In Search of Mary Read Online Free

even longer: what about all the laundry and packed lunches and homework and other stuff, you know – there’s some school trips coming up, and also Eva’s dance exam, and of course the girls will miss me so much. So you’ll probably need me here, won’t you. Won’t you?”
    “No. We’ll be fine. Go for it.”
    Damn. Now we’ve got to do it. Before I attempt to raise the notion with the kids, it brings itself up. A morning, like any other – shouting, spilling breakfast, shoes and book bags in a heap. The eight-year-old asks:
    “Where’s daddy?”
    “He’s away working.”
    “Again?”
    “Yes.”
    “He’s always away!”
    “Well, that’s not true. But his journalism does involve rather a lot of fabulous and exotic travel, now you mention it.”
    “Yeah, and your job is always in the same place, isn’t it – ha-ha, mummy gets to go on the Northern Line. Why don’t mums travel as much as dads?”
    “They do, of course – they do! Just I –
eat your breakfast.
”
    Deep breath once all three girls are safely in school and I’m pushing the baby back home. And I start to wonder: who are the travelling mums? Even the richest ones I know don’t do it: just take off travelling. They do loads of other stuff, but not that. Don’t they want to? Is it all down to money? Is it that we can’t? Or we just don’t?
    I head to the bookshelf. There she is. The very sight of the spine of the book reassures me. The book is now in my hands.
Letters from Norway.
It flops open at favourite points and mementoes fall out, faded scraps of previous readings. A postcard. A receipt. For a moment the world readjusts around me as I skim the pages, back and forth. I find a sense of balance. And a vague feeling of indebtedness. This book is our portal. I look at Will:
    “They did it – and we can do it.” I wave the book at him. “This is our treasure hunt.” Will snores gently.
    I don’t have an excuse not to go. And the more I think about it, the better it gets. We’ll follow Wollstonecraft, retracing her steps, spying into her personal life and celebrating her public achievements, as possibly the best woman who ever lived. Ihave an urge to tell the world about her adventures, and these passionate experiments in living. I am hoping to soak up some of her thoughts, to realize her, to get close to her. I’m basically a groupie.
    But there’s a problem. How will I get any actual words written with a baby in tow? Will is nearly ten months old and a vigorous crawler. What if he falls into a pond while I’m contemplating the Sublime? Or eats a discarded cigarette as I’m marking a sacred footstep where Wollstonecraft trod? This is the reality of motherhood. If I never get this thing done, it will be because Will had a bad night, or wouldn’t eat and then got food all over both of us, or because he was struggling with a red face and a full nappy, and only I could make his life good (the best power of them all).
    This is the thing. Countless days of women’s lives vanish into the haze of a new baby, exhausted toddler or anxious child. Sometimes there’s simply nothing left, no time left over, no separate sense of self. If I wasn’t so knackered, this would really get my dander up. It’s how mothers live: in the gaps between other people’s lives. Our essence is absorbed into theirs. But despite my grumbling, one thing is clear: an absorbed life is very much worth living. Indeed, this makes it better than it was. Somehow we’re not diminished: life is brighter, louder and altogether better.
    But what about that tiredness, the amazing and famous tiredness of parenthood, so boring for everyone else and yet so fundamentally defining when it’s happening to you? Has anyone ever been this tired? Is it possible to die of tiredness? Lack of sleep and constant vigilance over a baby starting tocrawl can combine to vanquish pretty much anything an adult human might attempt. He’s so small, but the magnetic force of him