A sigh came down the line that could have stripped paint. 'We export forty years. You think you are our first Englishcustomer? We have the capacity for bar codes, sizes, and labelling for different international markets. Remember, I told you we produce for the company in England, where everything is neutral? It’s all done by computer and an app these days. Not a problem.'
Tilly vaguely remembered being told that the factory produced for British retailers. ‘That’s right. So, I wouldn't need to worry about labelling and suchlike?’
'Insurance! You must be insured. Everything else we take care of.’
‘Oh, gosh, this is so exciting!’ Tilly could hardly contain herself.
‘Tilly, as I said, you are, what is that English saying, cakes and a picnic or something? No one will buy seconds, but we clicked for a reason that summer, didn’t we? Business is sometimes formed on feelings, I think. I say give it a go.’
‘My dad used to say the same.’ Tilly chuckled as the foghorn went off.
‘Oh, my God! What was that noise?'
‘A foghorn.’
‘A what? Where are you?’
Tilly tried to explain and gave up. ‘It’s part of the island I now live on.’
‘You English. All crazy, all of you. It’s the rain. It makes you all funny in the head.’
Tilly chuckled. ‘Possibly.’
‘I have to go. I will email you. I’ll pop my assistant in the group. You can chat about sizes and shipping and all that. Bye Tee-lee. Speak soon.’
‘See you and thanks so much.’
Staring at her phone in bemusement, Tilly replayed the conversation in her head. She hadn’t even thought about something like a consignment. To be fair, she wasn’t totally surewhat it meant, but Mr Google was going to help her to learn. Bottom line, she had a hundred-and-forty-year-old Portuguese linen mill on her side of the table for a business idea that had arrived out of the blue. Her dad would have categorically said that her position was not a bad place to be.
Nodding, she smiled as the name of her new business dropped in.Foghornhad just been born.
30
Afew days later, Tilly stood waiting for the tram at the bay end of Darling on her way back from a picnic for one. She'd followed a flora and fauna walk she'd seen on a poster on a noticeboard near the ferry and, accompanied by a flask of tea, a round of sandwiches and a packet of biscuits, she’d had a whale of a time. For most of the walk and the picnic, she’d pondered and made notes about Foghorn. In the Portuguese WhatsApp group, the small idea had snowballed into something real very quickly. After video-calling with Portugal, receiving a spec sheet and being shown all sorts of fabrics in the dump room, it was pretty obvious that what felt big to Tilly was actually a drop in the ocean to the people on the other end of the phone.
As she watched a tram approach, Tilly smiled. Despite the Darling fog being in situ, the light on the island was again spectacular. In fact, the misty fog was nearly as good as the hazy blue and gave everything an almost ethereal feel. As the tram rumbled to a stop, she stepped on and took a seat on one of the timber seats near the front. The tram was busy with all sorts of Darling-ites on all manner of journeys; a flurry of teenagers in uniform were holding onto a rail above, a woman in a business suit held the hand of a primary school child in a private prepuniform, and the man Mr Cooke, Tilly had seen a few times around and about, was sitting opposite her across the aisle studying shells. Shelly smiled at her, nodded and acknowledged, but was way too busy to stop and chat and with her basket on her lap, Tilly sat and watched as a busy Darling Street slid past the window.
Trundling past Darling Town Hall, Tilly checked her phone and got ready for her stop. Outside the window, Darling rolled gently past. Whitewashed cottages, window boxes tumbling with pink and white, the bakery with huge old vintage baskets in the window and a little queue spilling out of the door. The florist with metal buckets out on the pavement crammed with stems and colours blurred to a watercolour wash by the fog. A man went past on a bicycle going the other way, nodding to someone he knew, and bunting strung between the awnings stirred in the damp air.
Tilly settled her shoulders against the timber seat and thought that she could quite happily watch this particular view go by every single day for the rest of her life and never once get bored of it. The tram juddered to a halt, and Tilly gathered up her basket and stepped down onto the pavement with her mind on Foghorn, whitewashed cottages and iced-cake houses. Not watching where she was going was precisely why she walked straight into the solid wall of a man standing waiting on the kerb.
'Whoa! Steady there.'
A hand came out and caught her elbow as Tilly nearly fell backwards off the pavement. As she looked up, rockets took off into the sky. Steadying herself, it took a moment for what she was seeing to sink in. The previous times she had seen him, Otto had been all wax jacket, wellies, mudflats and scowls. This version was a little bit different and absolutely handsomely handsome. Chinos, a business shirt open at the collar, a navy jacket over the top. As she steadied herself against him, Tilly gota waft of clean, warm, expensive aftershave. He was clearly going somewhere that mattered. Her stomach flipped as a Catherine wheel fizzed. 'Gosh! Sorry.’ Clutching the basket to her like a shield, she heard herself garbling. 'I wasn't looking. I was, oh never mind. Sorry.'
'You were miles away. Do you make a habit of not looking where you're going? From what I’ve seen so far, you obviously do.'
Tilly shot back as quick as a flash. 'I like to launch myself off trams, into mud and land in bushes mostly.' She joked and did a quick sweep up and down of the chinos, the jacket, the whole transformed business of him and gulped. 'You scrub up well. Going somewhere nice?'
Otto shook his head and didn’t smile. 'Nope. A boring business meeting, which I presume will be full of boring people dressed like me. I'd rather be in my wellies, but there you go. It's a trade thing for buyers. I'll be back on the last ferry. If they don't talk me into the ground first.'
Tilly nodded, and because he hadn’t smiled and, quite frankly, was yet again unfriendly and grumpy, she made to step around him. 'Right, well, enjoy the rest of your day.'
Otto coughed. 'I was wondering and thought I would mention it if I bumped into you. There's an oyster thing on next Saturday.'
Tilly stopped. 'Sorry?'
'Oyster night down at The Darling Arms. I wondered if you'd like to come? See what it is you've gone and moved in next door to. It might stop you wandering into the beds again if you actually understand what they are.'
