Imperfect Strangers (3 page)

CHAPTER
3

Through a fuggy Barolo fog, my head mirrors the bus journey to work: pot-hole-jolting and full of noise. With a painful squeal of brakes we come to a halt, and all those who stood in readiness for a quick exit stumble forward. Still sitting, feeling very much like a puppet with seized joints, I’m wondering, can sorrows actually be drowned? I think not, wishing I’d stayed in bed. The last to exit, I step down from the bus and spot Kerry Lombard crossing the road and recall exactly why I decided to come to work rather than stay at home. Sorrows thrive on drink, but they shy away from company.

The grey sky accents Kerry perfectly: black hair – cropped as sharp as her navy tro
user-suit – reflecting the cold light like polished-granite. Aged twenty-nine she is three years older than me, three inches taller, and three times as acerbic. All the same, against all expectations, we hit it off from the moment we met.

“Kerry. Kerry, hold up.” The request is obviously not as loud as it sounds in my own head. Kerry steps onto the pavement, oblivious, and continues on her way. Wonder why opposites attract? Up is generally good, whereas down is mostly bad:
I’m feeling a bit ‘down’ at the moment
;
there’s a ‘down-side’ to everything
;
I’m ‘down-trodden’
; Erm…
you’re very ‘up-beat’.
Funny how bad connotations come to mind easier than good ones. Maybe it’s just my mood, or maybe there are just more of them.

Twenty yards ahead, setting a fast pace, Kerry steadily increases the distance between us. People coming towards Kerry part to let her through
, it’s not as if they have any choice. Kerry looks straight ahead and walks like a speedboat cutting water.

“Kerry,” I shout, louder this time, stiffening my shoulders as I canter to catch up. I always swore, when I was younger, that I would never run in this
Barbie-legged fashion, but I didn’t account for heels and a tight-
ish
skirt. I wasn’t going to work in no boring office either – rock chick I’d set my sights on, learn the guitar, form a band. I only managed five chords, which is supposedly enough, but I couldn’t string them together very well.

Kerry’s smile, at once welcoming, alters to one of perplexed amusement as she completes the turn to face me. “Rough night Sal?” A smirk defines her sharp features and her lilac-grey eyes glint with questions.

“You could say that. Kicked Steve out and slept with a bottle of wine.”

The smirk tightens into a scowl. “What for this time?” she says,
tipping her gaze to the sky... “No, don’t tell me. The usual. And let me guess: at your cousin’s wedding – evidence photographic.”

I nod in confirmation, my jaw working up to a reply
that doesn’t get chance to materialise.

“Don’t look so surprised, Sal.” Kerry holds up her hand, palm facing me, as if to stave off the expectant question. “How did I know? Obvious really. He’s a man, he’s a shit, and he’s done it before. Let me add another guess: one of the bridesmaids?”

I nod, fingertips pressing against the pulse in my temples. The pain feels bigger than my head. I shouldn’t have run. I feel the need to throw up and edge towards the gutter, just in case. No sick rises, just a very loud, foul tasting belch. “I’m never going to drink again.”

Kerry screws her lips into a
yeh I’ve heard that before,
expression, then carries on talking. “So stereotypical. The man’s a walking cliché. No doubt, though, you’ll leave it a couple of days and take him back as usual?”

“No, not this time.” She’s on one of her rants, not actually listening to me at all. “I said, not this time.”

“Yeh, yeh. You always say that Sally. You’re the mirror to his cliché. The doormat to his foot-wipe.”

“I’m–”

“Did I say foot-wipe? I meant ass-wipe. You’re toilet-roll, Sally – walking, talking, toilet-roll – softly absorbing all the crap he puts you through.”

“Thanks. You paint a lovely picture.” Why, exactly, didn’t I stay in bed? “Can we just get inside, I really don’t feel well.”

Kerry doesn’t acknowledge my request as an invitation to drop the subject, and now I’m the one who’s not actually listing. Thankfully, as we approach the office steps a distraction from Kerry’s disapproval appears in the form of Colleen and Philippa weaving towards us through slow moving traffic. The horn of a white-van trumpets a rhythmic blast, Colleen slaps a hand to her heart, and a guy looking barely eighteen laughs through the passenger window as Philippa, all legs in a text-message skirt, squeals and leaps to the pavement.

“Al
l right love,” he bellows. “Nice legs! What time d’they open?”

Oh, good grief:
think of something original
. But just as I’m thinking him all kinds of idiot, I start feeling sorry for him as he wilts in the frost of Kerry’s glare. The two older guys in the van are in hysterics. It’s plain the young lad is emulating the example they’ve set: a vicious spiral of do as I do in order to fit in, to be one of the boys. As the traffic begins to move on, the boy looks relieved. No doubt egged on by his fellow workers, twenty or so yards further down the road, he leans out of the window and throws Philippa a piercing wolf-whistle.

“Another bastard in the making,” Kerry shouts while emulating male masturbation in the direction of the departing van. “All of ’em, all bastards,
all tossers and shits.”

Kerry draws her attention from the van, momentarily letting it land on other male drivers who may or may not have been staring at Philippa’s legs. She then looks at me, raising her eyebrows. I know what it implies. She’s giving me the
may I
expression, while tipping her head toward Philippa and Colleen.

The shrug
I give in return implies:
whatever
,
tell them what you like. I don’t really give a damn
. To the thought I add,
ma’am
, a rhyming play on words, one of many invented by Steve that enter my mind without permission.
I don’t really give a damn
,
ma’am
, buzzes through my head in Steve’s
voice, and though it amuses me, it has a sting of annoyance.

“She’s kicked Steve out again,” Kerry blurts, making no attempt to disguise how much she relishes the disclosure. “For good this time.
Apparently
! Shagged some bridesmaid at her cousin’s wedding.”

“He
didn’t
do that!”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“He just snogged her… and, kind of squeezed her bum a bit.” I don’t actually believe it was quite so innocent, but I can’t help feeling that any defamation of Steve also taints me.

“Oh, ’scuse me, I suppose that’s al
l right then.”

Wouldn’t you just know it, tears come to my eyes, but I hold them back and return Kerry’s cold-lilac gaze. For a best friend she can
be a real bitch at times. “No, Kerry, it isn’t all right. That’s why I’ve kicked him out.”

Kerry looks away, up the steps that lead to the office block, her lips bunched into a tight pout. Looking away like that, I’ve come to learn, is Kerry’s apologetic look, the nearest she will ever go to an actual apology. It’s a victory of sorts, but one that feels rather hollow because I sort of agree with her. She always said he was no good. Then again
, being a lesbian – though she’s never actually declared the fact – she inclines towards thinking all men are no good.
Dump him
, she told me,
he’s a shit
. “Maybe I
will
take him back, when I’ve cooled off.” Kerry doesn’t even glance back. “I don’t intend to, but…”

Colleen
steps into her role of elder comforter by offering me a tissue. She places a hand on my shoulder as Kerry and Philippa make their way up the steps. Like a little kid, Philippa kicks at a drift of rusty leaves.

“Perhaps you should take the day off.”
Colleen suggests. “You’re obviously upset. Work will be here long after we’re gone. I’ll let Mr Smith know.”

Work will be here long after we are gone
. Sounds like something my dad would say. Do I want to sit in an empty house? I shake my head and at once regret it. Why did I drink all that wine? And why do we ask ourselves questions that we already know the answer to? I drank it out of spite.
You’d cut off your nose to spite your face, Sally
– one of mum’s. “I may as well stay Colleen; I’m here now. Kerry’s words only hurt because they ring true.”

“Don’t let it get to you. Kerry wouldn’t, and Philippa certainly wouldn’t. Did you see her face back there? I think she actually enjoyed that little scene.”
Colleen tuts, and looks up at Philippa and Kerry laughing. Despite being a mere thirty-three, Colleen seems so much older than the rest of us. No surprise really, married with a son of fourteen and a daughter of eleven. Heck another two years and she could legally be a grandma. In the brown-twill skirt-suit she’s wearing she looks to be practicing for the part already.

“You need a nice dependable man, like my Paul,”
Colleen says, turning her attention back to me. “Someone you can trust. Someone who will think more about you than they do about themselves.”

“Or
take a leaf out of my book and don’t bother with one at all,” Kerry snipes over her shoulder from six steps above.

When I look up I’m met with the view up Philippa’s short-skirt and a flash of silky white panties decorated with crimson hearts.
Men would pay for such a sight.

“We’re not all like you, Kerry.” Philippa says, turning to wink at me, as if she knows exactly what I was thinking. “What about when she wants a shag?”

Colleen’s jaw drops. “Philippa! Language like that, out here on the steps.”

“Wha-a-a-t?” Philippa’s eyes glint with devilment, as she elevates her shoulders into a provocative shrug. “Girls have 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.