Tilly's stomach swooped. ‘Oh, right.’
Leo shrugged his enormous shoulders. 'Sorry, I’ve definitely had one too many, but yeah, I've never seen him do this.'
Tilly wasn’t sure what to say. Was she supposed to be honoured or something? To be quite honest, she’d also had one too many of the elderflower concoction. The marquee felt a little bit floaty around her, what with the fairy lights, the lanterns, the white bunting by the armful and the crates of oysters banked up on their ice. 'Right.’
Leo continued to ramble on. ‘You know about his wife. Shelly said she'd mentioned it to you.'
Tilly nodded. Clearly, things went around like wildfire. 'She did tell me about it, yep.'
'Niamh. Irish, from out west, County Clare. Funny as anything. Sharp. Took the absolute mickey out of him morning, noon and night, and he adored her for it. They'd gone over to see her family. A car came round the bend too fast and never stopped. Never found out who. That's the part that well... There was never anyone to be angry at, in the end. Just a road and a bend and that was it.'
‘I, err.’
'Otto threw himself at the business and wouldn't talk about it. Got the dog, eventually — that was my doing, actually. I more or less marched him to the rescue place and refused to leave without one. Stanley helped a lot.'
Tilly thought about how grumpy and rude Otto had been at the first meeting. Was what had happened to him meant to excuse it? You can’t just go around in life being rude to people for no reason. It was called life or not as the case may be for a reason. Tilly hadn’t had it easy, either. Coercive control did that for a girl. 'I gave him such a hard time when he was rude. I thought he was just being horrible.'
'He probablywasbeing horrible! Don't go feeling too sorry for him. He's a moody so-and-so at the best of times, grief orno grief. You should see where he comes from, though. I bet he hasn’t told you that bit. The Carringtons go back to the Ark. Yeah, but he lives on a foggy little island and lives in a cottage with a dog.' He shook his head fondly. 'Yeah, sorry, I should have kept my mouth shut. I was on an early shift this morning, and I’ve not had much to eat. I mean, an oyster doesn’t actually fill you up.'
'No, no, it’s fine. Thanks for letting me know, I think.'
Leo raised his pint and swore. 'I've said too much. I always say too much, it's the pints, but I'll tell you this for nothing, Tilly from the Boat Shed, whatever you said to him on that decking, in your sou'wester, allergic to dogs and all the rest of it, it's the most awake I've seen him in years. So you keep giving him a run for his money. The whole of Darling will thank you.'
Little sparklers went off under Tilly’s ribs as right at that moment Otto caught her eye and with his mouth made a small private acknowledgement.There you are, won't be long, I see you.He lifted his glass a fraction of an inch in her direction before the chap reclaimed his attention, and Tilly sat there with her elderflower fizz and felt the Catherine wheel catch its light and begin, slowly and gloriously, to spin over and over again.
41
The rest of the night had whooshed by in a blur of chatting and that very simple thing known as having a nice time. Otto had arrived back on the scene, and just behind him, the fireworks arrived too. Otto and more Otto worked for Tilly.
As the oyster event itself had wrapped up, Tilly had found her body following Otto into the pub as if she’d totally lost control of it. Like she’d not had any choice in the matter. In the pub, a plate of lovely hot chips doused in salt and vinegar had gone down well, as had a slow stroll under the moonlight back home.
Now, Tilly stood in the little kitchen, staring out the window with her hands gripping the side of the old worktop, two glasses in front of her, loving how her evening had turned out. It was fair to say that she was over the moon that Otto Carrington was now sitting waiting for her on the sofa. Funny old life, really, because bizarrely she felt as if she was no longer the one waiting butcontrollingthe game.
The Catherine wheel had taken on a life of its own. On the walk home, it had spun and spat and showered sparks down to the very tips of Tilly’s fingers and told her in no uncertain terms that it liked the company it was in. Pulling a bottle of Hendrick’s from the cupboard, Tilly shook her head about theturn of events. How on earth had she ended up in what was little more than a shed on an island off the south coast about to share a nightcap with a man?
A rash decision to implement her exit plan had got her a long way. One minute she'd been on the other side of the planet, perspiring into a sundress in a tropical bar, waiting. The next on a foggy little island anchored to England by a chain ferry, in a tumbledown shed she'd bought sight unseen off a Facebook post, making a nightcap for a gorgeous oyster farmer while fireworks went off behind her ribs. You could not, as her dad would have said, make it up.
Regarding Lennixx, the hurt, the Australian women and all of that, Tilly found, to her quiet astonishment, nothing there at all. Not a twinge, flicker, feeling, or anything about any of it. Forty-eight months of her life, cruise ships, tropical sunshine, hotels, hibiscus clip and all the waiting had gone up in one quick little poof. She had no interest, no inclination even to look at Lennixx. It appeared that Tilly’s feelings had jumped ship. They’d leapt and landed somewhere much better. Her feelings, or lack thereof, for the wannabe entertainer had floated off down the estuary without a backward glance. Tilly couldn't summon up much at all about the man beyond a faint, distant embarrassment that she'd given him loads of herself for so very little in return. You live and learn. You really do.
Shaking her head as Tilly unscrewed the top from the Hendrick’s, she mused how a whole chapter of her life had come to an end. Weirdly, her forty-eight months of globetrotting almost felt like a dream. As she took a cucumber out of the fridge, cut off two slices and popped them along with some ice into the glasses, a few things struck her. Firstly, she was calling the shots, in control, steering the ship. Secondly, it seemed as if she’d somehow come home.
Her mind zoomed back to her ex-husband as she stirred the drinks. She’d been in control then but in a very different way. A careful way with everything as he’d checked her mileometer, her clothes, her money, her petrol. He’d controlled how she looked, what she spent and how she lived her life. In the end, before her exit plan, she’d been careful with everything: thoughts, hopes, dreams, inner feelings,anyfeelings. Keeping the best of herself folded away. Staying small, keeping quiet. Now she was in control. Boom shakka.
With all that in mind, what in the world was she doing making a double gin and tonic for a man she didn’t know from Adam? The whole point of the move was to be solo. To explore her inner introvert, partake in having no neighbours, enjoy zero men. That had been the entire point of the Boat Shed. Ha, that hadn’t lasted long. Who even was she? Fizzing from head to toe, feeling as if things in her body were on fire. Wanting to be the opposite of careful and go for her life. To just, for once in her sensible, self-protecting, much-waited life, jump in with six feet. Revel in the fireworks, wade around in the sparkles.
Follow your intuition, Tils. It's always worked for me.
Smiling as Tilly thought about what her dad would have said, she put the Hendrick’s in the fridge and picked up the drinks. Gulping a very hefty swig from one of them, she nodded. She’d crossed half the world to start again and be on her own, and now look at her. Against every single one of her own carefully laid plans, being on her own was the last thing she wanted. She wanted company in her bed.
42
Carrying the two gin and tonics through from the kitchen, the ice clinked, and Tilly fizzed. The first nightcap had gone down easily, and Tilly was aware, in a pleasant, faraway sort of way, that she was now what her mum would have calledmerryand what her dad might have calledthree sheets to the wind.Not that she cared in the slightest. She was having far too much of a nice time to care about what anyone would have called anything.
She didn't much care about anything other than what was going on in her world right at that time because it was lovely. In actual fact, everything was close to perfect. With the charity shop wicker lamp glowing, Darling fog pressed white against the windows, and Otto Carrington sitting on her sofa, life had not been as good for a long time. The Catherine wheel had become Tilly’s new best friend, fizzing glorious sparkles all over the place.
Tilly popped the drinks on the coffee table. 'There you go. What a lovely night. The fog is really starting to come in. It makes everything pretty, doesn’t it?'
Otto took the glass and looked around at the broderie anglaise cushions, the throw from Lucie, the faded bluearmchair and the heart-shaped platter propped on the mantel. 'You've done a lot here already.'
