Page 56 of All Summer Long

Robinson scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘I’m not leaving here yet. I haven’t done what I came here to do.’

‘Which is?’

‘None of your damn business, Marsh.’

‘It looks a lot like you’re hidin’ out to me. I didn’t have you down as yellow, Duff.’

Robinson sighed. ‘I know what you’re doing and it’s not gonna work. I’m not twelve years old. You can’t goad me into getting on that plane.’

‘Your sister misses you like crazy. Why do you think she told me where you are? She wants me to bring you home. Your poor momma, too. Have mercy, Duff. I saw her just last week and the woman was in tears on the street.’

Robinson laughed at the idea of his wise-cracking mother in tears in public. It was a standing joke in their family that Janna Duff’s tear ducts had long since gone rusty from lack of use. She was the toughest woman he knew and he loved her all the more for it. ‘I highly doubt that,’ he said, drily. ‘So. You’ve tried threats, and you’ve tried emotional blackmail. What’s your next trick gonna be, Marsh?’

The smaller man shot out of his chair, too fired up to sit still. He’d always been that way, a firework forever on the edge of going off.

‘This is no game, Duff! Do you know how many pills I had to take to get on that plane? I’m rattling louder than an angry rattler, here!’ He stopped stomping around the room to make a violent rattlesnake motion in the air with his arm, the loose wrinkled skin of his forearm juddering. ‘Damn it, Duff, I did it for you, because your career matters to me. You go down the pan and you take me with you, son, and there ain’t a universe out there where that’s gonna happen.’

The fact was that, even if he was a fully paid-up member of the self-preservation society, Marsh had something of a point. Sentimentality aside, Robinson owed his manager for his career and all of the good, life-changing things that had gone along with it, and he was a guy who always honoured his debts.

‘Look, Marsh,’ he said. ‘I hear you, okay? I know how much it must have taken out of you coming over here. I appreciate it.’ He reached for the coffee from the cupboard and filled the machine. ‘Now I’m gonna make us some coffee and take a shower, then we can sit down and talk this through, man to man.’

Marsh looked at his watch and started pacing again. ‘Two and a half hours, Duff. Say your goodbyes if you need to, because by hook or by crook, you’re going home.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘The cab’s outside,’ Marsh yelled out of the back door at the top of his lungs and could only hope it reached Robinson’s ears. ‘I’m getting your bags loaded, Duff. Time’s up. Get your ass over here.’

In the Airstream, Alice and Robinson lay on the bed and heard every word.

‘He means it, Robinson. I don’t think he’s taking no for an answer.’

‘It’s not in his vocabulary. He’s gonna find this real hard,’ Robinson said, smoothing her hair behind her ear. They lay facing each other, forehead to forehead, fingers tangled, their hearts heavy with foreboding.

‘He’s loading your luggage.’

Robinson shrugged. ‘I’ll buy new shirts.’

Alice kissed him, lingering, achingly sweet. ‘You’re going to have to go back sometime. Maybe now’s as good a time as any,’ she whispered, even though every selfish bone in her body wanted to hold on to him for a while longer.

‘My holiday ain’t over ’til I say it is, pretty face. The sun’s still hot and I can still hear those waves.’

They fell silent. The long summer days had all added to the illusion of their holiday romance, and if she concentrated really hard she was certain she could hear the sea too. Or was it the rumble of jet engines? Was this to be their tearful airport farewell?

‘Yoohoo! Aliiiiiccce!’

Alice groaned. She’d forgotten all about the fact that Hazel was coming over.

‘That woman and her damn bird have the world’s worst timing,’ Robinson growled.

‘Alice! Get out here!’

‘I’ll get rid of her,’ Alice said, sliding reluctantly out of Robinson’s arms. ‘Stay right there.’ She opened the door and then leaned forward to get a better look at the commotion happening over by the house. ‘Scrap that. You need to see this.’

She pushed her feet into her flip-flops and smoothed her sundress out, grabbing her sunglasses and jamming them on her head at the same time. ‘Seriously, Robinson, come look.’

Alice stepped down from the Airstream and raised her hand.

’Be right there,’ she called, waving at Ewan, now loping across the grass at Hazel’s behest to fetch Alice. He waved nonchalantly back as she approached him.

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