Bobby's Girl

by Catrin Collier

  ‘They’re exercising their constitutional rights.’

  Reverend Howard was incensed by Sandy’s remark. ‘They’re children who need to be taught right from wrong. And you’re inciting them to flagrant disobedience.’

  ‘They’re teenagers, finding their feet. If we don’t encourage them to make decisions based on their own experiences, society will stagnate. We need young people to think for themselves so they can instigate the changes necessary to cope with changing social conditions.’ It was only when she saw Bobby and the others staring at her, Penny realised she’d repeated an argument from one of her social studies essays that had earned her a straight A. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured in embarrassment. ‘I allowed myself to get carried away.’

  ‘That’s the first time I’ve agreed with you since you arrived here, Miss John,’ Reverend Howard bellowed. ‘You certainly did allow yourself “to get carried away” as you put it. Your misguided liberal attitude will only incite these childish miscreants into more flagrant shows of rebellion.’

  Penny considered her reply. There was no way she was going to abandon her principles to accommodate the demands of a job she didn’t want, especially when there was a better one on offer. ‘I apologise for lecturing, sir, but I won’t apologise for approving the actions of the Pioneers. I believe that in thinking for themselves, some of those sitting in the trucks will become caring and life-changing members of American society.’

  ‘They’ll become idle wastrels and Communists,’ he spat out the last word with venom, ‘who’ll demolish and eradicate everything America stands for.’ Reverend Howard’s face turned purple. ‘Seduced by the likes of Bob Dylan and your Commie-loving John Lennon, they blindly follow Marxism with the aim of overthrowing the work, ideals and principles of the forefathers of our great country. Instead of laying down their lives, and gladly, for their country and liberty, as their fathers did in the Second World War, all the present generation can do is grow their hair long and organise illegal marches and sit-ins to protest against a right and just war to stop the spread of the Communist poison that is already infecting this country. Burn their draft cards and demand rights for the Blacks who are happy with a segregation that protects them as much as it does the white population …’

  Although Bobby had warned Penny about the reverend’s political views she simply couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Nor could she stand idly by and listen.

  ‘You really think it’s right for a government – any government,’ she added, mindful of her uncle’s directive to tread carefully where American national pride and sensibilities were concerned, ‘to order its young men to face death fighting in a third-world country to uphold a capitalist creed that none of the native population support or want? I couldn’t bear the thought of my brothers dying for a lost cause—’

  Reverend Howard finally exploded. ‘You are an extremely dangerous young woman. I order you off Resonance. Now!’

  ‘I’ll pack.’ She clutched the bag containing Harry Fowler’s telephone number and walked to her tent.

  She heard Bobby, Joan and the reverend arguing behind her. The reverend was shouting, the others remonstrating. But they were speaking too fast for her to follow the conversation.

  It didn’t take her long to pack. After changing out of her Mary Quant suit into jeans and T-shirt she rammed the rest of her belongings into her tartan bag. The overflow she pushed into her duffel bag. She emerged from her tent to see the Pioneers continuing their sit-in, only now they were chanting.

  ‘Reverend Howard’s a big fat coward. Penny stay. Penny stay.’

  Bobby was waiting for her in front of her tent. ‘Ready?’

  ‘I have Harry Fowler’s telephone number.’ She held it up.

  ‘To hell with Harry Fowler. Sandy’s calling Kate from the supply hut. She can be packed by the time we drive to the other side of the lake. We’re going on a road trip.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘People tell me it’s a big country.’

  ‘What’ll we do for money?’

  ‘Work. There’s always kitchen work and waitressing jobs. You game?’

  She looked at the piece of paper with Harry Fowler’s telephone number.

  ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘It moved to make room for my sense of self-preservation.’

  Sandy waved to them from the supply hut doorway. ‘Kate’s packing,’ he shouted in a momentary lull from the singers.

  Bobby looked at her. ‘It’s up to you, Pen.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  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 pic
ked 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.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ‘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.