The Child Inside Read Online Free PDF Page A

through the woods at lunchtime. My grief was aimless; it had no home.
    I wasn’t part of their world. I’d just been there for a while, that’s all.

THREE
     
    The run-up to Christmas is busy – busier than ever, now that Jono is at Hensham Boys’. As well as all the shopping for food and presents, there are the end-of-term events to attend: concerts and carol services, and extra activities for Jono. Things to remember; that he has after-school rehearsals on Tuesdays and Thursdays, rugby practice on Wednesdays, school Christmas lunch on the last Tuesday of term, class party on the last Thursday, uniform not needed on that last Thursday, half-day on the penultimate Monday (concert in the evening) and again on the very last day, when the boys will all leave before lunch.
    So much to remember. So much for me to write all over my calendar, as if it was me having such a busy life, and not just Jono. At this time of year, as at Easter, and in the runup to summer, I am almost able to convince myself that it really is a full-time job looking after a child. Even just one child.
    There is a class get-together, for the mums. Stephanie Rawlings, the class rep, is hosting it. My invitation comes home via Jono.
    We’re meeting for drinks at my place, Thursday night.
    Do hope you can make it. RSVP Stephanie.
    PS Husbands welcome, but not essential!
     
    Which means of course: don’t bring yours, if you have one. After all, who’s interested in husbands? It’s each other we want to size up. I analyse this invitation. From it I glean that some of the mums already know each other well – hence the use of the word ‘we’, as in We’re meeting for drinks. And so I am aware that there is already a tight club formed, of which I am not a part, though I am invited along now to observe. And I note that there is no phone number after Stephanie’s name, but this is no accident. Everyone who is anyone will have Stephanie’s number already keyed into their phone. To admit that you haven’t is to admit that you are a no one.
    Stupidly, I point this out to Andrew.
    ‘Do you have to read so much into things?’ he says, and immediately he regrets it. He knows it was the wrong thing to say. He knows this because he sees my face, which I turn away from him.
    ‘Don’t just dismiss me,’ I say.
    ‘I’m not dismissing you,’ he says. ‘But why even go, if you dislike them so much?’
    ‘I don’t dislike them. I don’t even know them.’
    I look up Stephanie’s number on the class list, and phone her, and get the answerphone. ‘Hi,’ I say in my breeziest voice. ‘It’s Rachel Morgan here. Thank you so much for the invitation. I’d love to come. Look forward to seeing you.’
    I spend forever thinking what to wear. I stand in front of the mirror in various possible outfits adopting various different poses, trying to make myself appear confident and capable, friendly and relaxed. I have clothes especially for such occasions, clothes bought in the shops that other women shop in, in the styles that other women wear. The right trousers, the right sweaters, the right jackets and the right heels. The uniform of the middle-class mother. I look at myself in the mirror and I see myself disappear.
    ‘Where are you going?’ Jono asks suspiciously when I kiss him goodbye.
    ‘To drinks at Stephanie Rawlings’s house,’ I say. ‘Your friend Isaac’s mum.’
    Jono grunts and says, ‘Isaac’s not my friend.’
    Stephanie lives in Richmond, in a house that makes Amy’s look suburban. The inner circle are already there when I arrive, gathered in Stephanie’s vast steel-and-glass kitchen. A teenage girl answers the door to me and I can hear them straight away, the easy laughter, the smooth, confident voices. I fix a smile on my face and ignore the butterflies breaking loose in my stomach, and walk into this huge, echoing space. There are ten or so women standing in the middle of the room, sipping wine and chatting animatedly, and