As butterflies swarmed around in her stomach, Tilly shook her head at how fast things had moved. One minute she’d sent a DM, the next she was on her way. This was the sort of adventure she’d wanted. Not sitting in a bar surrounded by tourists and sticky tropical heat, waiting for a man. Yes, this sounded right up her street. A key in a box on the back wall of a building she’d never set foot in and a little foggy island on the other side of the world from where she was sitting, waiting to restart her life. Bring it on.
6
The plane landed at Heathrow at an ungodly hour, late, and in fog so thick that Tilly hadn't seen the runway until the wheels were on it. She'd for sure felt it underneath, though. Arriving back home with a bump, there was no applause for a smooth landing, rather a few gasps and thuds. The cabin crew had told them, somewhere over the Channel, that their plane was one of the last flights cleared to land before the airport closed. The British weather hadn't changed its tricks since Tilly had taken herself off to warmer climes. As she stared out the window at a grey-washed sky, she was by that stage so tired and over it that she'd computed the news about the fog and airport closure as if it were happening to somebody else.
Throughout the whole second leg from Singapore to London, she'd not really slept apart from a few twenty-minute blackouts here and there, with her head feeling as if it were on stilts. It had been an okay enough flight if sitting in a metal box staring at a screen and listening to a screaming baby for twelve hours was your kind of thing.
Once off the plane, the weather, airport, people and the walls all seemed to be wearing the same grey fog-like tinge. Drab sprang to mind. Not quite the welcome home she’d imagined inher head. What was she expecting, though? No one even knew where she was. Once through, Tilly dragged her case behind her into a virtually empty arrivals hall where a handful of bleary couples were being met by other family and friends, a few bored, lifeless taxi drivers with signs, and a coffee place with its shutter halfway up, did not welcome.
Tilly had pictured landing back in England a few times since she'd left. Regarding what she was faced with on a grey day and an airport closure, she’d clearly romanticised it to within an inch of its life. In her little homesick daydreams, the arrivals hall had been colourful, packed with smiles, chaotic, happy people, balloons, flowers, beams on faces. Instead, grey, dismal, grim and near silence pushed back at her. Somewhere over by WHSmith, a polisher was going slowly across the floor, a backpacker with his shoes off sat on the floor, and a woman frantically rummaged through open bags.
Outside the terminal, fog swirled in a thick, still softness tinged yellow from car lights. After a quick check on her travel app, Tilly pushed her romanticised version of arriving home to the back of her mind and made her way to the trains and started her pilgrimage to the south coast. Having no clue what to expect, something told her she was doing the right thing. Deciding she needed sustenance to see her through, she stumped up for a Pret coffee and sandwich and stood on the platform in a bit of a daze.
Boarding a bright blue and yellow fast train where the ticket had cost nearly as much as the one that had got her from Singapore to London, Tilly found a carriage with the fewest people in it, deposited her luggage in a rack and plonked herself down. Taking the lid off the coffee, hoping that the caffeine would add some perkiness to the all-around grey, she took a sip and watched the weather through the window. The fog so all-encompassing that the platform was almost not there, the lights smudges of yellow and signs just visible. Somewheredown the carriage, a man was on his phone, speaking quietly in what sounded like Polish and as the train started to move, Tilly wondered about Lennixx and the fact that she’d had no communication with him whatsoever. He was currently on a cruise around the South Pacific with sketchy, expensive internet, and his philanderings had no doubt contained little clandestine visits to double beds not his own. She, on the other hand, was now home.
Getting herself settled, Tilly shook her head at the situation she found herself in. She’d imagined the journey back to the UK loads of times in quite a few different ways, none of which had showcased her alone on a train heading south to a place she didn’t know. She'd imagined herself with Lennixx, perhaps planning his next gig, maybe a tour of the North or the like. The reality of what was on her plate was a destination she knew zilch about, a too-hot Pret coffee, a window full of fog and a haze-like feeling whereby her body and its jet lag weren't quite sure what day of the week it was or what she was going to do.
Mulling over her decisions and trying to push down the fact that perhaps she'd been a little on the hasty side with her exit plan, Tilly sipped the coffee with a sense of impending doom. What had she been thinking? As the train picked up speed, the fog began to thin, and buildings spaced out outside the window, there was one thing that wasn’t in doubt: the train absolutely ate up the miles. It sped along, depositing her back into the loveliness of the British countryside as if on a mission. Tilly stared out the window in a daze: dewy fields of saturated green, soft misty edges, back gardens with old sheds, shapes of tall English trees, horses in paddocks, hedgerows full of England doing her thing. Home. Thank the devil for that.
7
By the time Tilly had travelled from Heathrow to the bus that serviced Darling Island, she'd lost the will to live. She'd been travelling for what felt like days, and had questioned just about everything in her life: her exit plan, what she had ever seen in Lennixx, cruise liners, the shed. She’d also thrown in, for good measure, questions about Darling Island and had dissected the previous forty-eight months of wasting her life. Sporting eyeballs that felt as if they were being held open by sticks, a good old-fashioned shower wouldn’t have gone amiss, and there was a constant, lo-fi tension all over Tilly’s head. Happy, smiley, jolly, she was not.
With Darling Island in her sights, the bus from the station had deposited her at the foot of a lay-by behind a queue of cars, and with her case banging against her shin, she'd cursed all sorts: the fog, Australians, Facebook business groups, Fiji and ever meeting Lennixx in the first place. The inclement weather had mostly improved but lingered here and there just to let her know she really had arrived home, and her back was aching from the terrible plane seats and the weight of her backpack.
Looking up and over an expanse of water as Tilly got closer to a crossing area, she could almost touch a soft, milky, just-visiblemisty fog hanging over the view in the distance. Unless she was seeing things, everything appeared to be washed in a hazy blue and the air, oh, how unbelievably fresh it was. After month upon month of thick, sticky, suffocating tropical heat that had felt as if it might well have been another limb, this air was sweet. Gulping the stuff in, Tilly couldn’t get enough. Seaweed, salt, wet, wood, England. Home.
Tilly stood for a moment and stared. There it was just across the estuary. Darling Island. The water a lovely hazy blue, just as she'd seen on the internet. The chain ferry, making its way slowly across, a small line of cars on its back, foot passengers gathered behind the barrier to her left side, starting to drift down to the gate. Putting her hand up to shade her eyes, Tilly let out a long, slow breath. She'd arrived on the other side of the world, to stay in an old shed she had not much of a clue about on a remote island where she knew no one. Suddenly she felt very foolish, very small, scared and alone. What could possibly go wrong?
Pulling out her phone, Tilly tutted concerning a three per cent battery. Brilliant. She'd been charging it on the bus, but the thing had died somewhere around Basingstoke. Fumbling in her bag for a portable charger she'd bought in Singapore, she plugged it in, waited for the little lightning bolt to appear and said a silent thank you when her phone started charging.
Opening WhatsApp, she navigated straight to her friends The Properlies. They would know what to say and would instantly make her feel better. They’d been there for her since she was eleven years old, minding her back. The group chat name made her smile in spite of everything. Holding the phone to her ear, she started a voice note.
'Right. I'm here. Well, nearly here. I'm at the chain ferry, it's called The Pride of Darling. Actually, I'm staring at the island, and it looks like it's been photoshopped with unreal colours.Everything’s well, a little bit foggy, at least I think it’s fog. It’s weird, it's all a hazy blue, lots of white buildings with a little ferry chugging across. I feel like I've wandered into a postcard or a retirement brochure, ha. Oh gosh, or possibly a horror film about a woman who buys a shed on the internet and is never seen again.' Tilly swore.
Stopping for a second, she watched the hazy blue colour. 'Also, I look like absolute death. I've been travelling for about a million hours. My neck is at a right angle that doesn't belong to me. I am now questioning what I've done and the legalities of it. I’ve agreed to buy my new home via a Facebook post and a phone call with a woman whose husband is in hospital. I mean, what evenismy life? I’ve been low, ladies, but this is something else. What am I doing?'
Sending the voice note and waiting, Tilly leant against her suitcase and observed the ferry as it made its way over the expanse of water. A woman walked past and gave her a nod. Tilly nodded back, feeling like a fish out of water. Her phone buzzed with a two-minute-long voice message from Pia.
'Tils, you absolute legend. I’m sitting in Mum's garden in Provence, eating a croissant, and you are about to get on a ferry to an island. I cannot believe you did this. When you messaged as you were boarding in Singapore about the shed, I didn’t know what to think. It could be good, though. I mean, it's exactly the sort of mad thing you do, but still. Anyway, don’t have second thoughts! The shed sounds amazing, it will be all romantic and fuzzy like a romcom film. A boat shed by the sea. I’m here for it. You'll be like that woman in that movie, the one with the notebook or something. What's her name? The one with Ryan Gosling. You'll be her! Minus the Ryan Gosling, probably, but still. I'm so jealous. Mum says hello, by the way. She says you're brave and a little bit bonkers. Send photos of everything as soon as you get there. You're going to be fine. Better than fine. You'regoing to be brilliant. You always are, even when you think you're not.'
Tilly smiled and started another voice note. 'Doesn’t that film end really, really sadly? That's not exactly the vibe I'm going for. I am stating this for the record: I am off men, and I do not want a relationship in any shape or form. Also, I don't look like a movie star. I look like a woman who has slept against a plane window for forty-five minutes and then sat on a bus next to a man who ate cheese and onion crisps with his mouth open. I'm about to get on this ferry, and I have no idea what happens next. I don't know if the shed is real. Flipping heck, what if I arrive and find it's a portaloo on a mudflat? I guess there’s no going back now. I'm here, and I'm doing it. Dad would have said that's the main thing.'
Immediately, as she hit send, another voice note arrived from Jasmine. Tilly pressed play.
'Right, I'm backstage and I have thoughts on this. Tils, you’ll be fine. I mean, it’s a little bit left-wing, but you’re a grafter, and your dad made a living out of doing things like this. You bought a business off Facebook. That is either the bravest thing you've ever done or the stupidest. Here's the thing: you will make it work. You were brave when you left The Pig, I mean Andy. You were brave when you walked away from Lennixx. Let’s not even go there, and now you're being brave again. I’m picturing you in that jumper from that Nordic crime show, hauling nets around in the fog. Or maybe all Monty Don. Whatever, you’ll be rustic, coastal and rugged. We can come and stay and drink mulled wine in cosy bobble hats. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Right, I've got to go, someone's shouting for me. Text when you're in. Send photos. Love you both. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, which, as we know, leaves you plenty of room.'
Tilly chuckled. The Properlies always made her feel better. She started another voice note as she made her way to the ferry.'I'm getting on the ferry. I'll message when I'm there. Thank you for not thinking I've lost my mind, or maybe you do think that, but you love me anyway. Same thing, really. At least it’s not tropical weather, and I am not cleaning hotel rooms.'
Pia:If it's awful, you can always come to Provence and stay in the spare room. We have very nice rosé. But it's not going to be awful. It's going to be the beginning. I feel like this will be your new start, Tils. xxx
Tilly typed back, thumbs clumsy with cold, jet lag and tiredness.
Tilly:Hope so. No going back now. xx
8
Asmall cluster of foot passengers was waiting to board the ferry on her left side, and a teenager in walking gear smiled as Tilly approached. A man in a high-vis vest with a flask sticking out of a rucksack raised his eyebrows, and a woman about Tilly's age with a tote bag and a takeaway coffee said hello. Friendly at least. Joining the back of the queue, Tilly put her case down on its wheels and breathed as The Pride of Darling pulled in. Watching a man at the front of the ferry in a white polo shirt with blue epaulettes and matching cap walking up and down the deck shouting instructions, Tilly felt a very long way from Fiji or the Maldives. As the cars on the deck started their engines and a chain came up out of the water, a ramp clanged down, vehicles rumbled off, and activity ensued. The man in the polo shirt waved them through one by one and clapped a hand on the bonnet of a Toyota whose driver had said something through the window that made him laugh. Following the queue as he turned and waved the foot passengers on, Tilly's case clattered up the metal ramp behind her. Finding a spot near the front, just behind the gate, where she could see the island properly as they crossed, Tilly felt as if someone had dropped her into a whole other world.
