“NO”
MONDAY 20 NOVEMBER
7.30 p.m. Still in Sit Up Britain toilets. “Listen, pet,” said Dad on the phone. “You can’t spend your whole time trying to please everybody else. You’ve got a baby to take care of now, and that’s what you need to do. One of the best things you can learn in life is how to say no. Or better still, ‘Absolutely not.’ ”
“But what about…”
“You’re exhausted. You need to take care of yourself and your baby. Can you do that if you’re going to listen to Daniel going on about his book, sort out Tom’s row with Shazzer, sort out Magda’s row with her nanny and her husband, come to Mum’s Queen visit meeting nightmare? Drive all that way on your own pregnant and have everyone be rude to you, all caught up in their own affairs and asking you difficult questions. And do whatever ridiculous Peri Campos says?”
“No.”
“Just no?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Exactly. Absolutely not.”
—
7.45 p.m. Peri Campos’s office. Walked in to find Richard Finch sitting, looking mortified, as Peri Campos ranted on: “She’s late, she’s disorganized, she spends the whole time in the loo and she’s fucking up my show: Bridget Jones!”
“Look, that’s not fair,” said Richard. “Bridget Jones has been the backbone of Sit Up Britain for…”
“Zip it, Richard, or you’ll be next.”
“Are you going to fire me?” I said.
“No, my love,” she purred. “I’m not going to fire you. I’m going to get my money’s worth out of you. You’re going to get in here at eight o’clock every morning. You’re going to go through the tabloids, and the gossip mags, you’re going to forget about local council election this and Africans with flies in their eyes that, and you’re going to come up with some scary, sexy stories that are going to make people actually sit up and either scream or wank but not fall asleep. You cool with that?”
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.”
“Bridget, steady on,” said Richard, looking worriedly at my bump.
“Sit Up Britain has a long history of serious news reporting,” I said, grandly.
“Yes, I’ve just been looking at some old footage,” said Peri Campos. “Was it you I saw climbing up a fireman’s pole showing the breathless nation your thong? And parachuting into a sewerage works?”
“Well, the show has always had its—sometimes unintentional—lighter elements,” I conceded.
“And the ratings went off the scale with that thong,” said Richard. “Bloody nice arse she has.”
“Shut up,” said Peri Campos.
“But Sit Up Britain has,” I continued, rather modelling myself on Admiral Darcy, “throughout its long history, been a bastion of solid national and international news reporting on which our nation relies, and I have no intention of driving myself into a frenzy searching for bits of prurient gossip and bogus media phenomena, and turning perfectly sensible headlines into a baffling attempt at terrifying riddle-me-ree.”
“So does that mean you resign?”
“Yes!” I said. Then immediately panicked.
“Excellent result,” said Peri Campos, while Richard Finch stared at me with a look of pure horror.
“Pruning,” said Peri Campos. “Pruning is such a great concept because it leads to replenishment.”
“Replenishment? Isn’t that a lube?” said Richard.
TUESDAY 21 NOVEMBER
9 p.m. My flat. Just had series of phone calls:
“But, darling. I’ve told everyone you’re coming and it’ll be absolutely fine. We’ve brushed over the whole thing in the village and said it was a mistake and…please, Bridget, I really need you to be there.”
“Come on, Bridge. You’ve got so boring. You always said you’d never turn into a Smug Mother, and now look at you. You won’t be the only one not drinking, what about the alcoholics?”
“But, Bridget, you have to have a baby shower: Woney, Mufti, Caroline, Poo…”
“But you have to come home for Christmas! You can sleep in the spare room. Una and Geoffrey are coming and…”
“But, Jones—you’ve always been there, in my mind, as my backup position. Nobody takes me seriously. I’m washed up. I need a woman and children to take care of me in my old age. I’m going to be some middle-aged boulevardier, in a cravat, trying to get some sort of affirmation of my sexual viability from the daughters of my friends.”
“No,” I said to all of it, “absolutely not.”
TWELVE
MAKING THE BIG FROM THE SMALL
And then I nested. All through the rest of November, December and January I nested.
I nested all through Christmas. I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t buy anything, I just nested and watched TV all Christmas Day and talked on the phone. No Grafton Underwood. No Turkey Curry Buffet. No torture about my romantic life. No, no, absolutely not. It was lovely.
It was so much easier to say no with a baby inside me, because I didn’t feel selfish, I felt like I was doing it for him.
MONDAY 15 JANUARY
3 p.m. Dad just came round to take the Magda-gift Bugaboo stroller to put in their garage: “You’ll be better off with a bit more space. When the baby comes, it’s just like a little kitten—the stuff is more trouble than the baby. Just put him next to you to sleep and change his nappy and feed him, and that’s all you need. How’s Mark, by the way?”
“Still crazy. I’ve told him to stop calling. Daniel the same. Paintings, novels, can’t take it.”
Dad said he could help me out with a bit of cash. I said no, because I know they’re a bit strapped themselves. It’s weird how calm I feel about losing my job. Maybe I’m just baby-stoned, but I have saved up a little bit: not enough to have friezes hand-painted on the walls like Magda, or buy cribs with curtains round, or a bigger flat to fit the Bugaboo stroller in. But I have enough to pay the mortgage for a few months and I don’t need much to live on—MASSIVE savings on wine and fags. Also I could always get some work as a freelance journalist or publicist, once I’m feeling a bit better. Or even a telemarketer. I could put on an Indian accent and pretend to be in Mumbai! Or one of those girls who pretends to be an eighteen-year-old busty model and does amusing porno-talk with men online.
—
And there is so much that needs cleaning and polishing. I mean—unbelievable. Everything I look at needs polishing. Filthy! I literally spent all day today cleaning out cupboards till Dad arrived. It was so satisfying.
And the funny thing is, now that I’ve shrunk life down to just me and the baby, it’s so simple and happy. I don’t have to worry about social arrangements or who’s fallen out with whom. Every morning I have coffee and a chocolate croissant at Raouls’ round the corner, and read Buddha’s Little Instruction Book and What to Expect When You’re Expecting and resolve to eat Crossover Foods then go to Pregnancy Yoga and try not to fart. And then I get on with my cupboards and cleaning and have cheesy baked potatoes. And sometimes there’s a Dr. Rawlings’s appointment. She thinks I’m doing very well and says, in her personal opinion, fathers can be a terrible nuisance.
—
And, slowly, the friends have all slipped into my routine. Miranda usually comes by with some breakfast on Sundays, on her way back from a club, sometimes with a cute, shag-drunk youth in tow. Tom always comes on Tuesday early evening, because he has a client just near me. And Shazzer comes on Saturday brunch time to rant about whatever the latest outrageous fucking whatever the fuck the fucking thing fucking is.
And Mum has turned her whole campaign round on the basis of inclusivity and got the two gays behind the vicarage on board. Her new thing is to keep dropping into her phone calls, “So modern to have two fathers—I don’t suppose one of them’s black, is he, darling?”
And Magda keeps popping round with baby equipment, which is great. She does keep saying, though: “I just think it’s going to be really hard doing this on your own down the line,
Bridge.” Then she sobs about Jeremy’s infidelities. But it’s fine, because I realize she doesn’t want me to do anything except listen.
Everything’s just so good now, because, as Dad says, “It’s coming from the inside, not the outside.”
THIRTEEN
REALIZATION
MONDAY 29 JANUARY
3 p.m. Right. Completely ready for baby now even though not due for seven weeks. Have finished checking packing again. Is as follows:
3 overnight bags containing clothes, toiletries, tennis balls, etc.
1 set Scrabble
1 set Boggle
1 pack playing cards
1 portable DVD player
Bag containing 5 hardback books, 8 magazines, 2 doz. DVDs
1 laptop
1 iPod
1 stopwatch (for timing contractions)
1 bottle chardonnay (for after birth, obviously)
1 corkscrew
1 box Milk Tray
3 cheesy potatoes
1 bag Popsicles (in freezer) to suck on through pain
I think that’s everything. But it feels like it isn’t everything.
WEDNESDAY 31 JANUARY
9 p.m. Just been reading Buddha’s Little Instruction Book again:
“If you let cloudy water settle, it will become clear. If you let your upset mind settle, your course will also become clear.”
THURSDAY 1 FEBRUARY
5 a.m. I miss Mark Darcy.
—
8 a.m. “I was waiting for this call,” said Dad. “Do you love him?”
“More than anyone in the world—I mean apart from the baby, and you, of course.”
“So what’s holding you back, pet?”
“Well, first, he’s now bonkers, stumbling around doing paintings in the dark; second, he’s broken up with me so many times, for reasons I don’t understand, that I think if I get back together with him he’ll just do it again. I mean, why did he overreact so much at the engagement party and break up our whole lives? Why did he just dump me like that after the christening? Why did he send me that horrible, cold letter after the childbirth class? I’m not intellectual enough for him. Or maybe I’m too old. Never pursue a man, it will only make you unhappy.”
“You girls give men so much power,” said Dad. “Have you really thought about how he feels? Men have feelings too, they just don’t go on about them all the time. You have to be nurturing of the other person’s self-esteem. Talk to him. You can’t just sit around waiting to be rescued.”
“But why did he keep leaving like that? Why has he gone mad?”
“You’ll have to work that out for yourself, love. But I’ve known Mark since he was a little boy. I used to watch him, packed off to the station in his little suit and stiff collar, carrying his little suitcase. Then, when he was a teenager, he was always the quiet, spotty one in the geeky sweater in the corner: the best of all the lads, but never the one who got the girl. You’ll know when you know. You’ll see.”
—
10 p.m. Feel like scales are falling from my eyes. Well, not literally scales. Not weighing scales. But realize I’ve been seeing men as all-powerful gods with the gift to decide whether I’m worthy or attractive or not, instead of human beings. I have not been thinking about what they feel. I have to…I have to…oh, I’m so sleepy.
SATURDAY 3 FEBRUARY
5 a.m. My flat. I understand, I do, I think. It’s what Daniel represents.
WEDNESDAY 7 FEBRUARY
5 a.m. My flat. But then I still think it was bloody brutal to send me that letter. I mean, it wasn’t me that acted out in the childbirth class, it was Daniel. Why take it out on me? Blurry bastard.
TUESDAY 13 FEBRUARY
5 a.m. My flat. I just daren’t call him. I daren’t. It’ll hurt too much if he says no.
WEDNESDAY 14 FEBRUARY
1 p.m. My flat. Gaah! It’s one in the afternoon. I’m starving, the baby’s starving. Have to get up and get some food.
1.05 p.m. Gaah! What’s that?
1.06 p.m. Is baby in stomach. Has started to feel like giant frozen turkey.
1.10 p.m. Cannot put socks on, baby is so enormous.
1.30 p.m. Oh God. There’s no food in the fridge. I have no cash. I’m starving. The baby’s starving.
1.31 p.m. I’ll just have a little lie-down.
1.55 p.m. Just spent ten minutes trying to get up from sofa as had got hands stuck under stomach. Magda is right, cannot do anything on my own. Cannot call Mark to help after all this time, as will seem like act of desperation, not because I really love and understand him. Have to manage by myself, pull self together and go out and forage for food.
—
3 p.m. Tesco Metro. “Is it a boy or a girl?” asked a shopper as I tried to reach the cheesy potatoes.
“Boy!”
“When’s it due?”
“March!” I said. Realized, now with my pregnancy public, I had started to feel not so much like Her Majesty the Queen, but like an air hostess, only with human head attached to elephant’s body, saying same thing to one person after another with fixed grin.
“When’s it due?”
“March. Thank you for flying with us,” I said, distractedly.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” said the cashier as she rang up my shopping and I fumbled to get my credit card out of my purse.
“Boy, two years’ time. It’s an elephant,” I said, sliding my card into the machine and adding, “Can I have fifty pounds cash back, please?”
“Just enter your PIN.”
I stared blankly at the cashier.
“Just pop your PIN in here.”
People in the queue behind me were starting to mutter things.
“Pregnant women! Forget everything!”
“I think it’s a girl, she’s carrying lopsided.”
“Do you think she’s all right?”
“Look,” said the cashier. “Get on with it.”
“I can’t remember my PIN.”
Started jabbing different numbers frantically. My birthday? Nope. My actual weight and my ideal weight? Nope. The baby had eaten the part of my brain with the PIN in it.
“She’s firing blanks,” said the man behind me.
Firing blanks. Firing blanks.
“Have you got another card?”
“No,” I said, fumbling in my wallet for cash: nothing but a 50p coin. “Don’t suppose you do credit?” I gabbled. “I’m a regular customer. I’m very trustworthy. I used to work for the TV—Sit Up Britain?”
“Sorry.”
I shouldn’t have told her it was an elephant.
—
Firing blanks. That’s what Daniel said to Mark after the childbirthing class, when Mark was so angry and I went off in the taxi. Suddenly remembered looking back at the two of them, through the taxi’s rear window. I saw Daniel saying something intently to Mark, then Mark stormed off. Something happened. It was after that conversation, the same night, when Mark sent me the letter.
I took out my phone, right there in Tesco Metro, and dialled.
“Daniel?”
“Yes, Jones. I’m about to do an interview about The Poetics of Time for the most important arts programme in Monaco. But what may I help you with?”
“You know after the childbirthing class?”
“I do know after it, yes, Jones.”
“What did you say to Mark?”
There was silence on the other end.
“Daniel?” I said dangerously.
“Yes, I was meaning to call you about that, Jones. I may have implied to Darce that, when you and I had our delightful thrust towards conception, I did not, as it were, dress for the occasion…”
“You WHAT? But you did wear a condom. You lied! You absolute bastard!”
“Come on, Jones. It’s only Darcy. Oops. Got to go, Monte Carlo on the line. Bonjour, les petites Monacaines! Bye, Jones.”
—
That’s it! That’s it, I thought, standing by the tills in Te
sco Metro as people bustled by, tutting, with their shopping. Mark is a man of honour and he thought that I had lied. On top of everything else, he thought I’d lied to him about the condoms. I have to call him immediately. Anything could happen. He could remarry Natasha. He could go back to the Maghreb and never return. He could have become a successful painter and at this moment be chatting up a gallery owner wearing a weird outfit and hat in Shoreditch.
3.30 p.m. Oh shit. Oh shit! iPhone has turned itself off. Cannot remember iPhone password.
—
3.45 p.m. Back in flat. OK. Calm and poised. I will let my upset mind settle like a glass of mud and…What the fuck is the password?
3.46 p.m. The baby’s due date? 1703? 0317? Nope. Also was not even having baby when put password in phone. OK: when I was thirty-two Mark was…no. When I am sixty-five Daniel will be…still a fuckwit. Oh God, oh God. I have to get hold of him.
3.47 p.m. I know! Will call Mark from good old-fashioned landline.
3.48 p.m. Oh. What is Mark’s phone number?
4 p.m. Maybe is in phone book on the computer.
4.05 p.m. Computer screen said: ENTER PASSWORD.
4.15 p.m. Baby? Mark. MarkDaniel? Cheese? Potato? Cheesy potato?
4.30 p.m. The baby has eaten every number in my head. Cannot remember Shazzer’s number, or Tom’s number, or Dad’s number. I have no cash. I have no brain.
5 p.m. Staring blankly at wall. Is not baby’s fault. Is technology.
5.30 p.m. Grrr! Hate technology. Wish technology had never been invented. When did it suddenly happen that you can’t do anything without remembering some sort of weird mixed-up name or number? Is exactly like car burglar alarms used to be when your car was more likely to be broken into if you had a car alarm because the alarm kept going off and annoying everyone so much that they simply smashed the window and broke it. Passwords are supposed to stop Russian hackers from getting into the computer—not stop YOU from getting into your own computer, or indeed anything, while the Russian hackers get on with hacking all your stuff.
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