Every Democrat in America, including Bobby Brosna, wanted him to take over his brother’s campaign and run for president.
Outside of work, there’d been deliciously happy times. Late nights, or rather early mornings, after their shifts in the restaurant spent in the garden of the Beach House or Joe and Marion’s; groups of them singing to the accompaniment of Sandy and Bobby’s guitars while drinking more cheap wine and beer than was good for them. Lazy mornings spent in bed with Bobby, followed by an hour or two swimming and lazing on the private Brosna Beach before their shifts.
Days off were spent exploring the Cape: road trips to Provincetown and places with English names – Truro, South Yarmouth, North Falmouth, Sandwich, Chatham, Harwich … unforgettable concerts in the Melody Tent – Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, The Doors …
And, best of all, sailing trips with George, Marion, Joe, Paul and Mary on board the Day Dream.
‘There she is, folks. The Day Dream.’ Bobby couldn’t have been prouder if he’d built her himself.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Marion sighed enviously. ‘Why don’t you own something like that?’ she berated Joe.
‘Because I’m not a multimillionaire. She’s really yours?’ Joe asked Bobby.
‘A family possession. Commissioned by my great-grandfather.’
‘And the first time she’s been out of dry dock and in the water for ten years,’ George chipped in. ‘My father said it was a waste. He’d be real pleased to see her now, all gleaming, shipshape and ready to go. Want to see if she can still outrace everything around here?’
‘You as good a sailor as your father?’ Bobby teased.
‘No one was as good as him, but even if I have to say it myself, I know my way around a deck.’
‘Let’s go before we miss the best part of the day.’ Sandy picked up one of the baskets of food they’d packed. Paul took a box of wine.
‘If only people in Ponty could see us now.’ Penny carried a bundle of towels on board.
‘You thinking of Rich?’ Kate followed with a bag of suntan creams and oils.
‘I’m thinking of the girls in school. It’s like we’ve landed on a Hollywood film set.’
‘Or fallen into a dream.’ Marion joined them with Mary.
‘George, Sandy and I’ll take her out.’ Bobby went to the tiller.
‘Sailing lessons will be given to anyone who’s interested when we reach open water,’ George offered.
‘After working six days straight, the only lesson I intend to take is in sunbathing.’ Kate looked around. ‘We won’t be in the way here, will we?’ she called to Bobby as she headed for a spot near the rail.
‘No, but you might get wet when we’re under way.’
‘Good, it’ll cool me down.’ Kate spread a towel and lay face down before slipping her bikini straps from her shoulders. ‘No marks,’ she explained to Mary and Marion.
Marion handed the bag she’d brought on board to Joe. ‘The wine should go in the cabin. It’s hot out here.’
‘There’s an icebox in the galley,’ George advised.
‘When you’ve done stowing everything away, Joe, can you and Paul give us a hand with the sails?’ Sandy shouted from the other side of the deck.
Penny sat next to Kate. ‘I can’t believe all of us have managed to get the same day off.’
‘Sundays are generally quiet in the restaurant. People have either packed and gone home or are still travelling and haven’t arrived.’ Marion stripped off her shirt and lay next to Kate.
‘This is absolute bliss.’ Kate closed her eyes. ‘Sea lapping, gulls crying, warm sun on my back, the smell of salt in the air. No customers screaming their food is late, no children howling because they don’t like their parents’ choice of a meal. No ugly spotty boys saying, “Gee, you’re a Brit. Come out for a drink with me when you get off shift?” And best of all, no smell of burgers and fries.’
‘You want to work with difficult customers and an impossible boss, try my place,’ Marion said.
‘What’s it like in the motel, Mary?’ Penny asked. Mary was diffident and self-effacing to the point where it was easy to forget she was sitting with them.
‘Good. The owners are kind and the work’s not too bad unless teenagers are in. They can be messy, especially in the bathrooms.’
‘Do you realise we’re moving?’ Kate called out.
They all turned and watched the coastline receding behind them.’
‘It feels like we’re flying over water.’ Penny moved away from the side to avoid the spray.
‘Wine anyone?’ Marion asked.
‘Coffee maybe,’ Penny amended. ‘Eight o’clock is a little early for me.’
‘Me too,’ Kate added. ‘I’m not awake yet.’
Bobby appeared. ‘George has taken over the tiller, want a tour?’
‘Is that a general invitation, or one just meant for Penny?’ Kate winked at Marion and Mary.
‘All of you. You need to know where the bathroom and heads are, and the kitchen. On board men sail, women make food.’
Kate almost flung a sandal at him until she remembered she’d slipped down the straps of her bikini.
The yacht was crafted out of oak. The living area was sumptuous, with three sofas, unfortunately bare bookshelves, a desk and table. The galley was beautifully fitted, the crockery porcelain, the cutlery silver and glasses crystal. The three staterooms had double beds and there was an amazing amount of closet space.
George joined them as Bobby showed them around.
‘Everything’s been cleaned, Mr Bobby, right down to the knives and forks. The shipyard asked my permission to throw the books. They were mildewed.’
‘Adventure books?’ Bobby asked.
‘The best – Rob Roy, Treasure Island …’
‘My family’s taste in literature was never highbrow,’ Bobby explained. ‘There you have it, girls. Three staterooms, two showers, two heads; we’ll drop anchor soon and go swimming.’
‘And the staterooms?’ Kate asked.
‘Are yours for the day.’ Bobby raised his eyebrows. ‘All except this one.’ He opened the door to the largest. ‘This is mine and Pen’s and I’m about to get changed.’ He stepped in and pulled Penny in after him before catching the back of the door with his heel and closing it.
The girls’ giggles echoed through the walls.
‘That was ill mannered of you,’ she reproached.
‘Much as I enjoy the company of our friends I enjoy yours more, and with both of us working eight hours a day there never seems to be enough time to—’
‘Make love.’
‘I was going to suggest, to get to know you properly. I’m tired.’ He flung himself on the bed. ‘Do you realise we went to bed at five this morning and were up two hours later?’
‘We have all afternoon to sleep.’
‘You want to swim?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Pen, come down here, just for a minute …’
She left the stateroom before he had time to get off the bed. George had dropped anchor. He was sitting on the deck eating one of the hot dogs Mary and Paul had prepared. Sandy and Kate were already in the water. She stripped off her shirt and shorts, climbed over the rail and dived in.
Before she’d surfaced Bobby was alongside her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Pontypridd, 1987
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 wis
h 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.
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