Free Meanwhile Gardens by Charles Caselton Page A

served him with divorce papers.”
    Rion didn’t know what to say so simply looked at the ground.
    Sensing his presence was unnerving her Ollie made to leave. “Anyway I didn’t mean to disturb you. Hum!”
    He noticed the young girl freeze slightly. The beginnings of a small smile spread over her lips before fading as abruptly as they appeared.
    “I don’t mean you,” he joked. “Hum!” Ollie ordered again but the hound simply lay on his back and stretched.
    “It’s your dog’s name isn’t it? Hum?” Rion asked.
    “Short for Humdinger – Humdinger the Third that is.” Ollie felt slightly embarrassed. “I know – pets’ names, where do they come from? – but at least he’s not called Truffles – ”
    “ – or Nero.” For the first time he heard the girl laugh. “Hum,” she smiled as she bent down to stroke the dog’s stomach. “You know when I bumped into you a couple of days ago I thought you, and the woman you were with, were telling me to hum.”
    Ollie let out a yelp of laughter before chuckling apologetically, “Sorry.”
    “I was getting upset because the only tune I could think of was the National Anthem!”
    “You must have thought – ” Ollie laughed. “Well, what did you think?”
    “I thought you were all mad,” Rion smiled remembering the incident. “It’s my first time in London you see.”
    “And your mother told you we’d be like this?”
    Rion tensed. How did he know that’s what her mother had said?
    Ollie looked around the small clearing. Behind the girl he could see an opening, half-screened by a pink blanket, through which he could make out some sort of chamber. “What brought you to the city?”
    The girl pointed to the book Ollie held in his hand. “Well, that book played a large part.”
    Ollie looked again at the worn copy of the self-help bible, “So it
is
that good.” He gestured to the pink blanket tied across the opening, “And you live – here?”
    “It’s meant to be a secret really. Jake said – ”
    “Your boyfriend?”
    “No!” Rion said quickly, feeling her face turn a bright red. Why couldn’t she control her blushing, she asked herself for the thousandth time. “Just a friend. He helped me find this place actually.”
    As if on cue the four notes whistled into the clearing.
    Rion gently whistled back. She looked at her watch. It was just after five. “Here he is now.”
    Ollie watched as a young man, a Sainsburys bag held tightly to his chest, squeezed through the narrow opening. Ollie judged him to be about the same height as himself but more ruffled, more sloppily handsome.
    “I hope you’re ready for – ” Jake began before doing a doubletake upon seeing Ollie. He looked quickly at Rion.
    “I was just talking about you,” she smiled at Jake to let him know everything was all right. “This is Jake, I’m Rion and you are – ?”
    “Ollie. Ollie Michaelson.”
    Rion peered into the supermarket carrier. “Is there enough for three?”
    As the sun went down Jake built and lit a fire with the speed and ease of someone who had done it many times before.
    “Lucky I bought a couple extra eh?” Jake took several potatoes from the carrier. He wrapped them in foil before placing them away from the main flame but still in the heat of the fire.
    “You live near here don’t you?” Ollie asked.
    Jake wondered how much Rion had told him. “Yes,” he replied truthfully. Ollie didn’t have to know how near.
    “I thought I’d seen you before.” Through the woven mesh of branches Ollie could see the sun’s dying rays reflected in the canal. “You’d never know this place existed from the other side, there just doesn’t look to be enough room.”
    Jake pulled out a small bottle of Appleton’s rum and two matchstick-sized joints from his army trousers.
    “Are they from Marks?” Rion asked knowingly.
    Ollie looked over at the tiny cigarettes, their ends rolled into twists. “And Spencers?” he asked amazed. “Which branch do