8st 2 (must make sure do not put weight back on immediately), calories 6,452.
"I knew something was wrong when I got to the gate," Shaz was saying when she and Jude came round last night. "But the airline people wouldn't tell me what had happened and insisted I got on the plane, then they wouldn't let me get off again, and the next thing we were taxiing along the runway."
"So when did you find out?" I said, polishing off my Chardonnay, at which Jude immediately held out the bottle to pour me another. Was marvellous, marvellous.
"Not till we landed," said Shaz. "It was just the most terrible flight. I was hoping you'd just missed it, but they were being really odd and sniffy with me. Then the second I got off the plane . . ."
"She got arrested!" said Jude gleefully. "Pissed as a fart."
"Oh, no," I said. "And you were hoping Jed would be there."
"That bastard," said Shaz, colouring.
Somehow thought I'd better not mention Jed again.
"He had someone behind you in the queue at Bangkok," Jude explained. "Apparently he was waiting at Heathrow for a call and immediately got on a plane to Dubai."
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."
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 the crossbar of a bicycle belonging to someone called 'Peewee'. Her drug intake is limited to the occasional Fisherman's Friend in response to a tickly cough triggered during the bi-annual performances of Kettering Amateur Dramatic Society.
"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 cafetiйre, 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.
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 our executive producer was coming down from some drug-induced frenzy, I smiled beatifically and ignored him.
"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.
"No," said sexy Matt, carefully looking down at his notebook. "Ordinary people, like us, who don't have sex for long periods of time."
I shot a look at Matt, just as he was doing the same to me.
"What? You lot?" said Richard, looking at us incredulously. "You're all in the first flush of youth - well, except Bridget."
"Thanks," I muttered.
"You're all at it like rabbits every night! Aren't you? In, out, in, out and shake it all about," he sang. "You do the Okeekokee and you turn her round, and do it to her from be-hind! Aren't you?"
There was a certain degree of shuffling round the table.
"Aren't you?" More pause.
"Who here hasn't had sex in the last week?" Everyone stared hard at their notepads. "OK. Who has had sex in the last week?" No one raised their hand.
"I don't believe this. All right. Which one of you has had sex in the last month."
Patchouli raised her hand. As did Harold, who beamed at us all smugly from behind his spectacles. Probably lying. Or maybe just puppy-love-type shagging.
"So the rest of you ... Jesus. You're a bunch of freaks. It can't be because you're working too hard. Celibacy. Pah! Talk about bums off seats. We're off the air because of Diana so you lot had better come up with something better than this for the rest of the season. None of this limp no-sex bollocks. We're coming back next week with a bang."
8st 6 (this must stop or jail sentence will have been wasted), no. of ways imagined killing Richard Finch 32 (this too must stop otherwise deterrent value of jail sentences annihilated), no. of black jackets considered buying 23, no. of seconds not had sex 14,688,000.
6 p.m. V. happy about return-to-school-autumnal-style feel of world. Going to go late-night shopping on way home: not to buy anything as financial crisis, just to try on new "brown is black" autumn wardrobe. V. excited and determined this year to be better at shopping i.e. (a) not panic and find only thing able to buy is black jacket as only so many black jackets one girl needs and (b) get money from somewhere. Maybe Buddha?
8 p.m. Angus Steak House, Oxford Street. Uncontrollable panic attack, Shops all seem to have just slightly different versions of each thing. Throws self into thought fug with mind unable to settle until has encompassed and catalogued all, for example, available black nylon jackets: French Connection one at F-129 or high-class Michael Kors (tiny, square quilted one) at E400. Black nylon jackets in Hennes are only Ђ39.99. Could for example buy ten Hennes black nylon jackets for price of one Michael Kors one but then wardrobe would be more riddled with more black jackets than ever and cannot buy any of them anyway.
Maybe whole image is at fault. Maybe should start wearing brightly coloured pantomime outfits in manner of Zandra Rhodes or Su Pollard. Or have a capsule wardrobe and just buy three very classy pieces and wear them all the time. (But what if spill or throw up on them?)
Right. Calm, calm. This is what need to buy:
Black nylon jacket (I only)
Torque. Or maybe Tong or Tonk? Anyway, choker thing to go round neck.
'Boot leg' brown trousers (depending what 'boot leg' should turn out to mean).
Brown suit for work (or similar). Shoes,
Was nightmare in shoe shop. Just trying on brown squaretoed high-heeled 70s style shoes in Office feeling v. dйjа-vu-esque for all those back-to-school times buying new shoes and fighting with bloody Mum about what they were allowed to be like. Then suddenly had horrifying realization: was not freaky sense of dйjа-vu- they were exactly the same shoes I had in Six Lower from Freeman Hardy Willis.
Suddenly felt like innocent dupe or stooge of fashion designers who cannot be arsed to think of new things. Worse, am now so old that young fashion buying generation no longer remember wearing things I wore as teenager. At last realize point at which ladies start going to Jaeger for two-pieces - when do not want to be reminded of lost youth by high-street fashion any more. Have now reached said point. Am going to abandon Kookaп, Agnиs B, Whistles etc. in favour of Country Casuals and spirituality. Also cheaper. Am going home.
9 p.m. My flat. Feel very strange and empty. Is all very well thinking everything is going to be different when you come back but then it is all the same. Suppose I have to make it different. But what am I going to do with my life?
I know. Will eat some cheese.
The thing is, as it says in 'Buddhism: The Drama of the Moneyed Monk', the atmosphere and events around you are created by the atmosphere within you. So it is no wonder all that bad stuff - Thailand, Daniel, Rebecca etc. - happened. Must start being more inner-poised and spiritual epiphanied, then will start attracting peaceful things and kind, loving, well-balanced people. Like Mark Darcy.
Mark Darcy - when he returns - is going to see the new me, calm and centred, attracting peace and order all around me.
8st 7, cigarettes 0 (triumph), no. of seconds since had sex 14,774,400 (disaster), (must treat both impostors just the same).
8.15 a.m. Right. Up bright and early. You see, this is important: steal a march on the day!
8.20 a.m. Ooh, a package has come for me. Maybe a gift,
8.30 a.m. Mmm. Is in gift box with roses on. Maybe from Mark Darcy! Maybe he's back.
8.40 a.m. Is a lovely little gold truncated biro with my name on it. Maybe from Tiffany's! With red tip. Maybe is lipstick.
8.45 a.m. That is weird. Is no note in there. Maybe promotional lipstick from PR company.
8.50 a.m. But is not lipstick as is solid. Maybe is biro. With my name on it! Maybe invitation to party in manner of forward-thinking PR firm - perhaps launch of new magazine called Lipstick!, maybe product of Tina Brown! - and the invitation to glittering party will follow.
Yes, you see. Think will go to Coins and have cappuccino. Though not, of course, chocolate croissant.
9 a.m. In cafe now. Hmm. Delighted with the little gift but not sure is biro either. Or at least if is, is very obscurely functioning one.
Later. Oh my God. Had just sat down with cappuccino and chocolate croissant when Mark Darcy came in, just like that, as if not away at all: in his work suit, newly shaved, a little cut on his chin with toilet paper on, as traditional in the mornings. He walked to the takeaway counter and put his briefcase down as if looking around for something or someone. He saw me. There was a long moment when his eyes softened (though not, obviously, melting like goo). He turned to deal with the cappuccino. Quickly made myself even more calm and centred seeming. Then he came towards my table, looking much more businesslike. Felt like throwing my arms round him.
"Hello," he said brusquely. "What have you got there?" - nodding at the gift.
Hardly able to speak with love and happiness, I handed him the box.
"I don't know what it is. I think it might be a biro."
He took the little biro out of the box, turned it round, put it back like, well, a shot, and said, "Bridget, this isn't a promotional biro, it's a fucking bullet."
Later still. OhmyChristalive. Was no time to discuss Thailand, Rebecca, love, anything.
Mark grabbed a napkin, took hold of the lid of the box and replaced it.
'I you can keep your head when all about you. ..' I whispered to myself.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Stay here. Don't touch it. It's a live bullet," said Mark.
He slipped out into the street, and glanced up and down in manner of TV detective. Interesting how everything in real-life police drama reminds one of TV, rather in same way picturesque holiday scenes remind one of postcards or ...
He was back. "Bridget? Have you paid up? What are you doing? Come on."
"Where?"
"The police station."
In the car started to gabble, thanking him for everything he'd done and saying how much the Poem had helped me in jail.
"Poem? What poem?" he said, swinging into Kensington Park Road.
"The 'If ' poem - you know - force your heart and nerve and ... oh God I'm really sorry you had to go all the way to Dubai, I'm so grateful, I. . ."
He stopped at the lights and turned to me.
"That's absolutely fine," he said gently. "Now stop autowittering gibberish. You've had a big shock. You need to calm down."
Humph. Whole idea was he was supposed to notice how calm and centred I am, not be telling me to calm down. Tried to calm down, but was very difficult when all could think was: someone wants to kill me.
When we got to the police station it was slightly less like a TV drama because everything was tatty and dirty and nobody seemed the slightest bit interested in us. The police officer on the desk tried to make us wait in the waiting room but Mark insisted we were taken upstairs. We ended up sitting in a great big dingy office with nobody in it.
Mark made me tell him everything that had happened in Thailand, asking me if Jed had mentioned anyone he knew in the UK, if the packet had come with the normal post, if I'd noticed anyone strange hanging around since I got back.
Felt a bit stupid telling him about how trusting we'd been with Jed, thinking he was going to tell me off, but he was really sweet.
"The worst you and Shaz could be accused of was breathtaking stupidity," he said. "You did very well in jail, I heard."
Although he was being sweet, he wasn't being ... well it all seemed on a very businesslike footing, not like he wanted to get back together or talk about anything emotional.
"Do you think you'd better call work?" he said, looking at his watch.
My hand shot to my mouth. Tried to tell self it would not matter whether I still had a job or not if I was dead but it was twenty past ten!
"Don't look like you've just accidentally eaten a child," said Mark laughing. "For once you've got a decent excuse for your pathological lateness."
I picked up the phone and dialled Richard Finch's direct line. He answered straight away.
"Oooh, it's Bridget, is it? Little Miss Celibacy? Two days back and she's playing truant. Where are you, then? Shopping, are we?"
If you can trust Yourself when all men doubt you, I thought. If you can ...
"Playing with a candle, are we? Candles out, girls!" He made a loud popping noise.
Stared at phone in horror. Could not work out whether Richard Finch has always been like this and I was different, or whether he was getting into some terrible drug-induced downward spiral.
"Give it to me," said Mark.
"No!" I said, grabbing the phone back and hissing, "I'm a person in my own right."
"Of course you are, darling, just not in your own right mind," murmured Mark.
Darling! He called me darling!
"Bridget? Fallen asleep again, have we? Where are you?" chortled Richard Finch.
"I'm in the police station."
"Ooh, back on the rokeekoke cokee? Jolly good. Got some for me?" he chuckled.
"I've had a death threat."
"Oooh! That's a good one. You'll get a death threat from me in a minute. Hahahaha. Police station, eh? That's what I like to see. Nice stable drug-free respectable employees on my team."
That was it. That was just about enough. I took a big breath.
Richard," I said grandly. "That, I'm afraid, is like the kettle calling the frying pan dirty bottom. Except that I haven't got a dirty bottom because I don't take drugs. Not like you. Anyway, I'm not coming back. Bye." And I put the phone down. Hah! Hahahaha! I thought briefly before remembering the overdraft, And the magic mushrooms. Except not strictly drugs, as natural mushrooms.
Just then, a policeman appeared, rushing by and completely ignoring us. "Look!" said Mark banging his fist down on the desk. "We've got a girl with a live bullet with her name on here. Can we see some action?"
The policeman stopped and looked. "It's the funeral tomorrow" he said huffily. "And we've got a knifing in Kensal Rise. I mean there are other people who have already been murdered." He tossed his head and flounced out.
Ten minutes later the detective who was supposed to be dealing with us came in with a computer printout. "Hello. I'm DI Kirby," he said, without looking at us.
He stared at the printout for a while, then up at me, raising his eyebrows.
"This is the Thailand file, I take it?" said Mark, looking over his shoulder, "Oh I see ... that incident in ..."
"Well, yes," said the detective.
"No, no, that was just a piece of fillet steak," said Mark. The policeman was looking at Mark oddly.
"It was left in a shopping bag by my mother," I explained, "and was starting to decay."
"You see? There? And this is the Thai report," Mark said, leaning over the form.
The detective put his arm around the form protectively, as if Mark were trying to copy his homework. Just then the phone rang. DI Kirby picked it up.
"Yes. I want to be in a squad car on Kensington High Street, Well, somewhere near the Albert Hall! When the cortege sets off. I want to pay my last respects," he said in an exasperated voice. "What's DI fucking Rogers doing there? OK, well, Buckingham Palace, then. What?"
"What did the report say about Jed?" I whispered. "'Jed' he said his name was, did he?" scoffed Mark. "Roger Dwight, actually."
"OK then, Hyde Park Corner. But I want it at the front of the crowd. Sorry about that," said DI Kirby, putting the phone down, and assuming the sort of overcompen satory efficient air I identified totally with from when I am late for work. "Roger Dwight," the detective said. "It's kind of pointing that way, isn't it?"
"I'd be very surprised if he's managed to organize anything himself," said Mark. "Not from Arabian custody." "Well, there are ways and means."
Was absolutely infuriating the way Mark was talking to the policeman over my head. Almost as if I were some kind of bimbo or half-wit.
"Excuse me," I said bristling. "Could I possibly participate in this conversation?"
"Of course," said Mark, "as long as you don't bring up any bottoms or frying pans."
Saw the detective looking from one to the other of us with a puzzled air. "He could, I guess, have organized someone else to send it," said Mark, turning to the detective, "but it seems somewhat unlikely, foolhardy even, given ..."
"Well, yes, in cases of this kind. Excuse me." DI Kirby picked up the phone. "Right. Well, tell Harrow Road they've already got two cars on the route!" he said petulantly. "No. I want to see the coffin before the service. Yes. Well, tell DI Rimmington to eff off. Sorry, sir." He put the phone down again and smiled masterfully.
"In cases of this kind ... ?" I said.
"Yes, it's unlikely that a person with serious intentions would advertise his . . ."
"You mean they'd just shoot her, right?" said Mark. Oh God.
An hour later the package had gone off to be fingerprinted and DNA'd and I was still being questioned.
"Is there anyone outside from the Thai connection who has a grudge against you, young lady?" said DI Kirby. "An ex-lover perhaps, a rejected suitor?"
Was delighted by being called 'young lady'. You see may not be in first flush of youth but ...
"Bridget" said Mark. "Pay attention! is there anyone who might want to hurt you?"
"There are lots of people who have hurt me," I said, looking at Mark and racking my brains. "Richard Finch. Daniel - but I don't think either of them would do this," I said uncertainly.
Did Daniel think I'd been talking about that night we were supposed to have dinner? Was he so annoyed about being rejected? Surely that would be a bit of an overreaction? But then maybe Sharon was right about fin-de-millennium males losing their roles.
"Bridget?" said Mark, gently. "Whatever you're thinking, I think you should tell DI Kirby."
Was so embarrassing. Ended up going into whole Daniel lingerie and jacket evening while DI Kirby took down details with a poker face. Mark didn't say anything when I was talking but he looked really angry. Noticed the detective kept looking hard at him.
"Have you been involved with any low-life characters at all?" said DI Kirby.
The only person I could think of was Uncle Geoffrey's possible rent boy, but that was ridiculous because the rent boy didn't know me from Adam.
"You're going to have to move out of your flat. Is there anywhere you can go?"
"You can stay with me," Mark said suddenly. My heart leapt. "In one of the spare rooms," he added quickly. "Could you give me a moment, sir," said the Detective Inspector. Mark looked dropped on, then said, "Of course," and abruptly left the room.
"I'm not sure staying with Mr Darcy would be wise, miss," said the detective, glancing at the door.
"Yeah, you might be right," I said, thinking he was taking a fatherly interest and suggesting, as a man, that I should keep the air of mystery and unavailability and let Mark be the pursuer, but then I remembered was not supposed to be thinking like that any more.
"What exactly is your past relationship with Mr Darcy?"
"Well!" I said and started the story.
DI Kirby seemed oddly suspicious about the whole thing. The door opened again at the moment he was saying, "So Mr Darcy just happened to be in the coffee bar, did he? On the morning you got the bullet?"
Mark came and stood in front of us.
"OK," he said wearily, looking at me as if to say, 'You are the source of all that is opposite to serene.' "Print me, DNA me, let's get this out of the way."
"Oh, I'm not saying it was you, sir," said the detective hurriedly. "It's just we have to eliminate the . . ."
"All right, all right," said Mark. "Let's go get on with it."