Page 24

‘More hiking, so soon?! Wow, you guys really look the part this time.’ Stevie gave a cheeky little thumbs up from behind the cash desk.

Temperance closed the shop door gently behind her and felt something gritty under her feet. Weird. When she looked down there was a thin line of bright white powder running across the shop floor.

‘Yup we really . . . caught the bug the other day. Stevie, did something get spilled over here? It looks like sugar, maybe? Or salt.’

Stevie had her fingers steepled under her chin, her eyes trained on Temperance’s boots. ‘Oh really? Um, I can sweep it up. If it’s causing you a problem?’ She bit her lip.

‘No worries, I’ll do it in a sec. So anyway, we’re off somewhere a bit further afield. For a . . . challenge. Thanks again for watching the shop solo. It should be a nice, quiet day. Nobody will mind if you want to read a book back here.’ Temperance smiled.

Temperance could feel the laces of her mum’s boots pressing into the top of her feet.

This ‘F’ sounded confident enough in their advice, but should Temperance really trust someone so explicitly when she’d never met them?

On the other hand, what choice did she have but go on this mad ramble?

Susie was fully onboard to try the sedative route on Mark, specifically his leather jacket.

If there was anything to take a gamble on, it was keeping East Prawle in one piece, after all.

So here she was, in her old camouflage tracksuit from her short-lived leisurewear phase, her mum’s boots starting to cut off circulation below her ankles and somehow she was ready to go foraging.

She felt like a witchy Bear Grylls.

Stevie hopped off the stool and came around to the shop floor. ‘Cool, thanks. A few eBay listings are coming to an end, so I need to watch those. By the way, bit of a random question, but do you guys go to church?’ Stevie looked her dead in the eye.

Temperance almost choked. ‘Church?! Um, no, that’s .

. . not for us. Why?!’ She quickly pulled her composure together.

‘I mean, if you want to start going, we could find out the service times for you. We have a tiny church here, but to be honest I only ever went inside to go to nursery there. A long time ago.’

A memory popped into Temperance’s head, as clear in her mind’s eye as if she was gripping a pair of her childhood dungarees.

One of those memories that was impossibly huge considering she was so tiny when she made it.

The first day she’d gone to the playgroup, having just turned four, Temperance had clung on to a very pregnant Lee’s leg.

‘Don’t want to! Please! I’ll stay home with you!

’ Fat tears plopped out of Temperance’s eyes and onto Lee’s jeans.

‘Oh sweetie. I’m just so tired. Mummy needs to have lots of naps before your baby sister comes.

But I’ll be back at 2pm to pick you up, OK?

Besides, there are lots of kids here, see?

’ Lee pointed to the six or so children careering around the church, pushing toy diggers along the pews and playing with dollies beneath the small stained-glass windows.

‘It’s really fun,’ the vicar’s wife knelt down to say. ‘And we have snack time soon. A biscuit and some squash. You could help me put out the cups.’

Lee saw her opportunity at the word ‘biscuit’ and prised off each one of Temperance’s pudgy fingers, before waving and beating a swift retreat to the door.

Temperance’s little eyes flicked around the scene – the loud children, the stuffy smell, the vicar’s wife grinning at her, a little bit of lipstick caught on her teeth.

‘Noooooooo!’ she wailed, and ran off to hide behind thick velvet curtains.

That’s where Temperance found the box of Play-Doh. And where, twenty minutes later, a five-year-old boy found Temperance, a chunk of dough with very noticeable bite marks held in her hands.

‘It’s not real food,’ he said kindly.

Just then, the curtain was pushed back and Temperance’s hideout was flooded with light. ‘What’s going on here, then?’ the vicar’s wife asked, looking at Temperance, whose face was going blotchy with pink patches of burning shame.

Behind the woman’s back, the boy stuck his finger in one of the other Play-Doh pots and rubbed it on his gums. ‘We were eating it,’ he said loudly, showing flecks of bright blue in his teeth.

‘Goodness!’ the woman snapped. ‘You hooligans! It’s not for eating! And it’s extremely dear. I shall have to tell your parents about this!’ She grunted out a breath .

Tears filled Temperance’s eyes, but she wouldn’t look at the vicar’s wife. She fixed her gaze on the little boy with the blue smile.

That was the first time she met Abel.

‘I’m not a churchy person either,’ Suzie pulled her back to the here and now, ‘I was . . . um, just wondering if religion was a big deal to you. And I’m .

. . um, interested if it’s an essential English thing that I’m missing out on.

’ She squinted at Temperance slightly, watching her face closely for any sort of reaction.

‘Not so much for us.’

‘Right. Right. Hey, I also wanted to ask,’ she swallowed, ‘about your merchandising system?’

‘OK.’ Temperance shook the rose-tinted nostalgia from her head. That kind of soppiness wouldn’t help anyone right now.

‘Like – what is it? Because you’ve got sizes all mixed; colours, seasons, fabrics – all mixed. So . . . what’s up with that? It’s like no vintage store I have ever come across. And I’ve been in a lot.’

Temperance gave a hollow laugh as she skirted her eyes around the shop, desperately hoping a neat explanation would jump out and tidy things up for her. ‘Well. Yes. That is interesting that you should ask that . . .’

‘I’m not criticising,’ Stevie rushed on to say.

‘But in terms of shopper experience, it’s quite a hard job to browse around without much flow .

For example, I’m going from,’ she walked her fingers along the wooden hangers on the rail nearest her, ‘a suit vest to some red velvet hotpants to . . . what’s this .

. . a Liberty maxi skirt. A unique mix, you know? ’

‘We’re, um, a pretty unique shop!’ Temperance kept her voice bouncy, aware she wasn’t really answering any of Stevie’s questions.

Stevie suddenly stepped forward and lowered her voice. ‘I could rearrange it for you. The whole shop floor. By era or by size – you choose. I can have it done like that,’ she snapped her fingers. ‘And frankly it would help me sleep better at night. Like, a whole lot better.’

‘That’s a big job for your first few weeks, I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.’

‘Please?!’ Stevie squeaked.

‘Honestly, you know, it’s the way my mum likes it and I don’t want to mess with that. Not without her around.’

Stevie’s chin dipped down and she went back to her post by the till.

How could Temperance tell her that what looked like a bomb of fashion had been let off in Try Again was actually a very finely honed magical system?

The clothes that had come in and received the Molland brand of deep cleaning were racked on the left side of the shop: the entirely clean, almost-new-again clothes.

But on the right side were the garments that had come in with shiny, happy memories.

Lee and her girls loved to send out these hats, skirts and suits into the world with new owners who could unknowingly enjoy their glow of second-hand joy for years to come.

They grouped these clothes by their feelings: romantic tops with loved-up slacks; excited handbags next to optimistic day dresses; confidence boosting boob-tubes with empowered espadrilles.

And the Mollands knew just how to matchmake their shoppers with their shiny, happy things: an exhausted-looking parent who’d had a sleepless night of sweaty camping could be steered towards a belt that would help pull them together with a touch of swagger, or the local teen nervously anticipating their first-ever job interview who needed not only a smart suit jacket but a subliminal boost of Bad Ass confidence.

There was a system here, just one that only the Mollands could see.

Temperance sighed. ‘Susie will be back any minute with the car, so I’d better head out and wait for her. Give me a call if there any problems, OK?’

‘Sure.’ Stevie gave a half-hearted wave. She watched Temperance walk over the green and then fetched the broom from the office. With a few sweeps, the salt line she’d carefully sprinkled earlier was all cleaned away. It certainly didn’t seem to cause a problem to Temperance.

Interesting . But it doesn’t explain everything .

Stevie went and placed both hands on an enormous orange faux-fur coat.

She kept her hold and closed her eyes, in the best imitation she could manage.

Temperance didn’t realise it, but Stevie had seen her a handful of times now, touching some of the garments with an almost reverential, spiritual air about her, and in total silence.

Like she was listening for something. But even though Stevie let her fingers sink into the deep pile for a good ten minutes, she couldn’t hear a thing.

With a sigh, she went back to her work.

‘Wine gums?’ Temperance asked.

‘Naturally. Glove box.’

Temperance rustled open the packet and offered it to her sister, who was keeping her eyes on the road in the driver’s seat. Susie took a handful and knocked them back. ‘Mhm. I love the first mouthful when wine gums are still delicious. Three more chews and they’ll be disgustingly sickly.’

‘Not that that would stop us ruining this whole bag.’

‘True. Oh.’ Susie slowed down, joining the end of what looked like a long tail-back on a narrow county lane lined with thick hedgerows. ‘Balls.’

‘I wonder what’s going on?’ Temperance asked no one in particular. ‘It’s not changeover day.’

Susie raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m sure it will pass soon.’