Meanwhile Gardens Read Online Free PDF Page B

joining us for lunch?”
    “Of course.”
    After his new style breakfast – a banana and natural yoghurt at home in place of a fry-up at the Golborne Café – Ollie felt well on the way to fitness.
    He changed into raggedy tracksuit bottoms and a Keith Haring sweatshirt, suitably low-key dress for what, he hoped, would be a suitably low-key jog. Maybe in the future he could invest in some garish trainers and skintight allweather jogging bottoms, but for now it was comfort over performance.
    Slowly, slowly, much to Hum’s amusement, Ollie lunged and pulled and stretched. As he threw his arms from side toside the dog barked and jumped up, becoming increasingly excited, so excited in fact that he ignored the repeated knocking on the door.
    “Hum!”
    But the hound, his eyes glittering with excitement, simply barked at Ollie, nipping his legs as he ran down the stairs to see who it was.
    Nicky stood on the doorstep. She cast an admiring eye over Ollie’s running kit, “So you are going jogging. Auntie Em said you were but I didn’t believe her. I guess you must have taken our little heart to heart yesterday more seriously than I thought,” the photographer smirked. “I was going to ask you to Café Feliz but – ”
    “It’s mainly because of Café Feliz that I’m going jogging.” The neighbouring Portuguese café, with its custard tarts and full frontal calories, was a favourite refuelling stop. “Give me a second and I’ll walk you round.”
    Closely followed by Hum Ollie went back upstairs. He grabbed his ipod, scrolled down to ‘Sixteen Stone’ by Bush and joined Nicky at the door.
    They were soon on the bridge. “If I’m not back by – ” Ollie glanced at his watch: it was ten thirty, “by twelve – ”
    “By twelve?” Nicky exclaimed. “How far are you planning on going?”
    “ – send a search party ok?”
    “Of strapping men?”
    Ollie nodded.
    “In uniform?”
    Ollie nodded again, “Yes please. With shiny brass buttons if possible.”
    “You got it sweetheart,” Nicky blew him a kiss and headed towards the Portuguese café.
    Ollie and Hum went in the opposite direction, underTrellick Tower, into Meanwhile Gardens and onto the towpath of the Grand Union Canal.

    Rion had been awake since eight o’clock, woken by the chorus of Canada geese on the canal. She had slept surprisingly well. The long day, the fresh, slightly damp air, the darkness of her new lodgings and the warmth of the down sleeping bag had brought about a deep, seemingly dreamless sleep.
    “I am in London, I am in London, I am in London,” Rion had repeated to herself since she woke up, smiling more and more every time she said it. The longer she was away from her family the stronger, the more confident, the more ‘herself’ she felt, even though she wasn’t at all sure who ‘herself’ was.
    At least not yet.
    Jake’s four-note whistle alerted her to his arrival. Rion heard him push his way through the saplings into the little clearing outside Old George’s old home, which might, she thought, be Rion’s new one.
    In his hand he carried a package wrapped in metal foil. If it was again Cuban food, if it was again as good as the fish and dumplings he had brought last night, then Rion would be happy.
    “Good morning, nice morning!” Jake exclaimed with the exuberance of a barrow boy. He found Rion, motionless, looking intently through the rustic fence at something on the canal.
    Rion put a finger to her lips, “Shhhh!”
    Hidden from the canal by Old George’s screen of branches and sticks Rion gazed at one of the birds that gave the place its name.
    The heron had not been disturbed by Jake’s arrival. Itcontinued wading on its long thin legs, occasionally spearing the water with its beak, searching for eels, for carp and small pike.
    Rion was transfixed. The bird had a tufted crown, a badger stripe running down the back of its head and what looked like a rough necklace of different sized feathers hanging at the