Page 30 of All Summer Long

‘One, I don’t have any bourbon, and two, it’s barely eight o’ clock and I haven’t eaten. One drink and I’d be legless within the hour.’

‘Legless?’ he grinned. ‘You mean drunk, right?’

She nodded. ‘Legless as in I wouldn’t be able to stand up.’

‘And that’s a bad thing because …?’

‘A very bad thing, because I’d have a headache and probably a gut full of regret in the morning, Robinson,’ she said, turning the gas on beneath the kettle like a pro now. ‘Sit down.’

He settled on the banquette and watched her busy herself in the small space. She made sandwiches with a practised hand, sliding the filled plate onto the table along with their coffee, and then as an afterthought she pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge and added a couple of glasses.

‘It’s as good as dessert is going to get around here,’ she said, placing the bottle on the table.

‘Works for me,’ he said. He was a man. Alcohol trumped chocolate in just about every situation he could think of. Alice slid in opposite him and pushed the plate his way.

‘Chicken salad. Bit plain, sorry.’

He shook his head, perfectly happy with the fare.

‘It’s fine. I’m living on pizza and microwave dinners up at the house thanks to that oven from the History Channel. This is a definite step up.’

‘No more weird casseroles from Hazel lately, then?’ Alice picked up a sandwich as she spoke and pulled her coffee towards her. The conversation batted easily back and forth between them as they ate, mostly about their nearest neighbours in the cottages. Robinson learned that Stewie had turned his spare bedroom into a dedicated wig boudoir and spent a disturbing amount of time and money on eBay buying ‘Girl’s World’ heads to display them all on. He also learned that Hazel claimed to have once cast a love spell that turned the whole village into nymphomaniacs for twenty-four hours, and that one of Niamh’s nudes had appeared in the National Gallery.

‘And what about you, Alice?’ he said, opening the wine as she cleared the table and sat back down. ‘What’s your unexpected secret?’

She played with the stem of her glass, and he found himself watching her slender, ringless fingers.

‘What you see is what you get,’ she shrugged. ‘I wish I could make me sound more interesting, but this is me.’

‘You live in an Airstream in your own backyard, that’s pretty interesting,’ he said. ‘What gives?’

Her pretty blue eyes clouded. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you didn’t want to live in the house any longer without your husband.’

The look on her face told him that he couldn’t be more wrong.

‘I love Borne Manor,’ she said. ‘It’s my home, and leaving it broke my heart. I leased it so I could cover the costs of keeping it.’

‘You mean you moved out so you didn’t have to sell it?’

She sighed, puffing out her cheeks.

‘And now my crappy husband and his vile bitch of a girlfriend have decided that they want it.’

Alice looked so delicate, ethereal, and Robinson’s only instinct at that time was to protect her from all the crap that life was flinging at her.

‘We come from very different worlds, Alice, but in some ways you and I are in very similar situations,’ he said, swallowing a mouthful of cold sauvignon and wishing it was warm bourbon. ‘We’ve both found our lives turned upside down by other people and been left trying to find our place in the world again.’

Alice nodded. ‘Except you moved thousands of miles to do it and I only moved as far as my own back garden.’

‘Maybe that makes you lucky,’ he offered. ‘You know where you want to be, even if you’re not with the person you want to be with.’

‘Where as you’ve ended up in a strange land with bizarre people who have wig boudoirs and cast love spells,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at him.

‘Exactly, Goldilocks.’ He laughed softly. ‘You got off pretty darn light.’

Alice topped up their dwindling glasses.

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