Bobby's Girl by Catrin Collier Read Free Book Online Page B

to ask your father if he’ll let you off working on your grandfather’s farm this summer,’ she guessed.
    â€˜After I’ve spoken to my brother.’
    â€˜Clever move. Get Jack to argue your case for you.’
    Rich’s elder brother was a postgraduate research student in London. Much to their geography teacher father’s disgust he’d chosen to study philosophy. Jack, too, helped out on their grandfather’s farm. When it came to family arguments, Jack always fought in their mother’s best interests as she was self-effacing and their father overbearing. Jack also did his best to protect his younger brother from their father’s volatile temper and arrogance, traits she was beginning to suspect Rich had inherited.
    Rich held out his hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
    She capitulated and took it.
    â€˜Forgiven?’
    â€˜I’ll think about it while I wait for you.’
    They crossed the lawn. Rich went to the payphone in the foyer and she took the lift to his top-floor room. Even the corridors in the boys’ hostel smelt differently from the girls’. Mixed odours of male sweat, stale beer and burnt toast hung unpleasantly in the air, and Rich’s room had a distinct ‘dirty sports socks, gym changing room’ atmosphere. She opened the window. Shivering, she gazed out at the view of Swansea Bay.
    The curve of the shore was highlighted by street lamps that burnt golden in the misty twilight. Boats bobbed on their moorings at the Mumbles end of the bay but all she could think about was America.
    She’d plenty of time to dream of New York and art galleries. As the minutes ticked past she stopped looking at her watch. She’d seen Joe Hunt when she’d dropped her cheque off at the union office. He’d given her a photocopied list of summer camps that employed students as counsellors but she’d set her sights elsewhere. She intended to find a job in the city. Waiting tables or working in a bar in Greenwich Village in the evenings so she could spend her days visiting the centres of culture she had read about. The Guggenheim, the Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art …
    Penny heard the lift whirr upwards. The doors opened, footsteps echoed down the corridor and Rich strode in. She asked the question, although she alreadyknew the answer from the expression on his face.
    â€˜What did your brother and father say?’
    â€˜Jack was great. He always is. He phoned my father for me but the brute wouldn’t even consider it. He said Granddad needs all the help he can get this summer. The old man says he wants to sell the farm in a year or two and needs to get it in good shape. That means repairing and repainting the farmhouse, all the outbuildings, and rebuilding the drystone walls. He can afford to get in professionals. But his grandsons are cheaper. Never mind that they have their own lives to live. And I don’t believe for one minute he’s serious about selling. They’ll carry him out of that farmhouse, feet first. I tried phoning my father after I talked to Jack but …’
    â€˜But?’ she prompted when he hesitated.
    â€˜I never want to see or speak to the bastard again.’ Rich threw himself on the bed and crossed his arms behind his head.
    â€˜That’s your father you’re talking about.’
    â€˜He’s an unreasonable sod. I wish I had yours.’
    â€˜I’m lucky.’ She kept her relief in check. Ever since Kate had suggested that Rich would ‘cramp our style’ she’d been imagining the two of them wandering around America, sharing experiences, making new friends – and without Rich’s watchful and jealous eye – of both sexes. ‘I’m sorry.’
    â€˜No, you’re not. You couldn’t wait to rush off with Kate to phone your mother earlier.’
    â€˜I phoned my mother because I didn’t want to miss out on a seat on the plane. I doubt