Fly in the Ointment by Anne Fine Read Free Book Online Page B

away in a fireproof box without a single tear. You can fight disappointments or, like me, you can let them take your heart and shrivel it as surely as a tribe of cannibals will shrink a head. I’d let it happen and I had been grateful. I’d used that little trick the therapist had taught me, and then abused it, till I hadlearned the art of brushing aside anything that should have bothered me.
    So Trevor Hanley was right. I was too cool a customer for any man to fancy. Not that it bothered me. I liked to know that I was so impregnable that nothing could touch me. I even watched my own birthday come and go, unremarked by anyone, without a flicker – apart from the reminder that later that month it would be Malachy’s too. Halfheartedly I did begin to gather a few goodies in a cardboard carton: a book of cartoons, tea bags and chocolate, the tins of lychees he had always loved. But then I broke into the package of tea bags and after that, instead of pressing on to fill the box, I simply emptied it out. I wasn’t in the mood to go and trawl the city streets for my son, knowing from long experience that there was nothing I could do to change his current way of life. If he was desperate, or ill, or worryingly thin, I didn’t want to know.
    I didn’t want to
care
. I was too busy, loving my little house, loving my plants, loving my pretty garden arbour. I went for great long walks. I took a painting class. I cooked more, taught myself to sew and spent hours listening to the radio. I liked the daily drive into the city. I liked the way that both the Hanleys took a few minutes from their own work each day to stroll behind our desks, cooing ourpraises. When Audrey and Dana eyed one another as the clock came round to half past five, and closed their box files, I took great satisfaction in stacking things for the morning, then sliding my chair in neatly under my desk just as we had at school. I’d say goodbye to Dana on the steps, then walk with Audrey as far as her Queen’s Park bus stop before taking off down yet another street, towards the car park.
    And it was there one light spring evening that, pulling out of the exit, I braked to let a pregnant woman cross the road in front of me. I hadn’t even made her break her stride, but she was clearly the sort hair-triggered to take offence. Even before she stepped off the kerb she was giving me the finger. Strutting in front of my car, she made the effort to swing her arm around so she could keep up the offensive gesture. And though my window was rolled up I could still hear her piercing yell. ‘You stupid trout! Get off the fucking pavement! Bitch!’
    It was the voice from under the canal bridge. I stared at her, appalled. Could that be Malachy’s baby she was carrying? Oh, dear gods, no! Surely from one glance you could see she was the sort of young woman who’d get through boys and men as fast as other people get through underwear.
    My look of horror set off a fresh wave of abuse.‘What are you staring at, you prissy bitch? You had your eyeful? Stupid, stupid cow!’
    Panicking, I glanced in my rear mirror. Just for once, no one was behind me. I slammed the car into reverse and shot back, giving myself just enough space to swing around and drive instead past the NO EXIT sign.
    And once again I was lucky. No one was driving in. Without a thought for any penalties if I were caught, I shot out of the entrance and off down the street. As soon as I dared, I took a look behind me. The witchy creature was still standing blocking the exit, probably still shrieking after me as, trembling so hard that I could barely keep a grip on the wheel, I reached the roundabout at the end of the street and took the very first turning – not the road I wanted at all – simply because it was clear.

9
    SAFE HOME, I took stock. How had the sight of this young woman so managed to rattle me? She didn’t know who I was. And who was to say