Free The Mistake I Made by Paula Daly Page B

to get on with the matter in hand with the minimum of fuss. So, no, it wasn’t that. It was the closed door. The soundproof room. Something about knowing you wouldn’t be overheard, about talking to a person who is bound by patient confidentiality, liberates people to unburden themselves in a way they can do in no other area of their life. Except, perhaps, with a priest. But who confides in clergy any more?
    When Henry Peachey was finished he passed me a wad of cotton wool and told me to put pressure on the puncture hole. He was very efficient.
    ‘Do you cover the whole of the north of England?’ I asked, making small talk. ‘Is that why you’re only available around here on Tuesdays and Wednesdays?’
    ‘No. I only work two days a week.’
    I must have gaped at him then because he said, ‘Is that odd?’
    I raised my eyebrows. ‘Lucky, more like. How on earth do you manage that? Do you have a trust fund or something?’
    He laughed, the light returning to his eyes. ‘No.’
    ‘So how is that even possible?’
    ‘It just requires a little self-control, and I suppose the determination not to buy into the common belief that hard work is a good thing in itself. That we should all be working our arses off just so we can spend more money on crap we don’t need.’
    ‘Ah,’ I said, smirking, ‘you’re one of those people.’
    He stopped and regarded me quizzically. ‘One of what people?’
    ‘You know – basket weavers, self-sufficiency. Do you have spider plants growing out of old work boots on your doorstep?’
    ‘No.’ He laughed.
    ‘I used to go out with a guy like that. He spent so much time building wind turbines from bits of recycled tat, trying to live off the land, that he didn’t have a penny to his name. It would have been far quicker and a lot less work just to go out and get a part-time job.’
    He looked at me. Arched an eyebrow. Waited for it to dawn.
    ‘Which is exactly what you have done,’ I conceded. ‘Oh, okay, good for you. Those of us with responsibilities have to earn a proper living.’
    ‘Nice rant,’ he said, passing me a plaster.
    ‘Thanks.’
    A moment passed.
    ‘Did you go on to have children … I mean, after what happened to you abroad?’ he asked gently.
    ‘I already had one child. A son. But there were no more because we couldn’t afford it.’ And when he frowned, as though questioning my statement, I added, ‘We didn’t have travel insurance. My ex said he’d arranged it for the trip, but he hadn’t. We had to pay for my stay in hospital by credit card, which I’m still paying off, along with a lot of other stuff. Anyway,’ I said, more brightly, trying to change the tone again, ‘in just a few short minutes you know everything there is to know about me.’
    He held my gaze, and there it was again. The jolt of mutual attraction.
    ‘Not everything, I hope,’ Henry said.

9
    THAT EVENING GEORGE and I picnicked in the back garden. I grabbed a few bits and pieces from the village: a pot of reduced-priced hummus, some locally produced pastrami (with a same-day expiration date), a cucumber and a baguette that was down to ten pence because it had taken a bit of a bashing in transit.
    From the outside looking in, you might think things were pretty much perfect. The heat of the day was on the wane. George was happy, pushing slices of peppered beef into his mouth, his school polo shirt covered with a combination of grass stains, spots of pollen and a formless yellow mark around the collar that I would later realize was sun cream.
    I could hear Celia and Dennis over the fence pottering around in their garden, Dennis softly whistling the theme to The Waltons , Celia keeping up a low-level steady chatter, punctuating it occasionally with ‘Dennis, start listening to me now ,’ when she needed to impart something crucial.
    The holiday cottage on the other side was home for the week to a quiet, bookish, newly wedded couple from Billericay. They were the type of people