VILLA OTTERBOURNE - THE BOOK
or „HOW TO INHERIT A DERELICT VILLA AND BE
ADOPTED BY A FAMILY OF HARD-DRINKING VAGABONDS.“
A far-fetched story by Wee Flowers, that will be released as a book in 2028.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN…
“On a rainy November night one year ago the phone rang in the salon. There was a notary of the chancellery Rutton, Blackminster & Tromp Limited from London who would like to speak to me about an inheritance.
He told me tender-heartedly, that I was now the heiress to the Otterbourne Mansion in London, a formerly charming estate that is currently in a rather unfortunate condition. Urgently needed is the repair of the roof.
After I had seen my house, and found only a few sellable – fairly curious – objects in the attic, hardly enough to pay the reparation, I decided to paint portraits of my family in order to put them up for sale in this exhibition.“
AND HERE IS THE STORY
Madame Eloise Otterbourne and her husband Theodore
No one ever knew where Madame Eloise Otterbourne came from and why her husband Sir Theodore Otterbourne – a wealthy captain in the British Navy – never came back from his last journey. Eloise and her daughter Silvina did not seem to miss him too much. The heritage included an ancient mansion in London W 1 and enough money to live a splendid life.
Silvina Otterbourne
Silvina, now the only heiress to the Otterbourne fortune took the money and ran away with James Anthony Winston a pseudo-communist from Blackpool. They lived in Bombay when Silvina gave birth to twins: Alexander and Sidonie. When all the money was gone James was gone, too. Just like her mother Silvina was a dedicated follower of gin. One day, when Sidonie and Alexander came home from school they found a goodbye letter and an empty bottle.
Sidonie & Alexander Otterbourne (my father)
Sidonie and Alexander went back to England where they stayed with a friend of Silvina until Sidonie went to Paris where she studied music – cello in particular. Alexander, who always loved cars, started race driving at an early age and soon became rather successful: the rallye “Paris – Dakkar” ended in a smoky hash den …in one arm the prize he had won, in the other the notorious “Jet Set It Girl” Amanda Flowers.
Amanda Flowers (my mother)
Meanwhile Sidonie fell in love with a lion tamer named Jaques “Le Tigre” Dupont and joined the circus. On the way to America by ocean liner she gave birth to her first daughter Emerald. Her second daughter Saphira – from a Swedish writer in exile – was born in Marrakech.
Emerald & Saphira Otterbourne
Emerald grew up travelling with her father across America. She stayed in New York to take dance lessons and started working as a gogo girl in several downtown beat clubs where she also got introduced to drugs and free love. Her sister Saphira lived in Morocco with her mother and later married former flower child Comte Andrej Perovski de Reaulain with whom she had three beautiful daughters:
Violetta, Vera and Vanilla.
TO BE CONTINUED…