Jasmine:I'm between shows. What's wrong?
Tilly:Nothing's happened. Sort of. I just need the committee.
Pia:In an hour? I'm getting Mum settled. Jas?
Jasmine:I can do an hour from now exactly. Tils, are you safe??? Actual question.
Tilly chuckled. That was the thing about The Properlies. Thirty years of history meant they knew, without being told, that Tilly’s message was serious. Jasmine had gone straight to the question they'd once had to ask her for real.
Tilly:I'm safe. I'm fine. It's not that. It's me, I think. See u in an hour. x
Pia:Love you.
Jasmine:Love u properly.
Sighing, Tilly looked at the wine still sitting by the door, decided against opening it, and went to put the kettle on.Enough time to make tea, have a nice bath and think. She now had to explain how a kind man offering to help her had triggered stuff. Bonkers really when you examined it, but real, horrible and right there all the same.
58
An hour later, on the dot, Tilly was sitting up in bed in her pyjamas with her hair in a towel, a cup of tea going cold on the bedside table, and the phone propped against a pillow. Pia appeared first, on the terrace in Provence with a cardigan over her shoulders and a glass of wine. Jasmine arrived a few seconds later with wig heads lined up behind her
Tilly smiled. 'Hi.'
'Hiya.' Jasmine raised her eyebrows.
'Pia smiled. 'Right, we're here. Off you go.'
Feeling quite pathetic, Tilly rattled off everything that had happened with Otto and Foghorn. The flat blue line and visitors, money draining out day by day into an ad that had brought her nothing and how Otto had wandered into the boat room looking at her empty packing table and reaching, without even breaking stride, for his phone to try and take over.One call and you'd have a wholesale order by Friday. It just needs a push from someone who knows what they're doing.
'I was meant to be going for dinner, but I couldn't go. I sent him a text saying I was shattered. He tried three times to make it easy for me to come anyway, and I lied, and now I'm in bed at nine o'clock hiding from the nicest thing that's ever happenedto me. So yeah, not great here. I’m not really sure why I feel like this.'
Jasmine made a face and shook her head. 'No, sorry, I’m calling it. Yes, youdoknow why.'
Tilly blinked. 'Sorry?'
'You understand exactly why. You said it yourself just then. Tils. Tell me what Andy did in the first year before he started checking your car and telling you what you could wear. The very beginning bit.'
Tilly felt her stomach drop. 'Jas.'
'Humour me. The beginning bit.'
Tilly looked at the ceiling. She knew how it went. She’d discussed it in counselling until she was sick to death of it enough times. 'He sorted things. My car insurance was a rip-off, so he moved it. My flat was damp, so I moved in with him. My boss was difficult, so he said cut your hours, I earn plenty. He made everything easy, and it felt like being looked after. Yes, that’s it!'
'What Otto did has triggered the past.' Jasmine nodded.
Pia pulled a face and screwed up her nose. 'Hang on, because I don't think that's the whole thing.'
Jasmine continued. 'That's the first half. Tils, you're not going to like this, but Andy sorted things so he could own you, but you pretended it was fine, right?'
Tilly stared at the little screen. 'I kept things light and said everything was fine, kept quiet, and it got worse. I planned my exit in secret.'
'And what have you done tonight?'
Tilly thought of the three breezy texts and the kisses she'd typed at the end of the lie. 'Oh, God.'
'Otto isn't Andy. Was what Otto did actually controlling? Think about it reasonably. When you saidit's fine, I've got it. What did he do?'
Tilly thought about it properly. 'He stopped. He picked up his cup, and he let it go.'
