Page 52 of All Summer Long

Dessy leaned forward. ‘I think he’s another cowboy,’ he whispered in Robinson’s ear. Given that Marsh wore double denim beneath his blazer, a huge Stetson and three-inch Cuban-heeled cowboy boots, it wasn’t much of a stretch. Throw in the fact that he had skin the colour and consistency of a walnut and a belt buckle that could be seen from Mars and it was fairly safe to assume this man would be able to lasso a stray horse with his eyes closed.

Stewie, reading the mood more accurately, reached up from behind and slowly slid his wig from Robinson’s head and placed it back on his own.

‘Are you going to invite me in, or just stand there in the doorway until someone takes your picture and the whole wide world knows you’ve checked into crazyville with a capital C, son?’

Jase looked at Dessy, deeply offended. ‘Capital C? He took that too far,’ he muttered.

Dessy nodded. ‘Fucking liberty.’

Robinson scrubbed his hands through his flattened hair and knew he needed to try to get a hold of himself and the situation. Marsh was here. That changed things. He stepped backwards, forcing the three men behind him to move flat against the wall so that Marsh could come inside. The smaller man stalked in, his heels banging on the flagstones floor.

Stewie recovered himself as Robinson closed the door, stepping forward and extending his hand.

‘Good evening,’ he said formally, with the smallest of bows. ‘Stewie Heaven, film star.’

Marsh shook the offered hand briefly and then withdrew anti-bacterial spray from his inside pocket and spritzed his palm.

‘Rude,’ Jase said under his breath, catching hold of Dessy’s hand when he went to extend it and pulling it back down again.

‘What in the name of all that is good and holy is this place? A low-rent remake ofOne Flew Over the Fuckin’ Cuckoo’s Nest?’ Marsh said, glaring around at all four men. ‘Who’s in charge around here?’

‘Here’s Stewie!’ Stewie tried jazz hands and a wide grin.

Jase lifted the side of Stewie’s wig and hissed, ‘Wrong movie,’ in his ear.

‘Fuckin’ cuckoo. He made a rhyme,’ Dessy tittered, then looked across at Marsh and attempted to sound sober and hospitable. ‘Goat-testicle curry?’

Robinson opened the front door again.

‘I think we better call this party done for the evening, guys,’ he said, looking warmly at his three new best friends.

No one moved.

‘You heard the man,’ Marsh clapped his hands like he was refereeing a classroom of rowdy teenagers. ‘Go back to your hen houses, out houses and shit houses, strange people. This man has a plane to pack for.’

‘Are you leaving on a jet plane?’ Dessy sang mournfully to Robinson, wide eyed and out of tune.

‘The hell I am,’ Robinson said, more forcefully than he expected.

‘God. Say that again, I think I just orgasmed,’ Jase said, stroking Robinson’s cheek slowly as he passed.

Stewie turned back around on the doorstep and looked at Marsh.

‘Don’t suppose you happened to know John Wayne, old boy?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Met him once, hung like an absolute …’

His next words were mercifully carried away on the breeze as Dessy and Jase lunged forward and lifted him clean off the floor by the elbows, then ambled off down the gravel driveway with Stewie floating between them, regaling them with ribald stories about Dallas and Debbie and a rather unfortunate donkey.

Marsh clicked his fingers loudly right by Robinson’s ear, making him flinch and his eyes flicker open.

‘Coffee, or as near as I could muster in that antique museum that passes for a kitchen.’

Robinson lifted his head from the kitchen table at the strong smell underneath his nose. He didn’t want coffee. He wanted Alice, and he wanted to go to bed, preferably in that order. He’d been asleep no more than fifteen minutes yet he’d already managed to wipe all recollection of Marsh’s arrival at the manor from his brain, so it came as a fresh shock to find his manager slap bang in the middle of his holiday from reality, and an unwelcome shock at that.

Blah blah ‘tickets’. Blah blah ‘concert’. Blah blah ‘quit belly achin’’. Blah blah ‘home’. Blah blah ‘plane’. Blah blah ‘tomorrow’. Even given the fact that he wasn’t really registering Marsh’s conversation, enough words filtered through into Robinson’s consciousness to provoke a reaction neither of them expected.

Hot coffee sprayed across the kitchen as he flung out his arm and smacked the mug clean off the work surface.

‘I don’t need coffee,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘There will be no concerts, or planes, or …’ Robinson paused and made yap yap hand gestures in the air, ‘or any more of that talk in my kitchen. Am I making myself perfectly clear, Marsh?’

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