Page 58 of All Summer Long

‘Banjo pulled it,’ Stewie said.

‘Get that horse up front and this caravan shifted this cotton pickin’ minute!’ Marsh yelled.

‘No can do,’ Stewie said amiably, stroking Banjo’s nose. ‘He lost a shoe down the drain just back there. He’s officially on the box.’

Marsh turned puce. ‘On the box? On the box? I don’t know what that even means! Speak English, man.’

‘Said the American,’ Ewan said, and all the goths’ shoulders moved up and down together in silent humour, vampire-like in their black t-shirts and three-quarter shorts, their only concession to the heat.

‘Then drag it. You three, get over there and haul that thing aside,’ Marsh said, gesticulating at Ewan and his friends.

Ewan looked at Robinson, who shook his head out of Marsh’s eyeline, by now enjoying the whole thing immensely.

Rubbing his shoulder, Ewan looked regretful. ‘Shoulder sprain, man.’

Beside him his friend cottoned on and stretched his leg out and pulled a face. ‘Bone in my leg. Sorry.’

On Ewan’s other side, his other friend massaged the back of his neck. ‘Mosh-pit whiplash.’

‘If you’ll take Banjo you can have the caravan for free,’ Hazel said, joining Alice beside Stewie.

Alice wanted to say yes really badly. ‘I don’t know anything about horses,’ she said, tentatively feeding Banjo the sugar lump from the flat of her hand. For such a huge horse, his velvety mouth felt as gentle as butterflies dancing on her palm.

‘I can teach you,’ Robinson said, coming down the drive to meet Banjo. ‘Hey, old timer,’ he whispered softly, fussing the horse’s nose and scratching his ears. ‘You like that, huh?’

Alice turned to Hazel and hugged her. ‘This is the best gift anyone’s ever given me,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘You don’t need to, silly girl,’ Hazel said, quite overcome.

At that moment, Niamh appeared from the lane in a paint-splattered apron with an equally paint-splattered Rambo under her arm.

‘Hazel, you’re going to have to shut him inside. He’s flying round my living room and I’m trying to paint,’ she said, exasperated, and then looked slowly around the unusual gathering outside the manor. ‘Did I miss something?’

Marsh all but howled and hurled himself inside the manor in a temper and slammed the door.

Niamh handed Rambo over to Hazel, but he broke free of her grasp and fluttered up to sit on top of the caravan, a streak of bright yellow paint along one glossy black wing.

‘Get me naked, Robinson!’ he called out in Alice’s voice, still his favourite phrase.

‘I’ve never liked that bird until now,’ Robinson murmured as Alice blushed, mortified.

The taxi driver straightened up off his bonnet, clearly delighted at an entertaining hour spent sunbathing rather than tackling the horror of the airport run on what was shaping up to be the hottest day of the summer so far. Mopping his balding head with his handkerchief, he smiled broadly.

‘Take the cases out again then, shall I?’

While the rest of the residents of the cottages were up at the manor, someone unlocked the door of number four and pushed it open, giving it a good shove to move the accumulated junk mail and newspapers behind it. Closing the door and dropping their holdall on the hall floor, Borne’s newest resident sat down on the bottom step of the creaky stairs and looked bleakly around at the old, threadbare furniture left there since the death of Albert Rollinson almost a year ago. It wasn’t much. In fact it was pretty hideous, but from here on in, it was home.

‘I was never leaving today,’ Robinson said later that evening, lounging back naked amongst the many cushions and throws on the huge bed in the centre of the yurt.

‘I know.’ Alice looked up at the night sky through the yurt’s clear dome. ‘The stars tell me so.’

‘You’re making that up, right?’

She laughed. ‘Maybe.’

They fell silent, lying on their backs side by side, and then a thought occurred to Alice.

‘Hazel said that mother nature is especially present in here. She thinks I should market it as the honeymoon suite.’

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