School Run Read Online Free PDF

managing?’ if he let them. He always tried to change the subject. He and Julie were managing just fine, and if they weren’t, it wasn’t anyone else’s business. Just as it was no one else’s business that last night’s plates were still in the sink and the beds unmade. He had got Julie to school – or, rather, she had got him there – without any arguments about modelling careers, boys, not eating enough breakfast or any of the other issues that hid the real biggie, and that was all that mattered.
    ‘Dad, why are you looking at that woman like that?’
    ‘I’m not. She smiled at me.’
    ‘Yeah, right.’ Julie’s voice was scornful and disapproving. She hated him looking or even talking to a woman. Nick understood this: what recently bereaved teenage girl would want a replacement mother? About six months ago, he had briefly dated another photographer, a woman of about the same age as Juliana who didn’t have kids. Julie had sulked and only spoken when it was absolutely necessary. Consequently Nick had terminated the relationship and Julie had returned to normal. He hadn’t liked to initiate a talk about it because he felt wretched at having upset his daughter.
    ‘I’ll pick you up at four,’ he said, stumbling on to safer ground, ‘unless the shoot overruns. I’ll ring you if it does.’
    ‘Shoot?’ Juliana’s beautiful eyes glistened with curiosity in her daughter’s face. ‘What are you doing today?’
    He groaned. ‘Lingerie. It’s an advertorial for a new chain store. You should see the stuff. God knows how I’m going to make it look hot. I haven’t seen the models yet, but if they’re anything like the clothes I’ve had it.’
    ‘You’ll manage, Dad. You always do. Mind you, if you had me doing it, I could make it work.’
    Nick cursed himself for walking into that one. ‘Except you’ve got school. Now, off you go, young lady.’
    Julie shrugged. ‘Have it your way. See you later then. ’Bye, Mutley.’ She gathered up her bag and the glossy magazine that had been delivered with the papers that morning, then buried her face in the dog’s coat to kiss him as she always did when she left. ‘Gosh, Mutley, you stink! We must bath him this weekend, Dad. And look at his hair all over the seat!’
    It was true, he thought, but it didn’t stop her kissing the dog once more before she left him. Mutley was her security, one of the constants that had remained to fill the huge gap Juliana had left. In a funny way, the dog was the same for him. That was why he often took him to photographic sessions, depending on how amenable the client was. A dog – especially one like Mutley – often put people at their ease and made them relax in front of the lens. A bit like the car radio, really. There were times when it performed wonders in filling awkward gaps in the conversation or changing the subject.
    Nick pushed Mutley back to where he was meant to be sitting and watched his daughter walk off jauntily, falling in beside a tall, lanky boy whose body language – even from the back – suggested that he was smitten with Nick’s little girl. He felt a surge of protectiveness. As he watched, a bulkier youth pushed into the one accompanying Julie, knocking them both. Julie’s companion said something angrily to him and the bulky kid, whose solid shoulders bulged underneath his T-shirt, put his fingers up in an aggressive gesture that had existed even in Nick’s day. These kids were so big, thought Nick, they could be mistaken for teachers. The school was getting rougher and he had wondered if he should have moved Julie to do her A levels somewhere else. But Juliana had picked this school – she had even been on the PTA committee. Taking Julie away was impossible without her mother’s permission.
    They seemed all right now, Julie and the boy. The big kid had gone. Nick glanced down to put the car into gear and saw his daughter’s purse on the front seat. She’d need it. He leapt out of the door