The pub is mock-old with fake timber beams, dotted with horseshoes and hung with riding paraphernalia. My class have taken a large table in the corner. They wave for me to join them, but I signal that I’m with someone. Ricardo squeezes out from behind the table and approaches, but I hold up crossed fingers as if warding off a vampire. He smiles sadly and retreats.
Tempe puts her suitcase against the bar, and takes a high stool, crossing her legs and displaying a glossy knee beneath her black suede skirt.
‘I’m having a gin and tonic. You?’
‘The same.’ I glance at her suitcase. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘I had an Airbnb in Brixton for a while, but it was too expensive.’
‘And now?’
‘I’m looking for somewhere.’
‘You’re living out of a suitcase.’
‘I’m between places.’ She sips her drink.
‘Darren Goodall claimed you were a sex worker and one of his informants.’
‘That’s a lie.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘I’m not … I don’t sell my body.’
‘When I went back to your apartment, I found a broken camera on the floor.’
Tempe screws up her face. ‘He liked to film us having sex. I didn’t know at first.’
‘It’s illegal to record sex acts without a person’s consent.’
She shrugs ambivalently. ‘He filmed other things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Sometimes he put the camera in the sitting room, sometimes in the bedroom. I thought he was spying on me, but he mostly wanted to film his meetings with people.’
‘What sort of meetings?’
Tempe’s shoulders rise and fall. ‘I was never allowed to stay.’ She reaches into the side pocket of her suitcase. ‘Look what I found.’
It’s a school yearbook from St Ursula’s. Pages have been marked with torn pieces of paper. One of them has a photograph from a swimming carnival. All of the girls are in house colours, with banners and flags, cheering from the grandstand behind the pool. Tempe points to herself in the crowd. She’s with a group on the higher seats, older girls, who have painted their faces and tied streamers in their hair.
‘And this is you,’ she says, pointing to the junior girls, who are seated lower in the stand.
She turns a page to the year photographs and picks me out from my peers.
‘I look so young,’ I say.
‘You were only fourteen,’ she replies.
Tempe was seventeen, but looked completely grown up even then. She was tall and athletic and graceful. In her group photograph she is standing in the back row, next to her year eleven coordinator. If not for her school uniform, she could have been the teacher.
‘I remember when you left. It was quite sudden.’
‘We moved to Belfast.’
‘But there was some story that—’
‘It was only gossip.’ She closes the yearbook and puts it away. ‘Another drink?’
‘Not for me.’
‘Please. Just one more.’
Tempe signals the barman. I notice her counting out change from her purse and coming up short.
‘Let me get these,’ I say.
‘No, I can—’
‘I insist.’
I tap my debit card on the machine.
Tempe sips her gin and tonic.
‘Are you working?’ I ask.
‘I have jobs coming up.’
‘What do you do?’
‘Event planning. Festivals. Product launches. Premieres.’
She has to shout because three women sitting nearby are hooting with laughter. They are dressed for a night out, with big hair and trowelled-on make-up; and they’ve grown louder as the evening has gone on.
Tempe gets up and walks to their table. For a moment, I expect an argument, but she returns a few minutes later and takes her seat. Meanwhile, the women get up and quietly leave.
‘What did you say?’ I ask.
‘I told them you were an off-duty police officer who was concerned that they were intoxicated and might try to drive home.’
‘How did you know they were driving?’
‘One of them has her car keys hanging from her purse.’
I marvel at how quickly Tempe had picked up on a detail like that. ‘You’re very good. What else have you noticed?’
‘That you’re engaged.’ She points to my left hand. ‘Where? When?’
‘September. Maybe.’
‘What do you mean, maybe?’
‘We don’t have a venue. The best places are booked out years in advance. Who plans that far ahead?’
‘Most people,’ says Tempe. ‘Maybe I can help.’
‘How?’
‘Weddings are my speciality.’
‘I can’t afford a wedding planner.’
‘I’ll do it for nothing. It’s my gift to you for saving my life.’
‘I hardly did that.’
Tempe begins listing what she can do, giving examples of how to save money on catering and flowers.
‘How about this?’ she says finally. ‘You give me your dates and what you’re looking for and I’ll make some calls. If I can’t find you the perfect venue in a fortnight, I’ll give up. You can get married in a shoebox in the middle o’ road.’
‘Cardboard box?’
‘Aye.’
We begin riffing on the famous Monty Python sketch, putting on Yorkshire accents and talking about eating crusts of stale bread, and being thrashed asleep with broken bottles.
‘My dad is a huge Python fan,’ I say.
‘Mine, too,’ says Tempe. ‘He had all the DVDs.’
‘Where are your parents now?’
‘Still in Belfast.’
I remember the letter addressed to Tempe that was put in the wrong mailbox.
‘I have something for you – a letter.’
‘Burn it.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t talk to my parents. It’s a long boring story.’
I want to hear it, because it might give us something else in common. My parents aren’t boring, of course. I wish they were. I wish my father sold insurance or plumbing supplies or worked as a civil engineer. Instead, he’s spent his career outwitting the police and fooling the Inland Revenue.
‘How about another drink?’ asks Tempe.
‘This time I definitely have to go.’
Her disappointment is palpable.
‘I have a new phone number.’ She waits for me to unlock my handset and takes it from me, typing her details into my contacts.
‘About this wedding. Can I give you a call tomorrow? I need numbers and budgets.’
‘OK.’
I’m almost at the door when I spy her suitcase against the bar. A part of me wants to keep walking, but a different voice urges me to turn back.
‘Where are you staying tonight?’
‘I’ll find somewhere.’
‘Do you have money?’
‘I’m fine, really.’
I watch her for a moment, wishing I could read her mind.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ I say. ‘I have to make a call.’
Stepping outside the pub, I press speed-dial. My mother answers before her phone even rings. How does she do that? She must sit at home, staring at her mobile, waiting for me to call.