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

was a cricket fan.’
    I decide to drive to school so that the paintings can dry on the heater, and because there is comfort to be drawn from being enclosed in a cosy space after the exertions of the morning.
    ‘Does getting this finished qualify as a small step for man but a giant leap for mankind, Mum?’ Sam asks from the back of the car.
    ‘Is Sam talking about Major Tom?’ asks Joe.
    ‘Something like that,’ I say, in response to both questions.
    ‘Why do you always say, “Something like that”? Aren’t things either right or wrong?’ asks Sam.
    ‘Life is largely grey,’ I tell him. ‘There are few moments of black and white.’
    ‘Unless you are a zebra,’ says Joe. He pauses, but I know there is something else he wants to say. ‘Maybe Major Tom made it onto the moon and it was so beautiful he stayed there.’
    I notice the roads are very quiet. Sealed in the car with the heaters blowing wildly it is easy to feel cut off from the rest of the world. When I stop at the next junction, I see a large number of parents walking their children to school with unnaturally cheery expressions of bonhomie and collectivism. I remember with a sudden lurch that I have forgotten it is Walk to School Day. I will have to suffer ignominious associations with childhood obesity, global warming and congested roads. I switch down the heating and explain the situation to the children.
    ‘By driving to school, we are releasing bad chemicals into the atmosphere. Today, lots of children in London are walking to school to show that they care about this. I have forgotten, we are late, and so we are going in the car. But if you get into the boot and lie on the floor until I tell you to get out, we might be able to get away with it.’
    I pull on Joe’s Spider-Man hat and shrink below the level of the dashboard to drive within two hundred metres of school. Then we all sit there, quietly waiting for a break in the cloud of parents wafting along the pavement.
    I note Alpha Mum, striding down the road in a pair of heavy walking boots and wearing a rucksack. She lives miles away. She can’t have walked here, but judging by the zealous look on her face she has. Just as she is level with the car, Fred gets up and starts banging on the window. ‘Help, help,’ he cries.
    I try to pull him away, but he is rubbing the steamed-up window with his tiny hand. A nose appears, pressed against the glass, one of those turned-up, slightly superior noses that never has freckles because it is always protected from the sun with wide-brimmed hats and factor forty. Then a pair of eyes, wide open and blinking, tries to focus on the tiny face inside. The overall impression is ghoulish and Fred starts to cry louder. It is Alpha Mum. ‘Someone has left a child locked alone in this vehicle,’ she shouts loudly down the street. Clearly she is a woman who enjoys taking charge in an emergency. ‘I’m going to inform the school. Will you stay here and try and comfort it?’
    I hear Alpha Mum’s walking boots stomping along the pavement out of earshot and shut my eyes, practising deep-breathing techniques that I hope will keep the car steamed up. Then I hear another voice on the side of the car facing into the road. ‘Look at that rubbish on the front seat, there’s apple cores, melted chocolate buttons, clothes, plastic plates, it’s unbelievable. And what are all those weird paintings on the dashboard?’ It is Yummy Mummy No. 1. Another voice, male and under different circumstances now generally welcome, joins the conversation.
    ‘I recognise some of these things. Isn’t this Lucy’s car?’ says Sexy Domesticated Dad.
    Alpha Mum rejoins the group with the headmistress. ‘Mrs Sweeney, are you in there?’ I open the car door and step out with a flourish. ‘We were practising a Tracey Emin installation for the “Artists of the World” project. It’s called “An Unmade Car”,’ I say excitedly. The headmistress claps her hands in joy. ‘How