The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy (22 page)

‘What is my sort? Are there many of us on the run?’ I hear myself ask. ‘Do you really think there is a movement of mothers, distracted to madness by a combination of sleep deprivation, financial worries and overflowing laundry baskets, who find an outlet for their frustration by engaging in small-scale credit card fraud? Of course, if there is we will be held to account because mothers are such an easy target.’

I stop in mid-rant, because everyone is looking at me and I can see Robert Bass peering out through the windscreen in the garage forecourt.

‘Besides, we’re waiting for the police to arrive,’ the manager continues, staring at me with a more worried look in his eye. Bad, bad, bad and getting worse. Robert Bass comes in to the shop, looking exasperated, running his hands nervously through his hair.

‘We’re going to be late,’ he says.

‘Is this your accomplice?’ says the manager, looking him up and down.

‘Something like that,’ says Robert Bass with exasperation. ‘What’s going on, Lucy?’ I explain to him.

They make us sit behind the counter on a wooden bench.

‘It’s a bit more comfortable than the one we were sitting on the other night,’ I say, trying to inject a little lightness into proceedings. But he sits beside me holding his head in his hands, nervously ruffling his fine head of hair.

‘I promise it will all be all right,’ I say to him, my hand hovering in the air somewhere near his shoulder.

‘Don’t talk and keep your hands in your lap, please,’ says the manager. ‘You might have a weapon.’

Half an hour later, a policeman arrives, wearing a bulletproof vest. Surely not for our benefit. He tells the manager not to waste his time and to phone my bank. The bank tells him that I have lost eleven credit cards so far this financial year and advises him to cut this one up and let us go.

We get back in the car in silence.

‘I don’t know how your husband deals with all this,’ Robert Bass says weakly. He tilts the seat back as far as it will go and shuts his eyes. An image I had imagined many times earlier in the day, but not under these circumstances.

‘On the surface, your life looks so routine, but actually underneath it bubbles and backfires like an anarchic Central American country. Nothing is predictable,’ he says, his eyes still shut. ‘I can’t imagine how he copes.’

‘Well, I don’t tell him most of it,’ I say.

‘You’re good at keeping secrets, then.’ And he doesn’t speak again, until we reach Alpha Mum’s house.

‘You make up an excuse, it’s your speciality. I don’t have the energy,’ he says, sighing as I switch off the engine.

Alpha Mum opens the door looking smart-casual, a look that has always baffled me.

‘You’re rather late,’ she says. ‘I suppose that was to be expected. Still, I have printed an agenda so it shouldn’t take too long.’

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Something came up.’

She leads us into the kitchen and asks whether we would like a drink. I nod and am about to request a glass of white wine when she directs me to a drawer filled with teas for all occasions. It’s going to be a long evening.

‘What do you fancy?’ I ask Robert Bass. ‘“Sublime Dreams”, “Renewed Vigour” or “Tension Tamer”?’

‘The last one sounds good,’ he says weakly.

A bookshelf of parenting manuals catches my eye.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families
,
Positive Parenting from A to Z
,
Going to School: How to Help your Child Succeed
.

‘Which parenting philosophy do you subscribe to, Lucy?’ she asks.

‘Slow mothering,’ I say, making it up as I go along. ‘It’s part of the slow-town, slow-food movement, aimed at producing free-range children.’

‘Oh,’ she says, trying to mask her surprise. ‘I haven’t heard of that one.’

On the wall beside the fridge is a wallchart of weekly activities that is as tall as me. While the kettle is boiling, I go over to inspect. Kumon maths, Suzuki violin, chess, yoga for children.

‘It must be difficult keeping on top of all that,’ I say, pointing to the wallchart.

‘It’s the O-word, Lucy.’ She smiles knowingly. ‘Everything flows from there.’

‘Oh . . .’ I mouth, my mind wandering.

‘O for organisation,’ she counters sternly and calls for the meeting to convene.

‘Let’s begin with our mission statement,’ she says, looking at us both. This is what happens to successful professional women if they give up work and don’t have enough to do. McKinsey Mums, too much time, too much energy, too little instinct, I think to myself, trying to maintain a frozen expression of enthusiastic interest.

‘I want my term in office to be remembered for the intellectual rigour introduced to school events,’ she says. Robert Bass looks taken aback. ‘So, at the Christmas party, before Santa and his little helper hand out presents, I am proposing a short concert of Ancient English Christmas Carols.’ She hands us copies of three she has chosen from a book of the same title.

‘Don’t you think it should be about having fun?’ says Robert Bass, skim-reading the words to: 1) ‘Wassail, wassail all over the town’, 2) ‘Bring us in good ail’, 3) ‘As I rode out this enders night’. ‘The children will be very excited about Father Christmas arriving. Besides, they are only five years old, it’s unrealistic to think they can learn these,’ he protests.

‘Precisely,’ says Alpha Mum, ‘which is why
we
are going to sing them.’ He chokes on his tea.

‘But I can’t sing,’ he says weakly.

‘That doesn’t matter, because no one will recognise you. You will both be in costume.’ We look at her blankly. ‘Santa and his little helper,’ she says, pointing theatrically at each of us.

‘No,’ groans Robert Bass.

‘I expected some resistance from Lucy over this, but not from you,’ says Alpha Mum frostily.

But I am entranced by the sight of Robert Bass undoing his shirtsleeves and rolling them up. What is it about forearms? Alpha Mum seems unmoved.

‘That all sounds wonderful,’ I say dreamily.

‘Traitor,’ he mouths across the table.

I am a little taken aback. But it is not until I offer him a lift home, when the meeting finishes an hour later, that I realise the toll the evening has taken. ‘No thanks, Lucy. I think it’s safer that way.’ In a different world, he could be referring to the danger of our smouldering attraction spinning out of control. Sadly, the truth is more pedestrian: I cause him too much anxiety of a non-sexual kind.

So it is with some surprise a couple of weeks later, that I arrive at school for the Christmas party to find Robert Bass enthusiastically waving a hip flask at me from the children’s loo, dressed as Father Christmas.

Since the failure of the evening at Alpha Mum’s, my lustful feelings towards him had begun to deflate like a slow puncture, especially after he spurned my offer of a lift home. I could no longer indulge in the fantasy that I was secretly irresistible to him and as this reality gained currency, my infatuation seemed ridiculous. Reason started to seep back.

‘Quick, I’ve managed to escape her,’ he says theatrically, referring to Alpha Mum. ‘Dutch courage. I made it myself. It’s completely organic.’ He looks out to see if anyone is watching us, before pulling me by the arm into the loo, and leaning firmly against the door. He pulls his beard down round his neck and takes a slug of sloe gin.

‘Don’t you think you should slow down?’ I say. He seems more reckless than usual.

‘It’s the only way I can deal with that woman. She’s dressed as the Fairy Queen. She’s covered in flashing lights. Like Oxford Street,’ he babbles. He offers me a drink and I take a gulp to show solidarity and immediately start to overheat.

‘Why don’t you take your coat off, Lucy,’ he says taking another slug. ‘It can’t be that bad under there.’

But it is. Underneath the ankle-length coat that Tom has lent me, I am wearing a bespoke elf costume, hastily fashioned for the occasion by Alpha Mum. Although she told me proudly that it was inspired by an ice-skating outfit, it is aimed, I suspect, at causing maximum humiliation. It comprises a short green felt dress, cinched at the waist, with a pleated skirt designed to maximise the size of my bum.

‘What do you think?’ I ask nervously.

‘Ho, ho, ho. That might just get me through the day. You look like some gorgeous overripe fruit, like a greengage,’ he says, stepping backwards and crashing into the sink. ‘There has to be some upside to this.’ I have never seen him like this before. When we had gone to the pub together his drinking habits were notably restrained. I go over to pull him up.

‘Sorry, I haven’t had anything to eat,’ he said.

‘How’s the book going?’ I ask, in an effort to restore a semblance of normality.

‘Awful,’ he says. ‘I’m stuck. It’s crap. And I’ve missed two deadlines.’

Someone starts banging at the door.

‘Father Christmas, it’s the Fairy Queen, and I order you to come out. Are you in there with the Elf?’

‘No,’ he shouts. ‘Just coming, I’m adjusting myself.’ He pulls up his beard. The opening, where the mouth should be, is round by his right ear.

‘Why did you lie?’ I hiss to him. ‘Now it will look as though we have been doing something illicit if we come out together.’

‘Climb out the window,’ he says, breathing sloe gin fumes all over me. The opening is tiny and I climb out head first. This is the second time in less than two months that I have found myself doing this and I have learnt nothing from the previous experience.

All goes well until my bum gets stuck. The skirt of the dress is up around my shoulders, and I know that the only thing shielding my buttocks from Robert Bass is the pair of woolly tights. I squirm and wriggle and Robert Bass pushes and in different circumstances this might count as pleasure. I look up and see Yummy Mummy No. 1 approaching down the road.

‘I’m not going to ask,’ she says, as I stretch my arms towards her, and she starts to pull me out.

‘We need to roll her slightly on her side,’ she shouts to Robert Bass, clearly enjoying the challenge.

‘This cork is going to pop,’ she shrieks gleefully.

Robert Bass manhandles me into position and I slide out on to the pavement, my dignity in tatters.

‘We’re just practising,’ I tell her. ‘It’s the same size as a chimney.’

Later that night, I considered the incident. A certain familiarity had entered the equation, more Laurel and Hardy than
Love Story
, and for a short while the idea that we might become friends, as Cathy had suggested a couple of months ago, took hold. I felt relieved. I could now take Tom’s necklace, when it reappeared, in good faith.

‘You should know a man seven years before you stir his fire’

I KNOW THAT
Christmas is going to be a study in diplomacy when my father answers the door on Christmas Eve, wearing a woolly hat. It is one of those brightly coloured Afghan affairs with earflaps. It could be an affectation to provoke Petra, who frowns on this kind of sartorial rebelliousness. Most probably he is wearing it because it is so cold in their farmhouse on the edge of the Mendips. I hug him hello, holding him tightly, out of genuine affection, but also to calculate how many layers he is wearing. It’s a better augur of what lies ahead in terms of temperature than any thermometer.

‘Don’t think I don’t realise what you are doing, Lucy,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘The answer is three, not including my vest.’ The subject of heating in my parents’ home is older than me. The general consensus is that the house is poorly insulated, the radiators inefficient and the double-glazing woefully inadequate, because it was bought cheaply from someone doing phone sales in the mid-seventies. My parents are famously fond of a good bargain.

The wide inglenook fireplaces, which promise so much warmth with their stone seats either side of the hearth, blow down cold air and suck up the heat remorselessly. Many times over the years, I have seen guests arrive and go into the sitting room, take off their coats and jumpers when they see logs
crackling on the fire, only to spend the rest of the visit surreptitiously replacing those layers to avoid offending my parents. They have come to enjoy the spectacle and have been known to place bets on who will cave in first.

It is a cruel deception, the warmth and cosiness of a fire without any heat, like a loveless marriage. At least from a distance it is possible to maintain the illusion of comfort. If you get too close, the realisation that there is no hope of getting warmer somehow makes you feel even colder. So we learnt long ago to huddle together on the two sofas in the sitting room. These are soggy beasts with geometric patterns that date from our childhood. In a classic piece of improvisation, my mother has placed a couple of pillows underneath the main cushions to compensate for the worn springs. Even those with generous buttocks are known to wince if they sit down too heavily.

The underlying truth of what Tom has dubbed the Cold War is that my parents have a Presbyterian view on comfort derived from their experience as children during the Second World War and have never really abandoned the idea of rationing. Even though my father swears that he doesn’t switch it off at night, all through the winter, after the ten o’clock news, the heat is mysteriously sucked from the radiators amidst a great deal of gurgling and rattling, and any nocturnal visits to the bathroom are a teeth-chattering experience.

It is almost six months since we last came to visit and the distance means I view my parents with unwonted dispassion. So I note that my father looks a little older and shabbier. My mother has cut his hair and it hangs in great gashes along the edge of his frayed collar. When he lifts up an arm to hug me, I notice a gaping hole in his jumper. Long black hairs poke from his ears and nostrils like unpruned bushes.

He has put on a tie to please Petra, who believes a man isn’t really dressed unless he is wearing one. In combination with the hat, however, it somehow looks like another attempt to irritate her. Of course, once I tell him that she is running away to Marrakesh to live with a former lover, he won’t feel the need to poke fun at her. It is the kind of action of which he approves but would never engage in himself. Like me, he enjoys living vicariously.