Talking to Strange Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

a natural progression from this to think of Peter Moran. Peter Moran had been educated at a famous university and had taught at a less famous one. Or so Jennifer said. Any time he unwillingly summoned it up John could hear that mocking voice with its perfect diction, its scathing or incomprehensible utterances. But I won’t think of him, I mustn’t, John thought. It’s bad for you, it makes you sick in your mind, thinking of people you hate. I don’t hate Jennifer, I never have. I love her still. Sometimes I think I love her more.
    He took off his brown canvas coat and hung it up in the office. If the weather holds, he thought, I’ll have the weekend in the garden. It’s a funny thing with gardening, you never get tired of it, you never get bored. Those snowdrops that multiplied so, I’ll have them out. And I’ll get a bed ready for the pink lilies, the nerines. What I will also do is take a look at cats’ green – it must have had a name but he always called it cats’ green – and see if anyone’s been there and taken that last bit of paper. John had his library books with him in a string bag:
She, Wisdom’s Daughter
and
A Small Town in Germany.
He said goodnight to Sharon and Les and told Gavin to lock up after him. Gavin was the new assistant manager, only twenty-three, a graduate of the local horticultural college. Latin names tripped off his tongue. He was the only person John had ever known who didn’t pronounce aubrieta as orbreeshia. The mynah bird, which he seemed fond of, he had given the name of Grackle – from its designation of
Gracula religiosa,
he explained. Only that afternoon John had heard him promising to obtain for a customer a fremontodendron, whatever that might be.
    â€˜Ciao, chief,’ said Gavin in a multi-national lingo he used when he wasn’t talking Latin.
    The central library was so much better than his local branch that he used it just as frequently.
She
was a wonderful book but he hadn’t thought much of
Wisdom’s Daughter
. That was often the way with sequels. They hadn’t got
King Solomon’s Mines
in at the library. John felt disproprotionately disappointed. He had always been like that about books, wanting some particular book specially, building on it somehow, thinking of the evening ahead when he would be reading it, and feeling absurdly fed up and resentful if he couldn’t get hold of it. When he was younger he would have been prepared to chase from branch to branch in pursuit of it. But not now. Too many things had happened to him for him to get that worked up over a book. John Le Carré didn’t let him down. Both
Smiley’s People
and
The Honourable Schoolboy
were in. Of course they would be a good deal less easy to read than Rider Haggard. John liked espionage books but he hadn’t read many of them. He asked the girl what she could recommend.
    â€˜Do you like it all made up or sort of founded on fact?’
    John had never thought about it like that.
    â€˜I mean something like
The Riddle of the Sands
would be founded on fact while Ian Fleming wouldn’t be.’
    â€˜I like a bit of realism,’ said John and immediately wondered why he had said that because surely it was escape he was seeking?
    â€˜This one’s non-fiction.
My Silent War
by Kim Philby. I expect you remember about him going over to Russia.’
    It was ancient history to her, something the grown-ups talked about when she was a child. John took the book from her.
    â€˜I’ll try it.’
    She was smiling at him in a friendly way. He thought, I could ask her to come out with me. I know how it’s done. I didn’t once, I hadn’t a clue, but I do now. You chat for a while and find out what she likes doing, walking, for instance, or seeing films, or going to fairs or botanical gardens (that would be a piece of luck) and you say, We might go for a walk some time or we might take in that