The old pine shelves above the cooker, free of their accumulated tins and jars and general what-have-you, were actually lovely. Honey-coloured, warm, solid old timber, the kind of old-school joinery that had been there thirty years andhad another thirty in them, if not more. She wiped them down with a hot cloth and stood back. Considerably better. Outside, another gust hit the building, the foghorn gave a long, low blast somewhere, and the window above the sink rattled in its frame.
The kitchen, once she'd finished with it, looked a hundred times better and smelled of nothing but Dettol and a lemon spray Tilly had found under the sink behind the bleach. The pine shelves and worktops were clean, empty and bare except for the kettle, the toaster and two huge old ceramic pots Tilly had used for wooden spoons. Old hanging racks now held an assortment of the best utensils Tilly had salvaged: a beautiful old ladle from back in the day, a slotted spoon that looked well-loved, a couple of vintage cheese graters, a garlic press. On the side, a vintage Bialetti moka pot she'd found in the back of one of the cupboards took pride of place, and a plant from outside in a gorgeous old pot stood on the windowsill, its trailing leaves running along the hanging rail. The double-sash window above the sink gleamed, she'd scrubbed the floor on her hands and knees, and the dishwasher had been cleaned and run on a hot wash until it smelt a whole lot better than when she'd started. All in all, a job well done. The shed’s kitchen let out a huge, elongated sigh of relief.
Just before Tilly had started cleaning, she'd got a pot going on the hob so that her dinner was sorted. In had gone chicken thighs, a whole head of garlic, lemon, white wine and a handful of thyme from a little pot she'd bought on Darling Street and put on the kitchen windowsill. It was a dish her mum had made over and over again back in the day, and the smell alone reminded Tilly of home, her dad, and safety. Talk about lovely.
With the dinner on the go, the storm gearing up, aching muscles and fading light, Tilly had decided on a bath. The old claw-footed tub in the bathroom upstairs that she'd scrubbed on day one was just what she needed for the state of her muscles after the day of working on the kitchen. Pouring in a long line of bath oil she'd found in the vanity cupboard, the air filled with a lovely scent, the bathroom billowed with steam, and the bliss of lying in the bath with a glass of wine with dinner done and the storm outside was a good one. Lowering herself into the water as the foghorn went off yet again, Tilly sipped on a glass of wine, listened to the wind howling and thought about how quickly she'd changed her life for the better. One minute she'd been lying on a bed hoping the air conditioning wouldn't break down, the next she’d spent a day with her head in a cupboard, spraying Dettol and a very lot of potential in her future.
Once out of the bath and having noticed a significant drop in temperature, Tilly was in her pyjamas, dressing gown, socks and slippers, hair up in a bun and pottering around analysing changes she could further make to the flat and how much it had improved already. Going around turning on every single battery tealight she'd bought in a pack of thirty, she was thoroughly enjoying herself and the storm. Wondering what all the fuss had been about the storm, she was actually enjoying the pattering rain and rattling windows. With all the tealights on, little flickers fluttered from everywhere, the flat was warm, glittery and golden, and Tilly was very pleased with her effort. The whole place smelt of garlic, herbs and yummy cooking and as outside, the wind howled, windows creaked, and the old timbers below shifted, Tilly, to be quite frank, waslovingit.
Peering out the window, the storm appeared to be getting worse. Wondering if she should go outside and double-check things, she took off her slippers, plonked her feet into her wellie boots and went downstairs to check the doors again. Lookingaround and checking, however, she didn't really know what she was supposed to look for. The double doors at the front were bolted top and bottom, the side door was locked, and the shutters were closed. Deciding to have a quick peek outside, she slid the bolt back on the main door, pushed, gasped and let out a small yell as the door nearly took her with it.
Having to grab the handle with both hands to stop herself following it out onto the decking, Tilly yanked. What took her breath away was the extraordinary noise as the elements and all sorts bellowed around her. The foghorn went off, the wind howled, water splashed, and every timber in the building seemed to creak and groan all at once. Feeling spray on her face from where she was standing in the doorway, Tilly grabbed the door, wrestled it back in with her whole weight, and once she'd bolted it, she stood with her back against it in the dark and thought that perhaps the Darling-ites were right about the storm. Maybe it wasn’t quite as cosy after all.
Walking back into the flat, it still looked like something from a movie; thirty tealights flickering, wine on the coffee table, dinner bubbling away. Forty-five minutes later, rain went sideways past the window, a bang changed things as the wind, rain and storm decided it would turn the power off. Now she felt a little less the clever Alec, a lot scared.
After a while and with no sign of the power coming back on, Tilly whipped out her phone and looked to see if there was anything about the storm online. The search didn't take long and she found messages, news articles and Facebook posts all over the place. A message on Darling's community page told everyone to stay safe, check their sandbags and stay inside. Lots of places said that the storm would peak in the early hours.
Suddenly, the wind decided to fling something, a bin lid, a branch, who knew what, against the side of the house with a great clattering thud, and Tilly nearly jumped out of her skinin fright. Funny, really, a minute before she'd been sitting there all snug and smug, queen of her own cosy little cocoon, rather enjoying the show. Now she wasn't quite as sure. Walls groaned, windows rattled, it sounded as if the doors were opening and closing, and the eye of the storm, as far as Tilly could work out, was still a very long way off.
She scrolled down through the comments on a Facebook post and rather wished she hadn't.
Power's been out our end since six.
Trees down on the coast road.
Don't go near the bay; the spray's coming right over the wall.
On and on it went, neighbour after neighbour reporting in from the dark, and with every line Tilly felt her bravado slipping away. No power, no partner, not even a hum of the cronky old fridge in the kitchen. All alone, a fast-dwindling phone battery, the wind doing its level best to peel the roof off, and a house she'd lived in for all of five minutes. Gulping, she shivered and tried to be brave. What if her battery died too? Where in the name of all things holy would someone like Margery have kept a torch? Closing her eyes, Tilly tried to be brave and told herself she’d be fine. It didn’t work in the slightest. Bottom line, she just felt really, really, really scared.
27
All of a sudden, Tilly was awake and not sure why. Staring up at the ceiling, her eyes were wide open, and every part of her was on high alert. The Shed and all around it were making horror movie sounds. A banging somewhere below, a long low howl coming off the water, a whistling through a gap, and underneath all of it the slap and suck of the tide against boards. The sky above the roof gave a loud grumble, there was a bang and then a crack of thunder. Tilly felt as if she and the whole building were bracing themselves.
Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm, she chanted to herself on repeat. Calm was the last thing she felt, though. Reaching out from under the duvet, she found the lamp cord and pressed the switch. Nothing. Trying again, still nothing. Nothing but the dark, the racket outside and her heart going like the clappers. The power cut and raging storm the Darling-ites had darkly predicted were happening right above her head, and Tilly Bloomwood was not keen on it one iota.
In Tilly’s rose-tinted version of the storm she'd cooked up in her head, it had involved a roaring fire, a tipple of something warming and rain on the glass. She’d envisaged herself all cosy and snug, cossetted and comfy, smug as anything about herclever little life by the sea. What she actually had was no fire, no power, a foghorn the size of Wales going off at intervals, and a flat she'd lived in for not long at all creaking around her like a galleon. On top of that, she felt afraid, alone and not winning at life.
Three short, mournful blasts went up from the foghorn, and Tilly shivered under the duvet. Only a few hours earlier, she'd smiled to herself with the thought that the foghorn was rather romantic. Harking back to simpler times and all that. Lying in the pitch dark with the back decking creaking, the windows banging and the roof feeling as if it might blow off, it wasn’t even remotely romantic. Terrifying, more like.
With her mind on overdrive, suddenly she realised that it was a perfect upon perfect time for someone to try and break and enter. Swiping up on her phone, she tapped the torch button, ready, in the daft theatre of her head, to catch an intruder mid-creep. The beam swung round the room. No intruder, obviously, just the curtains billowing horizontally into the room, the sash window in its frame doing a dance, and the sounds outside getting louder. Clicking the switch on the lamp beside her back and forth again, nothing happened. At least she'd had the wit to charge everything before dinner. Phone, iPad, laptop, all topped up and ready to save her if need be.
All alone in the dark, suddenly Tilly’s ex-husband Andy was in her head, and she was tumbling through some horrible tunnel back to her marriage. She’d been betrothed to a coercive control freak who had scared the life out of her in the end. However, give the man a smidgeon of credit, he had taken charge in a storm and just about everything in her life; the mileometer on her car, the bank statements, what time she got home, what clothes she wore. She had to admit that in all the years she'd been with him, she hadn't been scared in a storm. Tutting, Tilly shook her head and yanked up her big girl’s pants. She’d rather die in a stormthan go back to Andy. Nothing was as bad as a marriage where her every move was tracked by a little disc in her handbag and documented on a screen.
Tilly tried to remain calm, but it was a gigantic ask because as another boom of thunder clapped, she was not only scared, but blooming well petrified. The storm was so loud and the room so dark that she felt completely and utterly alone. On top of that, there was nobody around who really knew her. At least she'd heeded the advice to batten down and stay put.
Trying to speak sense, Tilly told herself that the buildings on Darling didn't fall into the sea on a regular basis. None of these buildings had flooded, Otto had said. Telling herself that the sandbags were precautionary, Tilly jumped as another gust hit, and the foghorn went again, pulled the duvet up over her head, adopted the foetal position and shuddered as a ginormous clap of thunder banged. Listening to the water, the howls of the wind and the great mournful horn, Tilly wondered if Darling Island was her place. So far, a lot of things about the shed had been a disappointment, and the whole island itself seemed to have strange customs and superstitions. Maybe it wasn't the place for her after all. Perhaps it was just too remote, and she was too on her own. Perhaps a nice little house with double-glazing, a glorious boiler, a little patch of lawn and a nice strong pavement running along outside was more her cup of tea.
First thing in the morning, power or no power, she'd regroup. Taking stock was another thing her dad had always reiterated.Assess and reassess, he’d always said. Holding that thought, Tilly tried to fall asleep as a horror movie continued to play out above. She didn’t really succeed.
28
Tilly woke to silence, which, after the night she'd had, was almost more alarming than the noise had been. For a moment, she'd stayed quite still, working out what was different from the horrors of the night before. Something was wrong. There was no howling, zero bangs, the wind wasn’t whistling, and thank the Lord, the great mournful blasts of the foghorn had ceased.
Squinting, Tilly flicked the light switch. Still nothing from that department. So the power was still off, but the calm after the storm had clearly arrived. Oddly, it was as if the horrors of the night had been a dream. All Tilly could hear was a soft slap of the tide and a few voices from the road outside. Her thoughts that perhaps Darling wasn't for her came back in a rush. In the cold light of the morning, it didn’t feel as bad as it had at three, when, to be frank, she'd been scared out of her wits. Rather melodramatic? Yeah, possibly. Head under a duvet, and a foghorn did that for a girl.
Pulling on her dressing gown and slippers as she padded down the stairs, she was pleased to see four walls and all windows and doors where she’d left them the night before. The old shed had done well. Peeking her head out the door, thedecking was wet, strewn with weeds and a scattering of twigs and branches. A terracotta pot had toppled and cracked clean in two, and the water level wasn't far off the boards. However, overall, the building was fine, the roof was on, glass was in place. The bones had held, and she was still alive.
Plonking the yellow hat on her head, Tilly unbolted the door, stepped out and couldn't believe what was in front of her eyes as she stood in her dressing gown and looked around. Yes, there were a few things to clear up and a bit of storm damage here and there, but overall it looked as if the storm had scrubbed the whole world clean. The water was the hazy deep blue Darling was famous for, flat, bright and gleaming, and the mainland sat low and green and clear on the far side without a wisp of fog to be seen. The air smelled of salt, wet wood and that fresh, cold, gloriously English post-storm smell like no other. A heron stood one-legged on the end of the jetty, surveying its kingdom, a little rowing boat bobbed at its post, and Tilly let out a long breath.
