Imperfect Strangers Read Online Free PDF Page A

needs too. Can’t tell me you haven’t shagged – same boyfriend since twelve. Bet you’ve been at it since you were at least fourteen.”
    “I have not! My Paul insisted on waiting till we were married. And I was thirteen when I began courting him, not twelve.”
    “Shagging since sixteen then.”
    “Nineteen, actually, and five months, if you must know. The night of our wedding.”
    The outrage in Colleen’s voice makes me chuckle, and my head throbs in payment as I do the maths. This is why I came to work. I love you girls. Friends: that’s all a girl needs, not bloody men. I’m about to declare my love for them out loud when a massive drop of rain implodes on my forehead and washes the thought away. When I look around it doesn’t seem to be raining; for a worrying moment, I’m concerned that it might be pigeon shit. It isn’t though, just the preliminary drop of a mighty downpour. Just one big drip and it goes and lands on me.
    Typical!
    The sky has taken on a surreal greenish hue, and there’s that olive-like pungency which comes before heavy rainfall. Oppressive. Maybe my sense of touch is heightened, but I’m certain I can actually feel the weight of the rain descending and compressing the air beneath it. I’m transported to walking through the forest as a youngster, to a day out with my parents in search of sweet-chestnuts. I recall the smell, the forest floor covered in decaying bracken, mushrooms pushing through the darkness in search of light. It would have been this time of year. I loved it. Tramping through the woodland like Davey Crocket. Davey, Davey Crocket , I silently sing, King of the wild frontier . The crackle of Granddad’s old 78 accompanies the lyrics in my memory, and I think it fascinating how easily things long forgotten can trigger a happy memory. A quick medley of other scratchy shellac LPs comes to mind: Fastest milkman in the west ; My ding-a-ling , and I’m suddenly seven again twirling through the house – I want you to play with my ding-a-ling . Happy recollections drift into my thoughts like fragmented ghosts, and I picture mum and dad chuckling, knowing that I was oblivious to the double entendre of the song.
    The girls’ conversation has progressed in the few moments my mind wandered, but I quickly catch the direction it’s taken.
    “She’s seeing to her own needs anyway,” Kerry is saying. She’s chuckling, her shoulders giving away the fact that she’s on the verge of submitting a wise crack. “Slept with a wine-bottle last night. Bet it’s the best sex she’s ever had.”
    The group break into pe als of laughter, momentarily pausing at the top of the steps to dispelling all merriment before entering the workplace. The joke is at my expense, but I can’t help laughing along.
    People who work in the same building – strangers most of them – rush past as the rain looks more and more imminent. I’m not going to rush, not with this head, anyway , the entrance isn’t far off now, and if I don’t make it before the downpour comes I’m not exactly going to drown. The other three don’t look to be in too much of a rush either. Lime trees either side of the entrance, so vibrant in summer, stand as grey and lifeless as the concrete slabs surrounding them, their leaves lost, crispy-brown and whirling in front of the glass doors.
    Keith, the night security guard, suddenly rushes out, and even though my little group is ten metres away, he holds the door open and stands there, waiting, desperately failing to prevent the leaves from blowing past him.
    Philippa shields her mouth and partially turns to Kerry. “Talking about empty vessels, she could always use Keith.”
    I knew it. Put himself right in the firing line and dragged me out of the trench with him. Bang bang, Sally, you’re dead .
    Kerry turns to look at me, her face such a picture of disgust that anyone would think I’ve actually done it with him, with Keith, of all people.
    “He’s way too limp,”