Page 45 of All Summer Long

‘I’m so sorry about my neighbours,’ she said quietly, ‘they didn’t mean to offend you.

They’re really very nice when you get to …

’ she trailed off, remembering back to the words Robinson had said right after he hit Brad live on Lorraine .

Never miss a good chance to shut up. Never had a phrase been more apt, so Alice sat down at the desk opposite the bank manager and swallowed hard. This was it.

‘He couldn’t even pronounce the word glamping,’ Alice said to Niamh an hour or so later, turning dejectedly back into the drive of Borne Manor. ‘He thought I’d made a spelling mistake.’

‘Surely he loved all of your photos though, and the brochure?’

Alice huffed and shook her head. She and Niamh had spent days poring over the hundreds of shots Alice had taken as the glampsite had taken shape, choosing only the very best ones to go in to the business plan as photographic evidence of the hard work involved and the viability of the project.

They’d produced a glossy specimen brochure selling the romantic, fairytale aspect of the site; it was a great shame then that the man in charge of deciding whether or not to fund them seemed to be a strong candidate for the world’s least romantic man.

He’d looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language when she’d talked of honeymoon love nests and romantic tree house holidays, and he’d actually shuddered at the sight of Banjo and the gypsy caravan.

As the meeting progressed it had become more and more clear to Alice that the only way this man was going to green-light funding was if he had a complete personality transplant while he mulled on his decision over the weekend.

‘Maybe we could slip some of Hazel’s love potion into his tea,’ Niamh suggested, her eyes full of sympathy as they climbed out of the car.

Alice searched her bag for her house keys to unlock the front door. ‘I should think she’s used it all up on Stewie.’

‘You should have seen them when you were in with the manager,’ Niamh laughed. ‘He lifted her off Rambo’s cage when you’d gone into the meeting and handed her his hankie to buff his head to calm her down.’

‘Did it work?’

Niamh shuddered. ‘In a way. She wasn’t embarrassed any more. More, err … excited.’

Alice paused, startled. ‘Excited?’

‘Like, she was going to strip off and shout “do me now, my big bald lover” at any moment. It’s a good job their bus was due or they’d have got themselves thrown out, along with any hopes of funding for you, probably.’

‘Oh, I think I’ve managed to blow that all on my own,’ Alice sighed, pulling the keys from her bag at last along with her flashing mobile. Unlocking the door and pushing it open, she led the way inside her beloved manor and hoped for a miracle to help her keep it.

‘Wine? I think we’ve earned it.’

They didn’t bother with the wine, as it turned out.

The first thing Alice saw when she walked into the kitchen was the mess all over the window, bright red sprayed letters that could be clearly read, even backwards.

She gasped and fumbled to unlock the door, running outside to look at what had happened.

BITCH. Someone had sprayed the kitchen window, and the glass doors leading into the lounge too in the same huge, abusive scarlet letters.

‘Who …?’

‘What the …?’

Both Alice and Niamh stood and stared at the mess, horrified.

‘Brad?’ Niamh suggested.

Alice sat down on the bench at the back of the house, mortified. ‘I don’t know. God, I just don’t know.’ Despite Brad’s many faults, it just didn’t seem his style of trouble. As she stared ahead, a flash of red on the trees caught her eye.

‘Oh God, Niamh, there’s more …’

She was up and running for the tree line as she spoke, stumbling in her stupid high heels so much that she flung them off. More red paint on the trees in the woods, haphazard flashes leading her deeper in.

‘Oh no,’ she said, her heart pounding as the Airstream came into sight.

WHORE.

‘Shit.’ Niamh caught her up and put an arm around Alice’s shoulders as they looked in horror at the caravan, now daubed on all sides with huge, ugly blood red insults.

‘We need to check the rest,’ Alice whispered, half running through the trees towards the tree house. More graffiti, more crude insults.

Standing looking up at it with her hand over her mouth, Alice felt tears spring into her eyes. All of her hopes and dreams were tied up here along with all of her happy memories of her romance with Robinson.

‘A jealous fan, maybe?’ Niamh offered, obviously meaning someone connected to Robinson.

‘I guess it could be,’ Alice said, looking at the deck and remembering the fish and chip supper she’d shared there with Robinson. It seemed a lifetime ago now.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I need to get down to the yurt. If that’s been sprayed, there’s no way I’ll get it out.’

It was worse than she could have imagined. It hadn’t just been sprayed. The fabric sides had been slashed through completely.

‘No, no, no!’ Alice ran to it, tears running down her face as she ran a hand down one of the gashes as tenderly as if it were a wound. ‘Why, Niamh? Why?’

Niamh pulled her in to a hug, crying herself too at the shock and the unfairness, at the vandalism of something so precious to her friend.

An awful thought had Alice running again, no thought for the fact that she was barefoot as she hurled herself through the woods towards the far meadow.

Banjo. Big, beautiful Banjo.