Page 24 of Second Chance Summer
Sam turned his blue gaze on her, and Lily felt a shiver – a pleasant shiver – run up her spine. ‘If it’s any consolation, you don’t seem like the kind of person who would be deliberately cruel to anyone,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ She was amazed at the warmth in his voice and more touched than she dared admit. ‘Unfortunately, my reputation always precedes me now.’
He screwed up his face in embarrassment. ‘I shouldn’t have Googled you. And I apologise for Morven, too. She almost never lets her brain engage before her mouth.’
Lily laughed. ‘It’s OK. I’ve heard far worse said about me than “horrible”. You have no idea …’ She shuddered,recalling the vile online abuse and newspaper comments that had followed her ill-judged remark on the craft programme.
‘You know the comments that hurt the most?’ she said. ‘The ones that said because I was successful, I should be championing people who were struggling to make it in the crafting world – not bringing them down. I set up Lily Loves to do just that: help makers gain a higher profile and proper reward for their work. I’ve always wanted to support my friends and fellow makers, right from the start. It’s why I agreed to be a judge on the show. Now I wish I could turn back the clock.’ She stopped, realising she was talking about work again, yet also that she’d never told anyone how deeply the trolling had hurt her.
‘You don’t have to worry about any of that today. I know you found the lack of connectivity here frustrating to begin with, but I hope it means that you can forget about the trolls – while you’re on Stark at least – and just be present,’ he said gently. ‘I’m sorry for bringing it up.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said airily. ‘And I’m not so confident when I’m not “on show”, of course I’m not. Who is? I also like to be honest. While I did do A-level Art and Textile Design at school, I’ve never really been good enough at one thing to make a living solely from that.’
‘I thought you started off selling your own work on a market stall?’
‘I did, and it took off in a way I’d never dreamed, but the real breakthrough came when I sold other people’s creations as well as my own. I have an eye for the beautiful and unique, you see …’
Lily wished Sam hadn’t been giving her his full attention at that precise moment. The light caught his profile, illuminating eyes the exact colour of deep ocean in the distance. His thick hair, almost black, stirred in the soft breeze. He lifted tanned, strong arms to push it off his face.
‘Go on,’ he encouraged her.
Lily forced her attention back to what she’d been saying.
‘My work sold well, but other artists’ sold even better, so I sought out more and more of it.’ She gave a rueful sigh. ‘I wouldn’t have any old thing on the stall, only the pieces I loved and that complemented my vision. My artist friends didn’t want to have the hassle of sales and admin. I did – I was naturally pretty good at it and taught myself to be even better.’
Still embarrassed about her reaction to him and having opened up a little too much, she pointed to the hill. ‘Shall we get to the top or do you think I won’t make it?’
He grinned. ‘Let’s see, shall we?’
He didn’t try to lead the way, or follow, but walked beside her. Lily found herself caring what he thought, drawn by his interest in her background and what made her tick. He seemed to be genuinely interested in how the trolling had affected her, and it was cathartic to talk to a virtual stranger about how hurtful it had been.
She hoped he’d appreciate her honesty – she wanted him to like her, which surprised and disturbed her because it made her feel vulnerable.
She’d long ago got over the embarrassment of being proud of her achievements and frank about her strengths,while privately recognising her limitations and finding staff who could make up for them. It was essential in business and too many people – sadly too many women, even of her generation – still found it almost impossible to laud or even acknowledge their own achievements.
She’d lost count of the men who were not only unafraid to big themselves up, but also unaware of how very average they were.
Sam wasn’t one of them. He could be a very good retreat proprietor if he played to his strengths but his discomfort front of house was all too obvious. Could he find and afford a manager who would be good at that role? He’d made it quite clear the previous evening that he thought she should take a complete break from all things business so she wouldn’t offer her opinion again.
‘Here we are.’
‘Wow,’ said Lily, forgetting her vow. ‘Just amazing.’
‘Not too shabby.’ Sam stood, hands on hips. The three-sixty panorama enabled them to see all the other islands in the archipelago: St Mary’s, Tresco, Bryher, St Agnes … ‘And beyond St Martin’s, that hazy cliff-shaped shadow is Land’s End.’
‘The metropolis,’ Lily murmured.
‘Feels like it after here. It’s low tide so if you look over there, where the pest house is, you can just see some old wall systems running across the sand flats.’
Pest house.Lily didn’t like the sound of that, but couldn’t deny the history of the island intrigued her.
She looked hard and then saw the dark lines in the bay. ‘Isee them. They almost reach Bryher. Who would build walls in the sea?’
‘They weren’t always under the sea. There was a low plain between Tresco, Bryher and Samson that was used by medieval farmers. Then sea levels rose and drowned the fields and separated the islands.’
Imagining the farmers’ land and homes being flooded, year by year, Lily shivered. ‘That is pretty eerie.’
‘Some say that Scilly is the land of Lyonesse featured in the King Arthur myths,’ Sam went on. ‘And that once you could walk from Land’s End to here.’
