Page 34 of All Summer Long

‘The cab’s outside,’ Marsh yelled out of the back door at the top of his lungs and could only hope it reached Robinson’s ears. ‘I’m getting your bags loaded, Duff. Time’s up. Get your ass over here.’

In the Airstream, Alice and Robinson lay on the bed and heard every word.

‘He means it, Robinson. I don’t think he’s taking no for an answer.’

‘It’s not in his vocabulary. He’s gonna find this real hard,’ Robinson said, smoothing her hair behind her ear. They lay facing each other, forehead to forehead, fingers tangled, their hearts heavy with foreboding.

‘He’s loading your luggage.’

Robinson shrugged. ‘I’ll buy new shirts.’

Alice kissed him, lingering, achingly sweet. ‘You’re going to have to go back sometime. Maybe now’s as good a time as any,’ she whispered, even though every selfish bone in her body wanted to hold on to him for a while longer.

‘My holiday ain’t over ’til I say it is, pretty face. The sun’s still hot and I can still hear those waves.’

They fell silent. The long summer days had all added to the illusion of their holiday romance, and if she concentrated really hard she was certain she could hear the sea too. Or was it the rumble of jet engines? Was this to be their tearful airport farewell?

‘Yoohoo! Aliiiiiccce!’

Alice groaned. She’d forgotten all about the fact that Hazel was coming over.

‘That woman and her damn bird have the world’s worst timing,’ Robinson growled.

‘Alice! Get out here!’

‘I’ll get rid of her,’ Alice said, sliding reluctantly out of Robinson’s arms. ‘Stay right there.’ She opened the door and then leaned forward to get a better look at the commotion happening over by the house. ‘Scrap that. You need to see this.’

She pushed her feet into her flip-flops and smoothed her sundress out, grabbing her sunglasses and jamming them on her head at the same time. ‘Seriously, Robinson, come look.’

Alice stepped down from the Airstream and raised her hand.

’Be right there,’ she called, waving at Ewan, now loping across the grass at Hazel’s behest to fetch Alice. He waved nonchalantly back as she approached him.

‘What’s going on?’ she said, looking past him towards the drive of the manor.

‘You better ask my mother,’ Ewan mumbled, shrugging his bony shoulders.

Robinson caught up with them, pulling on his t-shirt as he walked. Alice swallowed hard, wondering wretchedly if that was the last time she’d get to behold the beauty of him.

‘Alice!’ Hazel shouted. ‘Come and see what I’ve got for you!’

Robinson’s hand stole around her waist as she walked, warm and reassuring.

‘This could be about to get interesting,’ he said as Marsh popped out of the manor in a burst of denim and Cuban heels, and Alice could hear laughter behind his tone.

‘Get that thing out of the way!’ Marsh shouted, waving his hands at Hazel.

Hazel glanced at him and then seemed to decide not to acknowledge him. She practically bounced towards Alice instead and grabbed her hands and clutched them excitedly.

‘Isn’t it fabulous,’ she gushed, glancing over her shoulder. ‘Do you love it?’

Alice looked at the beautiful, ornate bottle-green gypsy caravan currently blocking the exit from Borne Manor and fell instantly in love.

Rambling flowers covered the intricately painted panels, their colours prettily weathered by the years and country living.

Its big wooden cartwheels were a faded cherry red and the stable door was half open revealing a gauzy lace net fluttering in the warm breeze.

‘Where’s it come from, Hazel?’ she breathed. There’s no way someone would give something this beautiful away. It was going to be way out of her budget and she was missing it already.

‘Now there’s a story,’ Hazel said, taking Alice by the hand and leading her towards the caravan.

‘My mother’s sister’s husband’s uncle was Romany, see?

Well, he had a son, and that son had a daughter who I grew up with as close as sisters, even though she was a cousin.

Starling, her name is. She’s never liked it, goes as Stephanie, but I always thought it was romantic. ’

Alice frowned, trying heroically to follow Hazel’s complicated family history.

Over by the house, Marsh stood on the top step and clapped his hands loudly to get everyone’s attention.

‘Lovely as this is, folks, you’re blocking the exit and I need out of Toy Town! Robinson, get over here and get in the cab or we’re gonna miss that bird.’ He shot his arm into the air to mimic the take-off of the plane he fully intended them to be on.

Robinson shrugged his shoulders helplessly and laughed, sitting down on a sawn-off tree trunk. ‘Things around here never go quite to plan, Marsh.’

‘Anyway,’ Hazel said loudly, shooting daggers at Marsh for interrupting her flow.

‘Starling married a man called Defiance Loveridge, right smarmy rick he was, all jet black Brylcreem quiff and dirty fingernails to match. I never liked being left alone with him and his clammy, wandering hands.’ Hazel shuddered and curled her lip.

‘So of course he’s gone and took up with some flighty piece in Ireland with her own static caravan, leaving Starling with this on the drive of her council house,’ she gestured at the caravan, ‘and Banjo to deal with.’

‘He played the banjo?’ Alice said, completely lost.

‘No, darling!’ Stewie’s voice carried suddenly around from behind the caravan. ‘This beauty here is Banjo.’

Alice crunched across the gravel and found Stewie in ill-advised leather trousers, a silky black wig and no shirt, clearly channelling his inner gypsy as he held on to the bit of the largest and most magnificent black and white shire horse Alice had ever encountered.

‘Give him a sugar lump,’ Stewie said, managing by some miracle to pull one out of his skintight trouser pocket. ‘He loves them.’

‘I didn’t know you were a horseman, Stewie.’

Stewie nodded and looked off into the middle distance as he adjusted his red bandana. ‘One of my earliest movies was a remake of the classic Dick Turnip.’

‘Turpin,’ Alice corrected him automatically.

‘Oh, no. This was a turnip all right,’ Stewie said, puffing his chest out. ‘Along with a ruddy great bunch of carrots and an eye-wateringly large cucumber, if my memory serves me correctly.’

Alice could feel her shoulders starting to shake.

Marsh was still yelling in the background and windmilling his arms around, apoplectic at being out of control, and two of Ewan’s equally goth mates from the village appeared, attracted by the noise.

They sat on the low wall around the front lawn like the three stooges, watching proceedings keenly with their dark ringed eyes and gangly limbs.

The taxi driver got out of the car and looked at Marsh.

‘This is all on the clock, JR,’ he said, sparking up a cigarette and leaning against the bonnet of his car.

‘You can squeeze past it!’ Marsh shouted, as if just saying it would make the non-existent space between the caravan and the gateposts wider.

‘How did it get here?’ Alice asked in wonder.

‘Banjo pulled it,’ Stewie said.

‘Get that horse up front and this caravan shifted this cotton pickin’ minute!’ Marsh yelled.

‘No can do,’ Stewie said amiably, stroking Banjo’s nose. ‘He lost a shoe down the drain just back there. He’s officially on the box.’

Marsh turned puce. ‘On the box? On the box? I don’t know what that even means! Speak English, man.’

‘Said the American,’ Ewan said, and all the goths’ shoulders moved up and down together in silent humour, vampire-like in their black t-shirts and three-quarter shorts, their only concession to the heat.

‘Then drag it. You three, get over there and haul that thing aside,’ Marsh said, gesticulating at Ewan and his friends.

Ewan looked at Robinson, who shook his head out of Marsh’s eyeline, by now enjoying the whole thing immensely.

Rubbing his shoulder, Ewan looked regretful. ‘Shoulder sprain, man.’

Beside him his friend cottoned on and stretched his leg out and pulled a face. ‘Bone in my leg. Sorry.’

On Ewan’s other side, his other friend massaged the back of his neck. ‘Mosh-pit whiplash.’

‘If you’ll take Banjo you can have the caravan for free,’ Hazel said, joining Alice beside Stewie.

Alice wanted to say yes really badly. ‘I don’t know anything about horses,’ she said, tentatively feeding Banjo the sugar lump from the flat of her hand. For such a huge horse, his velvety mouth felt as gentle as butterflies dancing on her palm.

‘I can teach you,’ Robinson said, coming down the drive to meet Banjo. ‘Hey, old timer,’ he whispered softly, fussing the horse’s nose and scratching his ears. ‘You like that, huh?’

Alice turned to Hazel and hugged her. ‘This is the best gift anyone’s ever given me,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘You don’t need to, silly girl,’ Hazel said, quite overcome.

At that moment, Niamh appeared from the lane in a paint-splattered apron with an equally paint-splattered Rambo under her arm.

‘Hazel, you’re going to have to shut him inside. He’s flying round my living room and I’m trying to paint,’ she said, exasperated, and then looked slowly around the unusual gathering outside the manor. ‘Did I miss something?’

Marsh all but howled and hurled himself inside the manor in a temper and slammed the door.

Niamh handed Rambo over to Hazel, but he broke free of her grasp and fluttered up to sit on top of the caravan, a streak of bright yellow paint along one glossy black wing.

‘Get me naked, Robinson!’ he called out in Alice’s voice, still his favourite phrase.

‘I’ve never liked that bird until now,’ Robinson murmured as Alice blushed, mortified.

The taxi driver straightened up off his bonnet, clearly delighted at an entertaining hour spent sunbathing rather than tackling the horror of the airport run on what was shaping up to be the hottest day of the summer so far. Mopping his balding head with his handkerchief, he smiled broadly.

‘Take the cases out again then, shall I?’

While the rest of the residents of the cottages were up at the manor, someone unlocked the door of number four and pushed it open, giving it a good shove to move the accumulated junk mail and newspapers behind it.

Closing the door and dropping their holdall on the hall floor, Borne’s newest resident sat down on the bottom step of the creaky stairs and looked bleakly around at the old, threadbare furniture left there since the death of Albert Rollinson almost a year ago.

It wasn’t much. In fact it was pretty hideous, but from here on in, it was home.

‘I was never leaving today,’ Robinson said later that evening, lounging back naked amongst the many cushions and throws on the huge bed in the centre of the yurt.

‘I know.’ Alice looked up at the night sky through the yurt’s clear dome. ‘The stars tell me so.’

‘You’re making that up, right?’

She laughed. ‘Maybe.’

They fell silent, lying on their backs side by side, and then a thought occurred to Alice.

‘Hazel said that mother nature is especially present in here. She thinks I should market it as the honeymoon suite.’

Robinson rolled onto his side and drew gossamer fine patterns on Alice’s stomach with his fingertip. ‘Do you think she’s right?’

Alice wasn’t sure why his question felt more ominous than it ought to.

‘It is pretty romantic,’ she said, eventually.

‘It is,’ he said softly, moving over her and parting her legs with his knee. ‘It’s romantic, and you’re incredibly beautiful, Alice, and when the time comes that I do have to leave you and go home, I want to close my eyes and be able to see you here, just like this.’

He was inside her body and her mind, and in that moment, he was inside her heart too.

And then she knew why tonight felt so serious.

Robinson had come close to leaving today; he’d been forced to think about it at least. Tonight was the start of their long goodbye.

It might be tomorrow, it might be a few days, or if they were lucky it might be weeks, but something inside him had shifted, and this tender, melting sex was his way of putting them on notice.