Meanwhile Gardens by Charles Caselton Read Free Book Online Page B

painting over.
    “‘Merlijnche de Poortje’,” she read from the underside. “Unless the family are Flemish – ?” she looked to Ollie for confirmation.
    “German through and through. They were Hapsburgs.”
    Nicky was impressed. “You mean like the kings, queens and emperors kind of Hapsburgs?”
    Ollie nodded. “You can almost tell from her jaw can’tyou? There’s something positively Teutonic about the way it juts out.”
    “God you can be a bit of an anorak Ol,” Nicky tutted sadly, “like I know the facial characteristics of European royalty.”
    “James always said they were a very minor strain. It’s an enormous family apparently. Anyway they were Hapsburgs until the First World War when they changed their name to–”
    “Hapshill,” Auntie Em finished for him.
    “Don’t believe a word of what Candida said. It’s not a family heirloom. I was with James when he bought it at a rather cheap and nasty auction in Brighton,” Ollie looked at the painting, “It was unwanted and going for a song. James fell in love with it.”
    “Is it by any one famous?”
    “Some Dutch school apparently – but that could mean anything.”
    Nicky looked at the miniature, “She looks so calm and poised doesn’t she?”
    They all admired the painting with its striking use of shadows and light.
    “What do you think Candida’s up to Ol?” Nicky asked
    Ollie shrugged, “Until we find out Merlijnche de Poortje might be safer here. Auntie Em – would you?”
    Auntie Em topped up their glasses, “It would be a pleasure.”
    Auntie Gem’s favourite Sunday mass was the one with the Sisters at their chapel in St Charles Square. She hadn’t missed their mid-morning prayers for – for? Auntie Gem wracked her brain but she couldn’t remember, all she knew was that it had been many, many years.
    This morning Sister Margaret had asked for special prayers for those lost and alone. Auntie Gem immediately thought of the ghost of the poor young girl she had seen in the cemetery and offered up a prayer for her deliverance. What with seeing the ghost, and with her concern about Ollie, this could turn into a six-mass-day she thought.
    After the service and a cup of tea with the Sisters, Auntie Gem crossed Ladbroke Grove into the two storey Victorian shopping terrace of Golborne Road. Even on a Sunday the little street was busy, its Portuguese cafés, delis and North African street vendors doing a steady trade from regulars and incomers alike.
    Gem bought some black olives marinated in lemon juice, Emma’s favourite kind, from the friendly Moroccan. She could never call Emma ‘Em’ like others did. She quite liked ‘Auntie Em’ – but she couldn’t call her charge ‘Auntie’ could she?
    Auntie Gem chuckled at the thought.
    Emma would always be her charge, would always be the mischievous creature she had cared for since a baby, had cared for, in fact, for all of Emma’s fifty three years – the first nineteen of which had been spent in Jamaica. After ‘the accident’ as Auntie Gem referred to it – she had never believed Emma’s father had committed suicide – they had been forced to come to England where they had been for the last thirtyfour years.
    Thirtyfour years.
    Even though England was certainly her home and she was settled here now, Auntie Gem harboured thoughts of returning to Redlight, the tiny village of her birth, in the Blue Mountains above Kingston.
    Perhaps next year after she retired, she thought.
    Perhaps.
    Auntie Gem picked her way through the crowds outside the cafés amazed at how, with the first hint of sunshine, the people outside Café Feliz wore shorts and t-shirts. She shivered, adjusted the brim of her brown felt hat, tightened her chunky knit scarf and pulled her quilted coat around her. It would take a lot more than autumn sunshine to get Gemma Nelson into something lighter.
    Entering the small cobbled mews she could hear voices coming from the large corner house she shared with