Fly in the Ointment Read Online Free Page B

as he answered, but all I heard was a recorded voice: ‘This number is no longer in service.’
    Furious with myself for even wanting to knowabout a man who was behaving so badly, I rang his office number. A strange voice answered. I didn’t say who I was. ‘I think I might have the wrong extension number,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Stuart Henderson.’
    â€˜Stuart? He’s left.’
    â€˜Left? You mean, for the day? Or left the job?’
    â€˜No longer with the firm. He left over a month ago now.’ The voice sharpened professionally. ‘Is it a matter I can deal with for you?’
    â€˜No, no. Can you just tell me where he’s gone?’
    â€˜I’ve no idea. You could try the people upstairs. Extension 317. They might be able to help you.’
    They might, but wouldn’t, of course. ‘Data Protection Act . . . previous employee’s privacy . . . blah, blah . . . blah, blah.’ And, to be fair, I didn’t humiliate myself by saying who I was, just asked, ‘Well, is the last address you have for him the one that I have here? 12 Rosslyn Road?’
    There was a pause, and then the man said, ‘Well, since you know it already I suppose there’s no harm in saying that’s where we’ve sent on a few things, and nothing’s come back yet.’
    But nothing had come to me. So. No precipitous decision. No sudden brainstorm. No rush of despair. Stuart had clearly planned his bunk far enough ahead to get his mail successfully redirected. All that evening I raged and fretted. How
dare
he? How darehe take it upon himself alone to call time on a marriage as lengthy as ours – slide off without a word, leaving me with a house I only half owned, accounts under his name, and all the rest of the legalities to do with living?
    Next day, a Power of Attorney came.
    It was a stiff fat thing. I had to read it twice before I realized Stuart had legally deputed me to deal with everything to do with the house and all we owned. Clutching it as carefully as if it were my own reprieve, I took it in to work and when one of the solicitors on the corner came in to collect her blouses, shoved it towards her.
    â€˜Can I do
anything
? Even sell the house?’
    She ran her fingers over some of the chunks of lardy legal prose and settled on others. Then she raised her head. ‘Your husband ought to find himself a far more careful legal adviser. The way this thing’s been drawn up, you can sell anything you like, including the house. And there’s nothing to stop you from keeping every penny.’
    Old habits die so hard. I actually heard myself defending my louse of a husband. ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s what he wanted. Just for convenience.’ And I was sure it was. Just for a moment I’d wondered if he planned to go abroad for ever, or even walk into the sea. But it was far more likely that Stuart – carefuland fastidious as he was – had weighed up the relative merits of leaving me with a legally stalled life, or with the endless tangles of a fair division, or with everything, and chosen the last. In some men, generosity would have been the spur. In Stuart it would be selfishness, pure and simple. He’d find it less of a bother to go to Ikea and buy a new bed and chairs and towels than face me over a table and explain.
    The next few weeks were happy, happy, happy. It is
exhilarating
to be shot of a man whose every word or look drags down your spirits. I painted the bathroom the yellow he’d thought was ‘probably too yellow’. I threw out the monstrous chest of drawers his mother left us and he felt we ought to keep ‘out of respect’. I stopped even thinking in terms of what Stuart always used to call ‘a proper meal’ and took to eating exactly what I fancied when I was hungry. (And I lost six pounds.) I moved the television upstairs, and took to my bed as early as I chose, eating