Standing there in the marquee in the lovely dress, rabbiting on for England, Tilly observed, and little pennies started to drop in click, click, clicks. Little signifiers informed her that she was playing in a whole new ballgame. As realisation dawned that Otto was out of her league, she wondered if she should back off right away. If she was not very much mistaken, Old Money stood right in front of her eyes. He had an air of ownership about him. This was not how-much-did-I-pay-for-the-logo-on-my-trainers land. Nope. There was the watch, for a start. It was far from flashy, nothing you'd notice unless you'd spent four years among people who wore them, and Tilly had, and she clocked it, the quiet heavy weight of something that cost more than the Boat Shed's entire roof would, worn carelessly under a rolled-up sleeve. All the way from Switzerland via Bond Street or the like.
Then there was the way he spoke. Far, far from plummy, so much so that at first you didn’t clock it. Initially, you thought he was normal and just like you. Then that changed, and you realised it was more confident than plummy. Easy, unhurried, with the corners filed off, the kind of voice that came from somewhere expensive and several generations deep. There was a throwaway mention of school that he stepped past so fast she almost missed it, the sort of school that didn't need namingbecause people like him assumed you'd know where it was. There was the signet ring. There was the fact that the Carrington beds had his name on them, and that half the buyers in the marquee kept drifting over to pay their respects, and that he wore the whole thing as lightly as he wore the watch.
Sipping the elderflower fizz and nodding along to whatever Otto was saying, a Roman candle exploded inside Tilly at the same time as she shook her head. There was no way in the world he was interested in her, as she already was in him. The man most likely had women tripping over themselves to even talk to him. He was old stock, probably bedding women and breeding horses, let alone oysters. The grumpy man in the wellies, the mud and the chocolate labrador wasn’t this man at all.
As Tilly continued to talk like it was going out of fashion, she felt as if she was in two conversations at the same time. One with an utterly gorgeous, jump-into-bed man and one with herself. The Tilly in her head told her to finish the drink and leave. At the same time, her heart painted glue on the bottom of her feet and rendered her unable to move. As he went to the bar and came back with another refill and a little plate of nibbles, Tilly felt herself falling or flying. One of the two.
Oh yes, and oh, flipping no. Oh, no, no, no. Tilly Bloomwood, you absolute idiot. How had this happened? You're done for.
40
One minute Otto was there, and the next he was gone. He’d been swept off by a woman who'd appeared at his elbow with the wordsOtto, there you are, I've got the Padstow lot wanting a word about next year’s allocation. And that, as they say, was that.
Otto had tutted, excused himself, told Tilly not to move and that he would be two minutes. Tilly had nodded, smiled and said of course, but to be honest, she’d been more than disappointed. She wanted him to stay where he was and have the fireworks go off all night long. From the spot he’d told her not to move from, she’d watched the two minutes stretch into five, and the five into ten. As the fireworks ceased to go off, the evening began to ebb into somewhere she’d been before. A place of waiting.Here we are again, then.
Standing on the edge of a party, glass clutched to her chest, watching a roomful of people who all knew each other while she waited was not a problem for Tilly as such. She'd had plenty of practice at it, after all. She’d seen the front, back and roundabout of a venue or six in her time. Playing the role of the girlfriend of the entertainer parked at the side while the actual evening happened to other people was no stranger to her. Now here shewas halfway across the planet on a foggy little island, standing in a similar spot, with a similar glass, feeling a similar way. Nah, not having it. Starting to get irritated and telling herself that she would finish the fizz and slip away home before anyone clocked her leaving, a voice boomed out at Tilly’s elbow. 'G’day! How are ya?'
Turning to her right, Tilly smiled as Leo, the Australian, with a pint in each enormous hand and a grin, raised his eyebrows. As broad as a barn door, a face weathered to the colour of conkers, and it had to be said, muscles on rippling muscles. Not too shabby, ladies, not too shabby. ‘Oh, hey Leo. How are you?’
‘Goodo! How’s the arm healing?’
‘Yes, fine, very well, thank you. It was nothing in the end.’
‘She’ll be right. How’s your evening been?’
‘Yes, great so far, thanks. I was just thinking about heading off, actually.’
‘Oh, right, I thought you were, errm, invited by Otto.’
Tilly frowned. ‘Yep, I was. Meaning?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s, well, just, anyway, where’s he got to?’ Leo craned his neck over the heads of the crowd. 'Typical. Drag a bloke to his own oyster night and then make him do actual work.'
Tilly kept her voice as light as the fizz. 'Oh, he got pulled off by someone, something about Padstow.'
Leo gave her a look.Watch what people don't say, Tils. That's where the real information is.‘He’ll be back.’
Just as Tilly was about to make moves to leave, two more people arrived at the table in a flurry of greetings and a fresh round of drinks. Lucie joined Tilly, Leo and Shelly from the tram. Tilly smiled. ‘Hi.’
Lucie, in a ditsy print coral wrap dress with her hair down, smiled. Next to her, a tall man in a linen shirt had a beer in hisright hand. 'This is George. George, this is Tilly, the one I told you about, from the Boat Shed.'
'The one who got stuck in the Carrington beds? Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.' George held out his hand to Tilly.
Tilly shook his hand. ‘All good things, I hope?’
George winked. 'Ahh, not so sure about that. I think you were the main topic of conversation at the club for the better part of a week.'
Tilly rolled her eyes. 'Wonderful. To be fair, it was a bit stupid to get myself stuck in the mud. A rookie mistake, I think…'
Lucie slid onto the bench beside Tilly and pressed a fresh, cold flute into Tilly’s hand before she could protest that she'd been about to leave. 'If Darlings are talking about you in the club, take it as a compliment. It means they've adopted you. They only gossip about the ones they've decided to keep. I’m not joking.'
Just like that, Tilly had gone from standing alone on the verge of leaving to being hemmed in by warm bodies and drinks, with George squeezing in opposite and Leo planting himself at the end. Her little plan to slip quietly away dissolved entirely as she chatted away and the small talk went from this to that and everything in between. The storm, the oysters, the buyers, the price of everything.
As George got up to get another drink, Leo steered the conversation around to Otto. With a little tilt of his head towards the far end of the marquee, where Otto was still surrounded by people. 'Otto invited you, then.'
Tilly nodded, not revealing anything about her inner thoughts. 'He did. Well, he invited the whole island, didn't he?'
'Pah! Otto Carrington has not personally asked a single living soul other than his inner circle to this in the years I've known him. He turns up, does his bit, talks shop, and he usually goes home to Stanley pretty early on.'
