Bobby's Girl Read Online Free PDF

watching smoke drift upwards in the still, humid air. Lulls in the conversation, when Bobby or Sandy, or both, played their guitars, and they sang – sang what?
    The anthem of the Sixties, immortalised by Joan Baez, ‘We Shall Overcome’? Because everyone under twenty-one fervently and sincerely believed that they could create a better world to replace the corrupt one they’d inherited. Or had they sung the signature tune that had become hers for a season – ‘Bobby’s Girl’?
    In 1968 she was Bobby’s girl. All her dreams and aspirations had been centred on Bobby. She’d loved him with her whole heart. Simply being close to him had made her happier than she’d ever been before – or since.
    When that magical once-in-a-lifetime summer was drawing to an end on Cape Cod, she’d thought nothing could change between them. That she would go on loving him until the end of her days.
    She found herself smiling, despite what had happened afterwards. Nineteen years later, some memories still had the power to warm.
    â€˜You all right, Pen?’
    Her father had left the conservatory and walked to the door of her studio and she hadn’t noticed.
    She felt her lips stiffen. ‘Fine.’
    Her father shook his head. ‘You never could tell alie, not even a white one, as well as your brothers and sisters.’
    Realising she was trembling, she sat down abruptly. Her father went to the table, refilled her coffee mug, and poured another for himself.
    â€˜Thank you.’ She took the coffee mug from him. Her father had always been a constant in her life. There for her, ready and willing to try to solve her problems, large and small. For the first time she noticed his broad back was bowed and his auburn hair had turned iron grey. It couldn’t have lost its colour overnight. The father she adored had become an old man. And she hadn’t noticed.
    He sat next to her and reached for her hand. ‘Anything I can help with, sweetheart?’
    â€˜Where’s Andy?’
    â€˜Picking up his rugby kit and bags. He told me he’s already said goodbye to you.’
    â€˜He has.’ Andy, like Penny, hated drawn-out goodbyes. Penny had brought up her son to be self-reliant and independent. But, close as they were, she hadn’t been able to prevent him from adopting some of her foibles. A dislike of salad cream, bottled tomato sauce, eggs with runny yolks and slugs and snails. He’d also inherited her abhorrence of cruelty to all living things and an aversion to prolonged goodbyes.
    Using the excuse of taking his clean washing to his room, Penny had said goodbye to Andy first thing. And, mindful of the antics the school’s senior rugby team had indulged in on past tours and the town had talked about for months, she’d delivered a lecture of dos and don’ts.Andy had mocked her gently by reminding her he was no longer six years old.
    She watched Andy reverse the car his grandfather had bought him for his eighteenth birthday out of the garage. He hit the horn, wound down his window and shouted, ‘See you next week, Mam.’
    â€˜Wait.’ Penny ran out and kissed his cheek through the open car window.
    â€˜I’m only going for a week,’ he reminded her irritably.
    â€˜Sorry, impulse,’ she apologised.
    He gave her a sheepish smile. ‘I love you too, Mam. Bye, Granddad.’
    Penny watched him drive through the gates and on to the lane that led down the hill into the town.
    â€˜Will his car be safe left at the school?’ She returned to her chair.
    â€˜Safer than here I should think,’ her father reassured. ‘They lock up at night.’
    Penny thought about the letter.
    Hasn’t he inherited a single characteristic of his father’s?
    The answer was too many for her to forget for an instant the man who had fathered him. Thick, black, curly hair, deep-blue eyes that usually sparkled with mischief; a