The Next Best Thing Read Online Free PDF Page B

in papal splendour, in the back of the car and edged out into the morning traffic. She hadn’t put her lenses in yet, so she was
driving with the aid of an old pair of spectacles that made her look like Nana Mouskouri. It hardly mattered now that Liberty was old enough to be dumped on the pavement outside school; Jane could
remain unseen in the car, engine throbbing, dressed like a fright.
    ‘Mum, M.U.M,’ came her daughter’s voice from the back seat, spelling out the letters from beneath the papal crown. ‘What is worse, having an injection or being run over
by a car?’
    Jane slyly tried to deflect the question. ‘What do you think?’ she asked, hoping to break the pattern.
    ‘I’m asking you,’ shrieked Liberty, indignant at her mother for changing the rules.
    ‘Don’t shout, darling. Let me see,’ she went on ingratiatingly, I think it’s worse to be run over, definitely.’
    The morning run took them through the traffic-choked nightmare of the Shepherds Bush roundabout and on to the favoured reaches of Notting Hill where Liberty attended her prep school for girls.
This was only a matter of faint embarrassment for Jane, but for Will it was a huge loss of face. Private education was so against everything he stood for. Apart from it being grossly unfair, he
understood the burden it imposed on a child. He knew from experience how vindictive people could be. Kids from comprehensives didn’t know how lucky they were, stepping freely into the world,
untrammelled by the trappings of privilege.
    Jane was not sure she agreed with him on this. Having attended what Will enviously described as a ‘bog-standard comprehensive,’ she couldn’t honestly see it as an advantage.
But on the other hand, they could hardly afford to throw money away on school fees. ‘Let’s move further out,’ she had said, ‘all the decent state schools are in the
suburbs.’ Will had blanched at the ‘s’ word, so Jane had suggested the Home Counties, which he had found even more insulting. Could she honestly imagine him joining a golf club
and hosting barbeques?
    They tried to get Liberty into the only decent local state school, but there were ten applicants for each place. Unsurprisingly, most people seemed to think the best school was right for their
child, nobody wanted to exercise their ‘right to choose’ the crap ones. So Will caved in and Liberty ended up kitted out in a purple cape in a class of children with even sillier names
than her own. Boudicca, Olympia, Cassandra, lanthe, a full galaxy of Greek and Roman deities, a canon of sainted military heroines, as well as the usual sprinkling of monied bohemians called things
like India, Sky and Panda.
    Jane turned into Leinster Square and joined the queue of big shiny vehicles searching for somewhere to park. Crouched low in her unremarkable Vauxhall, she was the beggar at the rich man’s
feast, presuming to infiltrate a world beyond her reach. Plain Jane from Nowheresville getting above herself, scraping together the school fees because she thinks her daughter’s too good for
the local comp.
    Liberty kissed her mother goodbye and walked purposefully towards a stuccoed pair of townhouses. Brightly painted butterflies decorated the window of the front classroom. Girls with neat hair
were escorted by expensive blonde mothers. Jane watched Liberty go through the door, serious and dignified. She felt a rush of pity. It wasn’t what she wanted for her, this precious little
academy of girls from well-off homes.
    On the way home, Jane played her own version of Liberty’s game of choices. What was worse, having a child or not having a child? Not having a child. What was worse, a posh little prep in
Notting Hill or a failing school on a sink estate? It had to be the sink estate. What was better, a terraced house in Shepherds Bush or a country rectory with a gravelled drive and an orchard? She
wasn’t sure she wanted to think about that one, she’d better come