Can you love someone you never knew?

My would-be father was murdered at the age of thirty. Peter Donald Fox, British journalist, shot dead on the beautiful island of Cyprus, the place where the goddess of love was born. But the terrorist who killed Peter was full of hate, not love. I don’t know what kind of gun he used, because the telegram my mother received, back in England, didn’t include such grisly details.

But anyway, Peter was shot, which is the salient point, and he died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. That’s what the telegram did state. I’ve still got it, as a matter of fact. My mother could never bring herself to throw it out, just like she could never bring herself to throw out the memory of Peter, the man she should have married. My would-be father.

So here’s that fated telegram that my mother received, on the day that changed her life forever.

Just imagine yourself, dear reader: twenty-six years old, engaged to be married, deeply in love, missing your other half because he’s away from home. And then, one innocuous December morning, you receive news that he will never be coming home. Why? Because he is currently in Cyprus – or rather, was in Cyprus – reporting on the fierce guerrilla movement that has arisen on that formerly peaceful island in the sun, before a Greek-Cypriot terrorist took a gun out of his briefcase, aimed, and fired.

The telegram crashed my mother’s world. It shouted out that she’d never see her man again, never make love to him again, never marry him, never have that fabulous wedding and honeymoon. His future had now been given the name Never.

No wonder my mother became the woman she became. And if you’re confused by that statement, then all you have to do is read my novel, Infinite Stranger, to discover how a tragedy in one’s youth can affect the rest of your life, as well as the life of your children. It sure as hell affected my life. You see, Peter was the man who who was loved not only by my mother, but also by me. A would-be husband to her; a would-be dad to me.

Peter, I miss you, even though I never knew you.

Here the two of them are, at the height of their love.

Just the other day, when I was browsing through my mother’s old letters from Peter, I found out that today, July 20th, was his birthday. The reason I was browsing was because I remembered that in a couple of his last letters to my mother, he’d written about the ruthless terrorism that was wracking the island at the time, and, as the novel I’m currently working on is set in Kyrenia, I wanted to include his thoughts and observations. Late 1950s-Cyprus was a turbulent colonial period, with the Greek-Cypriots fighting for their independence against British rule: hence Peter’s murder. His only ‘crime’ was that of his nationality: being born British.

So, while looking through those old letters, I came across one that my mother had written to her parents after Peter’s death. By then she’d moved to Cyprus, wanting to visit his grave, and ended up staying there. In this particular letter of hers, she’d tried to reassure her mum and dad that she was fine, she was safe and healthy, they had nothing to worry about. And then, as a post scriptum, she’d written:

‘By the way, it would have been Peter’s birthday this Saturday, July 20^th.’

That was all. A memory of her lost love’s would-be birthday.

When I read that sentence, just the other day, a tear came to my eye. I felt an overwhelming surge of sorrow for the man who never got to celebrate his thirty-first birthday, and who I never got to know. Not in person, at any rate.

I don’t know if it’s possibly to love someone you never knew in person, but I certainly feel that I love Peter Fox, and have always loved him. I was brought up on stories about the young, intrepid journalist; stories my mother was happy to relate to me at the drop of a hat, because I loved listening to them, loved learning about this amazing guy who should have been my father in a world devoid of tragic murders. I loved looking at his photos, reading his witty, intelligent letters – a whole boxful of them which I inherited from my mother after she died, and which I now guard with my life. Here they are.

Was my real father jealous of Peter’s posthumous presence in our lives? Simple answer: no. Not in the least. My father was a good friend of Peter’s, and in fact had been hosting him in his sea-view flat in the quaint harbour town of Kyrenia just before the murder. So when my parents married, exactly one year later, it was very much a rebound sort of thing. My mother still held a candle for Peter and kept it lit throughout her life; whereas in my father’s case, it was a matter of pride and flattery. He was twice divorced, old enough to be his new bride’s own father, and flattered that a lovely young English girl should fall for him.

Well, she didn’t, Daddy, sorry to be so blunt. Not really, fall for you, at any rate. But it was nice all the same to think that she did, right? Nice to know that she said ‘yes’ to your proposal of marriage. In truth, there was no love lost, on either side.

So was my father jealous of my feelings for Peter? No. It was just like I had two dads – one living, one dead.

Here’s the one who became my real dad, as opposed to my would-be dad. He’s on the left, Wacek Skorupski, admiring the young Molly Williams, who just one year previously was grieving her beloved fiance’s death. Life’s weird, isn’t it?

Crazy though it sounds, I like to think that I’ve inherited my love of literature and sense of humour from Peter. He loved books, loved writing, and was in the process of writing a novel at the time of his death, though sadly, no trace of it remains. He had a weakness for members of the opposite sex (not just for my mother…) and couldn’t help being a flirt (ditto), which often got him into tricky situations (ditto). He loved taking risks and living close to the edge, which tragically earned him a fatal bullet in his back before achieving the majority of his dreams.

Even Peter’s style of writing is similar to my own – how weird is that? His countless letters to my mother are filled with a touch of humour, warmth, sassiness, downright sauciness at times, but also poignancy and depth of thought. And I don’t mean that to sound presumptive or vain on my part; I’m merely stating an illogical fact: I appear to have inherited a fair number of genes from Peter Fox, even though we don’t share a single chromosome between us.

Okay, enough! Time to get back to work on my latest novel. And time to say to Peter, who would have been 98 today:

Happy Birthday!

And kisses to you in heaven xxx

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