'Still nothing?'
Tilly considered lying, thought better of it, and shrugged. 'None. Not one. Loads of people have had a look, and every single one of them has left without buying anything, so, you know. As I said, early days.'
Otto put his cup down on the end of her beautiful empty packing table, and Tilly watched him shift gears. She had seen it before. The Carrington take-charge gear, engaging. 'Right, well, that's easily fixed. I know half the trade buyers in the country from the oyster side. There's a woman who does the buying for a chain of farm shops, decent ones, the expensive sort, she'd biteyour hand off for this stuff. One call and you'd have a wholesale order by Friday that'd clear those shelves. Or, look, if it's a cash-flow thing in the meantime, I can…'
Tilly interrupted him. 'It's fine.'
'It's clearly not fine; there's nothing moving. I'm just saying, you don't need to sit here waiting for strangers on the internet when I can do something about it. I have contacts all over the place. I can sort it in no time at all. You don’t have to worry about it.'
'Otto. It's fine. I've got it.'
Otto looked at her, and to his credit, he picked his cup back up and let it go. 'Okay. The offer's there. Come on, Stanley.' At the doors, he paused and gestured back at the shelves with the cup, and his voice was kind, which somehow made it worse. 'It's a good idea. It just needs a push from someone who knows what they’re doing. I can do that. Right, see you later at mine, yeah? Shall I pick you up or are you strolling over?'
‘All good, I’ll walk. See you later.’
Tilly watched Otto walk down the jetty with Stanley as she sat on the stool in her lovely, silent, order-free packing room. Otto’s offer had not gone down well from her end. She hadn’t liked the look on his face. Sitting there, she tried to work out why an offer of help from a man she was mad about had made every hair on her body stand on end.It just needs a push from someone who knows what they’re doing.Cheeky toad.
One phone call and Foghorn wouldn't be hers anymore; it would be a thing Otto Carrington had sorted for his girlfriend, the way he sorted sandbags and lifts home and getting her out of the mud. She'd be waiting on his buyers, his favour, his world. Red flags went crazy in our Tilly’s world. Somewhere in her head, something ticked over. Something like a mileometer being checked.
Shaking her head to try and rid herself of the thought, Tilly told herself she was being ridiculous. It had been something about the look on Otto’s face that she hadn’t liked, as if he thought that his job was to save her. Pondering it and pushing the nail of her right thumb left and right on her lip, she sighed. She wasn’t having that. Not a bar of it. At all.
57
Tilly had been ready for a good hour. Hair done, green silk shirt on, a bottle of wine from Bottles on Darling sitting by the door in a twist of brown paper. All she had to do was pick it up and walk the fifteen minutes along the harbour road to Otto's. She’d done the walk dozens of times before. There she would sit in the big kitchen or out in the garden and have a lovely evening with a man she was mad about. Or maybe she wouldn’t.
It just needs a push from someone who knows what they're doing.
All afternoon, the line had been going round and round Tilly’s head. Wearing a little groove in her brain, picking up other things as it went. The buyer, he could ring, Friday he could arrange, money he could put in. The doorman who knew his name, the watch that cost more than the car she didn’t own, the whole easy, unhurried world of a man for whom every single problem in life was one phone call away from sorted. Well, apart from what happened to his wife, there was that. She kept thinking, ridiculously, that what if she was his newest project? A woman with a failing business, a dwindling bank balance and a shed she didn't even own yet. Something he could take charge of, like the two people before him had assumed they could do.
Somewhere very deep down, a mileometer clicked. Something about Otto’s entitled attitude had turned Tilly’s stomach, and she didn’t like how it made her feel at all. Picking up her phone, she typed out a message.
Tilly:So sorry, going to have to bail tonight. Absolutely shattered, been at it all day. Rain check? x
Reading it through, she winced. It was breezy, light and completely unlike their usual texts to each other. Pressing send before she could think about it any further, she sat with the phone in her lap. Otto’s reply came back inside a minute.
Otto:Oh, right. Really? Just come over.
Tilly:Fine! I just need an early night.
Otto:I’ll stroll around to you then.
Tilly:I think I’ll just pop up and have a bath and go to bed. xxx
Tilly:Everything okay? You seemed a bit off earlier.
Tilly considered telling the truth.Actually, no, I’m not okay. When you offered to fix my business today, something in me went somewhere old and very dark, and I need to tell you about a man called Andy and a mileometer.There was no way she was going there, though. She just needed a bit of breathing space. Andy’s coercion had in the past skewed her logic about regular old things. A little part of her was well aware that the same thing was happening now. Still, she needed to back off and regroup.
Tilly:All good! Just knackered. Speak tomorrow xxxxx
The little tick appeared, then the second one, and Tilly Bloomwood, who had once hidden an exit plan on a work computer and smiled across a dinner table at a man who checked her mileage, sat in the shed and sighed. Saying nothing and keeping it light was what she had done in the old days, and it seemed she was doing again now. Fold the real thing away small, where nobody can get at it. She'd had four years of practice atpretending on top of six years of practice at hiding, and wasn't it funny how well she’d honed the skill.
Tilly felt sick about how she was feeling. Thoughts of the extensive counselling she’d had after she’d escaped from Andy swirled around her head. This was a moment for The Properlies if ever there was one. Both of the other members knew the full story of what had happened in her marriage, and they were the only ones. Her mum knew half sketchy parts because Tilly hadn’t wanted to burden her with it.
Tilly:Anyone around tonight? I need to talk if possible.
The replies came back so fast it was as if they'd been sitting there waiting.
Pia:Yep, nothing going on with me. What's happened? R u OK??
