Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding
Turned out Shaz called Jude from the police station and they quickly got on to the Foreign Office.
"Then nothing happened," said Jude. "They started talking about you being in for ten years."
"I remember." I shuddered.
"We called Mark on the Wednesday night and he immediately got on to all his contacts in Amnesty and Interpol. We tried to get hold of your mum but the answerphone said she was touring the Lakes. We thought about ringing Geoffrey and Una but we decided everyone would just get hysterical and it wouldn't help."
"Very wise," I said.
"On the first Friday we heard you'd been transferred to proper jail . . ." said Shaz.
"And Mark got on a plane to Dubai." "He went to Dubai? For me?"
"He was fantastic," said Shaz.
"And where is he? I left him a message but he hasn't rung back."
"He's still there," said Jude. "Then on Monday we got a call from the Foreign Office and everything seemed to have changed."
"That must have been when Charlie talked to his dad!" I said excitedly.
"They let us send out your mail ..."
"And then on Tuesday we heard they'd got Jed."
"And Mark called on Friday and said they'd got a confession . . ."
"Then the call came out of the blue on Saturday that you were on the plane!"
"Hurrah!" we all said, clinking glasses. Was desperate to get on to subject of Mark but did not want to appear shallow and ungrateful for all the girls had done.
"So is he still going out with Rebecca?" I burst out.
"No!" said Jude. "He's not! He's not!"
"But what happened?"
"We don't really know," said Jude. "One minute it was all on, next thing Mark wasn't going to Tuscany and-" "You'll never guess who Rebecca's going out with now," interrupted Shaz.
"Who?"
"It's someone you know."
"Not Daniel?" I said, feeling an odd mixture of emotions.
"No."
"Colin Firth?"
"No."
"Phew. Tom?"
"No. Think of someone else you know quite well. Married."
"My dad? Magda's Jeremy?"
"Now you're getting warm."
"What? It's not Geoffrey Alconbury, is it?"
"No." Shaz giggled. "He's married to Una and he's gay."
"Giles Benwick," said Jude suddenly.
"Who?" I gibbered.
"Giles Benwick," confirmed Shaz. "You know Giles, for God's sake, the one who works with Mark, who you rescued from suicide at Rebecca's."
"He had that thing about you."
"He and Rebecca both stayed holed up in Gloucestershire after their accidents reading self-help books and now they are together."
"They are as one," added Jude.
"They are joined in the act of love," expanded Shaz.
There was a pause while we all looked at each other, stunned at this strange act of the heavens.
"The world has gone mad," I burst out with a mixture of wonderment and fear. "Giles Benwick isn't handsome, he isn't rich."
"Well, actually he is," murmured Jude.
"But he isn't someone else's boyfriend. He isn't a status symbol in any normal Rebecca way."
"Apart from being very rich," said Jude.
"Yet Rebecca has chosen him."
"That's right, that's exactly right," said " Shaz, excitedly. "Strange times! Strange times indeed!"
"Soon Prince Philip will ask me to be his girlfriend, and Tom will be going out with the Queen," I cried.
"Not Pretentious Jerome, but our owni, dear Queen," clarified Shaz.
"Bats will start eating the sun," I expanded. "Horses will be born with tails on their heads, and cubes of frozen urine will land on our roof terraces offering us cigarettes."
"And now Princess Diana is dead," said Shazzer, solemnly.
The mood abruptly changed. We all feIl silent, trying to absorb this violent, shocking and unthinkable thought. "Strange times," pronounced Shaz shaking her head with heavy portentousness. "Strange times indeed."
Tuesday 2 September
8st 3 (will definitely stop gorging tomorrow), alcohol units 6 (must not start drinking too much), cigarettes 27 (must not start smoking too much), calories 6,285 (must not start eating too much).
8 a.m. My flat. Owing to Diana death Richard Finch has cancelled all the stuff they were doing on Thai Drug Girl (me) and given me two days off to sort myself out. Cannot come to terms with death or anything else come to think of it. Maybe there will be national depression now. Is end of era, no two ways about it, but also start of new era in manner of autumn term. It is a time for new beginnings.
Determined not to sink back into old ways, spending entire life checking answerphone and waiting for Mark to ring, but to be calm and centred.
8.05 a.m. But why did Mark split up with Rebecca? Why is she going out with speccy Giles Benwick? WHY? WHY? Did he go to Dubai because he still loves me? But why hasn't he rung me back? Why? Why?
Anyway. All that is irrelevant to me now. I am working on myself. I am going to get my legs waxed.
10.30 a.m. Back in flat. Turned up late (8.30 a.m.) for leg wax only to find that beautician was not coming in 'Because of Princess Diana'. Receptionist was almost sarcastic about this but, as I pointed out, who are we to judge what each individual is going through? If all this has taught us one thing it is not to judge others. Mood was hard to sustain on way home, however, when was caught in massive traffic jam in Kensington High Street rendering normal ten-minute journey home four times normal length. When reached jam-source turned out to be road works only quite inactive and workman-free with merely sign saying: "The men working on this road have decided to stop work for the next four days as a mark of respect to Princess Diana."
Ooh answerphone is flashing.
Was Mark! He sounded very faint and crackly. "Bridget ... only just got the news. I'm delighted you're free. Delighted. I'll be back later in the There was a loud hiss on the line, then it clicked off.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang. "Oh, hello, darling, guess what?"
My mother. My own mother! Felt great overwhelming rush of love.
What?" I said, feeling tears welling up.
"'Go quietly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.'"
There was a long pause. "Mum?" I said eventually.
"Shhh, darling, silence." (More pause.) "'Remember what peace there may be in silence."'
I took a big breath, tucked the phone under my chin, and carried on making the coffee. You see what I have learned is the importance of detaching from other people's lunacy as one has enough to worry about keeping oneself on course. Just then the mobile started ringing.
Trying to ignore the first phone, which had started vibrating and yelling: "Bridget, you'll never find equilibrium if you don't learn to work with silence," I pressed OK on the mobile. It was only dad.
"Ah, Bridget," he said in a stiff, military-style voice. "Will you speak to your mother on the land-line? Seems to have got herself worked up into a bit of a state."
She was in a state? Didn't they care about me at all? Their own flesh and blood?
There was a series of sobs, shrieks and unexplained crashes on the 'land-line'.
"OK, Dad, bye," I said, and picked up the real phone again.
"Darling," croaked Mum, in a hoarse, self-pitying whisper. "There's something I have to tell you. I cannot keep it from my family and loved ones any longer."
Trying not to dwell on the distinction between 'family' and 'loved ones', I said brightly, "Well! Don't feel you have to tell me if you don't want to."
"What would you have me do?" she yelled histrionically. "Live a lie? I'm an addict, darling, an addict!"
I racked my brains as to what she could have decided she's addicted to. My mum has never drunk more than a single glass of cream sherry since Mavis Enderbury got drunk at her twenty-first birthday party in 1952 and had to be taken home on th
"I'm an addict," she said again, then paused dramatically.
"Right," I said. "An addict, And what exactly are you addicted to?"
"Relationships," she said. "I'm a relationship addict, darling. I'm co-dependent."
I crashed my head straight down on to the table in front of me.
"Thirty-six years with Daddy!" she said. "And I never understood."
"But, Mum, being married to someone doesn't mean . . ."
"Oh no, I'm not co-dependent on Daddy," she said. "I'm co-dependent on fun. I've told Daddy I ... Ooh, must whizz. It's time for my affirmations."
I sat staring at the cafetiŠ¹re, mind reeling. Didn't they know what had happened to me? Had she finally gone over the edge?
The phone rang again. it was my dad. "Sorry about that."
"What's going on? Are you with Mum now?"
"Well, yes, in a manner of ... She's gone off to some class or other."
"Where are you?"
"We're in a ... well, it's a sort of ... well ... It's called 'Rainbows'."
Moonies? I thought. Scientologists? Est? "It's, um, it's a re-hab."
Oh my God. It turns out it wasn't just me who was starting to worry about Dad's drinking. Mum said he went off into Blackpool one night when they were visiting Granny in St Anne's and turned up at the old people's home completely plastered holding a bottle of Famous Grouse, and a plastic model of Scary Spice with a pair of wind-up false teeth attached to her breast. Doctors were called and they went straight from Granny in St Anne's last week to this re-hab place, where Mum, as ever it seems, was determined not to be upstaged.
"They don't seem to think it's a major problem with the old Scotch. They said I've been masking my pain or some such about all these Julios and Wellingtons. Plan is we're supposed to indulge her addiction to 'fun' together."
Oh God.
Think it is best not to tell Mum and Dad about Thailand, just for the time being.
10 p.m. Still my flat. There, you see. Hurrah! Have spent all day tidying up and sorting out and everything is under control. All the mail is done (well, put in pile anyway). Also Jude is right. Is ridiculous to have bloody great hole in the wall after four months and a miracle no one has climbed up the back wall and broken in. Am not going to engage with Gary the Builder's nonsensical excuses any more. Have got lawyer friend of Jude's to write him a letter. You see what one can do when one is empowered new person. Is marvellous ...
Dear Sir,
We act for Ms Bridget Jones.
We are instructed that our client entered into a verbal contract with you on or about 5 March 1997 further to which you agreed to construct an extension to our client's flat (consisting of a second study/bedroom and a roof terrace) for a (quoted) price of F-7,000. Our client paid
3,500 to you on 21 April 1997 in advance of work being commenced. It was an express term of the contract that work would be completed within six weeks of this first payment being made.
You commenced work on 25 April 1997 by knocking a large 5ft x 8ft hole in the exterior wall of our client's flat. You then failed to progress the work for a period of some weeks. Our client attempted to contact you by telephone on a number of occasions leaving messages, which you did not return. You eventually returned to our client's flat on 30 April 1997 while she was out at work. However, rather than continuing with the work you had agreed to do, you simply covered the hole you had made in her exterior wall with thick polythene. Since then, you have failed to return to finish the work and have failed to respond to any of our client's numerous telephone messages requesting you to do so.
The hole you have left in the exterior wall of our client's flat renders it cold, insecure and uninsured against burglary. Your failure to carry out and complete the work you agreed to undertake constitutes the clearest possible breach of your contract with our client. You have therefore repudiated the contract, which repudiation is accepted by our client ...
Blah, blah, rudiate woodiate gibberish gibberish ... entitled to recover costs ... directly responsible for any losses ... unless we hear from you within seven days of this letter with confirmation that you will compensate our client for the losses suffered ... as a result we are instructed to issue proceedings for breach of contract against you without further notice.
Ha. Ahahahaha! That will teach him a lesson he won't forget. Has gone in post so he will get it tomorrow. That will show him I mean business and am not going to be pushed around and disrespected any more.
Right. Now, am going to take half an hour to think up some ideas for morning meeting.
10.15 p.m. Hmmm. Maybe need to get newspapers in order to get ideas. Bit late, though.
10-30 p.m. Actually, am not going to bother about Mark Darcy. One does not need a man. Whole thing used to be that men and women got together because women could not survive without them but now - hah! Have own flat (even if hole-filled), friends, income and job (at least till tomorrow) so hah! Hahahahaha!
10.40 p.m. Right. Ideas.
10.41 p.m. Oh God. Really feel like having sex, though. Have not had sex for ages.
10.45 p.m. Maybe something on New Labour New Britain? Like after the honeymoon, when you've been going out with someone for six months and start getting annoyed with them for not doing the washing up? Scrapping student grants already? Hmm. Was so easy to have sex and go out with people when one was a student. Maybe they do not deserve bloody grants when they are just having sex all the time.
Number of months have not had sex: 6 Number of seconds have not had sex: (How many seconds are there in a day?)
60 X 60 = 3,600 x 24 =
(Maybe will get calculator.)
86,400 x 28 2,419,200 X 6 months 14,515,200
Fourteen million five hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred seconds have not had sex in.
11 p.m. Maybe I will just, like, NEVER HAVE SEX AGAIN.
11.05 p.m. Wonder what happens if You do not have sex? is it good for you or bad?
11.06 p.m. Maybe you just, like, seal up.
11.07 p.m. Look, am not supposed to be thinking about sex. Am spiritual.
11.08 p.m. And then surely it is good for one to procreate.
11.10 p.m. Germaine Greer did not have children. But then what does that prove?
11.15 p.m. Right. New Labour, New ... Oh God. Have become a celibate.
Celibacy! The New Celibates! I mean if it's happening to me, chances are it's happening to lots of other people as well. Isn't that the whole point about zeitgeist?
'Suddenly there is less sex everywhere.' Hate, though, this about popular news coverage. Reminds me of when there was an article in The Times that started: 'Suddenly there are more Dining Rooms everywhere,' the same day as there was one in the Telegraph on 'Whatever Happened to the Dining Room?'
Right, must go to bed. Determined to be very early on first day of new me at work.
Wednesday 3 September
8st 5 (gaah, gaah), calories 4,955, no. Of seconds since had sex 14,601,600 (yesterdays figure + 86,400 - a day's worth).
7 p.m. Got into office early, first day back since Thailand, expecting new concern and respect to find Richard Finch in traditional foul mood: petulant, obsessively chain-smoking and chewing with crazed look in his eye.
"Ho!" he said as I walked in. "Ho! Ahahahahaha! What've we got in that bag, then? Opium, is it? Skunk? Have we got crack in the lining? Have we brought in some Purple Hearts? Some E for the class? Is it poppers? Is it some nice speedy speed? Hasheeeesh? Some Rokeycokey cokey? OHHHHH okeecokeycokeeee," he started to sing maniacally. "Oooh okeecokeycokeeee. Ooooh! okeecokeycokeeee!" An idiotic gleam in his eye, he grabbed the two researchers next to him and started rushing forwards, yelling, "Knees bent, arms stretched, it's all in Brid-get's bag, Ra-Ra!"
Realizing ou
"Oh, little Miss Hoity-toity today, are we? Oooh! Come on, everybody. Bridget Hoity-bottom-just-out-of-prison's here. Let's start. Let's startitdeedoodaa."
Really, this was not at all what I had in mind. Everyone began to converge on the table, looking from the clock to me resentfully. I mean it was only twenty bloody past nine: the meeting wasn't supposed to start till half past. Just because I start coming in early doesn't mean the meeting has to start early instead of late.
"Right then, Brrrrrridget! Ideas. What ideas have we got today to delight the breathless nation? Ten Top Smuggling Tips from the Laydee in the Know? Britain's Best Bras for stashing Charlie in the booster pads?"
If you can trust Yourself when all men doubt you, I thought. Oh fuck it, I'm just going to sock him in the mouth.
He looked at me, chewing, grinning expectantly. Funnily enough the usual sniggers round the table weren't happening. In fact the whole Thailand interlude seemed to have brought a new respect from my colleagues that I was naturally delighted by.
"What about New Labour - after the honeymoon?" Richard Finch crashed his head down on to the table and started snoring.
"Actually, I have got another idea," I said, after a casual pause. "About sex," I added, at which Richard sprang to attention. (I mean just his head. At least I hope.)
"Well? Are you going to share it with us - or save it, for your chummies in the Drug Squad?"
"Celibacy," I said.
There was an impressed silence.
Richard Finch was staring at me bulgy-eyed as if he couldn't believe it.
"Celibacy?"
"Celibacy." I nodded smugly. "The new celibacy."
"What - you mean monks and nuns?" said Richard Finch.
"No. Celibacy."
"Ordinary people not having sex," Patchouli cut in, looking at him insolently.
Really there was a very changed atmosphere around the table. Maybe Richard had begun to go so far over the edge that no one was sucking up to him any more.
"What, because of some tantric, Buddhist thing?" said Richard sniggering, one leg twitching convulsively as he chewed.