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I shake my head, still chuckling. “I’m laughing at you. I didn’t know such a proper Englishwoman would even know such a word.”
Emma smiles then, those huge dimples sinking into her cheeks. She tilts her head. “Believe me, I have plenty more of those such words in my vocabulary. I just won’t be expressing them in front of you.”
I raise my eyebrows then and give her a contemplative look. “I think you’re a bit of a dark horse, Miss Bolton,” I say.
This statement seems to make her blush, and she drops her gaze. It surprises me that she’s so easily embarrassed, and my earlier thought about her not being so worldly-wise returns to me. She strikes me as innocent and perhaps a little naïve. That makes her Fine Arts degree suit her perfectly, somehow. I can just see her locked away in a gallery, alone and happy in her own company, surrounded by the art she admires so much.
After I’ve cleaned up the broken lamp—a lamp I’m going to have to replace, because I know it was a favorite of Mom’s—we carry on taking things out of the Den. We’re now lifting paintings off the wall, and in a combination of making conversation and wanting to know a little more about her, I say, “So, tell me. When you’re not terrorizing innocent people returning to their family home, what do you do to fill your time?”
Emma looks at me guiltily. “I am truly sorry about that.”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” I reply easily. “Besides, you’ve already apologized.”
“Not to you,” she counters.
“Okay. Well, apology accepted.”
“It’s only—before I left home, my mum filled my head with all the terrors of living over here. The shootings, the murders, the burglaries, you know”—she shrugs—“all that stuff. I suppose I was just a bit on edge.”
“Oh, yes,” I quip back sarcastically with a grin, “because London is such a safe place to live.”
“Not at all. In fact, it’s quite scary. But we don’t live in the city. We live in a town on the very edge of the Greater London periphery called Harefield. But it’s not just that. Mum’s just been very over-protective over the years,” she says, trailing off as though it’s something she doesn’t really want to talk about.
Her statement only confirms my earlier assumption of her innocence. Her mother has clearly ensured that Emma has led a sheltered life. How sheltered, I cannot know, and by the sounds of it, Emma is not going to tell me.
“So, to my earlier question,” I say, veering her away from her obvious discomfort.
“My spare time?” she says, gazing up and clearly thinking about how to answer. She’s just taken another picture of the wall and is holding it tightly against her body. She looks like she’s struggling to come up with an answer, so I try to help her along. “Are you a movie buff? Do you have a favorite TV show?”
“Oh, I don’t watch television,” she says plainly.
Her answer completely shocks me. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who doesn’t watch TV. I’m gawping at her when I exclaim, “You don’t watch television?”
She looks me right in the eye and shakes her head with a conviction I haven’t seen from anyone in a long time. “No,” she replies confidently. “I find it nonsensical, uninformative, and a complete waste of time.”
I’m still astonished when I ask my next question. “So, what do you do with all that spare time?”
“Well, I like to read.” She nods to the nearby bookshelves. “I take walks along the river near my home. It’s quite delightful first thing in the morning, when there’s no one about and all the birds are just saying hello to each other.” She falters a little and then continues, “I also like to meditate.” I can tell she’s not just as confident with this remark, and yet, I can’t imagine why.
“Me, too,” I exclaim with a smile.
“Really?” It’s her turn to look surprised.
“Really,” I reply. “I’ve been doing it for years. First thing in the morning is best for me. It helps start my day.”
“I’ve never met anyone else who does it,” she blurts.
Yet again, her remark surprises me. I know England can be a bit behind, doing things the old ways, but surely, there are people on spiritual journeys there, as much as anywhere else in the world. “There are no groups near where you live?” I ask.
She shrugs and looks a little uncomfortable again. “I… I don’t really—well, Mum has never been keen that I…” She trails off again. She looks down at the floor, clearly trying to formulate what she wants to say.
Then she looks straight at me. “My Mum’s very religious, you see. She’s always tried to protect me from the”—Emma lifts her hand and signals quotation marks—“outside world. It was difficult enough convincing her to let me go to uni. It took months. Of course, she doesn’t know I meditate. Anything that isn’t her religion is led by the devil, according to her. So, you see, meeting like-minded people hasn’t always been easy.”
I’m starting to form a picture of Emma Bolton. Not surprisingly, she reminds me of Sylvie. My sister has always had an innocence about her. She sees the world through rose-colored glasses, and always has, no matter how much myself and my parents have told her that the world is not all unicorns and rainbows. In fact, Sylvie has told us on many occasions that no matter what we tell her, she will always be who she is. We’ve come to accept that. I suppose it’s not a terrible way to be. It can just be a little dangerous.
It’s for that reason that I’ve always been very protective of Sylvie. She grew up in Sharon Springs. She hasn’t really seen much of the world, and she seems to think that everyone is just like they are in our little town. She has no idea what the outside world is really like, how tough it can be, how cruel people are. One trip to Europe in her late teens did not an experienced woman make.
