Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (29 page)

PART THREE

HORRIBLE NO-GOOD VERY BAD DAY

Tuesday 4 June 2013

134lb, calories 5822, jobs 0, toy boys 0, respect from production company 0, respect from schools 0, respect from nanny 0, respect from children 0, entire bags of cheese eaten 2, entire packets of oatmeal cookies eaten 1, entire large vegetables eaten 1 (a cabbage).

9 a.m.
Mmm. Another highly erotic night with Roxster. Though at the same time, feel lurch of unease. Billy and Mabel weren’t quite asleep when he arrived, and they came downstairs crying, because Billy said Mabel had thrown Saliva and ‘blinded’ him in one eye. Took ages to get them back to sleep.

When I came down again, Roxster, not realizing I was there, looked a bit pissed off.

I said, ‘Sorry!’ and he looked up and laughed in his usual merry way and said, ‘It just wasn’t how I imagined I was going to be spending the evening.’

Anyway, once the food was on the go he was back to normal. And it was dreamy. The bathroom chair and mirror really came into their own. And the mini-break is next weekend! We are going to find a pub in the country and go hiking and shagging and eating and everything! Chloe has done the school run so can get early start on
Leaves
– which is starting to look less like an impossible dream and more like a fantastic reality – a movie, written by me, starring Ambergris Bilk! So everything’s fine. Definitely. Must just get on with rewriting it.

9.15 a.m.
Mmmmm. Keep getting flashbacks to last night in the bathroom.

9.25 a.m.
Just sent Roxster text saying:

9.45 a.m.
Only thing is, why hasn’t he replied? ‘I wish I had a time machine.’ Oh God, why do I have all these images of myself that I immediately go to – like I’m a stalker, or a tragic deluded grandmother waddling around a discotheque in leggings and a sleeveless top with flappy arms, frizzy hair, a sticking-out stomach and a novelty tiara.

9.47 a.m.
Right. Have got to pull self together, get up and get on. Cannot be floating around in lingerie having some completely unnecessary push-me-pull-you inner dialogue about why toy boy hasn’t responded to text, when have screenplay to write and children to take responsibility and schedule things for.

But why hasn’t he texted back?

9.50 a.m.
Will check email.

9.55 a.m.
Nothing. Just a forwarded email from George from Greenlight. Maybe something nice?

10 a.m.
OMG. Just opened the forwarded email and detonated a bomb.

FWD: Sender:
Ambergris Bilk

To:
George Katernis

Just spoke with Dougie. He’s soooooooo awesome. Am so totally
Leaves
now. So glad he’s on the same page about putting a proper screenwriter on it.

For a few moments I stared blankly at the screen.

‘A proper screenwriter.’

A PROPER SCREENWRITER?

Then I picked up a quarter of a cabbage which Chloe had for some reason left on the kitchen table (did she persuade them to eat some sort of cabbage recipe from the Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook for breakfast?), started shoving the cabbage into my mouth, biting at fronds, and walking very fast round the kitchen table dropping bits of cabbage down the front of my slip and onto the floor. There was a ping on the phone: Roxster.

There was another ping on the text: Infants Branch.

10.15 a.m.
Calm and poised. Will simply open fridge, take out grated mozzarella and shove into mouth, along with more cabbage.

10.16 a.m.
OK, is all in mouth now. Will just have swig of Red Bull to top it off. Oh! Telephone! Maybe Roxster regretting the text?

11 a.m.
Was Imogen from Greenlight. ‘Bridget. There’s been a terrible mistake. George has just forwarded you an email in error. Could you possibly delete it before you . . . Bridget? Bridget??’

Was not able to reply owing to contents of mouth. Rushed over to the sink and spurted out the Red Bull, grated mozzarella and cabbage, just as Chloe appeared at the top of the stairs. I turned round and grinned at her, bits of the cabbage and grated mozzarella falling from my teeth, like a vampire caught eating a person.

‘Bridget? Bridget?’ Imogen was still saying into the phone.

‘Yes?’ I said, waving a cheery hello at Chloe, whilst trying to spray the sink with the extendable tap to get rid of the cheese and cabbage.

‘Have you heard about Mabel’s finger?’ whispered Chloe. I nodded calmly and gesticulated towards the phone under my chin. As I
listened to Imogen, repeating the story about the inadvertently-forwarded-by-George email, my eye was caught by the newspaper, still folded where Roxster had been reading it.

The Tragic Fate of the Toy Boy

by Ellen Boschup

Suddenly there are more toy boys everywhere! As the advances of medical science preserve the appearance of youth, and more and more middle-aged women are devoting their time and resources to doing just that, more and more are turning to ‘the younger man’ – Ellen Barkin, Madonna and Sam Taylor-Wood to name but a few. For these older, preying women, or ‘cougars’ as they are appropriately known, the advantages are obvious: youth; vigorous, energetic, frequent, satisfying sex; and the sort of baggage-free companionship they would never find in their sagging, balding, middle-aged male counterparts, too idle and self-absorbed to fight the advances of the years.

‘Bridget?’ Imogen was still saying. ‘Are you all right? What’s going on? Earth-to-Bridget. Bridget? Net-a-Porter? Mini Mars bars?’

‘No! Super! Thanks for letting me know. I’ll call you later. Bye!’

I clicked off the phone and returned, reeling, to the article.

For the young, defenceless boys who are their prey, it may seem like an attractive trade. These women, when the lights are off, anyway, seem impressively preserved. Like pickled lemons. There’s no pressure over babies, no demands on the toy boy to succeed at his career. Instead there is a gateway into a glamorous, sophisticated world beyond his wildest dreams. The benefit of an experienced lover, a woman who knows what she wants in bed, who enhances his reputation – an entrée into society, and access to luxury travel. Where’s the downside? When he’s drunk his fill, he can simply leave his cougar to fall ravenously on her next unsuspecting prey. However, as more and more of these Unfortunates are discovering . . .

‘Everything all right, Bridget?’ said Chloe.

‘Yes, super. Could you go upstairs and tidy Mabel’s drawers, please?’ I said with an unaccustomed air of calm authority.

Once Chloe had gone, I lunged at another piece of cabbage, continuing to read as I shoved it into my mouth along with a piece of Nicorette.

. . . far from leaving when they choose, and moving on enhanced, these abused boys are left broken and sexually exhausted, self-esteem in tatters, with a key phase of their career and family-building life wasted. But hang on a minute! Some of these youths, it is true, like Ashton Kutcher, use their cougar as a kingmaker to advance their own careers and profiles. Far more of them, however, are abandoned, back in their sordid flats and bedsits, scorned by their friends, family and colleagues for consorting with women old enough to be their grandmothers, dumped back in their own world which now seems devoid of a glamour they will never . . .

I slumped at the table, head on my arms. Bloody Ellen Boschup. Don’t these people realize what harm they cause with their glib social generalizations? Plucking bogus phenomena and flimsy constructs out of the air at meetings – ‘Whatever Happened to the Dining Room?’ ‘Suddenly There Are More Dining Rooms Everywhere!!’ – then writing sententious social commentary as if it’s the conclusion to years of in-depth research rather than 1200 words to file on a deadline, ruining people’s lives and relationships, based on something they overheard in the gastropub and a couple of blurry photographs in
Heat
magazine.

‘Should I go and pick up Mabel and take her to the doctor?’ asked Chloe. ‘Are you all right, Bridget?’

‘No, no, I’ll . . . go and get her,’ I said. ‘Could you text the school and tell them I’ll be there in a mo?’

I walked insouciantly into the toilet and slumped, mind racing. If only there was just one thing to deal with. Roxster’s ‘confusion’, the horrible article, the ‘proper screenwriter’ or the septic-finger shame I could probably handle individually but not all at the same time. Clearly the septic finger had to take precedence, but could I allow anyone to see me in such a disturbed state? If I picked Mabel up like this, wild-eyed and bonkers, and took her to the doctor, would the school or the doctor put her into care?

Equilibrium was what I needed. I needed to clear my mind, because, as it says in
How to Stay Sane
, the mind is plastic.

I took some deep breaths in and out and went, ‘Maaaaa,’ to pray to the mother of the universe.

I looked at myself in the mirror. It really wasn’t good. I washed my face, straightened my hair with my fingers, emerged from the toilet and walked past Chloe with a gracious, lady-of-the-house smile, glossing over the fact that I was still dressed in a slip at eleven in the morning and she may have just heard me saying ‘Maaaaa’ in the toilet.

1 p.m.
Mabel seemed quite excited about the finger. It actually wasn’t as bad as they’d made out, but still, it was hard to see how a
responsible mother could have missed it if it really had been like that all the time.

At the doctor’s, stood in front of the two receptionists for four minutes while they calmly continued to type as if a) I wasn’t there and b) they were both writing contemplative poems. In the meantime Mabel was trotting happily around the waiting room, and picking up leaflets from the plastic wall display.

‘I’m going to weed!’ she said, and started reading out, ‘Guh oh nuh oh ruh.’

‘Well done, darling,’ I said, finally sitting down and desperately checking my texts to see if Greenlight or Roxster or indeed anyone had anything to say to make me feel better.

‘Guh, oh, nuh, oh, ruh, ruh, huh, oh, eh, ah.’

‘So clever!’ I murmured.

‘Gonorrhoea!’ she shouted triumphantly, opening the leaflet. ‘Oh, there’s pictures! Weed Gonorrhoea to me?’

‘Oh! Hahaha!’ I said, grabbing the leaflets and stuffing them in my handbag. ‘Let’s see if there are some more lovely leaflets,’ I said, staring glassily at an array of them in a variety of cheery colours: ‘
Syphilis
’, ‘
Non-Specific Urethritis
’, ‘
Male and Female Condoms
’ and – rather late in the day – ‘
Pubic Lice
’.

‘Let’s play with the toys!’ I trilled.

‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice it,’ I said, when we finally got in to the doctor.

‘They can flare up in a few moments,’ the doctor said supportively. ‘She just needs some antibiotics and she’ll be fine.’

After the doctor’s we went and bought some Disney Princess plasters from the chemist, and Mabel decided she wanted to go back to school.

2 p.m.
Just got home, relieved to have house to self, and sat down to . . . What, though? Work? But I’ve been sacked, haven’t I? Everything looks dark and gloomy.

Oh, wait, am still wearing prescription sunglasses again.

3.15 p.m.
Just spent twenty minutes staring melodramatically into space, trying not to imagine shooting myself like Hedda Gabler, then started googling skull or dagger pendants on Net-a-Porter instead. Then suddenly realized with a start it was time for Mabel and Billy’s school pickup.

6 p.m.
I was in a complete flap when Mabel and I got to Billy’s school because we were late, and I had to go to the office first about Billy’s bassoon lessons. ‘Have you got the form?’ said Valerie, the school secretary. Started rifling through the mess that was my handbag, putting papers down on the counter.

‘Ah, Mr Wallaker,’ said Valerie.

I looked up and there he was, smirking as usual.

‘Everything going well?’ he said, still looking down at the mess. I followed his gaze. ‘
Syphilis – Looking After Your Sexual Health
’. ‘
Gonorrhoea – Signs and Symptoms
’. ‘
Sexual Health Direct! A User’s Guide
’.

‘They’re not mine,’ I said.

‘Right, right.’

‘They’re Mabel’s!’

‘Mabel’s! Well, in that case, that’s fine.’ He was actually shaking with mirth now. I grabbed the leaflets and stuffed them back in my bag.