The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill

unidentifiable food stuck deep inside the pile, and inexplicable bald patches. It is a better record of Tom’s teenage years than any of the endless slides and blurred photos taken by his mother.
    It hails from an era of Laura Ashley prints and records by Status Quo. I feel something in the pocket and half-expect it to be a crumpled and stained page of a favourite big-breasted model torn from a 1978 edition of
Playboy
. But I couldn’t be more wrong. It is a page from an old edition of Mrs Beeton. I skim read a couple of sentences: ‘I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife’s badly cooked dinners and untidy ways. Men are now so well-served out of doors – at their clubs, well-ordered taverns, and dining-houses – that in order to compete with the attractions of these places, a mistress must be thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of cookery, as well as be perfectly conversant with all the other arts of making and keeping a comfortable home.’
    Mrs Beeton has a lot to answer for, I think to myself, moodily stuffing the piece of paper deep into the pocket of the dressing gown. How it came to be here I cannot understand, and I try to recall when the dressing gown was last called into commission. My mother-in-law stayed in this room most recently. I make a note to myself to reflect upon this discovery later, wondering whether Petra is trying to send subliminal messages to me, but right now thereare other priorities. Within minutes I have forgotten its existence.
    Outside the spare bedroom I bump into Fred, stumbling along the passage and rubbing his eyes. At this stage, he could be persuaded back into bed. But he senses my stress levels and notices that I am swaddled in an unfamiliar, floor-length ensemble and protests that he wants to come downstairs. Down in the kitchen I assess the situation while searching for paintbrushes and paint, opening and shutting cupboards forcefully and muttering under my breath, ‘Degas is done. Goya is done. Constable is done.’ Fred repeats each phrase, excitedly appreciating that this unexpected change in his early-morning routine might prove favourable to him. I seat him on the stool beside Tom’s drawing table and hand him scissors and pots of paint and other forbidden treats. Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, I repeat to myself. For there are many times, even in households where television is allowed only at weekends, that mothers resort to dirty tactics to claw back those few minutes that will define the success or failure of not just the rest of the day but even the rest of their lives, because sometimes tiny things seem to have enormous resonance. It’s the butterfly effect.
    I must be making more noise than I think, because during the course of this flurry of activity, Tom wanders into the kitchen.
    ‘I’ve got to do Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock and Matisse,’ I say, waving tissue paper in his face, ‘all by eight o’clock.’
    ‘What are you doing, Lucy? Go back to bed, both of you. You’re having some kind of nightmare about abstract painting,’ he says. Then he notices Fred wielding a pair of large scissors. ‘Why have you woken him up too?’
    ‘Of course I didn’t wake him up. It would be much easier to do all this on my own. He’s cutting bits of tissue paper to do a Matisse collage,’ I explain.
    ‘That might sound logical to you, but from where I’m standing that does not qualify as any rational explanation for all this.’
    ‘Sam has an art project. He’s done half of it, but luckily I have remembered that the rest has to be handed in today. And if Sam doesn’t finish this, then it is me who will be held responsible.’
    ‘But Sam isn’t finishing it, you are doing it for him.’
    ‘It’s quicker and less messy this way. If he were involved it would never get done. Most importantly, if he doesn’t hand it in, that means I have failed as a mother.’
    ‘Lucy, that is