Bobby's Girl (20 page)

While she hesitated, Bobby picked up her bag.

‘I haven't said I'd go with you.' She ran after him. He tossed her bag to Sandy who stowed it next to theirs in the trunk of Bobby's convertible.

‘You want to walk to Stratford, or hitch a ride with us?' Bobby asked.

‘Hitch a ride.'

‘Robert Brosna, have you thought what your grandmother will say about this?' Reverend Howard raged. ‘Make no mistake she will find out. I'll call her office before you've had time to drive off Resonance land. I'll tell her you've run off with Sandy and a—'

Bobby glared at him. ‘Be very careful how you describe Miss John, Reverend Howard.'

Something in Bobby's voice caused the Bishop to hesitate, but only momentarily.

‘You know your grandmother is particular about the
company you keep. The last thing she would want is for you to get entangled with a girl. Especially a foreigner.'

‘The entanglement and I are very happy, Reverend.'

‘I
will
call her office.'

‘Do whatever you think right, Reverend Howard.'

‘They'll wire her right away.'

‘I'm sure they will.'

The Bishop couldn't have been more furious if Bobby had argued rather than calmly agreed with him.

‘Where are you going?' the Bishop raged. ‘And you, Alexander. Mrs Brosna is your benefactor. Is this the way to show your gratitude to the lady who sponsored your education?'

‘Sorry, Reverend, but your talk about dying for your country reminded me that this may be my last summer, if not permanently, then in the States for a while. I figure I'll enjoy it better doing my own thing.'

‘And the Pioneers … who's going to look after the Pioneers?' the Bishop screeched as realisation dawned that Bobby and Sandy were really leaving. His colour heightened. ‘You'll leave me three counsellors down. If you won't think of me or the Pioneers think of your fellow counsellors. Five will have to do the work of eight!'

Unperturbed, Bobby opened the car doors.

‘You take the front passenger seat, Pen.' Sandy jumped over the side into the back of the car.

Bobby waited until she'd climbed in and stowed her duffel bag on the floor next to her feet.

‘Contact the orientation programme in New York, Reverend Howard, and ask them to send replacements.' Bobby pushed the key into the ignition. ‘I've no doubt
the British and European students here for the summer have been cleared by the FBI or CIA or whichever government department is responsible for snooping into private lives.'

‘Don't forget to ask for four counsellors,' Sandy advised. ‘We're taking Kate Burgess from the Woodsmen with us.'

‘So, now we've made our escape, where we going?' Sandy asked as they bumped down the dirt track away from Resonance to the sound of booming remonstrations from the reverend and cheers from the Pioneers, who were still in the back of the trucks. They'd changed the words to their chant, yet again.

‘Bobby, Sandy go, go, go.

Take Penny with you

Damn good show.'

‘The Bishop's so upset he's let the “damn” go unpunished.' Bobby laughed.

‘Only until he calms down and it sinks in. Then he'll explode again.'

‘As for where we're going, I'm open to suggestions.' Bobby turned the car off the dirt track on to a tarmac road and picked up speed.

‘How about California?' Sandy suggested.

‘You got enough money to pay for gas to get us there?' Bobby countered.

Sandy dug his hand in his pocket. ‘Sixteen dollars and forty-three cents.'

‘Anything in your bank account?'

‘Fifty cents to keep it open. But that's probably gone
in charges by now. I was relying on Resonance money to keep me until I report to the military in September.'

‘We'll drive by Stratford. The town will be closed by the time we pick up Kate and get there but I'll go to the bank first thing, hopefully before the reverend's wire reaches my grandmother and she freezes my account. If I clean it out, we'll have enough to buy gas to get to California and keep all four of us until the end of the summer.'

‘And if she's frozen it?' Sandy played Devil's Advocate.

‘Our motto has always been “don't meet trouble before it hits”.'

‘We replaced that when we were six years old with “never underestimate Charlotte Brosna's reach or powers”,' Sandy countered.

‘My uncle gave me some mad money,' Penny ventured.

‘I thought you were taking the job in Stratford.' Bobby turned off the road and back on to the dirt track that circled the lake.

‘It would have been preferable to staying at Resonance and being consumed by mosquitoes or poisoned by DDT.' She recalled the space-suited operators.

‘And now?' He looked enquiringly at her as he slowed the car.

‘I've always liked the idea of the great unknown.' At that moment she meant it. If Bobby had suggested flying to the moon for the summer she would have climbed into the space capsule alongside him.

Kate was waiting at the gate, her bag at her feet. She started talking as soon as Bobby stopped the car.

‘Thank heaven you rang. If you hadn't I would have run away tonight, although I didn't have anywhere to run to. I simply couldn't have stayed another minute in that cross between Dotheboys Hall and a Salvation Army citadel.' She handed her bag to Sandy who loaded it into the trunk before sitting alongside her in the back seat.

‘A cross between a what and what?' Sandy asked.

‘A bad Victorian boarding school and an evangelical militaristic-based church,' she explained for his and Bobby's benefit.

‘Yep, that about sums up the Woodsmen,' Sandy said laconically. ‘The counsellors that side of the lake always struck me as having a bad dose of religious fervour and a burning need to pass it on.'

‘And you dumped me there to be converted.' Kate looked accusingly at Sandy.

‘Did you convert?' Sandy asked.

‘No. My beliefs are my own and not up for discussion.'

‘Good girl, we knew you wouldn't let them get to you, and you can stop complaining now we've rescued you.'

Bobby drove slowly down the track that led back to the road.

‘So where we going?' Kate asked brightly.

‘First, to a motel in Stratford for the night, if Sandy and I can scrape enough together to pay the bill,' Bobby declared. ‘Tomorrow I'll go to the bank and empty my checking account. That should bankroll us for a while.
I'm not sure how much is in it. We'll make plans when we actually have it and know how far it's going to take us.'

Kate tapped her shoulder.

Knowing what Kate was about to say, she said, ‘Like me, Kate has some mad money.'

‘We don't need it,' Bobby said firmly.

‘So, it's all right for us to live off you for the summer but not the other way round?' she challenged.

‘That's right.'

‘Well I have news for you, both of you.' She was as firm as Bobby had been. ‘Kate and I came here for the summer with the intention of keeping ourselves by working.'

‘And that's exactly what we'll do,' Kate echoed. ‘They have a word for girls who live off men where I come from and it's not a very nice one.'

‘We're not touching your money,' Bobby reiterated.

‘Don't be so chivalrous,' Sandy chipped in from the back where he was wrapped around Kate. ‘I have no scruples about living off the girls as long as it keeps us away from digging latrines, looking after spoilt Pioneers and gets us far far away from the Bishop and Pill Face.'

Bobby stopped at a motel a couple of miles outside Stratford. From a distance it appeared to be in dire need of a coat of paint. Close up it looked as though it was ripe for demolition. Two windows at the front of the building were boarded with cardboard and an insect screen in front of the door was hanging off its hinges. But Bobby had seen a sign, ROOMS $7.50 A NIGHT,
and wasn't to be dissuaded. He and Sandy went into the office and emerged with two keys.

‘Gee, Kate, our first home.' Sandy unlocked the door of his unit, threw his and Kate's bags inside, swung Kate off her feet and carried her over the threshold.

Penny stepped inside and wished she hadn't. The stench of damp and decay was overwhelming. The linoleum was cracked and pockmarked with black gaping holes edged in green mould, and alive with things that crawled.

‘Beetles, ants or bugs?' she asked Bobby.

‘Ants. They don't look the biting kind to me. Close the door.'

‘I'm not sure I can stand the smell with it shut.' She stepped further into the room and Bobby slammed the door.

The bathroom door was open. The linoleum there was in a worse state than in the bedroom. The walls were missing most of the tiles, the washbasin and shower base cracked and stained, and the WC stank.

‘I wish you'd let Kate and me pay for better rooms.'

‘Granted this place needs a bit of maintenance but there's not much wrong with it for one night. It has a shower, basin, John – or what you English so quaintly call a “loo” …'

‘The best way to give this place the “maintenance” it needs is with a hammer.'

They were disturbed by a banging on the wall.

Sandy shouted. ‘We sending for takeout or walking to McDonald's?'

‘McDonald's in an hour,' Bobby answered.

‘Make it two.' Sandy's reply was followed by Kate's giggles.

‘Is there a wall or a sheet of paper between the rooms?'

‘Probably a sheet of paper, but there are no other cars in the parking lot and all the keys were on the board before the clerk removed ours.'

‘I'm not surprised.'

Bobby pointed to the phone. ‘You going to call sleazebag?'

‘Not until morning.'

‘Still debating whether or not to take him up on his offer?'

She looked at her watch. ‘The evening performance started an hour ago.'

‘So it did.'

Bobby threw himself on the bed. ‘We've two hours.'

‘To unpack?'

‘What's the point?' He grabbed her waist. ‘We're not staying.'

After the Reverend Howard's ranting and reference to her as a ‘foreign entanglement', their lovemaking had a delicious sense of illicit pleasure, even in the tawdry surroundings of the dismal motel with the murmur of Sandy and Kate's conversation echoing through the walls.

She and Bobby braved the shower afterwards together, although only after Bobby used the rags the motel called towels to line the shower base. ‘Dinner' in McDonald's was an experience. The closest she and Kate had come to fast food in Pontypridd was egg and
chips and a cup of hot Oxo in one of the Italian cafés.

Bobby and Sandy began to plan an elaborate summer on the basis of Bobby's checking account. ‘We'll head west,' Bobby declared between bites of his triple cheeseburger. ‘You girls will love the Rockies.'

‘We ought to go by way of Florida,' Sandy insisted. ‘The Keys are wonderful. I bussed tables there last Christmas. Pelicans everywhere, dolphins in the sea, and there's the Red Barn Theatre where Tennessee Williams worked, and Hemingway's house …'

‘Don't forget Hollywood. And Nevada, so we can call in on the Cartwrights' Ponderosa.'

Bobby and Sandy stared at Kate. She had a disconcerting habit of saying the most outrageous things with a straight face.

‘She's not being serious.'

‘For a moment there you had me worried.' Sandy grabbed Kate's hand and kissed her fingertips. ‘I thought you believed the Cartwrights were real.'

‘You mean to say they're not?'

Bobby cut in the laughter that followed. ‘We might not be able to show you girls the Ponderosa but we will be able to show you one big beautiful country.'

Bobby left early the next morning while she was in the shower.

She was talking to Harry Fowler on the motel phone when he returned. She finished apologising and hung up. One look at Bobby's face told her everything she needed to know. He was speechless, so she said it for him.

‘Your grandmother's frozen your checking account.'

‘Eight dollars and sixty cents.' Sandy looked at the small pile of notes and coins on the bed in the room he and Kate had occupied. It represented the sum total of his and Bobby's cash after they'd paid for the motel rooms. Penny opened her purse and tipped it out.

‘Seventy-eight dollars and forty-three cents,' Sandy counted, ‘making a grand total of eighty-seven dollars and three cents. Getting better – we can cover some miles with the gas that will buy. To where is the question.'

‘Eighty dollars and ninety cents.' Kate also emptied her purse. There was no need for her to check it. Kate always knew down to the last small coin how much money she had.

‘That should put a roof over our heads and keep us in hamburgers for a few days, then what?' Bobby asked.

‘Beginning to wish we hadn't walked out of Resonance?' Sandy asked.

Kate opened her haggis, took out a manicure set, removed the nail scissors and unzipped her jeans.

‘Hey, we're not desperate enough to turn you into working girls,' Sandy joked.

‘This is as far as it goes.' Kate snipped a thread on the inside of the zip plaque.

When Kate finished Penny took the scissors and used them to cut a thread on her own pair. ‘Two hundred dollars mad money my uncle gave me.' She pulled out the two one-hundred-dollar bills and tossed them on top of the others on the bed.

‘We had to hide it well, because you're only allowed to take fifty pounds cash out of Britain.' Kate added hers to the pile.

‘You girls are darlings.' Sandy kissed Kate, but as she was intent on zipping up her jeans the kiss missed her mouth and landed on her chin.

‘That will buy us more than enough gas and food to get us to the Cape,' Bobby said thoughtfully.

‘And when we get there?' Sandy asked.

‘We'll bribe old George. A hundred dollars should be enough to buy his silence. If he doesn't tell my grandmother's office where we are, we'll live rent-free at the Beach House. She hasn't been to the Brosna Estate in years and never rents it out. There are too many valuable pieces in the main house. The rent she'd get wouldn't cover the extra insurance.'

‘That doesn't mean she won't think of looking for us there,' Sandy warned.

‘My last room-mate was from Wisconsin. I'll write him a letter and enclose one to Grandmother that he can post.
I'll tell her we're fine and enjoying summering at the lakes. She might send someone to look for us, but she won't come herself. Not when she's busy setting up the new foundation in Venice.' Bobby saw her looking quizzically at him. ‘The Brosna Foundation,' he explained.

‘The art foundation. You're one of
those
Brosnas?' She couldn't believe she'd been so naive. The Brosna Foundation was world-famous in the arts world but she'd never connected Bobby with that Brosna family. Not even when Sandy had told them that Bobby's grandmother had money and Bobby had admitted Charlotte Brosna was rich. She'd assumed they meant his grandmother was well heeled – and soled – not on a par with the Rockefellers and the Guggenheims.

‘We told you,' Sandy said in amusement.

‘People like us just don't move in the same circles as people like the Brosnas.' Her voice was hoarse from shock.

‘Oh yes you do,' Bobby contradicted. ‘And I'm not my grandmother. She's ruthless when it comes to business but she enjoys spending the profits on causes. This week it's prop Venice up to stop it from sinking. Last year it was to fund a dig and a museum in Egypt. The year before that, the unearthing of an ancient lost city in Albania. Next year …' Bobby shrugged. ‘Who knows?'

‘About the Cape, Bobby.' Sandy steered the conversation back to the practical. ‘Old George died two months ago.'

‘George is dead?' Bobby paled.

‘My mother wrote and told me. I assumed you knew.'

‘So who's caretaking the estate now?'

‘No idea.'

Bobby was shocked. ‘Grandmother didn't tell me old George died,' he murmured incredulously.

‘Presumably because she knew you were fond of the guy. Remember him teaching us to play cricket?'

‘I remember we never mastered the rules.'

‘The best days were the ones he took us sailing and deep-sea fishing, and the best nights the ones we slept on board the
Day Dream
and cooked our catch.'

‘He was one all-right guy.' Bobby clenched his fists. ‘If she'd told me I would have gone to his funeral. Damn her, I should know what she's like by now. My dogs disappeared when I went to school. She told me she'd sent them to a farm that had plenty of space for them to run around in outside of the city. I believed her until her chauffeur let slip that he'd taken them to the vet to be put down because she didn't want them around the apartment anymore. The woman's been lying to me all my life—'

‘Old George wasn't a lie, just an omission.' Sandy cut Bobby short. He knew once Bobby started railing against his grandmother he wouldn't stop until he was in a foul mood.

Penny helped Kate gather up the cash. Bobby took fifty dollars and gave the rest to Kate. ‘You girls can take care of it.' He frowned. ‘I hope the new caretaker of the Brosna Estate, whoever he is, can be bribed.'

‘This money, tidy sum that it is, won't keep the four of us all summer,' Kate observed.

‘It won't,' Sandy agreed. ‘But it's early in the season.
Everyone will be hiring on the Cape, especially the motels and restaurants.'

‘Cape?' Kate asked.

‘Cape Cod.'

Penny and Kate recalled the Southern girl, Marion. ‘There's always work on the Cape in the summer,' they chanted in unison.

It was Bobby and Sandy's turn to look quizzical.

‘The runaway bunny,' Kate explained.

Sandy looked at his watch. ‘We have ten minutes to pack and get out of here, guys, before we're charged for another day. Let's go.'

The ride to Cape Cod took the rest of the day. The police stopped them twice. Once when Bobby ran a red light. After a grovelling apology they were allowed to drive on. The second time the police pulled them over because Sandy and Kate were drinking out of Coca Cola bottles in the back of the car. The officer informed them it was illegal to drink in a car in Connecticut – even soft drinks.

Kate protested ignorance in her best ‘British' accent. A few smiles and a mild flirtation later she and Sandy were let off with a caution. The boys hadn't said a word.

They reached Hyannisport shortly after midnight. She and Kate couldn't believe how many places were open, or the number of people on the streets. With promises of ‘showing you around tomorrow' Bobby drove straight through.

The Brosna Estate was a few miles out of town on the beach side. The entrance was marked by high metal
gates and a high fence. Bobby parked in front of the gates and pressed an intercom. He had to press it twice more before a voice answered.

‘What do you want at this time of night?'

‘Admittance,' Bobby replied curtly.

‘Go away until morning.'

‘You're obviously new,' Bobby replied.

‘Been here a year.'

‘I'm Robert Brosna and I resent being kept waiting, so get up here.'

That was the first time she realised Bobby could be imperious.

Five minutes later an enormous black man rode up to the gate on a bicycle.

‘Can I help you, sir?'

Sandy left the car and went to the gate. ‘You're young George, old George's son.'

The man smiled. ‘Sandy, good to see you.'

‘It's good to see you too, George. This is Bobby Brosna.'

‘Sorry, sir,' the man apologised to Bobby, ‘I didn't recognise you.'

‘That's understandable,' Bobby allowed. ‘I haven't seen you in what – must be ten years.'

‘Probably more, sir. Mrs Brosna never did like the staff's kids hanging around, except for Sandy here. And talking about kids. That's what I thought you were when you hit the intercom. Kids messing around.'

‘You often get kids messing around with the intercom on the gate?' Bobby questioned.

‘Sometimes, sir.' Young George blustered.

‘We're here to spend the summer, so open the gate please, George.'

‘Mrs Brosna said nothing to me about you or anyone else spending the summer here, sir. The main house is shut up. I'm the only full-time staff. The rest are all with Mrs Brosna …'

‘We know that, George. And we've no intention of staying in the main house. There are four of us, so two of the guest houses or the Beach House will suit us fine.'

‘I don't know, sir …'

‘What the hell's the matter with you, George?' Bobby snapped. Although he and Sandy had shared the driving he was tired and irritable. ‘It's my grandmother's place and I'm ordering you to let us in.'

Slowly, and clearly reluctantly, George activated the control that opened the gates. Sandy climbed back into the car, Bobby drove through and down the drive. The moon was full. It illuminated a dozen houses, some with lights on, and the largest swimming pool Penny and Kate had ever seen. It could have swallowed the one in Pontypridd Park ten times over.

Bobby jammed on the brakes.

‘You trying to kill us?' Kate cried out.

Bobby's only answer was to reverse at speed until he drew back alongside George who was relocking the gates.

‘Sir … there's something you should know—' George began.

‘Too damned right. I know you have permission to live in one of the guest houses. But I counted lights on in ten. What the hell's going on?' Bobby demanded.

‘They're homeless.'

‘Homeless what?'

‘People, sir. Some of the Southern states are giving black folk twenty dollars and a one-way ticket north.'

‘I heard about that,' Sandy said. ‘It's a national scandal.'

‘They heard there was work going in Hyannisport. They turned up with no money left and some had kids …'

‘So you took them in?' Bobby guessed.

‘They're all working. The women cleaning hotel rooms, the men doing whatever they can get. A couple of the grandmothers are looking after the kids. As soon as they get enough money together to rent somewhere they'll leave.'

‘You're not charging them rent?'

‘No, sir, Mr Bobby. I told you they have no money. If they did they'd rent a place elsewhere.'

‘You haven't said a word about this to my grandmother?' Bobby guessed.

‘No, sir. Knowing Mrs Brosna, she'd flay me alive if she found out what I done. My father always said she was a charitable lady as long as her charity didn't impose on her comfort.'

Bobby snorted with laughter. ‘Your father was right, George. Anyone in the Beach House?'

‘No, sir, just ten of the guest houses.'

Bobby thought for a moment. ‘This is what I'm going to do, George. I won't tell my grandmother about your charitable enterprise, provided you don't tell her, or anyone she sends, that we're here. If anyone telephones,
wires or asks, you haven't seen us. Understood?'

‘Yes, Mr Bobby, sir.'

‘Plain “Bobby” will do, George. Got a spare key for the gates?'

‘I can give you the code, sir, and the key to the Beach House. Cleaners come in once a week to check it out.'

‘Keep them away. Tell them Mrs Brosna's rented it to friends and they need privacy.'

‘Will do, sir. I'll get it and meet you down there.' George gave Sandy the code, and Sandy wrote it on his arm in biro. Bobby waited for George to cycle back to the guest houses then drove on down towards the beach.

The white clapboard Beach House shone silver in the moonlight. The small garden, separated from the rest of the grounds by a picket fence, was pristine, as was the outside of the house. As soon as Bobby parked in the driveway, Sandy opened the trunk and deposited their bags by the door.

Feeling stiff after sitting in the car for so many hours, and unaccountably tired considering all she'd done was be chauffeured around the countryside, Penny left the car, turned and stared, mesmerised.

‘Impressive, isn't it?' Sandy saw what she was looking at and joined her.

‘It's a mansion.'

‘Turn of the century, financed by the first Bobby Brosna and expanded by the second who was
hell-bent
on spending his daddy's millions, so no expense spared,' Bobby explained. ‘It's full of priceless antiques and expensive works of art, which is why I hate living
there. You feel as though you're in a bloody museum.'

‘Showing off your English cursing,' Sandy ribbed.

Bobby smiled self-consciously. ‘I picked up a few odd words.'

George cycled up and Bobby took the key he handed him. ‘Thanks, George. There's just one?'

‘The cleaner has another. I'll ask her for it when I warn her off the place. If there's more they'll be in the main house.'

‘We'll manage with this one until I can get more cut.'

‘If you need anything—'

‘You'll be in number one guest house,' Bobby guessed.

‘That's it, Mr Bobby. See you around and have a good summer.'

‘You too, George,' Sandy called after him.

The Beach House was furnished simply but someone had arranged the pieces with flair. It had a warm,
lived-in
, Bohemian look and Penny was relieved when she saw the bathroom had a spotlessly clean tub and shower and clean unstained floor and walls. The simple place appeared luxurious after the horrors of the motel the night before.

‘You girls hungry?' Sandy asked. ‘If you are we can send out for pizza.'

‘All I want is a shower and bed.'

‘Me too,' Kate agreed.

‘Up bright and early tomorrow,' Bobby warned. ‘We need to go job hunting.'