The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy

by Fiona Neill

  ‘We were at a party, there was a minor tangle, we didn’t even kiss and I decided that we should put a bit of distance between us,’ I say. ‘In fact I think I have behaved pretty impeccably.’

  ‘Did you tell Tom?’ he asks. ‘If you haven’t, then I am going to remain suspicious.’

  ‘There was nothing to tell,’ I say.

  ‘If there was nothing to tell, then why are you being so cagey about it all?’ he asks.

  ‘It takes a lot of concentration,’ I say. ‘Trying to avoid thinking about someone is quite exhausting.’

  ‘There is nothing relaxing about being in a state of constant desire,’ says Mark.

  Emma comes over.

  ‘Are you two going to join us?’ she asks, smiling. ‘Or are you going to spend the rest of the evening trawling through family business?’

  We go back to the table and sit down again. Cathy and Mark exchange a knowing smile. I am convinced that she has put him up to this, to check the veracity of my account of dealings with Robert Bass. But I’m not annoyed, because I know that both of them have my best interests at heart. This thought soothes me.

  Emma questions Mark about his work.

  ‘Do you always like your patients?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m less involved in patient care now,’ he says, ‘but when I was training, I generally found that everyone has some redeeming qualities. Actually, what is interesting is that certain groups of patients are more appealing than others.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asks Emma.

  ‘Well, certain psychopathologies produce a commonality of personality traits,’ he says. ‘And some of those traits are more attractive than others. Anorexics, for example, are frequently perfectionist people-pleasers. People with obsessive-compulsive disorder are very inflexible and they always tidy my desk.’

  ‘Who are your favourites?’ asks Cathy.

  ‘People with sex addictions,’ he says without a moment’s hesitation. ‘Not because they always try to seduce you, which they do, even the men, but because their success depends on being utterly charming. They are great conversationalists and they make you laugh a lot. They are intent on having a good time.’

  ‘Like Russell Brand?’ says Emma.

  ‘Precisely,’ says Mark.

  ‘How do you resist their advances?’ asks Cathy.

  ‘I think about the fact that I would lose my job if I succumbed,’ he says. ‘I play out the consequences in my mind. With the men it’s easier, I can’t help but be resolutely heterosexual. And I see more men than women. It’s a more common problem in men.’

  ‘How can you tell the difference between an addiction and an unhealthy obsession?’ I ask.

  ‘Some people might view all of these things as a form of addiction,’ he says. ‘But to qualify as an addiction, these things have to dominate your life on a daily basis, you withdraw from people, the addiction becomes your friend. There is also an element of self-loathing. You, Lucy, might be obsessed, but you’re not addicted.’ He sits back, looking satisfied. Mark loves his job.

  ‘Do you think I am addicted to Guy?’ asks Emma tentatively.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Guy could just as easily be someone else, you are simply addicted to a type of man who can never be yours. Ultimately you fear intimacy, in case you are rejected.’

  I am a little taken aback. None of us ever speak to Emma with such honesty.

  ‘So what’s the cure?’ she asks, sounding less confident than earlier in the evening.

  ‘You should consciously avoid this kind of man. In as much as you recognise them as a type, they also recognise you,’ he says. ‘You should probably get professional help.’

  ‘What about you?’ says Emma.

  ‘Actually,’ says Mark, ‘I think I have met someone I might want to marry.’

  ‘Fuck,’ I say. ‘When do we get to meet her?’

  ‘Soon,’ he says mysteriously.

  Someone is tapping me on the shoulder. I assume that it is the solicitous waiter and lethargically turn towards the arm of the sofa to ask him for another bottle of champagne, because I have decided to treat tonight as though there is no tomorrow. But it is not a waiter. It is Robert Bass.

  He puts his hands on the arm of the sofa and leans over to speak to me. His fingers are splayed and I note that he is scratching the velvet, leaving tiny furrows in its pile in a way that suggests a certain nervous determination.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I say, trying to sound less startled than I feel.

  ‘I’ve just finished having dinner with my editor,’ he says. ‘I saw you and thought that it would be unfriendly to leave without saying hello. What are you doing here? You said you never go out.’

  ‘I don’t generally. I’m here with some friends, and my brother,’ I say, but I make no effort to introduce him to them.

  I get up from the sofa and stand in front of him, standing parallel to the table, to indicate that he shouldn’t sit down with us. He leans forward and kisses me once on the cheek. It is a gesture that on a superficial level looks meaningless. Neither Mark nor my girlfriends seem remotely perturbed. They assume he is an old friend, someone from my Newsnight days no doubt. But the kiss lingers a little longer than it should. I feel his cheek against my cheek, his hand on my shoulder. These are knowing gestures, a continuum of the intimacy at the party. I realise that we must both have replayed the episode repeatedly in our minds. When we look at each other, I can see my own desire reflected in his eyes. I start to feel breathless. I see the front of my shirt moving up and down too fast and start to chew my lower lip. I want to make it bleed to distract myself with the pain and extricate myself from this situation. I think of Fred’s tiny knee, covered in blood, and the way he cried for me, as though there was no one else in the world that could make him feel better. I think of Tom, cool, rational, certain about things.

  ‘Lucy, you have a responsibility to talk to me, you can’t pretend that nothing has happened,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘We’re both complicit.’

  ‘I have a responsibility to my family and so do you to yours,’ I say. ‘Look, this isn’t the time or the place.’

  ‘Name the time and place,’ he says. ‘I can’t get through this on my own. I’m really tormented.’ Then my brother, gregarious and friendly as always, gets up and walks towards us.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’ he asks Robert Bass. I introduce him to the table, relieved that no one knows him by any other name than Sexy Domesticated Dad. I have to get him to leave as swiftly as possible.

  ‘Let me get a round,’ says Robert Bass, walking towards the bar.

  I sit down, feeling slightly nauseous. But this time I can’t blame the drink. I am sick with desire. It’s like trying to stop a chemistry experiment when the ingredients have already been placed in a test tube, I decide.

  ‘Who is that?’ asks Emma theatrically. ‘He’s gorgeous. He could definitely distract me from Guy. I would even forsake world domination for a share of that.’ It is gratifying to hear an old friend validate my taste in men, but on the other hand it makes me wonder whether Robert Bass is just too obvious.

  ‘He’s an old friend,’ I say. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages. But I’m pretty sure he’s married.’

  ‘Marriage is a state of mind,’ says Emma. ‘That’s what Guy says. When he’s with his wife he feels married and when he’s with me he feels like fucking. He says that his ideal is to be single during the week and married at weekends.’

  ‘That’s because men have a frightening capacity to compartmentalise their life,’ I sigh. ‘Women could never live like that.’

  ‘So where do you know him from?’ asks Mark. ‘It must be a decade since you last had a job, I mean, since you decided to evolve from white-collar to blue-collar worker.’

  ‘Why blue-collar?’ asks Emma.

  ‘Looking after children is like working on a coal face, except there is never any break between shifts,’ I say. Then I turn to Mark and look at him straight in the eye. �
�He’s an old contact,’ I say, deliberately vague. Mark raises his eyebrows twice, but Robert Bass has come back to the table. He sits in an armchair next to me, with Emma on the other side.

  ‘So what are you doing here?’ she asks, turning her body towards him and smiling in her most engaging manner. Emma is incorrigible. Robert Bass leans on his left elbow so that his back is turned towards me. But his legs slide further under the table. I know that I should shift up the sofa to remove the possibility of any physical contact, knowing that my defences are low, and that every time we touch it sets off a terrible reaction.

  But before I can put this plan into action, I feel Robert Bass’s left leg settle resolutely between my knees, pushing up towards my thighs. Either he must have done this kind of thing before, because this is an accomplished piece of daring, or he is simply intent on having sex with me. Luckily the table is so high that it screens us from suspicious eyes.

  Cathy continues to talk. She is oblivious. Mark is at the other end of the table opposite Robert Bass and I am sure that he can see nothing. I know that I should just move away, but since that might draw even more attention to what is going on, I decide to enjoy the moment.

  ‘So, Lucy, have you made any big decisions about what to do in September, when Fred is at nursery all day?’ she asks.

  ‘You know, I think I’m going to start painting again,’ I say dreamily, leaning as far forward as possible, so that the area under the table is obscured from view. It is now getting dark outside but the lights inside are not yet switched on. ‘I have an idea for a children’s book and I think I might start doing some illustrations for that and see where it takes me. I’m not going to look for anything full-time. I know that means we still won’t have enough money to completely buy my way out of domestic chaos, but I’ve decided that it doesn’t really matter anyway.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ she says. ‘My main aim is to turn my triangle into a straight line before it turns into a square.’ She looks at me enigmatically. I have no idea what she is talking about. ‘I want to extricate myself from this relationship and get into something more linear.’

  Emma gets up to go to the loo.

  She walks away. Cathy is talking to Mark, and Robert Bass turns to face me. His expression reveals nothing. He leans towards my left ear, his breath tickling my neck.

  ‘Imagine my hand where my leg is,’ he says. ‘And then imagine my head where my hand is.’

  ‘You are bad,’ I tell him.

  ‘No, I’m not, I just know what I want,’ he says. ‘It’s a beautiful coincidence that we are both here tonight, let’s take advantage of it. We can spend a couple of hours together and then forget that anything ever happened. Suspend reality for a while and then go back to our rather dull, routine lives. Come on, Lucy, live a little.’

  It is always tempting to read too much into coincidence. But the truth is that we attribute meaning to some events but not others. For example, it is enticing given the fact that Robert Bass is here tonight, when I have only been here twice in the past year, to invest meaning into this serendipity. To say that fate dealt its hand and absolve myself from responsibility for my actions. But, actually, the chances of bumping into my brother are statistically less likely yet I have barely considered that coincidence. And what about the fact that we have exactly the same waiter? We like to find symmetry in the world around us to find meaning in its arbitrariness.

  Robert Bass’s hand moves on to my upper thigh and his fingers lightly circle an area ranging from the upper knee to somewhere on my inner thigh. Of course I could get up and walk away but it is just so pleasurable.

  I note that we are both staring into our glasses. It is impossible to speak, as though everything has been reduced to the simple movement of his hand on my thigh.

  ‘So how do you two know each other?’ my brother asks suddenly from the other end of the table. The question makes me jump. I had almost forgotten that there was anyone else here. ‘You haven’t got a lot to say to each other for people who haven’t seen each other for years.’

  I shoot him what I hope is a look malevolent enough to deter him from this line of questioning. Robert Bass doesn’t move his hand.

  ‘We’ve covered all the ground,’ he says. ‘I’d better get home.’ He gets out a piece of paper, writes something on it and passes it to me. ‘My address, in case you want to get in touch.’

  When he removes his hand from my leg, I feel an immediate sense of loss. I get up to say goodbye to him. He kisses me again on the cheek, this time it is a swift and perfunctory gesture.

  ‘See you around,’ he says to Cathy and my brother.

  ‘I hope I didn’t frighten him off,’ says Mark. I ignore him and instead unfold the piece of paper.

  Me at Aberdeen Hotel in Bloomsbury waiting for you, it says. I scrunch it up quickly and put it in my pocket. Emma comes back to the table.

  ‘Has he gone already?’ she asks. ‘I thought the party was just beginning.’

  I plead tiredness, and fifteen minutes later, find myself catching a cab to the hotel.

  20

  ‘The journey is the destination’

  WHEN I ARRIVE at the Hotel Aberdeen, I walk with straight shoulders and head held high towards the man behind reception and tell him that I have a reservation. At first I am affronted that he doesn’t get up from his stool to speak to me. Then I realise that the small man in the large suit is so short that, even at full height, his elbows barely reach the reception desk. It doesn’t lend the occasion the gravitas that it deserves. I look round for someone else but the lobby is empty. Hotels that rent rooms by the hour are unlikely to have the kind of service associated with the Sanderson, but I am surprised to see that he is sharpening pencils.

  ‘Are you attending the anxiety convention?’ he asks slowly in a strong Spanish accent, stroking his chin wisely.

  ‘Do I look nervous?’ I reply, intrigued that a complete stranger can read my emotions so accurately. He points to a board sitting on the floor beside the lifts. It welcomes guests to the third annual anxiety conference. Guest speakers will address a variety of subjects including 1) the role of deep breathing in controlling nervousness, 2) making anxiety your friend and, 3) breaking the cycle of tension. There will then be a break for anxious delegates to have coffee and tea together.

  ‘Sometimes talking about it just doesn’t help,’ I tell him. ‘And the caffeine will only exacerbate the problem.’ He looks at me suspiciously and puts down the pencil sharpener.

  ‘I can find an anxiety expert for you to speak to if you are having any doubts,’ he says. ‘It happens every time. The anxious people are often anxious about attending the anxiety conference.’

  For a moment I wonder whether this hotel, notorious for its role in hosting illicit affairs, has become like those television channels that show harrowing dramas and then give numbers for people to call if the programme proves too disturbing. Perhaps it would be a good thing to speak to an anxiety expert about my reasons for being here.

  ‘I have an appointment with Mr Robert Bass,’ I say decisively. ‘At one o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Is he one of the conference leaders?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘He’s, er, a friend. Bass, like the fish.’

  ‘A friendly fish?’ he enquires. Then he says slowly, ‘A nocturnal, friendly fish.’

  He starts to check through his reservation list, moving his hand slowly down a large leather-bound book, stopping at each name for a moment, pointing at it with his newly sharpened pencil before muttering a surname under his breath.

  ‘Smith . . . Klein . . . Robinson . . . McMannus . . . Smith . . . Villeroy . . . Raphael . . . Smith,’ he says, sounding out every syllable as though he is in an English lesson, and impressively rolling his Rs, so that they resound like volleys of machine-gun fire.

  ‘Roderick Riley,’ he says with satisfaction, smiling up at me. There are two pages of names. It could take four or five minutes to get from the beginning t
o the end. Even reading upside down I can already see that there is no one with the surname Bass on the first page. I look nervously around the foyer of the hotel, wondering how I will explain myself if I see someone I know, then reassuring myself that their presence is unlikely to have an innocent explanation either, unless they are attending the anxiety convention.

  I look at the name on the lapel of his jacket, turning my head slightly to one side because it is not pinned on straight. He is called Diego.

  When I look up his head is facing mine, tilted at a similar angle. He smiles reassuringly.

  ‘Do you think he is using his real name?’ he asks. ‘We have a lot of Smiths every day.’

  ‘I’m sure he has booked the room under the name Bass,’ I say. ‘I think it’s trucha in Spanish.’

  ‘A trucha is a trout,’ he says. ‘Maybe you mean a merluza?’

  ‘Isn’t that a red snapper?’ I say. ‘Or a groper or something? He’s more of a cold-water fish. An English fish.’

  ‘We have so many wonderful fish in Costa Rica,’ he says wistfully. ‘Have you ever been there?’ I shake my head, willing him to turn to the next page of the reservation list because I can see that someone else has arrived and is waiting behind me at a polite distance, shifting from foot to foot and trying not to listen to our conversation.

  ‘Is he here for the adultery or the anxiety?’ I joke nervously to Diego. He smiles benignly, revealing nothing.

  ‘And manatees,’ he says. He senses my impatience. ‘Trout, trout, trout,’ he mutters under his breath.

  ‘No, Bass, B-A-S-S,’ I repeat. ‘Do you want me to have a look?’

  He hands me the book with a flourish and turns to the second page. I scroll down and then, when I find the name Robert Bass, I feel a sort of nauseous excitement.

  ‘Ah,’ says Diego, winking at me. ‘He only called about twenty minutes ago. I’ll show you up to your room. It’s booked for three hours, but if you overrun I won’t charge you.’