The Mistake I Made (14 page)

As it turned out, Scott was experiencing similar difficulties. And to make sure I didn’t turn on my heel and leave mid-date when I discovered he was without a satchel full of cash, he made an impromptu call at the clinic to discuss our arrangement, our options and to put a new proposal to me.

It would be this decision, within the list of bad decisions, that would send our lives on the roller-coaster trajectory that was to change everything.

Earlier, I had dropped George at school with a small rucksack containing the essential toys and bits and pieces for his stay with his dad. Winston, though incompetent in paying me child support, was fairly good at providing enough clothes, pyjamas and games consoles. And because Dylis supplied three square meals a day and a constant offering of clean laundry, I never worried George was going without when he stayed over there. George and Winston would rollick around, following their noses into adventures, with none of the ties or responsibilities that anchored most parents to their homes at the weekends. I imagined it was like staying with your favourite carefree bohemian uncle, and a weekend of this was probably just what George needed, after the upheaval following the bailiff’s visit and the meeting with the head teacher.

After speaking to Winston at length about George’s stealing, Winston finally admitted that George had stolen from his mother a few times as well. When I’d blown my top at him for keeping it from me, his response was ‘He just wanted a dog, Roz. Don’t be so hard on him.’

‘Well, he can’t have a dog, can he? He
knows
he can’t have a dog while we’re in rented accommodation.’

I didn’t stick the knife in as I might. Didn’t drag up that it was Winston’s fault that the dog had gone in the first place. Because it was pointless. Not because we were past tit for tat but because it would be lost on Winston. He would no more make the connection between his infidelity and George’s dogless state than he would between it and my moonlighting for extra cash. As far as Winston was concerned, his behaviour didn’t have repercussions.

Winston told me he’d found over fifty pounds stuffed inside George’s pillowcase – which meant he’d been at it for far longer than any of us suspected. And probably meant he’d thieved from Petra and Vincent on a number of occasions as well. I decided to keep that piece of information to myself for now, confident that my warning to George of
No dogs ever again
was enough of a deterrent against his stealing in the future.

It was around 11 a.m. when I heard the telltale roar of the Ferrari outside in the car park. Peculiar, isn’t it, how an elderly woman over-revving her Fiat Panda’s 900cc engine is mocked heartily by people but doing the exact same thing in a performance car commands general respect?

I could hear Wayne tripping over his feet, scrambling to get to the front door to greet Scott, in expectation of another ride through the Lyth Valley. Scott had tolerated Wayne, he told me, to get to me. He’d given him a loop of countryside, riding through Winster, taking a right to Strawberry Bank, over Gummer’s Howe and finally speeding north along the eastern shore of Windermere before depositing Wayne back at the clinic. Somewhere during the twenty-minute journey Scott reported that Wayne began to speak differently, changing the cadence and rhythm of his words to match that of Jeremy Clarkson. When I’d scoffed at this, ridiculed Wayne, Scott told me it happened with every man who rode with him. It was an unconscious thing, and they really didn’t know they were doing it.

Rather than wait for Wayne’s knock on the door, I popped my head out. The patient I was with was prone, stippled with acupuncture needles, and could be left alone for a few minutes. Patients were often reluctant to continue the conversation with needles stuck in their head. I suppose they worried that any movement at all might result in their brain being skewered. Not possible, but I wouldn’t discharge this information readily, as I enjoyed the brief snatches of silence it afforded.

The clinic door was wide open, with Wayne standing on the threshold, his back towards me. We’d had a monsoon-like downpour that morning, the rain rhythmically thrumming on the roof, like a marching military band. The delicate, desiccated scents of summer that for the past few weeks had been carried on the breeze were now in vapour form. And all at once the air had become dense, sickly sweet and overbearing.

Scott must have dawdled inside the car, as it was only now that I heard the car door slam, followed by Wayne clapping his hands together, greeting Scott in a way that was meant to be blokey but sounded sycophantic.

Seeing me peer out of the treatment room, Scott said he needed to speak to me as a matter of great urgency and, where Wayne would no doubt usually ignore a request such as this from a patient – telling them I could not be disturbed, they must make an appointment – he watched helplessly as I gestured across the reception area to the nutritionist’s room, which I knew to be empty.

It would be the first time I would witness Scott without his usual charming demeanour, with this rebuff of someone he had no further use for. I was surprised by the ease with which he moved past Wayne, briefly acknowledging his presence but giving him no further attention, as though they had never had even a conversation in their lives. Wayne looked taken aback. He was perplexed by Scott’s snub and didn’t know what to make of it.

The nutritionist’s room had been used that day as a dumping ground for a large delivery of couch rolls, boxes of tissues and toilet rolls, ready for Wayne to sort out.

‘We have a problem,’ began Scott.

‘How’s the elbow doing?’ I asked in an over-loud voice, pushing the door closed. But I neglected to close it completely, my thinking being that if I were to shut myself away with Scott it might arouse suspicion that there was something between us. Best to appear relaxed. Best to appear as though we were discussing his elbow, so there was no need for total privacy.

I turned, and Scott shot me a look as though to say,
Fuck the elbow
. Then he strode across the room, took my face in his hands and kissed me.

‘Don’t,’ I said, aghast. ‘Not here.’

He didn’t apologize.

‘What sort of problem?’ I asked, instantly feeling that queasy dread that comes from the threat of discovery. ‘Is it Nadine?’

He shook his head.

He seemed agitated and edgy, not the Scott I was used to, and I wondered what it had taken to unsettle him so.

‘It’s money,’ he said. ‘I can’t raise the money.’

I took a step back. ‘You can’t raise four thousand pounds?’

That seemed unlikely.

‘I can’t raise four thousand pounds in
cash
. Not right now, anyway.’

‘Ah,’ I said, ‘I thought …’

He smiled. ‘No, I’m not quite that strapped.’

‘Okay, so what happens now?’

‘I have an idea, but I’m not sure how you’ll feel about it.’

‘Try me,’ I said.

‘Well, if I continue to draw cash from the business, it won’t go unnoticed. The accountant’s going to want to know what it’s for and, though I think I can trust the guy, I don’t really want him poking around. Plus, his wife and Nadine are friends. And as much as he likes to promise total confidentiality, we all know everyone confides in their wives.’

‘Is tonight still going ahead?’ I asked.

‘That depends on you. I would very much like it to, in fact,’ and he paused, reaching out and running a finger along my jawline. ‘I think I may have a solution. But it means you’ll have to wait a short while for your money.’

‘How long?’

‘A few days.’

‘Oh.’

‘I realize you need it fast, I’m aware of that. But think about it: you can’t hide that cash from the Revenue. They’ll catch up with you eventually and want to know how you came by it. And when they do that, depending on how you handle yourself, they’ll come sticking their nose into my business, Roz, and I just can’t take that chance.’

‘Okay,’ I conceded, ‘so what do you suggest?’

‘You call yourself a consultant.’

‘A consultant in what?’

‘Anything you like. Really doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you come up with something credible, something you can invoice my company for, and we’ll credit your account within twenty-four hours. I was thinking something along the lines of ergonomics, but if you can come up with anything better, I’m all ears.’

‘Ergonomics would work.’

‘The sooner you provide an invoice, the sooner you’ll be paid,’ he said. ‘You could say you advise us on desk height, back support, that kind of thing, yes?’

‘I could do that.’

‘And you’re okay about tonight?’ he asked tentatively.

‘You mean about not being paid?’

He nodded.

‘It’s unexpected, so I can’t say I’m totally okay with it, but I do have a little breathing space after your last payment. I don’t want to compromise our arrangement though, so … Do you still want the whole night?’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘We’ll meet at seven?’

‘Seven.’

‘I’ll go then,’ he said. ‘Let you get back to it.’ He moved towards the door, pulled it open and turned back around to face me. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘thanks for understanding.’

I lifted my hand to bid Scott goodbye and instantly froze. Beyond him, Wayne was at the water cooler.

Again, Scott didn’t acknowledge him as he passed.

Only this time there was no sign of hurt or rejection in Wayne’s eyes. Rather, he began to whistle.

He filled his cup, whistling a jaunty, made-up tune, before flashing me a knowing smile.

16

AREN’T PEOPLE SURPRISING?

I have always had a particular fascination with the concept of pecking order. For each person in any given situation there is a hierarchy – whether they are aware of it or not.

Often it’s an invisible dance we do around each other.
Where do I fit with you? How important am I in your life?

Generally, though, we know where we fit. We know where we are on the importance scale, and we behave accordingly. We tend to sit in our allotted spaces, uncomplaining, not daring to move out, not daring to ask for more for fear of a rebuttal.

So when, in the late afternoon, Wayne hit me with the news that he wanted in on the arrangement, well, understandably, I laughed in his face at the preposterousness of it.

When I saw that he was actually serious, I said, ‘What arrangement?’ and he said, ‘Don’t insult me, Roz.’

Here’s what I thought he was proposing: A cut of my earnings to keep quiet. A thousand pounds or so to hold his tongue, not to reveal the true nature of my business with Scott, to his wife, my employers, the wider community.

But it wasn’t that.

‘I want a night with you,’ Wayne said earnestly, and my mouth dropped open.

‘Wayne,’ I began, ‘there is a difference … a very big difference with what goes on between—’

‘There’s no difference,’ he said simply.

A pause.

‘From what I could make out from that conversation you had earlier,’ he said, gesturing to the nutritionist’s room, ‘Scott Elias is paying you. He’s paying you a substantial amount of money for your services. Or have I misunderstood?’

I didn’t deny it. I wanted to see where he was going with this.

‘I would like the same,’ he said.

I regarded him, trying not to show my outrage. ‘Wayne,’ I said carefully, ‘I don’t want to do that.’

‘Roz,’ he replied, ‘I don’t think you have a choice,’ and he motioned towards the computer.

‘Remember the anomaly I pointed out to you,’ he said, gesturing to the screen.

Evidently, I was not allowed to look as, when I craned my neck to see, he minimized the page.

‘An anomaly with?’

‘The accounts,’ he said.

‘Yes. And you’re telling me this now because …?’

‘It’s been brought to my attention by the accountants at HQ,’ he said, ‘that this particular clinic has been the victim of – shall we say? – the misappropriation of funds.’

HQ
, I was thinking, trying not to scoff at the silly officiousness of his tone, when it hit me what he was really saying.

‘Stealing?’ I asked.

‘It certainly looks that way.’

‘But there’s nothing to steal,’ I protested. ‘We don’t stock anything … Nothing of any use anyhow.’

I was thinking about the teabags and toilet rolls I’d taken recently, wondering if he could be referring to those. But then I put that out of my head because
surely
nobody was spending their hours quantifying normal usage?

‘How does this affect me?’ I said eventually.

‘Across the ten clinics – and that includes more than fifty clinicians – you have the highest patient cancellation rate.’

‘But I have the highest number of patients,’ I reasoned. ‘The number of cancellations is bound to be higher. It’s proportional.’

‘Apparently not. The accountants at HQ have done an audit, and your rate of missed appointments is five times higher than anyone else’s. What’s more, now that I’ve had a chance to look at the data more closely, those missed appointments all tended to coincide with when I was absent from the clinic myself.’

I swallowed.

‘And they are all patients who usually pay in cash,’ he added.

‘Careful what you’re suggesting there, Wayne.’

I stared at him hard.

He stared back.

‘Of course, HQ might be willing to overlook any misdemeanour that may have taken place,’ he said carefully. ‘Perhaps I could
persuade
them to overlook it, if you catch my drift.’

‘You have no evidence. No evidence at all, Wayne, that this has anything to do with me.’

And he then proceeded to show me the ‘evidence’ he’d been collecting over the last week or so.

The series of thefts from the clinic, and my part in them, was irrefutable, he explained. He’d gone so far as to contact the patients I’d marked down as absent, asking if they could confirm or deny their presence at the clinic at the allotted times. Most were only too happy to oblige, flicking back through their diaries, their wall calendars, as he didn’t inform them why he wanted to know, just that there had been a problem with the computerized diary system and he needed to re-enter the information.