Page 31 of All Summer Long
‘ Marsh? ’
Robinson squinted through his bourbon-soaked haze at the familiar outline of his manager in the doorway of the manor.
Donald Marshall dropped his fat cigar in shock and ground it into the front step of the manor underneath his boot. ‘Sweet baby Jesus and his beautiful virgin mother Mary, this situation is even worse than I thought.’
Behind him, Robinson could feel Dessy, Jase and Stewie gathering, horribly like he’d assembled the worst backing singers ever.
‘Marsh,’ Robinson said again, rendered stupid by booze and shock, trying to work out how his tiny but mighty manager who never left Nashville had landed here slap bang in the middle of his English fairytale.
Dessy leaned forward. ‘I think he’s another cowboy,’ he whispered in Robinson’s ear.
Given that Marsh wore double denim beneath his blazer, a huge Stetson and three-inch Cuban-heeled cowboy boots, it wasn’t much of a stretch.
Throw in the fact that he had skin the colour and consistency of a walnut and a belt buckle that could be seen from Mars and it was fairly safe to assume this man would be able to lasso a stray horse with his eyes closed.
Stewie, reading the mood more accurately, reached up from behind and slowly slid his wig from Robinson’s head and placed it back on his own.
‘Are you going to invite me in, or just stand there in the doorway until someone takes your picture and the whole wide world knows you’ve checked into crazyville with a capital C, son?’
Jase looked at Dessy, deeply offended. ‘Capital C? He took that too far,’ he muttered.
Dessy nodded. ‘Fucking liberty.’
Robinson scrubbed his hands through his flattened hair and knew he needed to try to get a hold of himself and the situation.
Marsh was here. That changed things. He stepped backwards, forcing the three men behind him to move flat against the wall so that Marsh could come inside.
The smaller man stalked in, his heels banging on the flagstones floor.
Stewie recovered himself as Robinson closed the door, stepping forward and extending his hand.
‘Good evening,’ he said formally, with the smallest of bows. ‘Stewie Heaven, film star.’
Marsh shook the offered hand briefly and then withdrew anti-bacterial spray from his inside pocket and spritzed his palm.
‘Rude,’ Jase said under his breath, catching hold of Dessy’s hand when he went to extend it and pulling it back down again.
‘What in the name of all that is good and holy is this place? A low-rent remake of One Flew Over the Fuckin’ Cuckoo’s Nest ?’ Marsh said, glaring around at all four men. ‘Who’s in charge around here?’
‘Here’s Stewie!’ Stewie tried jazz hands and a wide grin.
Jase lifted the side of Stewie’s wig and hissed, ‘Wrong movie,’ in his ear.
‘Fuckin’ cuckoo. He made a rhyme,’ Dessy tittered, then looked across at Marsh and attempted to sound sober and hospitable. ‘Goat-testicle curry?’
Robinson opened the front door again.
‘I think we better call this party done for the evening, guys,’ he said, looking warmly at his three new best friends.
No one moved.
‘You heard the man,’ Marsh clapped his hands like he was refereeing a classroom of rowdy teenagers. ‘Go back to your hen houses, out houses and shit houses, strange people. This man has a plane to pack for.’
‘Are you leaving on a jet plane?’ Dessy sang mournfully to Robinson, wide eyed and out of tune.
‘The hell I am,’ Robinson said, more forcefully than he expected.
‘God. Say that again, I think I just orgasmed,’ Jase said, stroking Robinson’s cheek slowly as he passed.
Stewie turned back around on the doorstep and looked at Marsh.
‘Don’t suppose you happened to know John Wayne, old boy?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Met him once, hung like an absolute …’
His next words were mercifully carried away on the breeze as Dessy and Jase lunged forward and lifted him clean off the floor by the elbows, then ambled off down the gravel driveway with Stewie floating between them, regaling them with ribald stories about Dallas and Debbie and a rather unfortunate donkey.
Marsh clicked his fingers loudly right by Robinson’s ear, making him flinch and his eyes flicker open.
‘Coffee, or as near as I could muster in that antique museum that passes for a kitchen.’
Robinson lifted his head from the kitchen table at the strong smell underneath his nose.
He didn’t want coffee. He wanted Alice, and he wanted to go to bed, preferably in that order.
He’d been asleep no more than fifteen minutes yet he’d already managed to wipe all recollection of Marsh’s arrival at the manor from his brain, so it came as a fresh shock to find his manager slap bang in the middle of his holiday from reality, and an unwelcome shock at that.
Blah blah ‘tickets’. Blah blah ‘concert’.
Blah blah ‘quit belly achin’’. Blah blah ‘home’.
Blah blah ‘plane’. Blah blah ‘tomorrow’.
Even given the fact that he wasn’t really registering Marsh’s conversation, enough words filtered through into Robinson’s consciousness to provoke a reaction neither of them expected.
Hot coffee sprayed across the kitchen as he flung out his arm and smacked the mug clean off the work surface.
‘I don’t need coffee,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘There will be no concerts, or planes, or …’ Robinson paused and made yap yap hand gestures in the air, ‘or any more of that talk in my kitchen. Am I making myself perfectly clear, Marsh?’
‘Frankly, no. You’re making absolutely zilch in the way of sense and haven’t been for two months or longer, Robinson,’ Marsh shot back, sweeping his silvery grey hair back over his head.
‘Why do you think Mohammed has been forced to come to the mountain? Let me clue you in here, sunshine; it sure ain’t to eat testicles and play nursemaid!
You are a man with responsibilities, and you’re just gonna have to cowboy up.
First thing tomorrow you’re on a bird back to Nashville, an’ that’s that. ’
Robinson watched his manager make his speech and wondered if he was going to have a seizure. He was certainly mad enough.
‘Marsh, you know I respect you more than pretty much anyone else in this world, and the fact that you’ve come here means something to me,’ he said, enunciating as clearly as he could.
‘Now, as you may or may not have noticed, I’m kind of soaked, and I’m real tired, and hell will freeze over before I get on a plane tomorrow.
So here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to bed.
You can stay here. Pick a room, any room, there’s hundreds of the things, and I’ll see you later when my brain doesn’t hurt.
’ He yanked the kitchen door open. ‘G’night, Marsh. Sleep tight.’
Marsh followed him to the door and watched him weave his way across the grass.
‘Robinson,’ he called sharply. ‘Where in God’s name are you going?’
‘See my girl,’ Robinson called back through the darkness, still walking, thoughts of Alice making him happy.
‘What is she, a goddamn sheep?’ Marsh yelled. ‘You better make some serious sense come daylight, Robinson Duff, or I’ll be ripping up your contracts and wiping my bony white ass on them!’
Robinson laughed as Marsh’s insults rattled through the air, and seconds later he heard the door bang closed as his manager gave up on him for the night.
Alice woke up as the door of the Airstream opened and Robinson filled the doorway.
‘You okay?’ she said, because he didn’t look it. He looked three sheets to the wind and mildly manic as he veered inside and banged the door shut again behind him hard enough to rock the caravan.
‘S’not good, Goldilocks,’ he murmured, shucking out of his clothes and leaving them in a heap in the middle of the floor.
‘What’s not?’ she said softly, smiling as he lifted the bottom of the quilt and crawled underneath it. He surfaced near her pillow, close enough for her to taste the whisky on his breath when he spoke again.
‘He thinks I’m leaving on a jet plane,’ Robinson said, all of his words running into one as he rested his head on her shoulder.
‘Who does?’ Alice stroked his cheek as he snaked his arm across her waist and pulled her against him.
‘You’re not wearing any clothes,’ he said, groggy, already half asleep.
‘No,’ she said, pressing her lips to his forehead. ‘I’m not. Go to sleep, Robinson.’
Alice couldn’t be certain, but as she wrapped her arms around him and closed her eyes, it sounded very much as if Robinson muttered something along the lines of ‘Stayin’ right here with my sheep.’
Alice rose a little after six the next morning and put the kettle on, finding Robinson a far less enjoyable bedfellow than usual.
If the state he’d been in last night and the way he was fidgeting and grumbling in his sleep was anything to go on, he was going to need more than a cup of coffee and a smile to get him going when he finally surfaced.
Jeez, it was warm already. Gorgeous as these endless summer days were, the Airstream had a tendency to become sauna-like in the sunshine.
Cranking open the skylight and a couple of windows to get some air circulating, Alice curled up on the banquette at the opposite end of the Airstream and slid the SD card from her camera into the slot of her laptop.
She sipped her coffee, soaking up the peace as she enjoyed the anticipation of seeing the latest batch of photographs she’d taken in the last day or two around the site.
Bright, jewelled images of the yurt popped up one by one, flashes of turquoise, hot pink and gold as they downloaded.
Pictures of Niamh screwing the bed together, and of Hazel positioning the batik wall hanging, plus lots and lots of images of Robinson.
Shots of him cooking bacon at the Aga, and of him sunbathing with his shirt off outside the Airstream, of him sleeping in front of a romantic movie she’d chosen because she’d won the toss, and of him taking a bath with his Stetson on because she’d insisted she wanted to see him like that.
Looking at the shot, she was glad she had, and her brain raced with editing options to make the image even more eye popping, if that was possible.
Robinson really was a photographer’s dream, all sweeping dark lashes and glittering green eyes, not to mention that sinful, ‘oh my god it hurts my eyes to look at you’ body.
If this was to be a holiday romance, then Alice was going to take enough pictures of him to last the lifetime after they’d said their tearful goodbyes at the airport, never to see each other again.
She closed her laptop with a sigh and reached for her mug again, curling her hands around it as she leaned back and looked at Robinson, still deeply asleep.
Life was odd, really. When Brad left, she’d never have imagined that she could ever feel whole or happy again, yet distilling her life down to this twenty-one-foot space had actually expanded it in so many other ways so that in an abstract way she now had more space than ever.
And it wasn’t just Robinson, although of course he’d played a major part in it.
It was Alice herself. She felt older, and wiser, as if she’d grown so much on the inside that it was a wonder she hadn’t gone up a dress size on the outside.
Since moving to Borne she’d got to know so many new and brilliant people, but the person she’d learned more about than anyone else was herself.
She was becoming her own close friend and trusted confidante, which was a strange but kind of brilliant and comforting thought.
As moments went, this quiet, warm one with just the birdsong and her reflective thoughts felt altogether lovely, which made it all the more shocking when ear-splittingly loud music suddenly blasted out across the still morning from the direction of the mansion.
She bolted to the Airstream door and threw it open.
If Robinson was here in bed, who the heck was in her house?