Shelly coughed. 'He keeps himself to himself, does Otto. He has for the last few years. Don't take it personally. He's like that with everyone, not just you.'
Tilly could not resist doing some digging for information, just as The Properlies had instructed. Again, she attempted to sound breezy and casual, but it came out on the bitchy side. 'He seemed perfectly capable of stringing a sentence together when he was telling me off. I assumed it was just me he'd taken against.'
Lucie had drifted over, topping up glasses. Lowering herself onto the arm of the sofa beside Shelly, she joined in. 'Otto? Oh, it's not you. It's really not, honestly.' She glanced at Shelly and made a face. 'When I first came to Darling, he was different.'
Shelly nodded. 'He had a lovely way about him back then. Always the first down the slipway when anyone needed a hand.'
Tilly looked from one to the other and felt the whole feel of the conversation shift. Suddenly, she had the very uncomfortable sense that she'd been merrily slagging off a man without the faintest idea about him or what she was talking about. 'Sorry, did something happen to him to, well, to make him, umm, grumpy?'
'He lost his wife a good few years back. She was Irish. She'd gone over to see her family, somewhere out west, and she was, well, there was an accident.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Tilly felt her eyes go wide.
Shelly continued. ‘It was a hit-and-run; they never found who did it. She was killed outright. Shocking state of affairs. Absolutelyawful.'
‘What? That’s terrible!’
'She was a smashing girl. They lived on the mainland then because of her work, and she needed to be near the fast train. To be honest, none of us really saw much of them then. After that, Otto came back here, and he just closed up and threw himself at the business and didn't come up for air. Yeah, it’s been like that for years now. You forget how quickly time passes.'
Tilly thought about how brusque Otto had been with her. Now, she felt like an idiot. All her little remarks about the language and the dog off the lead and how she might ask him the same thing actually played back in her head in a mortifying new light. 'I had no idea! God. I feel dreadful. I gave him both barrels about his dog.'
Shelly patted Tilly’s knee. 'You weren't to know, and nobody expects you to. Between you and me, a bit of attitude might do him the world of good, if you want my opinion. Half the island's so busy treading on eggshells around him that they've forgotten how to talk to him like a normal person at all. He can be a moody, rude so-and-so if you ask me.'
Lucie nodded and made a face at Shelly. 'You’ve got a point, you know. An attitude might beexactlywhat he needs. Somebody who doesn't know to be careful.'
Tilly gulped her drink and decided that when she got home, a little deep dive on Google was due. She’d be finding out a little bit more about Otto Carrington. That she knew for free.
35
Tilly got home late from Lucie’s and was very ready for bed. On arrival at the Boat Shed, right away she spied a little white basket tucked on the step. Sitting there in the fog, lined with a checked tea towel, was, by the looks of it, another Darling welcome basket. Picking it up, Tilly undid the top and smiled at the contents: a jar of homemade chutney, a brown paper bag filled with homegrown tomatoes, five or so packets of seeds and a fat bundle of sweet peas, tied with garden string. Tucked under the jar, a little card.
Welcome to Darling. From all at the Gardening Club.
As Tilly fiddled with the lock to get the door open, she smiled. How lovely to be on the end of something so nice. This little Darling tradition worked for her. Letting herself in, she put the kettle on, plonked the sweet peas in a jug of water on the windowsill, and stood at the window watching the fog and thought about what had been said at the gathering.A hit-and-run. Never found who did it. Killed outright.She hadn’t seen that coming, and it had taken her breath away. After she’d firstdigested what she’d been told, she’d repeated it to herself over and over again as if not understanding and trying to make some sense of it.
The woman in the green coat on the windowsill was no longer around. Otto Carrington hadn't been vague because he was hiding a wife. Rather, he'd been vague because she was gone. At no point had Tilly thought Otto’s story would involve a wife who had passed away. Talk about gobsmacked.
After making tea, she sat down on the sofa, let the whole evening replay and thought about her sarcastic, and what she had thought at the time, clever little remarks in the mud.I might ask you the same thing, actually.Her brain flicked to how she’d sworn at him in the lane and told him to swing his hook. Overall, she’d been fairly nasty: it had to be noted.
Tapping on The Properlies, she typed out a message asking if anyone was up. A few minutes later, she was talking to Pia. 'It's late, sorry, but I thought you might still be up. So you won’t believe this, but I found out about the wife tonight at the drinks. She died years ago in a hit-and-run, and they never found the driver. She was killed outright. Can you believe it? What a horrible story. I’m shocked.’
‘Oh my gosh! That’s awful. No wonder he’s grumpy! How terrible.’
‘I know, right? How bad do I feel for being rude to him?’
‘You couldn’t have known. So, what else did you find out?’
‘Not much, other than afterwards he came back to the island, closed up like a shell and threw himself into the oyster business, and that's been him ever since. That's why he's rude, grumpy and short with people. They said that half the island's been tiptoeing round him for years.'
‘Well, I guess it makes sense now. I bet he’s loving having you on the scene, though, because you don’t know anything about it or him. Or you didn’t at that point.’
'I don’t know about that. All I keep thinking about is all the mouth I gave him. I told him to get lost. I swore at him. God. I feel about two inches tall. Although, and this is the strange bit, the woman who told me, Shelly, said maybe a bit of attitude is exactly what he needs. That everyone's forgotten how to talk to him like a normal person and Lucie agreed. He needs somebody who doesn't know to be careful, she said. Which was me,isme, I suppose. Oh, I don't know what to do with any of it. He's certainly not married, that’s for sure. I hate that when I found that out, I nearly jumped for joy, because the reason he's not married is the saddest thing.'
'Yeah, wow, that poor, poor man. The thing is, you didn't know. It might be a good thing that you gave him a run for his money. Also, he can’t just go around being rude to people because of his past. You know, we could all wear our trauma every day, right? We all have our crosses to bear. You might be the first person in years who's given him a mouthful. That woman, Shelly, is right, actually.'
‘You think so?’
‘Yep, I do. Now, I’m excited. I can feel it in my water, Tils. This story has just begun. The latest episode in Tilly’s life and it’s about to get very, very good. After the last two you know whats, it’s been a long time coming. Who needs a cruise or a tropical island when you’ve got a shed and a very tasty man?’
