Page 34

He cleared his throat, then ran his tongue over his teeth. ‘Gran has decided that her birthday barbeque will have a theme: purple. You know, like the poem about getting old and not giving a shit, wearing purple and eating sausages.’

‘Ohh. I remember that from school.’

‘Me too. It was the kind of thing Miss McKenna could recite off the top of her head, walking about the classroom with chalk smudges on her sleeves, remember?’ It was as if he’d forgotten himself again, sharing an old memory, and after a beat he cleared his throat and went on.

‘Anyway, as she’s decided with only a few days to go, I don’t have time to get to Kingsbridge around my pub shifts. So . . .’

‘So . . .?’

‘Here I am. For something purple.’ He shrugged. ‘Preferably something subtle.’

If this is the doom, it’s got a really creative sense of how to mess up my day . ‘I’m sure I can find you something. Subtle.’

He nodded. ‘Thanks. And Gran said to tell you she’s a modern eight, but an old-school ten, whatever that means. Mum’s a bit bigger, I’d say.’

‘Oh – so you’re shopping for your mum too? You’re going to be busy.’

A blip of panic made his eyes go wide. ‘I was hoping you could . . . if you might be able to . . .’

Temperance decided she might as well enjoy the chance to make Abel feel as uncomfortable as he’d made her feel since he’d set foot in East Prawl again. Albeit gently.

‘Hmm?’ She raised her eyebrows with a quizzical lilt, as if she had no inkling at all of what he was after.

‘. . . help me ?’

She nodded. ‘We have some purple. Let me pull up some options and you can choose. Ahh!’ Her eyes lit up, piercing the neutral ‘not bothered’ expression she was aiming for.

‘We actually have just the thing for Margie, only arrived a few months back. It is classy, yet glam, and takes no prisoners.’ Temperance went to the rails on the lefthand side of the store, flicking through hangers at an excited pace.

‘It sounds like Gran,’ Abel replied tentatively.

‘Here!’ Temperance pulled it out with a flourish. A cocktail dress in a rich, plummy purple, lace overlaid on a satin sheaf, three-quarter sleeves and a fitted pencil skirt. ‘Going by the label, it’s early sixties and would have been made bespoke for the woman who wore it.’

Her heart sank a little as she remembered the memories this particular dress had carried when it came to Try Again: glimmers of cheerful resilience skirting around a deep disappointment.

Temperance had felt it and seen a very fancy dinner, a table at somewhere like The Ritz, with candles and music and a buzz of anticipation.

The woman in the dress expected a proposal – but it never came.

It had felt like a personal mission to strip away that memory and Temperance carried out the task with extra care and patience.

Now all that remained was an absolute killer dress that was ready for a new adventure .

‘It might be a bit loose in the hips for Margie, but she’s got to try it on at least!’ Temperance held the dress up against herself, leaning back on one heel to take in the juicy sex appeal of the thing.

Abel studied it carefully. ‘Agreed.’

Sheesh . Temperance felt like she’d presented him with the crown jewels and he was thanking her like it was a plastic party tiara. Maybe she should have done that tacky sales patter of offering two crappy things before the good one, so he was too bored/tired/deflated to say no.

‘As it is a one-off, and almost fifty years old, it’s pretty pricey, I should say.’

A huff escaped his nose as he looked out the window. ‘That’s fine. Gran’s sorted. How about my mum?’

Not exactly an overwhelming moment of gratitude, but Temperance chose to feel good about having one significant sale in the bag today, at any rate.

‘Your mum, OK. If I remember it, she’s a bit less showy in her style than your gran .

. .’ She tapped her chin and walked around the shop, Abel stepping back to let her past. ‘It’ll be nice to see her again, anyway.

I always expected her to drop in and see Margie now and again—’

Abel cut across. ‘Mum liked the new start in Bath. It suits her. The property management business keeps us both really busy, and we have Gran up to stay sometimes. East Prawle was never really the same for Mum once my dad left, not that I can remember much difference. She’s not from here – he was.

So there were no real ties.’ He shrugged one shoulder, his eyes still trained on the green outside the window.

‘Of course.’ Temperance watched him under her lashes, her head ostensibly dipped to explore the rails. He said it all so calmly, without a flicker of emotion on his face – detaching himself from his hometown. She just didn’t understand how that could be.

After a few minutes, she found a lilac mohair jumper from the eighties, but that didn’t seem to be a great match for a summer barbeque.

The grape-coloured nineties T-shirt that said ‘ladette’ in block letters also got instantly benched.

‘So we don’t want a cord; linen is preferable but it doesn’t wear well after a decade so we don’t carry all that much .

. . maybe a denim,’ she mumbled to herself, falling into a sort of styling trance. ‘I think I remember . . . aha.’

Lee found it really hard to say no to any of the jeans and denim jackets that wound their way to Try Again – even if the Mollands had run out of space to display them.

Denim could have such a long, hard life and each crease or badge or tear only added to its unique beauty.

It could hold complex layers of emotion and could take a hardcore cleansing when it needed, and still come out unscathed.

So underneath the hanging rails were battered suitcases and wicket baskets and even an old bureau drawer full of jeans – skinny, flared, intentionally ripped and accidentally so.

‘Give me a hand?’ Temperance asked, already having wriggled out a heavy old suitcase and now busy rifling through the rolled-up jeans inside.

‘Uh, sure.’ Abel picked the wicker basket furthest from Temperance – of course – and pulled it out onto the shopfloor in one fluid motion. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘I know we had a very dark purple pair of jeans – a noughties bootcut, I think. Nothing too radical and your mum could dress it up or down.’

‘OK.’ He crouched down on his heels. ‘Dress it up or down – I never know what that means. It’s . . . baffling. Do they take girls aside at Brownies or something to explain it?’

Temperance laughed, passing over some inky black loons. ‘What are you on about?’

‘I get how something can look fancier – with jewellery or whatever. But what is dressing down ? Going out in an old stained T-shirt that needs a wash? And why even would you want to look more ‘down’?

It was almost the most Temperance had heard Abel spontaneously say in one breath since he came back to the village.

It was most like the ‘old’ Abel she had seen in a long time.

Like how he’d always try to chat nonsense to the school bus driver, Lily, on the drive back to the village in secondary school.

Just to make the same old journey that bit more interesting for her.

He wasn’t as bothered in Lily’s racing pigeons as he made out, but she never twigged in all those years.

But after what he’d just said about having no real ties to East Prawle anymore, Temperance felt dizzy with the contrast in these two opposing sides to Abel Gulliver.

‘So I take it your girlfriend never dresses down then? Always a blow dry and a string of pearls on the go? I bet she doesn’t buy her jeans from an old suitcase,’ she teased.

Abel stood suddenly and dusted off his hands. ‘Probably not.’

Temperance felt her throat go sticky. She knew she shouldn’t go down this route – she knew it would only make her feel worse – but Abel’s girlfriend was the spot she was going to have to scratch.

There was so much about his life that was an utter mystery, and now that she had the chance to get some answers, she wasn’t going to pass it up.

Even if the curiosity put her heart six feet under .

‘What’s she like? How long, um, have you guys been together?’ She aimed for nonchalance as she kept searching for the purple jeans, her hands now clammy.

‘Not long,’ Abel replied in an even tone. ‘Just a few weeks. Maybe two, officially,’ he finished.

Temperance nodded. ‘Cool.’

Abel rubbed his palms against one another. ‘I’m not really into relationships. Not long-term ones. Cass knows that.’

Steady on, Casanova . Temperance allowed herself a kernel of bitterness. Just a little one.

Abel leant down and pointed over her shoulder. ‘Those look purple, right?’

‘Yes. That’s them. And of course your mum could come and switch them for something else if they’re not for her.’ She stood up, hit suddenly by his scent. Toast, honey and the tang of seawater. Temperance swallowed. ‘No hard feelings between old friends.’ Her eyes locked with his.

Abel ran a hand over his head and left it resting at the back of his neck. ‘So . . . about me.’

‘Yes?’ Temperance found she was holding her breath.

Was he finally going to clear the air about making the greatest of all French exits all those years ago?

Was he going to say it had all been a stupid, impulsive mistake and he realised now – now he was so very grown up at thirty – how much he hurt her and how sorry he was?

‘So . . . I need something too.’

‘You do?’ She felt her lungs contract.

Abel creased his brow. ‘Yeah. A purple thing? Gran won’t let me off the hook. I did try and get out of it.’