The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy

by Fiona Neill

‘Sorry, I’ve lost you there, Lucy,’ says Emma. I hadn’t realised that I was speaking out loud.

  ‘Did you know all this time?’ Isobel asks, turning towards me. Her black eye has faded, I note, and she has dressed for the occasion. Her Roger Vivier sandals give her the advantage of height over all of us and she is wearing a dress more appropriate to the annual party at the Serpentine. But of course, all this is irrelevant. Although I realise that keeping up standards is of huge psychological importance to her. She would definitely qualify for the Jerry Hall school of divorced wives, I think to myself.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Isobel,’ I say. ‘I wanted to tell you, but I thought Emma might finish the relationship before you found out. I was put in a very awkward position.’

  ‘I understand your dilemma, Lucy. But you should have decided that on balance, I had the right to know this.’ She picks up a briefcase and holds it with both hands in front of her body. I start to imagine what might be inside. For a moment I wonder if she is planning to shoot Guy. But with her monthly allowance, she could have hired someone, I rationalise.

  ‘Actually, you have done me a favour because four weeks ago I wouldn’t have uncovered the extent of his deception, and might even have considered some sort of reconciliation,’ she says. ‘I might not have realised that he is a compulsive liar.’

  She undoes the briefcase and brings out various bits of paper and photographs. She starts to list things. Some are familiar to me, others come as a surprise. She knows about Emma living in their flat in Clerkenwell. She knows that he caught nits indirectly from my children. She knows that his secretary is complicit in the deception. She even knows that Emma and I broke into their family home. She looks up at me when she says that, and I look at my feet like a contrite child.

  ‘Sorry, I feel awful. I thought if Emma deleted the message I might be able to change the course of history.’

  Other discoveries come as a surprise. Emma has met his two youngest children. She spent a weekend in a hotel near their Dorset retreat, so that Guy could come and see her when he said he was going running. Isobel even has information on another woman that he has slept with a couple of times over the past year.

  ‘She meant nothing to me, Emma,’ Guy says, pleading with her to reconsider her position.

  ‘It’s too late, Guy,’ says Emma. ‘When I went to your house that night, I realised that you never had any intention of leaving your wife.’

  ‘How can you apologise to her when you have been married to me for more than ten years?’ says Isobel to Guy. Silent tears stream down her cheeks and her carefully applied eye make-up starts to smudge. I offer her a dirty tissue that I find in my pocket and walk over to put my arm around her, but she pushes it away.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ says Emma. ‘I didn’t mean for all this to happen.’

  ‘What did you mean to happen?’ asks Isobel sharply, walking slowly towards Emma. ‘Actions have consequences.’

  ‘I think I was just enjoying the moment,’ says Emma, shrinking back towards the bedside table. ‘I thought I was in love. Guy is the one who should have felt responsible for his actions, not me.’

  ‘You have no right to fall in love with someone else’s husband,’ shouts Isobel, who is now standing less than a couple of feet in front of Emma. ‘You didn’t just take him away from me, you took him away from his children. You even met two of my children and felt no remorse for what you were doing. You wanted to steal someone else’s family, because you have none of your own.’

  Isobel pulls out an envelope. ‘Photographic evidence,’ she says, banging it down on the dressing table.

  Mostly Guy is too shell-shocked to speak. I wonder whether Emma had already finished the relationship with Guy when Isobel stormed into the bedroom.

  I glance at the bed. It hasn’t been used and, following the thread of Emma’s comments earlier this evening, I immediately understand that this is significant. I look more closely and realise that there are different objects and items of clothing placed on a bedcover with the same green and purple design as the one in my own room. They are carefully laid out. It is a little like those memory games children play when you put random objects on to a tray and then have to remember what was there five minutes later. I recognise the Agent Provocateur bra and knickers that Emma took from Guy’s house, partly because the bra strap was broken during our tussle. They take pride of place in the middle of the bed. The Rabbit sits vertically to the left of the knickers. To the right is an assortment of other items that I imagine were presents from Guy to Emma: a bracelet identical to the one that Isobel is wearing on her wrist; Jo Malone perfume; a novel; and a series of plane tickets from various weekends away. At the foot of the bed is the now empty black Chloe Paddington.

  ‘I was in the middle of finishing the relationship, Lucy,’ says Emma, looking towards me for approval. ‘I told you that it would all be over by the end of the weekend.’

  ‘You said that you were in Germany,’ interrupts Isobel to address Guy. ‘How can you lie to me with such conviction? Do you not have any respect for me or our children?’ She stands stock-still and because she remains stationary, everyone else is rooted to the spot.

  Guy looks panic-stricken. His eyes are wild. His gaze flits from one person to the other before finally resting at a neutral position somewhere in the middle distance. He is watching himself in the mirror of the dressing table.

  ‘Our marriage was dead on its feet,’ he says coldly. ‘I was just a wallet to you. You didn’t even want to consider me changing jobs because you enjoyed the perks too much. We hardly had sex. Our life was so prescribed by your endless plans that I was drowning. Suffocating in suburbia.’

  ‘Notting Hill is hardly suburbia,’ says Isobel.

  ‘Suburbia is a state of mind,’ counters Guy.

  ‘We had sex every two weeks, that’s pretty good going,’ she says. ‘Isn’t it, Lucy?’

  ‘She’s right,’ says Emma. ‘Lucy has gone for a lot longer than that without having sex with Tom.’

  ‘That’s because she doesn’t have any staff,’ says Isobel.

  It is the first time that any of them have referred to me. It is strange, but although there is a weird but explicable logic to their presence in the hotel, there is none to mine, and yet no one questions what I am doing here in the middle of the night. I look at my watch and realise that it is after two o’clock in the morning. I start to worry about how tired I am going to be tomorrow and wonder how I can extricate myself from this room and get Diego to call a taxi for me to go home. Suddenly, there is nowhere in the world that I would rather be than in bed with Tom lying asleep beside me.

  I remember with shock that Robert Bass is in the bath in the bedroom opposite. This seems even more extraordinary to me now than it did ten minutes ago. I am caught up in the excitement of other people’s lives, and have forgotten the drama of my own. This is because my own is resolved. I notice a chair by the open door and sit down. Everyone looks at me suspiciously. It is clear that no one wants me to leave.

  ‘Should I shut the door?’ I ask Isobel. ‘I think it would be better shut.’

  ‘No, leave it open please, Lucy,’ she says.

  In the corridor I can hear more raised voices. Perhaps this sort of thing happens all the time. Perhaps in another room, further down the corridor, an identical scene is being played out. Diego must be used to this kind of thing. I can hear his voice outside.

  ‘Come this way, please, this way, the noise was coming from here, it might be some of the anxious delegates,’ he whispers. Still sitting on the chair, because it seems to unsettle everyone if it looks as though I am leaving, I shuffle far back to lean into the corridor to see what is going on. If it is Robert Bass, perhaps I will be able to head him off before anyone sees him. But it is another couple.

  ‘I’m going to see what’s going on,’ I tell the assembled company.

  ‘Don’t be long, will you?’ says Guy, a note of panic in his voice. I look at him blankly. He doesn
’t want to be left alone in the room with Isobel and Emma.

  I go into the corridor. By this time, the couple has almost reached the room.

  ‘Lucy,’ shouts one of them in astonishment. ‘What’s going on?’ It is my brother and he is holding Cathy’s hand.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ I say, speaking in a whisper, as though I am showing latecomers to their seats at the theatre. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m speaking at the conference tomorrow,’ whispers Mark. ‘My room is on this floor. The man from reception said there was an altercation and asked me to investigate. The hotel is full of anxiety delegates.’

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ I ask Cathy. ‘Are you one of the anxious people?’

  ‘Only to see you,’ she says. ‘Actually, I’m spending the night here. With your brother.’

  She looks down at her feet in embarrassment. I am glad that I was a news hack for so many years, because I have never lost the ability to absorb information from multiple sources all at once, and immediately prioritise what is most significant, while simultaneously processing the short-, medium- and long-term repercussions. So the downside will be the following: 1) listening to Cathy eulogise my brother, 2) dealing with them both if the relationship fails and, 3) telling Emma.

  ‘We were going to tell you,’ Cathy says quickly. ‘I wanted to find the right moment. Besides, it hasn’t been going on for more than a month.’

  ‘But he’s so unreliable,’ I say to Cathy. ‘Are you sure you want to take that risk?’

  ‘That’s so disloyal, Lucy,’ says Mark, but he isn’t angry. Actually, he has that docile expression of a man in the early stages of love.

  ‘More to the point, Lucy, what are you doing here?’ asks Mark.

  I point to room 508 and give them a brief précis of what has happened.

  ‘I think it is fundamental to get everyone out of here as quickly as possible,’ I say to Mark, trying not to reveal any self-interest.

  We all go back into the bedroom. Isobel and Emma are still arguing. Guy is sitting on the bed, holding his head in his hands. His clothes are still undone. No one looks surprised to see more people come into the room. Three impartial observers should dilute the tension a little.

  ‘I’m Lucy’s brother, Mark,’ says Mark, shaking hands with the assembled company, and giving Emma a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. ‘And this is my girlfriend Cathy, whom you, Guy, have already met.’ He puts his arm around Cathy and smiles proprietorially, as though the real reason that we are all gathered in this room is to celebrate his new relationship. He stands there, waiting for people to congratulate him. Cathy smiles up at him happily. This could become tiresome, I think to myself, unable to resist smirking at Guy’s look of perplexity.

  Then I see Emma’s face and realise that for her the sudden blossoming of this relationship is more uncomfortable.

  ‘I didn’t realise that you had a brother,’ says Isobel, politely shaking hands with Mark.

  ‘I think we’re heading home soon. Isobel, shall I drop you on the way?’ I ask, but it is more command than question. She looks at me for further direction and then nods in assent. Her shoulders slump and I urge her to pack up all the papers and photographs that she has carefully assembled on the dressing table.

  ‘We’ll take Emma home,’ says Cathy. I note that she is already making decisions on Mark’s behalf.

  ‘But aren’t we going to spend the night here?’ Mark asks Cathy, running his fingers through her hair and using the arm he has carelessly slung around her shoulder to pull her close to him.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to Clerkenwell on my own,’ says Emma in front of everyone. ‘Can I stay with you, Lucy? Just until I can move back into my old flat again. I can’t face being taken home by Cathy and your brother. I had always thought that perhaps we might manage to make things work between us.’

  I can’t quite believe that Emma has chosen the very moment that Mark has publicly revealed his relationship with Cathy for the first time, to declare unresolved issues with him. Not for the first time I wonder whether Mark is right, that she would benefit from a spell with a therapist to get things straight in her head.

  ‘We’d be a disaster,’ says Mark a little too hastily. ‘Anyway, it’s always a mistake to revisit old relationships.’

  So I agree to phone Tom to tell him that Emma will be arriving home soon and staying indefinitely, while I deliver Isobel to her home in Notting Hill.

  I find it easy to direct everyone else away from this hotel, but it is less clear how I will explain my own presence here when the inevitable inquest takes place later. I begin to feel quietly confident that I might get away with a blurry story about following Emma here after leaving her private members’ club, because of residual concerns about her wellbeing. As long as no one dissects the facts too closely, I might be able to neutralise any residual suspicion with this account.

  But I will need to prepare for Tom’s precision questioning.

  ‘But didn’t you say that you left first?’ I could imagine him saying. ‘And how come you happened to be passing that hotel, when it is so far from where you spent the evening and not on your route home?’ Hopefully, the drama of everyone else’s evening might sate his curiosity and divert him from this logic.

  ‘What about me?’ Guy asks me as everyone prepares to leave. His tone is a little petulant, as though I am responsible for sorting out everyone.

  ‘I think you might have to spend the night here or go to your flat in Clerkenwell,’ I tell him, perplexed that he is looking to me to resolve his accommodation problems and is unable to absorb the repercussions of what has occurred over the past hour.

  ‘The room was booked anyway, and if this one isn’t available for the whole night I’m sure they can find another one.’

  ‘Please can I come home with you?’ he pleads with Isobel.

  ‘I can’t believe that you have apologised to her for your infidelity with another woman, shown no remorse for what you have done to me and the children, and then ask to come back and spend the night with me. What you need to understand about adultery is that it adulterates your existing relationship. It takes something away that can never be put back in the same way,’ she says angrily, pointing at Emma and then turning to Guy again. ‘You assume you have the right to do whatever you please without any repercussions. Your arrogance is your biggest failing.’

  ‘But where am I going to live?’ he asks, noticing that his trousers are still unzipped and pulling them up around his waist.

  ‘That’s not my problem. You have forfeited your right to call our house your home. You can move into the flat in Clerkenwell,’ she says. ‘Come round tomorrow afternoon and we can explain everything to the children.’

  ‘But what will I tell them?’ he says.

  ‘That you have fallen in love with someone else,’ she says, starting to sob again, her voice rising. ‘I can’t have him back,’ she addresses all of us. ‘There are degrees of betrayal, and Guy’s is complete. I could never trust him again, especially since this woman isn’t the first, and I’m sure she won’t be the last. Our marriage fell at the first fence.’

  Everyone concurs and nods wisely, even Mark, who has rarely left a relationship without a period of overlap with some other woman. Perhaps over time she might reconsider, during a period of cold reflection, when the emotional resonance of this evening has faded. Guy might change. The experience might humble him. Both of them might come to the realisation that they had left their marriage to grow wild for too long, that marriage is more than an act of faith, it requires careful tending and pruning. I feel as though I am looking at the logical extension of my breakdown in communications with Tom, as though I have been given the chance to see what happens if the rot sets in. I resolve to go home and tell him everything from beginning to end.

  Just at the moment that I am beginning to feel as though the evening is drawing to a close, Robert Bass appears, with a white towel wrapped round his wais
t. He comes into the room.

  ‘I’ve been waiting in there for so long,’ he says to me, pointing at the room opposite. Then he realises that there are five other people staring at him. For what seems like ages there is silence. He runs his hands through his hair.

  ‘What are all these people doing here?’ he finally asks. ‘Is this a honey trap? I should have known better than involve myself with you, you’re a recipe for disaster. My wife is probably in the wardrobe.’ We all look nervously at the wardrobe and even I wonder whether she might choose this moment to make an appearance.

  ‘Oh my God, Lucy,’ says Cathy, looking distressed, ‘what is he doing here?’

  Isobel looks stunned.

  ‘You’re all at it,’ she sobs. ‘I can’t believe you’re having an affair with a father on the school run. It’s all so corrupt.’

  ‘I thought he was an old friend from Newsnight?’ questions Mark, closing the door.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s the Sexy Domesticated Dad,’ says Isobel to everyone. ‘They’ve been flirting all year. I thought it was a bit of banter. I never thought that it would transmute into a fully fledged affair.’

  ‘I can’t believe that you’ve done this,’ says Emma, her hand over her mouth in shock.

  ‘She’s no better than me, it’s the worst kind of hypocrisy,’ says Guy, animated for the first time in the evening.

  Coincidence might make you feel as though there is a strange logic to life, but too many in one evening underline its essential chaos, as though anything could happen at any time.

  ‘Nothing has happened,’ I tell everyone. They look unconvinced.

  ‘He’s virtually naked, Lucy,’ says Cathy. ‘It doesn’t look good.’

  ‘That’s because he’s just had a bath,’ I say, as though they might find this a credible explanation.

  ‘Lucy, no one comes to a hotel like this to have a bath,’ says Mark angrily. ‘You’ll be telling me next that you came so you could listen to the World Service.’

  ‘Actually, I have been listening to the World Service,’ I say. ‘I cannot believe how hypocritical you all are. Apart from Isobel, you are all involved in infidelity of one kind or another. I have spent the past year debating what to do about this man and we haven’t even kissed properly.’