Rebecca Smith

More Than Just Mum


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      More Than Just Mum

      REBECCA SMITH

      Published by ONE MORE CHAPTER

      A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

      Copyright © Rebecca Smith 2019

      Cover Design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

      Cover photograph © Shutterstock.com

      Rebecca Smith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Ebook Edition © December 2019; ISBN: 9780008370169

      Version: 2019-08-30

      Table of Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

       Acknowledgements

       About the Publisher

       For Polly.

       May women everywhere have a friend as supportive, strong and bloody hilarious as you. xxx

       Chapter 1

      The first question is stupid and illogical. It is also highly personal. I pause for a moment, unsure about whether I should really be doing this. But there’s nobody else here, and I am on a break. It’s not as if what I’m doing is illegal or anything.

      Returning to the question, I chew the end of my pencil and mull over the multiple-choice answers.

      A) Eight or more times a week. Well, that’s obviously ridiculous. It’s clearly been added as the amusing option. That’s more than once a day. Who on earth has the time for that? Or the inclination, when it comes to it?

      B) Up to five times a week. Possibly, when I was in my early twenties and didn’t have anything better to be doing; like the laundry or preparing the next day’s packed lunches or catching up on Netflix or sleeping.

      C) Two or three times a week. Now we’re moving away from the fantastical and heading into the realms of reality. But honestly, whoever wrote this question needs a good talking to. There is a world of difference between twice a week and three times a week – ask anyone. Twice a week is enough to feel smugly adequate. Three times a week is pushing it a bit, but perfectly possible if there’s been a birthday or it’s Christmas or a bank holiday.

      D) Less than once a week. Again, this is impossible to answer without being more specific. Which week am I meant to be basing my answer on? If it’s the weeks after I gave birth then the answer is a resounding D. If it’s the week that Nick surprised me with a romantic trip to Devon then I can circle B with confidence. Or am I supposed to be taking a mean average over the course of one year?

      I scan my eyes across the page, searching for advice. But other than the questions and the screamingly large quiz title, there’s nothing.

      The end-of-break bell rings and hundreds of feet start pounding down the corridor. I’m not teaching for the next hour, but I keep my eyes fixed on the classroom door, just in case a hapless Year Seven takes a wrong turn. I don’t need anyone to catch me in the act of reading the magazine that I confiscated from Elise in Year Nine during the last lesson. And I am probably old enough to identify my own areas of sexual competence without taking a quiz entitled ‘Are You A Sex Goddess?’. But I’ve started now and I’m feeling curious about what the verdict will be.

      Dissatisfied with the choices, and wishing that there was a ‘once or twice a week’ category, I recklessly break with tradition and circle both C and D. Then I move onto the next question.

       Which of these positions is your favourite?

      Good god. The list of answers reads like a cocktail menu. I haven’t heard of any of them, never mind having an actual preferred position. Flicking back to the front cover, I look again at the title of the magazine. Surely Elise has got her hands on some kind of black-market, top-shelf publication and I should be handing this straight to the Headteacher? This kind of question