Page 47 of All Summer Long

‘Cheese and onion for lunch, then?’ Alice said, leading the way to the stream, excited to see the yurt in place.

If they’d seemed comical when they arrived, the way they worked was anything but haphazard. They had the yurt up and looking brilliant with breathtaking speed, as if there were ten rather than two of them. Alice tramped down to the site around midday with a plate heaving with sandwiches and found them three-parts done already.

‘Wow!’ she laughed, putting the plate down on a tree stump and clapping her hands with delight. ‘This looks amazing!’

Brynn gave her the thumbs up as Barry helped himself to a sandwich. He looked at it and then passed it to his brother.

‘This one’s yours. There’s onion on it.’

Brynn nodded and handed Barry a different one from the plate without a flicker of amusement.

Alice liked them so much she wondered if they’d stay for ever.

Brynn lay back and basked in the sunshine after he’d eaten, his hands behind his head.

‘Best summer I can remember in my lifetime,’ he said, smiling broadly.

‘Probably the best in mine too,’ Barry said, striking an identical pose beside his brother.

Alice considered stretching out beside them because it was probably the best in hers as well, then turned as someone called her name out sharply across the garden. Hazel half stumbled half ran across the grass, a jumble of long skirts and clanking bangles as she reached them. She stood with her hands on her hips, gasping heavily to get her breath back.

‘Alice, have you seen him?’

Alice shifted the plate of sandwiches hastily from the tree stump and guided Hazel down to sit on it.

‘Seen who, Hazel? Is Ewan missing?’

Brynn and Barry sat up and leaned back on their elbows, interested, as Hazel shook her head, her hands twisting in her lap.

‘Rambo. I haven’t seen him since last night. One minute he was on the windowsill shouting at the people queuing for the bus, the next he’d gone.’ She sighed, her hand flat against her still-heaving chest. ‘I didn’t panic at first, you know what he’s like. He does this sometimes, but he doesn’t like the dark, Alice. He’s been out all night!’ Hazel’s voice skittered up an octave at the end of her sentence and Alice put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

‘Oh Hazel, I’m sure he’ll come home soon,’ she soothed, although privately she wasn’t so certain. The village was alive with foxes and wildlife at night. Rambo was a domesticated old boy, he wouldn’t stand a chance against the wily ways of the natural creatures of the countryside.

‘Have you checked up at the manor?’ she asked.

Hazel nodded miserably. ‘First place I thought of. Hoped he’d gone back there like last time.’

Brynn and Barry polished off the plate of sandwiches and watched the exchange in fascinated silence. It had been a while since they’d come across folk odder than themselves.

A mile or so away at the village post office, Davina stared wide eyed at the big glossy black bird that had swooped in through the open door and landed on her counter. She wasn’t a fan of birds in most cases, and especially not of this one in particular. Rambo shouted at her every time she walked past the cottages down by the manor, preening himself like a peacock on the open windowsill. ‘Put yer clothes on, hussy!’ seemed to be his favourite insult for her, and she hadn’t failed to notice the way people queuing at the bus stop opposite nodded in agreement when he yelled it. Just because she favoured skirts that skimmed her knickers, it wasn’t for this bird or anyone else in the village to judge her. She knew enough to know that Rambo was only repeating what he’d heard. She reached for the broom to shoo him out, and he fixed her with his black bead eyes and squawked.

‘Don’t you start on me in my own shop, bully bird,’ she said, lifting the brush and waving the bristles gamely towards him.

‘Everyone can see her bosoms!’ Rambo cackled, and Davina glanced down her low-cut blouse at her favourite red bra.

‘And lucky buggers they are too,’ she shot back, not pausing to question the fact that she was having an argument with a bird. ‘Be off with you!’

Rambo didn’t budge an inch, utterly indifferent to Davina’s threats.

‘Don’t tell a soul that he’s here, Ewan Spencer!’ Rambo mimicked Hazel’s voice perfectly, then picked up a book of first-class stamps and hurled it across the room.

Davina paused, conflicted. She wanted the bird off her counter and out of her post office, but then …

‘Mum fancies Robinson Duff! Mum fancies Robinson Duff!’

Davina narrowed her eyes at Rambo, who’d switched from impersonating Hazel to her weirdo goth kid who came in every now and then to try to buy booze.

‘Robinson Duff?’ Davina breathed. Hazel wasn’t the only one with a crush on the country music star. Half the women in the world loved Robinson Duff, Davina included. That was why Rambo’s next sentence, a perfect impression of Alice McBride, made her head spin and her red fingernails dig into her palms with excitement.

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