‘You’re so lucky, Mummy. You had him, and now Larry.’
‘There’ll be someone for you, darling.’
‘How can you tell?’ she said again.
‘When it happens, you just know. Although—’
Kitty stopped just as it seemed she was going to say more.
‘Although what?’
‘Actually, darling,’ her mother said, ‘I just realised how sometimes you think you know it’s right, but you turn out to be wrong.’
‘Because he turns out to be a beast?’
‘Or just not the right one for you.’
‘But there are a lot of beasts out there, aren’t there? I mean, men who only want one thing.’
She was thinking of the man who whispered to her at André’s party, ‘Do you fuck?’
‘Yes, darling, there are. You have to be careful.’
‘I don’t understand it. I mean, I do understand them wanting that, but wanting only that – as if it doesn’t matter who you are at all.’
‘Has someone been treating you badly, darling?’
‘Oh, no. I’m fine. You know how it is. When you were young you must have had men buzzing round you. You were so pretty.’
‘I think all girls do when they’re young.’
Pamela knew about her father the war hero. But it had just occurred to her that she knew nothing about her mother’s life before she was married. It was the war, of course, and everything was different.
‘Was Daddy the first?’
She meant, first lover. Kitty understood her.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He was my first everything.’
‘And you were in love.’
‘Terribly.’
‘You’re so lucky.’
‘In some ways,’ said her mother. ‘Not in others.’
‘Because he died young.’
He was thirty-two when he died. He had never seemed young to Pamela before. But now it struck her, he had been the same age as André.
Kitty was saying nothing.
‘What is it, Mummy?’
She realised her mother was upset. She was biting her lip in that way she did when she didn’t want to cry.
‘I’ve always said to myself I’ll wait till you’re older,’ she said. ‘But you are older now.’
Pamela felt a coldness inside her.
‘Is it about Daddy?’ she said.
‘Ed was a wonderful man, and a very troubled man. He found life hard, a lot of the time. He withdrew into himself. He was very unhappy.’
Pamela knew as she listened to her mother that she had always known. But there are things you don’t choose to see in clear light.
‘There came a time,’ said Kitty, ‘when he just didn’t want to go on living anymore.’
His early death had been a tragic accident. But of course it wasn’t an accident. He fell five hundred feet, from the top of Beachy Head. How could it have been an accident? My beautiful hero father wasn’t the type to stray too near the edge by accident. He wasn’t the type to fall by accident. She had always known this, even as a child. But she had never taken the next step. She had not strayed too near that cliff edge.
‘Would you rather I didn’t tell you this?’
‘No,’ said Pamela. ‘Go on.’
‘All he thought about at the end was you and Elizabeth and me.’
‘Did he say so?’
‘He left a letter.’
A letter. All these years there had been a letter.
‘Can I read it?’
‘Would you mind if I read it out to you? Some parts are very private.’
She went upstairs to her bedroom, where she kept her most precious things. Pamela stayed curled up on the sofa, feeling cold.
Kitty came back down holding a handwritten letter folded in four. She sat down on the sofa and opened it up and read it through silently. Then she read from it aloud.
Don’t hate me for leaving you. Don’t be angry. Just say he did his best, and when he could do no more he laid himself down to sleep. Kiss the girls from me. Tell them if there is a heaven after all, I’ll be waiting for them. Tell them I go with my head held high, still storming that fatal beach, still the war hero. Tell them I’ll love them for eternity. As I’ll love you. If we meet again it’ll be in a place where all things are known, and you’ll forgive me.
She paused, trying not to cry. Pamela was already crying, noiselessly, not moving. Then Kitty cleared her throat, and continued to the end.
Goodnight, my darling. I shall fall asleep in your arms, and the hurting will be over.
She folded the letter up once more, and took Pamela in her arms. They wept together.
‘He must have been so unhappy,’ said Pamela, sobbing. ‘Why was he so unhappy?’
‘It was in him,’ said her mother. ‘I don’t know why. It was in him from the beginning.’
‘At least you had Larry.’
‘Yes. Ed knew that.’
‘He knew Larry loved you?’
‘Yes.’
It was all so new to Pamela, and yet so long known. So much love, so much unhappiness.
‘I should have told you before,’ Kitty said. ‘I think I’ve always been frightened of telling you.’
‘I half knew,’ said Pamela.
‘What about Elizabeth? Should I tell her?’
‘It’s not the same for Elizabeth. She didn’t really know him. She says she doesn’t remember him.’
‘Maybe when she’s a bit older.’
‘I need a drink. Do you need a drink?’
Pamela poured them both a shot of cognac.
‘Brandy for shock,’ she said.
‘Is it a shock?’
‘I’m fine now. Thanks, Mummy. I do love you.’
They drank the brandy, once more side-by-side on the sofa.
‘It won’t be the same for you, my darling. Everyone’s life is different.’
*
That night, lying in bed unable to sleep, Pamela found it was a shock after all. A turbulent stream of emotions passed through her, stirring up long-dormant pools of loss and fear. Her own father had not been able to bear the pain of living. He had laid himself down to sleep. It was in him from the beginning.
What if it’s in me? What if it’s the devil in me?
Suddenly the world seemed to Pamela to be a frightening place. Where could she go to be safe? How could she ever be loved as her mother had been loved? A memory then jumped into her mind, from long ago, from before her father had died. She was standing in the hall, looking through the open kitchen door. In the kitchen, with his back to her, stood Hugo, with her mother in his arms. He was kissing her like a lover.
PART FOUR
Retaliation
October 1962
37
Mac Bundy was hosting a dinner party at his home when he got the call.
‘Those things we’ve been worrying about in Cuba are there.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘No question about it. We’ve got the pictures.’
Mac returned to his dinner guests and said nothing. The president had only just got back from campaigning in Niagara Falls and New York City and was worn out. Bundy made the decision to let him have a quiet night’s sleep.
Next morning he went in to the White House to give the president the bad news. He rode the elevator to the private quarters, and entered to find the president in bed, sitting up reading the morning New York Times. The page one headline ran:
EISENHOWER CALLS PRESIDENT WEAK ON FOREIGN POLICY
Bundy’s style was to get to the point fast.
‘They got the pictures back from the U2, Mr President. Not good.’
‘What’s this? Cuba?’
‘They spotted two medium-range missiles and six missile transports, south-west of Havana.’
‘Nuclear missiles?’
‘Looks like it, sir.’
‘That fucking Khrushchev! That fucking liar! He can’t do that to me!’
L
ater, in the Oval Office, Kennedy was shown the photographs. The grainy images meant nothing to him. Amid the dots and blotches were labels and arrows: ERECTOR LAUNCH EQUIPMENT. MISSILE TRAILERS.
‘They’re what we designate as SS4s, sir,’ said the CIA analyst. ‘Range of 1,174 miles.’
‘How do you know that’s what they are?’
‘The length, sir. Sixty-seven feet. Same as the SS4s paraded in Red Square.’
‘Are they ready to fire?’
‘Most likely not,’ said Bob McNamara. ‘Depends if they’ve got the warheads on site.’
‘Warheads! Fuck!’
In a series of urgently called meetings, the president and his advisers debated what to do.
‘The first thing I want,’ said Kennedy, ‘is secrecy. Fucking Khrushchev can keep a secret. So can I. I don’t want the New York Times telling me what to do.’
The mystery was why Khrushchev had done it.
‘Does he want a nuclear war? Is he insane?’
‘If he wants war,’ said Bobby Kennedy, ‘let’s do it. Get it over with. Take our losses.’
‘If we attack Cuba,’ said the president, ‘the Soviets will attack Berlin. And if that happens, I have to push the button on the nukes. That’s one hell of a decision.’
General Curtis LeMay saw the matter in clear and simple terms. As Air Force chief he was in overall charge of the missiles and bombers that between them would deliver the thousands of kilotons of destruction that was the Single Integrated Operational Plan.
‘My boys can be ready to go in twenty-four hours, Mr President. The Cubans won’t even know what hit ’em.’
‘And lose Berlin?’
‘Do nothing over Cuba, the Soviets will take Berlin. This is a test of will, sir. Back down now, you send a message of weakness.’
‘So what are you advising, General?’
‘Bomb Cuba to hell. No warning. No delay. You have all the justification right there.’ He pointed his chewed cigar at the spyplane photographs. ‘Right now we have overwhelming nuclear superiority over the Soviets. You think Khrushchev’s going to risk war? We’ve got him in a trap. Let’s take his leg off, right up to his testicles.’
‘We don’t know what risks Khrushchev might take,’ said McNamara. ‘He’s an unpredictable guy. He might react emotionally.’
‘No one wins a nuclear war,’ said Rusk.
‘The way I see it,’ said General Tommy Power, Chief of Strategic Air Command, ‘if there’s two Americans and one Russian alive at the end of the war, we win.’
‘Then I’m happy this isn’t your decision,’ said the president.
‘Do nothing about this,’ said LeMay, again angrily gesturing at the photographs, ‘and it’ll be bad as Munich.’
Bobby met his brother’s eyes. Everyone knew their father Joe Kennedy had been accused of wanting to negotiate with Hitler. The president kept his temper.
‘I’ll do as I judge best, General.’
‘Well, sir, I’d say you’re in a pretty bad fix at the present time.’
‘What did you say?’
‘You’re in a pretty bad fix.’
Kennedy stared at the pugnacious LeMay.
‘Well, you’re in there with me, General.’
After the meeting broke up, Kennedy said to Bundy, ‘I don’t want that man near me again.’
The question remained, how to respond? The options resolved into four. Hit the known missile sites from the air. Order a general air strike to take out all Cuba’s defences. Order a full seaborne invasion. Or least provocatively, blockade the island to play for time, and prevent any more missiles being delivered.
The next day pictures produced by further U2 flights revealed that the situation was even more dangerous. The long-range cameras showed evidence of launch sites for SS5 missiles. With double the range of the SS4s, the SS5s could reach US bases in the Midwest, where much of the nuclear force was concentrated. The Soviets had given Cuba counterforce capability.
General Maxwell Taylor, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained the risk this posed.
‘The Soviets know we outgun them. If it were ever to come to a global war, their only chance would be to even up the odds right off the bat. That means a first strike at our missile fields. They now have the capacity to do that.’
‘But why?’ Kennedy continued to struggle with the underlying mystery. ‘Why would Khrushchev take such an insane risk?’
‘You have to remember, sir, they don’t think the way we do. Stalin held Stalingrad because he was willing to go on taking insane losses. One battle, over a million casualties.’
‘But that was in defence of his homeland.’
In the light of the new information the Joint Chiefs were no longer confident that air strikes alone would eliminate all the missiles on Cuba.
‘They’ve got bases popping up like measles.’
Taylor’s recommendation now was that nothing short of a full invasion would do the job.
‘This is our big opportunity. We destroy the Soviet missiles, and we destroy Castro along with them. There’ll never be another chance like this.’
But still the president hesitated. He didn’t want to appear weak, but he was more afraid of setting in motion a chain of events he couldn’t control. He too had recently read The Guns of August. His instinct was to play for time.
Meanwhile, given that there was a high likelihood action would have to be taken, he ordered his military chiefs to formulate plans for armed intervention. At the same time he prepared a draft for a presidential address to the nation, should it become necessary.
‘My fellow Americans,’ the draft address began, ‘with a heavy heart, and in necessary fulfilment of my oath of office, I have ordered, and the United States Air Force has now carried out, military operations to remove a major nuclear weapons build-up from the soil of Cuba … ’
38
They took two rooms in the Nesbitt Arms Hotel in Ardara. Mary Brennan refused to go any nearer to Kilnacarry.
‘You don’t know what it’s like, Rupert,’ she said, trembling. ‘Eamonn can bring Mam to see me here.’
Bridie no longer lived at home. She had found work in Dublin, and had been living there for the last many years.
Rupert drove the five miles to Kilnacarry by himself, and called first on the priest. He arrived just as Sunday Mass was ending.
The priest guessed as soon as he saw him.
‘You’ve brought her back.’
‘She won’t come to the village. She just wants to see her mother.’
‘Once Eileen Brennan knows she’s here, the whole world will know,’ said Father Flannery. ‘Am I to see her myself?’
‘Yes, Father. She’d like to see you.’ Then he added, to prepare him, ‘It’s not just the crowds she’s afraid of. She’s very confused about what she thinks.’
‘Why wouldn’t she be?’ said the priest. ‘I’ve been confused all my life.’
‘After all, she was only a child at the time.’
The priest returned with Rupert to Ardara, following behind in his own car. He entered the hotel by the back door, so as not to give rise to speculation.
‘You think it’s far enough away, but say Dominus vobiscum in Ardara and they’re saying Et cum spiritu tuo in Kilnacarry.’
The hotel had a small wood-panelled meeting room behind the bar, with wallpaper the colour of wine. Here the priest settled down with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits, while Rupert went to fetch Mary.
She came into the room with her eyes cast down. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
‘It’s good of you to come, Father.’
‘How’re you keeping, Mary? Sit, sit. Have some tea.’
The priest eyed her keenly as she sat down at the table facing him.
‘You’ve come home, Mary. That was the right thing to do.’
‘I’ve come to see Mam, Father. I’ll not go back to the village.’
‘No, no. Nobody’s going to make
you do anything you don’t want.’
‘I’m sorry if I’ve let you down, Father.’
‘You’ve not let anybody down, Mary. You have your own life to live, and why not?’
As she grew less afraid Mary’s head rose, and she found herself looking properly at the priest. She was shocked to find him older than she had remembered. Father Flannery saw this at once.
‘I’m an old man now, Mary.’
‘No, Father! Not old.’
‘Not so far off my seventieth birthday. Over forty years in the parish. There was a time when I’d have told you, if I’d been open with you, that my life was a waste of God’s good creation, and that breathing in was not worth the effort when all that comes of it is breathing out. But I don’t say that any more, Mary. And that’s because of you. What you saw on that beach, the day they dropped the bomb, has become my life’s work. It’s given hope, and faith, to thousands of lost and lonely souls. You should come to Mass of a summer Sunday, Mary. Weather permitting I say a Mass on the beach. We have a hundred and more come, and they go away with the love of the Lord alive in their hearts. That true faith, Mary. It’s a rare and precious gift. I thank you for that.’
Mary looked unhappy. She appealed mutely to Rupert.
‘It was all a long time ago, Father,’ said Rupert.
‘So it was, so it was. And the shrine has grown, and is growing still. We have the money raised to build a chapel, there’s to be a window behind the altar that’s one almighty sheet of glass, so the faithful can worship as the sun sets over the sea. You’ll come when the chapel is built, Mary. You’ll come home when the shrine is ready.’
‘No, Father.’
‘You can come on the quiet. There’ll be no one to trouble you.’
‘I shall trouble myself, Father.’
Rupert said, ‘Tell Father Flannery how it is, Mary. He needs to know.’
Mary looked down, and said nothing.
‘God bless you,’ said the priest, ‘I don’t need to be told. The girl has parted company with her visions. And why wouldn’t she, after all this time? The Lord picked out a child of twelve years old. That child is long gone.’