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‘Christ, Mum, you scared me!’ Temperance felt her heartbeat in her ears. ‘What are you doing here? I’m pretty sure I’m opening up today.’

Lee stood up from the barstool by the sales desk and brushed off her black jeans. ‘It is, but I wanted to bring you this and tidy up a few bits of paperwork.’ She pushed a Piglet takeaway cup towards her daughter.

‘Hang on,’ Temperance looked down at the cup and the paper bag next to it. ‘A coffee and a bacon bap that isn’t from home? When you always say Matt’s prices are a rip-off only fit for the grockles?’

‘Sshh!’ Lee’s steely grey eyebrows lowered. She’d gone fully grey at twenty-five, the same week she discovered she was pregnant with Temperance, and had never thought to dye her hair. Instead, she embraced the layered tones of silver, slate and white that now ran through her long hair, and it offset her grungy dress sense perfectly. ‘You know these walls are basically cardboard – he’ll hear you! Can’t I treat you every now and then?’

It seemed to Temperance that her mother was about as skilled at hiding her ulterior motives as her sister was. Twice in one morning she’d been showered with gifts of hot drinks (though, luckily, not literally) and she’d put good money that this piping hot flat white was just an obvious a bribe as Susie’s tea had been.

She spoke in just above a whisper: ‘You could just as easily have made me this in our kitchen and walked it over. What gives?’

Lee folded her arms over her black-and-white striped T-shirt. ‘Nope. You are wearing your classic “Help me, I’m doomed!” outfit, so you tell me first: what’s up with you? You can’t claim they’re just clothes, Temp, we both know that’s never true. Tell me: I can help.’

Temperance powered up the till. ‘Honestly, it’s no big deal. Just a bad date. Another bad date. Life goes on, right?’ She gulped down some coffee and tried not to wince as it scorched her throat.

‘Oh, my little water parsnip, I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Only if our family powers can also exorcise bad memories from your head, rather than just your jeans.’

Lee came around and hugged her daughter. ‘Sorry, no. Just threads. But I can give what you were wearing the once-over, if you like? At least then a good cardi isn’t wasted on a disappointing man. Too many have been, in my experience.’

Temperance tidied the pens into their pot and checked the till roll. ‘Already put it in for a soak. Soon there will be no more bad date energy. I’m over it.’ She gave a flat kind of smile. ‘So that’s my news winkled out of me. Do I have to get a chip fork to extract yours?’

Lee drummed her short, bright red nails on the glass counter. Underneath the glass were things she had rescued from pockets over the years: a bus ticket from 1973, half a handwritten best man’s speech (luckily any filthy jokes had been lost with the top half), a Hello Kitty scrunchie, one sage green knitted baby bootie and coins from every corner of the globe. Lee had started this mini museum to the lost and found, and over the years her daughters had slipped in seashells they liked or ‘Good Effort’ stickers from school. Nothing had been edited or removed: it was life in a snapshot. Small, messy, important.

‘I do have a bit of news, as it goes. Something good for me. And good for you, too.’

But Temperance could see her mum’s face wasn’t exactly beaming at this double bubble of goodness. If anything, she had a slight grey shadow under each eye and had forgotten her trademark lipstick this morning.

‘Ohh-kay,’ she said tentatively.

‘The film contract I was offered. That was supposed to start in October? They’ve brought it forward,’ Lee said, calmly. The offer to help kit out a movie’s wardrobe with genuine sixties and seventies pieces had been too good to turn down, even if it meant working abroad – in Germany – for six months.

‘To when?’

Lee went on as if she hadn’t heard Temperance question. ‘You and Susie can run this place without me, easy. Standing on your heads. And I’ve, um, found you some help for the summer.’

Before the words ‘help for the summer’ had fully entered Temperance’s brain, the chime above the shop door gave its sweet little tinkle as a short, sunny girl with a bleached blonde pixie cut strolled in.

‘Am I too early?’ she asked in an American accent. ‘I know you said 10:15 but I just couldn’t wait!’

‘No, you’re right on time. Temperance, this is Stevie. Stevie – Temperance, my daughter. Welcome to Try Again!’

The young woman let out a squeal and jumped up and down on the spot. ‘I can’t believe it! I’m in total heaven right now!’ She rushed up to the counter and planted her hands on the glass, leaving delicate but steamy prints. ‘I love vintage. I breathe vintage. I wish I was vintage!’ she laughed at her own joke, but even Temperance had to admit it was pretty charming.

Lee looked between the two women like they were two dogs meeting in the park and she wasn’t sure which one would misbehave first, either through overexcitement or bad temper. ‘As my timeline changed and I knew we’d need another pair of hands, I put a message out with my old art school society. Stevie is doing a sandwich year at Bristol and she came down here the next day for the interview. I could hardly stop her!’

‘Um, right. When was this interview?’

‘Last night. At the pub!’ Stevie jumped in. ‘God, I love it there. Do you know they have this whole basket of knitting that you can just pick up and carry on with?’

Temperance nodded. ‘I’ve lived next door to that pub my whole life. I started some of that knitting at my tenth birthday party, I think.’

Stevie hooted with laughter, as if Temperance had just told an adorable joke when, in fact, her tenth birthday was attended by two school friends and half of the local WI, who pronounced her a natural knitting talent. A woolly progeny. She didn’t know then that a gift with threads and fibres went way beyond anything normal in her. Temperance would find that out on her seventeenth birthday. Still in the pub, of course.

‘We’re pretty remote here,’ Temperance went on, guardedly. ‘Off the beaten track. There’s not much in the way of cutting-edge fashion for a design student.’

The American pressed her tiny hands to her heart. ‘It’s been my dream to have a real English adventure. My mom was English, you see. I’m kind of digging into my roots this year, getting to know the places she knew. She passed when I was ten, so partly I’m doing this for her.’