Page 75 of All Summer Long

He looked at the guy who’d shouted from the back of the pack. What could he possibly say about Alice that was fit for public ears? He knew many things about her, all of them too intimate to share with the world. She looks like a beautiful mermaid in the bath? She looks like an angel when she sleeps? He thought both of those things and many more besides, but he couldn’t say them. Digging in his jacket pocket, he pulled out a pen and an old receipt and scrawled something on it.

The press hounds watched him with baited breath, waiting to see if he’d hold it up for them to see, but he just turned and pushed it through the letterbox.

‘Just an IOU, folks. Forgot to settle the bill.’

He dipped his head and jumped into the cab, shutting the impromptu press conference down abruptly without any further comment.

The slip of paper fell through the letterbox and fluttered onto the slate tiled hallway. Alice waited until the taxi had disappeared through the jostle of photographers before she picked it up, taking it through to the kitchen to read his bold, masculine script.

‘Keep listening for the sea, Goldilocks.’

She closed her eyes as she pressed the slip of paper against her heart and listened really hard, but all she could hear was the rain drumming on the kitchen window.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Back home, back to earth with a bump. Marsh had Robinson working around the clock and Lena was making what little down time he had as difficult as she knew how. She was clearly going with the idea that she’d crack his resolve if she just kept chipping away at him, and after two relentless weeks he still hadn’t worked out how best to handle her without bringing a storm down around his shoulders. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to cope with her drama; all he could think about was getting through until the concert. He had one week of final rehearsals and publicity to make it past and then afterwards he’d take stock, decide how best to deal with Lena once and for all. Maybe he’d also be able to work out why the hell he felt as if he’d been blindsided by a freight train.

He didn’t think of England. Or else hedid,but he shut down all thoughts as soon as they arose because it was the only way he could function.

He didn’t miss England. Or else he did, but he shut down all of his emotions outside of his professional ones because he needed to keep going, to give his fans what they’d paid good money for almost a year previously.

He was a showman. He could, and would, do this.

Marsh, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. He’d been at every rehearsal and frankly, he was concerned. It wasn’t enough to have the star up there on the stage. Thousands of people were coming to see Robinson Duff perform, to bask in his star quality, not to watch him just turn up and go through the motions. The way Marsh saw it, he could either wait it out and pray that things clicked into place on the night, that the lights and the adrenalin and the crowds were enough to kick-start some star quality in Nashville’s favourite son, or he could do something risky to force Robinson’s hand. Marsh wasn’t a wait and see kind of guy. He hadn’t got where he was today by leaving things to chance. He dealt in certainties, and right now he wasn’t at all certain that Robinson was going to pull this one off without intervention. Lena had turned out to be precious little help, either. He’d been on the phone to the woman most days and from what he could gather she was making no inroads with Robinson, much to her own shock. The inescapable truth was that there was something huge missing from Robinson’s performance, and Marsh knew exactly what it was. However tough and uncompromising he might appear to be to the outside world, Marsh had an innate sense of how to get the best out of his stars and he’d made a handsome living on the back of it. Sitting in the stands watching Robinson rehearsing up there on the stage, he shook his head and cursed under his breath, sourly acknowledging the fact he’d been trying to avoid. He knew precisely what was missing from Robinson’s paint-by-numbers performance. His heart. Heading out of the stadium, he hurled his breakfast roll in the nearest trashcan and yanked his cell phone from his pocket, stabbing his fingers at it viciously, as pissed off as a cat served curdled milk.

Back in Borne it was a little after three in the afternoon as Alice paced the floor of her bedroom, running through her words for the hundredth time as she adjusted the uncomfortable waistband of the only remotely official-looking skirt suit she owned. Robinson’s rental period covered the manor for a few weeks longer and then it was going to be open warfare with Brad. He was still holed up at The Siren and badgering her endlessly to take him back. His moods swung wildly; some days he was contrite, almost begging her forgiveness and for a second chance in her heart and her bed. Other days he was furious, screaming at her down the phone or through the letterbox that he was going to take the manor and change the locks so that she was homeless and destitute the very minute the rental agreement expired. A lot depended on today. Everything, in actual fact, because if the bank manager didn’t see enough potential in ‘To The Manor Borne Glamping’, as the site had been unanimously christened by the villagers, then Brad would get his way and she’d have to hand over the keys in defeat. Giving herself one last glance over in the mirror, she nodded assertively at herself and headed downstairs, picking up her business plan from the hall table as she strode out to the car, brimming with determination. At the bottom of her handbag, her mobile went straight to voicemail as instructed that morning. There was no way that Brad was going to harass her today of all days.

Half an hour later, Alice stalled momentarily as she walked in to the small branch of Bibbs & Downey, the only bank within thirty miles of the manor. Straight out of the fifties, it still had the same original fitments and by the looks of it, most of the same staff too, aside from a couple of fresh out of school trainees. But it wasn’t the out-of-step surroundings or the blue-rinse staff that had Alice pausing in the doorway, it was the row of occupied chairs along the far wall.

She spotted Niamh first, waving madly at her in her best flowery dress with paint in her tied-up hair.

Beside her, Hazel, dressed in shoulder to ankle emerald velvet, looked like she might burst with excitement, and Ewan lounged in the next chair along, wearing black as always and looking at the floor as if he’d rather be anywhere but there. Between them on the floor in a golden cage sat Rambo, silent for now, no doubt deciding what he could say for maximum impact.

Stewie rose from the last chair and executed a deep bow, majestic in some kind of tribal robe and a huge feathered head dress.

Alice’s heart sank into the pit of her stomach. Much as she loved them all, the last thing she needed was an audience today.

Crossing the floor and ignoring the curious glances from other customers, she dropped into the last empty chair next to Niamh and smiled warily at her friend.

‘Niamh. What’s going on?’

‘Umm, I’m sorry,’ she said, pulling a face that said she understood, and that she was very, very sorry. ‘I just wanted to be here to support you and thought I’d, umm, you know … surprise you.’

Hazel leaned forward across Niamh’s lap.

‘We were just going to get the bus back to Borne when we spotted Niamh coming in here. Two minutes later and we’d never have seen her. How lucky is that?’

Alice flicked her eyes back to Niamh’s still desperately apologetic ones.

Stewie stood up and did a sort of twirl, hopping from foot to foot as if the floor were covered in hot coals.

‘What do you think, Alice, darling? The fancy dress shop next door to the vets were having a bit of a sale, couldn’t resist it. Actual eagle feathers, you know,’ he said, running his hand proudly over his headdress. ‘Possibly a bit much for the bank, but hey ho. Put the frighteners on that lot,’ he laughed, nodding towards the disapproving staff watching him from behind the safety of their glass screens.

‘They’d taken Rambo to the vets,’ Niamh added, as Alice looked doubtfully from Stewie to the birdcage.

‘Infection in one of his claws. Pus everywhere this morning.’ Hazel shuddered, and Alice wondered if it would completely scupper her chances with the bank manager if she threw up in the nearest plant pot. Between her nerves and Hazel’s talk of pus, she was beginning to feel distinctly green.

On that note, a door beside Stewie opened and a tall, bald man stepped out and looked down his long nose at the unlikely gathering.

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