More Than Just Mum
REBECCA SMITH
Published by ONE MORE CHAPTER
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
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.
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Ebook Edition © December 2019; ISBN: 9780008370169
Version: 2019-08-30
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
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
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