The Edge of Reason

by Helen Fielding

  Incensed with rage at stupid Paolo. Why would someone do that to another person? Why? Hate sadistic megalomaniac hairdressers. Am going to sue Paolo. Am going to report Paolo to Amnesty International and expose him on national television.

  Far too depressed to go to gym.

  7:30 p.m. Called Tom to tell him of trauma who said I should not be so superficial but to think of Irish Secretary Mo Mowlam and cancer-treated bald head. V. ashamed. Not going to obsess anymore. Also Tom said had I thought up anyone to interview yet.

  “Well, I’ve been a bit busy,” I said guiltily.

  “You know what? You gotta get your ass in gear”—oh God, don’t know what has come over him in California—“Who are you really interested in?” he went on. “Isn’t there a celebrity you’d really like to interview?”

  Thought about this then suddenly realized. “Mr. Darcy!” I said.

  “What? Colin Firth?”

  “Yes! Yes! Mr. Darcy! Mr. Darcy!”

  So now have got project. Hurrah! Am going to get to work and set up interview using his agent. Will be marvelous, can get out all cuttings and really bring out unique perspective on . . . Oh, though. Had better wait till fringe has grown. Gaaah! Doorbell. Had better not be Mark. But he definitely said tomorrow! Calm, calm.

  “It’s Gary,” went the entry phone.

  “Oh hi, hi. Gareeeee!” I overcompensated without a blind idea who he was. “How are you?” I said, thinking, and come to mention it, who?

  “Cold. Are you gonna let me in?”

  Suddenly recognized the voice—“Oh Gary,” I gushed even more crazily overcompensatorily. “Come on up!!!”

  Hit self hard on head. What was he doing here?

  He came in wearing paint-smeared, builder-type jeans, an orange T-shirt and strange checked jacket with pretend sheepskin collar.

  “Hi,” he said, sitting down at the kitchen table as if he were my husband. Was unsure how to deal with two-people-in-room-with-totally-different-concept-of-reality scenario.

  “Now, Gary,” I said. “I’m in a bit of a rush!”

  He said nothing and started rolling a cigarette. Suddenly started to feel scared. Maybe he was a mad rapist. But he never tried to rape Magda, at least as far as I know.

  “Was there something you’d forgotten?” I said nervously.

  “Nope,” he said, still rolling the cigarette. I glanced at the door wondering if I should make a run for it. “Where’s your soil pipe?”

  “Gareeeeeeeee!” I wanted to yell. “Go away. Just go away. I’m seeing Mark tomorrow night, and I’ve got to do something with my fringe and work out on the floor.”

  He put the cigarette in his mouth and stood up. “Let’s have a look in the bathroom.”

  “Noooo!” I yelled, remembering there was an open tub of Jolene bleach and a copy of What Men Want on the side of the washbasin. “Look, can you come back another . . . ?”

  But he was already poking about, opening the door and peering down the stairs and heading towards the bedroom.

  “Have you got a back window in here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  I stood nervously in the bedroom doorway, while he opened the window and looked out. He did seem more interested in pipes than actually attacking me.

  “Thought so!” he said triumphantly, bringing his head back in and closing the window. “You’ve got room for an infill extension out there.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to go away,” I said, drawing myself up to my full height and moving back into the living room. “I’ve got to go somewhere.”

  But he was already heading past me to the stairs again.

  “Yup, you’ve got room for an infill. Mind you, you’ll have to move the soil pipe.”

  “Gary . . .”

  “You could have a second bedroom—little roof terrace on top. Sweet.”

  Roof terrace? Second bedroom? I could make it into an office and start my new career.

  “How much would it cost?”

  “Oooh.” He started shaking his head sorrowfully. “Tell you what, let’s go down to the pub and have a think.”

  “I can’t,” I said firmly. “I’m going out.”

  “All right. Well, I’ll have a think and give you a ring.”

  “Jolly good. Well! Best get going!”

  He picked up his coat, tobacco and cigarette papers, opened his bag and laid a magazine down reverentially on the kitchen table.

  As he reached the door, he turned and gave me a knowing look. “Page seventy-one,” he said. “Ciao.”

  Picked up the magazine, thinking it was going to be Architectural Digest and found myself looking at Coarse Fisherman, with a man holding a gigantic slimy gray fish on the front. Leafed through an enormous number of pages all containing many pictures of men holding up gigantic slimy gray fish. Reached page 71 and there opposite an article on “BAC Predator Lures,” sporting a denim hat with badges on and a proud, beaming smile was Gary, holding up a gigantic slimy gray fish.

  THURSDAY 27 FEBRUARY

  129 lbs. (lost 1 lb. was hair), cigarettes 17 (due to hair), calories 625 (off food due to hair), imaginary letters to solicitors, consumer programs, Dept. of Health etc. complaining about Paolo’s massacring of hair 22, visits to mirror to check growth of hair 72, millimeters grown by hair in spite of all hard work 0.

  7:45 p.m. Fifteen minutes to go. Just checked fringe again. Hair has gone from fright wig to horrified, screaming, full-blown terror wig.

  7:47 p.m. Still Leonard Nimoy. Why did this have to happen on most important night of relationship so far with Mark Darcy? Why? At least, though, makes change from checking thighs in mirror to see if they have shrunk.

  Midnight. When Mark Darcy appeared at door lungs got in throat.

  He walked in purposefully without saying hello, took a card-shaped envelope out of his pocket and handed it to me. It had my name on it but Mark’s address. It had already been opened.

  “It’s been in the in-tray since I got back,” he said, slumping down on the sofa. “I opened it this morning by mistake. Sorry. But it’s probably all for the best.”

  Trembling I took the card from the envelope.

  It depicted two cartoon hedgehogs watching a bra entwined with a pair of underpants going round in a washing machine.

  “Who’s it from?” he said pleasantly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do,” he said, in the sort of calm, smiley way that suggests someone is about to pull out a meat hatchet and cut your nose off. “Who is it from?”

  “I told you,” I muttered. “I don’t know.”

  “Read what it says.”

  I opened it up. Inside, in spidery red writing it said: “Be Mine Valentine—I’ll see you when you come to pick up your nightie—love—Sxxxxxxxx”

  I stared at it in shock. Just then the phone rang.

  Baaah! I thought, it’ll be Jude or Shazzer with some hideous advice about Mark. I started to spring towards it but Mark put his hand on my arm.

  “Hi, doll, Gary here.” Oh God. How dare he be so overfamiliar? “Right, what we were talking about in the bedroom—I’ve got some ideas so give me a ring and I’ll come round.”

  Mark looked down blinking very fast. Then he sniffed, and rubbed the back of his hand across his face as if to pull himself together. “OK?” he said. “Do you want to explain?”

  “It’s the builder.” I wanted to put my arms round him. “Magda’s builder, Gary. The one that put the crap shelves up. He wants to put an infill extension between the bedroom and the stairs.”

  “I see,” he said. “And is the card from Gary as well? Or is it St. John? Or some other . . .”

  Just then the fax started grunting. Something was coming through.

  While I was staring Mark pulled the piece of paper off the fax, looked at it and handed it over. It was a scrawled note from Jude saying, “Who needs Mark Darcy when £9.99 plus P&P will buy you one of these,” on top
of an advert for a vibrator with a tongue.

  FRIDAY 28 FEBRUARY

  128 lbs. (only bright spot on horizon), reasons why people like going to musicals: mysterious unfathomable number, reasons Rebecca allowed to be alive 0, reasons for Mark, Rebecca, Mum, Una and Geoffrey Alconbury and Andrew Lloyd Webber or similar to ruin life: unclear.

  Must keep calm. Must be positive. Was very bad luck all those things happening at once, no question about it. Completely understandable that Mark would just leave after all that and he did say he was going to call when he calmed down and . . . Hah! I’ve just realized who that bloody card was from. It must have been the dry cleaner. When I was trying to get it out of him about the fraud and saying, “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on,” I was dropping off my nightie. And I gave him Mark’s address in case he was dodgy. The world is full of lunatics and madmen and I’ve got to go see Miss Saifuckinggon tonight.

  Midnight. Initially, it wasn’t too bad. It was a relief to get away from the prison of my own thoughts and the hell of dialing 1471 every time I went to the loo.

  Wellington, far from being a tragic victim of cultural imperialism, looked coolly at home in one of Dad’s 1950s suits as if he might have been one of the waiters from the Met Bar on his night off, responding with dignified graciousness while Mum and Una twittered around him like groupies. I turned up late so managed to exchange only the briefest of apologetic words with him at the interval.

  “Is it strange being in England?” I said, then felt stupid because obviously it would be strange.

  “It is interesting,” he said, looking at me searchingly. “Do you find it strange?”

  “So!” burst in Una. “Where’s Mark? I thought he was supposed to be coming too!”

  “He’s working,” I muttered as Uncle Geoffrey lurched up, pissed, with Dad.

  “That’s what the last one said, didn’t he!” roared Geoffrey. “Always the same with my little Bridget,” he said, patting me dangerously near my bottom. “Off they go. Weeeeeeeh!”

  “Geoffrey!” said Una, adding as if making light conversation, “Do you have older women who can’t get married off in your tribe, Wellington?”

  “I am not an older woman,” I hissed.

  “That is the responsibility of the elders of the tribe,” said Wellington.

  “Well, I’ve always said that was the best way, haven’t I, Colin?” said Mum smugly. “I mean, didn’t I tell Bridget she should go out with Mark?”

  “But when she is older, with or without husband, a woman has the respect of the tribe,” said Wellington with a twinkle in my direction.

  “Can I move there?” I said glumly.

  “I am not sure you would be liking the smell of the walls.” He laughed.

  Managed to get Dad on one side and whisper, “How’s it going?”

  “Oh, not so bad, you know,” he said. “Seems a nice-enough feller. Can we take our drinks in with us?”

  Second half was a nightmare. Whole hideous jamboree on stage passed in a blur as mind went into a horrifying snowball-effect roll with images of Rebecca, Gary, vibrators and nighties getting more and more lurid as they spun past.

  Fortunately the crush of people spewing out of the foyer and yelling with—presumably—joy prevented conversation till we all piled into Geoffrey and Una’s Range Rover. We were going along with Una driving, Geoffrey in the front, Dad giggling merrily in the boot and me sandwiched between Mum and Wellington in the back when incident happened, horrifying and incredible.

  Mum had just plonked a pair of enormous, gold-rimmed glasses on her nose.

  “I didn’t know you’d started wearing glasses,” I was saying, startled by this uncharacteristic nod in the direction of acknowledging the aging process.

  “I haven’t started wearing glasses,” she said gaily. “Mind that pedestrian crossing, Una.”

  “But,” I said, “you are.”

  “No, no, no! I only wear them for driving.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “Yes she is.” Dad grinned ruefully as Mum yelled, “Mind that Fiesta, Una! He’s indicating!”

  “Isn’t that Mark?” said Una suddenly. “I thought he was working.”

  “Where!” said Mum bossily.

  “Over there,” said Una. “Ooh, by the way, did I tell you Olive and Roger have gone to the Himalayas? Littered with toilet paper, apparently. The whole of Mount Everest.”

  I followed Una’s pointing finger to where Mark, dressed in his dark blue overcoat and a very white, semiundone shirt, was getting out of a taxi. As if in slow motion, I saw a figure emerging from the back of the cab: tall, slim, with long blond hair, laughing up into his face. It was Rebecca.

  The level of torture unleashed in the Range Rover was unbelievable: Mum and Una crazed with indignation on my behalf—“Well, I think it’s absolutely disgusting! With another woman on a Friday night when he said he was working! I’ve a good mind to ring Elaine and give her what for”; Geoffrey drunkenly saying “Off they go! Weeh!” and Dad trying to quieten the whole thing down. The only silent people were me and Wellington, who took my hand and held it, very still and strong, without saying a word.

  When we reached my flat he climbed out of the Range Rover to let me out, with the babble of “Well! I mean his first wife left him, didn’t she?” “Well exactly. No smoke without fire,” in the background.

  “In darkness the stone becomes the buffalo,” Wellington said. “In sunlight all is as it is.”

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully, then stumbled back to the flat wondering if I could turn Rebecca into a buffalo and set her on fire without creating enough smoke to alert Scotland Yard.

  SATURDAY 1 MARCH

  10 p.m. My flat. Very black day. Jude, Shaz and I went emergency shopping and have all come back here to get ready for night on town, designed by the girls to keep my mind off things. By 8 p.m. things were already getting squiffy. “Mark Darcy’s gay,” Jude was declaring.

  “Of course he’s gay,” snarled Shazzer, pouring out more Bloody Marys.

  “Do you really think so?” I said, momentarily relieved by the depressing yet ego-comforting theory.

  “Well, you did find a boy in his bed, didn’t you?” said Shaz.

  “Why else would he go off with someone freakishly tall like Rebecca, with no sense of girlfriend-hood, no tits and no bottom—i.e., a virtual man?” said Jude.

  “Bridge,” said Shaz, looking up at me drunkenly. “God, d’you know? When I look at you from this angle, you’ve got a real double chin.”

  “Thanks,” I said wryly, pouring myself another glass of wine and pressing ANSWER PLAY again, at which Jude and Shazzer put their hands over their ears.

  “Hi, Bridget. It’s Mark. You don’t seem to be returning my calls. I really think, whatever, I . . . I’m really . . . We—at least I feel—I owe it to you to be friends, so I hope you’ll . . . we’ll. Oh God, anyway, give me a ring sometime soon. If you want to.”

  “Seems to have totally lost touch,” grumbled Jude. “As if it’s nothing to do with him when he’s run off with Rebecca. You’ve really got to detach now. Look, are we going to this party or not?”

  “Yurrr. Who’s ’e bloody think he is?” said Shaz. “Owe it to you! Hggnah! You shoulssay, ‘Honey, I don’t need anyone in my life becauseey owe it to me.’ ”

  At that moment the phone rang.

  “Hi.” It was Mark. Heart was inconveniently overtaken with great wave of love.

  “Hi,” I said eagerly, mouthing “It’s him” at the others.

  “Did you get your message? I mean my message?” said Mark.

  Shazzer was jabbing my leg, frantically hissing, “Give it to him, go on.”

  “Yes,” I said, hoity-toitily. “But as I got it minutes after I saw you emerging from the taxi with Rebecca at eleven o’clock at night, I wasn’t in the most amenable of humors.”

  Shaz stuck her fist in the air going “Yesss!!!” and Jude put her hand over Shazzer’s mouth, gave me a
thumbs-up and reached for the Chardonnay.

  There was silence on the end of the phone.

  “Bridge, why do you always have to jump to conclusions?”

  I paused, hand over mouthpiece. “He says I’m jumping to conclusions,” I hissed, at which Shaz, furious, made a lunge for it.

  “Jump to conclusions?” I said. “Rebecca’s been making a play for you for a month, you chuck me for things I haven’t done, then next thing I see you getting out of a taxi with Rebecca . . .”

  “But it wasn’t my fault, I can explain, and I had just called you.”

  “Yes—to say you owed it to me to be my friend.”

  “But . . .”

  “Go on!” hissed Shaz.

  I took a big breath. “Owed it to me? Honey . . .” At this Jude and Shaz collapsed on each other in ecstasy. Honey! Was practically being Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. “I don’t need anyone in my life because they owe it to me,” I went on determinedly. “I have got the best, most loyal, wise, witty, caring, supportive friends in the world. And if I were to be your friend after the way you’ve treated me. . .”

  “But . . . What way?” He sounded anguished.

  “If I was still to be your friend . . .” I was flagging.

  “Go on,” hissed Shaz.

  “. . . You would be really lucky.”

  “All right, you’ve said enough,” said Mark. “If you don’t want me to explain, I won’t pester you with phone calls. Good-bye, Bridget.”

  I replaced the handset, stunned, and looked round at the friends. Sharon was lying on the rug, waving a fag triumphantly in the air and Jude was swigging straight out of the bottle of Chardonnay. Suddenly I had an awful feeling I had made the most terrible mistake.

  Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. I ran at it.

  “Can I come in?” said a muffled man’s voice. Mark!

  “Of course,” I said, relieved, turning to Jude and Shaz saying, “Do you think you could, like, go in the bedroom?”

  They were just disgruntledly picking themselves up from the floor when the door to the flat opened, only it wasn’t Mark but Tom.