Tilly Killick

Tilly Killick is Emma Morley’s old flatmate, a sharp-edged, sociable presence whose cramped shared homes become part of Emma and Dexter Mayhew’s story. Known for her big red glasses and strident views, she is alternately a source of domestic irritation, comic confidante, and unexpected participant in the secrets surrounding the central pair. Her practical gestures—offering Emma a room, leaving the flat at a revealing moment, and calling Dexter when he is alone in grief—give her a recurring place in their lives even when the narrative does not enter her private thoughts.

Identity and Background

Emma recalls Tilly as a former flatmate with big red glasses, strong opinions, and sideburns. The description is teasing rather than formal: Tilly is introduced through the recognizable details of shared life and Emma’s familiarity with her. When Emma considers moving to London, Tilly has a spare room in Clapton, dismissively called a box room. The offer gives Emma a practical route toward the city she has been resisting and makes Tilly’s home a possible next stage in their friendship.

Tilly’s domestic habits are established through Emma’s apprehension about returning to their flat. Emma imagines her in an open dressing gown, clinging to the radiators like a gecko and eating pesto straight from the jar. There would be teeth marks in the Irish Cheddar and the television programme Thirtysomething on. These particulars make the home vividly lived-in, while also showing how Emma’s affection is mixed with exasperation: Tilly is familiar enough to be anticipated in minute, slightly absurd detail.

Flatmates and Shared Domestic Life

Their friendship is most visible in the intimacy of ordinary routines. In the Edinburgh flat on Rankeillor Street, Tilly and Emma share a kitchen beneath a wall-sized poster of Truffaut’s Jules et Jim. The morning after Emma and Dexter have spent the night together, Tilly is there for breakfast, while Dexter sits with the two flatmates through brown toast, soya spread, aggregate muesli, and espresso from Emma’s cleaned-out stovetop coffee maker. Tilly’s talk and presence make the room a social space rather than a private continuation of the night before.

That company has mixed effects. Dexter listens to the flatmates’ conspicuously playful banter and feels out of place; he wonders whether staying on was a mistake and cannot find an opening to kiss Emma with Tilly there. Emma, meanwhile, is increasingly irritated by Tilly’s failure to give them privacy. She notices Tilly cupping her chin, playing with her hair, and sucking her teaspoon, and resents the interruption while also worrying about leaving Dexter alone with her. Tilly is therefore not merely background to the awkward breakfast: her presence exposes the difference between Emma’s private hopes and the ordinary, shared conditions of the flat.

Connection to Dexter Mayhew

Tilly’s relationship with Dexter includes a concealed, uncomfortable episode. Dexter recalls that, shortly before Christmas, he had fast, unhappy sex with Emma’s flatmate while Emma was out buying fairy lights at Woolworths. It began with a foot massage and went badly off course. The account comes from Dexter’s private inventory of possible secrets, not from Tilly’s point of view; the narrative gives no matching explanation of her feelings or intentions. What it does establish is that Tilly becomes part of the concealed history between Emma and Dexter, complicating her later role as Emma’s confidante and their shared friend.

When Dexter visits Emma at home on another occasion, Tilly is waiting in her dressing gown beside the running bath, watching through the steam behind her red glasses. Her scandalized reaction to finding Emma with Dexter quickly gives way to laughter between the two women. Dexter, in the hallway, uses a novelty telephone shaped like a hamburger and can hear their talk through the wall, including their discussion of what happened and whether he will stay for breakfast. He is pleased to know that they are talking about him, while the scene makes Tilly’s familiarity with Emma—and her interest in Emma’s private life—plain.

Making Space for Emma and Dexter

Tilly also helps create an opening for the pair. At breakfast in Edinburgh, Emma suggests that they all go out together. Tilly says she has things to do and that Emma and Dexter should go without her; Emma catches the end of a wink. The gesture suggests that Tilly understands the situation and is giving them a chance to be alone. Dexter brightens, and shortly afterward the two leave for a walk, with the Salisbury Crags visible at the end of Rankeillor Street. Tilly’s small, indirect intervention contrasts with the way her presence had earlier made Emma feel that there was no privacy: she can occupy the space between them, but she can also step aside.

This support does not make Tilly a simple matchmaker. Emma’s response to her presence at breakfast is jealous and anxious, partly because she wants to return to bed with Dexter and partly because she fears Tilly’s obviousness. The scene leaves Tilly’s own motives unspoken; the wink is the evidence of her awareness, not a full account of what she thinks. Her role is consequently defined through the shifting expectations of the other two, while her easy familiarity with Emma makes the shared domestic world feel larger than their private attraction.

Friendship After Emma

Years later, Tilly remains among the people Dexter contacts on the anniversary of Emma’s death. He phones her as he works through a list of family and friends, on a day whose significance is understood but not openly discussed in most of his conversations. Tilly is unusually direct in asking whether he is really all right, whether he is by himself, and whether she or others should come over. Dexter finds her emotional concern difficult to bear and ends the call as quickly and politely as he can.

The call shows care persisting beyond everyday friendship and beyond Emma’s life, but also the strain of trying to help someone who is determined to present himself as fine. Tilly’s attention cannot remove Dexter’s loneliness: after the calls, he eats alone, feels grief surge, and experiences a sudden, overwhelming urge to drink. Her role in the scene is limited but significant. She is one of the people who notices that the anniversary matters and offers company, even as Dexter declines the invitation embedded in her concern.