The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy Read Online Free PDF Page A

for Joe’s jumper, and then raced to nursery with Fred,’ I tell them, leaning forward for dramatic effect. ‘And this was all before nine o’clock.’
    ‘No,’ they say in awe.
    ‘Do you really want more?’ I ask. They nod.
    ‘I went to the shops, raced home to unload everything, lowered the clothes mountain by about a foot, dealt with the discovery that Fred has been using the bin in our bathroom to pee in for two weeks, and then ran to his nursery to get him. Fred had a friend to play so I phoned my mother while they were upstairs. Then I discovered they had taken out all of Sam’s clothes from his chest of drawers, so I had to tidy up the mess. By then it was time to go back to school to pick up Sam and Joe. Then there was homework, tea, bathtime, and stories. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I played “I’m Jens Lehmann” for half an hour after tea.’ More puzzled looks. ‘He’s the Arsenal goalie. He’s almost a member of the family.’
    ‘But it can’t be like that,’ says Emma. ‘You are living our idyll. Don’t spoil it for us.’
    Actually, this was a good day, and I quite enjoy role-play as Jens Lehmann, but I don’t tell them that. There were no injuries. No illness. No breakages. Nothing to derail the status quo. I don’t mention the things that I do routinely, the endless cycle of cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing, partly because it has become second sense but mostly because even I can’t quite believe that the contours of my existence have become defined by this domestic treadmill.
    Besides, I am almost certain that Emma is too busy enjoying her own life to covet mine. She has a flat in Notting Hill and visibly winces on our infrequent visits with the children, when they leave tiny fingerprints all over the stainless-steel worktops and run their tractors up and down the pristine oak floor.
    The conversation quickly turns to more straightforward subjects including analysis of a new boyfriend. ‘Tell me if this even approximates normality,’ asks Cathy’s friend, the lassitude in her voice belying what is coming next. ‘He’ll only have sex with me if there’s a pillow covering my face, or I’m lying on my front. And he doesn’t want any physical contact afterwards.’
    ‘You mean he’s into asphyxiation?’ says Emma.
    ‘Could it be a cushion, or does it have to be a pillow?’ I ask, adding quickly, ‘He might have an interiors fetish.’
    ‘Do you mean it would be all right if he was depriving her of oxygen with that gorgeous Lucinda Chambers cushion from the Rug Company?’ asks Cathy.
    ‘I don’t know the one you mean, but there’s something less sinister about a cushion perhaps,’ I say. ‘There are more colours for a start.’
    ‘Look, he’s probably just gay,’ says Emma.
    ‘Just gay,’ says Cathy’s friend, her voice slightly trembling.‘But that’s even worse because then there’s no hope. I can be a lot of things but never a man.’
    Emma confirms that she is still road-testing hotels in Bloomsbury with a married father of four with whom she has been having an affair for the past eight months. They met during a dinner organised by a financial PR company to promote relations between bankers and journalists. ‘He says that he has had a sexual epiphany since he met me,’ she says gleefully. ‘For the first time in fifteen years he is capable of having sex more than once in a night.’
    ‘I bet Tom could do that, if he was sleeping with you,’ I say. ‘It’s not really about you, it’s about the novelty of having sex with someone who isn’t his wife and there’s nothing very profound about that.’
    ‘I think I am making it easier for him to stay married,’ she says, as though she is working in a soup kitchen on Christmas Day.
    Cathy reveals that she has had unprotected sex with someone she met at a party and then starts pondering even more exotic sexual practices.
    ‘Oh my God,’ I say, a little taken aback by her unusual lack of