Page 19

‘You really think I’m ready?’ Stevie’s slim fingers danced together at her throat.

‘ So ready.’ Temperance gave her a firm squeeze on the shoulder, picking up a subtle trace of quiet pride in the cable knit cardigan. A brief vision of library stacks and coffee cups. ‘This is vintage, isn’t it? Your cardigan, I mean.’

‘Oh, yes. It was my mom’s. She knew I’d always loved it, so she told my dad to give it to me for my first year of college.

She loved clothes, too, you know? All eras, all styles.

I think I get it from her. You have a great eye too, Temperance.

That’s why I’m so nervous about closing out this evening.

What if someone comes in and I let them buy a Biba original for the cost of a pasty, by mistake?

What if someone shoplifts a feather boa and I don’t notice? ’

Temperance smiled and pulled her canvas backpack onto her shoulders.

‘You’re going to be fine. Better than fine.

And when you run the floor, you can pick the playlist. I’m sure you want a break from Susie’s deep cut of Fleetwood Mac betrayal songs.

Go for something sunnier, maybe, like a funeral march. ’

‘I heard that!’ Susie came out from the office, her face loaded with a scowl. She was wearing ripped denim shorts over black fishnets, a man’s grey T-shirt tucked in at the waist.

‘You said you’re going for a hike, right?’ Stevie asked hesitantly.

‘Yup,’ Temperance replied quickly. ‘It’s something we Devon folk love to do. A long hike along the coastal path. For fun.’

‘So much fun,’ Susie deadpanned.

‘Yeah. We hike back at home too. But I usually break out the sweatpants and a pair of sturdy boots.’ Her eyes moved briefly to Temperance’s converse and away again. ‘Have a good one!’

‘We will,’ Temperance trilled back, looping her arm through Susie’s and practically dragging her out of the shop.

Ten minutes of huffing along the path towards the beach, Susie said sulkily, ‘I still don’t see why we couldn’t have just washed this stuff back at the shop like we normally do. Instead of me carrying a laundry basket’s worth of gear down to the beach and back.’

‘I explained why,’ Temperance tried to keep her voice upbeat, ‘because Stevie is bound to start asking questions if she sees us working through an industrial quantity of potpourri each week. And it’s a pain in the arse to keep clearing all our magic stuff away each night.

Besides, you desperately needed to get some fresh air. ’

‘What?!’

‘You’ve been glued to your laptop, making your little dossier against that company—’

‘The Beston Portfolio. Fuckers .’

‘Yup, them. I have never seen you put that much work into anything. Like, anything . You’ve not left the house except to do a surly shift at the pub, and even then you pulled a sicky after two hours.’

Susie stumbled on a loose stone and Temperance grabbed her by the arm, hauling her up again. ‘I was worried that if Mark walked in I wouldn’t be responsible for my actions. And Margie says blood is a right pain to get out of the carpet.’

‘Has he tried calling you again?’

‘Seems to have given up after four texts and three calls, thank God.’

‘Persistent.’

‘Clearly thought his little Casanova performance would have me bending over backwards. I’ll show him.

’ Susie snorted through her nose and wiped her hair out of her eyes.

She hated that it had taken a surprising amount of willpower not to answer Mark’s calls when they flashed up on her phone.

Half of her head wanted to scream obscenities down the line, but the other half was remembering that twenty minutes in the kitchen with him, how his eyes had stayed locked on her when they talked, how she’d never felt more like herself in a guy’s company.

How could that all be cleverly plotted crap?

! He must be a master bullshitter of the highest degree.

It was an overcast late afternoon in East Prawle: muggy, still air filled with annoying pockets of tiny flies and a strange sort of grey-yellow hue to the sky.

It wasn’t exactly the kind of weather to take her out of her funk, but she had to admit that just taking great big angry strides along an uphill walk was at least channelling some of her rage.

They reached a natural fork in the scrubby path: one route took you to the local beaches and the other took you further uphill, along the cliffside.

A heavy rustle to their left signalled someone else was nearby: usually a dog walker or family of holidaymakers with buckets and spades.

But in this case a white surfboard popped out from behind the trees, followed quickly by its daydreaming owner.

‘Oh, hi, Abe!’ Susie called out, and as Abel clocked who he was a metre from bumping into, the distant, dreamy look in his eyes hardened into something else, something sharper, and he stopped in his tracks. ‘You off down to the beach? We’re . . . uh . . . taking a picnic to Swift Cove.’

Abel’s head flicked between Susie, Temperance and his surfboard. ‘Yeah, I’m going for a surf. After a bit of a walk, though. I’m headed up there.’ He nodded up the steep path to the cliffs.

Temperance could practically hear the blood pumping in her ears as she swallowed a sticky feeling of hurt.

He couldn’t even bear to share the same five minute walk with her.

He would rather make up a blatant lie and sweat his way up an incline for twenty minutes.

Carrying a goddamn surfboard! The curl of hurt hardened into a stone of anger.

‘Makes total sense. Enjoy your walk,’ she spat.

Before she’d even finished speaking, he was headed up and away from them.

After another ten minutes of angrily marching, whacking away any stray brambles that dared get to close, Temperance burst out, ‘ WHO goes walking with a surfboard?! Could he not think of a smoother way to dodge me? There’s you avoiding Mark, and Abel avoiding me .

The full spectrum of man trouble in one little village. God!’ she seethed.

‘What do you mean?’

Temperance ran her hands over her hair and down her thick ponytail, pulling it tight.

‘You didn’t buy that, surely? He just can’t bear to breathe the same air as me.

It’s painfully obvious. In the couple of days since the party, he’s run straight to the kitchen whenever I’ve been in the pub, and as I came out of the café this morning I’m pretty sure he ducked behind the bus shelter to avoid me. ’

Susie bit her lip. ‘Maybe that wasn’t him. Maybe it was . . . um.’

‘It was him. He obviously regrets the dance. He found it gross that I fancied him at seventeen and he still finds the thought of me in any sort of . . . romantic way totally disgusting. Clearly. And that’s fine.’

‘Hey!’ Susie grabbed for Temperance’s hand and spun her round. ‘It’s not fine! No one could find you gross – you’re a goddamn siren. It’s not your fault he went away someone cool and came back a massive bell end. That’s no reflection on you , Tee. Just that he’s a bit of an arsehole now.’

Temperance shook her head, some stray loose hairs stuck against the back of her neck in the close weather.

‘It’s like I haven’t grown up at all from being a lovesick teenager.

He was so sweet with the kids at the fairy circle, and he’s being all protective of Margie while he’s here. And then on the dance floor . . .’

‘What?’

‘The connection I felt,’ something prickled deep in her heart, like it was waking up with pins and needles after a long sleep, ‘seemed so real.’ She took her hand back from her sister’s grip.

‘But it was the costume. Putting me in a trance. Along with all the mead, ugh. Someone else’s love story had me fooled that I was dancing into one of my own.

I’ve been so obsessed with tripping over The One that I convinced myself I .

. . God, I must have looked so pathetic to him. Not that I care.’

They set off walking again, in an uneasy silence.

‘It’s good that we don’t care, about either of them,’ Susie said flatly, the sound of waves interrupting her as they rounded the path to the top of Swift Cove.

You couldn’t walk around to Swift Cove from the next beach along, or land a boat there as the waves were too rough much of the time, meaning they could safely count on it being deserted.

‘You get some rocks, I’ll start digging.’ Temperance started unpacking the tarpaulin and small plastic shovel from her backpack when they reached the sand, leaving the paper bags of herbs and flowers inside until the bath was ready.

‘Roger.’ Susie moved with a little more of her natural bounce towards the cave at the back of the beach, searching out some big stones that were still light enough to carry.

After about twenty minutes, the sisters had a big hole in the sand lined with tarpaulin and rocks, and had dug a small channel in from the sea so that it filled up with water.

‘Perfect.’ Temperance dusted the sand from her hands. ‘Let’s start with that really sad black silk shirt.’

‘Definite funeral vibes.’ Susie nodded, opening her bag and gently floating the woman’s blouse away from the top of the pile using her powers.

It was beautifully cut, liquid-like silk, but it also echoed with a deep sense of longing and loss as it dropped into Susie’s hands.

She shivered as she pressed it down into the sea water.

She could see drawn curtains, a barely touched buffet, polished black shoes , tissues scrunched nervously in a pocket .

‘Plenty of rue for this one.’

Temperance passed her sister a paper bag of rue. Susie closed her eyes, dipped her hand in and felt the paper-like dried flowers tickle her palm, the familiar tingling sensation beginning .

The pain has ended . All the goodbyes have been said. We release the burden: we set it free .