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Le Royal Hotel
13th – xii – 1931
Frobisher,
You are the worst kind of bastard, do you know? You were my North Star, my guiding light, and now all I’m left with is half a book, stacks and stacks of MS paper that mean absolutely nothing to me, and a hollow in my gut that I suspect is never going to leave.
Don’t worry. I’ll make sure your precious sextet falls into the right hands. I’m sure it’s beautiful—I may know nothing about music but I do know a little something about beauty, believe it or not, and everything your hands wrought was beautiful—but it wasn’t worth your life, Frobisher. I don’t believe it was the greatest good you could have achieved.
You’d say, ‘Now, my friend, I suppose we’ll never know,’ and you’d smile at me, sidelong, but Frobisher, you would be wrong, because I do know.
You didn’t want to listen to me try to stop you, because you’re an ass, because you are an arrogant prick, because once you’ve decided something you don’t like to be persuaded against it. Well, fine: we are who we are, you more than anyone. But we are who we are, and so even if you didn’t want to listen, I’m going to tell you anyway.
Frobisher, you are brilliant. Not just as in intelligence (although you’ve got that too, in spades), but as in light, as in the stars in the sky. You, my friend, are nothing so dull, so manmade as a firework. I suppose that brilliance was your undoing, in the end, but please. You have so much of yourself within you, more than you or I can fathom. Don’t squander it like you do everything else.
That is what I would have said to you, if I’d seen you first on the belfry. Lord knows if you would have listened.
You said you didn’t want me to blame myself, but what the bloody hell else do you expect me to do? Shake my fists and spit curses at the sky? Don’t be foolish. I could have come sooner. I could have turned my head and seen you that night. I could have done a million things, and we could be living a million different futures, the both of us, together. But the die has been cast, and this is the future we have. You are the worst kind of bastard, Frobisher, but a constant in every one of those futures we aren’t living is this: you are the worst kind of bastard, but I love you all the same.
I wish you’d spoken to me that night, if only to say goodbye. ‘A letter’s got more drama, more flair,’ that’s what you’d say. You’d probably wink at me. Well, fuck your drama, Robert Frobisher, because I’m never going to hear your voice again, and I’d have liked to hear it one last time before you went.
But then, you never were the considerate type, were you?
Mentem mortalia tangunt.
R.S.
Gresham
20th – v – 1932
Frobisher,
What’s funny is that while you were alive, you actually managed to remember my birthday every damn year. Even if all I got was a filthy postcard or a kiss on the cheek, I also got the knowledge that you had, even if just for a moment, thought of me. I really was hopeless.
Still am, of course. Wonder what you’d have gotten me this year. Doesn’t matter much, really—anything from you was a treasure in and of itself.
Now. I’m going to go celebrate my birthday properly, or at the very least I’m going to pretend I’m not the lovesick, heartbroken fool that you and I both know I am.
Yours always, despite it all,
R.S.
Cambridge
7th – vi – 1932
Frobisher,
You always brought out the worst in me, did you know? I missed countless lectures on your account, aided and abetted countless crimes, and now here I am, drunk off my ass because of you. First time I’ve gotten truly, spectacularly drunk without you, you know.
I slept with someone tonight. She’s sleeping sound in my bed, while I’m sitting here, writing this letter by candlelight. That’s your fault, too. I’m sure you’d think it all terribly romantic, relish in my paying attention to you over her. Honestly, I’m just dooming myself to eye strain and a terrible hangover.
You did say I ought to give women a try. Well, now I have. Results: inconclusive. I could think only of you, which isn’t at all fair to that poor woman, nor is it promising for the integrity of the study.
I fear, sometimes, that I am turning into you. Or rather, a poor, faded copy of you, a warped facsimile.
I don’t think I’ll be repeating the experiment, Frobisher, if it’s all the same to you.
She’s stirring. Best return to bed, lest she start asking awkward questions about why I’m writing a letter to a long-dead boy, instead of lying with her.
Quisque suos patimur Manes.
R. S.
Gresham
14th – x – 1934
Frobisher,
I promised myself I wouldn’t write these anymore, but I couldn’t resist, just this once. Got word today that your father passed, and I couldn’t help but think that while the news might not have made you happy, it would probably have coaxed a smile of triumph from you nonetheless.
Terrible, isn’t it? Were it not for you, Frobisher, the news of a man’s death would not have forced me to stifle a smile. Sextet aside, you have left your mark on the world.
I wish you were here to laugh at death alongside me. I suppose I’ll just have to do it on my own from now on.
Yours always,
R.S.
Cambridge
9th – ix – 1939
Frobisher,
You’re missing another war. Oddly enough—shut up, I can almost hear you laughing—I think I may actually become involved in this one. Not directly, I’m not daft, but the scientific component of war is not one to be overlooked.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to jabber on about the specifics. Unlike you, who would insist on pontificating about the finer nuances of music to me, even though at points I could only understand one word in ten. During those times when it was truly incomprehensible, I would just watch your face, you know. Couldn’t fathom a word you were saying, but the passion in your eyes was a sight to see.
Here’s hoping this war is a short one, so there’s no need for me to bore you with any actual discussion of physics.
Arma virumque cano.
R.S.
Cambridge
20th – vii – 1945
Frobisher,
I’ve been thinking about your last letter, lately. What you said about the inevitable reoccurrence of everything in life, the constancy of human nature. The impossibility of truly avoiding anything, be it love or loss or war. I’m not sure I agree with you. In fact, I’m positive that I don’t.
I guess what I’ve really been thinking about is what it would be worth, in order to stop a war.
I live in strange times, Frobisher. It is, as always, a pity that you’re not here to marvel at them with me.
Yours always,
R.S.
Cambridge
10th – viii – 1945
Frobisher,
Perhaps you were right, in the end. Perhaps we can ultimately change nothing.
It’s all academic now, anyway. The war will be over soon enough, and I had a hand in it, like it or not. Unlike you, I must live with my mistakes.
I didn’t mean that, you know. It’s just that sometimes, I must confess that I envy you. Don’t worry about me, though, Frobisher—I was never half as brave as you. I suspect that for better or for worse, I’ll be plodding along on this earth for a long time to come.
Et quorum pars magna fui.
R.S.
Cambridge
5th – ii – 1947
Frobisher,
It seems it’s always about death when I write to you, for a host of fairly obvious reasons. However, I thought that today I might as well take a chance to break the pattern—I hope you’re not opposed to listening to me when I’m actually happy, for once.
My dear Frobisher, I am now an uncle. You remember my brother, surely? Well, perhaps not. If I remember correctly, he stopped approving of you around the third time you got him into trouble for something you and I had done, and you, for your part, always hated him. It never occurred to me at the time that he might remind you of your own brother, although that was it, wasn’t it?
And there I was, always trying to get the two of you to be friends.
Well, regardless, he married a lovely woman a few years ago—lovely is really the nicest thing I can say about her, the woman is, if I’m honest, completely and utterly daft—and yesterday they had a daughter.
Her name is Megan, and if you’ll pardon my sentimentality, I think she’s beautiful.
Sometimes I think the world is not always so bad as it seems. A beautiful baby girl is a small thing, perhaps, but haven’t all great things first started as something small?
Even you, my friend.
Yours always,
R.S.
Cambridge
29th – iv – 1960
Frobisher,
Sad as it is, sometimes I cannot help but wonder where you and I would be, if things had gone differently. You and I both, because the trajectory of your life would have affected the trajectory of mine, sure as anything. Would I still be here, doing work that I love, taking the occasional break to explain something to my visiting niece? She’s incredibly bright—luckily for her, she takes more after her father than her mother, in that regard.
I am as content as I have ever been, and I do have to wonder, how would you have ever fit into this picture? I’d like to think that you’d like Megan, but I’m not so sure that you two would get along. I could never figure out how to guess who you would take to and who you wouldn’t. I could never figure you out, period. I’m sure you can imagine how frustrating that must have been, for a scientist.
In the end, I think we frustrated each other, endlessly—but that was part of the fun of it, wasn’t it? I used to think that we would never get tired of one another. And I don’t think we ever would have.
I wrote to you about possible futures, once. I am beginning to think that I may have been wrong, all those years ago—and maybe you were right. Maybe this is the only possible future we could ever have had, maybe in every universe we would always meet when we met, and you would always die when you died. Maybe your life was only twenty-three years long, and that’s all there is. I will never stop missing you, but maybe there doesn’t need to be anything else.
Yours always,
R.S.
Cambridge
11th – ii – 1965
Frobisher,
I’ve never told you this, but you must know that I’ve kept all your letters. I know that music was your passion, but you were also a beautiful writer. Megan thinks so too.
Don’t be cross—she stumbled upon one of them on my desk while she was visiting, and she asked whom it was from. I couldn’t quite find the words to tell her, so I told her that she might as well read it instead. After that, she wanted to read the rest of them, and who was I to refuse?
I didn’t give her the last one. She’s young—younger than you were when you sent them, and thinking about that makes me feel unbelievably old—and, besides, that letter is the dearest thing you ever gave me. I don’t know that you were ever so honest with me as you were when you wrote it.
Megan truly is sharp as a tack, though. She asked what happened to you, and when I told her you died, she asked me if that was why I still lived alone. What a nice way of putting it. She didn’t believe me when I told her that I’ve been married to my work all these years. Nor did she push the issue, but I’m sure she’ll have the story out of her father when she gets back.
I know that I’m far past moving on—I don’t think anyone could ever truly move on from you, Frobisher, and anyone who has is an idiot—but perhaps it’s time I lay you to rest.
Do you know, I’ve never once visited your grave? I even paid for it, since your own family refused, and yet I’ve never once seen it. I think I’ll go there now, read you these letters that I’ve been writing. Sentimental, I know, but it makes me smile, to think of you listening and shaking your head. You always did excel at making me smile, even at just the thought of you.
Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.
R.S.
Buenes Yerbas
9th – viii – 1975
Frobisher,
I know it’s been a long time, but please, hear me out.
I am beginning to understand how you must have felt that night at the hotel. Like you’re in so far over your head, buried so deep, that no amount of digging could ever free you.
A man offered me money to keep a report quiet, and also to put the safety of thousands of people in jeopardy. Out of twelve, I was the only one to refuse to do so. I am also beginning to understand why you found so few people in this world who were to your liking.
Refusing this man has put me in some, shall we say, very hot water. The kind that could quite possibly lead to my death.
I don’t know what to do.
I suppose I was hoping that you’d tell me. Well? Anything to say, Frobisher?
As always, I am on my own.
Tu ne cede malis.
R.S.
Buenes Yerbas
27th – viii – 1975
Frobisher,
I met a woman in an elevator today. The thing is—she reminded me a bit of you. Ridiculous and sentimental, I know, but you always were a bit of both, so I think it’s fitting. Don’t make that face. You were ridiculous, there’s no use denying it. If it makes you feel better, I stood by you regardless, which makes me the bigger fool, by any measure.
Luisa Rey isn’t like you in that way. Dead serious, that one. But she is bright, not as in intelligence but as in stars. She shines in the same way that you always did. I took a chance on her because of it. Only time will tell whether it was the right decision.
I do still love you, after all these years. How much more of a fool can I really be?
Agnosco veteris vestigia flamea.
R.S.
Hotel Bon Voyage
3rd – ix – 1975
Frobisher,
Oh, but you would hate this place. `Bad hotels were always one of your greatest pet peeves. It’s a wonder you survived your time on the run so long—or rather, it’s a wonder you didn’t resort to skipping out on the bills of stately hotels sooner.
I’m writing to you now because I’m scared, and writing these letters has always been a way to take my mind off things. Not calm me, necessarily. Just take me somewhere else for a while, or maybe somewhen else.
No point in being afraid, although I don’t think that thought has ever once effectively deterred a man from fear. No point in being afraid, and yet, I am. I’ve gone and gotten wrapped up in something bigger than myself, just like you were always doing. It’s probably going to end poorly for me, too.
I’m putting a great deal of trust in Luisa Rey to pull through. Perhaps I’m just a sentimental old fool, but she truly does remind me of you. What is it that you were always writing to me? ‘Don’t be jealous’? Well, now you can see for yourself how well it works.
In truth, you’ve nothing to be jealous of. You never did, nor do I think you ever will. But you knew that, my dear Frobisher.
I do wonder what you would say about all this, if you were here. You would probably have told me to take the damn money and keep my mouth bloody well shut, but I don’t think you’d have meant it. You’d have gone on the run with me, in the end. You were always better at it than I was. And with you, I wouldn’t be quite so terrified.
This is ridiculous. In two days time, I’ll be in Cambridge, and soon enough the truth will come out, one way or another. I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. Even when I was young, I never had the appetite for scandal that you did. Not ‘appetite’—perhaps I should say ‘magnetism’. I was never much of a firework, and truth be told, I prefer it that way. Leaves more room for you to shine, even now.
Enough. I’m going to burn this letter now—unscientific, sentimental, downright superstitious, but a part of me cannot help hoping that they do reach you, somehow—and then I’m going to read the words you wrote me all those years ago, and then I am going to sleep. Everything will turn out all right in the end. Dying in awful hotels is more your domain, I think. It wouldn’t do to transgress on your territory, now would it?
Wish me luck.
Yours always,
R.S.