Oh. Oh yes, please.'I'm absolutely fine, honestly.'
'On the side?'
If she'd been drugged and was about to die, she might as well have a drink. 'Please, that would be lovely.'
Half a minute later, a small, heavy glass with a tiny amount of whisky at the bottom arrived on the table. Touching the glass to her lips, Tilly took a whisper of a sip and nodded. Rich, warm, a tad on the earthy, peaty side and exactly what a woman covered in gorse spines in a stranger's kitchen needed. Looking at Otto over the glass as she felt the whisky go down through her ribs, Tilly couldn't quite get enough. Tall, fair hair, the jaw out of a men's country living catalogue. The bicep situation. Ditto the forearms. His wife looking at her from a frame on the windowsill.
Telling herself to get a grip, Tilly sipped the whisky and wondered about Otto. The house definitely had a woman's touch to it; the kitchen felt homely and lived in, and from the wellies, Otto did not live alone. Shame. However, no wedding ring and a sort of air of independence about him or loneliness, one of the two. With the sips of whisky giving her a bit of Dutch courage and feeling better by the minute, Tilly decided to do a little bit ofdigging. Attempting to make her voice sound casual, she almost chirped. 'So, how long have you been on the island?'
'Sort of all my life here and there.' Otto seemed to be purposely vague.
Tilly wanted to clarify. 'You grew up here?'
'I went to school on the mainland and then came back when, well, yeah, it's all to do with business and the farms. I lived in different places.'
'Ahh, right, the oyster business. That's been in the family a long time, you said.'
'Since the eighteen-eighties. My great-great-grandfather started the business and the Darling beds. Scotland came later, then a few other places, then Ireland later still.'
'Oh, so it's, umm, quite a large affair then? Ireland, hmm, I've always fancied going there.'
'Yep, our Galway site is lovely actually. My wife's family are from there too.'
Wife. There it was. Out in the open, on the table, just like that. Present tense, or near enough. Tilly looked at the photograph on the windowsill of a dark-haired woman in a green coat on a winter beach and wondered where she was. Changing the subject, she smiled. 'This house is lovely. What a view out the back here. Have you been here long?'
'Yes, it's been in the family a long time.'
'It's really beautiful.'
'Yep, not a bad part of the world, but there's quite a lot of upkeep. Luckily, I have help.'
The whisky was making things warm and slightly gentle at the edges, which, given the gorse spines and the passing out and the lying in a lane, Tilly felt, was very welcome. Stanley started barking at a noise, and there was a knock at the front door.
'That'll be Leo.'
Two seconds later, the broad-shouldered, extremely good-looking Australian from Darlings, in possession of the kind of tan that doesn’t fade and a brown leather holdall over one shoulder, beamed. 'G'day, I hear someone had a bit of a fight in the lane. I'm Leo, I live along the road. How are ya?’
All the better for seeing you.Tilly felt her eyes widen at the absolutely stunning man in front of her. Now there were two of them. She didn't quite know where to look first. 'Tilly.'
'Boat Shed, Evie at Darlings said. Right?'
'Yes,' Tilly confirmed.
Otto rolled his eyes. 'She thought it would be a good idea to have a go on that dilapidated old swing down the lane there. Luckily, she didn’t land in the barbed wire.'
Leo pressed his lips together. 'She'll be right. Let's have a look then.'
Checking over Tilly’s hands, the scratches on her face and examining her arm, Leo asked a few medical questions, waited for the answers, and nodded at each one. 'Looks like you'll live. I'll just get the arm dressed properly, and you'll need to look out for signs of infection, but I think you've escaped anything bad. Your hands'll certainly be sore for a few days. The arm was bleeding well, which is good; nothing in it, it'll heal clean.'
Tilly felt as if she were in a dream as the whisky went down and the Australian almost swam in front of her eyes. Life was very strange. The last Australian she’d seen hadn’t been anywhere near as nice.
24
In the end, it had been Otto who’d taken Tilly home. Leo had packed up his leather holdall, told Tilly to keep the dressing dry and winked. Most normal men wouldnothave got away with the wink in any shape or form. The Australian, however, rocked it. Otto had picked up his keys off the dresser as Tilly had made a small noise about walking, which had been ignored. Thirty seconds later, she’d been sitting in the passenger seat of his car with Stanley watching from the back seat and Tilly suffering from an episode of being unable to speak.
The drive to the Boat Shed didn’t take long at all. To be honest, Tilly would have liked it to have lasted a lot longer. Perhaps for the rest of her life. Otto said precisely three things: that the storm was starting to brew, that she should keep the arm elevated, and, as she got out of the car, that she should try not to do anything else stupid before dinner. Then he'd nodded and driven off into the lanes, taking his dog and his biceps with him. Tilly let herself in, got the kettle going one-handed, lowered herself onto the sofa like a woman three times her age and looked down at herself at the same time as shaking her head. Quite how had she managed to get herself in such a mess? She’d simply gone out for a walk but had returned with abandaged arm, having been prickled just about everywhere with gorse spines. She had whisky on her breath and had again made herself look totally incompetent. Marvellous. Really coming along nicely, this new independent life.
Pulling out her phone, she opened The Properlies, propped the phone against a cushion, and started a voice note.
