Page 37 of All Summer Long

‘I woke up and you weren’t there, Goldilocks,’ Robinson said, tapping on the open Airstream door the following morning. ‘Thought I better come and make sure you didn’t run into any bears in the woods last night.’

Alice buttered the toast she knew she didn’t have the stomach to eat and put the plate down on the table.

‘Hungry?’ she said, sitting down and nodding for him to come in and do the same. He sat opposite her at the table, studying her closely. She knew there was no way he could miss the pale grey tint to her complexion nor the bags underneath her eyes from lack of sleep.

‘Hangover?’ His clear green eyes danced with amusement. ‘Hair of the dog is your best friend right now. Whisky in your coffee should get you there in five.’

Alice’s stomach flipped unpleasantly and she pushed the plate towards him.

‘Brad’s back.’

Robinson blinked, wrong footed, and then nodded slowly and took a bite of toast. ‘You don’t look cock-a-hoop, pretty face.’

‘Should I?’ She’d lain awake for most of the night, and when she had fallen asleep it had been to dream of being in bed in the Airstream with Robinson, only to look twice and find it was Brad’s face over hers, his body pressing hers into the mattress.

The dreams made her cry and left her troubled heart trying to work out how it was supposed to feel and who for.

She regaled the whole sorry story of last night to Robinson, leaving nothing out to spare his feelings because they’d never lied to each other once and it was a blessed relief not to have to consider how to present the truth.

He laughed approvingly about Stewie and Hazel’s unanticipated lust, and said how much he wished he’d been there to hear Alice sing, and he reached out and held her hand across the table when it came to the part about Brad turning up.

His thumb moved reassuring and warm across her knuckles, and for a minute or two they just sat like that in silence, each of them considering how this changed things.

‘You should speak to him,’ Robinson said, after a while.

‘I don’t know what to say. So much has changed.’

Robinson moved around and scooched her along so he could slide in beside her, his arm along the back of the bench as she leaned gratefully against him.

‘I guess you need to take some time to think about things,’ he said. ‘Work on your own timescale, not his or anyone else’s. You don’t have to make your decisions today, or tomorrow, next week or next month. Just hear what he has to say and then come home again and think.’

The way he said come home again brought a lump to her throat.

Come home to the Airstream, to the manor, or to him?

They all seemed to be one and the same at the moment.

It should have been odd to have this conversation with Robinson; he was probably the last person she ought to be having it with, yet at the same time he was the only person in the world she wanted to talk to.

He knew how she felt without her needing to spell it out, because he’d been through the same emotional wringer then tumbled into these last strange and fabulous few months where their worlds had collided at the exact moment they each hit the bottom.

Without him, she might have drowned. Without her, he’d probably have not bothered getting up again.

And now reality was knocking on the door, and sooner or later they were each going to have to answer it.

Marsh was here. Brad was here. Robinson had a concert he needed to be at and a career to hold on to in the States, and Alice had a meeting with the bank manager and hopefully a brand new career of her own.

Rural England might still be baking under its unseasonably hot summer, but for them the season was drawing to its inevitable close.

‘He’s staying at The Siren,’ Niamh said without preamble when she came by the Airstream a couple of hours later. ‘I’ve just been down there and spoken to Dessy. He’s taken a room and hasn’t said when he’s leaving.’

Alice poured Niamh a glass of chilled water and they settled outside on the deckchairs.

‘You were my hero last night,’ Niamh said, raising her glass to her friend as if it were champagne rather than water.

‘It was childish,’ Alice sighed. Good as it had felt at the time, throwing wine over Brad hadn’t made her feel any better in the morning.

‘No, it was well deserved. In fact he deserved you to hit him over the head with the actual bottle. He got off lightly.’

‘What did you make of it all, Niamh?’

Niamh swirled her water as she considered the question. ‘I think Brad fully expected you to melt. It was quite a stunt.’

Alice waited to hear what came next, resting her head on the side of her chair to look at her friend.

‘And I think his timing was off. If this had happened three months ago you’d have fallen into his arms. He’s left it too late.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. And I’m bloody glad he waited, as well. I bet she’s ditched his sorry ass so he’s come crawling back here.’ Naimh shot Alice a guilty look. ‘Sorry. That sounded as if I was saying you’re second best and you’re not. But then you know that.’

‘Don’t be sorry, you’re probably right.’ Alice fiddled with the pendant around her neck. ‘You didn’t see him today?’

Niamh’s laugh echoed with sarcasm. ‘He’s lucky I didn’t. He’d have more than a drink in his face to worry about if I had. The nerve of him.’ She looked at Alice with a sudden frown. ‘You’re not regretting chucking your drink, are you?’

‘No.’ Alice shook her head, struggling to explain her feelings because she didn’t fully understand them herself.

‘It came naturally. He just seemed more concerned about his performance than he did about me, which just about sums up our entire relationship. But he’s my still my husband, Niamh, on paper at least. I have to hear him out. ’

Niamh scowled. ‘I’m worried that he’ll switch on the charm and you’ll cave in. I know how much he meant to you, and I saw how much he hurt you. I don’t want you to go back there again when you’ve come this far.’

‘I won’t,’ Alice said, her feelings crystallising as she voiced them.

‘You’re right. If he’d have come back a few months ago I’d have taken him back.

But he didn’t, and now I’m not the same girl any more.

This happened,’ she turned and gestured at the Airstream.

‘And the glampsite happened. And this happened, too.’ Alice touched the camera around her neck, then lifted it and took a shot of Niamh raising her glass.

‘I can’t believe I let myself go so long without taking pictures. So much of the world I’ve missed.’

‘And Robinson happened,’ Niamh added to Alice’s list.

‘I was just coming to him,’ Alice sighed wistfully. ‘He’s going home in a few weeks, but I’ll never be sorry that he came, and I’ll never be sorry that we got to spend this long, hot summer together.’

‘Won’t you be sorry that he’s gone?’

Alice closed her eyes and did the same thing she did every time the subject came up. ‘I don’t want to think about it until it happens.’

‘Any chance he could kill Brad before he leaves?’

‘Niamh,’ Alice chastised her friend softly.

Niamh shrugged. ‘Not sorry.’

‘Come on. I’ll walk you home on my way to The Siren.’

Alice sat in the middle of the otherwise empty bar at The Siren nursing an orange juice while Jase let Brad know that she was downstairs.

He’d hi-fived her silently when she’d walked in to the pub, and murmured that he’d be there in a heartbeat if she shouted for him, as he put her drink down and went to find her errant husband.

She glanced over at the door as it opened a few minutes later and Brad sheepishly poked his head inside.

‘Is it safe to come in?’

His attempt at humour felt wide of the mark.

Alice looked at him steadily, taking in his freshly shaven face, his still-shower-damp dark hair, the shirt she’d given him for Christmas.

He looked like the man she’d shared her life with for years, and at the same time like a stranger. He glanced at her juice warily.

‘You’re not likely to throw that one as well, are you?’

‘Quit with the lame jokes and just sit down, will you?’ she said, suddenly weary. She’d had so many imaginary conversations with Brad since he left, and none of them had gone quite like this, nor had they taken place in The Siren for safety. Times really had changed.

Brad scraped the chair opposite Alice’s back on the flagstones and dropped into it, his hands cupping his slightly tilted chin. It was a pose that said look at me I’m gorgeous, rather than I’m looking at you and you’re gorgeous, and the staged element of it set Alice’s teeth instantly on edge.

‘I would have come to you,’ he said, magnanimous.

Alice sipped her juice and knotted her fingers in her lap.

‘Why did you do that last night, Brad?’

He sighed and looked forlorn. ‘I honestly thought you’d like it, Ali.’

Brad was the only person in the world who called her Ali, and the tiniest piece of her heart thawed at the sound of it on his lips. She looked away, out of the window at the deep blue sky and the road stretching away towards the manor. Towards home. Her home, not Brad’s.

‘Did you really think that after everything you put me through one public display of not even very good singing was going to impress me?’

He looked offended, and she knew him well enough to know that the slur on his singing ability had cut deeper than the rest of her question.

‘I hoped it would help you see that I mean it,’ he said, petulance edging into his tone at her lack of appreciation.

‘You mean what, Brad? What is it that you’ve come here to say?’

He looked at her as if she’d asked a stupid question. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m coming home, baby.’ He smiled, and his eyes said you love me and you know it.

‘Am I supposed to tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree?’