The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill Page A

the course of my recent loss of faith. Tom is right. The seeds were probably sown more than a year ago with a phone call from Cathy just after midnight asking in the kind of shrunken voice that comes after hours of crying whether she could come round and see us and stay the night. She said she would tell us everything when she arrived with Ben, who was then three years old, but we knew what had happened. The fissures had been obvious for some time. There had been the sessions with a Relate counsellor, when the bitterness was already so deep that even the air around them tasted sour, and the stand-up row at my brother’s fortieth birthday party when Cathy had forgotten to tell her ex-husband that she needed to work over the weekend which meant he had to look after Ben and cancel his shiatsu massage. ‘Look, if I don’t work, we don’t have enough money,’ she shouted.
    ‘My therapist says that I have to have space to think and find my inner child,’ he brayed back.
    ‘I think you need to find your outer adult first,’ she retorted.
    ‘What is so awful,’ said Cathy, over several bottles of wine, after we had settled Ben upstairs, ‘is the fact that he is so far ahead in the decision-making process that there is no hope of reconciliation. You think that you know what someone is thinking, and then they tell you that they’re not sure that they ever even loved you, and you start wondering about the truth of your own feelings and losing all faith in them.’
    We nodded sagely. At that time I had never questioned the strength of our emotional fusion. Tom went upstairs and found her a handkerchief. When he handed it over she cried even more at his kindness.
    ‘You’re so reliable, Tom. If only I had married a man who arranged the spices alphabetically,’ she sobbed.
    ‘If only I had married a woman who appreciated that quality,’ he joked.
    ‘I thought that because we were married we would try to make it work even if it looked as though everything was stacked against us. I’m sure that he’s involved with someone else because he’s incapable of making a decision like this on his own.’
    When we went to bed that night Tom said, ‘Well, that’s the end of those Wednesday evening sessions with him watching football at the pub.’ And then he fell asleep. And that really seemed to be the extent of his regret. ‘Things change, people don’t, life moves on, Lucy,’ he said the next morning. ‘And actually Cathy will probably be better off without him. He’s never going to evolve.’
    ‘Lucy, Lucy, come on, we’re going to be late,’ Tom says, sweeping into the bedroom and putting on his jacket and a scarf.
    As we close the front door behind us, I get that feeling of lightness that comes with assuming the rearguard for a few hours and Tom, buoyed by similar thoughts, puts his hand out and I take it. Time alone is a precious commodity and the thought of simply being, rather than doing, is a sensation that we both relish. For a few paces we walk along in silent harmony and I feel a surge of optimism that my disturbed equilibrium could be restored if only we had more time alone together. For perhaps as long as a minute I reconnect with a time before children, when it was just Tom and me, when we could stay inbed at the weekends, read all the newspapers, and go on mini-breaks. Then I realise that the car has disappeared.
    ‘Oh, God. I left it outside school this afternoon, because the boys wanted to walk home. I’m really sorry,’ I tell him, trying to anticipate how long I might pay for this infringement, a rough calculation that involves judging to what extent his forthcoming trip compensates for his absence to make introductions at the restaurant, a detail that he would consider important, but not crucial. I decide on balance that the library in Milan favours me. And I am right. Time alone in harmony is a commodity he recognises has value.
    ‘Don’t worry, I’ll run and get it, you start walking towards