Chapter 24
In the end, it had been Otto who’d taken Tilly home.
Leo had packed up his leather holdall, told Tilly to keep the dressing dry and winked.
Most normal men would not have got away with the wink in any shape or form.
The Australian, however, rocked it. Otto had picked up his keys off the dresser as Tilly had made a small noise about walking, which had been ignored.
Thirty seconds later, she’d been sitting in the passenger seat of his car with Stanley watching from the back seat and Tilly suffering from an episode of being unable to speak.
The drive to the Boat Shed didn’t take long at all.
To be honest, Tilly would have liked it to have lasted a lot longer.
Perhaps for the rest of her life. Otto said precisely three things: that the storm was starting to brew, that she should keep the arm elevated, and, as she got out of the car, that she should try not to do anything else stupid before dinner.
Then he'd nodded and driven off into the lanes, taking his dog and his biceps with him. Tilly let herself in, got the kettle going one-handed, lowered herself onto the sofa like a woman three times her age and looked down at herself at the same time as shaking her head. Quite how had she managed to get herself in such a mess? She’d simply gone out for a walk but had returned with a bandaged arm, having been prickled just about everywhere with gorse spines.
She had whisky on her breath and had again made herself look totally incompetent.
Marvellous. Really coming along nicely, this new independent life.
Pulling out her phone, she opened The Properlies, propped the phone against a cushion, and started a voice note.
'Right. Before either of you panics, I'm fine, well, fine-ish, but I’ve had a bit of an accident. I have had an incident involving a rope swing, a tree root and a gorse bush. I jumped off the swing like I was nine, but my legs didn’t like it, and I face-planted a hedge.
I somehow got myself covered in spines, my arm was bleeding, and I passed out in a lane... '
She paused, looked at the bandage on her arm and carried on.
'Here’s the bit you're going to enjoy. Have a laugh, girls, have a laugh, my friends. I am on form. Guess who found me? Yep. Mud Man. He spotted me lying face down on a footpath checking Google Maps, told me I was a sandwich short of a picnic, and then, when I fainted, he picked me up. This is becoming a genre, ha.’ Tilly chuckled.
‘He put me in his car, took me to his house, called an Australian doctor who lives up the road and looks like he fell off a surfing calendar.
Anyway, the doctor patched me up, and Mud Man drove me home and told me not to do anything else stupid.
So, that is my news for the day. I am the gift that keeps on giving at the moment.
I've now been rescued twice by the same man.
I would like to state for the record that I am a strong, independent woman, yeah right. '
Tilly chuckled as she sent the message and then, remembering the picture on the windowsill, followed up with more.
'Also. There was a photo of a woman on his windowsill.
Dark hair, green coat, on a beach. He said "my wife" as in my wife's family is from Ireland. So there we are, there is a wife. That’s the end of that then.
It's actually a relief, if anything, because now the fireworks can be officially decommissioned and I can get on with my shed in peace. So that's good. Great, really. Hurrah.'
Pia replied first. 'Okay, one, thank God you're alright.
Two, re the wife: Tils, where was she though?
You said yourself, no ring. I'm not saying anything, but you’ve not physically seen a wife, right?
Also, an Australian doctor who fell off a surfing calendar?
I'm getting on a plane. Send photos of the arm and the doctor. '
Jasmine's message arrived twenty minutes later with the sound of a hairdryer in the background.
'Tils, honestly, only you. Keep the dressing dry and take painkillers. Concentrate on the shed and the shed only, and the business idea you texted about earlier, because I reckon that has legs. Sorry, I’ve got to go; I have to glue a moustache on a man in forty seconds. Rest the arm.'
Tilly listened to both messages and made herself a hot water bottle.
Jasmine was always right, which was annoying, but maybe Pia had a point.
Something about the way Otto had acted hadn’t screamed that he lived with someone.
Tilly wasn’t sure why she thought that Otto was single.
Leo had also acted that way. Not that it meant anything because Tilly didn’t care anyway. Of course not.