The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy (21 page)

‘You have probably been wondering what all this is about,’ she starts off gamely. She is still wearing her coat, with the top button done up, and it reminds me so much of Tom that I have to resist the urge to laugh. There must be a buttoned-up gene.

‘I think I know,’ I say, hoping to wrong-foot her with my proactive approach. She looks at me a little surprised.

‘I’ve noticed you watching me,’ I say.

‘I know. I have been wanting to say something for ages,’ she says, eyeing me apprehensively. ‘But I’ve been putting it off, and now things have got to a point that if I don’t say something I think it will cause even more damage.’

‘It’s not always easy being married,’ I say, deciding to deal with the situation head on. There isn’t time to saunter through this, because in less than two hours I have to pick up Fred from nursery. ‘You go through different phases, complete compatibility doesn’t really exist.’

‘Indeed,’ she says. ‘Often, the very things that attract us to someone end up being the things that we find most difficult to live with. Compatibility is something to work towards.’ She has a mouthful of cappuccino and takes an unnervingly long time to swallow. When she looks up, there is a thin line of froth above her upper lip.

‘Very true,’ I nod in assent. ‘It’s not always easy to be tolerant.’

‘You are very intuitive, Lucy,’ she says. ‘And honest. Marriage is indeed a series of compromises and women are better chameleons than men. You might see it as the burden of being female but actually it is liberating rather than restricting
because it allows the possibility of loving many different people.’

‘That doesn’t make it any easier,’ I say. Ten minutes earlier, it would have seemed inconceivable to have such a conversation with my mother-in-law, and I am struggling to absorb this unexpected change in the parameters of our relationship. She, on the other hand, has adjusted with apparent ease.

‘But I think that if you can compromise with one person you can do it with another,’ Petra says. ‘The idea that people roam the world in search of their perfect mate has always seemed absurd to me. I think we are capable of finding many different people attractive and that if we have that chance then we should exploit it.’

She sits back in her chair, looking slightly relieved, as though she has been searching for these words for months, practising this conversation in her head late at night. I, on the other hand, am stunned by her directness and am at a loss to know what to say. This is not what I was expecting. I desperately try to recall moments over the past six months that I have allowed her such unqualified access to the inner workings of my mind. Although I know that she has disapproved of me, perhaps in some depth, over the previous decade, I am surprised that she wants to dispose of me so easily. It seems as though she is giving me carte blanche to have an affair. I actually feel a little hurt that she considers our marriage to have so little value.

‘I always thought you believed in monogamy, Petra?’ I say, astonished. The shock of the conversation has made me raise my voice and I look round to find dozens of pairs of eyes watching us. This is not the right backdrop for this kind of discussion. Nor the right audience. These are not reality TV
fans. They are ‘Gardeners’ Question Time’ Radio 4 types who want quiet chat about the best kind of lawnmower.

It is as though she has swept the ground from beneath my feet. Any assumptions that I have made about my mother-in-law are now open to question. She must be familiar with the concept of key parties, but to learn that Tom’s parents might have had an open marriage is too much to contemplate.

‘Of course I believe in monogamy,’ she says, looking a little shocked at the turn in conversation.

‘But you are talking about loving different people,’ I persist. ‘Do you mean in a platonic way, no sex involved?’

‘Well, I think that sex might be on the agenda,’ she says, looking very uncomfortable. ‘Although sex drive unwinds with age.’ She undoes the top button of her coat and starts using a menu to fan her flushed face.

‘I don’t think I am explaining myself very well,’ she says.

‘I think you are being unusually explicit,’ I say. People are purposefully staring at menus and spooning food into their mouths, but I know that all their efforts are concentrated on following our conversation, because they have stopped chewing and their cheeks are full, like hamsters.

‘Lucy. What I am trying to say, in a nutshell, is that I have met a man whom I once loved many years ago and I am moving to Marrakesh to live with him.’

I try to work out whether the sudden realisation that this conversation has been all about her and not me is equal to the shock of my mother-in-law telling me that she has fallen in love with someone else and is moving abroad. I sit there, staring at her for an uncomfortably long time.

‘Is it the man who painted the portrait of you?’ I ask, in a moment of inspiration.

‘It is,’ she says, looking shamefaced. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to tell Tom. I’ve known this man for years. All the time I was married to Tom’s father we never saw each other. He sent the occasional letter, but I never wrote back. I was unerringly faithful. Then a couple of years ago, he came to London and called me and we went out to lunch. He’s about twelve years older than me. I was only twenty when we had our affair. It’s just I have been offered this chance of happiness that I turned down forty years ago and I don’t want to let it go again.’

‘But why didn’t you marry him then?’ I ask.

‘Because he was unreliable. He drank too much. He would have never been faithful and we would have lived in penury,’ she says. ‘We had a grand passion. I never told Tom’s father. It wouldn’t have been right then, but it is right now.’

‘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 suddenly 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.’