Having It All by Maeve Haran Read Free Book Online Page A

God, there was that frightful Maureen Something-Something. Noticing she was deep in conversation with an over-made-up woman in a
pink suit, Susie hoped she wouldn’t notice her. But it was too late.
    ‘Susie,’ she boomed, ‘come and meet Sophie’s auntie. She’s new to the area and doesn’t know anyone.’
    Steffi turned to Susie and smiled. ‘That’s right. I’m looking after Sophie for a couple of weeks and I don’t know a soul. I don’t suppose I could buy you a cup of
coffee and pick your brains about how to meet people. I gather you know
everyone
.’
    Susie blushed slightly, pleased at the suggestion that she was the hub of the community.
    ‘I noticed a nice patisserie round the corner,’ Steffi added invitingly, ‘maybe we could go there?’
    Susie was supposed to be on a diet but she couldn’t resist the thought of a cappuccino and strawberry tart in Le Gourmet. She had been there occasionally with other nannies, but it was so
wildly expensive they’d given up going. And this woman was offering to pay.
    ‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘But I’ll have to go and get Jamie first.’ When she went in to get Jamie the teacher made a sharp comment about the time, and Jamie had chosen
this of all days to lose his trainers, so by the time she came out angry and flustered, she didn’t notice that Sophie’s auntie seemed to have forgotten to pick up Sophie.
    And it wasn’t till later that evening when she was back home and was watching TV, that it struck Susie for the first time that there wasn’t a Sophie at Miss Sloane’s Nursery
School.
    By the time Steffi Wilson arrived the next evening Liz had done four interviews already and she was feeling tired and jumpy. She hadn’t realized what a strain it was
trying to be clever and quotable four times in one day. And she bitterly regretted agreeing to let this wretched woman interview her at home, especially given her reputation for screwing her
interviewees. It seemed so much more intrusive somehow, as though Steffi would have the chance to look in her wardrobe and snoop around her bathroom cabinets. For the first time she understood why
so many of Metro’s stars demanded to be interviewed in faceless hotel rooms. But it was too late now. She could already hear the doorbell ringing.
    Liz smiled a small tight smile as she let her in and hoped Steffi couldn’t tell how nervous she was.
    Steffi took one look at Liz in her designer suit, smiling that superior smile and decided she loathed her. Claudia might suspect her of pining for the kitchen, but Steffi couldn’t see much
sign of it. To Steffi she looked like another bloody Superwoman. God, they were everywhere these days! A white patch of sick on the shoulder of their business suits, the emblem of late, doting
motherhood, they breezed through life convinced they could Have It All. And then, when the going got rough, they expected everyone to make allowances for them.
    Steffi knew the biogs of women like Liz off by heart. They landed on her desk every day now. ‘Chairwoman of ICI and mother of six, Dawn has a hectic life at home and at work . . .’
Blah. Blah. Blah. It made you want to throw up.
    As Liz went to fetch a bottle of wine, Steffi glanced round the kitchen taking in the pale yellow dragged units with the family photos Blu-tacked to every available surface. Why was it that
working mothers assaulted you with pictures of their bloody kids as though they were some kind of trophy? Here’s Jimmy stuffed and mounted, we had him in ’83.
    Maybe it was because they saw so little of them they couldn’t remember what they looked like? If they loved them so much why weren’t they bloody well looking after them instead of
handing them over to some teenager like Susie who probably force-fed them with
Neighbours
and locked them in their bedrooms while she bonked her boyfriend?
    If Steffi had kids, perish the thought, she’d give up work at once. In her view you could only hope to do one thing