's Bobby's son. He'll make his own decisions. Charlotte did stipulate that he has to take the name Robert Brosna the Fifth to inherit. But he doesn't have to use it except on legal documents. Or, he could be Bobby Brosna here in the States and Andy John in Wales.'

‘That's for Andy to decide. But I'll never call him Bobby.'

‘Do you want to eat here or in your suite?'

‘Which would you prefer?'

‘Here.'

‘I'll fetch Andy.'

‘Before you go, I'd like your opinion on this.' He removed his hat and pulled off his silk hood.

She stared at the ravages of the face she had often sketched and admired.

‘It's horrendous, isn't it?' He lifted the hood intending to replace it.

She walked over to him, took it from between his fingers, tossed it on to the chair and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘You could never be horrendous, Sandy.'

‘But, Andy—'

‘Is a grown man who wants to be a doctor. He'll admire your courage in allowing us to see your face.' 

Penny left Sandy's suite and walked along to her own. She unlocked the door. As she entered, Andy rose from the sofa where he'd been sitting, flicking through the channels on the TV set.

‘You've been gone ages.'

‘I'm sorry—'

‘Does my father want to see me?'

She went to the bar and poured herself a vodka. Taking a glass and a can of beer for Andy she handed them to him. ‘Your father died in Vietnam in November 1968.'

‘Before I was born?' Andy took the beer but made no attempt to open it. ‘You told me Bobby Brosna was my father …'

‘And so he was, darling. The man who's passed himself off as Bobby Brosna for the last nineteen years is your father's friend Sandy Buttons. He and I have
a lot of explaining to do but I think it's best done together. He's waiting for us. Shall we go to dinner?'

Sandy had left the door to his suite open. He was sitting in the conservatory with his back to them. When he turned to face them, Penny saw that he was watching Andy's face intently to gauge her son's reaction to his damaged face but the surprise was his.

Andy walked forward and offered him his hand. His movements, his gesture, were all Bobby. Sandy was too stunned to even shake Andy's hand.

‘He's—'

‘His father all over again,' Penny said.

Tim brought in Czar after walking the dog in the park. He served them dinner and, at Sandy's invitation, joined them.

‘Tim is the only person who can tell you about your father's time in Vietnam,' Sandy assured Andy.

The explanations began with the cocktails, continued through the first course of mussels, and steaks grew as cold as the salads on their plates as Sandy and Penny answered Andy's questions. By the time Tim served the fresh-fruit and sorbet dessert, Andy, Sandy and Tim were making plans to return to the Brosna Estate so Sandy could show Andy the place where his father had been happy and talk through the implications of his acceptance or rejection of the Brosna inheritance.

‘I really don't have to run the businesses? I can study medicine just as I planned?' Andy checked.

‘I think what Sandy is trying to tell you, darling, is the decision is yours to make. You're the boss,' Penny reminded her son.

‘You have no idea how good it is to hear someone use my real name again.' Sandy nodded as Tim held up a fresh bottle of wine. ‘If your great-grandmother heard you say that you still wanted to be a doctor, she'd no doubt tell you that you're in serious danger of running the businesses into the ground and frittering away the Brosna millions. But there's so much money it wouldn't be a bad idea to fritter some of it, in the right places. Now, about this medical school in Harvard that Brosna money built. It's absolutely the best …'

Penny took her coffee and walked to the window.

‘Mam, you're coming to the Cape with us, aren't you?' Andy left the table and joined her.

‘No.'

‘It's changed out of all recognition since 1968. Cosmo's is closed, Pen—' Sandy began.

‘It's not that, Sandy,' Penny interrupted. ‘I think it's a good idea for Andy to get to know Bobby through his closest friends. You'll have a wonderful time, Andy, and while you're with Sandy I won't feel guilty for abandoning you and making other plans.'

‘Other plans?' Sandy reiterated.

‘I need to make a telephone call.'

‘There's one in the conservatory. Shut the door if you want privacy.'

‘Thank you.' She did as Sandy suggested, dialled ‘nine' for an outside line followed by a UK number. It was answered on the sixth ring. Only then did she think to
check her watch. Nine o'clock in New York, two in the morning in the UK.

‘Jack Evans.'

‘I'm sorry, Jack, did I wake you?'

‘Pen, what's wrong?'

‘Nothing.'

‘You rang me at two in the morning to tell me nothing's wrong.'

‘I forgot the time difference.'

‘Have you and Andy seen Bobby Brosna?'

‘Yes.'

‘And?'

‘Andy's going to Cape Cod with Sandy …'

‘Who's Sandy?'

She looked through the glass wall at Sandy, Tim and Andy, talking animatedly. ‘Bobby's closest and best friend. It's a long story, Jack. Andy's going to discuss the inheritance with the Brosna executives and see some of the places his father lived in when he was young. But I didn't phone about Andy. He's fine. Do you remember that short break you wanted to take …'

‘To Dunster?'

‘I wondered if you could hand over your farm to one of your minions, as you call them, for a few weeks and make it the States. I never did see the galleries and museums in '68 and I'd love to show you the
Alice in Wonderland
statue in Central Park. Afterwards we could go to Washington and see the Vietnam Memorial.'

‘To lay your ghosts?'

‘They're laid and have been laid a long time. You can find someone to take care of the farm, can't you?'

‘Might be possible if you add Las Vegas to the itinerary,' he ventured. ‘I've always fancied one of their quickie, tacky weddings.'

‘I'll look for an Elvis suit you can wear. Do you want me to look like Dolly Parton?'

She heard a sharp intake of breath.

‘Do you mean that?'

‘Yes.' She thought of Bobby's last letter. Of his assertion
I love you now isn't enough
…

Seconds ticked past.

‘You're very quiet. You're regretting your answer?' Jack asked in concern.

‘No. Just thinking.'

‘About what?'

‘The future.'

‘When we return from the States you will move in here, won't you? It would be difficult to run this place from your house.'

‘Yes, I'll move in with you but I'll keep my studio.'

‘I could build you one here.'

‘No point when I've one less than five minutes away by car.'

‘I'll concede your studio. What will you do with your house?'

‘My parents can use it for a guest house for my sisters, brothers and their children. That way they'll have no excuse not to clear up their own mess when they come to visit. But I do have one question.'

‘Fire away.'

‘Do you think we're too old to have children?'