Friday 9 June Got
home to an answerphone message from my mother saying, "Darling,
call me immediately. My nerves are shot to ribbons." Her nerves are
shot to ribbons! What about my nerves?! I only found out I was pregnant
today in the toilets at work. After 45 minutes staring blankly at the
computer trying to pretend Perpetua was a Mexican cheese plant whenever
she asked me what was the matter, I bolted and went out to a phone booth
to ring Sharon. Bloody Perpetua. If Perpetua had a pregnancy scare,
she's got so much English establishment behind her she'd be down the
aisle in an Amanda Wakeley wedding dress in 10 minutes flat. There
was so much traffic noise outside I couldn't make Sharon understand. "What?
Bridget? I can't hear... are you in trouble with the police?" "No,"
I snuffled, "the thin blue line in the pregnancy test." "Jesus.
I'll meet you in Cafe Rouge in 15 minutes." Although
it was only 12.30, I thought a vodka and orange wouldn't do any harm
since it was a genuine emergency, but then I remembered that Baby wasn't
supposed to have vodka. I waited, feeling like a weird sort of
hermaphrodite or Push-Me-Pull-You, experiencing the most violently
opposed Baby sentiments of a man and a woman both at the same time. On
the one hand, I was all nesty and gooey about Daniel, smug about being a
real woman - so irrepressibly fecund! - and imagining fluffy pink baby
skin, a tiny creature to love, and darling little Baby Gap outfits. On
the other, I was thinking Ohmygod, life is over, Daniel is a mad
alcoholic and will kill me, then chuck me when he finds out. No more
nights out with the girls, shopping, flirting, sex, bottles of wine and
fags. Instead, I am going to turn into a hideous growbag-cum-milk
dispense machine which no one will fancy and which will not fit into any
of my trousers, particularly my brand new acid green Agnes B jeans. This
confusion, I guess, is the price I must pay for becoming a modern woman
instead of following the course intended by marrying Abnor Rimmington
off the Northampton bus when I was 18. When
Sharon arrived, I sulkily thrust the pregnancy test, with its telltale
blue line, at her under the table. "Is
this it?" she said. "Of
course it is," I muttered. "What do you think it is? A
portable phone?" "You,"
she said, "are a ridiculous human being. Didn't you read the
instructions? There are supposed to be two lines. This line is just to
show the test is working. One line means you're not pregnant, you
ninny." 11.45pm. Daniel
just called. "Had a good week?" he said. "Super,
thanks," I said brightly. Super, thanks. Huh. I read somewhere that
the best gift a woman can bring to a man is tranquillity, so I could
hardly - as soon as we've started properly going out - admit that the
minute his back was turned I started having neurotic hysterics over a
phantom pregnancy. Oh well. Who cares? We're seeing each other tomorrow
night. Hurray! Lalalala. Saturday 10 June Spent
the morning in mourning for Baby but cheered up when Tom called to
suggest a Bloody Mary. Returned to find petulant message from mother
saying she's gone to a health farm. I wonder what's up? Probably
overwhelmed by too many Tiffany's boxes from love-sick suitors and
offers of presenting jobs from rival TV executives. 11.59pm.
Completely weird evening. I am now hiding in the kitchen having a fag,
while Daniel is in bed pretending to be asleep. Our entire relationship
so far has been based on the idea that one or other of us is supposed to
be resisting having sex. Spending an evening together when we were
supposed to have sex at the end of it was nothing short of bizarre. We
sat watching TV with Daniel's arm uncomfortably round my shoulders - I
mean it was really digging into the back of my neck, but I didn't feel I
could ask him to move it - as if we were two 14-year-olds in the cinema.
When it became impossible to avoid the subject of bedtime any longer,
instead of tearing each other's clothes off like beasts we went all
English and formal: "Do use the bathroom first." "No,
after you." "No, after you." "No, really, I
insist." We ended up lying side by side not touching, as if we were
Morecambe and Wise or John Noakes and Valerie Singleton in the Blue
Peter House. Monday 19 June Thrilled
by the Jonathan Aitken fax-bungle story. I just love the idea of his
absurd PR man sending the stupid, smug, scheming fax to the wrong person
by mistake. Maybe there is a God after all, punishing them for trying to
manipulate our opinions in a pompous Them and Us sort of manner. If
there is such a God, I would like humbly to ask Him - whilst making it
clear that I am deeply grateful for being granted Daniel as my boyfriend
- to stop Daniel getting into bed at night wearing pyjamas and reading
glasses, staring at a book for 25 minutes then switching off the light
and turning over, and change him back into the naked, lust-crazed sex
beast I used to know and love. Thank you, Lord, for your kind attention
regarding this matter. |