Pedigree Mum Read Online Free PDF Page A

cushion.
    ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘after I’ve shown a couple of people round the house.’
    She smiles, her teeth Tipp-Ex white against the blood red of her lipstick. ‘I don’t know if I could ever do that.’
    ‘Show people around a flat, you mean?’
    ‘No, silly! Leave London.’ Ava winces.
    ‘Well,’ Rob says, ‘it just seemed like the right time.’ He can’t explain about the education issue now, and how several friends have faked addresses and religions in order to get their children into decent schools. Mentioning that in front of all of these young things would make him sound about five hundred years old.
    ‘What’ll you
do
with yourself down there, Rob?’ Nadine’s voice cuts into his thoughts.
    ‘Er, just get on with life, I suppose. Get fit, start running, go for long walks on the beach …’ Agh, why is he saying that? Eddy will have him shovelled off to
Rambler’s Monthly
.
    ‘I love the sea,’ Nadine says wistfully, ‘but I can’t imagine living away from all the shops and bars.’
    Typical, he thinks without bitterness. Just the kind of thing a privileged girl with nothing to think about but chandeliers and cushions would say. Rob, whose father is Italian and his mother a straight-talking Yorkshire woman, is at least aware that life happens north of Watford – or south of Croydon, come to that.
    ‘Well, I’ve been here for twenty years,’ he explains patiently. ‘The noise, the traffic – I’ve had my fill, to be honest.’
    Now he’s sounding like Granddad again. Nadine nods, and at some point the others seem to drift away to different parts of the room, leaving just the two of them sitting very close on the sofa. She isn’t his type at all – too girlie and
far
too young with her silver cowrie shell necklace which was probably acquired on some gap year jaunt, or maybe Daddy bought that for her too. In fact the thought of having a ‘type’ hasn’t crossed Rob’s mind since he met Kerry. But now, having drunk more than in recent memory, he can’t help but notice how mesmerising her blue eyes are, framed by a sweep of dark lashes, and how her dainty nose is incredibly cute. For some reason, despite knowing the others for far longer, she has chosen to sit next to
him
. It no longer seems to matter that, while he was getting to grips with disposable nappies and jars of sludge-coloured baby food, Nadine was still in high school.
Exquisite
is the word that springs to mind now. This girl is exquisite, like a jewel.
    ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying,’ she murmurs, shuffling even closer with her feet tucked under her neat little bottom, ‘but you seem like your heart’s not really in this seaside thing, Rob.’
    ‘Er …’ A wave of dizziness engulfs him as he blows out air. ‘Yeah, it’s freaking me out a bit. The
practical
side, the train and stuff – that’ll be okay …’ Hell, he
is
slurring now. Is he even making sense?
    ‘But …?’ She smiles sympathetically.
    Rob blinks at her. ‘God, I don’t know, Nadine. It’s half two in the morning …’ She nods, encouraging him to go on. ‘Am I ready to move? I don’t know. It started off as a vague idea, something we might do when we were properly grown-up’ – he laughs self-consciously, feeling a little sick – ‘then wham, it’s happened, Kerry and the kids are there already and there’s this awful pressure to sell the London house …’
No, stop it, that came out all wrong. What about that lovely day on the beach with the kite? It had felt completely right then …
    Nadine is studying his face. ‘Does Kerry know you’re having doubts, Rob?’
    ‘It’s too late to stop it now. We’ve taken the kids out of their London school and enrolled them in Shorling. And anyway, she’s convinced we can make it work. It’ll just take time, she reckons …’ He takes a big gulp from his glass, grateful that the others have wandered through to the kitchen in search of something to eat.
    ‘You poor