Coming Clean

by Sue Margolis

“I thought I ought to let you know,” he said, “that I’m seeing somebody.”

  Call me naive, but this was the last thing I’d been expecting.

  “Wow! Really? Well … hey … good for you.” I did my best to give the impression I was totally cool with Greg’s new “dating” status, but discovering that he had a girlfriend—with our marriage barely cold in its grave—felt like being punched. For a start, it made our separation seem even more real. And don’t ask me why, but for some absurd reason I felt instantly and overwhelmingly jealous. I didn’t want Greg, but at the same time I didn’t want anybody else to have him. At least not yet. Plus I had wanted to be first to find somebody new. It felt somehow ungallant for Greg to start dating before me.

  The new woman in his life turned out to be Roz Duffy, the feminist academic, author and newly appointed professor of English at King’s College. They had met at the launch of her latest book, The Fanciful Vagina: Women as Mythology.

  I couldn’t help myself. “I always thought Roz Duffy was a lesbian,” I said by way of congratulations.

  When I told Annie about feeling jealous, she said that part of me would always have feelings for Greg. After all, he had been my first true love and he was the father of my children. I suspected she might be right.

  Eventually, the melancholy lifted. Life settled into a new routine, which I was starting to enjoy. On the weekends when Greg had the kids (in the beginning we agreed that this should be sans Roz), I would go shopping, see people for dinner, take in a movie or just lie on the sofa reading the papers or watching TV. I began to look forward to those days on my own. I hadn’t realized how much stress I’d been under living with Greg. It was such a relief now that he and it were gone.

  The house was still pretty chaotic. It wasn’t as if the kids had left, too. On the upside, it had been ages since I’d had to unblock the loo. And the mice were long gone.

  I was doing my best to stay on top of things housework-wise, but the truth was, even with Mrs. Fredericks coming in twice a week, I’d lost control years ago. It occurred to me that if I hired a cleaning company and enlisted friends to give me a hand clearing out all the junk and clutter, I could have the place sorted in a week. Then I could think about redecorating. It would be fun choosing paint and wallpaper—Annie would help. But I kept putting it off. My job and running the kids took up all my time. I would get around to it, though. Eventually.

  Greg had been seeing Roz for three months or so when he asked me if I thought it would be OK for the children to meet her. I played for time by telling him that I would think about it. When he pressed me for a decision, I made excuses. I said that Amy and Ben weren’t ready and that I wasn’t sure how they’d cope. It might have looked like I was trying to protect my children, but in fact I was trying to protect myself. I was terrified that the already gifted Roz Duffy would turn out to be some kind of child whisperer. She would cast a spell on my children and make them fall in love with her. She would steal them from me—emotionally, if not physically.

  On the other hand, I knew that if Greg and I were to remain on civil terms, I had to agree to her becoming part of the children’s lives. It wasn’t easy, but I gave in.

  The first time they met—at her place, for Sunday lunch—I held my own lunch party. I was determined not to spend the day alone, getting maudlin. Annie was there, along with some of the mums I’d known since prenatal classes, when I was pregnant with Amy. I cooked a huge shepherd’s pie and for dessert I made baguette and butter pudding. Before they left, the kids saw I was preparing their favorite dessert and were really cross. (Could I possibly have done it on purpose to make them feel bad about what they were missing?) I promised to save them some.

  Over a boozy lunch, we women talked about the usual girlie stuff: clothes, diets, house extensions, but mainly we talked about our kids. Debbie, my neighbor from down the road, mother to Ella and Jack, who were the same ages as Amy and Ben, said she was thinking about having a third. Somebody recalled how she’d been in labor for seventeen hours with her last baby. “There I was lying there, screaming for an epidural, and you know what my husband says? ‘Come on, just relax and enjoy the moment.’”

  I suggested that maybe Victoria Beckham had got it right, having four cesareans.

  “Typical of a Spice Girl, though,” Annie said. “Always miming.”

  Everybody knew that I was fretting about the kids meeting Roz. They kept trying and failing to cheer me up.

  “I mean, she’s got a brain the size of a planet,” I said, draining my third glass of wine. “She’s published umpteen books. What’s the betting she’s kind and funny and brilliant with kids? Oh, and she’s bound to be gorgeous.”

  Annie frowned. “You mean you’ve never seen her on TV? She’s never been a guest on Coffee Break?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “And you haven’t Googled her?”

  I said that I hadn’t, on the grounds that I already knew enough about her to feel intellectually inadequate. I had no intention of torturing myself further by discovering she looked like Angelina Jolie.

  Annie noticed my laptop lying on the sofa. She got up and brought it back to the table.

  “Please, Annie,” I pleaded. “If you’re my friend, don’t do this.”

  “Believe me, I am so your friend.” She started hitting the keys.

  Soon everybody was gathered around the computer, except me.

  “So go on, tell me,” I said, necking more wine. “She looks like a goddess, doesn’t she?”

  Everybody was laughing. “Come on,” Annie said. “Take a look.”

  I got up and looked. Roz Duffy would have been rather attractive if it hadn’t been for the mass of comedy hair.

  “Omigod,” I heard myself say. “Look at that frizz. It’s Art Garfunkel.”

  I carried on peering at the picture. What was she wearing? It looked like some earthy chic patchwork jacket—the sort of thing one might team with thick woolen tights and clogs. “OK, I have to admit that I’m relieved my soon-to-be ex-husband’s girlfriend is somewhat lacking in the babe stakes, but could somebody please tell me what he sees in her?”

  “Big brains,” Debbie-from-down-the-road said.

  “Oh, and check this out,” Annie was saying. “Is that a mustache?”

  In the end, we decided it was a trick of the light. Debbie-from-down-the-road said it was disappointing, but you couldn’t have everything.

  • • •

  “So what’s Roz like?” I asked Amy and Ben after they’d gotten back from their visit. I knew it was wrong to pump my children for information in order to assuage my insecurities, but only a saint could have held back.

  “Nice,” Ben said. “She’s got a dog.”

  Of course she did. She probably went out and adopted it especially in order to win the children’s affection.

  “And she’s got two sons. They’re called Dan and Tom. They’re big. They go to university and they sleep a lot.”

  The fact that her kids sounded pretty normal only made me dislike her more.

  Ben helped himself to a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips and disappeared into the living room to watch TV.

  “The dog’s this really old Irish setter,” Amy explained. “She’s called Dworkin. She came to the park with us.”

  Dworkin? You couldn’t have made it up.

  “She’s named after this really famous dead woman who said it’s wrong for men to look at pictures of naked women. Roz and I had this long talk about pornography.”

  What? Frizzy-Haired Feminist had been discussing porn with my ten-year-old daughter. How dare she? I was Amy’s mother and conversations like that were my province.

  “Really? What did you talk about exactly?”

  “Roz said that when men look at pictures of naked women, it turns them into sex objects. What’s a sex object?”

  “OK … well … it’s complicated, but what she’s trying to say is that men shouldn’t simply see women as attractive items or t
hings. Because that way, they’re ignoring their intelligence and their personalities … and it’s those things that make women who they are.”

  “OK … so is it wrong that I like Justin Bieber just ’cos he’s good looking?”

  “It’s a bit different with men, but I guess it is, yes.”

  Just then, Ben reappeared and took an apple from the fruit bowl. “Mum, why can’t we get a dog?”

  “Oh, hon, I’ve told you. I’m at work all day. Klaudia has classes. Who would walk it and talk to it? The poor animal would be so lonely.”

  He bit into his apple. “Roz says there are people who look after dogs during the day.”

  “Did she also tell you that these people cost money?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “So what did Roz make for lunch?”

  “Lasagna,” Amy said.

  “Nice?”

  “Great.”

  Crap.

  “It was vegetarian. Roz doesn’t believe in killing animals for food.”

  Of course she didn’t.

  The moment the kids were asleep, I was on the phone to Greg.

  “Can you explain to me why Roz thought it was OK to talk about porn with our ten-year-old daughter?”

  “What are you on about? It was nothing. Amy asked her why the dog was called Dworkin, that’s all.”

  “No, that isn’t all. Our little girl has just asked me what a sex object is. My God, Greg, you’re the one always going on about preserving the innocence of childhood.”

  “Look, Amy’s nearly eleven. She’s an intelligent kid and it’s not like she doesn’t know about sex. She asked questions and Roz answered her honestly. Does she seem disturbed to you?”

  “No, but that’s not the point. Roz crossed a boundary. I’m Amy’s mother and it’s me, not Roz, who gets to talk to her about this kind of stuff, when I decide the time is right.”

  “OK, I’ll speak to her.”

  “You do that.”

  “Oh, by the way, I have some news. Roz and I have decided to take our relationship to the next level.”

  “Meaning?” I came back, aware of the sharpness still in my voice.

  “She suggested I move in with her and I’ve said yes.”

  It took me a moment to take in what he’d said. “Wow … So you’re in love with her?”

  “Yes. Very much.”

  • • •

  Back in Annie’s kitchen, the oven timer pinged. She slipped her hands into an oven mitt and removed a tray of scones. Golden cushions of perfectness.

  As she hunted for a cooling rack, she carried on moaning about having to go to her aged in-laws for Christmas, which was only a couple of weeks away. “Their place is so big, they refuse to heat it during the day. And Rob’s mum always refuses to let me help with lunch, so we end up with overcooked veg and half-raw turkey. It’s going to be a nightmare. Before they invited us, I was planning to ask you and the kids to come here.”

  I explained that it wasn’t a problem, as Greg and I would be putting on a show of parental togetherness over the festive season and that as far as Amy and Ben were concerned it was Christmas as usual. Roz and her boys were going to Wales to stay with her mother.

  “So how are you feeling about Greg moving in with Frizzy-Haired Feminist?” By now Annie had found a cooling rack and was laying out the scones.

  “Maybe this will give you some idea,” I said, reaching into my bag and pulling out a Christmas card. Amy and Ben had given it to me the other day after they got back from staying with Greg and Roz. I’d been bursting to show it to Annie.

  “Take a look,” I said.

  Annie wiped her hands on a tea towel and came back to the table. She took the card from me, peered at it and gasped.

  “Apparently, just as the kids were leaving her place after a visit, Roz’s cards arrived from the printers. She said they could bring one home to show me.”

  “Good God. I don’t believe it. Just look at that photograph. It’s appalling.”

  “The kids love it. They haven’t stopped telling me how much fun they had doing it.”

  Annie carried on staring at the picture. It showed Greg, Roz, her kids and mine, plus Dworkin, arranged in front of a blazing log fire. Stockings hung from the mantelpiece. All of them, including the dog, were wearing Santa hats and beards. Ben was pulling a cracker with one of Roz’s sons. Roz and Greg were clinking champagne glasses.

  “This is one big bowl of wrong,” Annie said. “The swine. You’ve been separated for six months. You’re not even divorced yet. How dare Greg play happy families like this.”

  “I know. Not only is he in a new relationship, but he feels the need to rub my nose in it. It’s so mean.”

  “Bloody cruel is what it is. What are you going to do? You have to say something.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m damned if I’m going to give either of them the satisfaction of letting them know they’ve upset me.”

  “Great if you can pull it off. I know I couldn’t. I’d be on the phone crying my eyes out.”

  Just then Freddie came running in. Freddie was Annie’s golden-of-curl, blue-of-eye firstborn. He was six and the image of his father. His brother, Tom, was four and tawny haired and covered in freckles like Annie.

  “Please, may I please have some more raisins?” Annie was hot on ensuring her boys said their pleases and thank-yous. She was hot on good manners in general. Urged on by Greg, who bridled at excessive politeness in small children, calling it bourgeois and twee, I had been less hot with Amy and Ben. The upshot was that my children barged in on adult conversations, wiped their noses on their napkins and gargled with their drinks at mealtimes.

  “You may have some more,” Annie said, picking up the box and pouring raisins into her son’s bowl. “And well done for asking so politely.” Annie, who had read all the child care manuals, was also a strong believer in praising good behavior: “Wow, good sharing … great listening … excellent waiting.” I couldn’t remember her ever losing her temper with the boys. Instead, when they misbehaved, she stayed calm, took them to one side and quietly explained to them what they’d done wrong.

  Just before Greg and I split up, we went to Annie and Rob’s for Sunday lunch. At one point, Freddie and Tom, who’d been allowed a glass of fizzy pop each before lunch, started farting. After each—fairly minor—explosion, they would burst into fits of giggles. Rob tended to be pretty laid-back with the boys and, left to his own devices, would probably have ignored it. Annie, on the other hand, put down her knife and fork and, without raising her voice, said: “Boys, I know it’s fun making bottom burps, but you really shouldn’t do it at the table.”

  When the boys carried on farting, Annie threatened them with the naughty corner. Rob told her to lay off, clearly anticipating a scene at the lunch table. But he needn’t have worried. At the very mention of the naughty corner, the boys begged to be allowed to stay at the table. They behaved impeccably for the rest of the meal.

  That day, seeing Annie in action, I had never felt so inadequate as a parent. When they were small, my kids thought the naughty corner was huge fun and used to go there voluntarily to play imaginary games.

  • • •

  Freddie was smiling now, clearly reveling in his mother’s approval. “And don’t forget to share,” Annie said, ruffling his hair. He nodded and disappeared back into the living room, where his brother and my two were watching Finding Nemo. Since it was Saturday, Amy and Ben should have been with their dad, but he’d called at eight that morning—sounding not all himself—to say that he’d been throwing up all night. In fact, while we were on the phone he even broke off to puke loudly into a bucket, which proved he had no hidden agenda—not that I really thought he had. In the six months we’d been apart, he’d never once tried to get out of having the children.

  He decided he had food poisoning, most likely from some dodgy shrimp he’d had the night before. I offered to come over with fizzy glucose drinks, but he said that all he wanted to do was sleep. I
wished him better, and when he said he felt guilty about not seeing the kids, I told him not to worry and suggested he take them out for pizza one evening when he was feeling up to it.

  • • •

  While I put the kettle on for more tea and poured juice for the children, Annie transferred the scones to a Victorian glass cake stand and took them to the table. Pretty, antique tea plates—none of which matched—were already in place. Annie would pick up eye-catching plates and cup and saucer sets at junk shops and flea markets. She owned dozens.

  Her kitchen chairs were an idiosyncratic assortment of styles and eras. Then there was the yard sale crystal chandelier that hung over the distressed kitchen table. “Distressed?” my mother had whispered to me the time we popped in to coo over Freddie just after he was born. “It looks suicidal. And can’t she afford matching cups?” To my mother, words like “set” and “suite” were sacraments. As far as she was concerned, “shabby chic” was merely shabby.

  No sooner had Annie and Rob moved into this house than Annie had started collecting fabric swatches, wallpaper samples, dozens of those tiny tryout tins of paint. Who knew there were so many shades of white? She fussed over tiles and textures, fretted over faucets. She took a course to learn how to reupholster chairs and sofas.

  She was also tidy and organized. The upshot was that Annie’s house felt like a proper home. Mine was just a place where the kids and I ate and slept.

  “Annie, how do you do it?”

  “How do I do what?”

  “This … the baking, the perfectly behaved kids, the stylish, crud-free house. Everything in your life seems to be so calm and well ordered. I feel like I’m always running to catch up with myself.”

  “You know how I do it,” she said, grinning. “I’m a surrendered wife.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, right. That’ll be it.”

  “You mock, but there’s a grain of truth in it.”

  She was right. There was. Before having the children, Annie had been a radio producer at the BBC. That’s where we met. We worked at The World at One together. Then I moved to GLB. She stayed on at the Beeb until she had Freddie. She’d always intended to take the year’s maternity leave she was entitled to, but a few weeks after their son was born Annie and Rob sat down and had a long talk about the future, now that they were parents. They came to the conclusion that, for them, family life could work only if they assumed traditional roles—Rob as breadwinner and Annie as mother and homemaker.