Chapter 61
The Darling sky had been doing strange things all afternoon.
Tilly stood on the decking with a broom in her hand and kept looking up at it as she swept.
It was not quite grey, not quite blue, not anything she had a name for, really.
A sort of bruised purple with swelling at the edges, the kind of sky that made her want to batten things down even when the weather app said light showers and a moderate breeze.
One thing she’d learnt from living on Darling was that the weather, foghorns and Darling storms could not be predicted.
They did precisely their own thing if and when they wanted to.
Darling had taught her what a real storm looked like, and no app or weatherman came even close.
This didn’t feel like a storm, though, more like a show in the sky.
Finishing with the decking, she propped the broom against the wall and stood with her hands on her hips as she surveyed her work.
The old boards were now clean and swept, the jumble of terracotta pots had been rearranged, dead bunting removed, and a little café table she’d found buried under junk around the side had been wiped down and set with two chairs.
A small vase of flowers sat in the middle, and the table was set with Foghorn napkins in deep shades of inky blue.
Otto and Stanley were on their way for a supper for three to watch the happenings going on in the sky.
A few spots of rain arrived as she lit the candles. Fat, warm drops splatted against the boards, then vanished, leaving dark little blobs on the wood. With the table tucked under the outside porch, the drizzle of rain only added to the atmosphere.
Otto arrived with a bottle in one hand and a paper bag in the other and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Whatever you’ve cooked, it smells amazing.’ He raised his eyebrows in the direction of the porch area and joked. ‘Nice. A romantic little table for two. Who’ve you invited?’
Tilly nudged him on the arm, took the wine and smiled. ‘Go and sit down. I’ll bring us out some drinks and nibbles.’
Five minutes later, a small platter of charcuterie was on the table, two glasses of wine, Stanley had claimed a spot underneath, and the sky continued to showcase all the colours it could.
Tilly popped an olive into her mouth. ‘What a lovely evening. When I saw it said rain, I thought we would have to go inside, but then I thought it would only be a drizzle.’
‘Yup, it’s lovely out here.’
Tilly shook her head. ‘How come the Darling sky can change almost by the second? One minute it's hazy blue, the next full of fog, then all the colours of a rainbow.’
‘No idea. Works for me, though. It’s always been like this. The old superstitions reckon it’s something to do with those line things coming together here.’
‘Oh, really? I haven't heard about that.’
‘You need to chat to Mr Cooke about it.’
‘He’s sweet. I always bump into him on the tram.’
Tilly topped up their glasses and settled back into her chair as the colours in the sky continued to morph and change this way and that.
The purple deepened to a velvety blue, and a little band of gold appeared sitting low over the mainland.
The rain had softened to nothing, and Stanley, bless his heart, let out a long, contented sigh from under the table.
'I could sit here forever.' Tilly sighed. 'I never get sick of this view. When I first saw the shed on that awful Facebook photo, I had no idea this came with it. I reckon they could have sold this place for six times more if they’d added a video of this. I’m glad they didn’t, or I never would have made it here. '
Otto nodded and sipped his wine. 'Best decision you ever made, that DM.'
'More or less. It’s been quite the ride.' Tilly chuckled.
Otto smiled and looked out at the water for a bit, coughed, shifted his chair and then coughed again. ‘Err, Tils.’
'Olive gone down the wrong way? Are you okay? Shall I get some water?'
'No, no, I'm fine.'
'Sure?'
Otto reached into his jacket, which he'd hung on the back of his chair, and slid a small navy-blue velvet box across the table. 'I, err, I’m not very good at this. This is for you.'
Tilly looked at the box, and the Catherine wheel began to turn. 'Sorry? For me? What is it?'
'Generally, the way it works is you open it.'
Tilly didn’t know what to think. Picking up the box, she lifted the lid, not really wanting to look.
Inside, on a little cushion of velvet, sat a fine gold chain, and hanging from it a small round disc that caught the candlelight.
Relieved, it was a necklace, she lifted it out carefully and let the pendant turn at the end of the chain.
Otto, for the first time in Tilly's experience, sounded sort of nervous. 'It spins. That's the point of it.' He leant over and gave the little disc a flick with his finger.
Tilly narrowed her eyes and watched as the disc whirred into a blur, and as it spun, letters appeared out of nowhere.
I love you.
Staring at the disc as it slowed, the words dissolved back into engraving, and the sky over the estuary went right on turning its colours as if nothing at all had happened.
'I'm not very good at saying things, as you may have noticed. So I thought I'd get something to say it for me. It's, well, it's how I feel, I mean, have felt for a while. I thought it was time to tell you. I hope that’s, umm, okay?'
Tilly opened her mouth, and nothing came out. Somewhere inside her, every firework she had ever felt went off at once, and then, strangely, everything went very quiet and still. She spun the disc again and watched the words appear. I love you. 'Same.'
Stanley, sensing an occasion, emerged from under the table and put his chin on Tilly's knee.
'Same? Oh right. Good, that’s good.'
Tilly turned the disc over in her fingers.
'I love you too. The thing is, I had a whole plan about how I came here to be on my own, and you completely ruined it.
I had plans, Otto Carrington. No men, no neighbours, no anything.
I was going to be a hermit with nice bedding, and then you turned up shouting at me on a mudflat, and that was that. '
'Technically, you turned up on my mudflat.'
'Details. I've loved you since the oyster night, if you want the truth of it. Possibly since the yellow hat episode on my first day.'
Otto chuckled. 'So, I could have saved myself the cost of that necklace.'
Stanley thumped his tail against the boards, the candles flickered, and Tilly Bloomwood, once of hotel bars and waiting, sat on the deck of her shed as the fireworks gave Sydney’s New Year’s Eve show a run for its money.
On the deck of her old boat shed, on a foggy little island, with a spinning disc of gold, a chocolate Labrador's head on her lap and an oyster farmer across a café table, Tilly smiled. Once upon a time, in another life, she’d been controlled and had waited in bars on the other side of the world for something to begin.
She touched the little disc and smiled out at the water.
The waiting, it appeared, was well and truly over. Thank heavens for that.
The next part in Tilly’s story Book 2 HERE
Roses at The Old Boat Shed