Out of Control

'Why don't we eat in Windsor? I know a great pub,' Bruno said. 'They do the best roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for miles—out of this world! You'll love it, and I'm ready to eat a horse! I've been driving since early this morning—all the way to Essex and then back again. It seems a century since I had my egg and bacon at breakfast.'

'OK,' said Liza, because she didn't want to argue with him. She was going to have to make a break with Bruno; that was obvious. She had thought of him as a good friend, a playmate, someone to have fun with, but not a man you might ever love, and that wasn't fair to Bruno. He was a man, he wasn't a little boy, and he had feelings, just like anyone else. She had got them into an invidious position; people believed something was going on between them and it wasn't, but she was beginning to realise that Bruno didn't see their relationship in quite the same light as herself. She might have thought of them as just good friends; but what had Bruno thought?

'You'll be nice to my mother, won't you?' Bruno said a little helplessly as he drove along beside the winding river towards Windsor. 'She's really very soft-hearted, but she worries about me. She's got the wrong impression of you, but once she knows you everything will be fine.'

'I'll be very nice,' promised Liza, smiling at him. She had changed before they left; when he'd arrived at her flat she had been wearing casual jeans and a top, which wasn't suitable to wear on a polo ground, not if she wanted to impress the Giffords. She had picked out a cool, summery linen dress, classily styled by a top designer; very simple, very chic. The gentle green of the material flattered her, brightened her eyes; she wore a hat with it, white with a green edging to the brim, and that emphasised her eyes too. In the soft shadow of the hat her eyes took on a vivid glimmer.

'Will your uncle be there?' she asked and Bruno looked surprised.

'He's playing—didn't I say?'

'Playing?' Liza's voice rose in disbelief and Bruno laughed.

'Oh, he's good, very good. He plays like a demon, surely you must have read about his polo? He's

one of the best players in the country, and he has a whole stableful of polo ponies. He breeds them.'

'Isn't he a bit old for a rough game like that?'

'I expect he'll give up if he has any more accidents,' admitted Bruno. 'He says his broken bones don't heal as quickly as they did when he was young, but if you're as fit as G. K. you can go on playing polo well into middle age. After all, it's the horse that does all the running about!'

He turned into the forecourt of a large country hotel. There were plenty of other cars parked there and when they entered the bar of the restuarant they saw that the place was packed. They had a drink while they read the menu and chose what they wanted. Bruno had the roast beef; Liza chose salmon hollandaise with a salad. The food was delicious and the restaurant delightful. They sat by an open window looking out into a beautifully maintained garden; the sunny afternoon was full of perfume from roses and carnations and old-fashioned pinks, the gillyflowers of Shakespeare, with their frilly pink petals and clove scent, heady and aromatic. Birds flew and called, the air was warm on Liza's cheek, she relaxed and felt much happier. Bruno was laughing and cheerful; not a trace of sexual awareness in his eyes. She could almost believe that the events of the last few days had never happened and they were the same easy friends they had always been.

'I told you you would love this place, didn't I?' he congratulated himself and she laughed.

'You did and you were right, I do love it.' She hoped it was a good omen; she hoped she was going to like his mother and his demon uncle, too.

'Do you remember your father?' she asked, because she knew Bruno had been very small when his father died

'Vaguely,' he said. 'In flashes, you know how it is—I have a few clear pictures and a lot of fuzzy ones. My mother married against her family's advice and they never cared much for my father. We didn't see much of them until after he died. In fact, that's my first real memory of G. K. He came to the funeral and he looked terribly grim all in black. He's over six foot and looked 1.1Her to me. I was terrified, I didn't understand what was happening and I was miserable. Funny what you remember and what you forget. I don't remember my father dying, but I remember the day he was buried and the day we drove to Hartwell to stay for good. My father had lost all his money; our own house had been sold to pay debts, so we went back to my mother's old home to live She was never quite the same. I remember her as being very different when my father was alive.'

He had never talked so freely about his family and Liza listened thoughtfully, curious about them all.

'She was happier, I suppose,' she said and Bruno looked at her in surprise, as if he had forgotten she was there. He wasn't the introspective type; he didn't spend too much time worrying about life or brooding over the past. Bruno lived in the present and liked to be happy.

'I suppose so,' he agreed. 'She must have been wild about him, because it certainly isn't in character for her to cut herself off from her family. He had no money, my father, you know. He was no business man; he was charming and good-looking, but he didn't like offices and working for a living. I don't blame him. I probably take after him—I look like him, my mother says. I think that worries her.' Bruno grinned, but his eyes were a little sad. 'She'd rather I took after her side of the family; she'd like me to be like her father or her brother, I suppose, only interested in money!'

'Yet she picked your father, who was nothing like them?' Liza said gently and Bruno looked at her, eyes widening.

'Yes, that's true. Odd, isn't it? Funny business, love.'

'Very funny,' Liza said wryly, but she hadn't found it so. There had been nothing remotely amusing in what happened to her.

'Have you ever been in love like that?' Bruno asked, and in a sense it was a relief to hear him ask that question, because he wouldn't ask it if he thought she was in love with him. Would he?

She looked secretly at him through her lashes, wondering—would he, though? Bruno was a queer mixture of confidence and uncertainty. He seemed so outgoing and assured, yet she knew how easily you could shake that happy confidence of his, it was more than possible that he might hope she cared about him yet not be sure, not ready to risk rejection by being too open.

'Once,' she confessed deliberately and it was the first time she had ever told him, ever told anyone since it happened. 'When I was seventeen,' she said. 'Eight years ago now, a long, long time, but I'm still not ready to have another shot at it. The first time was hell and I'm the cautious type. Once burnt, I definitely fear the fire!'

'Eight years ago?' Bruno queried with a frown. 'You must be over it by now, Liza ... It isn't someone I know, is it?'

She laughed. 'Good heavens, no! I haven't seen him myself since . . . no, that was another place, another life.' 'Were your parents alive?'

Liza wished she hadn't started talking; hadn't opened this Pandora's box and let out the spectre of her past. There was a lot about her that Bruno did not know and she didn't want to talk about any of it.

'Hadn't we better be moving?' she asked, looking at her watch, and Bruno exclaimed ruefully,

'Oh, God, you're right! They're probably in the middle of the first chukka by now.'