Page 76 of All Summer Long

‘Alice McBride?’ he said, and Alice crossed her fingers in desperation as she got to her feet, her business plan clutched to her chest.

‘That’s me,’ she said, with a tiny, brave smile and an even tinier wave of acknowledgement. She walked past the world’s most unlikely police suspect line-up, nodding at each of them as she passed, praying none of them said a word. They did her proud down to the last man; it was just a shame that the same could not be said of Rambo, who timed his moment to mimic Hazel to perfection as always.

‘Come here, handsome, let me rub your big, bald head!’

The bank fell completely silent, and no one moved aside from Stewie who slowly removed his feather headdress and stroked a proud hand over his shiny pink head. Hazel had made it clear on several occasions that she found it a wild turn on and had set a special duster aside to buff him up in what some might consider a bizarre form of foreplay. It had clearly made quite an impact on Rambo, and now on the staff and customers of Bibbs & Downey too.

Ewan’s shoulders shook as he tried to hold his laughter in, Hazel went scarlet and threw herself bodily over the cage to prevent the bird from revealing any more of her secrets, and Niamh mouthed sorry over and over as Alice walked slowly towards the glowering bank manager. She felt about thirteen years old, dragging her feet after being sent to the headmaster’s office. Stewie, completely unfazed, buffed his head with his handkerchief and then offered it to the equally bald man standing stiffly beside him.

Alice grabbed it and thrust it back at Stewie, then smiled broadly at the clearly outraged bank manager, who eyed Stewie through narrowed eyes, and then stepped inside his office and indicated for Alice to follow him and close the door.

‘I’m so sorry about my neighbours,’ she said quietly, ‘they didn’t mean to offend you. They’re really very nice when you get to …’ she trailed off, remembering back to the words Robinson had said right after he hit Brad live onLorraine. Never miss a good chance to shut up. Never had a phrase been more apt, so Alice sat down at the desk opposite the bank manager and swallowed hard. This was it.

‘He couldn’t evenpronouncethe word glamping,’ Alice said to Niamh an hour or so later, turning dejectedly back into the drive of Borne Manor. ‘He thought I’d made a spelling mistake.’

‘Surely he loved all of your photos though, and the brochure?’

Alice huffed and shook her head. She and Niamh had spent days poring over the hundreds of shots Alice had taken as the glampsite had taken shape, choosing only the very best ones to go in to the business plan as photographic evidence of the hard work involved and the viability of the project. They’d produced a glossy specimen brochure selling the romantic, fairytale aspect of the site; it was a great shame then that the man in charge of deciding whether or not to fund them seemed to be a strong candidate for the world’s least romantic man. He’d looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language when she’d talked of honeymoon love nests and romantic tree house holidays, and he’d actually shuddered at the sight of Banjo and the gypsy caravan. As the meeting progressed it had become more and more clear to Alice that the only way this man was going to green-light funding was if he had a complete personality transplant while he mulled on his decision over the weekend.

‘Maybe we could slip some of Hazel’s love potion into his tea,’ Niamh suggested, her eyes full of sympathy as they climbed out of the car.

Alice searched her bag for her house keys to unlock the front door. ‘I should think she’s used it all up on Stewie.’

‘You should have seen them when you were in with the manager,’ Niamh laughed. ‘He lifted her off Rambo’s cage when you’d gone into the meeting and handed her his hankie to buff his head to calm her down.’

‘Did it work?’

Niamh shuddered. ‘In a way. She wasn’t embarrassed any more. More, err … excited.’

Alice paused, startled. ‘Excited?’

‘Like, she was going to strip off and shout “do me now, my big bald lover” at any moment. It’s a good job their bus was due or they’d have got themselves thrown out, along with any hopes of funding for you, probably.’

‘Oh, I think I’ve managed to blow that all on my own,’ Alice sighed, pulling the keys from her bag at last along with her flashing mobile. Unlocking the door and pushing it open, she led the way inside her beloved manor and hoped for a miracle to help her keep it.

‘Wine? I think we’ve earned it.’

They didn’t bother with the wine, as it turned out. The first thing Alice saw when she walked into the kitchen was the mess all over the window, bright red sprayed letters that could be clearly read, even backwards. She gasped and fumbled to unlock the door, running outside to look at what had happened. BITCH. Someone had sprayed the kitchen window, and the glass doors leading into the lounge too in the same huge, abusive scarlet letters.

‘Who …?’

‘What the …?’

Both Alice and Niamh stood and stared at the mess, horrified.

‘Brad?’ Niamh suggested.

Alice sat down on the bench at the back of the house, mortified. ‘I don’t know. God, I just don’t know.’ Despite Brad’s many faults, it just didn’t seem his style of trouble. As she stared ahead, a flash of red on the trees caught her eye.

‘Oh God, Niamh, there’s more …’

She was up and running for the tree line as she spoke, stumbling in her stupid high heels so much that she flung them off. More red paint on the trees in the woods, haphazard flashes leading her deeper in.

‘Oh no,’ she said, her heart pounding as the Airstream came into sight.

WHORE.

‘Shit.’ Niamh caught her up and put an arm around Alice’s shoulders as they looked in horror at the caravan, now daubed on all sides with huge, ugly blood red insults.

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