When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

and his PE kit and his goddam £1 coin for the goddam cake sale and put it in the envelope and got us to school.

Waiting for the school doors to open I stand with my back to a group of designer-athleisure mums and vaguely eavesdrop on a group of Whistles-wrap-dress-with-flats-going-to-work mums. I feel the elastic of my leggings slipping under Apron and settling on my scar as I watch the boyfriend-jeans-Breton-stripe-tee-metallic-sneaker mums agree on playdates and pick-ups. I pretend to be answering emails on my phone with one hand as I rock the pram with the other. I try to look busy, like I’m standing apart from the groups of chatting parents by choice and not because I don’t know what to say. Probably best not to engage today anyway in case they can see this morning in my face.

It’s not that I’m an outcast here. The other parents haven’t tried to make me feel inadequate. They’re too polite for that. There’s no alpha-bitch moms, not like the movies. Mostly it’s all types of working moms—power players with big jobs; small-business owners who work from home; part-timers doing jobs they’re overqualified for; a chunk of stay-at-home mothers with a sub-set struggling with guilt and regret, and even a few work-at-home dads. Parents doing whatever they can the best way they know how. Juggling, balancing, plates spinning and balls in the air and other circus metaphors and everyone’s trying to get through the day without getting fired or forgetting one of the kids somewhere.

Except—and this is a very big exception—that this is private school. In England. The country that invented elitism. So yes, they’re doing their best, but that’s a lot easier to do when you have money, education, a live-in nanny and a Range Rover. They work for that money, look at them—stressed, worried, anxious, wrinkled, exhausted, dehydrated, working every hour there is, working all night after the kids go to bed. But I think it must be easier to work that hard when power is part of your pay package. When holidays abroad and ski trips break up the months of long hours and work travel. It’s easier when the money you earn is real, with real weight and depth; when you know that you’re giving your kids the best there is and not just the best you can. I know they earn it because I know Harry earns it and I know what it costs, the toll that it takes. But I know lots of other people who work hard and earn their money too. It just doesn’t get them that far. Sometimes it doesn’t even get them dinner. And rich banker-type people forget that or don’t think about it—that is, if they ever knew it in the first place.

I’m uneasy with how easy everything is here, in this world where people work hard, yes, but where they got that work because of privileges they aren’t conscious of or don’t admit to. I’m uneasy with iPads for each child in the family; kids who fly business to Barbados; second homes—the expectation of excess as part of the natural habitat. But I don’t bring it up. We never talk about money in England. It’s OK to drive it or have it on your wrist. OK for your kids to wear it as a school uniform. But you don’t talk about it, or question it, because we earned this, after all.

Am I uneasy because I know it’s unfair? Or am I uneasy because, now that I’m in it, I’m not willing to give it up? I’m doing what a mother does, right? Putting my kids first. This school’s not for me; it’s for my children. For them to do better than I did, that’s the point. Isn’t it? Is it? Is there a mother who would walk away if she had a choice? Who would send her kid to the struggling state school around the corner when the door’s been held open to this place instead?

I’m a traitor to my old life and an imposter in my new life. Every day I play charades. And every day Johnny becomes more British, more “middle class,” which means something different in England than it means at home. He becomes more like these people and less like me. One day the last thread that connects us will finally break and he’ll go with them. And any memory he has of those first years, of him and me in our tiny apartment, will fade away; a part of the story of his life that will be too small, too inconsequential, to tell, even though it means everything to me.

Susannah, the class rep, makes eye contact with me and waves. Shit. On her way over to me she stops a couple times, makes a coffee date with this one for after drop-off, makes plans for tennis later with that one. I’m her last stop.

“Gigi, hello! Don’t you look well? Oh, bless him, look at that gorgeous baby! Oh, well done, you!” and she leans over for double-cheek kisses and coos at Rocky. Susannah’s blond, not naturally of course, glossy and forty-something, slim and pretty. She’s in distressed skinny jeans and furry gilet (possibly real) over a cashmere sweater that features a whimsical neon lightning bolt, dove-gray suede ankle boots with sassy Western fringe and a studded cross-body bag, Valentino, in that perfect shade of powder pink. A long necklace with a star charm, tiny diamond shining in its center, is the finishing touch. Understated effervescence; she shimmers with careful control.

I want how she feels. I want to be slim and confident, perfumed with high self-esteem. I want to remember people’s names, put mascara on in the morning, wear new shoes. What makes it worse is that Susannah is polite and warm and kind. She doesn’t let me see her eyes see the hole in the seam of my maternity leggings. Dammit, these have a hole too.

Say something, Gigi. “Hi, how you doin’? Did you have