“How long will the concrete take to dry, do you think?” a man with a dog asked me, while we were both peering through the viewing window of the hoardings. “I dunno,” I lied. My lie was intended to cut the conversation short, which it did. It was a habitual lie, born of living in London and finding ways of politely avoiding talking to strangers. Especially as I didn’t know how he, or his dog, would take to my beginning our acquaintance by correcting him: concrete doesn’t dry out. Quite the opposite, water is an ingredient of concrete.
