The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy (16 page)

‘I think I might order champagne,’ she says.

‘I’m not sure they do champagne by the glass in pubs,’ I say. Although the pub might be a moderately hostile environment for us, we are at least capable of fading into the background. For Yummy Mummy No. 1 it is an entirely foreign affair.

She waves people over to try and order drinks and then offers the young girl in the silver dress a tip to take her coat to the cloakroom. I shrink with embarrassment.

‘Actually, I was thinking about a bottle,’ she says excitedly. ‘I mean, I know strictly speaking, there is nothing to celebrate, but perhaps we should commiserate in style.’ She gets up to go to the bar.

‘Safety in numbers I guess,’ says Robert Bass.

‘Not for the sheep,’ I say, pointing at the coat, and he laughs.

‘She said that she was driving home and saw us going into the pub and decided on a whim to come and join us.’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘She was really rooting for you during the vote. When Alpha Mum said that you are the kind of person who
would give a Snickers bar to a child with peanut allergy, she stood up and said that there are a lot of things that could be said about you, but no one could ever accuse you of being an inattentive mother, and that you had changed more nappies than she had eaten sliced bread,’ he says.

‘Well, that’s definitely true, because she’s been on a wheat-free diet for years,’ I say. ‘What did you say?’

‘Well, actually I didn’t say anything,’ he says.

I must look disappointed, because he adds, ‘I thought it might look as though . . .’ Then he stops, and I stare at him, willing him to finish the sentence because otherwise I will spend the rest of the night and the next week trying to fill in the blanks. ‘I thought it might look as though I was . . .’

But like me, he is transfixed by Yummy Mummy No. 1. We watch in wonder as the crowd parts seamlessly to allow her passage to the front and a barman comes over instantly and asks for her order. They recognise an exotic creature in their midst. She comes back to the table empty-handed and I commiserate.

‘That nice man is sorting everything out,’ she says. And sure enough a few minutes later the barman solicitously comes over to the table with a bottle of champagne, which he flamboyantly opens, and a packet of cigarettes.

‘I hope you don’t mind me joining you. After that whole debacle I really needed to unwind. Have you called your friend with the crisis back? She owes us all a drink. If you hadn’t disappeared, it would have been a hung vote,’ she says.

Robert Bass shifts uncomfortably in his seat and a gulf opens up between our lower arms. It is impossible to gauge how much he has revealed, so I opt for a skeletal response.

‘She’s going to call me later,’ I say, trying to resist any further elaboration. Although Yummy Mummy No. 1 is one of those
women who reveal only the most tangential details of her own life, she has this uncanny ability to inveigle other people into terrible indiscretion and then disapprove of their emotional incontinence.

She is not unfriendly. In fact, she is generally unerringly polite and attentive, although I suspect she has little interest in many of us. She is probably competitive, but I am neither rich, posh, nor thin enough to qualify as a legitimate rival. Nor am I sufficiently versed in the rules of engagement, which include complicated concepts such as wearing exactly the right proportion of Top Shop, designer and vintage. I couldn’t say whether she is certain of the ground beneath her feet, because I don’t really know much more about the machinations of her life now than I did when I first met her a year ago. There are few hints of a more complex interior dialogue. Maybe her life simply has an easy script. No bleak moments. No doubts.

I used to hang on to the few crumbs she threw my way, looking for clues that might reveal a dark crisis lurking within. But there were only so many questions that you could ask to calculate whether her need for ever more extravagant home improvements might reflect an inner crisis about the quality of her happiness.

Tonight, I notice that she has a large plaster and dressing on the palm of her left hand. Her hands are small and bony, almost childlike in their proportion, and the flesh has a translucent quality so that you can see the bone structure beneath the surface. They make you want to pick them up and stroke them.

‘How did you do that?’ I ask, hoping for clues that might hint at some hidden drama.

‘It’s slightly embarrassing,’ she says conspiratorially, and I lean forward towards her, because there is definitely the promise of intimacy.

‘My husband has to go to Brussels for a couple of nights,’ she says, ‘so he took me out to dinner at the Ivy and while I was trying to sever a particularly stubborn joint on the leg of my lobster, the scissors slipped and cut open my hand.’

She laughs loudly. I try to disguise my disappointment.

‘How unfortunate,’ I say. ‘How was your day?’

‘Busy, busy, busy,’ she says. Yummy Mummy No. 1, I notice, often repeats words three times, especially adjectives. It is a trait I have discussed with Tom. Although he conceded that such a tic could be an effective strategy to deflect questions he was unwilling to analyse further.

‘She’s got a great arse, that is all I need to know about that woman,’ Tom had said.

‘What exactly, exactly, exactly did you do?’ I persist. Sexy Domesticated Dad suppresses a smile.

‘I was rushing around all day, hitting deadlines, tying up loose ends, keeping all the balls in the air,’ she says, and then, when she sees that I am still dissatisfied, she continues. ‘I did a kick-boxing class with the gorgeous personal trainer, had lunch with a friend and then went to a flat that we have bought as a rental investment to check that the interior designer was on track.’

This was more like it. Of course this woman has an enviable existence. Perhaps what Yummy Mummy No. 1 represents is the logical evolution of the 1950s housewife, I think to myself in a moment of sudden lucidity. She embodies all those old symbols of homemaking: her house is immaculate; the sheets crisp and ironed; and rosy-cheeked children sit round the table
eating home-baked meals. She simply pays other people to achieve the effect and watches it all happen around her. She is a spectator to her own life.

Delegation, that’s what it’s all about. And the small matter of sufficient income to support the lifestyle. Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy you time and youth. Trips to the gym, forays to Selfridges, aromatherapy treatments. I would be good at that. Naturally, there would be some sacrifices. No more chocolate, for example. But it would be a small price to pay.

‘So did you call your friend back?’ asks Robert Bass, turning round to face me again. ‘That was quite a conversation you were having. You make a lot of assumptions about married men.’ I move my arm swiftly away from his, annoyed with him for sharing the details of my conversation in the toilet with Yummy Mummy No. 1. Partly because it underlines a depth of friendship with her that I haven’t really managed, but also because I know the vicarious pleasure she will get from accessing the grimy undercarriage of someone else’s life. Then I start to wonder whether her arrival was all part of a plan instigated by him to avoid spending time alone with me.

‘Actually, it’s a complicated situation,’ I say, trying to steer the conversation back on to safe territory, because surely there has to be a middle ground between the topics of three-way sex and a day in the life of Yummy Mummy No. 1. Somewhere safe between gritty and saccharin.

‘She’s having an affair with a married man,’ I say.

‘How married?’ asks Yummy Mummy No. 1.

‘Marriage is a black-and-white issue, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘There shouldn’t be degrees.’ But even as I’m saying it, I’m not sure
that I agree with my own hypothesis. My moral compass is wildly unsynchronised.

‘But for the record, one wife, four children, more than a decade of marriage,’ I say.

‘Just like me,’ she says smiling. ‘And you. Albeit with one less child. Does his wife know?’

‘I don’t think she’s got any idea. Actually I feel sorry for her, she’s probably so wound up in her children that she has put her husband on the back burner to retrieve at a later date, when she is less tired,’ I say. ‘Don’t you sometimes feel like calling up one of those missing persons hotlines and reporting your disappearance? “Help, I don’t know where I’ve gone, I got married, had children, gave up my job, made everyone around me happy and then disappeared. Please send out a search party.” ’

She looks at me in astonishment. ‘Always a bad idea to neglect your husband. Men can’t stand being sidelined. They stray. That’s why we have two weeks alone in the Caribbean every year. Everyone should do it,’ she says emphatically.

‘Perhaps,’ says Robert Bass diplomatically, ‘not everyone has the financial capacity or the childcare to do something like that.’

‘When you’ve got children, husbands drop further and further down the pecking order,’ I say. ‘Even below pets. Even goldfish.’ Robert Bass has fallen silent. The circle is complete, we are back at the beginning talking about fish.

‘Of course, infidelity could be construed as an act of fidelity to oneself,’ says Robert Bass without looking up.

‘That’s a radical concept,’ I say, staring at the empty bottle of champagne.

‘Shall we call it a night? I can give you both a lift home if you
want,’ says Yummy Mummy No. 1, looking at us suspiciously as though she realises there is a hidden undercurrent to the conversation that she is unable to access.

‘A guilty conscience needs no accuser’

THE SOUND OF MUSIC
is playing on the video in the sitting room and the children are arguing because Joe wants to rewind to the scene where the Nazis try to capture the von Trapp family.

‘Joe, nothing is going to change,’ I hear Sam shout at him with frustration. ‘It’s always going to be the same, they always escape. Even if you watch it a hundred times, everything will happen exactly the same way.’

‘But the colour of their shorts has changed. They used to be dark green and now they are definitely light green,’ says Joe, defensively hugging the television screen so that Sam cannot turn it off.

‘That’s because Mummy sat on the television controls and changed the settings,’ shouts Sam.

‘So things do change. I want to watch one more time, just in case this time the Nazis get them,’ Joe insists, chewing the sleeve of his pyjama top. This is a recently acquired habit, but already the cuffs of all his school shirts and jumpers are in tatters.

‘If the Nazis got them, then the film wouldn’t be suitable for children and Mum wouldn’t let us watch it,’ says Sam, trying to soothe him with logic, rather than brute force. ‘No one will betray the von Trapps.’

Fred is hiding behind the sofa. He has been quietly engaged
in a game with his tractors and trailers since I came into the sitting room. Although I know that a silent toddler is akin to an unexploded bomb, I decide that whatever he is doing, it is worth taking the risk so that I can deal with weeks of unopened post that has accumulated in the top drawer of my desk. I’ll deal with the consequences later.

To avoid unsettling Tom, every few days I pick up the envelopes that collect on the small table by the front door and stuff them into this drawer until it is full. Then I tackle the backlog. It is not a system that Tom would approve of, but its simplicity has some merit, especially since it allows me to censor anything that might prove contentious.

I wonder whether I should intervene in the dispute at the other end of the room. The issue is whether to indulge Joe’s neurosis and allow him to rewind, or force him to capitulate to Sam. I know that any involvement in peacekeeping will trigger further demands on my time. Pleas to play games, read books, wrestle, or do role play as Shane Warne. I am due for dinner at Emma’s new apartment in less than an hour, so I ignore them. If I could disappear for two hours a day, I would achieve so much.

I sit at my desk at the other end of the sitting room, trying to impose order on the chaos of unopened bills, bank statements and anonymous envelopes before Tom arrives back from Italy later tonight. It is an enterprise borne of contrition. Since the drink with Robert Bass earlier in the week, I am suffering from bouts of unresolved guilt. I haven’t lied to Tom. But I have economised with the truth. If he asks about what I did on Monday evening, what will I say? That I created a situation where I could sit close enough to a man I find so attractive that the hair on my arm stood on end when our flesh touched? That I am going to see this same man again later this week? That I
have vivid dreams about these feelings being reciprocated? I have dismissed Robert Bass as a fantasy, a welcome distraction, as harmless as a plant that offers colour through the grey tones of winter in London. But I realise that to compare him to the witch hazel flowering in our garden is disingenuous. And then there are the children. My mind races, as it is prone to do when unpleasant emotions take hold, and I imagine them grown up, telling friends tales of their mother’s treachery and how it has affected their ability to form lasting relationships with the opposite sex, and how it will affect their children and their children’s children until it is carried through the generations in their genetic code.

Unable to resolve this dilemma, I force myself to concentrate on the task at hand, arranging three large piles of papers. The first has mail specifically for Tom, the second bills that need to be paid immediately, and the third is a non-specific pile to be dealt with at a much later date, possibly never. The latter goes back in the drawer. I smile to myself, anticipating Tom’s elation at discovering his post in a neat orderly pile. Then I immediately feel guilty again, knowing that such a simple act will give him such pleasure. In many respects, he is easily pleased. He could have had a very harmonious marriage with a different kind of woman. If he had married his mother, for example.

I am stuffing envelopes that I most definitely do not want Tom to see in a drawer at the bottom of the desk. They include a couple of forgotten congestion charges, parking tickets and credit card bills. I now have seven different kinds of credit card debt. This is not a source of pride. However, I have found myself surprisingly adept at juggling these bills and trawling the Internet to find the best deals. Nought per cent finance for the first twelve months. Small print to make your heart sing.
When I walk home from school after a particularly busy period of debt exchange, I find myself giving Fred a status report. ‘Move Amex to Visa, move Visa to MasterCard, move MasterCard to Amex,’ I sing out loud, changing music according to my mood, ‘Jingle Bells’ being the tune of choice at the moment. I feel like a heavy hitter in the city, trading debt on the international market. Buy. Sell. Hold.