Chapter 53
It was a Friday, and it had not begun promisingly in Tilly Bloomwood’s world.
She was up to her elbows in the far end of the boat room in an area she’d been avoiding since the day she'd arrived.
Quite frankly, with its piled-high shelves and stacks of junk, it felt perilous.
A cavern of old nets, oyster cages, coils of rope and old retail paraphernalia.
Tilly had finally run out of every other excuse and waded in.
She had cobwebs in her hair, a smear of something on one cheek, and was sitting on the floor surrounded by what looked like the entire contents of a maritime museum's skip.
Taking a break, she was sipping tea and wondering what in the name of all that was holy she'd been thinking of taking on the shed when her phone, balanced on an upturned bucket, lit up and buzzed. The Catherine wheel fizzed.
Otto: Morning. You up?
Tilly looked down at the cobwebs all over her dungarees. She was up, dressed, and elbow-deep in the boat room.
Tilly: Living the dream. You?
Otto: Up north, still at this conference. Three hundred people who all want to talk about water temperature around the UK. Shoot me.
Tilly: Sounds riveting. Are you the most interesting man in the room?
Otto: By a mile. Low bar.
Tilly leaned her elbows on her knees and waited as that thing happens when someone types something, thinks better of it and tries again.
Very happy regarding where the relationship was and, more importantly, where it was going, she watched the little dots on her screen.
Things with Otto had moved at lightning speed, and she’d now seen him and Stanley most days since the dinner at China Darling.
Dare she say it, they’d swiftly become an item.
She was extremely happy with the situation.
Otto: Fancy going on a surprise date to London tomorrow?
I mean, where we go out will be a surprise.
A night away, come back Sunday. No pressure.
I've been away half the week, and it might be nice to go somewhere. I was thinking a night in a hotel? I’ll meet you in London on the way back from here, and we can go from there.
Tilly read the message through three times. Who even was she? She was in a relationship with someone who was asking to take her away? Amazing. Did she want to run away for the weekend? Did she ever? She’d be there in a heartbeat.
Tilly: Hmm. Tempting.
Three dots appeared.
Otto: Just a thought.
Tilly: It's a yes from me. Sounds fabulous.
Otto: Right, good. Noted. I’ll get it sorted.
All Tilly knew about the fly-by-night date was that she needed to dress up.
She’d had a call from Otto telling her what train to get on, where to meet him and what to bring.
What did dressing up even mean, though? It was quite the problem when your wardrobe was essentially one suitcase with a small and finite collection of clothes.
Digging through her things that had now moved from her suitcase to the small built-in wardrobe in the bedroom, Tilly really needn't have worried too much because she had little to choose from.
Lack of choice did, in a way, make things easier.
Holding up all sorts of things, the only answer she kept coming up with was that nothing worked.
Dressing up for something fancy was not an occasion for the charity shop cotton dress, nor was it a silky top and nice jeans moment as far as she was aware.
Digging through and sighing, she vowed to up her wardrobe game as soon as Foghorn started making some money or she got herself a part-time job.
Coming to a dead end in her wardrobe, there was one thing she hadn't even yet taken out of her suitcase.
It had actually come her way via a woman on a cruise out of Singapore.
The passenger had arrived on board with a glut of suitcases and so many outfits that Tilly hadn't been able to get her head around how anyone could possibly travel with so many clothes. Tilly’s role as suite assistant had been to attend to the woman's every whim. Performing the job impeccably, Tilly and the guest had clicked from the word go, had ended up chatting away about this and that and put the world to rights from the balcony of the jaw-droppingly expensive private suite. Tilly, in her role, had earned her keep for sure, but it had come with the added benefit of a nice little friendship for two. She’d pressed dresses for dinner, helped with the woman's hair, cleaned the room to within an inch of its life, performed turn-down services of dreams and basically been the right-hand woman from morning to night.
One particular evening, many dresses had been tried on and even more discarded.
Once the guest had been dressed, she’d pointed to the pile of discarded outfits and informed Tilly that she would never wear any of them and for Tilly to take her pick.
Tilly's orders from above, however, strictly forbade handouts, and so she'd refused. One dress, though, she'd loved. The woman had made her try it on, and it had fit like a glove. An A-line midi-length wool crepe with a short puff elasticated sleeve, high neckline, fitted through the waist with a lined bodice. Around the neck and cuffs, a tiny row of glittering embellishments. It had set Tilly’s figure on fire, and both she and the guest had known it. So, quietly and on the guest’s insistence, it had made its way to Tilly’s room.
The dress had been with Tilly ever since, crushed in the inner pocket of her suitcase, never seeing the light of day.
She'd never really been sure why she’d kept it as she'd traipsed around the world.
For sure, she'd not had the occasion to wear a wool crepe dress that had cost more than some people's cars in the staff quarters of hotels.
Going to her suitcase, she unzipped the top, flopped the lid back, undid the inner section and there it was.
The beautiful, very expensive dress that got just about everything right.
Pulling it out, Tilly smiled as she remembered trying it on in the suite.
Considering it had spent much of its life folded up in a bag, she couldn't believe it wasn't too creased.
Flicking it out, she held it up and gasped.
The weight of it alone was something else.
A garment from another world where people had assistants to get them ready and attend to their every need.
Gathering the dress to her face and inhaling to detect mustiness, Tilly shook her head.
Nothing a dose of Darling air on the deck couldn't solve.
Whipping off her top and jeans, she stepped into the dress, wiggled back and forth to do the zip up, fastened the built-in belt and stood on top of a chair to see her reflection in the old mirror on the dressing table.
Even with the limited view, it was evident in a nanosecond why Tilly had not parted with the dress.
As the client had said, it was made for her.
Five minutes later, the dress was on a hanger airing on the deck.
With the dress swaying gently outside, catching a breeze coming up off the water, Tilly turned her attention to the next conundrum.
Shoes. Now there was a thing. A glorious wool crepe dress that cost more than a small car was all very well, but on her feet, Tilly had precisely five options, and two of them were trainers.
One of them, a pair of plain black ballet flats, would have to do and would, she decided, be perfectly fine once she'd given them a clean. Funny, really, how a woman could circle the globe several times over, press dresses for the sort of people who had villas in three countries, and still come to a fancy date with nothing on her feet but a pair of ballet flats. Huffing out a little laugh to herself, Tilly nodded. She would have to up the wardrobe and the shoe game, indeed, if she were to be frolicking around in the big smoke with the likes of Otto Carrington. While she was at it, she’d possibly need to up just about everything about herself.
Or, on second thoughts, maybe she’d just be herself. He’d have to like her just as she was.
Standing at the little window, watching the dress turn this way and that in the breeze as the embellishments at the cuffs caught the light, Tilly smiled.
What a turn up for the books. If the Tilly of two years before could see her now.
The Tilly in the staff quarters with the five o'clock alarm and the buggy down the service aisle would not believe her eyes.
Here she was getting ready for a fancy-schmancy date night.
Someone, a very nice someone, actually wanted to take her somewhere she had to dress up for.
Not only that, but he was quite the catch.
There was something else, however, that had happened in her little journey across the globe for one: she felt like she was a catch, too.