Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(104)

‘And you like it now?’ I whispered.

‘Yes.’ He started to kiss me again. ‘Oh, yes.’ He was kissing different parts of me between his words. ‘I . . . really . . . definitively . . . conclusively . . . like it now.’

Suffice it to say, when I picked Billy and Mabel up from Bikram’s and Cosmata’s later that day, I was walking with extreme difficulty.

‘Why are you still wearing de chocolatey coat?’ said Mabel.

‘Tell you when you’re grown up,’ I said.





THE OWL


Thursday 12 December 2013

9 p.m. Just put the children to bed. Mabel was staring out of the window. ‘De moon is thtill followin’ us.’

‘Well, the thing is, with the moon—’ I started to explain.

‘And dat owl,’ Mabel interrupted.

I looked out at the snowy garden. The moon was white and full above it. And on the garden wall, the barn owl was back. He stared at me, calm, unblinking. Then this time he spread his wings, looked for a last moment and flew upwards, his wings beating, almost to the beat of my heart, into the winter night and the darkness and its mysteries.





THE YEAR’S PROGRESS


Tuesday 31 December 2013

*Pounds lost 17

*Pounds gained 18

*Twitter followers 797

*Twitter followers lost 793

*Twitter followers gained 794

*Jobs gained 1

*Jobs lost 1

*Texts sent 24,383

*Texts received 24,284 (good)

*Number of screenplay words written 18,000

*Number of words of screenplay rewritten 17,984

*Number of words of screenplay written and put back like were in first place 16,822

*Number of words of texts written 104,569

*People infestered by nits 5

*Total nits extracted 152

*Price per nit of professionally extracted nits ￡8.59

*Boyfriends lost 1

*Boyfriends gained 2

*Fires in house 4

*Existing children kept intact 2

*Children lost 7 (counting all occasions)

*Children found 7

*Total children 4





OUTCOME


Mr Wallaker – or Scott, as I occasionally call him – and I did not have a wedding, because neither of us wanted to get married again. But we did realize that neither of us had christened our children so decided to make it an excuse for a coming-together party at the big country house. That way, we decided, the children would be covered, like insurance, in case it emerged that the Christian God was the True God, even though both Mr Wallaker and I are slightly Buddhist.

The ceremony was performed in the chapel. The school choir sang, and Scott’s sons Matt and Fred – who are no longer in boarding school but at the Senior School – played ‘Someone to Watch Over Me’ on clarinet and piano. I cried most of the time. Greenlight Productions sent a bunch of flowers the size of a sheep; Rebecca had her hair done in an Afro with a lit-up sign saying ‘Motel’ and an arrow pointing down at her head; Daniel got drunk at the party and tried to get off with Talitha, leading to Sergei throwing a giant tantrum and storming off in a rage; and Jude – who had, obviously, got bored with Wildlifephotographerman’s devotion – got off with Mr Pitlochry-Howard and then had a terrible time getting out of it afterwards. Tom and Arkis sulked because we hadn’t invited Gwyneth Paltrow – even though Jake had once played with Chris Martin – and both flirted outrageously with the senior boys in the big band. Mum was still slightly annoyed that I hadn’t worn something more brightly coloured, but got over it because her coat-dress set was clearly nicer than Una’s, and Mr Wallaker is quite happy to indulge her by flirting outrageously and telling her off when she gets out of line, in a way which just makes her titter. Roxster – who had previously sent me a very nice text saying his heart was broken at the loss of his vomiting cougar, but there clearly was a Dating God as his new girlfriend had morning sickness – texted me on the day to say she wasn’t pregnant, it was just that he’d forced her to eat too much food, and she was really annoying. Which was nice.

And somewhere up above it all, I knew in my heart that Mark would be glad. That he really, really would not have wanted us to be alone and in a confused state. And that if it had to be someone, he would be glad it was Mr Wallaker.

And now I have not two children but four. And Billy has big boys to play Xbox with and comes off perfectly happily and without any discussion about getting to the next level if Mr Wallaker so much as looks at him. We hang out with Jake and Rebecca and the kids at weekends and everyone has someone to play with. And Mabel, for the first time since she was too tiny a baby to know, has a daddy who is in this world and not the next, and treats her like such a princess that I constantly have to Caution her. And I feel safe and not lonely, and cared for. And we go to Capthorpe House sometimes at weekends, and re-enact the scene in the bushes when the kids are in bed, with a better ending.

And we all live together now, in a big old messy house near Hampstead Heath. And as we can all walk to school from there, we’ve decided we can manage with just the one car – which makes it SO much easier with the parking permits, though we’re still late every morning. Oh, and watch out for The Leaves in His Hair, retitled Thy Neighbour’s Yacht, coming soon as a straight-to-DVD release near you! The children finally went to the dentist and don’t have anything wrong with their teeth. And by the way, currently all six of us have head lice.