Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy(58)

NITS IN THE WORKS


Tuesday 23 April 2013

Minutes spent writing script 0, minutes spent dealing with people’s nits instead of getting on with work 507, people whom family might have infested with nits (including Tom, Jude, all Jude’s recent dates, Talitha, Roxster, Arkis, Sergei, Grazina the Cleaner, Chloe, Brian the Agent – but only if nits can get down phone – and entire Greenlight Productions team) 23 (not counting people above people might have infested with nits).

9.30 a.m. Right. This is my first official rewriting day on The Leaves in His Hair. Feel marvellous and proud! Almost like it was just a sort of hobby before but now it is real.

10.05 a.m. Grrr. This is really quite difficult, though. Don’t want to be a Prima Donna, but setting Hedda Gabbler on a yacht in Hawaii is somehow changing the mood and meaning of the whole piece. It brings up all sorts of difficulties, which weren’t there with the terrace house in Queen’s Park. Ooh, goody. Text!

10.45 a.m. Was Tom. <Is your head itching? Because mine is. Maybe psychosomatic, but didn’t we have rather a head-nuzzling hug when I left the other night?>

Freaked out, I texted back: <Sure is psychosomatic. I haven’t got them.> – but even as I texted, my head started to itch.

Tom again. <But I finally slept with Arkis on Saturday. Should I tell him?>

Paroxysms of guilt. Tom sleeping with Arkis is the product of months of discussion and strategizing and I have potentially ruined it!

11 a.m. Just texted Tom list of nit products, combs, etc., offered to nit-comb him if he wanted to come round.

11.15 a.m. Jude just rang, talking in a wobbly, sepulchral voice.

‘Vile Richard has blocked Isabella.’

‘Who’s Isabella?’

‘The made-up girl on PlentyofFish.com, remember? She stood him up on Saturday and now . . .’

Jude was really upset.

‘What?’

‘Vile Richard replaced his profile with a message saying he’s no longer available because he’s met someone else. I just feel really, really hurt, Bridget. How could he meet someone else so quickly?’

Tried to explain to Jude that Isabella wasn’t real, and Vile Richard clearly hadn’t met someone else, he was just trying to get back at Isabella for standing him up, even though Isabella didn’t exist, at which Jude seemed to brighten and said: ‘The guy I met on Saturday was nice, though, you know the one from the dance-lover site. Though he hates dancing. He says they must have passed his profile on from a snowboarding site.’

At least she didn’t mention anything about nits.

Noon. Right. Now Jude is all calm and happy again, will get on with The Leaves in His Hair.

The trouble is, people don’t LIVE on yachts, do they? Or maybe they do? Like people who live on barges on the canal. But don’t yacht-type people live in big houses and just go on holiday on the yachts? And, more to the point, honeymoons.

12.15 p.m. Texted Talitha.

<Do people live on yachts?>

Talitha texted back.

<No, only crew or money-launderers.>

12.30 p.m. Another text from Talitha.

<By the way, is your head itching? Because mine is. Didn’t I borrow your hairbrush last time we went out? Slightly worried about implications with my extensions.>

Oh God. Talitha’s hair extensions! Can you nit-comb hair extensions?

Just had another text from Jude.

<By the way, is your head itching? Because mine is.>

4.15 p.m. Shit! Shit! There is bang, clatter and voices of everyone coming home.

5 p.m. Mabel burst in, holding out a letter. She sat down on the sofa and sobbed, big tears dribbling down her cheeks.

To all Infants Branch Parents

A child in Briar Rose . . .

Why do all the class names in Infants sound like the sort of Cotswold holiday cottages I keep googling instead of writing The Leaves in His Hair?

. . . has been found to be infested with head lice. Please obtain suitable nit comb and products and check your children carefully before bringing them to school.

‘Ith me,’ sobbed Mabel. ‘I’s infestered Briar Rose with headlies. I’m “a child in Briar Rose”.’

‘It isn’t you,’ I said, hugging her and probably reinfestering her, or vice versa, with headlies. ‘Cosmata has head lice. And we didn’t find any on you. Maybe they just put “a child” when they meant lots of people.’

Wednesday 24 April 2013

175 lb (feels like again), pieces of Nicorette chewed 29 (NB of smoking substitute, not Class Mother), Diet Cokes 4, Red Bulls 5 (terrible, am practically on ceiling), packets of grated cheese 2, slices of rye bread 8, calories 4897, sleep 0, pages written 12. Humph.

12.30 p.m. Right. There is absolutely no need to panic. If a story is sound, and has themes relevant to modern life, then the actual setting ought to be immaterial.

1 p.m. Whole thing about Hedda and the boring husband going on a honeymoon not on a yacht and then coming back and living on a yacht seems completely nonsensical.

1.15 p.m. Wish head would stop itching.

1.20 p.m. Maybe they could have been on a road trip in the American West? Yes, surely as a car would be a nice change from a yacht?

4.30 p.m. Think will call Brian the Agent and talk it through with him. I mean, that’s what you do with agents, right?

5 p.m. Explained the whole thing to Brian the Agent, while maniacally scratching head.