Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(40)

‘Oh! So you ARE going to come?’

‘Um,’ I said. ‘Can you just run through it again?’

She sighed. ‘It’s the Hard-Hats-Offing for the completion of the new Gatehouse Lodges! All the St Oswald’s establishments do them when they’ve finished a new build. We all wear hard hats, and then just toss them in the air!’

‘When is it again?’

‘A week on Saturday. You will come, darling, because Mavis is having Julie and Michael and all the grandchildren.’

‘So I can bring the kids?’

There was a slight pause. ‘Yes, of course, darling, that’s the whole idea but . . .’

‘But what?’

‘Nothing, nothing, darling. You’ll make sure Mabel wears the dress I sent?’

I sighed. No matter how many cool shorts-tights-and-biker-boots outfits from H&M kids, or sticky-outy party dresses from Mum I try to coax Mabel into, Mabel has her own ideas about what she wants to wear: usually some sort of Hamish-meets-Disney look involving a glittery T-shirt, leggings and an ankle-length tiered skirt. Feel am from totally Other Generation, which doesn’t understand the look of the young people.

‘Bridget!’ said Mum, understandably, perhaps, exasperated. ‘You must come, darling, it doesn’t matter how badly they behave.’

‘They don’t behave badly!’

‘Well, the other grandchildren are older because of you having them so late in life, and of course when you’re on your own with them it’s harder to—’

‘I’m not sure I can make Saturday week.’

‘Everyone else will have their grandchildren there and it’s terribly hard for me being on my own.’

‘OK. Now, Mum, I’ve got to go.’

‘Did I tell you about the trouble we’ve been having . . .?’ she started to gabble, as she always does when I say I have to go. ‘We’ve got one of these men going into all the bedrooms. Kenneth Garside? He keeps getting into bed with all the women.’

‘Do you like Kenneth Garside, Mum?’ I said innocently.

‘Oh, don’t be silly, darling. You don’t want a man when you get to my age. They just want looking after.’

It’s an interesting thing, the ages at which men and women want each other more than the other does:

Twenties: Women have the upper hand because pretty much everyone wants to shag them so they have a lot of power. And twenty-something men are super-horny but haven’t made it in their careers yet.

Thirties: Men definitely have the upper hand. Thirties is the worst possible time for a woman to be dating: whole thing increasingly loaded by biologically unfair ticking clock: a clock which will hopefully soon be transformed, by the perfection of Jude-style egg-freezing, into silent digital clock with no need for an alarm. Meanwhile, men sense it like sharks scenting blood and are also simultaneously perfecting their careers, so the balance tips more and more in their favour until . . .

Forties: Not sure about this because I was with Mark most of the time. Maybe about equal? If you take babies out of the equation. Or maybe men think they’re on top because they think they want younger women and think age-equivalent women want them. But actually secretly the women equally want younger men. And the younger men like the older women because they’re refreshingly not looking to them to be breadwinners and not thinking about babies any more.

Fifties: It used to be the age of Germaine Greer’s ‘Invisible Woman’, branded as non-viable, post-menopausal sitcom fodder. But now with the Talitha school of branding combined with Kim Cattrall, Julianne and Demi Moore, etc. is all starting to change!

Sixties: Balance completely shifting, as men realize they’ve got as far as they’re going to get in their careers and that they’ve never really made friends in the way women do, but just talked about golf and stuff. And women take better care of themselves – look at Helen Mirren and Joanna Lumley!

Seventies: Definitely women have the upper hand, and still do themselves out nicely, and make a nice home and cook and—

‘Bridget, are you still there?’

Upshot of it is, have agreed to take the children to Hard-Hats-Offing for the new Gatehouse Lodges and the Cruise Slideshow Event followed by Family Tea at Chats. And have still not even made a start on screenplay.

Tuesday 15 January 2013

11.55 p.m. Have spent all of last night and all of today writing writing writing and just emailed The Leaves in His Hair to Talitha.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

134lb (bad: too much time sitting on arse), agents, though, 1!

11 a.m. Just had phone call from agent! Unfortunately had mouth full of grated cheese but did not matter as did not seem imperative to talk.

‘I have Brian Katzenberg for you,’ said the assistant.

‘So,’ Brian Katzenberg crashed straight in. ‘We have Sergei in common, and I know Sergei wants to get this spec out.’

‘Have you read it?’ I said excitedly. ‘Do you like it?’

‘I think it’s fascinating and I’m going to get it out to appropriate people immediately. So you can let Sergei know that straight away and it’s a pleasure to meet you.’

‘Thank you,’ I stammered.

‘So you’ll tell Sergei I did it?’

‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Will do!’