Chapter 49
It was the evening of the date, and Tilly was walking along beside Otto, absolutely glowing.
Fog filtered everything around her into a softness, and the lights of Darling Street smudged gold as far as the eye could see.
Tilly, on the outside, was smiley, happy and oh-so confident.
Inside, she felt as if she'd perhaps wandered into somebody else's life.
Here she was, on a little island anchored to England by a chain ferry, dressed up to the nines with her hair done, strolling through misty fog beside a man who was most decidedly not Lennixx.
She was on her way to dinner with someone she could not get enough of and had no clue where the night would end.
Not that long before, she'd been ankle-deep in estuary mud being read the riot act by this exact man, and now he and she were definitely on a real-life bona fide date.
Life had a very strange sense of humour indeed. She loved it, though. Absolutely.
To be frank, after what Otto had said about the oyster night, Tilly had half expected the date to be on the mainland.
She’d expected to end up somewhere anonymous by way of the chain ferry.
A place where they wouldn’t know a soul.
However, instead, they were strolling along Darling Street on the way to a Chinese restaurant Otto had booked.
After stopping outside a frontage Tilly had walked past a dozen times without ever quite registering what it was, she looked up and read the sign.
China Darling. A narrow shopfront painted the deepest of dark blues, the name picked out in gold above the door, two little bay trees standing sentry either side in glazed blue pots, and paper lanterns glowing in the window.
From the outside, it gave almost nothing away, which Tilly was coming to understand was very much the Darling way.
It hadn’t taken her long to ascertain that the loveliest things on the island hid themselves off the beaten track down alleyways and behind plain doors.
Otto pushed the door open, and Tilly stepped inside, expecting to see a regular old restaurant looking back at her.
Far from it. Stopping dead, she blinked and took everything in as an exquisitely decorated restaurant looked back at her.
'Oh, my goodness. Wow, I, err, I wasn’t expecting anything like this. '
Without a word of exaggeration, the tiny little restaurant was up there with one of the most beautiful rooms Tilly had ever been in.
What looked back at her was breathtaking.
A canopy of upturned silk parasols was suspended from a low ceiling, dozens upon dozens of them in deep blues, golds and reds.
Threaded all through the parasols, tiny warm lights glowed, lanterns hung at every height, and blue silk flowers and heavy pink tassels swayed back and forth.
A fountain trickled away to itself behind a carved screen, tinkly music played, and the cooking smells were nothing other than superb.
Tilly stood with her chin to the floor as a tiny woman of indeterminate age came zipping out from behind a desk almost before Otto had closed the door.
Immaculately turned out in a high-collared jacket of cream silk, hair swept up and pinned with little gold clips, her whole face opened into a beam the moment she clocked who'd just walked in.
'Otto, long time no see. I was surprised when I saw the booking. How are you?'
'Hello, Mey, I’m good, thanks.' Otto bent and kissed the little woman on the cheek. 'You're looking well.'
Mey bantered. 'I am always looking well. That is the secret of running my empire, you must never look tired.' Mey turned to Tilly. 'Hello there.'
Otto gestured to Tilly. 'This is Tilly. She's taken on Margery's old Boat Shed.'
Mey's eyebrows went up a fraction, she smiled, and held out her hand. 'Yes, I’ve heard. I wondered when I would bump into you. Welcome, Tilly from the Boat Shed. Right, you two. Come with me. You are in the corner under the willow lantern. I thought I’d save the best for you, Otto, since I haven’t laid eyes on you for such a long time. '
After sitting down feeling as if she might be in a dream, Tilly took in the beautiful silk umbrellas, small handmade coasters and table mats on the table, and little glass vases of flowers propped just about everywhere.
Wine was brought to the table, followed by tiny morsels of tasty things.
There was no menu, or none that anyone consulted, instead, a steady, unhurried procession of little dishes started to arrive as Tilly settled in and made herself very comfortable.
Dumplings so delicate they fell apart, something with crab that made Tilly actually close her eyes, greens with garlic and spices, rice like nothing she’d ever tasted.
To be frank, as Tilly sipped her wine and tucked into the ever-changing little bowls of things on the table, she was having the time of her life.
All the while they talked and chatted about this and that, a very lovely thing unfurled right in front of Tilly’s eyes.
Otto Carrington began to come undone. Telling her all about the oyster business, where he’d gone to school, how he’d always wanted to globetrot like Tilly.
Overall, Tilly hadn’t been able to get a word in edgeways.
As the conversation dipped this way and that, there was a small mention of Otto’s wife, Niamh.
He didn't say a great deal, and Tilly didn't push.
The conversation moved and Tilly found herself telling Otto about her dad.
Waffling on about how he’d bought and turned around failing businesses, she heard herself telling Otto all about the kitchen table on Sunday afternoons, half-drunk cups of tea, the biro her dad had always kept behind his ear, the businesses for sale pages spread out like a treasure map.
She told him about the party shop that had gone into liquidation, the stables without horses, the laundrette with old coin machines, and how her dad had tied a scarf around his head as a mask and got stuck in even when faced with a marijuana farm.
Otto laughed out loud, and Tilly felt the Catherine wheel give itself an almighty spin.
'Your dad sounds like quite the character.' Otto chuckled as he refilled her wine glass.
'He was. The best. I miss him, but there you go.
It is what it is.' Tilly paused, swirling the wine in her glass.
'He'd have loved this, though. The whole thing.
Me sitting in a gorgeous little restaurant on an island with a new idea on the go and having plumped to start something new.
It was what he was all about. He'd have said I was living the dream. '
Otto smiled. 'Are you living the dream?'
If you’re in it, absolutely. Tilly considered, glanced up at the silk parasols and nodded. 'I think I could be. It’s early days.'
Mey appeared at their table with a tiny plate of something glistening and golden, and Tilly realised that they had been there for hours.
The restaurant had emptied around them, the lights had been turned down, and there was only a low hum of a few remaining customers in the background.
Twenty or so minutes later, they were standing by the door with Mey touching Tilly gently on the elbow, instructing her to come back for lunch one day on her own.
Tilly had said that she would love to. There was something about Mey, about the whole place, that made Tilly feel as if she'd stumbled into another existence.
A little fantasy place not in the real world.
Stepping outside, they walked into an all-encompassing thick Darling fog that had wrapped Darling Street in a blanket of soft white.
So thick and quiet it was almost as if it had snowed.
The lights of the tram shelter glowed yellow in the distance, somewhere the foghorn gave a long, low call, and Tilly shivered.
Slipping his jacket off, Otto draped it around her shoulders, and Tilly inhaled.
Oh yeah. As warm, waxed cotton, smelling of Otto’s aftershave, filled her nostrils, all was good in the world.
Otto shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the fog. 'Tilly, I err, I wanted to say something actually.’
Here we go. Bang goes that idea, then. Tilly braced herself for him saying he didn’t want anything serious or something similar. What the actual? ‘Go on.’
‘I need to apologise about before, I mean, the first time we met.'
Tilly felt her stomach do a little flip. 'Sorry? What do you mean? The dressing gown incident?'
Otto made a face. 'I was awful to you. There's no excuse for it. I’m a grumpy so-and-so at the best of times, but that morning, yeah, sorry about that.'
Tilly stopped walking as the fog swirled between them, making everything feel as if the rest of the real world had ceased to exist. 'Honestly, you don't have to explain about that. Gosh, I thought you were going to say something else entirely.'
'I just wanted to clear it up. I came across as a right up myself twat.'
Tilly couldn’t have cared less. ‘No, all good.’
They started walking again, and as the Boat Shed came into view, its little lights glowing in the distance, Tilly felt a pang, namely, that she didn't want the evening to end.
Not ever, if she were honest with herself.
As the salt-faded pale blue front door with its handle that still stuck a bit got closer and closer, they stopped.
Tilly fumbled with the key, her fingers not quite working properly, and as she finally managed to push the door open, she turned to hand Otto back his jacket. 'Here we are then.'
'Yup, here we are.'
'Will you, umm, well, do you want to come in?'
'For coffee?' Otto winked.
Coffee was the last thing on Tilly’s mind. 'Something like that.’ With the Catherine wheel spinning and soaring up into the Darling fog, trailing sparks behind it, Tilly giggled. Otto stepped in behind her so close that Tilly could hardly breathe. 'I should probably just…'
Right there against the door, Otto kissed her and as Tilly gripped the front of his shirt, every single firework on the planet went off all at once.
The Catherine wheel, rockets, bangers, a whole glorious plethora of them zipping and zapping to their heart’s content.
So many that Tilly could barely breathe.
When they finally broke apart, let’s put it this way: the coffee was but a distant memory. There were many better things than coffee waiting for them upstairs.