Free The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill Page B

using a later photograph that even I recognise is him playing a robber in
Pulp Fiction
. This time it says he is a civil engineer based in northern England. Then Emma finds David Cameron.
    ‘How can this man be so stupid to think that women won’t recognise the leader of the Tory party?’ says Tom. ‘Besides, I can’t imagine that many women find him attractive.’ Silence.
    ‘I can’t believe that you all fancy David Cameron,’ says Tomincredulously. ‘Sometimes I find women completely incomprehensible. I think you should ask for a refund, Cathy. Or some free dates. Or at least a couple of discount dates, if they stretch to that. I can’t believe that any man would go to those lengths to get a date. What can be wrong with them?’
    ‘Actually, they do very well out of it. My last date was sleeping with five different women,’ explains Cathy. ‘What do you think, Lucy?’
    ‘I think you should investigate the men in Tom’s office first. And avoid married men, if possible. Although sometimes I know it’s difficult to tell or resist.’
    ‘I wish you could come out with me, Lucy, and use your radar to sort out the wheat from the chaff,’ she says.
    ‘Well, I owe her a couple of nights’ babysitting, so why don’t you take her with you?’ says Tom.
    ‘Isn’t he so lovely,’ they chorus. ‘What a great husband.’
    I don’t mention the fact that men rarely pay back the babysitting debt and that with the Milan project back on track, he will be travelling backwards and forwards to Italy for much of the foreseeable future. Tom basks in the adulation. In fact, I think he panders to their expectations. There is no level playing field in the domestic point-scoring game. Women always start in the foothills, with higher to climb and further to fall. A man who changes a nappy bounds ahead, while a woman who performs the same task in half the time, using three economic movements and a quarter of the wipes, barely registers progress. Consider the phenomenon of men glory cooking for dinner parties, with guests falling over each other to find adjectives that adequately sum up the sumptuousness of the spread and the inventiveness of the cook. But the reality is that they learnt two recipes from the River Café ten years ago andrecycle them shamelessly when there is a chance for plaudits, while children’s meals are considered beneath their dignity.
    No one bothers to score the blushing spaghetti bolognese, the diffident baked potatoes, or the humble shepherd’s pies that mothers peddle to the table twice a day every day. They don’t find their own way from fridge to table. And there is a fluency in their repetition that is as ancient as those leaf-cutter ants carrying bits back to their nest, doggedly fulfilling their genetic job description without any fuss.
    I look at Tom talking to my friends and try and see him as they do: a man at ease with himself, confidently negotiating his way around the shared intimacies of this group of women, in a manner that is neither too intrusive nor dominating. A man who enjoys his mid-week football with friends and manages to live off the pleasures of a hat trick for at least a couple of months. A man who goes to the pub for a few beers and then consumes only that. Reflected back to me through my friends, I know that I should consider myself a lucky woman. But no one can dissect a marriage except for the two people involved, and even then it is difficult to see round the corners. And there are always lots of angles and points of view. For example, the lightness of heart after three children have successfully been bedded for the evening has to be measured against the bone-aching tiredness that comes with the end of the day. Is it a good moment to mention that you have lost the house keys again? Does the relief of silence compensate for the irritation of nine o’clock feeling like a late night out?
    I ponder on the impossible vagaries of relationships, whereby things that were once