Meanwhile Gardens Read online

  Right next door!

  It was funny how Wayne seemed to be as fond of the tune as he was. Ollie took this as another sign of how compatible they were.

  Or could be.

  Ollie was determined to find out which this week. And he was determined to have fun trying.

  Ollie noticed that the whistling had stopped. Hearing a series of knocks he imagined Wayne on his doorstep, shirtless, dust stuck to his sweat-clad muscles, gagging for a cuppa or ...whatever.

  He gave himself a quick glance in the hall mirror, ruffled his hair – no, too tousled – then ruffled it back, but then it looked as though he had just got out of bed – too suggestive, at least at this stage. Looking round frantically he spied a comb next to his keys and quickly pulled it through his fringe.

  Again the door was rapped three times.

  Fixing a natural grin on his face, Ollie took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Rion and Hum stood before him. The dog jumped up at seeing his master. “Come for a walk with us,” the girl said with a bewitching smile.

  Ollie glanced up and down the mews but there was no sign of Wayne.

  “I can’t Rion, I’m working.”

  “But you were working all weekend,” the girl complained.

  “So I could have this week free to help Wayne.”

  “He’ll be there when we get back and besides,” she cupped her hand to her mouth and lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper, “you don’t want to appear too keen. Let him come after you.”

  “Is that what it says in your magazines?”

  “C’mon. Pleeeeease,” Rion stretched the word out as long as she dared. “I want to see Jake but I can’t control Hum off the lead.”

  “I can’t always control him either.”

  Seeing the young girl’s downcast look Ollie changed his mind. She was right. Wayne would still be there when he got back. Besides he had never followed any advice given in magazines and look where it had got him.

  “As long as we’re back for lunch.”

  Rion laughed happily, “Easily!”

  Ollie grabbed his keys and closed the door.

  As they passed lA they could hear Wayne clattering about on the first floor.

  “One second,” Ollie said to Rion before knocking on the door of what was the unlucky house.

  When Wayne appeared at the open sitting room window Ollie had been right. The builder looked like he should be in a Diet-Coke ad.

  “I’m going out for a while,” Ollie tossed his keys to Wayne who snatched them out of the air. “Let yourself in if you want anything.”

  “Thanks mate,” Wayne smiled. Ollie, Rion and Hum were escorted out of the mews by the whistled strains of Bewitched.

  Wayne waited for at least five minutes before letting himself into Ollie’s next door. Although he knew no-one was there he still crept up the stairs until, feeling foolish, he straightened up and entered the first floor sitting room as if it was his own.

  Again he looked at the glossy reproduction Candida had ripped from a book. Somewhere, in one of the many libraries in Kensington and Chelsea, a study on seventeenth century Dutch painting was missing a page. The image of the pale young girl in the white stole gazed back at him from the shadows. Merlijnche de Poortje didn’t look like anything special to Wayne.

  He made a cursory glance through all the rooms to make sure the miniature wasn’t in plain sight. Having determined it wasn’t Wayne set to work, starting on the sitting room cupboards.

  They were almost at the bridge running across the top of Ladbroke Grove when Ollie couldn’t contain his curiosity any longer.

  “What on earth are you looking for?” he asked Rion who had been gazing intently at the canal ever since they had left Meanwhile Gardens.

  The young girl didn’t answer for a second. Her attention had been taken by a moorhen and her two young bobbing amongst the rushes below them.

  “Are they called moorchicks d’you think?” she asked.

  Ollie looked at the tiny birds beside their mother. “If they’re not I think they should be.”

  The calm of the scene was broken by Hum who charged up barking happily. The moorhen and her chicks paddled out to the middle of the canal and safety.

  “There’s one!” Rion exclaimed pointing at what, to Ollie, looked like just another bit of floating rubbish.

  “Haven’t you seen an empty can of coke before?”

  “Not that! I mean next to it.”

  Ollie looked again but all he could see was an unfortunate perch turned belly up.

  “It’s a dead fish isn’t it?” Rion asked.

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “you sometimes get them along here.”

  Rion’s face dropped slightly. “So it’s not unusual?”

  To be loved by anyone? Ever since Ollie had seen Tom Jones squeezed into leather at some awards ceremony the Welsh singer popped into his thoughts at the slightest provocation.

  Ollie smiled, “Fish aren’t immortal you know.”

  “It’s just that when I walked Auntie Gem to work yesterday I saw a couple more and a dead eel.”

  “It happens Rion.”

  Quickly putting Hum on the lead they crossed the bridge, entering the cemetery through the side door next to the Dissenter’s Chapel. Hum practically choked himself as he strained against the leash.

  “Aren’t you going to let him off?” Rion asked.

  Ollie pointed to a sign stating that dogs must be kept on the lead AT ALL TIMES.

  “I got told off by some creepy guard on my last visit.”

  “What’s the worst he can do –” Rion giggled, “ – ask you to leave?”

  In some perverse way the thought kind of appealed to Ollie. “I’ve never been thrown out of a cemetery before,” he mused, imagining himself being bounced out of the graveyard (‘And don’t come back’) by two burly minders, “but it’s best we don’t attract too much attention.”

  Following the path below South Avenue they skirted Thackeray’s gleaming white grave and were soon within sight of Jake’s tree.

  As they came closer Rion signalled her arrival with the four-note whistle. The chirpy reply was almost instantaneous. Arriving beneath the overgrown leafy tree they looked up to find their host half-hidden in the branches above them.

  “Will Hum be quiet if you leave him down there?” Jake asked.

  Ollie and Rion looked at each other and shook their heads. “No,” they said in unison.

  “Especially not if he’s tied up,” Ollie added. The thought of the headstrong dog roaming the cemetery off the lead and by himself was surely an ejectable offence.

  “Wait a sec then.”

  They watched as Jake vanished further into the tree. Not for the first time Ollie cursed Hum. Fired by what Rion had told him he was dying to have tea in the treehouse, with its driftwood, rugs and spyhole to check out visitors.

  Jake was beside them in a jiffy. In one hand he held a battered tobacco tin. “Shall we?” he gestured for them to follow him the short distance to where a bench overlooked a simple tomb.

  Ollie read aloud the inscription on the plain grave that was almost exaggerated in its austerity; “‘George Cruickshank – For thirty years a total abstainer and ardent pioneer and champion by pencil, word and pen of universal abstinence from intoxicating drinks.’”

  “Do you think he would have approved of this?” Jake opened the tin, which Ollie could see was filled with marijuana. “I’ve called this one Mausoleum Madness. It’s grown at the back of a circus owner’s tomb and always has a bit of zip to it,” he smiled wickedly at Ollie. “You haven’t got major plans for the day do you?”

  I don’t now, Ollie thought, looking at the tin of grass. “Just helping someone do some cleaning.”

  “You said you had to finish some work!” Rion exclaimed indignantly.

  “Plans change,” Ollie gave a helpless smile and shrugged his shoulders.

  Jake took out a packet of small blue Rizla from the tin, remo
ved a single rolling paper and began filling it with the pungent weed.

  “Don’t worry, this isn’t skunk, it won’t knock you out for twentyfour hours.”

  Ollie dismissed his concern with a wave of the hand, “I really get into cleaning when I’m stoned.”

  Rion sighed in disgust.

  “What’s going on at that house anyway?” she asked. “I mean, why is Wayne cleaning it out?”

  Obviously Auntie Em hadn’t told the young girl what was happening. And if Auntie Em hadn’t told, Ollie realised it wasn’t his place to tell either.

  “I think Auntie Em has some plans for it. I’m not sure what,” he lied.

  “I’m going to have to find somewhere soon aren’t I?”

  “Think about that later. Wait until you get better first.”

  Jake rolled the joint between the fingers of one hand, lightly sealed it and twisted one end. “Is she better?” he asked as he passed the joint for Ollie to light.

  “Yes,” Rion said firmly.

  Ollie wasn’t convinced, “But fevers can boomerang back – you don’t want that do you?”

  Rion shook her head.

  “And Gem ‘n Em aren’t throwing you out are they?”

  “No but I can’t stay there forever.”

  “At the moment Heron Point is out of the question I’m afraid,” Jake passed a box of matches to Ollie. “One guard in particular is always down there.”

  Rion’s sigh expressed her dismay.

  “You can always stay with me if you do need somewhere,” Ollie reassured her, “or with Nicky, she wouldn’t mind.”

  “Thanks,” she squeezed his arm in appreciation. “Did you ever ask her about – ” Rion looked away as if somehow embarrassed, “ – you know?”

  Ollie racked his brain but nothing came back to him.

  “Remember that first night when we sat around the fire and – ” Rion prompted him again, “ – you know!”

  “I remember smoking lots of homegrown,” Ollie admitted but realised that probably wasn’t very helpful.

  “Which muddles your memory doesn’t it?” said Rion unhappily.

  Jake turned to Ollie, “Were we smoking Headstone?”

  “Sounds might familiar,” he replied with a smile.

  “Yeah, it’s not great for the recall.”

  Rion cleared her throat in an effort to get back into the conversation. “Anyway, you said Nicky sometimes works for Glamourista and she might know someone...”

  Ollie remembered now to his shame.

  “I haven’t asked her but I will. Remind me though ok?”

  Jake had waited long enough. He nodded towards the joint that Ollie still held, unlit, “Are you going to light that or what?”

  After a pleasant morning spent with Jake, Ollie and Rion made their way back along Centre Avenue. Ollie lagged behind Rion and Hum, unable and unwilling to wipe the smile from his face. Although they had only smoked two small grass joints Ollie felt as if they had finished the whole tin. All the better to do the cleaning with, he reasoned, besides the grass should also take the edge off his over-enthusiasm for Wayne and make him approach the situation with a touch more mellowness.

  Fat chance of that.

  He followed Rion and Hum out of the main gate, stepping aside at the last moment for a taxi entering the cemetery.

  Ollie exchanged a look with the elegant lady in the back of the black cab. He was sure he had seen her before, but where?

  With his brain buzzing on the marijuana Ollie knew it would be useless to ask it anything as basic as memory retrieval.

  In the back of the cab the editor of Glamourista flicked a speck of dirt off her turquoise pumps. She shivered at the prospect of the next hour spent with Jake in the house in the trees that moaned and groaned in time as they made love.

  14

  SUCH GUILE

  On the previous Saturday’s trawl through the market Nicky had picked up a battered copy of The Guide to Feng-Shui for a pound, but now she felt feng-shui’d out of existence. She had moved the mirror, put flowers in front of the TV, hung crystals in the window and moved the bed to face the north east but still she felt restless. Yes, vitality was flowing into the financial side of her house, and yes, her career had a certain amount of vigour at the moment but the upshot of all this energy was that it made her irritable.

  In this frame of mind Nicky pushed past the plants that crowded the room and went down to answer the door upon which someone was knocking with uncommon enthusiasm.

  Her mood vanished immediately upon seeing who was on the doorstep. Ollie, a broad smile on his face, a bouquet of lilies in his arms, beamed at her.

  “These are for you,” her neighbour handed her the flowers with an exaggerated flourish.

  “For what?” Nicky asked, her irritation vanishing by the second. Flower power worked for her every time.

  “For all the lovely Tuesday mornings in the world,” said Ollie as he kissed her on both cheeks. “May I come in?” Without waiting for a reply he slid past her and took the stairs, two by two, up to the sitting room.

  Lacking his sparkle Nicky followed at a more sedate pace.

  She came up the stairs to find him already on the sofa. He had his hands behind his head, his feet up and that broad grin on his face that normally only meant one thing.

  “I take it Wayne succumbed?”

  Ollie beamed, “No.”

  “No? Then why the cheesy grin?”

  Ollie swung his feet onto the floor and sat up. “He likes art, Nicks.”

  Nicky got the large vase down from the top shelf and began filling it with the mainly closed stems of lilies.

  “When I came back yesterday I found the glossy book on the Dutch Masters – ”

  “The one James gave you?”

  Ollie nodded.

  “ – open on the table. He couldn’t work the kettle – ”

  “Ah. Bless,” said Nicky with more than a touch of sarcasm.

  Ollie ignored her and carried on, “ – and so had to boil up a saucepan for his cuppa. While waiting for the water to boil he saw my books and – ”

  Again Nicky interrupted sarcastically, “Just couldn’t stop himself?”

  “Yes!” Ollie said triumphantly. “You should have seen his face when I asked him about it. Oh Nicks, he looked so sheepish. This tough builder with calloused hands – ”

  “How do you know what his hands are like?” she asked.

  Ollie ignored the question.

  “This tough builder with calloused hands likes art. A real man Nicks, not some airy-fairy wittering on about space and lines and what it means to him claptrap. He’s a – ”

  Nicky put up a hand to stop him. “Don’t say it Ol, not a rough diamond.”

  Ollie looked hurt for a second before breaking into a smile. “A diamond in the raw.”

  “A diamond geezer?”

  “Do you know what this means?” Ollie could hardly contain his excitement. “Sunday mornings at Tate Britain, lazy afternoons holding hands in the Hayward. We’ve already made plans to see the Masters of Light exhibition–”

  “The Dutch stuff?”

  Ollie nodded, “ – at the National on Friday.”

  “Let’s backtrack a bit here O1. You didn’t sleep with him?”

  “No!” Ollie sounded indignant. “Wayne went back east last night anyway, but he phoned to tell me he was getting in the shower. What’s that mean?”

  Nicky put the artfully arranged lilies on the table. “That he’s had a hard day and needs a wash?” she asked tentatively.

  “He said that so I would think about him in the shower don’t you think?”

  Nicky wasn’t sure.

  “Perhaps,” she said, not wanting to burst his bubble.

  “And then he winks at me every now and then. What’s that all about?”

  “It could mean everything or nothing or all points in between.”

  “And – ”

  Just as Nicky thought she couldn’t bea
r any more on wonderbuilder, Ollie put his head to one side. Flashing a grin at Nicky he ran to the window.

  “He’s here!”

  Ollie gave Nicky a big kiss on the cheek and ran out of the room.

  “Phone me later,” she called after him, but her friend was already down the stairs and out the door.

  In her newly aligned existence there was one household item that still bothered Nicky – the phone. Where could she put the damn thing where it would reflect and empower her?

  Flicking through the ‘Guide’s index of household appliances she found there were three listings for the telephone. Before Nicky could decide whether the phone on the answering machine was cordless, handheld or other – when it was patently all three – it rang.

  “Sweetness I’m not disturbing you am I?”

  Nicky smiled. She knew only one person who asked her that. Everyone else, it seemed, assumed you were dying to talk to them.

  “Of course not Auntie Em. I was just – ”

  Nicky stopped herself. It sounded too ridiculous to even mention. What would she say? ‘Oh, I was just trying to figure out the optimum position for the phone and I was using a directory to do it?’

  “ – It’s not important. What’s Rion up to?”

  “I sent her off to Ledbury Road.”

  Over the past few years this once shabby Notting Hill Street had seen an influx of smart shops move in, including the one that Rion seemed very fond of.

  “She’s probably got her nose pressed up against the window of GHOST as we speak.”

  “Hopefully she’s inside asking if they want anyone. We need to find her something to do.” Auntie Em paused rather pointedly before continuing, “You don’t know of any jobs going do you angel?”

  “Well,” Nicky had been promising herself an assistant for ages. “I’ve got a couple of things that she can help me with this week.”

  “I knew you’d be the right person to ask. Rion’s still a bit shy and you can’t be backwards....”

  “ – in coming forwards can you Auntie Em? If you want something done….”

  “ – you’ve got to do it yourself,” Auntie Em ran her fingers through her hair and smiled. She and Nicky had had this conversation many times before. “I hear you’re doing some work for Glamourista.”