Imperfect Strangers Read Free Page A

times, I glance at the window. From thirteen floors up – 12B, though I prefer the most feared of primes – the spread of the sleeping city takes on a strange, far-removed quality, as if viewed on a cinema screen. In the middle distance there is an expansive patch devoid of light: a large area of darkness enclosed by the park’s boundary.
    Sally lives just beyond the park – her home nestled on the edge of darkness.
    She’ll be in her bed, all warm and comfortable and safe. I can’t see the house, but I know exactly where it sits. There’s a light near the park-gate that’s brighter than those lighting the pavement. A few days ago I walked from the gate to her house and counted the number of streetlights.
    Sally has nothing to fear from shadows.
    I look beyond her house and notice the occasional flash of emergency-blue, before wandering back to the streets below where traffic lights command empty junctions. The damp tarmac shows a distorted reflection, the colours muted as if the tarmac has absorbed and destroyed some of the brilliance.
    The thought disturbs me, so I turn away from the window. When I shine the torchlight onto Sally’s desk my note stares back. Torch off . Torch on. The writing, To Sally , shouts loudly in my mind. It’s my own voice this time and I can’t seem to shut it up.
    Off. On.
    TO SALLY, the voice in my head yells.
    TO SALLY!!!
    And through my voice, as if I’ve awakened her from the slumber of soft music, comes mother’s.
    IDIOT , she screams, laughing, before launching an abusive string of put-downs. STUPID. FREAKing HEADCASE. Whojathinkyar ?
    Off. On. Off. On.
    Five now. It’s not working. I could try seven, or eleven or thirteen. I could keep going to the thousandth prime of 7919, but I suspect it would make no difference.
    ‘Shut up.’ I blurt, but I can’t drown her out. More and more foul words stream into my head. ‘Shut up, shut up,’ I cry, trying to be louder than her. I know what she wants; I know it’s the only thing that will silence her. I try to hear the music, but I can’t, it’s gone. Lost to my mind already.
    I have no choice other than to give in to her , so I pick up the note, screw it into a ball and stuff it in my pocket. This isn’t the end though. One way or another, I will have Sally. She’s under my skin now, like a splinter. It’s only a small part of her, but small splinters are the most difficult to remove. The flesh sucks them deeper, holds onto them, and, refusing to let go, eventually absorbs all trace.

     
    CHAPTER
2
    W aking more readily than me, Steve keeps the alarm clock on his side of the bed and usually stops it at the first wail. “Steve!” I grumble. “The alarm!” I use a low, warning voice, clenching my eyes against the pulsating pain in my temples. “Steve!”
    The alarm continues its cry. Why the hell doesn’t he turn it off? I fling out an arm, backhanding Steve’s side of the bed, and discover why. He’s not there, and it all rushes back to me then in a rapid flood of recollection. My fingers outstretched, head pounding, I waver around the vicinity of the rude noise, only to knock over the wine glass.
    “SHIT!” The echo of the expletive pounds through my skull, cave-like amid the drip drip drip of abandoned wine. Finally, I find the elusive off button, flop back to the pillow, and just lie there looking at the ceiling painted orange by curtain-filtered streetlight.
    Through the resulting silence whirs a milk float, the sound of tyre on tarmac suggesting a heavy fall of rain in the early hours. A little bird song accompanies the clink of bottles. I say a little, because most birds have already flown away to winter in warmer climes. My parents have flown away too: have done ever since I first left the nest. Five months in Cyprus, spanning every winter. Yes, I wanted my own place. Yes, I desired my own space, room to breathe, some distance from my parents, but I didn’t want this much.
    “I still need you,” I