Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

‘Children of your age in India live entirely successfully as street urchins,’ she continued. ‘So you can just sit on this doorstep and instead of putting your ENTIRE BRAINS into getting to the next level on MINECRAFT, you can apply them to CHANGING MY MIND about letting you back in. And don’t you dare touch that dustbin or I shall enter you in the HUNGER GAMES.’

Then, with a toss of her bowler-hatted head, she flounced back into the house and slammed the door.

‘Mummeee!’ Shouting and crying erupted from my own basement. ‘Mummeee!’

‘Want to come back in?’ I said to Jude.

‘No, no it’s fine,’ Jude said, happy now, getting to her feet. ‘You’re completely right. I have made the right choice. Just a bit hung-over. I need to have breakfast and a Bloody Mary at Soho House and read the papers and I’ll be fine. Thanks, Bridge. Love you. Byee!’

Then she teetered off in her Versace knee-high gladiator sandals looking hung-overly fabulous.

I looked back across the street. The three boys were sitting in a line on the doorstep.

‘Everything all right?’ I said.

The dark-haired son grinned. ‘Yeah, it’s fine. She just gets like this. She’ll be all right in a minute.’

He glanced behind him to check the door was still closed, and pulled an iPod out of his pocket. Then the boys started giggling and bent over the iPod.

Huge wave of relief washed over me. I bounded cheerfully back, suddenly remembering that the password for everything was 1890, the year in which Chekhov wrote Hedda Gabbler.

‘Mummeeeee!’

I grabbed the Xbox remote, grabbed the Virgin remote, and typed ‘1890’ into both of them at which the screens burst miraculously into life.

‘There!’ I said. ‘There’s your screens. You don’t need me. You just need screens. I am going. To make myself. A cup. Of coffee.’

I flung the remotes onto the armchair, and flounced, bohemian-neighbour-like, towards the kettle, at which Billy and Mabel started giggling.

‘Mummy!’ laughed Billy. ‘You’ve turned everything off again.’

8.30 p.m. Ended up all cosy and good and Billy had his Xbox time and Mabel watched SpongeBob and cuddled me on the sofa, then we all went up on Hampstead Heath and I kept thinking about Leatherjacketman, and how gorgeous it was having the kiss, and feeling sexy again and thinking maybe Tom is right that I do need to be a woman and have someone in my life, and maybe it wouldn’t be wrong, and maybe I will call Talitha and get his number.

CRASHING WAVE

Sunday 9 September 2012

135lb, calories 3250, number of times checked for texts from Leatherjacketman 27, texts from Leatherjacketman 0, guilty thoughts47.

2 a.m. Everything is terrible. Texted Talitha. Turns out she not only took Leatherjacketman’s number, but GAVE HIM MY NUMBER. Feel stab of insecurity in my stomach. If she gave him my number – then why hasn’t he called?

5 a.m. Should never, ever have got involved with men again. Had completely forgotten the nightmare of ‘Why hasn’t he called?’

9.15 p.m. Children are asleep and all ready for Monday morning. But I am in total meltdown. Why hasn’t Leatherjacketman texted? Why? Clearly Leatherjacketman thinks I am crazy and old. Is all my own fault. I should be simply a mother – the children should come home every day to find a casserole bubbling on the Aga and steamed jam roly-poly for pudding. I’d read them Swallows and Amazons, put them to bed and then . . . What, though? Watch Downton Abbey, fantasize about sex with Matthew, and start again in the morning with the Weetabix?

9.16 p.m. Just called Talitha and explained the whole thing. She is coming round.

9.45 p.m. ‘Get me a drink, please.’

I fixed her her usual vodka and soda.

‘This has all been set off because one guy you’ve met for five seconds hasn’t texted you. You’ve opened yourself to the possibility of life, and now it seems to have been snatched away from under your nose. Why don’t you text him?’

‘Never pursue a man, it will only make you unhappy,’ I said, reciting our mantra from being single in our thirties. ‘Anjelica Huston never, ever called Jack Nicholson.’

‘Darling, you have to understand that you have no idea what you’re talking about. Everything has changed since you were single. There was no texting. There were no emails. People spoke on telephones. Plus, young women are more sexually aggressive now, and men are naturally more lazy. You have to, at the very least, encourage.’

‘Don’t send anything!’ I said, lunging at the phone.

‘I won’t. But it’s all fine. When I swapped your numbers, I had a discreet word with him and told him you’d been widowed . . .’

‘You WHAT?’

‘It’s better than being divorced. It’s so romantic and original.’

‘So, basically, you’re using Mark’s death to procure me a man?’

There was the thud of feet on the stairs. Billy appeared, in his striped pyjamas.