The Edge of Reason

by Helen Fielding

  “Bridget! You’re looking so thin!” he said. “Oh God.” He slumped at the kitchen table. “Oh God. Life is shite, life is a tale told by a cynical—”

  “Tom,” said Shazzer. “We were having a conversation.”

  “And none of us ’ave seen you for blurry weeks,” slurred Jude resentfully.

  “A conversation? Not about me? Whatever can it have been about? Oh God—fucking Jerome, fucking, fucking Jerome.”

  “Jerome?” I said, horrified. “Pretentious Jerome? I thought you’d banished him from your life forever.”

  “He left all these messages when I went to San Francisco,” said Tom sheepishly. “So we started seeing each other and then tonight I just hinted at us getting back together, well, tried to snog him, and Jerome said, he said . . .” Tom brushed angrily at one eye. “He just didn’t fancy me.”

  There was a stunned silence. Pretentious Jerome had committed a vicious, selfish, unforgivable, ego-destroying crime against all the laws of dating decency.

  “I’m not attractive,” said Tom despairingly. “I’m a confirmed love pariah.”

  Instantly we swung into action, Jude grabbing Chardonnay while Shaz put her arm round him and I brought a chair gabbling, “You’re not, you’re not!”

  “Then why did he say that? Why? WHYYYYYYYYY?”

  “It’ss perfickly obvious,” said Jude, handing him a glass. “Iss because Pretentious Jerome is straight.”

  “Straight as a die,” said Shaz. “I’ve known that boy wasn’t gay since first time I blurry sawim.”

  “Straight.” Jude giggled in agreement. “Straight as a very straight, straight . . . penis.”

  * * *

  5

  Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy

  SUNDAY 2 MARCH

  5 a.m. Aaargh. Have just remembered what happened.

  5:03 a.m. Why did I do that? Why? Why? Wish could get back to sleep or up.

  5:30 a.m. Weird how quickly time goes when you have a hangover. Is because you have so few thoughts: exactly opposite to when people are drowning, entire life flashes past and moment seems to last forever because they are having so many thoughts.

  6 a.m. You see half an hour just went like that, because I did not have any thoughts. Oof. Actually head hurts quite a lot. Oh God. Hope was not sick on coat.

  7 a.m. Trouble is, they never tell you what will happen if you drink more than two units a day or, more to point, entire week’s worth of alcohol units in one night. Does it mean you will get a magenta face and gnarled nose in manner of gnome, or that you are an alcoholic? But in that case everybody at the party we went on to last night must have been an alcoholic. Except that the only people who weren’t drinking were the alcoholics. Hmm.

  7:30 a.m. Maybe am pregnant and will have harmed child with alcohol. Oh, though. Cannot be pregnant as just finished period and will never have sex with Mark again. Never. Never.

  8 a.m. Worst of it is, being alone in middle of night without anyone to talk to or ask how drunk I was. Keep remembering increasingly hideous things that I said. Oh no. Have just remembered giving beggar 50p who, instead of “Thank you,” said, “You look really pissed.”

  Suddenly also remember childhood mother saying: “There is nothing worse than a woman drunk.” Am Yates Wine Lodge–style easy meat gutter floozy. Must go back to sleep.

  10:15 a.m. Feel bit better for sleep. Maybe hangover has gone. Think will open curtains. GAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Surely is not natural for sun to be that bloody bright in the morning.

  10:30 a.m. Anyway. Am going to gym in a minute and am never going to drink again, therefore is perfect moment to start Scarsdale diet. So actually what happened last night was v.g. because this is start of totally new life. Hurrah! People will say . . . Oooh, telephone.

  11:15 a.m. Was Shazzer. “Bridge, was I really pissed and awful last night?”

  For a moment could not remember her at all. “No, of course not,” I said nicely to cheer Shazzer up, as sure if she had been really drunk I would have remembered. I gathered all my courage together and asked, “Was I?” There was silence.

  “No, you were lovely, you were really sweet.”

  There, you see, was just hungover paranoia. Ooh, telephone. Maybe him.

  Was my mother.

  “Bridget, what on earth are you doing still at home? You’re supposed to be here in an hour. Daddy’s whizzing the baked Alaska!”

  11:30 a.m. Fuck, oh fuck. She asked me for lunch on Friday night and was too weak to argue, then too pissed to remember. I can’t not go again. Can I? Right. The thing to do is stay calm and eat fruit because the enzymes clear the toxicity and it will be fine. I’ll just eat a tiny bit and try not to vomit and then I’ll ring Mum back when I’ve emerged from Land of Indecision.

  Pros of Going

  Will be able to check that Wellington is being treated in a manner that would not offend Commission for Racial Equality.

  Will be able to talk to Dad.

  Will be good daughter.

  Will not have to take on Mum.

  Cons of Going

  Will have to face torture and torment over Mark/Rebecca incident.

  May be sick on table.

  Phone again. Had better not be her.

  “So how’s your head today?” It was Tom.

  “Fine,” I trilled gaily, blushing. “Why?”

  “Well, you were pretty far gone last night.”

  “Shazzer said I wasn’t.”

  “Bridget,” said Tom, “Shazzer wasn’t there. She went to the Met Bar to meet Simon and from what I gather she was in much the same state as you.”

  MONDAY 3 MARCH

  131 lbs. (hideous instant fat production after lard-smeared parental Sunday lunch), cigarettes 17 (emergency), incidents during parental lunch suggesting there is any sanity or reality remaining in life 0.

  8 a.m. Hangover is at last beginning to clear. Massive relief to be back in own home where am adult lord of castle instead of pawn in other people’s games. Decided was no real way out of Mum’s lunch yesterday, but all the way up the motorway to Grafton Underwood could feel sick coming up in my throat. Village looked surreally idyllic, trimmed with daffodils, conservatories, ducks, etc. and people clipping hedges for all the world as if life were easy and peaceful, disaster had not happened, and there was such a thing as God.

  “Oh hello, darling! Hakuna Matata. Just back from the Co-op,” Mum said bustling me through into the kitchen. “Short of peas! I’m just going to play this answering-phone back.”

  Sat down nauseously while the answerphone boomed out, and Mum crashed around turning on gadgets, which ground and screamed in already painful head.

  “Pam,” went the answerphone. “Penny here. You know that chap who lives up round the corner from the garage? Well, he’s committed suicide because of the noise from the clay-pigeon shooting. It’s in the Kettering Examiner. Oh and I meant to say, can Merle put a couple of dozen mince pies in your freezer while they’ve got the gas board in?”

  “Hello, Pam! Margo! On the scrounge! Have you got a six-inch Swiss roll tin I can borrow for Alison’s twenty-first?”

  I stared wildly round the kitchen, crazed at the thought of the different worlds that would be revealed by playing back people’s answerphone tapes. Maybe someone should do it as an installation at the Saatchi Gallery. Mum was clattering about in the cupboards, then dialed a number. “Margo. Pam. I’ve got a sponge ring tin if that’s any good? Well, why don’t you use a Yorkshire pudding tin and just line the bottom with a bit of greaseproof paper?”

  “Hello, hello, bomdibombom,” said Dad, pottering into the kitchen. “Does anybody know the post code for Barton Seagrave? Do you think it’s KT4 HS or L? Ah, Bridget, welcome to the trenches, World War Three in the kitchen, Mau Mau in the garden.”

  “Colin, will you tip that oil out of the chip pan?” said Mum. “Geoffrey says when you’ve brought it up to a high temperature ten times it should be thrown away. By the way, Bridget, I’ve bought you some talc.” She hand
ed me a lilac Yardley’s bottle with a gold top.

  “Er, why?” I said, taking hold of it gingerly.

  “Well! It keeps you nice and fresh, doesn’t it?”

  Grrr. Grrrr. The whole thought groove was just so transparent. Mark had gone out with Rebecca because . . .

  “Are you saying I smell?” I said.

  “No, darling.” She paused. “It’s always nice to keep nice and fresh, though, isn’t it?”

  “Afternoon, Bridget!” It was Una appearing as if from nowhere with a plate of boiled eggs. “Pam! I forgot to tell you, Bill’s trying to get the council to skim his drive because they didn’t grate the top off it and that’s why they’ve got potholes, so Eileen said will you tell them the water used to run down from your drive until they put a grate in?”

  Was all gibberish. Gibberish. Felt like a patient in a coma whom nobody thought could hear anything.

  “Come on, Colin, where’s that Spam? They’re going to be here in a moment.”

  “Who?” I said suspiciously.

  “The Darcys. Una, pop some salad cream and paprika on those eggs, will you?”

  “The Darcys? Mark’s parents? Now? Why?”

  Just then, the doorbell—which plays the entire tune of a town hall clock—started chiming out.

  “We are the elders of the tribe!” twinkled Mum, taking off her apron. “Come on, everyone, galvanize!”

  “Where’s Wellington?” I hissed at Mum.

  “Oh, he’s out in the garden practicing his football! He doesn’t like these sit-down lunches having to yaketty-yak to us all.”

  Mum and Una dashed off and Dad patted my arm. “Forward to the breach,” he said.

  Followed him into the swirly-carpet-and-ornament-land of the lounge, wondering whether I had the strength and control of my limbs to bolt and deciding I didn’t. Mark’s mum and dad and Una and Geoffrey were standing in an awkward circle each holding a glass of sherry. “OK, love,” said Dad. “Let’s get you a drink.”

  “Have you met . . . ?” He gestured to Elaine. “Do you know, my dear, I am sorry, I’ve known you for thirty years and I’ve completely forgotten your name.”

  “So how’s that son of yours?” Una bludgeoned in.

  “My son! Well, he’s getting married, you know!” said Admiral Darcy, a genial bellower. The room suddenly went blotchy. Getting married?

  “Getting married?” said Dad, holding my arm, as I tried to control my breathing.

  “Oh I know, I know,” said Admiral Darcy cheerily. “There’s no keeping up with any of these young ones anymore: married to someone one minute, off with someone else the next! Isn’t that right, m’dear?” he said, patting Mark’s mother on the bottom.

  “I think Una was asking about Mark, not Peter, darling,” she said, with a flash of understanding in my direction. “Peter is our other son out in Hong Kong. He’s getting married in June. Now come along, can’t one of you chaps find Bridget a drink? They’re all mouth and no trousers, aren’t they?” she said, with a sympathetic look.

  Somebody get me out of here, I thought. I don’t want to be tortured. I want to lie on the bathroom floor with my head near the toilet bowl like normal people.

  “Would you like one of these?” said Elaine, holding out a silver case full of Black Sobranies. “I’m sure they’re death on a stick but I’m still here at sixty-five.”

  “Right, come along and sit down, everyone!” said Mum, swirling in with a plate of liver sausage. “Oof.” She made a great show of coughing and fanning the air and said icily, “No smoking at table, Elaine.”

  I followed her into the dining room where beyond the French windows Wellington was playing an astonishingly accomplished game of keepy-uppy in a sweatshirt and a pair of blue silky shorts.

  “There he goes. Keep it up, lad,” chortled Geoffrey, looking out of the window, jiggling his hands up and down in his pockets. “Keep it up.”

  We all sat down and stared at each other awkwardly. It was like a prewedding get-together for the happy couple and both sets of parents except that the groom had run off with someone else two nights before.

  “So!” said Mum. “Salmon, Elaine?”

  “Thank you,” said Elaine.

  “We went to Miss Saigon the other night!” Mum began with dangerous brightness.

  “Baah! Musicals. Can’t bloody stand ’em, load of bloody ponces,” muttered Admiral Darcy as Elaine served him a piece of salmon.

  “Well, we enjoyed it!” said Mum. “Anyway . . .”

  I looked frantically out of the window for some sort of inspiration and saw Wellington looking at me. “Help,” I mouthed. He nodded towards the kitchen and disappeared.

  “Standing around with their legs apart bellowing,” roared the admiral, a man after my own heart. “Now Gilbert and Sullivan. HMS Pinafore, that’s a different thing.”

  “Excuse me a moment,” I said, and slipped out, ignoring Mum’s furious stare.

  Dashed into the kitchen to find Wellington already there. I slumped against the fridge freezer.

  “What?” he said, looking at my eyes intently. “What is wrong?”

  “She thinks she’s one of the elders of the tribe,” I whispered. “She’s taking on Mark’s parents, you know Mark, who we saw . . .”

  He nodded. “I know all about this.”

  “What have you been saying to her? She’s trying to engineer some powwow about him seeing Rebecca as if—”

  Just then the kitchen door burst open.

  “Bridget! What are you doing in here? Oh.” Spotting Wellington, Mum rather stopped in her tracks.

  “Pamela?” said Wellington. “What is happening?”

  “Well, I just thought after what you said, we adults could . . . could sort something out!” she said, recovering her confidence and almost managing a beam.

  “You were adopting the behaviors of our tribe?” said Wellington.

  “Well. . .I. . .”

  “Pamela. Your culture has evolved over many centuries. When outside influence appears you must not allow it to infect and dilute your birthright. As we discussed, worldwide travel brings a responsibility to observe, not to destroy.” Could not help wondering how Wellington’s brand-new CD Walkman fitted into all this, but Mum was nodding penitently. Had never seen her so under anyone’s spell before.

  “Now. Return to your guests and leave Bridget’s courtship be, as is the time-old tradition of your tribe.”

  “Well, I suppose you’re right,” she said, patting her hair.

  “Enjoy your lunch,” said Wellington, giving me the slightest of winks.

  Back in the dining room, it seemed that Mark’s mother had already deftly deflected the showdown. “It’s a total mystery to me how anyone gets married to anyone these days,” she was saying. “If I hadn’t married so young I’d never have done it.”

  “Oh, I quite agree!” said Dad, rather too heartily.

  “What I don’t understand,” said Uncle Geoffrey, “is how a woman manages to get to Bridget’s age without hooking anyone. New York, Outer Space, off they go! Wheee!”

  “Oh, just shut up! Shut up!” I felt like yelling.

  “It’s very hard for young people now,” Elaine interrupted again, looking hard at me. “One can marry anyone when one is eighteen. But when one’s character is formed, taking on the reality of a man must seem insufferable. Present company excepted, of course.”

  “I should hope so,” roared Mark’s father merrily, patting her arm. “Otherwise, I’m going to have to swap you for two thirty-somethings. Why should my son have all the fun!” He gave a gallant nod in my direction at which my heart lurched again. Did he think we were still together? Or did he know about Rebecca and think Mark was going out with us both?

  Thankfully the conversation then steamed back to HMS Pinafore, bounced on to Wellington’s football skills, swung out on to Geoffrey and Dad’s golfing holiday, fluttered over herbaceous borders, skimmed Bill’s drive and then it was 3:45 and the whole nightmare was ov
er.

  Elaine pressed a couple of Sobranies into my hand as they left—“I think you might need these for the drive back. I do hope we see you again”—which seemed encouraging but not enough to build one’s life on. It was Mark I wanted to go out with again not, unfortunately, his parents.

  “Right, darling,” said Mum, bustling out of the kitchen with a Tupperware box. “Where’ve you put your bag?”

  “Mum,” I said through clenched teeth. “I don’t want any food.”

  “Are you all right, darling?”

  “As all right as I can be under the circumstances,” I muttered.

  She gave me a hug. Which was nice but startling. “I know it’s hard,” she said. “But don’t take any nonsense from Mark. It’ll all work out for you. I know it will.” Just as I was enjoying the unaccustomed mummy-comfort she said, “So you see! Hakuna Matata! Don’t worry. Be happy! Now. D’you want to take a couple of packets of minestrone back with you when you go? How about some cheese slices? Can I just get past you into that drawer? Ooh, I’ll tell you what. I’ve got a couple of pieces of fillet steak.”

  Why does she think food is better than love? If I’d stayed in the kitchen a minute longer I swear I would have thrown up.

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “Oh, he’ll be out in his shed.”

  “What?”

  “His shed. He spends hours in there and then comes out smelling of—”

  “Of what?”

  “Nothing, darling. Off you go and say good-bye if you want to.”

  Outside, Wellington was reading the Sunday Telegraph on the bench.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “No problem,” he said, then added, “She is a good woman. A woman of strong mind, good heart and enthusiasm, but maybe . . .”

  “. . . about four hundred times too much, sometimes?”

  “Yeah,” he said, laughing. Oh my God, I hope it was just enthusiasm for life he was on about.

  As I approached the shed, Dad came out looking rather red in the face and shifty. His Nat King Cole tape was playing inside.