Read The Safest Place for Free Online

precious scent of boy.
    ‘You OK, Sam?’ I’d ask
    ‘Yes,’ he’d say, automatically.
    ‘Good day at school?’
    ‘Yes.’
    That was all he ever said, and he said it not so much because he knew it was what I wanted to hear, but because it put an end to further questions. And while Ella would complain all the way home
he would stay silent.
    I worried about Sam constantly. I have always worried about him. With girls, in many ways, it is so much easier. I have been a girl; I know what it’s like, what to expect. Girls are so
much more socially aware, at least Ella certainly is. She is more communicative about her emotions too; I always know what is going on with her. If she isn’t happy about something she
doesn’t hold back in telling me about it. And although it was taking time, I knew that she would make friends. She would find her place among her peers, and settle in.
    But Sam is so quiet, so shy. Again and again I told myself that we had done the right thing in moving; that he would fare infinitely better in this smaller school, away from what I had come to
perceive as the social thuggery of the London school system; first the competitiveness of getting a place, and then the strain of simply surviving under the opposing threats of either hot-housing
or failure. In my head, the flaws in all that we had left behind were magnified. How else could I justify what we had done; what I myself had made us do, in moving here? There was no point in
looking back, nothing to be gained from regret. And anyway, wasn’t it worth enduring the inevitable struggle to begin with in order to live in such a beautiful place?
    And I’d always only wanted what was best for Sam, my dear, sweet, darling Sam. That was all I ever wanted; to do my best. I say this now and my heart is clamped, tight as a vice.
    I did not stop to think that the transition to secondary school was always going to be a struggle for a boy like Sam, or that maybe he would have adjusted, given time back in London. That at
least there he had some friends; in fact a good number of kids from his year at juniors had gone on to the same comprehensive as him. I did not consider the possibility that by moving him away to a
place where nothing and no one was familiar I might actually have made things harder for him. That in effect, I was making him go through it all again, only this time he was on his own. I
didn’t think of that at all.
    And so the school run, both morning and afternoon, was stressful and fraught. The anxiety of it took up the bulk of my day; worrying about it, worrying about the children. In the hours in
between I shopped for food, I tended the house and the chores and became accustomed to my own unanticipated and prickling loneliness.
    Most days, I made sure to get to Ella’s school before 3.15, with the intention of infiltrating those groups of women gathered at the gates, yet getting to really know anyone proved a
painfully slow process. It is not easy for me to go up to strangers and introduce myself. I am not the most outgoing of people. Like Sam, I am shy, and shyness is both an excuse and a prop. I
loathe it; it infuriates me, in both Sam and myself. And those women all knew each other, and they stood so close together, talking so busily. I could feel the curiosity in the glances thrown my
way. I forced myself to smile; I made every effort to be friendly. And sure, they were friendly enough back. ‘Hello,’ they said. ‘How are you? Are you settling in?’ But it
never seemed to go any further.
    Meeting Melanie changed everything.
    She was still there when I came back out of the school that morning after taking Ella in. She’d waited for me.
    ‘You’re the new girl’s mum, aren’t you?’ she said.
    ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Hi. I’m Jane.’
    ‘I’m Melanie,’ she said. ‘Your daughter’s in my Abbie’s class. I hear you’re from
Lon
don.’ She said it like that, with the emphasis on
the first syllable. I wasn’t