Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(19)

‘Bridget. You’re wallowing. I can tell from your voice.’

Grrr. I know Mum did go through a dark time after Dad died. The lung cancer took him in six months from diagnosis to funeral. The only positive thing was that Dad did get to hold newborn Billy in his arms, just before he died. It was really hard for Mum when Una still had Geoffrey. Una and Geoffrey had been Mum and Dad’s best friends for fifty-five years and, as they never tired of telling me, had known me since I was running round the lawn with no clothes on. But after Geoffrey’s heart attack there was no holding Mum and Una back. If they feel it now, Mum about Dad, or Una about Geoffrey, they rarely show it. There’s something about that wartime generation which gives them the capacity to just cheerfully soldier on. Maybe something to do with the powdered eggs and whale-meat fritters.

‘You don’t want to mope around when you’re widowed, darling. You want to have fun! Why don’t you come over and jump in the sauna with Una and me?’

It was kindly meant, but what did she imagine I was going to do? Run out of the house, abandon the children, drive for an hour and a half, rip off my clothes, have my hair bouffed, then ‘jump in the sauna’?

‘So! Christmas! Una and I were wondering, are you going to come to us or . . .’

(Have you noticed how when people are giving you two options, the second one is always the one they want you to do?)

‘. . . Well, the thing is, darling, there’s the St Oswald’s cruise this year! And we wondered if you might like to come? With the children of course! It’s to the Canaries, but it’s not all old people, you know. There are some very “with-it” places they visit.’

‘Right, right, a cruise, great,’ I said, suddenly thinking that if the Obesity Clinic had made me feel thin, maybe an over-seventies cruise might make me feel young.

Mind, however, now also contained image of me chasing Mabel along a cruise-liner deck through a morass of bouffed hairdos and electric wheelchairs.

‘You’ll be perfectly at home, because it’s actually for over-fifties,’ Mum added, unknowingly putting the kibosh on the plan in a microsecond.

‘Well, actually, we think we might have plans here! You’re welcome to join us, of course, but it’ll be chaos, and if the other option is a cruise in hot weather, then—’

‘Oh, no, darling. We don’t want to leave you at Christmas. Una and I would love to come to you! It’d be super having Christmas with the little ones, it’s such a hard time for us both.’

Gaaah! How could I possibly handle Mum, Una and the kids, with no help as Chloe was going on a t’ai chi retreat to Goa with Graham? Did not want it to end up like last year, with me trying to stop my heart from breaking into pieces at doing Santa without Mark and sobbing behind the kitchen counter, whilst Mum and Una squabbled over lumps in the gravy and commented on my parenting and housekeeping, as if, rather than inviting them for Christmas, I had called them in as Systems Analysts.

‘Let me think about it,’ I said.

‘Well, the thing is, darling, we have to reserve the berths by tomorrow.’

‘Go ahead and book it for just you, Mum. Honestly, because I haven’t worked out—’

‘Well, you can cancel with fourteen days’ notice,’ she said.

‘OK, then,’ I said. ‘OK.’

Great, an over-fifties cruise for Christmas. Everything looks so dark and gloomy.

11 p.m. Was still wearing my prescription sunglasses. That’s better.

Maybe I have just been like a wave building momentum and now I have crashed and another will come along soon! For as it says in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, women are like waves and men are like rubber bands which ping away to their caves and come back.

Except mine didn’t come back.

11.15 p.m. Look, stoppit. For, as it says on the Dalai Lama’s Twitter: <@DalaiLama We cannot avoid pain, we cannot avoid loss. Contentment comes from the ease and flexibility with which we move through change.>

Maybe will go to yoga and become more flexible.

Or maybe will go out with friends and get plastered.





A PLAN


Sunday 2 September 2012

Alcohol units 5 (but hard to tell with mojitos – maybe 500?).

‘It’s time,’ said Tom, settling into his fourth mojito in Quo Vadis. ‘We’re taking her to the Stronghold.’

The Stronghold has recently become a regular part of Tom’s micro-universe. Run by a client from his therapy practice, it is an illegal American-style speakeasy in Hoxton.

‘It’s like being in an incredibly well-directed music video,’ Tom enthused, eyes shining. ‘There’s every age group: young and old, black and white, gay and straight. Gwyneth’s been seen there! And it’s a “pop-up”.’

‘Oh, please,’ said Talitha. ‘How many minutes till the edginess of “pop-up” anything has popped down?’

‘Anyway,’ said Jude. ‘Who bothers to meet people in real life any more?’

‘But Jude, there are actual live people there. And Americana bands, and sofas – you can talk and dance, and make out with people.’

‘Why would you do all that before you’ve found out in one click whether they’re divorced or separated-with-kids, like bungee jumping more than going to the movies, know how to spell, know not to use the expression “lol” or “special lady” without irony, and whether they think the world would be a better place if people with low IQs were not allowed to reproduce?’