The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy

by Fiona Neill

  He puts out his hand and with his middle finger he traces the line he burnt with his eyes a minute ago, until it rests in that soft cleft in between my breasts. I hear a gasp, a noise that might be imperceptible in a less silent context, and am surprised to discover that it emanates from me. The pleasure is exquisite. It is as though my mind has separated from my body and I am observing this happening to someone else. I lean back against Yummy Mummy No. 1’s sheepskin coat and tilt my head slightly towards the ceiling, to give him access to the lower regions of my neck. Now I am the one chewing my lower lip. I don’t want him to stop, but I don’t want the responsibility of responding.

  He takes his finger away, and I gasp again, because every part of my body demands more attention. Then I see him lean towards me. He puts one hand against the wall of the coat room, letting it rest at the top of my arm, and the other inside my dress at the top of the shoulder, pulling it slowly down to expose most of my upper body. I shiver with the pleasure of anticipation. The risk of discovery only adds to the excitement, and I wonder how for so many years I have managed to stay away from this kind of encounter. Then he leans towards me, the same hand that was on my shoulder now pulling me towards him from somewhere above my shoulder blade, and we are about to kiss when there is a knock on the door.

  ‘Lucy, is that you in there?’ says a male voice outside. ‘Lucy?’ The fear of discovery is slightly alleviated by the fact that it isn’t either Tom or Robert Bass’s wife. But the knocking is so insistent that inevitably it will attract the attention of other guests.

  I go to the door and open it slightly to find Celebrity Dad standing outside.

  ‘Sshh,’ I say putting my finger to my lips.

  ‘You don’t need to be quiet at a party,’ he shouts, pushing his way in through the door. ‘I knew it was you, Sweeney. I was in the garden and looked up to this window and recognised your dress.’

  ‘The garden?’ I say.

  ‘I thought you might be doing coke,’ he says.

  ‘Doing coke?’ I say.

  ‘Are you just going to repeat everything that I say?’ he asks.

  He is now inside the room and shuts the door behind him. Robert Bass has moved to the back and is standing behind some long coats beside the sink. I can see his legs sticking out at the bottom among pairs of wellington boots and shoes. Celebrity Dad, however, has his own agenda and pulls out a credit card and a small bag of white powder from his jacket pocket. He locks the door, then, in swift succession, sits down on a small stool, takes a magazine from a pile by the door and efficiently starts chopping up lines of cocaine. He generously passes the magazine to me but I decline.

  ‘I have enough problems going to sleep without any chemical inducement,’ I say.

  He leans over the magazine, and snorts a line through a rolled-up twenty-dollar note. He is so familiar to me that I wonder momentarily, through the haze of wine, unconsummated passion, and lack of air, whether I am in fact watching one of his films. Possibly one directed by Quentin Tarantino. Then I start to calculate whether it would be worse to be discovered in flagrante with one parent or assumed to be taking drugs with another, and I realise that there is not much to choose between the two and that I must get out of this room as quickly as possible.

  ‘So, what were you doing in here then?’ Celebrity Dad asks. He is looking at my dress, hanging off my shoulder. I pull it back up but it gapes over my stomach. The only solution is to untie the dress completely and start from the beginning again. So I briefly unwrap the dress and then curl it around me, tying a tight bow above the waist.

  ‘I’m readjusting,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t expecting an audience.’

  ‘It is so great to be out of LA and back in a country where women look like women,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘I love all that tits-and-bums stuff that you get here, it is so much healthier than dealing with middle-aged women with prepubescent bodies. So readjust all you like.’

  ‘I really need to get some air,’ I say, when I am convinced that I have recovered decorum. ‘I think I’ll go and have a walk round the garden.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ he says. ‘That woman was doing my head in, asking me about what extra activities my children do, whether they are going to apply for Harvard, my views on parental discipline. She’s enough to drive anyone to drugs.’

  ‘So what did you say to her?’ I ask.

  ‘I asked whether she could introduce me to those two women who popped up on her computer screen when we were in the café,’ he says.

  We go down into the kitchen and the crowds clear, as they do when Celebrity Dad approaches. A waitress offers us a tray of tiny Thai spring rolls and I take the opportunity to grab a handful. I wonder if Celebrity Dad notices all this quiet attention. Did this deference start overnight after that Coen brothers’ film, or was it something that evolved slowly over time, so that the onset was imperceptible?

  I search for Tom amongst the crowd but can’t find him. Despite the envious looks from other mothers, he is the person that I would most like to be with right now. I go out into the garden with Celebrity Dad, aware of pairs of jealous eyes observing me. As I breathe in the night air, ignoring the drizzle, and gulp down another glass of wine, my body starts to slump with the relief that comes after an unexpected shock. I am not the kind of person who can adjust to these situations, I think to myself. That is the difference between Guy and me. He is unfaithful in a professional kind of way, while I will always be an amateur. I am already feeling racked with guilt about a kiss that never even happened. I resolve then and there to never allow myself to get into such a compromising position again. And yet, I am already rerunning the scene over and over in my mind, wondering where it would have all ended and whether, given similar circumstances, it would happen again. Because sometimes, when people have looked over the edge of the precipice, they decide they would rather take a few steps back, even though the view is great. And the more I think about it, the more I wish I was still in the coat cupboard.

  ‘Does it bother you the way that people behave around you?’ I ask Celebrity Dad, looking for conversation to distract myself from these turbulent thoughts.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he says, sniffing loudly. We have reached the end of the garden, but it has taken a good five minutes. In the corner, beside the ride-on lawnmower, and the kind of climbing frame you would find in a good London park, is a pristine Wendy house in pastel colours, with a small veranda and a windowsill planted with real plants. There are small lights around the window that twinkle.

  He opens the door.

  ‘After you,’ he says with faux gallantry. ‘The truth is, Lucy, that I don’t often hang out with people who aren’t famous. I know that sounds arrogant, but it’s true, and sometimes those people have lost sight of who they are, so it is fun to be with real people. Unpredictable. Like that woman who heads the committee. She is hilarious. I am going to make it my mission to corrupt her. You can tell the corruptible types, and you’re not one of them.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I ask.

  ‘Instinct,’ he says.

  We bend down to go through the small door, but inside it is so capacious that we can stand up straight again.

  ‘Don’t say it. I know that I am smaller in real life,’ he says. ‘Don’t tell me things that I know, tell me things that I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ I say to him. ‘You expect to be entertained and life isn’t like that for the rest of us. We have to make our own fun.’

  ‘Lucy, when I’m with you, I know I will be entertained,’ he says, pulling out a small child-size chair and preparing another couple of lines of coke. I am examining a sink in one corner of the Wendy house and am astonished that when I turn the tiny child-size tap, real water spills out.

  ‘You can’t do that in here,’ I say, turning round and looking out through the windows, in case other parents are approaching. ‘Put it away. It’s not that kind of party.’

  ‘By the way, I saw him in
there, hanging among all those coats like an art installation,’ says Celebrity Dad, ignoring me.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask tentatively, although I already know the answer.

  ‘I saw Deep Shallows in that room with you,’ he says. ‘But I won’t say anything about your little secret if you don’t say anything about mine.’

  ‘It isn’t like that,’ I protest. There is nothing worse than being accused of infidelity without enjoying any of its pleasures.

  Then he stands up and theatrically says in a passable English accent:

  What is it men in women do require

  The lineaments of Gratified Desire?

  What is it women do in men require?

  The lineaments of Gratified Desire.

  ‘Lucy, it’s what the world revolves around. William Blake knew it. I know it. Where I come from, everyone is at it, it’s not a big deal,’ he says.

  ‘But you don’t understand, for me it is,’ I say. ‘Actually, I really love my husband, in a long-term kind of way.’

  ‘Well then, why do you want to fuck this other man?’ he asks, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I suppose I want to do something reckless, to feel alive.’

  ‘There’s nothing wise about me,’ says Celebrity Dad. ‘But one thing I can tell you is that uncertainty is not a good basis for anything. I’m on my third marriage, remember? I live with a lot of uncertainty in my life. I’ve been with my therapist longer than any of my wives.’ Then he gets up suddenly.

  ‘Maybe you should have married your therapist then,’ I say.

  ‘He’s a man,’ he says. ‘I better go and mingle with the masses. I think I’ll put some music on. People need to loosen up a little. Apart from you, of course. Maybe you need to tighten up.’

  We go back inside and Celebrity Dad puts on a Radiohead album and goes in search of Alpha Mum to ask her whether she wants to dance. I spot Robert Bass in the corner of the room, talking to Tom. They both look up at me. Robert Bass looks away a little too quickly. However you look at it, a line has been crossed. But lines are sometimes blurry and you can cross them without realising. Mark didn’t consider this.

  I gulp down another glass of wine, hoping that it will have an anaesthetic effect upon my body. Every nerve ending is in a heightened state of alert. Reflexes are ready to be activated. I feel curiously alive, ready for detonation. Mark would tell me that my body is coursing with adrenalin and that I am in fight-or-flight mode. But explaining away feelings takes the mystery out of life.

  I spot the busy headmistress briskly walking towards me.

  ‘Thanks so much for all your hard work,’ she says, smiling.

  ‘It was nothing,’ I say.

  ‘Organised, but not too organised. Pitch-perfect. I knew that you would have a restraining influence, Mrs Sweeney. It’s hard enough to know what to wear without the added complication of coming dressed as your favourite character. It must be a relief to be sharing the burden with Mr Bass.’

  I start to choke on my mini spring roll. I stopped counting how many I had eaten when I reached seven.

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say, more enthusiastically than intended. Then I cough a little more and miss the beginning and end of her next question. The middle words are, I think, ‘consider a fourth’.

  ‘Three is our limit. Actually, my husband is considering a vasectomy,’ I hear myself say. I should stop in my tracks at this point, but an irresistible urge to expurgate our bedroom secrets prompts me to mention Tom’s obsession with contraception.

  ‘He doesn’t wear two condoms yet, but we’re close,’ I say, laughing. ‘In fact, he still explodes into periodic rants because I once mentioned the idea of a fourth. Not a fourth condom, a fourth child I mean.’

  She has a fixed smile on her face. She is used to confessional parents. I sense other mothers looking on intently, no doubt wondering what is holding the busy headmistress captive for so long. Both Alpha Mum and Yummy Mummy No. 1 have come over and are listening to the tail end of this conversation.

  ‘I think four is the perfect number, because then no one is left out on the chair lift,’ says Yummy Mummy No. 1. She says, in fluent banker’s-wife speak, that she had four under three, or was it five under two or six under one? Impossible arithmetic anyway.

  ‘The most difficult part is getting my five-year-old to her harp lesson, because my four-year-old has Suzuki violin at the same time,’ says Alpha Mum, looking for approval from the headmistress, but receiving little more than a glacial smile. She persists. ‘Running with a harp is very hard work, when there are deadlines looming. At the beginning of every school year, I hang a timetable on the kitchen wall with all my children’s and husband’s activities recorded, so that nothing is ever forgotten.’

  She looks pointedly at me.

  ‘Actually, what I was asking was whether you would consider staying on the parents’ committee for a fourth term,’ says the headmistress, turning to me and nodding emphatically before moving away to join another group of parents.

  ‘So, do you record all your activities?’ I ask Alpha Mum, genuinely impressed.

  ‘Everything,’ she says.

  ‘Even sex?’ I ask, wondering if this might be the solution to the dearth of activity in our household. ‘Doesn’t that make it less spontaneous? Also, you would need a very big wall chart since five in the morning seems the only time that both parties are free at the same time.’

  ‘It is not something that we review in advance,’ she says.

  I say that it is strange that my single girlfriends have lots of time for sex but no one to have it with.

  ‘I don’t really have any single girlfriends any more, we tend to mix with other couples,’ she says, in the manner of mothers who claim their children eat anything and everything. So I tell her she is missing out, because over recent drinks with single friends the talk was of nothing but sex and activities which made me glad that post-partum haemorrhoids and time constraints preclude anything but sex against the clock. She says that she is very pleased with the new anti-bullying policy and then walks off.

  ‘There goes a woman who hasn’t had sex with her husband in years,’ says Yummy Mummy No. 1. ‘Lucy, do you have a moment?’

  She goes upstairs into the hall and signals at me to follow. For a moment I wonder if she is going to lead me to the coat room and berate me for my behaviour, but she continues upstairs into her bedroom. This evening is turning into one of those nightmares where every awful thing you have ever done in your life comes back to haunt you, and friends and enemies and people who don’t even know each other, mysteriously appear at the same time to expose you. As I walk up the stairs, I consider my worst possible scenario and wonder whether my Newsnight colleague of yesteryear is waiting in her bedroom with Tom, comparing notes.

  ‘Do you mind if I use the loo?’ I ask her, as we go in the room. I feel dizzy and want to splash cold water on my face in an effort to reconnect my mind with my body.

  ‘Sure,’ she says, and I go into the same bathroom that I explored with Emma last week.

  ‘How did you know that was the bathroom and not a wardrobe?’ she asks suspiciously.

  ‘Instinct,’ I say brightly.

  I go inside and shut the door behind me, leaning against it to catch my breath. I make several rash promises to myself. I will never complain about life being boring again. I will behave with utmost dignity in all situations. I will never overspend on my credit card. I will never shout at the children again. I will dedicate one day a week to washing. I will do all these things, if I can just get away with everything. I look at my watch in disbelief. How can so much have happened in such a short space of time? We have been here for less than two hours.

  I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My mascara has run. The water comes out cold and I wipe my face free of make-up, to try and find someone I recognise. Then I leave the bathroom and go into the bedroom where Yummy Mummy No. 1 sits straight-backed at the end of the
bed, her legs crossed.

  ‘Are you all right, Lucy?’ she asks, scrutinising my body in my wrap-dress in that way that only women can. ‘You look a little flustered.’

  For a moment I consider telling her everything. What has just happened with Robert Bass, that her husband is having an affair with one of my best friends, that her house in central Notting Hill is built of straw. But I resist the urge, knowing that the relief of confession will swiftly be replaced by a whole set of new worries about unleashing some new, unpredictable chain of events. What I need now is to head for the high ground. Regroup. Eat nourishing food. Sleep for two days. Take a vow of silence.

  ‘What did you think of Guy?’ she asks, patting a space beside her at the end of the bed. The door to her walk-in wardrobe is open, and I feel slightly sick staring at the familiar rows of shoes.

  ‘He seems lovely, very warm and friendly,’ I say resolutely.

  ‘I think he’s having an affair,’ she says. My chest tightens, and I focus on breathing in and out through my nose to prevent myself from hyperventilating.

  ‘Why would he want to do that?’ I say breathlessly. ‘He’s married to a gorgeous woman, has a brood of fantastic kids, a perfect life. It would be illogical to risk all that.’

  ‘But that is precisely why he would. It’s all too predictable,’ she says, getting up to go over to a chest of drawers. She pulls out a packet of cigarettes, opens a window, lights one up, and inhales deeply, then hands it to me. ‘We can go out on the balcony. I do it all the time.’

  ‘What makes you think he is having an affair?’ I ask her.

  ‘In increasing order of relevance,’ she says, grateful, I assume, for the chance to unburden herself. ‘First up, he has a new shirt that I definitely didn’t buy him and I know that he wouldn’t have got it because it’s from Paul Smith and he never shops there. Also, I have been through his bank statements and I can’t find any evidence for these new clothes that keep appearing. Secondly, when we have sex, he is doing stuff that he hasn’t done for years. Thirdly, for the past ten days he has been in a filthy mood, and calling out someone else’s name in his sleep. Fourthly, there is the question of the little visitors.’