Meanwhile Gardens Read Online Free PDF

clutched the bag to her, immediately comforted by its presence. She stared into the sun setting across the canal, not seeing the small figure on the shadowy towpath opposite.
    Auntie Gem was transfixed by the ethereal vision before her – a virginal girl with long flaxen hair. Across the young girl’s chest were the words
GHOST
.
    The old lady felt her heart pound. She closed her eyes, feeling distinctly unsteady. When she opened them she gasped in horror. The spirit had vanished into thin air!
    Auntie Gem crossed herself three times and made for home, made for the calm of Meanwhile Gardens Mews.

3
CAUGHT BETWEEN HEAVEN
AND HELL
    O llie thought the phone calls should come later on Sundays.
    But they didn’t.
    The alarm clock again flashed 9.45 as the phone jangled into his sleep.
    “Auntie Em – ” Ollie began, “didn’t – ”
    But an entirely different voice cut him short.
    “Oliver it’s Candida.”
    The cold clipped tones of James’ sister felt like ice down his back. Ollie blinked and sat up, suddenly wide awake.
    “Oliver?” the voice asked again.
    “What can I do for you Candida?” Ollie tried being cordial but relations between him and Candida had never been good.
    The fact that James had made him co-executor of his will, a role he shared with Candida, hadn’t helped matters.
    “Could I come to see you this morning?”
    “Well, I – ” Ollie thought furiously.
    “It’s important Oliver.”
    “I’ll be out until twelve then – ”
    Candida didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence, “I’ll be there at twelve fifteen.”
    The phone clicked off.
    Seconds later it rang again.
    “Who were you on the phone to at such an early hour?”
    “Auntie Em, didn’t your mother tell you never before ten or after ten?”
    “Plans for the day angel?”
    Ollie stretched, “Well, I’m – ”
    “Are you going to your TQ lunch?”
    Ollie thought for a moment. He hadn’t been to the weekly TQ sessions since before James’ death. The lunches, held amongst the brunching families at the Hungry Hearts Diner on Kensington Park Road, were attended by about a dozen local gay men.
    Over copious Bloody Marys each vied, with stories of their tragic lovelives and previous week’s disasters to win the title, ‘Tragedy Queen of the Week’.
    The winner went on to enter, ‘Tragedy Queen of the Month’.
    The twelve winners went on for the annual top prize: ‘Tragedy Queen of the Year’.
    But today Ollie wasn’t up to their relentless bonhomie.
    “I don’t think so Auntie Em, I’m – ”
    “But you haven’t been in ages.”
    “Maybe next week. I’m – I’m going jogging.”
    There was a silence at the end of the line before, “Darling, that’s wonderful! Remember start off very easy.”
    “Of course.”
    “And do some warm-ups. Are you going down the canal?”
    “I’d be too self-conscious to go anywhere else Auntie Em. I’m not up to jogging along the Portobello that’s for sure.”
    “You do know that Auntie Gem saw a ghost last night don’t you?”
    Ollie snorted. “No, I – ” he tried to keep his voice serious. “Where? Is she ok?”
    “She’s a bit shaken up and has been praying more than usual. She’s already been to two masses today.”
    “Two down, four to go,” Ollie smiled, knowing Auntie Gem’s fondness for the circuit of Sunday masses – six in total – whenever anything even remotely disturbed her. “The ghost wasn’t of a tall, dark, handsome man was it?”
    “In your dreams dear boy – ”
    That’s about all where he would be, Ollie sighed.
    “ – it was a virginal girl with long flowing hair ‘caught between Heaven and Hell’ is how Auntie Gem described her.”
    Rion would have agreed what an apt description this was for her current state.
    “It was along the canal further on from the gasworks,” Auntie Em continued, “in front of the knoll with the bench overlooking Little Wormwood Scrubs.”
    “I’ll be careful,” Ollie said.
    Will you be