Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(33)

‘I don’t know,’ I began. ‘But . . .’ Billy had fallen back to sleep. Stayed squeezed in the top bunk, holding them close.

11 p.m. In tears, now, sitting on the floor surrounded by cuttings, photographs. I don’t care what Mum says, I’m just going to wallow in it.

11.15 p.m. Just opened the cuttings box, took one out.

Mark Darcy, the British human rights lawyer, was killed in the Darfur region of Sudan when the armoured vehicle in which he was travelling struck a landmine. Darcy, the internationally recognized authority in cross-border litigation and conflict resolution, and Anton Daviniere, a Swiss representative of the UN Human Rights Council, were both killed in the incident, Reuters reports.

Mark Darcy was a leading international figure in victim representation, international crisis resolution and transitional justice. He was regularly called upon by international bodies, governments, opposition groups and public figures to give advice on a broad array of issues, and was a leading supporter of Amnesty International. His intervention, prior to his death, secured the release of the British aid workers Ian Thompson and Steven Young, who had been hostages of the rebel regime for seven months and whose execution was believed to have been imminent.

Tributes have been pouring in from heads of state, aid agencies and individuals.

He leaves behind a widow, Bridget, a son, William, aged two, and a daughter, Mabel, three months old.

11.45 p.m. Sobbing now, the box, the cuttings and photos fallen on the floor, memories, sucking me down.

Dear Mark,

I miss you so much. I love you so much.

It just sounds trite. Like when you try to write a letter to the bereaved. ‘My deepest sympathy for your loss.’ Still, when people wrote to me after you died, I was glad even if they didn’t really know what to say and stumbled around.

But the thing is, Mark, I just can’t manage on my own. I really, really can’t. I know I’ve got the kids and friends and I’m writing The Leaves in His Hair but I’m just so lonely without you. I need you to comfort me, counsel me like we said at our wedding. And hold me. And tell me what to do when I get all mixed up. And tell me I’m all right when I feel I’m crap. And do my zip up. And do my zip down and . . . oh God, the first time you kissed me and I said, ‘Nice boys don’t kiss like that’, and you said, ‘Oh yes, they f*cking well do.’ I so f*cking miss you and miss f*cking you.

And I wish our life . . . I can’t bear that you’re not seeing them grow up.

I JUST HAVE TO GET ON AND MAKE THE BEST OF IT. Life doesn’t turn out how everyone wants and I’m very lucky to have Billy and Mabel and that you made sure we would be all right, and the house and everything. I know you had to go to the Sudan, I know how long you’d worked on getting the hostages out, I know you did everything to make sure it was safe out there. You wouldn’t have gone if you’d thought there was a risk. It wasn’t your fault.

I just wish we could do it together, and share all the little moments. How is Billy ever going to understand how to be a man without his father? And Mabel? They don’t have a dad. They don’t know you. And we could have just been at home together for Christmas if only . . . stop it. Never say could’ve, should’ve or if only.

I’m sorry I’m such a crap mother. Please forgive me. I’m so sorry I spent four weeks studying dating books, and making a fraudulent cyber version of myself available to a man wearing a rubber minidress, and for being upset about anything which isn’t about not still having you. I love you.

Love,

Bridget xxxx

11.46 p.m. Just heard a thud. One of them is out of bed.

Midnight. Mabel had got down from the bunk bed and was standing, silhouetted, in her little pyjamas, against the window. I went and knelt beside her.

‘There’s the moon,’ she said. She turned to me, solemnly, and confided, ‘It followth me.’

The moon was full and white above the little garden. I started to say, ‘Well, the thing is, Mabel, the moon—’

‘And . . .’ she interrupted. ‘Dat owl.’

I looked to where she was pointing. There, on the garden wall, was a barn owl, white in the moonlight, staring at us, unblinking. I’d never seen an owl before. I thought owls were extinct, except in the countryside and zoos.

‘Shut de curtainth,’ said Mabel and started closing the curtains in a bossy, businesslike way. ‘It’s all right. Dey’re watching over us.’

She clambered up into the top bunk. ‘Do de Baby Printheth.’

Still freaked out by the owl, I held her hand and said the bedtime verse Mark had made up for her when she was just born:

‘For the Baby Princess is as sweet as she is fair, and as gentle as she is beautiful, and as kind as she is lovely. And wherever she goes, and whatever she does, Mummy and Daddy will always love her. Just because she’s lovely, and because she’s—’

‘—Mabel!’ she finished.

‘And the thoughts,’ said Billy sleepily.

I could hear Mark’s voice as I whispered, ‘All the thoughts are going away. Just like the little birds in their nests, and the rabbits in their rabbit holes. The thoughts don’t need Billy and Mabel tonight. The world will turn without them. The moon will shine without them. And all Billy and Mabel need to do is rest and sleep. And all Billy and Mabel need to do is . . .’