'Yes, I can read, thank you very much. I didn't see it.'
'That much is obvious. It's right there on the post, approximately six feet away from you.'
'I didn't read it.'
'Do you want a hand?'
'No. Thank you. As I said, I'm absolutely fine.' Trying the rocking motion again, Tilly wanted the mud to actually swallow her up and deliver her back in Fiji.
'You’re sure?'
'Quite sure.'
Pulling her right foot straight up with all her might, thank the good person above, it came free. Taking one careful step towards the rope, her foot sank and stuck. Tilly stood very still as it appeared that the whole scenario was going to repeat itself. Pulling again, she yanked so hard that this time she overtoppled, wobbled precariously and landed face down in the mud. Otto was over the rope and onto the mud flat without sinking even slightly. In two seconds, he'd pulled her up and carried her under the post. It had to be said that Tilly couldn't have given a stuff about the mud, the wellies, the fact that she could have died or anything. None of it mattered because something very odd had occurred, oh yes, indeed. She was being showered by fireworks going off above her, drowning her with sparkles, fizz and glitter. Oh my, and the smell, what even was it? The eyes, eyelashes, hard, strong arms. And again, please.
Depositing her on the slipway, Tilly looked down at herself, absolutely covered in mud. Holding onto the post with the sign on it with as much dignity as she could muster, she put her mud-covered foot back in the boot that Otto had collected and straightened up. Tilly was fairly sure fireworks weren’t shootingup into the sky for him. Otto was looking at her with a combination of fury and contempt on his face.
Tilly stared and didn’t know what to say or do. It appeared that she’d lost the ability to speak or move any part of her body apart from her eyelashes. Those were working overtime. Normally in life, she was fairly compos mentis in most situations that were thrown at her, this time, nope, not even close. Mostly, she had the ability to converse like an adult and behave in a polite and overall personable manner in whatever situation she found herself in. This situation proved to be different. Whatever was happening, she was loving it.
18
Tilly wasn't sure what to do next. She was sure that, firstly, she looked quite the picture and secondly, she wished she could somehow be transported far away from Otto and into the shower. It was fair to say that he did not look impressed. Stanley, however, looked on with amusement. She was more than impressed, though. Just so very impressed. Infatuated already.
Otto sounded like a sergeant major. 'Right. Come on. Another thing that you didn't read is that the mud is best not mixed with the skin. There's a tap just behind here. You’ll need hosing down.'
'No, no, I'm fine.'
‘Follow me around to the sorting shed,’ Otto barked.
With Alpha Male daydreams as well as huge pink love hearts in front of her eyes, obviously, Tilly followed. The view from behind was, frankly, not a hardship, and as fireworks rained down from above, Tilly schlepped along dripping mud. The sorting shed was round the other side of the slipway with monstrous sliding doors open to the water. Outside on the wall, there was a heavy-duty tap on a pipe bracket with a coil of industrial hose and a huge nozzle. Otto turned it on without ceremony. 'Hands.'
Tilly held her hands under the water, which was absolutely, breathtakingly, extraordinarily cold. As the mud came off in brown rivulets and went down the drain at the base of the wall, Tilly tried not to shiver. Otto went into the shed and came back with a cloth. She wiped her hands, and he directed the hose at her right leg and then left. The mud that had been setting on her jeans came off in a long dark stream. However, the lovely Tilly Bloomwood, bless her cotton socks, wasn't that interested in the temperature of the water, her jeans, the mud or what day of the week it was. She was way too busy looking at a rather nice jaw, biceps that seemed to move on their own and little butterflies and daydreams that were currently fluttering around her head.
Putting the hose back on the bracket, Otto’s voice jolted Tilly out of the wildly improper thoughts going through her brain. 'So, regarding before when I saw you. I’ve now learnt you’ve taken on the boat shed.'
Tilly blinked. 'How did you know that?'
'Small island.' Otto shrugged. 'Word gets around. Listen. Those beds are roped off for a reason. Two reasons, actually. First, you can damage things, obviously. You don't need to know the economics of it. Point is, the beds are roped off to keep people off them.'
'I understand that,' Tilly said. 'I didn't see the —'
'The second reason is that what you were just standing in is not sand. It's not a beach. It's tidal mud flats which have been building up in this estuary for centuries. In the right conditions, it will take a wellie boot and keep it, and in worse conditions, it will take rather more than a wellie boot. People have got into serious difficulty in mud flats on this coast, hence why there are signs of such everywhere.'
'There was one sign,' Tilly said.
'There are three signs on three separate posts along the perimeter. You managed to miss all three of them.'
Tilly turned her head to the side, felt a very strange smile cross her lips, and the butterflies which had carried the daydreams now took on a new job of attaching themselves to her eyelashes, making them bat up and down.
'And the chain is not decorative.'
'Noted.'
The look on Otto's face informed Tilly he was far, far,farfrom having daydreams about her. Tilly shook her head in a little movement, trying to flick away the notion that just about everything about this man was making her tingle from head to foot. 'I'm sorry about the beds. I genuinely didn't see the signs. I was thinking about something else. I saw the trestles, and I wanted a closer look.'
'You're completely covered in mud from more or less head to foot. You'll need to get your, err, clothes washed as soon as.' Otto made a face. 'Or just bin them. Where have you been to be coming down the slipway from that side?'
'I've been on the coastal path, and I came back via the headland and down the back track here.'
