Page 28

It had been the most perfect summer Saturday.

Temperance, Abel and some friends from their gang of bored teens – Clara, Helen and Tim – decided to sneak off to the granny flat that Tim’s parents rented out in high season.

And that they hadn’t realised granny had left stocked with booze when she passed.

They giggled and swigged their way through mouthfuls of apple brandy, bad red wine and something with a homemade label that stripped Abel’s nose hairs when he took a sniff. Feeling pretty pissed and cocky, they set their sights on something bigger.

‘Let’s go out ,’ Helen said.

‘Really out out. Like out in Salcombe,’ Clara chimed in.

Tim agreed: ‘Yeah!’

He could never decide which girl he fancied more so he kept his efforts nice and even.

‘But we might not get served: I’m not eighteen just yet. I only managed two rounds in The Fort before they busted me that other time,’ Abel said. ‘And someone might recognise us over there and shop us. I don’t want my mum to kill me before I reach actual adulthood.’

Temperance laughed into the back of her hand, ending with a wet snort of hilarity that caught on around the group.

‘What? What are you thinking, Tee? ’

‘Disguises,’ she managed to say through her laughter.

So while Lee had shut up for lunch and taken eleven-year-old Susie back home with her, Temperance and her mates had sneaked in to Try Again to perfect their ‘over-twenty-one strangers from out of town’ looks. It quickly got out of hand.

When they reached Salcombe, emboldened by sneaky booze and a 1950s tweed suit, Temperance Molland burst into The Fortesque pub, strode up to the bar, slammed her briefcase on a stool and demanded ‘Five pints of Guinness, please!’, stroking her glued-on moustache.

Behind her, Clara and Helen wore fake fur stoles and long ropes of plastic pearls, while Tim proudly bore an eighties ski jacket in fluro colours.

Abel’s suit was four inches too short in the leg and uncomfortably tight around the chest. ‘We’ll get a table,’ he said gravelly into Temperance’s ear and it sent a weird and new shiver down the side of her neck.

The twenty-something barman waited until the others had sat down, before he leant over the bar to speak to Temperance in a hushed whisper. ‘Don’t suppose there’s any ID in there?’ He nodded to the well-used briefcase, which probably hadn’t been out in the world for a good twenty years.

‘No need, my good man!’ she said in her best Brian Blessed impression. ‘My acquaintances and I are all over twenty-one and in much need of fresh liberation!’

‘Libation?’

‘Exactly so!’

The barman ran his hand through his thick blonde hair. ‘Being an adult with finer tastes, I hate to tell you that our Guiness is off tonight. But what I can offer you is five lemonades. Good sir.’

‘Well, I . . . er . . . yes, we’ll have those, please and thank you.’ Temperance doffed an invisible cap, her vision swaying all over the place. It was hot in this suit and nylon moustache.

She carried the drinks tray over and the others giggled, but with diminished gusto.

‘Maybe we should just leave,’ Abel offered.

‘When we’ve come all this way?’ Clara protested. ‘I’d rather drink lemonade in a pub as a grown-up than drink it on the green like a kid.’

‘Quite!’ Temperance twirled the end of her moustache, and it fell off in her hands.

Abel stuttered a laugh. ‘Lemonade it is, my good fellows!’

They spent a very happy hour in The Fort that afternoon, playing Rihanna on the jukebox on repeat, having two rounds of ‘vodka and soda’ and throwing darts.

But they sadly couldn’t club together enough money for any kind of food.

The heat under their layers of disguise burbled at their very liquid, very mixed stomach contents.

Temperance went green.

Abel went white.

‘Are you going to . . .?’

‘Are you . . .?’

Temperance broke first, yanking open the briefcase and emptying her entire stomach contents onto the green silk lining.

‘I’m mortified ,’ Temperance said to the barman, as he put the coffees down in front of her.

‘Really, don’t be.’

‘ A moustache, though ? ! I’ll promise to forget it forever if you will. And then it dies with us, hopefully.’

‘But there’s your man there, too.’ The barman nodded in Abel’s direction.

‘He won’t remember. He barely remembers my name.’

He leant to one side, against a pillar. ‘That’s not how he told it to me earlier.

Rumbled him too, didn’t I? Seeing the two of you together is what brought it back – a right striking couple.

Anyway, your man said he spent hours scrubbing the inside of that briefcase the next day, so your mum would calm down a bit. ’

‘Oh. Yeah. Still, he’s not my man and it was a long time ago. We were just idiot teenagers.’

‘Ah, but those are the things that shape you, don’t you think? Even if they were idiotic. Or maybe especially if they were.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now then, you need to get one of these to that mate of yours. He’s not doing well, is he?’

‘God, yes. I’m Temperance, by the way.’

‘Jimmy.’

‘Pleased to meet you again, Jimmy. My good sir.’ She tipped an invisible hat and carefully carried the full tray of hot drinks away.

After two steps, Abel was by her side. ‘I can take that.’ He put his hands under the tray but Temperance didn’t pull away.

‘Thanks but I’m fine.’

‘Really.’

‘No, really .’ She shook her head firmly, her curls dancing in front of her face.

He pulled gently but instantly on the tray. ‘Please. What do you imagine Mum or Gran would say if they knew I let you carry a full try like this? My hurdling hero status is on the line.’

Temperance couldn’t quite see him clearly through the brunette curtain over her vision, so she couldn’t be sure how tongue-in-cheek he was being.

From the range of Abels she’d seen over the last few days, he could be either wryly self-deprecating or stone-cold arrogant.

She decided for the sake of their weird little drinks party to hope it was the first one.

‘OK. Thanks, then.’

As he took the weight of the tray from her and she pulled back slowly, she felt his fingertips catch against the inside of her wrist. Temperance hated herself for the jiggle above her diaphragm that betrayed her every time she came into contact with Abel Gulliver.

If only you were a pullover, or a pair of pyjamas, Abel. Then I could read you and find out what the hell is going on in your head .

Out on the street, Mark took in a big lungful of crisp, salty air. ‘Ooof. We really should have had that dinner, Susie. I had this project I was going to tell you allllll about, very exciting, might have . . . we’re all pissed, yeah? It’s not just me?’

‘Hmm,’ Abel managed, making a non-committal grunt.

‘No, no, I’m feeling it too. And so cold .’ Susie did a pantomime shiver, running her fingers up and down her crossed arms.

Mark blinked a lot. Then the penny dropped. ‘God, have my jacket! Of course!’ He slipped it off and onto Susie’s waiting shoulders.

‘What a gent ,’ she said with chocolate-dipped venom. ‘Night then! Tee, Abel: shall we?’

‘Well, uh,’ Abel looked from Mark’s weaving figure and back to Susie, ‘I think I’ll just take a walk with Mark, see him home, stretch the legs. No need to wait for me.’

‘But we’ve got the last water taxi booked,’ Temperance broke in. ‘After that, you’ll have to get a regular taxi all the way around the headland. ’

‘No worries. I’m fine.’

‘Of course you are.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ It could have been the sea breeze playing tricks on her ears, but his voice almost sounded hurt.

‘Nothing.’

‘Good.’

She should have left it there. Temperance knew she should.

But talking to Abel Gulliver was like scratching a scab.

It wouldn’t help things heal over, it wouldn’t make anything better, and ultimately it would only mean a pitted, unpleasant scar left behind, but she just had to know if the fresh, shiny version of Abel from her memories was hiding under this crusty, unpleasant exterior.

‘Yes, God forbid you let anyone help you save an hour of your time and fifty quid, just to get you back to our sad little village.’

He blew out through his nose, his lips forced together tightly.

‘I have never said . . . Ah, look,’ he grunted and Temperance could almost see the countdown of numbers rolling through his head as he forced himself to stay civil.

That’s how much her world had shifted on its axis since the day he left: just a few feet away from where they stood, she had had some of her best teenage memories hanging out with Abel, and yet, right now, on this neighbouring spot, she was being given every sign that she was the last person he wanted to be in proximity of.

‘Don’t assume you know what I need, Temperance,’ he said cooly.

The sharp jab of his words actually made her eyes water a little bit. She rapidly blinked it away. ‘Why would I? I hardly know you.’

‘Ooooooh.’ Mark breathed sambuca fumes across them all. ‘Trouble in paradise, is it? ’

Abel turned away to catch Mark as he lurched worryingly close to the harbour wall. ‘Definitely need to get you home, buddy.’

Mark’s eyes, glassy and hooded, did their best to focus on the scene at hand. ‘I think we’ve got one more drink in us, eh? Suse – let’s not end the night here.’ His arm swung out across the nighttime vista of bobbing boats in the sea, the tiny lights of East Portlemouth visible over the estuary.

Susie wasn’t even bothering to make eye contact with him now. Her patience had well and truly worn out. ‘I don’t think the RNLI boat serves drinks,’ she muttered.

‘But on such a beautiful night,’ Mark sing-songed, ‘we should drink, we should dance, we should talk about our passions in life. Tell me about your village, Suse; tell me about the people, the pub, the gorgeous rolling fields down to the sea . . .’

Everything in Susie’s body went rigid and for a moment Temperance was worried she was going to have to hold her sister back from doing some actual bodily harm.

‘We’ve got to get that taxi, remember, Suse?’ she nudged.

‘Yes. GoodNIGHT,’ Susie snapped, clutching Temperance’s hand and marching off to the moorings, the jacket held tightly around her.