“What?” I said sulkily.
“Don’t speak to me in that tone of voice.”
“What?” I said again in a lovely appreciative daughter voice.
“Don’t say ‘What?’ Bridget, say ‘Pardon?’ ”
I took a puff on my kind normal friend the Silk Cut Ultra.
“Bridget, are you smoking?”
“No, no,” I said, panicking, stubbing out the cigarette and hiding the ashtray.
“Anyway, guess what? Una and I are holding a Kikuyu election party for Wellington behind the rockery!”
I breathed deeply through my nose and thought about Inner Poise.
“Don’t you think that’s super? Wellington’s going to leap over a bonfire as a full warrior! Imagine! Right over! Dress is tribal. And we’re all going to drink red wine and pretend it’s cow’s blood! Cow’s blood! That’s why Wellington’s got such strong thighs.”
“Er, does Wellington know about this?”
“Not yet, darling, but he’s bound to want to celebrate the election. Wellington’s very keen on the free market and we don’t want the Thin Red Wedge back under the bed. I mean we’ll end up with what’s-his-name and the miners back. You won’t remember the power cuts when you were at school, but Una was giving the speech at the Ladies’ Luncheon and she couldn’t plug her curling tongs in.”
7:15 p.m. Eventually managed to get Mum off the phone, at which it rang again immediately on ringback. Was Shaz. Told her how fed up I was feeling, and she was really sweet: “Come on, Bridge. We simply can’t define ourselves in terms of being with another person! We should celebrate how fantastic it is being free! And there’ll be the election soon and the whole mood of the nation is going to change!”
“Hurrah!” I said. “Singletons! Tony Blair! Hurrah!”
“Yes!” enthused Shazzer. “Many people in relationships have a terrible time at weekends, forced to slave for ungrateful children and being beaten by their own spouses.”
“You’re right! You’re right!” I said. “We can go out whenever we like and have fun. Shall we go out tonight?”
Humph. Sharon is going to a dinner party with Simon in manner of Smug Married.
7:40 p.m. Jude just rang in a spirit of highly charged sexual overconfidence. “It’s on again with Stacey!” she said. “I saw him last night and he was talking about his family!”
There was an expectant pause.
“Talking about his family!” she said again. “Which means he’s thinking seriously about me. And we snogged. And I’m seeing him tonight and it’s the fourth date so . . . doobeedoobeedoo. Bridge? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said in a small voice.
“What’s the matter?”
Mumbled something about the hole in the wall and Mark.
“The thing is, Bridge. You’ve got to Attain Closure on that one and move on,” she said, seemingly not noticing that her last lot of advice had completely failed, which might just invalidate this.
“You’ve got to start working on Loving Yourself. Come on, Bridge! It’s fantastic. We can shag whoever we want.”
“Singletons hurrah!” I said. So why am I depressed?
Am going to call Tom again.
8 p.m. Out. Everyone is out enjoying themselves except me.
9 p.m. Just read a bit of You Can Heal Your Life and now see exactly where have been going wrong. As Sondra Ray, the great rebirther, said, or maybe it wasn’t her. Anyway, this is it: “Love is never outside ourselves, love is within us.”
Yes!
“What may be keeping love away? . . . Unreasonable standards? Movie Star Images? Feelings of unworthiness? A belief that you are unlovable?”
Huh. Is not belief is fact. Am going to open bottle of Chardonnay and watch Friends.
11 p.m.Road Less Traveled blurry good. Is cathexis or similar. “Unitary division of loveinclud self love if love for another.” Sblurry good. Ooof. Tumbled over.
SATURDAY 26 APRIL
130 lbs., alcohol units 7 (hurrah!), cigarettes 27 (hurrah!), calories 4,248 (hurrah!), gym visits 0 (hurrah!).
7 a.m. Aargh. Who set that bloody thing off ?
7:05 a.m. Today I will take responsibility for my own life and start loving myself. I am lovely. I am marvelous. Oh God. Where’s the Silk Cut?
7:10 a.m. Right. Going to get up and go to gym.
7:15 a.m. Actually, though, it is probably quite dangerous to work out before you have properly woken up. Will jar joints. Will go tonight before Blind Date. Is stupid to go in the daytime on Saturday when there is so much to do e.g. shopping. Must not mind that Jude and Shaz are both probably in bed shagging wildly, shag, shag, shag.
7:30 a.m. Shag.
7:45 a.m. Obviously it is too early for anyone to ring. Just because I am awake does not mean anyone else is. Must learn to have more empathy with others.
8 a.m. Jude just rang but practically impossible to tell as total sheep-voice sobbing, gulping experience.
“Jude, what’s wrong?” I said, devastated.
“I’m having a breakdown,” she sobbed. “Everything seems black, black. I can’t see any way out I can’t . . .”
“It’s all right. It’s going to be all right,” I said, staring wildly out of the window to see if there was a psychiatrist passing. “Does it feel serious or is it just PMT?”
“It’s very, very bad,” she said in a zombielike voice. “It’s been building up in me for about eleven years.” She broke down again. “The whole weekend stretching ahead alone, alone. I just don’t want to carry on living.”
“Good, that’s good,” I said reassuringly, wondering whether I should ring the police or the Samaritans.
Turned out Stacey had inexplicably just dropped her off after dinner last night and not mentioned seeing her again. So now she felt she’d failed at Thursday’s snog.
“I’m so depressed. The whole weekend stretching ahead. Alone alone, I could die and—”
“Do you want to come round tonight?”
“Oooh, yes please!! Shall we go to 192? I can wear my new Voyage cardi.”
Next thing Tom rang.
“Why didn’t you call me back last night?” I said.
“What?” he said in a strange, dull monotone.
“You didn’t call me back.”
“Oh,” he said wearily. “I didn’t think it was fair to talk to anyone.”
“Why?” I said, puzzled.
“Oh. Because I have lost my former personality and become a manic-depressive.”
It turned out Tom has been working alone at home all week, obsessing about Jerome. Eventually helped Tom to realize that the phantom madness was quite funny, given that if he hadn’t informed me he was clinically insane I wouldn’t have noticed any difference.
I reminded Tom of when Sharon once didn’t come out of the house for three days because she thought her face was collapsing from sun damage like a movie aging special effect and didn’t want to face anyone or expose herself to UVP rays till she’d privately come to terms with it. Then when she came to Café Rouge she looked exactly like she did the week before. Managed, finally, to get off the subject of Tom and on to my career as a major celebrity interviewer which unfortunately seems to be over, for the time being at least.
“Don’t worry, babe,” said Tom. “They’ll have forgotten all about it in ten minutes, you’ll see. You can make a comeback.”
2:45 p.m. Feeling much better now. Have realized answer is not to obsess about own problems but help others. Have just spent an hour and fifteen minutes on phone cheering up Simon who was clearly not in bed with Shazzer. Turns out he was supposed to see this girl called Georgie tonight, who he has been intermittently secretly shagging on Saturday nights, but now Georgie says she doesn’t think Saturday night is a good idea because it seems too much like they are an “item.”
“I’m a love pariah doomed by the gods always to be alone,” Simon raged. “Always, always. The whole of Sunday stretching ahead.”
As I
told him, it is great being single because we are free! Free! (Somehow hope Shaz does not find out exactly how free Simon is, though.)
3 p.m. Am marvelous: have been almost like therapist all day. As I said to Jude and Tom, any time day or night they can call me, not just be sad on their own. So you see I am very wise and well balanced almost in manner of the Mother Superior in The Sound of Music. In fact can easily imagine self singing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” at wall in middle of 192 with Jude kneeling appreciatively behind.
4 p.m. Phone just rang. Was Shazzer on verge of tears but trying to pretend she wasn’t. Turns out Simon just called her with the Georgie scenario (v. annoying as obviously own Mother Superior act was not sufficient for the, now realize, emotionally greedy Simon).
“But I thought you were ‘just good friends’?” I said.
“So did I,” she said. “But I now realize I was just secretly fantasizing that we were in a higher form of love. It’s just awful being single,” she burst out. “No one to put their arm round you at the end of the day, no one to help you mend the boiler. The whole weekend stretching ahead! Alone! Completely alone!”
4:30 p.m. Hurrah! Everyone is coming round, Shaz, Jude and Tom (though not Simon as in disgrace for Mixed Messages), and we are going to get an Indian takeaway and watch videos of ER. Love being single as you can have fun with all different people and life is full of freedom and potential.
6 p.m. A terrible thing has happened. Magda just called.
“Put it back in the potty. Put it back in! Listen, I don’t know if I should tell you this, Bridge, but put it back. Put the ploppy BACK IN!”
“Magda . . .” I said dangerously.
“Sorry, hon. Look, I just rang to tell you that Rebecca . . . now look that’s really nasty, isn’t it? Yakky! Yakky! Say yakky.”
“WHAT?”
“Mark’s coming home next week. She’s invited us to a postelection welcome-back dinner for him and . . . NOOOOOOO! OK, OK, put it in my hand.”
I slumped dizzily at the kitchen table fumbling for a cigarette.
“All right. Put it in Daddy’s hand, then. The thing is, Bridge, would you rather we said yes or are you doing another one? Well, do it in the potty, then. In the potty!”
“Oh God,” I said. “Oh God.”
6:30 p.m. Am going out for fags.
7 p.m. Whole of London is full of couples holding hands in spring, shagging each other shag, shag, shag, and planning lovely minibreaks. Am going to be alone for rest of life. Alone!
8 p.m. Everything is turning out fantastic. Jude and Tom came round first with wine and magazines and were taking piss out of me for not knowing what a pashmina was. Jude decided Stacey had a big bum and also kept putting his hand on hers and saying “Happee?,” which she had not revealed before and definitely meant he was out of the window.
Also, everyone agreed it was good that Magda should go to the hateful Rebecca’s dinner party as a spy, and that if Mark really is going out with Rebecca then he is definitely gay, which is good—especially for Tom, who was really cheered up. Also, Jude is going to have election party and not ask Rebecca. HA!
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Next thing, Shaz turned up in tears, which was really nice in a way because usually she does not show that she minds about anything.
“Bloodybloodys,” she got out eventually. “It’s just been an entire year of emotional fuckups, and I’m so confused.”
All rushed to first aid with Vogue, sparkling wine, cigarettes etc. and Tom announced there was no such thing as platonic friendship.
“Of course there blurry is,” slurred Jude. “You jus obsessed with sex.”
“No, no,” said Tom. “It’s just a fin-de-millennium way of dealing with the nightmare of relationships. All friendships between men and women are based on the sexual dynamic. The mistake people make is ignoring this, then getting upset when their friend doesn’t shag them.”
“I’m not getting upset,” muttered Shazzer.
“What about friends when neither fancies the other?” said Jude.
“Doesn’t happen. Sex is what drives it. ‘Friends’ is a bad definition.”
“Pashminas,” I slurred, slurping on my Chardonnay.
“That’s it!” said Tom excitedly. “It’s fin-de-millennium pashmina-ism. Shazzer is Simon’s ‘pashmina’ because she wants to shag him most so he diminishes her and Simon is Shazzer’s ‘pashmaster.’ ”
At this, Sharon burst into tears, which took twenty minutes to sort out with another bottle of Chardonnay and packet of fags until we could come up with a list of further definitions, as follows:
Pashmincer. A friend who you really fancy who’s actually gay. (“Me, me, me,” Tom said.)
Pashmarried. A friend who you used to go out with and is now married with children who likes having you around as memory of old life but makes you feel like mad barren pod-womb imagining vicar is in love with self.
Ex-pashspurt. An ex-partner who wants to get back with you but pretends just to want to be friends then keeps making passes and getting cross.
“What about ‘pash-hurts’?” said Shaz sulkily. “Friends who turn your own private emotional disaster into a sociological study at the expense of your feelings.”
At this point I decided I’d better go out for cigarettes. Was just standing in sordid pub on corner, waiting for change for cigarette machine when nearly jumped out of skin. Across the bar was a man who looked exactly like Geoffrey Alconbury, only instead of a yellow diamond-patterned sweater and golfing slacks, he was wearing pale blue jeans, ironed with a crease down the front and a leather jacket over a black nylon string vest. Tried to compose self by staring furiously at a bottle of vodka. It couldn’t be Uncle Geoffrey. Glanced up and realized he was talking to a boy who looked about seventeen. It was Uncle Geoffrey. It definitely was!
Hesitated, unsure what to do. Briefly considered abandoning cigarettes and departing to spare Geoffrey’s feelings. But then some Tyson-esque inner angriness reminded me of all the times Geoffrey has totally humiliated me in his environment, bellowing at the top of his voice. Ha! Ahahahaha! Uncle Geoffrey was on my territory now.
Was just about to go over and bellow “Who’s this then? Durr! Got yourself a young whippersnapper!” at the top of my voice, when felt a tap on my shoulder. Turned round to see no one there and felt a tap on my other shoulder. This was Uncle Geoffrey’s favorite trick.
“Ahahahaha, what’s my little Bridget doing in here, looking for a fellah?” he roared.
I couldn’t believe it. He’d put a yellow sweater with a cougar on over the vest, the boy was nowhere to be seen, and he was trying to brazen it out.
“You’re not going to find one in here, Bridget, they all look like woofters to me. Bent as a ten-bob note! Ahahaha. I’ve just come in for a packet of slim panatellas.”
At that moment the boy reappeared holding the leather jacket and looking all twitchy and disturbed.
“Bridget,” said Geoffrey as if with the full weight of Kettering Rotary behind him, then ran out of steam, and turned to the barman. “Come on, lad! Have you got those slim panatellas I asked you for? I’ve been waiting twenty minutes.”
“What are you doing in London?” I said suspiciously.
“London? I’ve been up at the AGM for the Rotarians. It doesn’t belong to you, you know, London.”
“Hi, I’m Bridget,” I said pointedly to the boy.
“Oh yes. This is, er, Steven. He’s wanting to put himself up for treasurer, aren’t you, Steven? Just giving him a spot of advice. Right. Better be off. Be good! And if you can’t be good be careful!! Ahahaha!” And he shot out of the pub, followed by the boy, looking back at me resentfully.
Back at the flat Jude and Shazzer could not believe I had let such an opportunity for revenge go by.
“Think what you could have said,” said Shaz, screwing her eyes up with disbelieving regret.
“Well! Glad to see you’ve got yourself a fell
er at last, Uncle GeoffrEEEEEY! We’ll see how long this one lasts, won’t we? Off they go—weeeeh!”
Tom, though, had a really annoying expression of pompous concern on his face.
“It’s tragic, tragic,” he burst out. “So many men up and down the country living a lie! Imagine all the secret thoughts, shames and desires eating away within the walls of suburbia, between the sofa and the French window of Lies! He probably goes to Hampstead Heath. He’s probably taking terrible, terrible risks. You should talk to him, Bridget.”
“Look,” said Shaz. “Shut up. You’re drunk.”
“I feel sort of justified,” I said thoughtfully and carefully. Started to explain that have long suspected Smug Married world of Geoffrey and Una was not all it seemed and that therefore am not freak and that living together in normal heterosexual couple is not God-instructed only way.
“Bridge, shut up. You’re drunk as well,” said Shaz.
“Hurrah! Let’s bring it back to ourselves. There’s nothing more annoying than being distracted from our own self-obsession by others,” said Tom.
All got really plastered after that. Was completely fantastic evening. As Tom said, if Miss Havisham had had some jolly flatmates to take the piss out of her she would never have stayed so long in her wedding dress.
MONDAY 28 APRIL
128 lbs., alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, boyfriends 0, calls from Gary the Builder 0, possibilities of new job 0 (promising), gym visits 0, no. of gym visits so far this year 1, cost of gym membership per year £370; cost of single gym visit £123 (v. bad economy).
Right. Am definitely going to start gym program today so can go round saying smugly “Yes it hurt. Yes it worked,” in manner of Conservative Party, and—in sharp contrast to them—everyone will believe me and think I am marvelous. Oh dear, though, is nine o’clock. Will go tonight instead. Where the fuck is Gary?
The Edge of Reason Page 14