Chapter 57
Tilly had been ready for a good hour. Hair done, green silk shirt on, a bottle of wine from Bottles on Darling sitting by the door in a twist of brown paper.
All she had to do was pick it up and walk the fifteen minutes along the harbour road to Otto's. She’d done the walk dozens of times before.
There she would sit in the big kitchen or out in the garden and have a lovely evening with a man she was mad about. Or maybe she wouldn’t.
It just needs a push from someone who knows what they're doing.
All afternoon, the line had been going round and round Tilly’s head.
Wearing a little groove in her brain, picking up other things as it went.
The buyer, he could ring, Friday he could arrange, money he could put in.
The doorman who knew his name, the watch that cost more than the car she didn’t own, the whole easy, unhurried world of a man for whom every single problem in life was one phone call away from sorted.
Well, apart from what happened to his wife, there was that.
She kept thinking, ridiculously, that what if she was his newest project?
A woman with a failing business, a dwindling bank balance and a shed she didn't even own yet.
Something he could take charge of, like the two people before him had assumed they could do.
Somewhere very deep down, a mileometer clicked. Something about Otto’s entitled attitude had turned Tilly’s stomach, and she didn’t like how it made her feel at all. Picking up her phone, she typed out a message.
Tilly: So sorry, going to have to bail tonight. Absolutely shattered, been at it all day. Rain check? x
Reading it through, she winced. It was breezy, light and completely unlike their usual texts to each other. Pressing send before she could think about it any further, she sat with the phone in her lap. Otto’s reply came back inside a minute.
Otto: Oh, right. Really? Just come over.
Tilly: Fine! I just need an early night.
Otto: I’ll stroll around to you then.
Tilly: I think I’ll just pop up and have a bath and go to bed. xxx
Tilly: Everything okay? You seemed a bit off earlier.
Tilly considered telling the truth. Actually, no, I’m not okay.
When you offered to fix my business today, something in me went somewhere old and very dark, and I need to tell you about a man called Andy and a mileometer.
There was no way she was going there, though.
She just needed a bit of breathing space.
Andy’s coercion had in the past skewed her logic about regular old things.
A little part of her was well aware that the same thing was happening now.
Still, she needed to back off and regroup.
Tilly: All good! Just knackered. Speak tomorrow xxxxx
The little tick appeared, then the second one, and Tilly Bloomwood, who had once hidden an exit plan on a work computer and smiled across a dinner table at a man who checked her mileage, sat in the shed and sighed.
Saying nothing and keeping it light was what she had done in the old days, and it seemed she was doing again now.
Fold the real thing away small, where nobody can get at it.
She'd had four years of practice at pretending on top of six years of practice at hiding, and wasn't it funny how well she’d honed the skill.
Tilly felt sick about how she was feeling.
Thoughts of the extensive counselling she’d had after she’d escaped from Andy swirled around her head.
This was a moment for The Properlies if ever there was one.
Both of the other members knew the full story of what had happened in her marriage, and they were the only ones.
Her mum knew half sketchy parts because Tilly hadn’t wanted to burden her with it.
Tilly: Anyone around tonight? I need to talk if possible.
The replies came back so fast it was as if they'd been sitting there waiting.
Pia: Yep, nothing going on with me. What's happened? R u OK??
Jasmine: I'm between shows. What's wrong?
Tilly: Nothing's happened. Sort of. I just need the committee.
Pia: In an hour? I'm getting Mum settled. Jas?
Jasmine: I can do an hour from now exactly. Tils, are you safe??? Actual question.
Tilly chuckled. That was the thing about The Properlies. Thirty years of history meant they knew, without being told, that Tilly’s message was serious. Jasmine had gone straight to the question they'd once had to ask her for real.
Tilly: I'm safe. I'm fine. It's not that. It's me, I think. See u in an hour. x
Pia: Love you.
Jasmine: Love u properly.
Sighing, Tilly looked at the wine still sitting by the door, decided against opening it, and went to put the kettle on.
Enough time to make tea, have a nice bath and think.
She now had to explain how a kind man offering to help her had triggered stuff.
Bonkers really when you examined it, but real, horrible and right there all the same.