‘They married too young and I think I did well out of the deal. By all accounts my mother was a career hypochondriac and nymphomaniac. And I don’t think I’d enjoy life in a hippy commune in Mexico. No amount of free love can compensate for a lack of electricity and hot and cold running water.’
Fired by her college psychology classes, she asked. ‘Is that your way of coping with your parents’ rejection, making jokes?’
‘Some people are good at bringing up kids, some disastrous. Whenever I see her, my grandmother reminds me that I had a lucky escape. If either of my parents had kept me I would have been dragged around here, there and everywhere and, in all probability, abandoned on the way and left to fend for myself.’
‘You’re not bitter?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I would be if my parents had handed me over to a relative when I was born.’ She imagined Bobby’s upbringing as cold, lonely and impersonal, filled with nannies, boarding schools, camps …
‘You know what it is to have a family. All I’ve known is life with my grandmother who ensured I received the best money could buy, in education, clothes, toys, food and everything else she could think of. As the saying goes, you don’t miss what you never had.’
‘Does she live in New York?’
‘Occasionally. She travels a lot. She’s in Italy at the moment.’
‘And your mother and father never contacted you, wrote or telephoned?’
‘What for? Both of them knew my grandmother would look after me better than they could.’
‘You must be very fond of her.’
‘“Fond” – that’s a strange word to use in conjunction with my grandmother. She’s a martinet of the old school. Terrifying, with fearfully high standards her staff and relatives can never hope to meet.’
‘Do you see much of her?’
‘No. I was seven when I was sent away to school and, as I said, holidays were spent in camps. But I usually spend Labour Day weekend in her summer place on Cape Cod, and Christmas Day at her New York apartment.’ He wrapped his arm around her shoulders. ‘There’s no need to pity me. I was given all the things I needed and a few luxuries I didn’t.’
‘Have you any brothers and sisters?’
‘Last time I checked, around seventeen half-brothers and -sisters. My mother never reproduced again, but my father couldn’t stop. I’ve never met any of them. Look, there’s the statue. Isn’t it stunning?’
They’d reached the eleven-foot bronze depiction of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. ‘They’re all here: Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, the Dormouse, Alice’s cat Dinah, the March Hare and the White Rabbit.’ He jumped up on the larger of the toadstool seats. ‘That’s enough about me. What about you?’ He leant his elbow on the toadstool ‘table’ in front of Alice’s arm, propped his head on his hand and gazed at Penny.
‘Compared to you I’ve led a dull life. I lived at home and attended local day schools until I went to college when I was eighteen. I have a sister, two brothers and four adopted sisters.’
‘Your parents adopted four girls?’ He whistled. ‘Brave, brave people.’
‘They’re years older than me. They were evacuated to Pontypridd from London during the war. Their mother died in the Blitz and their father was killed fighting the Germans. So my mother took them in.’
‘Didn’t your father have a say?’
‘Not at the time, he was a POW in Germany.’
‘Large family for him to come home to.’
‘He didn’t mind. In fact, he’s as close to them as he is to us.’ She ran her hands over the smooth and shiny surface of the statue, polished by the children who’d climbed on it.
‘What would have happened to the girls if your mother hadn’t adopted them?’
‘They would have had to go into an orphanage. As they were already living in our house my mother said it was simpler to keep them.’
‘But they would have been looked after in an orphanage?’
‘Not as well as my mother did, but yes, they would have been looked after. What was it like to spend all your time in boarding school?’
‘I told you, I don’t know any different. It wasn’t bad, but I’d be lying if I said I liked the square-bashing.’
‘Square-bashing at a boarding school?’
‘It was a military academy. Three generations of Brosnas have been enrolled there. My grandfather loved it – or so my grandmother told me. She thought it would stiffen my back along with my resolve to run the family businesses. Why she thought that, when the academy did no such thing for my father, who absconded from the place every chance he got, I don’t know.’ He offered her a hand and she sat on the ‘table’ beside him.
‘And will you run the family businesses?’
‘Hell no, I intend to do my own thing.’
‘Which is?’
‘When I’ve finished at Oxford, music.’
‘What kind of music?’
‘Every kind,’ he said airily. ‘Jazz, pop, classical, folk.’
‘You play?’
‘The piano, guitar and saxophone. I’ve already played backing at recording sessions. My grandmother approves of it as a hobby.’
‘Will she let you follow a career in music?’ she probed.
‘Not willingly. But I’ve learnt not to argue with her. It’s easier not to tell her my plans. She has people watching me and she approves of my university course. She thinks medieval history will give me risqué stories about ancient royalty to relate at dinner parties while I run the family businesses.’
‘What are the family businesses?’
‘Numerous and boring. You’re beautiful in this light,’ he whispered as the sun began to sink below the trees that surrounded the statue.
She glanced at her watch. ‘I’m still on British time.’
‘It’s coming up to seven. We’ll find somewhere to eat on the way back to the hotel. Afterwards I’ll allow you to have an early night. Then tomorrow, you should be on eastern seaboard time.’
‘You’ll “allow” me? That’s the second time you’ve used that word.’ She thought of Rich. ‘I warn you, I don’t like bossy men.’ She jumped down from the statue.
‘That’s an improvement.’
‘What?’
‘Telling me what you don’t like in men. One day and already you’re trying to change me.’
Dinner was a shared bottle of wine and a plate of pasta in an Italian restaurant. Halfway through the meal, she could barely keep her eyes open. Bobby paid the bill and they left. Night had fallen, warm, sticky and noisy over the city.
Bobby hailed a taxi.
‘My room or yours?’ he asked when they entered the lobby.
‘Yours.’
‘Your case is in your room.’
‘You said I could use the contents of your toilet bag.’
‘Just as well I packed a spare toothbrush.’
They took the lift, rode up one floor and walked down the corridor. He unlocked the door to find a note on the bed. He read it, screwed it up and tossed it into the bin.
‘From Sandy?’ she asked.
‘From Sandy,’ he echoed.
‘What did he say?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘Yes I do.’ She dived on the basket and retrieved the piece of paper. Bobby tried to snatch it from her as she smoothed it out but he was too late.
She read it aloud. ‘Hope she’s worth it and you strike lucky. It’s cost you thirty bucks.’
‘Am I worth it?’
He pulled her close. ‘Let me find out.’
Slowly, inexorably, his lips pressed down on hers. Warmth permeated from her mouth downwards into her entire body. She lifted her arms and locked them around his neck, pulling him even closer.
He fell backwards on to the bed, taking her with him.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Very sure.’ She moved away and stripped off her clothes.
‘You’re beautiful,’ he w
hispered when she was naked. ‘This isn’t going to be a one night—’
She laid her fingers over his mouth. ‘No talking.’
Taking her fingers from his lips he kissed them before turning back the bedclothes. She crawled between the sheets and watched him undress.
Thoughts of Rich came to mind when Bobby lay beside her but they were soon dispelled.
During what followed she realised she’d had sex many times with Rich. But this was the first time in her life she’d made love.
She woke with a start. The glare of neon lights penetrated the thin curtains in Bobby’s room. Shadows made stick and arrow shapes on the walls and ceiling. The sound of sirens and cars echoed in from the street, mingling with shouts of ‘goodnight’ and doors banging as guests walked the corridors to their rooms.
She gazed at Bobby lying alongside her, his face relaxed in sleep, his black curls tousled over the pillow. Was it her imagination or were his lips curved in a smile?
Ridiculously wide awake and restless considering it was dark, she moved on to her back. Why had Bobby found it necessary to tell her their relationship would amount to more than one night? Was it a case of protesting too much because that’s what it would be?
Would Bobby think less of her for sleeping with him a few hours after meeting her – granted for the second time?
As Kate kept reminding her, the modern world had moved on from the outmoded morality her mother had instilled in her and her sisters. The yardstick of her parents’ generation had been made obsolete by the advent of the contraceptive pill.
But outmoded or not – the influence of her mother’s teaching persisted in lingering.
Would – did – Bobby regard her as a slut?
She slipped from the bed and reached for Bobby’s white towelling robe. It was too long. She wrapped it around herself. It was warm in the cool air that belched from the noisy rickety air-conditioning unit. The collar brushed her cheek and she breathed in the sharp pine fragrance of Bobby’s cologne and bath oil.
A siren blasted below her as she pushed aside the curtains. The numbers on the electric clock on the bedside table read three-thirty, yet the street was as crowded as a Saturday morning in Pontypridd market. Although the people looked somewhat different.
A girl was leaning against a building across the road. She pulled her skirt to her waist every time a man walked towards her, and she wasn’t wearing underwear.
‘Welcome to New York.’ Bobby left the bed. Naked, he stood behind her and locked his arms around her waist.
‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing.’
‘The homeless guy bedded down outside that building?’
‘I hadn’t noticed him. He looks young.’
‘Probably is.’
‘Don’t you have hostels for the homeless in this city?’
‘Not enough to accommodate them all. And most of our homeless have drink or drugs problems as well as the biggest problem of all. Poverty.’
‘I feel sorry for him.’
‘Don’t. As you see, he has a brown paper bag that he’s lifting to his mouth. My guess is cheap whisky. And while he has oblivion he doesn’t need your sympathy.’
‘That girl …’ Penny watched her lift her dress again. A man walked up to her and stood in front of her, blocking her from view of the street.
‘The hooker?’ Bobby asked.
‘It’s public. What about the police …?’
‘The police have better things to do than round up hookers at this hour of the morning. Besides, they’d never succeed in running all of them in. If they did they’d have to turn Central Park into a cell. Even then, I doubt it would be big enough to hold every working girl in the city.’
‘But that’s so blatant.’ She watched in disbelief when the man stepped back from the girl and zipped up his trousers.
‘You have hookers in London and Oxford. I’ve seen them operate.’
‘Not openly on the streets like that.’
‘Yes, openly on the streets like that. But you do have to look for the streets in the UK. You Brits like things neater than us Yanks. We believe in free enterprise and allowing our hookers to operate anywhere.’ He brushed her hair aside and kissed the nape of her neck. ‘You shock easily. I like that in a woman. Shows your innocence.’
‘Innocence …’ she summoned her courage. ‘We didn’t talk about my boyfriend earlier. I want you to know, I’ve only had one and we were together for seven years. We were almost engaged …’
‘He’s history. I’m here.’ He turned her round until she faced him.
‘I don’t want you to think I’m the sort of girl who makes a habit of sleeping with boys the day she meets them.’
‘You didn’t, we met months ago.’ He locked his hands around her waist.
‘We haven’t seen one another since.’
‘Only because we were on different continents. And, as we’re in a confessing mood, I haven’t lived in a monastery since I returned from Oxford.’
She smiled. ‘I’d love to see you in a monk’s habit with a tonsure.’
‘Kinky. I’ll see what I can find.’ He bent his head to hers and kissed her slowly and lovingly. ‘Why are we standing here, having this conversation in front of a hotel bedroom window with the curtains open in full view of the street at three-thirty in the morning, when we could be doing something far more interesting in bed?’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d see New York by night.’
‘I hated waking up and discovering you gone.’
‘I was still in the room.’
‘But not next to me.’ He led her back to the bed and caught sight of the clock. ‘Four hours before we have to get up. At least you can sleep while I deliver my talk. I, on the other hand, have to think of something to say that will fill twenty minutes.’
‘Do you know what?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘Shouldn’t you make some notes?’
‘Not now.’ He pushed her back on to the bed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Surrounded by jet-lagged students and jet-lagged herself, she couldn’t stop yawning the next morning. But exhausted as she was, she couldn’t stop looking at Bobby while he delivered his introductory talk. And smiling at the memory of the night – and morning – they’d shared. She flushed in embarrassment when she realised Kate had been watching her while she’d been mentally undressing Bobby.
Kate whispered in her ear. ‘You’re besotted.’
She saw Bobby watching them. ‘Ssh.’
‘Admit it.’ Kate persevered.
She dug Kate in the ribs with her elbow.
‘Jobs in the States aren’t that difficult to come by, well-paid ones are.’ Dressed casually in jeans and check shirt Bobby concluded his lecture to the students on the orientation course by stating the obvious. ‘If you’re asked at an interview if you’ve experience in a particular field, or can operate a specific piece of machinery, the answer you give is a resounding and confident “yes”. When you’re faced with a machine or the task in hand, you smile,’ Bobby bared his teeth in an insincere Hollywood grimace, ‘and say, “Ours are different in Europe. Please show me how this one works.” You have a question?’ Bobby pointed to Joe Hunt who’d raised his hand.
‘And if we break the machine or the system or whatever it is we’re supposed to be operating?’
‘You won’t if you don’t touch whatever it is until they show you how to manage it.’
‘Isn’t that somewhat optimistic?’ Kate chipped in.
‘Not if you insist on being fully briefed before you put a finger on anything that looks complicated or dangerous,’ Bobby replied.
‘So what if I get a job as a nuclear physicist?’ Joe asked.
Bobby waited until the laughter in the room subsided. ‘There’s a shortage of skilled workers on the eastern seaboard. Possibly that includes nuclear physicists. But I would presume a nuclear physicist’s position to be a permanent one. I assumed you w
ere all looking for temporary seasonal work.’
‘We are.’ Kate made a face at Joe.
‘However, if I hear of a vacancy for a nuclear physicist in the city I’ll be sure to contact you, Mr …’
‘Hunt. Joe Hunt.’
‘And if we can’t help you to find a job as a nuclear physicist your second choice would be?’
‘Bar work,’ Joe conceded.
‘You have experience?’
‘Only from the customer side,’ one of Joe’s housemates shouted from the back of the room.
‘Then it’s bar work with training for you, Mr Hunt, if we can find it.’ Bobby declared. ‘It’s time for a coffee break. Some employers in search of temporary workers are in the suite next door. More will be arriving at three o’clock this afternoon. They’ll give you an idea of the type of work on offer in the city and the surrounding areas. They’ll also be able to answer any questions you have about working conditions, hours and salaries. If you need assistance finding accommodation our counsellors will be on hand at two-thirty in the green suite. Thank you for listening.’
‘Bobby’s lecture was as much help as a double open-ended sick bag on a plane.’ Kate picked up her haggis. ‘You coming next door?’
‘I am.’ She checked her watch. ‘But I’m surprised you are.’
‘I’ve been talking to people. Twenty dollars a week all found as an au pair sounds like slave labour.’
‘It is.’ Bobby appeared at their side. ‘Which is why I’ve put the two of you down for positions at Camp Resonance. One hundred and twenty dollars a week all found and one day off a week. Does that appeal?’ He looked to Kate.
‘Where and what is Camp Resonance?’ Kate demanded.
‘The camp is built on a beautiful wooded spot on the banks of a lake in Connecticut. Ideal for swimming, sailing, canoeing and all water sports. It’s a summer camp for children ranging in age from five to eighteen and is designed to build participants’ confidence, impart skills, and stretch their imaginations.’ Bobby was obviously quoting the prospectus.
‘And what would we be doing there?’ Kate asked suspiciously.
‘You would be working with the eight-to-twelve-year-olds. Organising group activities around your specialities, which are …?’ He looked questioningly at Kate.
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