The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy

by Fiona Neill

  ‘But didn’t you keep thinking about what it might have been like?’ I ask, wondering at the willpower she must have invoked to turn off the current with her artist and switch it on when she met Tom’s father.

  ‘Of course I thought about him and there were parts of the relationship that were never possible to switch off, but I adapted to someone else,’ she says. ‘I was trying to tell you earlier that I think it is possible to love many people. I loved Tom’s father, he was more lovable really, and he loved me. He gave me the kind of stability that I yearned for. Jack would have caused misery and pain and that would have destroyed anything good.’

  ‘Did he ever get married?’ I ask.

  ‘He’s had two wives and six children, one by a woman he was never married to. He says that if I had stayed with him, this would never have happened, but I knew that there was no single person who would contain everything that he needed to sustain him. He liked clever women, and I was never clever in that quick-witted, intellectual way. He was attracted to women who were dangerous. He liked damaged people because they were exciting. I was too homely. Naturally, I drank and partied, but nothing like him. The only appetite that we shared was for sex.’

  A gasp ripples around the John Lewis restaurant and I am relieved, because although this perestroika in our relationship is welcome, this is one subject I don’t really want to consider in depth.

  ‘I want you to tell Tom, if you don’t mind, Lucy,’ she says. ‘I can’t face it.’

  ‘I think you should do it,’ I say. ‘He won’t mind nearly as much as you think. He understands the need to be loved and the fear of being alone. We all understand that. Why don’t you come round this evening? I’m going out for a parent-rep meeting.’

  ‘If you are sure that is the best thing to do,’ she says.

  ‘I am,’ I say, leaning back and considering how little we really know about the people closest to us. ‘We’ll really miss you.’

  ‘The free babysitting and cleaning?’ she smiles. ‘Not to mention the interfering. I’ll miss that too. You must come and stay in Marrakesh, it’s a very exciting city, and I think the children will enjoy it.’

  ‘Will you get married?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘We’ll live together in sin. I’m leaving in the New Year so that I can spend Christmas with you all. If that still suits your parents.’

  ‘Absolutely. They would love it,’ I lie.

  ‘Shall we go shopping? I’ll treat you to something. Now that I’m selling the house I’m feeling quite flush. Let’s get you out of those jeans and into something pretty.’

  ‘Actually, I have enough trouble getting into my jeans. And I don’t really do pretty. But thanks anyway. Why don’t we look for presents for the children instead?’

  We head off to the toy department. The combination of strip lighting, lumps of plastic in garish colours, and the number of Christmas presents still outstanding makes me feel nauseous. I would like to sit down on my own and digest everything that she has told me, commit the conversation to memory, because although I know that it marked something significant, at the moment I am not sure exactly what that might be. But Petra is glowing with the relief of unburdening herself and wants to move on to more prosaic matters.

  That same evening, I leave my mother-in-law and Tom having dinner together and find myself driving to pick up Robert Bass, with a damp copy of The Economist casually lying on the front passenger seat. I am hoping to restore some intellectual footing to our relationship and have decided after a quick glance at the magazine in the bath that conversation during our short drive to Alpha Mum’s house should focus on world affairs and other safe subjects. It might sound a bit contrived, but I have decided to take control of events rather than allow them to happen around me.

  On the other hand, the fact that it is so damp that the pages have become stuck together might suggest to him that I have been reading it in the bath. And therefore naked, which might make him think of affairs of a different kind. Men are very suggestible. All you have to do is say something like ‘butter’ and they think of Last Tango in Paris.

  Although this is the first time that I have driven to his home, the route is committed to memory. A few weeks earlier, I spent a few minutes on the computer one evening trying to trace his most logical itinerary to school using the AA route finder. I have the map, blown up to the largest size possible, on my knee.

  Outside his house I wait in the car for him to appear. It is a classic early Victorian white stucco-fronted building with a newly painted blue front door. I can see down into the basement kitchen over a low white wall. Someone is washing dishes. A woman with an unforgiving gamine haircut is idly scouring saucepans. They cannot be clean, I think to myself as she stacks them precariously beside the sink. I see Robert Bass go over to her and put a hand on her bony shoulder. She turns round to kiss him on the lips. She is wearing skinny jeans and Ugg boots. It must be his wife. In the background I can see the small shadow of a toddler playing with trains on the floor. I sit back, leaning against the headrest in shock. I have never seen his wife before. I had imagined someone far removed from myself, a hard-edged City type in full make-up and wearing an Armani suit. A woman with a steely smile and carefully coiffed hair. Instead I am presented with this image of perfection. Of course, close up there will be the inevitable incipient crow’s feet, a hint of slackness around the stomach, and perhaps a shadow that all is not perfect in her eyes, but from a distance she has an enviable silhouette. I am staring so hard at her that I don’t notice Robert Bass leave the house. He opens the car door and sits down on top of the magazine.

  ‘Lucy, this is very kind,’ he says. We drive off, and each time he moves, I notice a little more of The Economist escape from beneath him, until finally it wriggles its way on to the floor. He leans over as though he is going to pick it up but decides to ignore it, lifting up the papers that lie on the floor to examine something else.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, trying to concentrate on driving.

  ‘It’s a pack of butter,’ he says, looking at me bemusedly. I jump and must have gasped because he says quickly that he has never met anyone who has a phobia about butter.

  I know that he is thinking about Marlon Brando and I would like to take credit for my insight into the male psyche, but clearly this is not the moment.

  ‘Your car is a source of wonder to me, Lucy,’ he says.

  ‘Some people have second homes, I have my car. Do you mind stopping for petrol?’ I ask.

  ‘I think that would be advisable, given your recent debacle, don’t you?’ he says smugly. He is looking through the CD cases in the glove compartment.

  ‘Why are they all muddled?’ he asks. ‘Actually, I’m not going to say any more.’

  ‘In answer to your earlier question, there are many worse things than running out of petrol on the school run,’ I say.

  ‘Some, but not many,’ he replies. When I get out of the car to go and pay at the garage, I feel annoyed with him, partly because his criticism stings, but mostly because of his beautiful wife.

  I wait patiently in the queue, still distracted by the image of this woman in the basement, fumbling in my coat for my credit card. There is a hole in one of the pockets and eventually I find the card at the bottom of the lining. People behind me start to shuffle impatiently. All seems to be going smoothly until the woman at the till says something about a ‘small problem’ in that way that people do when they mean the exact opposite. She says, leaning over the till so that everyone starts to stare at us, that she needs to call the Manager and advises everyone to join the other queue.

  ‘I’m afraid we have been asked to retain this card,’ says the manager, his chest puffed out with self-importance, making his badge that says ‘manager’ loom even more prominently. ‘It has been reported stolen.’

  ‘Look, I can explain everything,’ I say, immediately realising my mistake. ‘You see, I thought I had lost this card, so I reported it stolen and now I have sud
denly found it in the lining of my coat. I am the person on the card. I am Sweeney, Lucy Sweeney. Simple.’ I smile to engender feelings of trust. He looks dubious.

  ‘Let me go to the car and I’ll find another one that will work,’ I tell him calmly.

  ‘We have procedures to follow,’ he says. ‘Besides, you might do a runner. We know your sort.’

  ‘What is my sort? Are there many of us on the run?’ I hear myself ask. ‘Do you really think there is a movement of mothers, distracted to madness by a combination of sleep deprivation, financial worries and overflowing laundry baskets, who find an outlet for their frustration by engaging in small-scale credit card fraud? Of course, if there is we will be held to account because mothers are such an easy target.’

  I stop in mid-rant, because everyone is looking at me and I can see Robert Bass peering out through the windscreen in the garage forecourt.

  ‘Besides, we’re waiting for the police to arrive,’ the manager continues, staring at me with a more worried look in his eye. Bad, bad, bad and getting worse. Robert Bass comes in to the shop, looking exasperated, running his hands nervously through his hair.

  ‘We’re going to be late,’ he says.

  ‘Is this your accomplice?’ says the manager, looking him up and down.

  ‘Something like that,’ says Robert Bass with exasperation. ‘What’s going on, Lucy?’ I explain to him.

  They make us sit behind the counter on a wooden bench.

  ‘It’s a bit more comfortable than the one we were sitting on the other night,’ I say, trying to inject a little lightness into proceedings. But he sits beside me holding his head in his hands, nervously ruffling his fine head of hair.

  ‘I promise it will all be all right,’ I say to him, my hand hovering in the air somewhere near his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t talk and keep your hands in your lap, please,’ says the manager. ‘You might have a weapon.’

  Half an hour later, a policeman arrives, wearing a bulletproof vest. Surely not for our benefit. He tells the manager not to waste his time and to phone my bank. The bank tells him that I have lost eleven credit cards so far this financial year and advises him to cut this one up and let us go.

  We get back in the car in silence.

  ‘I don’t know how your husband deals with all this,’ Robert Bass says weakly. He tilts the seat back as far as it will go and shuts his eyes. An image I had imagined many times earlier in the day, but not under these circumstances.

  ‘On the surface, your life looks so routine, but actually underneath it bubbles and backfires like an anarchic Central American country. Nothing is predictable,’ he says, his eyes still shut. ‘I can’t imagine how he copes.’

  ‘Well, I don’t tell him most of it,’ I say.

  ‘You’re good at keeping secrets, then.’ And he doesn’t speak again, until we reach Alpha Mum’s house.

  ‘You make up an excuse, it’s your speciality. I don’t have the energy,’ he says, sighing as I switch off the engine.

  Alpha Mum opens the door looking smart-casual, a look that has always baffled me.

  ‘You’re rather late,’ she says. ‘I suppose that was to be expected. Still, I have printed an agenda so it shouldn’t take too long.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Something came up.’

  She leads us into the kitchen and asks whether we would like a drink. I nod and am about to request a glass of white wine when she directs me to a drawer filled with teas for all occasions. It’s going to be a long evening.

  ‘What do you fancy?’ I ask Robert Bass. ‘“Sublime Dreams”, “Renewed Vigour” or “Tension Tamer”?’

  ‘The last one sounds good,’ he says weakly.

  A bookshelf of parenting manuals catches my eye. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, Positive Parenting from A to Z, Going to School: How to Help your Child Succeed.

  ‘Which parenting philosophy do you subscribe to, Lucy?’ she asks.

  ‘Slow mothering,’ I say, making it up as I go along. ‘It’s part of the slow-town, slow-food movement, aimed at producing free-range children.’

  ‘Oh,’ she says, trying to mask her surprise. ‘I haven’t heard of that one.’

  On the wall beside the fridge is a wallchart of weekly activities that is as tall as me. While the kettle is boiling, I go over to inspect. Kumon maths, Suzuki violin, chess, yoga for children.

  ‘It must be difficult keeping on top of all that,’ I say, pointing to the wallchart.

  ‘It’s the O-word, Lucy.’ She smiles knowingly. ‘Everything flows from there.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ I mouth, my mind wandering.

  ‘O for organisation,’ she counters sternly and calls for the meeting to convene.

  ‘Let’s begin with our mission statement,’ she says, looking at us both. This is what happens to successful professional women if they give up work and don’t have enough to do. McKinsey Mums, too much time, too much energy, too little instinct, I think to myself, trying to maintain a frozen expression of enthusiastic interest.

  ‘I want my term in office to be remembered for the intellectual rigour introduced to school events,’ she says. Robert Bass looks taken aback. ‘So, at the Christmas party, before Santa and his little helper hand out presents, I am proposing a short concert of Ancient English Christmas Carols.’ She hands us copies of three she has chosen from a book of the same title.

  ‘Don’t you think it should be about having fun?’ says Robert Bass, skim-reading the words to: 1) ‘Wassail, wassail all over the town’, 2) ‘Bring us in good ail’, 3) ‘As I rode out this enders night’. ‘The children will be very excited about Father Christmas arriving. Besides, they are only five years old, it’s unrealistic to think they can learn these,’ he protests.

  ‘Precisely,’ says Alpha Mum, ‘which is why we are going to sing them.’ He chokes on his tea.

  ‘But I can’t sing,’ he says weakly.

  ‘That doesn’t matter, because no one will recognise you. You will both be in costume.’ We look at her blankly. ‘Santa and his little helper,’ she says, pointing theatrically at each of us.

  ‘No,’ groans Robert Bass.

  ‘I expected some resistance from Lucy over this, but not from you,’ says Alpha Mum frostily.

  But I am entranced by the sight of Robert Bass undoing his shirtsleeves and rolling them up. What is it about forearms? Alpha Mum seems unmoved.

  ‘That all sounds wonderful,’ I say dreamily.

  ‘Traitor,’ he mouths across the table.

  I am a little taken aback. But it is not until I offer him a lift home, when the meeting finishes an hour later, that I realise the toll the evening has taken. ‘No thanks, Lucy. I think it’s safer that way.’ In a different world, he could be referring to the danger of our smouldering attraction spinning out of control. Sadly, the truth is more pedestrian: I cause him too much anxiety of a non-sexual kind.

  So it is with some surprise a couple of weeks later, that I arrive at school for the Christmas party to find Robert Bass enthusiastically waving a hip flask at me from the children’s loo, dressed as Father Christmas.

  Since the failure of the evening at Alpha Mum’s, my lustful feelings towards him had begun to deflate like a slow puncture, especially after he spurned my offer of a lift home. I could no longer indulge in the fantasy that I was secretly irresistible to him and as this reality gained currency, my infatuation seemed ridiculous. Reason started to seep back.

  ‘Quick, I’ve managed to escape her,’ he says theatrically, referring to Alpha Mum. ‘Dutch courage. I made it myself. It’s completely organic.’ He looks out to see if anyone is watching us, before pulling me by the arm into the loo, and leaning firmly against the door. He pulls his beard down round his neck and takes a slug of sloe gin.

  ‘Don’t you think you should slow down?’ I say. He seems more reckless than usual.

  ‘It’s the only way I can deal with that woman. She’s dressed as the Fairy Queen. She’s covered in flashing lights. Li
ke Oxford Street,’ he babbles. He offers me a drink and I take a gulp to show solidarity and immediately start to overheat.

  ‘Why don’t you take your coat off, Lucy,’ he says taking another slug. ‘It can’t be that bad under there.’

  But it is. Underneath the ankle-length coat that Tom has lent me, I am wearing a bespoke elf costume, hastily fashioned for the occasion by Alpha Mum. Although she told me proudly that it was inspired by an ice-skating outfit, it is aimed, I suspect, at causing maximum humiliation. It comprises a short green felt dress, cinched at the waist, with a pleated skirt designed to maximise the size of my bum.

  ‘What do you think?’ I ask nervously.

  ‘Ho, ho, ho. That might just get me through the day. You look like some gorgeous overripe fruit, like a greengage,’ he says, stepping backwards and crashing into the sink. ‘There has to be some upside to this.’ I have never seen him like this before. When we had gone to the pub together his drinking habits were notably restrained. I go over to pull him up.

  ‘Sorry, I haven’t had anything to eat,’ he said.

  ‘How’s the book going?’ I ask, in an effort to restore a semblance of normality.

  ‘Awful,’ he says. ‘I’m stuck. It’s crap. And I’ve missed two deadlines.’

  Someone starts banging at the door.

  ‘Father Christmas, it’s the Fairy Queen, and I order you to come out. Are you in there with the Elf?’

  ‘No,’ he shouts. ‘Just coming, I’m adjusting myself.’ He pulls up his beard. The opening, where the mouth should be, is round by his right ear.

  ‘Why did you lie?’ I hiss to him. ‘Now it will look as though we have been doing something illicit if we come out together.’

  ‘Climb out the window,’ he says, breathing sloe gin fumes all over me. The opening is tiny and I climb out head first. This is the second time in less than two months that I have found myself doing this and I have learnt nothing from the previous experience.

  All goes well until my bum gets stuck. The skirt of the dress is up around my shoulders, and I know that the only thing shielding my buttocks from Robert Bass is the pair of woolly tights. I squirm and wriggle and Robert Bass pushes and in different circumstances this might count as pleasure. I look up and see Yummy Mummy No. 1 approaching down the road.