The Child Inside Read Online Free PDF

apparently admiring the domed glass ceiling above the dining table. Amy is there, and Stephanie of course, and I recognize a few of the other faces from various school things, but there is no one I really know.
    Stephanie separates herself from the group when she sees me. Like a perfect hostess, she sweeps over to me and says, ‘Hi, now you must be . . .?’
    ‘Rachel,’ I say. ‘Rachel Morgan. Jonathan’s mum.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ she says. ‘Let me get you a drink. Did Lucy let you in?’
    ‘Is Lucy your daughter?’ I ask.
    ‘One of them,’ she says and hands me a glass of champagne, which I clutch in front of me like a shield. ‘Now, I’m sure you must know everyone.’
    The others stop talking as we approach. I feel them scrutinizing me.
    ‘This is Rachel, everyone,’ Stephanie says by way of introduction.
    And stupidly, infuriatingly, as if it weren’t enough that I am simply Rachel, as if I can’t exist just by being Rachel, I have to go and qualify this by adding, once again, ‘Jonathan’s mum.’
    The woman to the left of me says, ‘Hi, I’m Nicola. I don’t think we’ve met.’ She puts out her hand for me, but she doesn’t tell me whose mother she is. It is assumed I should already know. ‘We were just discussing the square footage of this house,’ she says. ‘Lizzie’s just bought a new house, and we were trying to work out if it’s the same size, overall, as this.’
    ‘What’s your square footage?’ asks the woman on the other side of Nicola, whose name I also do not know.
    I’m not sure if she is being serious. ‘I really wouldn’t have a clue,’ I say.
    ‘Well, where do you live?’ She’s an incredibly thin woman with piercing blue eyes and pale blonde hair scraped back in a twist.
    ‘In Surbiton,’ I say.
    She waits for clarification.
    ‘London Road,’ I add, a little reluctantly.
    ‘Oh, I know!’ exclaims one of the other women, because they are all listening, all wanting to know. ‘Those 1930s houses. Yes, we looked at one of those before we bought our last house, but we thought the bedrooms were too small. And there was only one bathroom.’
    I can’t stop myself from saying, somewhat defensively, ‘We’ve got two.’
    ‘You must have extended then,’ she says, dismissively.
    ‘Do you work, Rachel?’ Nicola asks.
    ‘No, not really.’ I force myself to laugh. ‘Unless you call running around after Jono work.’
    She smiles a short, quick smile. ‘What about your husband? What does he do?’
    ‘He’s an accountant.’
    ‘Oh, in the City?’ asks the woman with the intense blue eyes.
    ‘No,’ I say. ‘He works for a telecoms firm in Guildford.’
    I see the sums going on in her eyes. I swear, I literally see them.
    ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘That’s nice.’ And she turns to speak to someone else. She is done with me.
    My heart is thumping. I drink my champagne and wish that I could have another, but I’m driving. And then I thank God that I am driving, so that I can get away from here, soon.
    Still, I try not to give up.
    ‘Jono had a lovely time at your house the other day,’ I say to Amy. ‘I’m so glad they’re friends.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ says Amy. ‘Oli has so many friends. He always has had. Steph and I were just saying, he and Isaac are quite a pair, aren’t they, Steph?’
    ‘What?’ says Stephanie, who had been talking to someone else.
    ‘Oli and Isaac,’ says Amy. ‘Ever since prep school.’
    ‘Oh God, yes,’ laughs Stephanie. ‘The terrible twosome, always have been.’
    And thus Jonathan is excluded, along with me. We are put in our place. And isn’t that the trouble – that people like me, and my family, should always stay in their place on the sidelines, on the outside, forever looking in, and longing. I hate myself for even trying. I hate myself that I should care.
    Suddenly I see myself at Vanessa’s house, at sixteen years old, doing my best to join in with the rest of them. I see myself admiring them so with