Fly in the Ointment Read Online Free

ladder yet again.
    But since then, nothing.
    I wondered if I should phone him at the office. Then irritation rose. Why bloody should I? If the man proved to be such a mean pig that he could choose to do a flit without the courtesy of a single word, then let him. I was so furious I strode around the house picking up droppings from our eighteen-year marriage and putting them in bin bags. Then I sat at the table and ate the cheese and celery sandwich (I’d thought the girl might be a vegetarian), and thought things over.
    Try as I might to suffer the flood of worries I thought a person ought to feel in circumstances like mine, only two thoughts kept surfacing. The first was that I couldn’t stay at the dry-cleaner’s. Much as I liked the job, I knew I couldn’t depend on Stuart to fund me for much longer. Even if he changed his mind and came back tomorrow, I couldn’t be sure he’d stay. If I was going to keep a roof over my head,I’d have to brush up my accounting skills and get a proper job.
    The second thought was how very stupid the two of us had been not to split years ago.
    My only actual
feeling
was relief.

3
    THE FEELING LASTED. Not just for the rest of the afternoon (and through the next sandwich) but through the long quiet evening. In a symbolic gesture of ‘good riddance’ I put fresh sheets on the bed and took off the downie Stuart had hogged so often, leaving me shivering. Instead, I put on the cotton blankets that I preferred, and could peel off and pull back over again, as my own body demanded.
    Spread like a starfish, I fell asleep in moments. At twelve I jack-knifed upright, fearful that Stuart might have lain awake in his hotel room (or in his lover’s bed – who was to guess?) and changed his mind. I pictured him sliding out from under the covers, pulling his clothes on and getting some taxi-driver to drop him at the end of our street. I even imagined hisfootsteps coming up the path, his key scraping the lock.
    And then I thought, ‘No, damn it! You can’t walk out without a word and come back just as you choose.’ I hurried down the stairs to run the bolt across the front door. (The back is always bolted.) ‘Just try to get in now!’ I warned him as I went back to bed and then, astonishingly, slept through till morning.
    I woke with the sense that this was all some unimagined gift. I had been given a second chance to live my own life, not the one I’d twisted out of shape trying to fit in with Stuart. The light shone brighter on the walls. The birdsong sounded merrier. Even my tea tasted better. I dressed with care in case Stuart popped into the dry-cleaner’s to tell me he was in love, or off to Thailand, or whatever. I got in early enough to warn Soraya I would soon be handing in my notice, but not so early that she had time to prise much out of me before we were engulfed by the first rush of customers dropping things off on the way to their own jobs.
    I kept hearing singing all day. Yes, it was really like that. I’d hear a voice cheerfully carolling through some upbeat song and look up, startled beyond belief to find it was my own. I swapped sandwiches with Brenda at lunch time even though I hate tuna. I think that I was on a perfect cloud of happiness.
    Till I saw Malachy. He was hanging around in adoorway across the street, obviously hoping to catch me. I felt the usual shaft of irritation that my son’s days were so empty he could start loitering at three for something that wasn’t going to happen before five-thirty. But that is druggies for you. And watching him shuffle round aimlessly did at least remind me why Mrs Kuperschmidt and I had finally toughened up. I saw the stains on his jacket and thought of the countless times I’d had to kneel to clean up his dribbles and vomit. I looked at his filthy haystack hair and my head swam with memories of those perpetual arguments about bathing and changing. I looked at