Chapter 37
Tilly had set herself a mission: to take photos of bedding for Foghorn as if they were going out of fashion.
With that in mind, she’d tidied up her bedroom and got stuck in.
No time like the present. She’d worked out that the shed’s position on the estuary made the light different depending on the time of day and that her favourite light was in the morning and late afternoon.
At these times, the light came up off the water and in through the harbour-side windows, all soft and pearly and bounced itself around as if it was being paid to.
Somehow, she knew that in great light, the Portuguese linen would sing.
Therefore, she’d got cracking and started attempting to put the vision of the Foghorn bed that was in her head into practice.
It didn’t take her long to work out that it was easier said than done.
The job was not to make the bed the way she'd made ten thousand of the things working in hospitality. It was tricky not to go into autopilot and do just that. Very quickly, Tilly ascertained that the years of bed-making muscle memory were wrong for the job facing her. Five-star hotels had required hospital corners, drum-tight flat sheets, karate-chopped pillows and perfect symmetry as far as the eye could see. The whole point of her job in the hotels had been to make a bed look like nobody had ever slept in it. The point of Foghorn was the opposite end of the stick. Foghorn’s ethos as Tilly saw it in her head was a lived-in, loved-up, comfy, home-like bed.
Now she had the linen to sell the dream; all she had to do was try to conjure one up and capture it.
After a lot of work, a few choice words and some huffing and puffing, the vision in Tilly’s head slowly came to fruition as she worked.
Layer upon layer of sludgy linen topped with berry red pillowslips, gorgeous dress cushions in coordinating shades, a thick, heavy valance skirting the floor.
Once she’d foofed to her heart’s content, she stood back, narrowed her eyes and nodded.
Right away, she loved it because in front of her was the thing she'd been trying to put into words ever since she’d initially pulled the pillowslips out of her duffel bag.
With morning light pouring across the rumpled linen, every little fold and slub showed and every crumple added to the expensive, lived-in, but somehow not, classy feel she’d been going for.
The whole bed wooed as if it were cajoling someone to get in.
So far from a nondescript regulation hotel bed, it wasn’t funny.
Not a catalogue bed, posed, dead and perfect, but a bed that said it was from a life.
The bed you wanted to climb into at the quinta, at your gran's when you were poorly, or on the first night of a holiday in an old shed by the sea.
As Tilly realised she was onto something, her dad’s words to strike while the iron was hot rang through her head, and she took about four hundred photographs from lots of different angles.
Kneeling on floorboards, standing on a chair, and lying flat on her stomach in the doorway all in the purpose of nailing a good shot.
The more she worked, the better the bed began to look, and as she really got into it, the more Tilly felt as if she was onto something.
The actual loveliness wasn’t the only thing going on in the room.
It seemed that our Tils had somehow acquired a new skill without even knowing it.
How about that then? Tilly wasn’t too bad at taking photos and styling beds.
In fact, as she scrolled through what she’d snapped, it was almost as if she’d been made for it.
Perhaps years of servicing hotel rooms had actually been a great experience for her after all.
It seemed that maybe she was good at this.
Not have-a-go good but good good straight out of the gate.
Taking a while to work out that the photographs were not a fluke, and it wasn't beginner's luck, Tilly nodded and raised her eyebrows.
It wasn't that the linen was doing all the work, either, gorgeous as it was. It was years of walking into fancy bedrooms at seven in the morning and putting them right. Tilly realised as she stood and took photos that she knew what a bed looked like from a doorway, where the eye went first, knew what a pillow did wrong, the difference between rumpled-inviting and just plain unmade. Unbeknownst to her at the time, she’d been on an apprenticeship in all things bed, and now that journey in learning had found itself a lovely new job at a company called Foghorn.
The last photo of the morning, taken on a whim with the light going flat and Tilly running out of steam, was the best of all.
The shed’s old iron bed layered up with stacks and stacks of beautiful old linen, a mug of tea on the side, a pile of books on the bedside table, a vase stuffed full of some branches from a tree outside, relayed everything about the image of Foghorn Tilly had in her mind.
As she used her finger and thumb to zoom in, she was well pleased with herself.
Styling the bed had not been a walk in the park, but the results were much better than Tilly had anticipated.
All Foghorn needed now was an online home, and it would be ready to put itself out there, or as it were, to bed.