The Mistake I Made by Paula Daly Read Free Book Online Page B

bed before dragging out my hair band, rearranging my hair into another fast ponytail and fixing a smile upon my face, signalling it was time for Scott to leave.
    ‘That husband of yours must have been a fool,’ he said as I moved towards the door.
    ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
    And then he reached out and touched my hand.
    He did this in a manner to suggest I should be still for a moment. That he had something important he wanted to say.
    My pulse quickened.
    ‘Have a drink with me,’ he said. ‘Just one drink.’

6
    SHALL SPARE YOU the finer details of the demise of my marriage. There’s nothing extraordinary about what occurred – just the usual disintegration of a relationship that comes about with broken promises, broken hearts, broken crockery.
    Safe to say, we were not one of those ex-couples who had a very good co-parenting relationship. We did not do joint Christmases or have civilized get-togethers with our old friends.
    No, we did our break up t’Northern way.
    Lots of old-fashioned screaming at each other in the street, plenty of backstabbing and irrationality. Once, we came across each other on a drunken night out, and ended up having sex in the toilets. It wasn’t pretty. But then again, when is it ever?
    I belonged to the brigade of women who referred to their ex as ‘that wanker’. And everyone knew who I was talking about.
    We split up two years ago and we were still married because we couldn’t afford to get divorced. Winston was so feckless that trying to get him to sign anything – actually, scratch that; trying to get him to do anything – required such a surge of insurmountable energy on my part that I’d given up trying.
    And yes, of course Petra was right when she said I should have severed all ties with the man. Got my name off everything associated with him, because I would never get credit, never get on with my life, while I had him hanging on from a distance, screwing things up. But with the hours I was working, and just with keeping my head above water, well, I couldn’t seem to make it happen.
    ‘Do the thing you least want to do first, Roz,’ Petra had instructed on numerous occasions. ‘You’ll be far more productive when you’ve not got dread hanging over you all day.’
    I imagined what would happen if I told Petra about Scott’s invitation. Good grief! Her head would topple off.
    Petra thought everyone had the same moral compass as her. She was genuinely astonished when people turned out not to be what she thought. She took it as a personal insult.
    I had refused Scott, of course.
    ‘I don’t date married men,’ I told him.
    ‘I’m not asking for a date,’ he said, ‘just a drink. Surely there’s no law against that? We could meet as friends.’
    ‘Sorry, Scott, but no.’
    ‘Can I ask you a question?’ He was smiling now.
    ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘If I wasn’t married, would you agree to it?’
    ‘But you are married.’
    ‘Say I wasn’t.’
    ‘But you are, Scott.’
    He left, amused. As though my stubbornness was actually quite charming. I wondered if he made a habit of it, wondered if he was a serial adulterer and enjoyed the conquest. And I probably would have remained wondering about him for the duration of the morning if the call about George hadn’t come in.
    I was on my third sciatica sufferer of the day when I heard the phone ring at reception. I tried not to be distracted as this patient was in a bad way and needed my full attention.
    True sciatica is rare. It occurs when the soft inner jelly of the intervertebral disc is squeezed out through a crack in the disc’s hard outer coating. This jelly comes to rest on the sciatic nerve, sending crippling pain and often paralysis down the leg of the patient. Once the jelly is out, there’s no going back. It’s like trying to get toothpaste back into a tube. Surgery is the only cure. So, if you find yourself being told by a clinician that he’s putting your discs back into place, you can be