Virtual Strangers Read Free Page A

the grass, were in very much the latter. Supine, in fact, on her picnic rug.
    ‘Look at that arse,’ she observed, sitting up.
    I propped myself on my elbows and focussed. It was the property of a young guy in combats. I considered. ‘Nine point five. Whose is it?’
    ‘Keiran’s.’
    ‘Who’s Keiran?’
    ‘Oh, you don’t know him. New head of IT at school. Phew! How I shall miss that arse.’
    ‘There’ll be others, in Canterbury.’
    She lay back on the blanket again and twiddled her glass stem.
    ‘Don’t get me wrong. This is a brilliant career move for Matt and everything, and I would hate to think he even had an inkling about it - he’s so excited about it being so rural and the size of the garden and growing bloody brassicas and potatoes and leeks...Oh, and chickens! Did he run that one by you yet? The kids will love it, of course, but, God, right now I really wish I wasn’t going.’
    Rose and Matt’s two were both still in Primary School. Rose was right, they would love it. ‘You don’t mean it...’
    ‘Oh, yes I do, Charlie girl. Nothing like having all your best friends in a glut to remind you just how much you’ll miss them when you’re gone.’
    ‘It’s not so far.’
    ‘It is. It might as well have been Brussels.’
    ‘I know. But we can visit, and...’
    She sat up and gestured. ‘Look at him, for instance.’
    ‘Who? David Harris-Harper?’ David Harris-Harper was new to the area, but had already established himself as Cefn Melin’s resident hunky conveyancer. And was managing to exude androgens even through cords.
    She nodded. ‘How could there possibly be anyone in Canterbury as shaggable as that?’
    ‘I’m sure there must be.’
    ‘Yes, but you won’t have seen them, will you?’
    ‘So you’ll have to describe them for me, won’t you? We can exchange our shag lists via lurid letters - emails, even, come to that. You could take furtive photographs and send them down the computer to me.’
    The idea of the shag lists - our secret top ten of local blokedom - being committed to print and zapped along land lines like an urgent DX bag, struck me as not only funny but strangley appealing. Rose laughed. ‘Excellent idea! Which reminds me...’
    She disappeared inside.
    She was back moments later, swaying slightly, with a present.
    ‘What’s this for?’
    ‘For you, silly.’ She proffered the slim package. She’d wrapped it, very beautifully, as always, in tissue.
    ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have. What is it? Should I open it now?’
    She nodded. ‘If you like. You might want to change it. When I bought it, I thought it was a book about Everest, but when I got it home I realised it was actually about a peak in the Andes. And then I thought, well, no matter. It’s still about mountains. I thought it might prove an inspiration while you’re planning your trip. But then I read it. Well, not read it, but read the captions with the photos. And read some of it, and then thought it wasn’t really what I’d wanted. It looks a bit harrowing.’
    It was called Touching the Void . ‘So?’ I shrugged. ‘You know me.’
    ‘Well, pratting about in Timberlands is one thing, and I know you love all this stuff, but I wondered if harrowing is what you really need right now. Do change it if you like -’
    ‘Nonsense, Rose! I can be harrowed with the best of them!’
    ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so sure of that, Charlie girl.’
    We watched Phil approach, bearing mugs and two cushions. ‘Damp grass,’ he said.
    ‘Therefore, damp arses,’ Rose countered, dismissing the coffees.
    We then laughed uproariously, clutching our tummies, despite us both knowing that, at least for the moment, life wasn’t particularly uproarious at all.
    Phil looked disdainful and re-proffered the mugs.
    ‘We need wine , Phil!’ Rose told him firmly.

Chapter 3
    Monday. Sixish. Exceptionally stressed.
    The unholy trinity of my current working life consists (in no particular hierarchy of tedium) of a)