The Making of Mia Read Online Free PDF Page B

issue of
Marie Claire
, but during the forty-minute drive through the depths of the Hampshire countryside Jo’s stomach had filled with butterflies.
     Now they were outside Amelia’s pile she felt sick. She was definitely outside her comfort zone.
    The Gladstone-Denham gothic country house was the stuff of people’s dreams: it was an imposing tall building with dark grey
     pillars and intimidating gargoyles, and to Jo it felt like a nightmare, especially when she thought of Amelia’s judgemental
     mother inside. Jo slammed the door of the beat-up Beetle and followed Amelia to the side entrance nervously, looking at the
     Victorian doorbell that read: ‘Servants.’ Her palms were damp with sweat.
    ‘We don’t use the front door unless we’re having dinner parties,’ Amelia explained as she entered the house, and Jo tried
     to look blasé as they walked across the cool grey flag-stones into the big kitchen. Amelia’s mother was sitting at a scrubbed
     pine table with the
Daily Mail
in front of her, and as she looked up Jo felt her eyes assessing her. Jo swallowed hard and forced herself to smile. Amelia’s
     mother looked like she was a member of the Royal Family.
    ‘Joanne, isn’t it?’ Sarah Gladstone-Denham asked politely, and Jo nodded meekly. As Amelia turned on the kettle to make them
     a cup of tea, Jo struggled with a kitchen chair and ignored Amelia’s mother’s visible wince as she sat down. Despite Sarah’s
     reservations the fragile pine chair held her weight and Jo fidgeted awkwardly, trying not to stare at the huge rosy pearls
     round Sarah’s neck and the rocks of diamonds and rubies on her impressive engagement ring.
    ‘You have a beautiful home,’ Jo said, hastily trying to start a conversation. ‘Apart from St Christopher’s I don’t think I’ve
     ever been in such an old building.’ An image of her mother’s 1960s council flat popped into her mind, and Jo felt even more
     nervous. The flat was practically the same size as Amelia’s kitchen.
    Sarah smiled, showing her perfect white teeth, and Jo was reminded of the Cheshire cat. ‘Thank you, it’s been in the family
     for two hundred years and we recently renovated it. Now, Amelia tells me you’re from London,’ she said, glancing at her daughter,
     who was rummaging around in a bottom cupboard looking for biscuits. Her hipster jeans rode down her bottom as she bent over
     and Sarah frowned at her black thong on display. ‘Do tell, what part of the city do you live in?’
    Jo hesitated and glanced at Amelia, who was blithely unaware of her friend’s discomfort. ‘Oh, just South London, you know,
     nothing special.’
    Sarah straightened her back. ‘Battersea?’ she asked, enjoying Jo’s discomfort. Jo shook her head. ‘Wandsworth? Barnes? Putney?’
    As Jo began to look miserable, Sarah let out a little laugh and hoped she wasn’t being too unsubtle.
    ‘Gosh,’ she said innocently as her daughter came to the table with a teapot, cups and saucers. ‘Where on earth do you live,
     then?’
    Jo looked at the delicate Wedgwood china cups and saucers and smiled to herself – a real one rather than a forced grin. She’d
     not seen a set since she’d been at school and they reminded her that she was just as good as her friend – or that she at least
     knew how to hold a cup and saucer correctly. Fuck it, she thought. She had nothing to be ashamed of. Jo felt amusement bubbling
     up inside her and wondered what Sarah Double-Barrelled Name would do if she told the truth. Banish her back to the slums,
     or tell her she was sleeping in the servants’ quarters? Jo laughed to herself. Sarah would never be rude to her face. It wouldn’t
     ‘do’.
    Jo took a sip of tea, quietly cleared her throat and decided it was time that Sarah officially knew her beloved daughter was
     friends with the working class.
    ‘Officially I live in Peckham,’ she said happily, thinking of home with its violence, litter and dirt. ‘But really