Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (20 page)

Came up from the tube into Chalk Farm, euphoric and completely over-aroused. There was a ping on text. It was from Roxster.

Texted back:

No reply. I shouldn’t have put the thing about the sick.

Another text!

11.40 p.m.
Just bustled Chloe out of the house, rather rudely, so could carry on texting.

Here it comes! I love being back in the world of flirting again. It’s so romantic. Oh.

Sent back:

Long pause. Oh no. That was the wrong tone. Not flirty. Schoolmistress. Blown it already.

11.45 p.m.
Just went upstairs to check the children: Billy beautiful, asleep with Horsio. Mabel snuggled up, head on back to front, with Saliva. Never mind. I’m rubbish at dating but at least I’m keeping the children alive.

11.50 p.m.
Rushed back downstairs to check phone. Nothing.

This is all wrong. Am a single mother, cannot afford to be tossed this way and that by vagaries of texting total stranger young enough to be legal son.

11.55 p.m.
Text just came.

Surge of happiness. But then realized he hadn’t suggested another date. Should I reply or leave it? Leave it. Jude says you should always be the last one in the texting thread.

11.57 p.m.
I wish he was here, I wish he was here. Though of course would never bring a young whippersnapper man back to the house. Obviously.

Wednesday 23 January 2013

5.15 a.m.
Such a good job he isn’t here. Mabel just burst into my bedroom with a loud clatter. Only instead of being in pyjamas with her head on back to front she was fully dressed in her school uniform. Poor little thing, I think she was so obsessed with me creating the
appearance of lateness
, by being flappy in the mornings, that she decided to get dressed well in advance. I do see her point, but the thing is, when Chloe does the school run, she arrives at 7 a.m. all shiny and fully dressed, calmly helps the children to dress, prepares breakfast, allows them to watch TV without becoming randomly infuriated by the plot lines and overexcited high-pitched screaming on
SpongeBob SquarePants
then has them out of the door by eight and waiting on the wall when the school door opens.

I mean, I did all that yesterday and we were on the wall, freakishly, by 8.05, which I guess was good? Spending ten minutes sitting on a wall? I suppose it improves social interaction with the other parents.

Anyway, I snuggled her down to sleep in all her clothes, finally got back to sleep myself, then slept through the alarm.

GETTING TO SECOND DATE

Thursday 24 January 2013

9.15 p.m.
Children are asleep. Almost forty-eight hours have passed since Roxster’s last text.

Determined not to ask for friends’ advice because – cf. Dating Rules – if I need friends to orchestrate the whole relationship there is clearly something wrong with it.

9.20 p.m.
Just called Talitha and read her Roxster’s last text.

‘And you left it at that?’

‘Yes. He didn’t suggest meeting again or anything. It’s like he was saying he had a great time and drawing a line under it.’

‘Oh, darling.’

‘What?’

‘What am I going to do with you? How long is it since he sent this text?’

‘Two days.’

‘TWO DAYS? And he sent it at night, at the end of the date? OK. Hang on. Put this.’

Text pinged up from Talitha.

‘It’s really good – but “What are you up to?” Isn’t that a bit . . .?’

‘Don’t overthink it. Just send it. Frankly, I won’t blame him if he takes three days to reply out of pique.’

I sent it. Then regretted it at once and headed for the fridge.

Just as I’d taken out a bag of grated cheese and the wine bottle the text pinged.

Roxster is fantastic. I don’t even need to text Talitha or check Dating Rules to see if that’s an invitation. It is! It definitely is! Oh no, but it’s St Oswald’s House Hard-Hats-Offing this weekend. And I can’t tell Roxster my mum’s in a retirement community because his mum might be the same age as me.

Then, remembering I had to make it easy for him to create a date, I added:

There was a worrying pause.

<50 Shades of Widening Your Circle. Is Friday good?>

HARD-HATS-OFFING!

Saturday 26 January 2013

134lb (worrying slide back into obesity to be blamed on Mum)
,
texts from Roxster 42, minutes spent imagining date with Roxster 242, babysitters to enable self to have date with Roxster 0.

10.30 a.m.
The day of the St Oswald’s House Hard-Hats-Offing is upon us. The phone rang just as I was struggling to persuade Mabel out of the glittery T-shirt and purple leggings she’d somehow put on when I was upstairs (Mabel refuses to accept that leggings are more in the tights department than the trousers department and really need something else on top) and into the dress-and-cardi set Mum had sent for her, straight out of the 1950s, white, covered in red hearts with a sticky-out skirt and a big red sash tied in a bow at the back.

‘Bridget, you’re not going to be late, are you? It’s just that Philip Hollobine and Nick Bowering are speaking on the dot of one, so we can still have lunch.’

‘Who are Philip Hollobine and Nick Bowering?’ I said, marvelling at my mother’s ability to airily bandy about names-one-has-never-heard-of, as if name-dropping top Hollywood celebrities.

‘You know Philip, darling. Philip? The MP for Kettering! He’s ever so good with the St Oswald’s events, though Una says it’s just because he knows he’ll get his face in the paper because Nick’s in with the
Kettering Examiner
.’

‘Who’s Nick?’ I said, hissing, ‘Just TRY it, darling,’ to Mabel, in an eerie, down-the-generations echo of my mother trying to force me into Country Casuals two-pieces.

‘You know Nick, darling. Nick! He’s the overall CEO of
TGL
,’
adding quickly, ‘
Thornton Gracious Living
! I also want you to meet’ – her voice suddenly dropped an octave – ‘Paul, the pastry chef.’ Something about the way she said ‘Pawl’, with a French accent, made me sense trouble. ‘You’re not going to wear black, are you? Wear something nice and bright! Red – Valentine’s Day coming soon!’

11 a.m.
Eventually managed to get Mum off the phone and Mabel into the actually adorable red-and-white dress.

‘I used to wear dresses like this,’ I said wistfully.

‘Oh. Was you born in de Victorian Times?’ asked Mabel.

‘No!’ I said indignantly.

‘Oh. Wad it de Renaissance Era?’

Quickly turned mind to Roxster and our texting. Have even told him about the kids and he seems unfazed. Texting really puts an enjoyable spin on everything and I realize, with a sense of shame and irresponsibility towards followers, seems totally to have replaced my obsession with Twitter.

Realize Twitter has a bad effect on character, making me obsessed with how many followers I have, self-conscious and regretful as soon as I have sent a tweet, and guilty if I do not report any minor events in my life to the Twitter followers, at which a number of them immediately disappear.

‘Mummy!’ said Billy. ‘Why are you staring into space like that?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, glancing, panicked, at the clock. ‘Gaaah! We’re late!’ Then immediately started running about parroting discombobulated orders – ‘Put your shoes on, put your shoes on.’ In the midst of it all, I got a text from Chloe saying she really, actually, definitely couldn’t babysit on Friday night.

Text represents total disaster, throwing whole Roxster date into grave peril. Rebecca is going to her ‘in-laws’ (even though not married) for the weekend, Tom is in Sitges for a birthday party (he got a suite with a 40 sq. metre terrace and a chromotherapy tub for £297 plus tax), Talitha doesn’t do children, Jude is on a second date, which is great – but what am I going to do?

As we roared, late, towards Kettering, I suddenly had a genius idea: maybe I could ask Mum to babysit! Maybe she could have Billy and Mabel at St Oswald’s House for the night!

THE BARNACLE’S PENIS

Saturday 26 January 2013 (continued)

Arrived at 12.59 to find St Oswald’s House transformed into a cross between Show Home event and a royal tree-planting ceremony. There were red-and-white
Thornton Gracious Living
flags everywhere, red balloons, glasses of white wine and girls in stiff Employee of the Month-type suits holding clipboards and looking around hopefully for new people who might be fun-loving, yet slightly incontinent.

Ran, as directed, round the side of the house and emerged into the Italianate garden to see that the ceremony was already under way. Nick or Phil, over a PA system, was addressing a gaggle of elderly people wearing novelty hard hats. Handed Mabel the basket of chocolate hearts we’d brought, which she immediately dropped onto the gravel. There was a moment of calm, then a) Billy trod on them, b) Mabel burst into bereft sobs so loud that Nick or Phil stopped his speech and everyone turned to stare, c) Billy burst into his own bereft sobs, d) Mum and Una strode furiously towards us with mad bouffed hair and wearing identical pastel Kate Middleton’s mother coat-dress outfits, and e) Mabel tried to pick up the chocolate hearts but her distress and humiliation were so heart-rending that I gathered her into my arms like the Virgin Mary, realizing, too late, that several of the chocolate globs were now sandwiched between Mabel’s Shirley Temple red-and-white ensemble and my pastel Grace Kelly-style J.Crew coat.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I whispered as Mabel’s plump little body shook with sobs. ‘The hearts were just for showing off, it’s you that counts,’ just as Mum bustled up saying, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sakes, let ME take her.’

‘But . . .’ I began but it was too late. Mum’s ice-blue Kate Middleton’s mother coat was now smeared with chocolate too.

‘Oh, my godfathers,’ said Mum, putting Mabel down crossly, at which Mabel burst into even louder sobs, wrapping her chocolate-smeared self round my cream trousers as Billy started yelling, ‘I want to go hoooooooooooooooooooome!’

My phone pinged: Roxster!

Startled, I dropped the phone, narrowly missing Mabel’s head. Mum bent to pick it up.

‘What’s this?’ she said. ‘This is a very peculiar message.’

‘Nothing, nothing,’ I gabbled, lunging at the phone. ‘Just . . . the fishmonger!!’

In the background the speech of Nick or Phil was reaching some kind of crescendo, climaxing with a yell of ‘Hard Hats Off!’ echoed by the group of elderly residents, throwing their hard hats into the air, at which Billy burst into more tears, wailing, ‘I wanted to do Hard-Hat-Offing.’ Mabel said, ‘Dammit!’ then Billy, furious with stress in a way I understood only too well, turned to me and said, ‘This is all your fault. I’m going to kill you!’

Before I knew what was happening, I too had erupted with stress like a steam kettle and burst out, ‘I’m going to kill you first!’

‘Bridget!’ said Mum apoplectically.

‘He started it!’ I retorted.

‘No, I didn’t. You started it by being late!’ said Billy.

The whole thing was a total, total fucked-up nightmare. But there was no reprieve. We all retreated into the Ladies’ outside the Function Room to clean ourselves up. Managed to sneak into the cubicle and reply to Roxster about the giant barnacle penis.

Emerged from the Ladies’, chocolate stains smeared and therefore worse, to a stress-free interlude when Mum went off to get changed and the children were briefly entertained by a clown making animals
out of balloons. The clown was clearly bored as Mabel and Billy were the only grandchildren under the age of thirty-five, apart from a couple of great-grandchildren, who were babies. Texted Roxster about the clown and balloon animals at which he texted back:

Me:

Tee-hee. The fantastic thing about texting is that it allows you to have an instant, intimate emotional relationship giving each other a running commentary on your lives, without taking up any time whatsoever or involving meetings or arrangements or any of the complicated things which take place in the boring old non-cyber world. Apart from sex, it would be perfectly possible to have an entire relationship that is much closer and healthier than many traditional marriages without actually meeting in person at all!