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said this not because I had any intention of going along with his outrageous suggestion but because of his wife, Nadine. From experience, I can say that the grief which settles around your heart after you’ve been cheated on never really leaves. Certainly, with time, the raw, ragged edges become smoothed, but it always remains, and I hoped to spare Nadine that.
    ‘Will you think about it?’ Scott asked.
    ‘No need. The answer is no.’
    ‘But you haven’t even asked how much I was prepared to pay.’
    ‘I don’t need to ask. I’m not for sale, Scott.’
    ‘Everyone’s for sale.’
    ‘Now you really are sounding like a dickhead,’ I said.
    He smiled in spite of himself and lifted both hands in a gesture to indicate he knew when he was beaten.
    I probably should have been angrier than I actually was. I mean, paying me ? For sex? Jesus.
    Then I caught myself, because wasn’t this exactly the kind of thing I had suggested on Friday night?
    Petra’s appalled face flashed into my mind.
    ‘If you change your mind,’ he said, ‘the offer still stands.’
    ‘I won’t.’
    The morning passed by quickly in a haze of sweating bodies, endless talk of the heat wave. Lots of Well, if this is global warming, I’m all for it type of conversations.
    By lunchtime I’d all but put Scott’s proposal from my mind. But I was left with a rather odd sensation – as if I were slightly soiled and in need of a shower.
    I headed to the staff bathroom, where I filled the basin with cold water, removed my tunic and gave my upper body a good soaping. I was reluctant to dry off with the hand towel, as it was also used by both Wayne and Gary used, but I decided the chances of them washing their hands after taking a leak were pretty slim, so I went ahead.
    I smartened up my hair, securing it with some old Kirby grips that were lying at the bottom of my handbag. Stuck to the lining was a Hall’s cherry Soother that had managed to unwrap itself.
    I examined my reflection and wondered if I had encouraged what had occurred earlier. Granted, my candidness on Friday evening had perhaps encouraged Scott’s behaviour somewhat, but I couldn’t remember actually suggesting that I should become a prostitute. My general idea was that for some men there is clearly a need – always was, always will be – so it might be a lot less fuss if they simply satisfied this need, without the call for affairs, and the subsequent break-up of marriages and families.
    I could now see that what seemed a relatively straightforward, sensible idea to me could be perceived very differently. Petra had responded like she’d had a slap to the face. Her husband, Vince, as though it were a whistle he simply could not hear. And Scott – well, Scott had taken the idea and run with it to a whole other level.
    Or perhaps not.
    Perhaps Scott had been on the lookout for a while and decided I seemed reasonably game, so what did he have to lose?
    The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had no idea what went through other people’s heads.
    I left the bathroom, planning to grab a coffee – to head off the afternoon slump – and to eat a banana in the sunshine. There was a wooden bench outside the front entrance to the clinic, which I avoided. This was because old people tended to arrive stupendously early for appointments and would take refuge on this bench. Before you knew it you’d find yourself ensconced in the kind of small talk you’d been having all morning: The heat, immigration, the frivolous spending habits of the daughter-in-law, the overcooked pork at the wedding reception they attended the previous weekend.
    So I grabbed my rucksack with the idea of heading around the back of the clinic to eat lunch alone on a dusty step, very much out of sight.
    Wayne, however, had other plans.
    ‘A quick word, Roz,’ he said as I passed reception. He did not lift his head. He had his eyes fixed on the monitor in front of him.
    ‘I was just going