Bridget Jones's Baby (4 page)

10 p.m.
Daniel and I were stumbling, wine-filled, in the flow of drunken attendees pouring out of the venue.

“So what happened to the princess?” I said.

“Oh, over, over. Shame, really. I think I would ultimately have made rather an effective king: cruel, but beloved.”

“Oh dear. What went wrong?”

“Perfection blunted the horn, Jones. Every night, the same glossy hair splayed on the pillow. The same exquisite features frozen in ecstasy. It was as if the very sexual act had been digitally performance-captured. You, Jones, in contrast, are like that mysterious, lumpy parcel that arrives on a Christmas morning, odd, a little misshapen but…”

“…one you always want to get inside. Well, thank you, Daniel. Lovely to catch up! I'll be getting a cab now.”

“I meant it as a compliment, Jones. Besides, firstly, there are no cabs; and, secondly, if there were, you would be competing for them with five hundred other giants of the literary stage, all of them with full beards and moustaches.”

I was trying to call a minicab, but the voicemail was saying, “All our customer service agents are currently busy, as we are currently experiencing unusually long wait times for this location.”

“Look,” said Daniel, “my flat is three minutes away. Let me arrange you a ride home from there. Least I can do.”

I watched as Annie Proulx and Pat Barker snapped up the last remaining cab, Jung Chan bounding in behind them.

10.30 p.m. Daniel's flat.
I stood in Daniel's familiar, designer shag-pad, overlooking the Thames. All the car companies were still “currently experiencing unexpected delays.”

“Seen Darcy since he returned?” said Daniel, holding out a glass of champagne. “In emotional ignominy and failure? Hardly surprising for a man who looks in the mirror every morning and is startled by a complete stranger. Did he weep after sex? Or before? Or was it during? I forget.”

“Right, Daniel, that's enough,” I said indignantly. “I have not come into your flat to be treated to a litany of very unpositive bad karmic vibes about somebody who—”

Suddenly Daniel kissed me on the lips. Oh God, he was such a great kisser.

“No, no, we mustn't,” I said weakly.

“Yes, yes, we must. You know the one thing people most regret when they're about to die? Not that they didn't save the world, or rise to the pinnacle of their career, but that they didn't have more sex.”

T
UESDAY 27
J
UNE

8 p.m. My flat.
Staring psychopathically at phone. Still no word from either of them. Is this going to go on for the rest of my life? Am I going to be getting drunk on sherry with Mark and Daniel over dominoes in the old people's home, then getting furious because they've shagged me and haven't asked me to play Scrabble?

8.05 p.m.
Cannot believe I am still behaving like this after sex after all these years—as if I have sat an exam and am waiting for my results. Am going to call Shazzer.

8.15 p.m.
“Doesn't count with exes,” decreed Shaz.

“That's exactly what Miranda said! Why?”

“Because you've already fucked up the relationship.”

“So I already know I've failed?”

8.30 p.m.
I am going to give up men. I eschew them.

S
UNDAY 17
S
EPTEMBER

10 p.m. My flat.
Everything is terrible. I mean, I just can't believe that this is…Oh, goody! Doorbell!

11 p.m.
Was Shazzer, Tom and Miranda, bursting into the flat, completely plastered.

“Darling! You're alive!” said Tom.

“What's going the fuck on?” enquired Shaz.

“What do you mean?”

“You haven't answered calls, texts, emails anything all weekend. You're in total techno-purdah.”

“What is she googling?”

I leapt at the laptop and wrestled it from their hands.

“Perimenopause! She's been googling perimenopause for seven hours. She's
signed up
to hotflush.com.”

“For some women perimenopause can begin as early as thirty-five,” I gabbled. “In years to come all women will automatically freeze their eggs, build their careers, microwave them, and Bob's your uncle, but…”

“Why do you think you're perimenopausal?”

I stared at them, embarrassed.

“Have your periods become irregular?” said Shazzer.

I nodded, almost in tears. “Gone, and I'm getting middle-age spread. Look, I've had to buy jeans a size bigger.”

I showed them my stomach. But instead of looking sympathetic they started exchanging glances.

“Er, Bridget,” began Tom. “Just, um, a thought. Perhaps a random thought, but…”

“You have done a fucking pregnancy test, right?” said Shazzer.

I reeled. How could she be so cruel?

“I told you—I'm barren,” I said. “I can't be pregnant because I'm perimenopausal, so I can't have children anymore.”

Miranda looked as though she was trying not to laugh. “You know, the whole ‘doesn't count with exes thing' in the summer? Mark and Daniel? Did you use condoms?”

This was unbearable.

“Yes!” I said, starting to feel quite cross now. “Of course I used condoms.” I picked up my handbag and held out the packet. “These condoms.”

The packet was passed between them as if it was a piece of evidence from
CSI Miami.

“Bridget,” said Shazzer. “These are eco-dolphin-friendly condoms and they're two years out of date.”

“Well, so?” I said. “I mean, sell-by dates are just there to sell more products, aren't they? They're not real.”

“The whole point of the dolphin-friendliness is that they dissolve over time,” said Miranda.

“Look,” said Shazzer, standing up and putting on her coat, “never fucking mind the fucking dolphins. Let's get the fuck to the late-night chemist.”

As we drove through the streets to the late-night chemist I felt like I was driving through the graveyard of my fertile years—there the tree where Daniel threw my knickers after the Pergamon Press Christmas party, there the corner where Mark and I had our first kiss in the snow, there the doorstep where Mark Darcy first said, “I love you, just as you are.”

Back in the flat, Shazzer was banging on the bathroom door.

“It takes two minutes, OK?” I said.

“What if she's pregnant with both of them? Like twins?” I heard Tom whisper loudly.

“You can't,” hissed Miranda drunkenly. “The first sperm blocks the second, or something.”

“What about when someone has one black twin and one white twin?”

“That's different eggs but the same sperm.”

This was not how I had imagined this moment would be. I thought I would be with the square-jawed love of my life in a renovated farmhouse in the Cotswolds with poured concrete floors and shaggy rugs, possibly interior-designed by Jade Jagger.

“This is just completely ridiculous. A woman can't have black eggs and white eggs,” growled Shazzer.

“Speckled eggs?” suggested Tom, as I emerged from the bathroom.

“Look, she's got the stick.”

“Give me that.”

Shazzer and Tom both lunged at the stick, knocking it out of my hands. We watched as it twirled up into the air and landed gently on the carpet, then stared at it in awed wonder. There was an unmistakable blue line across the little window.

“You can't be…”

“…a little bit pregnant,” finished Tom.

“A. May. Zing,”
said Miranda.

I couldn't believe it.

In the background I could hear the friends continuing:

“But she's been drinking and smoking.”

“Oh my God, you're right—she's killed the baby.”

“The baby's dead.”

“And she doesn't know who the father is.”

“What are we going to do?”

But none of it mattered at all. I felt like trumpets were tooting and harps were tinkling. Clouds were parting, the sun's rays bursting through, while little birds tweeted with joy. I was having a baby.