Bridget Jones's Baby (8 page)

“Oh, hello, darling, I was just ringing to see what you wanted for Christmas?”—my mother. Flirted briefly with throwing the cat amongst the pigeons by asking for a Bugaboo stroller, but knew she had really called to talk about something else. “Bridget, will you come to the Queen's visit rehearsal on the twenty-eighth? Mavis is making a huge thing about family values and, as well as making
constant
little digs about me not having grandchildren, she's trying to make out that I haven't done as much for the village as her over the years, but I have, darling, haven't I?”

“Of course you have, Mum. Think of all the food! The gherkins!” I encouraged, starting to gag. “The scotch eggs! The raspberry pavlovas!”

“Yes! The Salmon à la King! All those salmons!”

Gaah! “You've been a bastion of village life, Mum,” I said. “You go sock it to that Mavis!”

(“Sock it to”? Where did that come from?)

“Thank you, darling. Ooh, must whizz! I've left gammon and pineapple in.”

Was just recovering from the latest vomit, embracing the beloved toilet, when the phone rang again.

Was Tom: “I forgot to ask you how it went with Mark. You see? Horrible person. Don't deserve to talk to you. Goodbye.”

Looked confusedly at the phone for a minute, then, thinking about the baby, decided to microwave a cheesy potato.

9 p.m.
There you go, little sweetheart: cheesy potato.

We have to tell the truth, don't we? That's one of the things we're always going to do. Even if it means being very, very brave. Even if we really don't want to.

M
ONDAY 16
O
CTOBER

Mark's whole house was turned into a baby-welcoming committee, with flowers, baby supplies and a banner across the kitchen saying
CONGRATULATIONS BRIDGET
.

Fatima was bustling about, beaming. She hugged me and then left the room with her usual discretion.

“You mustn't carry anything,” said Mark, taking my handbag. “Sit here and put your feet up.”

He sat me on a bar stool at the kitchen counter and tried to lift my feet up onto another bar stool. We both laughed.

“Look what I brought down from the attic for him. I used to love this. Look!”

An old Scalextric car set was laid out in the—I supposed you could now call it—family room, where the comfy sofas and chairs were.

I was laughing and fighting back tears: “She might not be ready for that STRAIGHTaway, but…”

Mark bounded over to the fridge. “Look what I've got in here!”

There were two packs of Huggies diapers.

“I thought that was where you were supposed to keep them: so they're nice and cool on the little bottom. No? I'm practicing. You'll move in here, of course? The three of us? It's as if we've been given a second chance! A second chance at life!”

My dad's words were repeating themselves in my ear. “You never go too far wrong by just telling the truth.”

“Mark.”

He stopped in his tracks at my tone.

“What? Bridget, what's wrong? The baby? Is there something wrong?”

“No, no. The baby's fine.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“It's just…there is one tiny complication.”

“Right, right. We can deal with anything. What is it?”

“It's just, I was so upset after the christening when you said you didn't want to get back together and use up any more of my fertile years…”

“I'm so very sorry. Believe me, I've been wretched about it, and torn as to whether I should contact you. I allowed myself to be swayed by Jeremy. He caught me in the hallway of the hotel, when I went out for breakfast, and said it was very wrong of me to be messing around with you at this point in your life unless I was absolutely certain that I could be constant and be a husband to you. At that point, so raw from the divorce, I didn't feel that, morally, responsibly, I should…”

I closed my eyes. Why couldn't I learn not to be so insecure, not to flee at the first hint of rejection? To understand that there might be more to it than me being too old or too fat or silly?

“I felt inadequate,” he said, “unequal to the task, but now…”

“It's just I was so hurt.”

“I am so very sorry, Bridget.”

“I just felt so old, you see, that I…”

“But no,
I
felt so old. What did you do?”

“Is that an elm tree?”

“Bridget.”

“I slept with Daniel Cleaver.”

“The same DAY?”

“No, no: a few days later. I felt as if my sexual days were over, and he was saying I looked so young he didn't know whether to marry me or adopt me, and the friends were saying ‘Get back on that horse' and…”

“You used protection with, with…both parties?”

Mark was opening and closing the stainless-steel cabinets.

“Yes, but they were…eco-condoms. It turned out they were past their sell-by date and they dissolve because of the dolphins.”

He opened another immaculate stainless-steel door and a huge pile of mess fell out—papers, photographs, old shirts, pencils, leaflets. He tried to stuff it all back in. He shut the door on it firmly. I saw his shoulders stiffen and he turned back to me.

“Yes, no, I can quite see how all that would happen. There's no necessity to explain.”

He opened another cupboard, found a bottle of Scotch and started pouring himself a glass.

“Can you find out? I mean technically the paternity, who the…the…father is?” he said, gulping down the Scotch.

“Not without risking the baby.”

“But surely…”

“I know. But I'm not going to risk it. Giant needle thing. Horrible.”

He started pacing, in his agitated way: “Right, right, of course. I see now. That would explain why, when we did take the occasional chance…”

Then he turned to me: composed, steely.

“I expect you'll be wanting to get an early night.”

“Mark. Don't. She could be our baby. There's a fifty per cent chance, at least.”

“It's kind of you to say.”

“It just takes a moment, an impulse, one bad decision.”

“Yes, I know. I see it every day of my professional life: tragic. Life turns on a sixpence. But I don't want that in my personal life, I'm afraid.”

“I'm so, so sorry.”

“It's life. One must play with the cards one is dealt. Jolly good.”

There was nothing to be done with him in this state. He walked me in silence back to the car and I cried all the way home.

W
EDNESDAY 18
O
CTOBER

8 p.m. My flat.
“That's it, I'm an idiot. It's all my fault. He'll never forgive me.”

“Er, excuse me. He did have something to do with this,” said Miranda.

“He fucking slept with you then brutally fucking dumped you,” yelled Shaz.

“He didn't have to be so mean.”

“Darling, you know Mark's psychopathology,” mused Tom. “He's avoidant. He emotionally flees at the first hint of pain. He'll come round.”

“I don't think so,” I said. “Look at the engagement party. I just can't believe I was such an…”

A text pinged up on my phone.

DANIEL FUCKWIT DO NOT ANSWER

(I had recently made some changes in my address book.)

Everyone jumped in startlement and peered at the phone as if it contained a message from an Egyptian god released by the morning sun shining through a tiny hole in a pyramid onto an amulet.

DANIEL FUCKWIT DO NOT ANSWER

Jones, sorry about the phone cutting out the other day. Could I possibly come over?

Then another.

DANIEL FUCKWIT DO NOT ANSWER

I shall, of course, be wearing Wellington boots and a full-body plastic cagoule.

“DON'T SEE HIM,” ordered Miranda bossily. “ 'Ere have we run out of wine?”

“I can't just
not see him
; he might be the father of my…”

“You should see him,” said Tom thoughtfully.

“Bus DON'TS sleeps wi' him.”

“She's goner get pregnant again.”

“Wis triplets,” slurred Shaz.

“SPECKLED triplets,” growled Miranda.

T
HURSDAY 19
O
CTOBER

7 p.m. My flat.
Daniel appeared at the top of the stairs holding a stylish bunch of flowers wrapped in edgy brown paper and tied with straw.

“Now, Jones, you are not to worry. I'm going to take care of everything.”

“You are?” I said suspiciously, letting him in.

“Of course, Jones. May not have been perfect in the past, but when the chips are down: perfect gentleman.”

“OK,” I said, brightening, as he flung himself down on the sofa in his immaculate suit.

“Christ, Jones, is this chocolate?” he said, pulling out something he'd just sat on.

“Sorry about that.”

“So, as I say, just tell me where to meet you and I'll come along and support and pay for the whole thing.”

“WHAT?”

“You're not going to keep it, are you? Christ, Jones, sorry. I just assumed in this situation…”

“OK, that's it! Out!” I said, pushing him towards the door. “Oh, actually, there's one more thing, Daniel. The baby might not be yours.”

“I'm sorry?”

“She might not be yours. She might be Mark Darcy's.”

Daniel took a moment to digest this, then, with a flicker in his eye, said, “Who was first, him or me?”

“Daniel! This actually is more important than you winning your centuries-old public school row with Mark Darcy.”

“Jones, Jones, Jones. I'm sorry. You're right.” He came back into the flat, sighed dramatically, then made a show of composing himself.

“I want to do this: be there for you, new man, come to the scan, whatever.”

“You are so never going to turn up to a scan.”

“I am.”

“You're not.”

“I AM.”

“You so aren't. You'll have a date with some eighteen-year-old lingerie model and flake on me.”

“I am going to come to the scan.”

“
So
don't believe you.”

“I bloody well am. I'm coming to the scan of my child and you can't stop me. Right, Jones, I have to go. I've got a…got a…”

“Date?”

“No, no, no: publishing meeting. Text me when and where and I'll be there with a gown and rubber gloves.”

8.10 p.m.
Sat down, staring crazily into space with one eye closed and the other open. Was this just about rivalry with Mark Darcy, or did Daniel actually want to be a father?

Thought back to when I was dating (i.e., being permanently messed around by) Daniel and when my old friend Jude (now a hotshot banker in New York) was being messed around by Vile Richard, and Shazzer started ranting about “Emotional Fuckwittage,” which, she claimed, was spreading like wildfire amongst men in their thirties.

8.20 p.m.
Just looked back at my diary of Shazzer's rant:

As women glide from their twenties to thirties, the balance of power subtly shifts. Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve, wrestling with the first twinges of existential angst: fears of dying alone and being found three weeks later half eaten by an Alsatian. And men like Richard play on the chink in the armour to wriggle out of commitment, maturity, honour and the natural progression of things between a man and a woman.

You can hardly call what Daniel had just said the natural progression of things between a man and a woman.

But could it be true that even fuckwits like Daniel
do
want children? They just can't ever get past their fuckwittage to make a decision?

The strange thing about all this is all through my thirties I've thought that children were something you had to sort of
wrangle
men into. Almost something you had to pretend
not
to want in order to keep a man, otherwise they'd run off screaming.

Maybe that was the difference between Singletons like me, Miranda and Shazzer and Smug Marrieds like Magda. Smug Married women never had that insecurity or ambivalence, and went for a realistic choice and some sort of balanced lifestyle transaction as soon as possible: never even entertaining the thought that a man would
not
want to have children with them?

8.30 p.m.
Emboldened by my new revelation, even if not exactly sure what it precisely was, I sent Mark a text.

Bridget Jones

Mark, I understand how complicated this is, but I am having a scan on Monday 23 October at 5 p.m. and if you wanted to come I would like that very much.

8.32 p.m.
Staring fixedly at blank phone.

8.33 p.m.
No reply from Mark.

8.34 p.m.
Still no reply from Mark.

8.35 p.m.
But what if he does reply yes? What do I do about Daniel? What if I tell Mark that Daniel wants to come and Mark still says yes? What if I don't tell Mark about Daniel on the assumption that Daniel's never going to turn up anyway, and then Daniel does turn up?

8.45 p.m.
Realize there have been so many times in my life when I've fantasized about going to a scan with Mark or Daniel: just not both at the same time.

9 p.m.
Right. Broccoli. We're eating too many cheesy potatoes and we need to enter different food groups. Broccoli is a Crossover Food that embraces more than one essential food group. Like pomegranates.

9.30 p.m.
Baby hates broccoli. Am going to have cheesy potato.

10 p.m.
Still no text from Mark.

F
RIDAY 20
O
CTOBER

6 p.m.
Sit Up Britain
studios.
“
Sit Up Britain!
” said Miranda, to camera, in her urgent newsreader voice. “The hard-hitting news show that makes you shit up!”

BONG.

“Did I just say shit up?” said Miranda, as the title footage showed reporters striding around the globe with determined expressions.

“Yes,” I whispered into her feed, glancing round to check that Peri Campos wasn't watching.