Bobby's Girl (26 page)

The sensation of swimming in a warm sea with Bobby was so real – so acute – she felt his fingers caress her breasts, his legs brush against hers, the sting of the salt sea on her skin …

‘If only' … The saddest two words in the English language. If only she could reach out and tear down the veil that separated the present from the past and return to that time … and Bobby.

The clock chimed her back into the present. But her yearning for Bobby remained; an intense physical desire that neither time nor distance had diminished.

She looked out of the window. The threatened rain was finally falling, dense and heavy. She had never felt more alone. The house she loved was suddenly oppressive. She had to get out, talk to someone. The last people she
wanted to burden were her parents. They had helped her through so many traumas already.

But there was always Jack. He'd provided the shoulder she'd cried on for the last twelve years. She'd treated him badly earlier. Spurning his offer to take her away for a few days break, even when she knew he'd put time and effort into organising the surprise.

She went into the hall, opened the cupboard and took out her boots and raincoat. It was barely a mile from her house to Jack's farmhouse but walking it in this weather would be a muddy and wet experience.

She locked her front door and, despite the weather, passed her car. She wanted to feel the rain on her face and breathe in cold fresh air. She walked quickly up the road and turned on to the track that led to the farm. The view from the approach to the farmhouse was usually spectacular with the wooded valley spread out below like a living map. It was rumoured that the old oaks, beech, sycamore and elm trees that grew around the small lake on the valley floor were the last remnants of the ancient forest that had once covered Wales. But all she could see of the woods in the downpour were the tops of the trees. Mist lay thick and deep, obscuring the surface of the water and the undergrowth around it.

The rain was so heavy it soaked through her coat in minutes. Her hair was plastered close to her head and she could feel cold droplets dripping down inside her collar.

Jack's two sheepdogs came bounding out of the barn as soon as they saw her. Not wanting to get covered in
mud she shouted sharply to them and they retreated, tails between their legs.

She knocked on the kitchen door before opening it. A welcoming warm belched out from the range that was kept alight day and night and there was a pleasant smell of cooking. Disappointed at her refusal to accompany him on a trip, Jack had already prepared his evening meal.

She pulled her muddy boots off, stood them on newspaper and hung her dripping raincoat on a hook on the back of the door. Padding across the flagstone floor in her socks, she opened the door to the range and looked inside. There was a huge cottage pie, enough to feed Jack for two or even three days.

She walked through the inner door to the passage that led to the dining and living rooms. Both had been freshly vacuumed and the old oak furniture smelt of beeswax polish. Jack rarely used either room. The little time he remained indoors was spent in the kitchen. He'd even moved his desk, bookshelves, books, TV and music centre in there when he'd taken over the farm after his grandfather's death.

She went to the foot of the stairs and called out, ‘Jack?'

An answering shout came from the attic. She walked up the stairs past the four bedroom doors to the narrow staircase that led to the top floor of the house.

‘Whatever are you doing up there?'

‘Checking for leaks.'

‘You've just had the house re-roofed.'

‘That's why I'm checking.'

She joined him and looked around at the
dust-covered
, mildewed, old trunks, packing cases, wooden chests and mounds of broken furniture that had been deemed ‘too good to be thrown out'.

‘Your grandfather wasn't one for throwing things away, was he?'

‘Nor his grandfather and probably all my forefathers back to the eighteenth century, when one of them built this place. I've been meaning to clear this rubbish out and put electricity on this floor since I moved in. Fifteen years and I haven't found the time.'

‘Perhaps you never wanted to.'

‘Possibly because I was afraid of what I might find. My father wasn't exactly a charmer and he must have got his personality from someone. There could be papers among this lot that prove my suspicions that my ancestors were evil.'

‘I could help you make a start now?' she offered.

‘No thanks. I haven't the energy to tackle the job and you didn't come here to muck out my family's rubbish.'

‘I don't mind, really.'

‘The answer's still no. You look pale. Are you all right?'

‘Absolutely fine.'

‘You're soaked through.' He felt the collar of her sweater. ‘Don't tell me you walked over in this.'

‘I wanted fresh air.'

‘Come downstairs, I'll find you a towel and dry clothes.'

‘Please don't fuss.'

‘That's not fussing, it's saving you from pneumonia
and me the trouble of driving you to East Glamorgan Hospital.' He led the way down the stairs, went into his bedroom, took a clean sweater from his wardrobe, a towel from his en suite bathroom and handed them to her. ‘Want coffee?'

‘Please. I'm sorry I was so foul to you this morning.'

‘You had a shock. I'll get over it. After all, it's not the first time you've turned down one of my offers. I'll make the coffee. Dry your hair, before you change. It's dripping down your back.'

With her hair wrapped in a towel, and wearing his clothes, she followed him downstairs. She watched for a moment from the doorway of the kitchen as he filled the kettle and put it on the range to boil, just as his forefathers had done for generations.

Jack had made a few changes and concessions to modernity when he had moved into the house. With his large circle of friends and four godchildren in mind, he'd installed en suite bathrooms in each of the four bedrooms. But apart from a new and more efficient range, and laying new flagstones, the kitchen remained untouched. His family had probably been boiling kettles on ranges similar to the present one for centuries and he'd seen no reason to replace the enormous oak Welsh dresser, ‘stand-alone' cupboards and scrub-down table with modern fitted units and worktop simply to accommodate modern gadgets like electric kettles and toasters.

He took two mugs and a tin of ground coffee from the dresser. ‘Have you made any decisions about Andy and America?'

‘No. It wasn't for the want of trying. I started remembering.'

‘I know it's none of my business but I have to ask. Did you love Bobby Brosna? Or were you on the rebound from Rich when you met him?'

‘Definitely not on the rebound. Rich and I were over before I climbed on to the bus that took us to the airport.' Still cold, she moved nearer the stove. ‘Rich and I were a huge mistake. I only have to look at what he's become to realise that.'

He smiled. ‘A clone of our father.'

‘He and Judy seem happy enough,' she murmured absently.

‘When she's not threatening to divorce him,' Jack said dryly.

‘About Bobby. When I met him I realised I'd gone out for years with your brother out of habit. Looking back, I think I stayed with Rich so long because he was the first boy I'd slept with and I was in love with the fairy tale of being in love.'

‘And Bobby?'

‘If he'd told me to walk on hot coals I would have done it if I thought it would please him. I was besotted. Gone … hopeless. All I wanted was him to be happy.'

‘Did he love you?'

She hesitated.

‘I'm sorry. I had no right to ask.'

‘You have more right than anyone else to ask, Jack. Yes, Bobby loved me. As much as he was capable of loving anyone.'

Bobby's voice echoed through her mind. ‘
I love you
now, isn't that enough?
' If he'd been in the room with them, she would have screamed, ‘No, it was never enough!'

‘Would it help to talk about Bobby?' When she didn't answer, he added, ‘I'd be happy to listen if it would. But if you don't want to talk, I'd be just as happy to sit in companionable silence.'

‘“Companionable silence”,' she reiterated. ‘You make it sound as though we're in our dotage.'

He raised his eyebrows. ‘We're not getting any younger.'

‘No, we're not,' she agreed automatically without thinking what she was saying. Her eyes grew dark as long-suppressed memories surfaced. ‘Goddamn it! I wish I could forget the past – and Bobby Brosna.'

He allowed the Americanism to pass without comment. ‘Given the letter you received this morning, that's impossible.'

‘It's unfair that Andy has to pay for our mistakes.'

‘“Our mistakes”?' he repeated. ‘Yours and Bobby's?'

‘Andy being here may be down to my carelessness but he's the best thing that ever happened to me,' she insisted fiercely. ‘But now he has to face up to the mess caused by mine and Bobby's faults. It's so unfair on him.' She bit her lip. ‘We were so stupid.'

‘You loved Bobby, you were besotted with him, yet you were realistic enough to know he had faults?' He looked surprised.

She sat in one of the armchairs placed either side of the range. ‘Bobby could be imperious, demanding, egotistical, self-centred, wilful, and because of his upbringing, with
nannies and boarding schools, emotionally cold. The only constants in his life before me were his friend Sandy and grandmother, Charlotte, and he rarely saw Charlotte more than twice a year and then only for a few hours.'

‘Poor little rich kid.'

‘Bobby lived the cliché. Charlotte did her damnedest to separate him from Sandy when they reached college age.' She looked across at Jack. ‘That summer was wonderful but Bobby was far from perfect. When it ended, I couldn't even talk to my parents about what had happened. Just after my physical injuries healed, I discovered I was pregnant. I insisted on finishing my college course because I didn't want to leave myself any time to think about what had happened. And after Andy was born there was no more time to think. I put Bobby Brosna out of my mind for nineteen years and I resent being forced to think about him now. But most of all I resent the Brosnas interfering in Andy's and my life.'

‘Some people would welcome the interference if it meant inheriting a fortune.' The water began to boil. Jack spooned ground coffee into a percolator, filled it and left it on a hotplate while he fetched milk from the fridge, and sugar. He poured the coffee and handed her a cup, the way she liked it, black with no sugar. Taking his own mug he returned to his seat opposite hers.

She looked at him. ‘Bobby was the second man I made love to. Your brother was the first. You were the third and last …'

‘Penny, I've never asked you any personal questions about your love life because I have no right to. I love
you. Your past doesn't concern me and frankly is none of my business.'

‘Kate used to say my morality was out of the dark ages. It probably goes back to my upbringing, not that either of my parents ever looked down on unmarried mothers. In fact, my mother told me once that she was pregnant before she married.'

‘You're kidding.'

‘No.'

‘But your parents—'

‘Weren't always upright members of the community. I've thought a great deal about the Sixties. Kate used to say the pill emancipated women. That, for the first time in history, we could behave the way that men had for centuries and sleep around with a different boy every night if we chose to. I don't think it was like that for most girls. I believe we were simply the first generation of women to sleep openly outside of marriage with our boyfriends. What worries me about Andrew is most girls now seem to think no more of having full sex with a boy they've just met and moving on to another than we did of exchanging kisses with boys when I was young.'

‘You sound a hundred and ten years old,' he teased.

‘There are days when I feel a hundred and ten.'

‘Promise me you won't lecture Andy about girls. You brought him up to think for himself. He's a sensible lad. He'll make the right choices.'

‘I wish I was as convinced as you.'

‘You're worried he'll make the same mistakes you did?' he asked perceptively.

‘In what way?'

‘I know you, Pen. You wouldn't have slept with Bobby if you thought he wasn't serious about you.'

‘I admit, I didn't know Bobby well in the early stages of our relationship – that came later – but I knew I loved him and I knew he cared for me. I didn't love him any the less later, when I discovered his faults. If anything I loved him more because of them. He'd been given everything money could buy except love and affection. If I excused his shortcomings, it was because of the things he confided about his childhood. What I'm not sure is how much I should tell Andy.'

‘In what way?'

‘If I tell him about Bobby and me, will it encourage him to be as wild as his father was? If he accepts the inheritance, he'll have enough money to do whatever he wants. Will it go to his head?'

‘No one can answer those questions, Pen,' he said seriously.

‘You know how everyone has one special summer in their life. Well, for me, until it ended in the car crash, it was that one. We had to work hard but we played hard too, and we had the Brosna toys.'

‘Toys?' he was bemused.

‘The Brosna Estate; it had a mansion that we dared not go near, twelve guest houses the caretaker, George, filled with homeless people, a two-bedroomed Beach House where Bobby, Sandy, Kate and me lived. There was the largest swimming pool I'd ever seen. George kept it immaculate. And we had the Brosna private beach and the Brosna yacht,
Day Dream
. For the first month we lived there, Bobby, Sandy, Kate and me used to wangle
the same day off and go sailing or driving around the Cape together. Then Cosmo – he owned the restaurant we worked in – said the schedules wouldn't allow it. Cosmo was lying; Bobby told me afterwards that he'd asked Cosmo to give us a different day off to Sandy and Kate so we could be alone. The night before our day off we used to drop Kate and Sandy off at the Beach House and drive on to the marina and the yacht. We'd sleep on board and sail out in the morning. Just far enough to be away from everyone and everything. It was as though we were the only two people in the world.'