Chapter 26
It was the next day, and after a good night’s sleep and a redressing of her wounds, Tilly was more or less fine.
Peering out the window at the sky, which unbelievably had suddenly taken on a strange grey, almost purple look, it appeared as if the storm was on its way.
The swift change in the sky’s colour had taken her by surprise, as had gusts of wind that started to seriously rattle the windows and doors.
Not really taking much notice, Tilly was more interested in getting on with yet another job on her long list of things to get straight in the flat.
The kitchen, it had to be said, wasn't great, and it was her mission to make something of it.
Margery and Bill's cleaning skills hadn't been at the fore when they'd left the property, let’s put it that way.
On the first day, Tilly had made the best of it via a quick clean, but now she was going in for the kill.
This was mask-on, rubber-glove-in-position territory.
Armed with black sacks and determination like no other, Tilly was ready and able to get rid of most of the contents of the cupboards and to clean like a mother.
Kneeling on the kitchen floor with her head in a cupboard, she nearly jumped out of her skin when a loud sound blasted through the building.
She'd heard a lot about it, but it was the first time she'd actually heard the Darling foghorn go off, and didn’t she know about it.
According to things she'd read, Darling was one of the last places in the country using both satellite navigation and a horn to warn of fog. In light of what she’d just heard, the storm was most definitely on its way.
Inching out backwards from the cupboard as a long, loud blast went again, Tilly walked down the stairs, went through the boat room, yanked open the door and peered up at the sky.
Not a spot of fog in sight as far as she could see, just menacing-looking clouds.
Plenty of wind, though and a light drizzle had started.
Going back in, she double-checked the bolts on the doors, went around and checked the windows and got back to the job in hand.
Three binbags later and having thrown out packets with best-before dates ten years prior and finding all manner of things, including out-of-date anchovies, old packets of dried soup and a biscuit tin that had seen better days, Tilly was over it.
As she continued with the job, every now and then, the foghorn continued on its merry way, blasting here and there, every time nearly making her jump out of her skin.
In a way, however, it was actually quite romantic if that was your sort of thing.
Harking back to older times without phones, satellites and machines doing things for everyone all the time, it brought with it notions of days gone by.
To Tilly’s ears, the boom came with a message to get inside, light a fire, make a nice warm brew and stay rugged-up all cosy and safe.
Worked for her and was precisely what she intended to do.
By the time the foghorn had gone off for something like the eighth time, Tilly had stopped jumping and got used to it.
Outside the window above the kitchen sink, the sky had changed again to a black-purple tinged with electric blue.
It was similar to the kind of sky on a tropical island that made the staff collect the sunbeds and tie up the parasols.
On Darling, it appeared that people were doing the same.
As she peered from the deck, Tilly noted that the owner of a building a few doors down was pulling in an awning, a woman from the chandlery was taking in a display of rope and buoys, and The Pride of Darling was coming in on what could be its last crossing of the day.
A man on a small sailing boat in the marina was checking and rechecking bolts on doors with his jacket hood up, and somewhere further along the harbour road, a shutter banged.
Tilly turned back to the last cupboard and got on with it as the wind really started to pick up.
Every few minutes, it gave the building a rattle, the old windows in their frames making a strange sound and the foghorn adding its two penn'orth on top.
Tilly, on her knees with her top half inside a wall cabinet above the worktop and a black sack on the floor below her, carried on regardless.
Out came a tin of something that had expired in 2014, a bottle of soy sauce that had gone the colour of tar, half a box of cornflour, a packet of dried pasta with a hole in the corner and a small colony of something she was not going to look at too closely.
Into the bag went the lot of it. Her dad had always said that if in doubt, clear the decks so that you could see what you're actually working with. Tilly had learnt the lesson well.
With a playlist blasting and the wind and foghorn keeping her company, Tilly was on a roll.
The more she cleared, the better the kitchen got, and as she could see the improvements little by little, the more she wanted to keep going.
That was the thing about cleaning, it had its own momentum.
You cleared one shelf, and the shelf next to it looked worse by comparison, and then that one and the next and before you knew it, you were on your fourth bin bag and the kitchen smelled of nothing but Flash, elbow grease and satisfaction.
The old pine shelves above the cooker, free of their accumulated tins and jars and general what-have-you, were actually lovely.
Honey-coloured, warm, solid old timber, the kind of old-school joinery that had been there thirty years and had another thirty in them, if not more.
She wiped them down with a hot cloth and stood back.
Considerably better. Outside, another gust hit the building, the foghorn gave a long, low blast somewhere, and the window above the sink rattled in its frame.
The kitchen, once she'd finished with it, looked a hundred times better and smelled of nothing but Dettol and a lemon spray Tilly had found under the sink behind the bleach.
The pine shelves and worktops were clean, empty and bare except for the kettle, the toaster and two huge old ceramic pots Tilly had used for wooden spoons.
Old hanging racks now held an assortment of the best utensils Tilly had salvaged: a beautiful old ladle from back in the day, a slotted spoon that looked well-loved, a couple of vintage cheese graters, a garlic press.
On the side, a vintage Bialetti moka pot she'd found in the back of one of the cupboards took pride of place, and a plant from outside in a gorgeous old pot stood on the windowsill, its trailing leaves running along the hanging rail.
The double-sash window above the sink gleamed, she'd scrubbed the floor on her hands and knees, and the dishwasher had been cleaned and run on a hot wash until it smelt a whole lot better than when she'd started. All in all, a job well done. The shed’s kitchen let out a huge, elongated sigh of relief.
Just before Tilly had started cleaning, she'd got a pot going on the hob so that her dinner was sorted.
In had gone chicken thighs, a whole head of garlic, lemon, white wine and a handful of thyme from a little pot she'd bought on Darling Street and put on the kitchen windowsill.
It was a dish her mum had made over and over again back in the day, and the smell alone reminded Tilly of home, her dad, and safety. Talk about lovely.
With the dinner on the go, the storm gearing up, aching muscles and fading light, Tilly had decided on a bath.
The old claw-footed tub in the bathroom upstairs that she'd scrubbed on day one was just what she needed for the state of her muscles after the day of working on the kitchen.
Pouring in a long line of bath oil she'd found in the vanity cupboard, the air filled with a lovely scent, the bathroom billowed with steam, and the bliss of lying in the bath with a glass of wine with dinner done and the storm outside was a good one.
Lowering herself into the water as the foghorn went off yet again, Tilly sipped on a glass of wine, listened to the wind howling and thought about how quickly she'd changed her life for the better.
One minute she'd been lying on a bed hoping the air conditioning wouldn't break down, the next she’d spent a day with her head in a cupboard, spraying Dettol and a very lot of potential in her future.
Once out of the bath and having noticed a significant drop in temperature, Tilly was in her pyjamas, dressing gown, socks and slippers, hair up in a bun and pottering around analysing changes she could further make to the flat and how much it had improved already.
Going around turning on every single battery tealight she'd bought in a pack of thirty, she was thoroughly enjoying herself and the storm.
Wondering what all the fuss had been about the storm, she was actually enjoying the pattering rain and rattling windows.
With all the tealights on, little flickers fluttered from everywhere, the flat was warm, glittery and golden, and Tilly was very pleased with her effort.
The whole place smelt of garlic, herbs and yummy cooking and as outside, the wind howled, windows creaked, and the old timbers below shifted, Tilly, to be quite frank, was loving it.
Peering out the window, the storm appeared to be getting worse.
Wondering if she should go outside and double-check things, she took off her slippers, plonked her feet into her wellie boots and went downstairs to check the doors again.
Looking around and checking, however, she didn't really know what she was supposed to look for.
The double doors at the front were bolted top and bottom, the side door was locked, and the shutters were closed.
Deciding to have a quick peek outside, she slid the bolt back on the main door, pushed, gasped and let out a small yell as the door nearly took her with it.
Having to grab the handle with both hands to stop herself following it out onto the decking, Tilly yanked.
What took her breath away was the extraordinary noise as the elements and all sorts bellowed around her.
The foghorn went off, the wind howled, water splashed, and every timber in the building seemed to creak and groan all at once.
Feeling spray on her face from where she was standing in the doorway, Tilly grabbed the door, wrestled it back in with her whole weight, and once she'd bolted it, she stood with her back against it in the dark and thought that perhaps the Darling-ites were right about the storm. Maybe it wasn’t quite as cosy after all.
Walking back into the flat, it still looked like something from a movie; thirty tealights flickering, wine on the coffee table, dinner bubbling away.
Forty-five minutes later, rain went sideways past the window, a bang changed things as the wind, rain and storm decided it would turn the power off.
Now she felt a little less the clever Alec, a lot scared.
After a while and with no sign of the power coming back on, Tilly whipped out her phone and looked to see if there was anything about the storm online.
The search didn't take long and she found messages, news articles and Facebook posts all over the place.
A message on Darling's community page told everyone to stay safe, check their sandbags and stay inside.
Lots of places said that the storm would peak in the early hours.
Suddenly, the wind decided to fling something, a bin lid, a branch, who knew what, against the side of the house with a great clattering thud, and Tilly nearly jumped out of her skin in fright.
Funny, really, a minute before she'd been sitting there all snug and smug, queen of her own cosy little cocoon, rather enjoying the show.
Now she wasn't quite as sure. Walls groaned, windows rattled, it sounded as if the doors were opening and closing, and the eye of the storm, as far as Tilly could work out, was still a very long way off.
She scrolled down through the comments on a Facebook post and rather wished she hadn't.
Power's been out our end since six.
Trees down on the coast road.
Don't go near the bay; the spray's coming right over the wall.
On and on it went, neighbour after neighbour reporting in from the dark, and with every line Tilly felt her bravado slipping away.
No power, no partner, not even a hum of the cronky old fridge in the kitchen.
All alone, a fast-dwindling phone battery, the wind doing its level best to peel the roof off, and a house she'd lived in for all of five minutes. Gulping, she shivered and tried to be brave. What if her battery died too? Where in the name of all things holy would someone like Margery have kept a torch? Closing her eyes, Tilly tried to be brave and told herself she’d be fine.
It didn’t work in the slightest. Bottom line, she just felt really, really, really scared.