Bridget Jones's Baby (11 page)

5 p.m. My flat. Just back from childbirth class.
Mark rushed up late, talking on the phone, briefcase in hand, and acknowledged Daniel and myself with a brief nod, still talking on the phone.

“Turn it off, Darce, there's a good chap,” said Daniel.

We signed in at reception and burst through the double doors to find an instructor in front of a table with a rubber model of the bottom half of a woman. Couples were sitting in lines at tables, each of them trying to put a nappy on a plastic baby.

“Ah!” said the instructor. “Welcome! Find yourselves a baby in the bin there!”

There was just one brown plastic baby doll left in the bin.

“If we'd got here on time we could have had a white baby,” whispered Daniel, to appalled stares.

“Daniel,” I hissed. “Shut urrrrp!”

“Right!” said the instructor, smoothing it over. “Who have we here? Mark? Daniel? You're our second same-sex couple today.”

Everyone applauded politely as Daniel smirked at Mark's expression.

“And Bridget? You're the surrogate? Welcome!”

Didn't think it was a good idea to explain at that particular juncture, so I just smiled vaguely while everyone fussed around rearranging the chairs.

“No,” said Mark suddenly, “we are not a couple.”

There was a moment's silence while everybody stared.

“Right…sooo…?” said the instructor. “So you and Bridget are a couple?”

“No.”

“So Daniel and Bridget are…”

“None of us are a couple,” I said. “I slept with both of them and I don't know which one is…”

“Oh! So you both opted for actual intercourse with the surrogate! That's unusual! Anyway, all comers welcome here!”

“ ‘Comers' being the operative word,” remarked Daniel.

“Let's carry on, shall we?” She held up the rubber gynecological model. “What's the opening of the uterus called? Anyone tell me?”

Daniel shot his hand up: “The vagina!”

“Um, no…actually.”

“The cervix,” said Mark.

“The cervix. Exactly! And the
opening
to the cervix?”

“The vagina!” said Daniel triumphantly.

“Yes! Or, as we call it, the birth canal, or, for Baby, the exit into a new world.”

“Always two ways of looking at anything,” said Daniel.

The instructor was now holding up a plastic baby and the rubber cut-in-half-woman. Honestly, how did any normal relationship ever survive a childbirth class?

“So! Let's have a look at what actually happens when Baby's finally on the way. So the birth canal needs to open up.” She pushed the baby down headfirst into the rubber half-woman. “Can I have a volunteer to play doctor? How about you, Daniel?”

“…since opening up vaginas has been your life's work,” murmured Mark.

“OK! So! Doctor! You put your hand in here.”

She guided Daniel's hand up into the rubber lady's “birth canal.” “And Baby pushes down from here. Can you feel Baby?”

“Frightfully sorry,” said Daniel wriggling his hand in the rubber birth canal. “I can't seem to reach it.”

Mark smirked as Daniel tried to shove his hand farther up while the instructor shoved the doll farther down.

“Ugh,” said the instructor, suddenly revealing a snappy side. “This happens every
sugaring
time. I keep asking for another one. That's the National Health for you. Nobody's vagina is this small.”

“You've obviously never been to the Ping Pong Puck in Bangkok,” said Daniel.

“Oh. My. God!” said the instructor, looking at Daniel disbelievingly. “Oh my God. You're the man from that travel show! Aren't you? I saw you on that programme from Bangkok! It was hilarious! Daniel Cleaver!”

Everyone was now looking at Daniel excitedly.

“Are you doing another show?”

“Well, actually, no,” said Daniel, trying to extract his arm from the birthing canal. “I've just written a novel, actually. It's called
The Poetics of…
”

“Right, that's it,” said Mark. “This is intolerable. I'm leaving.”

The three of us stood outside in the street with rain drizzling down and lorries and buses roaring past.

“You're an imbecile, you're a child,” Mark was saying furiously to Daniel.

“Well, she said to ask questions.”

“I deeply resent being placed in these idiotic situations with such a ludicrous…”

“Well, get out of it, then, Mrs. D. Everyone knows you haven't got the soldiers anyway. Firing blanks for years.”

“You take that back,” said Mark.

“The dominant sperm conquers all.”

Mark made as if to punch him.

“Mark, stop!” I said.

The two of them stood, squaring off like boxers.

I literally couldn't take it anymore. Neither of them noticed as I saw a cab approaching with its light on. “Bye!” I said as it pulled up. “Talk to you later.”

“Wait! Bridget!” said Mark.

“I'm just tired,” I said. “Thanks for coming, guys. Talk to you later.”

When I looked out of the back window they seemed to have stopped fighting, but Daniel was talking intently to Mark. Then Mark suddenly turned on his heel and strode away.

10 p.m. My flat.
Ooh, goody! Doorbell. Maybe Mark!

It was not Mark, but a courier with a letter from Mark.

Mark is literally the only person who still writes letters, in ink, on embossed paper.

Dear Bridget,

The current situation cannot sustain. I have stated my feelings for you and the baby, but it has now become clear that I have no place in this ludicrous and unbridled scenario. My concern for your well-being is tempered by the knowledge that, had you been honest and clear to me much earlier in this situation, a great deal of distress and confusion could have been avoided.

The priority now is for you not to become embroiled in further antics, but simply to rest and take care of the unborn child. If I can in any way offer financial assistance or support, you need only let me know and I will honour that commitment.

Yours ever,

Mark

M
ONDAY 13
N
OVEMBER

10.15 a.m.
Sit Up Britain
office.
Just got into work. I can't do this. I absolutely cannot do a day's work with the following things inside me:

Furtively FaceTimed Tom under the desk.

“You're not trashy or slutty,” said Tom on FaceTime. “You're a top news producer and you're practically a nun. You need to play At Least. You know? That thing you showed me, when I was being tortured by Pretentious Jerome? At least? At least I have this, that or the other. Makes it seem better?”

“Yes! Yes!” I said, brightening. “Thanks, Tom.”

Clicked FaceTime off.

FaceTime popped up again: Tom.

“Bridge, just a note to self. Don't FaceTime anyone again from that angle.”

Tom disappeared, then popped up again on FaceTime: “Am I a horrible person?”

“Bridget, get on,” said Richard Finch, walking past my desk and glancing at my boobs.

Quickly texted Tom, “No, nice person,” then started typing furiously and staring intently at the screen: for all the world as if I was working on the day's running order.

“They're fucking enormous,” came a loud whisper behind me.

“Woah, bro. They're totally legit.”

“Look at this, Jordan. From this angle, against the sign, the tips used to be just teasing the
P
on
Sit Up Britain,
but now they're right across the
B.
”

“Yo. Sick, bro.”

“I mean they're fucking enor—”

“Woah. Just, like totally boss, bro.”

I whirled round. It was Richard Finch whispering with one of the man-bun youths.

“What are you two talking about?”

“Nothing.”

“Richard! I know you were talking about my boobs.”

“I wasn't!”

“You were!”

“I wasn't!”

“It's sexism. It's harassment.”

“I was just remarking on a natural phenomenon,” said Richard. “If you saw a double-decker bus which had doubled in size you'd be entitled to say something about it, wouldn't you?”

“I am not a bus, I am a human being. Anyway, excuse me, I have to pee.”

Richard Finch suddenly had one of those rare moments when a thought came into his head.

“Are you PREGNANT?” he yelled.

There was a loud silence. Turned to see that everyone was staring and Peri Campos had just come into the office.

It was all too much. The baby ejected his cheesy baked potato and cappuccino in protest and I threw up into the wastepaper basket in front of everyone.

8 p.m. My flat.
These are the people who have been fired in Peri Campos's “pruning.”

June on Reception (seventeen years at
Sit Up Britain
).

Harry the driver (eighteen years at
Sit Up Britain
).

Julian the floor manager. Yes, he kept forgetting to tell us we were on air, and couldn't tell “camera right” from “camera left,” but he'd been studying the difference for twenty years.

As we all filed out of the meeting, Peri Campos called me aside.

“HR is familiar with employees getting pregnant when their jobs are in jeopardy. Though usually employees whose jobs are in jeopardy are too old to get pregnant. Anyway, don't think you can get away with any bullshit.”

She turned back to the room. “Oy! You lot! One last thing! We're going to start an hour earlier in the mornings.”

Honestly! Everyone knows people in the media are supposed to start late because they're so bohemian and creative. I've booked the first slot at 8 a.m. for the scan on Thursday so I could be back at work by 11.

Oh come on, sure, it will be fine. Will be here by 9.30. Will be early!

W
EDNESDAY 15
N
OVEMBER

Number of texts sent to Mark: 7. Number of replies from Mark: 0.

Just called Mark's office and got his Oxbridge assistant, Freddo.

“Arm yar,” said Freddo, in his resonant tenor. “Arm. He won't be in the office for a couple of weeks. Off the radar.”

“Has he gone somewhere scary?”

“Just, arm, yup off the radar. Jolly good.”

That's odd. Ooh, text.

DANIEL FUCKWIT DO NOT ANSWER

All set for the scan tomorrow, Jones? See how our little express train's coming along?

Looks like it's just me and Daniel again. At least he remembered. Maybe he's changed.

T
HURSDAY 16
N
OVEMBER

8 a.m. Hospital waiting room.
Daniel is not here.

8.10 a.m.
Daniel is still not here. Oh God oh God oh God. I'm supposed to be at work in fifty minutes. Peri Campos will kill me, then eat me.

8.20 a.m.
Receptionist just said, “If you don't go in now you'll miss your slot.”

Was just gathering up my bags when Daniel burst in, bad mood written all over him (well, not literally, that would be weird).

“Traffic total hell, entire city bloody gridlocked. Why did you have to fix it so bloody early, Jones? Come on, let's get on with it. Where's Darcy, anyway?”

“He isn't here.”

Didn't seem a good idea to tell Daniel that Mark was out of the picture: rather like when you're trying to get everyone
behind an idea
at work, and if one person drops out, then they all do. Definitely am not going to tell him.

“No Darce?”

“Mark's not coming,” I blurted. “He wrote me a letter. He doesn't want to join in anymore.”

There was a momentary glint of triumph in Daniel's eye. “It's the ego. Always the ego with Mrs. Darcy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing, just that childbirthing class.”

“You might have apologized,” I said.

“For what, Jones? It was jolly good fun. Everyone had a whale of a time except Mrs. D. Don't have to treat the whole thing like it's an execution in a grungy prison in Arabia.”

The terrible thing was that Dr. Rawlings had been called away to a delivery (assumed of another baby, not FedEx parcel). Found myself unexpectedly feeling jealous of the other baby and Dr. Rawlings, almost as if she was cheating on me. And, worse, we had a male technician instead, so Daniel had no one to flirt with. All the energy seemed to have gone out of Daniel. Without Mark to compete with, he just seemed to be going through the motions.

I, meanwhile, was so overwhelmed with love and seeing how my little gorgeous sweetheart had grown, his round head, his little nose, his hands, that I totally forgot about the time.

“Gaaaaaah!” I said when we got out on the street. “It's 9.15—I was supposed to be at work fifteen minutes ago.”

“OK, OK. No need to overdo it. I'll take you to work,” said Daniel, adding under his breath, “Never mind my galleys, my proofreading.
Sit Up Britain
must reign supreme.”