Chapter 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 prep uniform, 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 got a 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.'
Tilly blinked, not sure what to say. What was he asking her? ‘I, right, err.’
'I'll be going early to help set up, but it would be great if you could come. I could meet you there. About six-thirty?'
The fireworks went ballistic. 'Yes. Umm, I think I’m free. Okay, lovely.'
Otto looked at his watch. 'I'll see you then.' A bell rang from an approaching tram. 'It's nothing fancy. Don't go to any trouble.'
Pah. Very funny. There would be a lot of preparation involved on Tilly's part.
There would need to be a military manoeuvre to get her ready to go anywhere if he were involved.
So far, this man had seen her knee-deep in mud, face-planting a gorse bush and in her dressing gown and a yellow hat.
She'd be darned if she would do anything other than try to make him have a second or indeed third look if she attended an oyster night with him.
To be frank, she was already thinking about booking a facial.
'Oh, no, no. Of course not. Right, well, I’ll see you next Saturday if not before. Six-thirty at The Darling Arms?'
‘Yes, great.’
A tram pulled up, and before Tilly knew what else to say, he’d stepped on, waved and very quickly was gone into the fog.
Standing on the pavement clutching her picnic basket, not sure why she was practically fizzing from head to toe, Tilly shook her head.
Very peculiar. What had happened had actually made her see stars and fireworks.
Catherine wheels had turned in front of her eyes.
As she started to walk away from the tram shelter, she frowned.
What even was that? Had Otto Carrington, grumpy, utterly gorgeous Otto Carrington, asked her out?
Clearly, he didn't have a wife. Tilly couldn't quite work out if he actually had asked her out, but whatever it was, she was going to chalk it up as a win.
She'd practically bitten his hand off, point of fact, which, after swearing off men forever, was a turn up for the books.
Frowning, she made a face. I think I might have a date.