Friday
17 February 9.30pm.
Magda's House. Hiding in loo, mid Smug-Married-dinner party. Bloody
Magda. Hate Magda. What was she thinking? Why would any human woman
think it was a good idea to invite Mark Darcy as unheralded "surprise"?
A piece of innocent Hooray-Henry teenage fun to try and fix Piggy up
with Poo while letting off twelve fire extinguishers? I'm PREGNANT for
God's sakes. By someone else. What did she think was going to happen? I
mean, I E-MAILED HIM BY MISTAKE and told him I wanted to get back
together: except it was a drunken six months old e-mail, and he pointed
out coldly that I was pregnant by another man so... oh thank God: Shaz
on mobile. 9.45pm.
"Shaz!," I hissed into the phone. "You'll never guess what..." "I
know!" "What?"
I said baffled. How did she know? Had Magda called Shaz because I'd been
too long in the toilet? "Tom
Cruise and Katie Holmes." "What?"
I said, suddenly panicking in case I was now completely out of the loop.
Had Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes's baby been born early? Had they got
married somewhere tropical rather than the Scientology Building in LA
without me even knowing about it. "You
know she always said that she was going to be a Virgin until she got
married?" "Yup,
yup," I said, nodding earnestly. "And
so she must have been impregnated artificially by someone else's sperm,
probably a Scientologist." "Well
that was...". "And
you know we kind of believed it, but kind of didn't. Like we were kind
of having a post modern nod in the direction of acknowledging that we
were unhealthily obsessed with celebrity culture whilst being
sufficiently detached to stand apart and laugh at ourselves." I
frowned. What was she talking about? "Never
mind, Bridge. The baby's eaten part of your brain. But the point is, we
sort of thought it was true but didn't really. ANYWAY, what if we were
right?". "Er..."
"What
if she was impregnated with Scientologists' sperm, but we didn't go far
enough? What if it wasn't just any Scientologist's sperm, it was L Ron
Hubbard's sperm and the baby was going to be the Scientologists' Jesus
or Dalai Lama?" I
grasped the edge of the washbasin, for support. "But who?..." "Tom
told me." "Tom
Cruise?" I gasped. There
was a violent banging on the bathroom door. "No.
Stupid. Tom. You know, our Tom. The well-known self-obsessed pouf." "Bridget!
Come out of there," yelled Magda. "How
does Tom know?" "Well,
he is living in San Francisco," said Shazzer huffily. As if I'd
questioned some lofty journalistic source. More
banging: "What are you doing?" "I'm...
being sick!" I burst out brilliantly. "No
you're not. You're way past that stage. Come out of there at once." "She's
sold her soul to the devil." "Shaz
shut up..." "Bridget.
I'm going to count to five and then..." "I'm
telling you, Bridge, it's like The Exorcist. I saw a photo in Hello! and
she looked haunted." I
bit my hand hard. How was I ever going to figure out how to deal with
Mark Darcy and the remains of the dinner party, if people kept ringing
me up in the toilet to free-associate about celebrities? "Shaz, shut up,"
I hissed, "I'm in the toilet at Magda's dinner party and Mark Darcy's
just come in." "What?
Fucking perverted Bastard! He's come into the toilet?" "Noooo,"
I groaned, rolling my eyes desperately. "He's
come into the Smug Married Dinner Party." "Well
so what?" "Bridget,
I hope you're decent because I've got a screwdriver and I'm coming in." "What
shall I do?" "How
the fuck should I know. Shag him?" "Ah
Magda! Everything all right there? Anything I can do?" Gaaah!
Mark Darcy was outside the door now. "No!
Hahahahaha!" trilled Magda. "Everything's fine, I'm just, er, picking up
this screwdriver Jeremy's left lying around... What next? Shards of
glass in the playpen?" Suddenly no longer hated but loved Magda for
covering up for my unexplainedlengthy in-toiletness. "Didn't
I see Bridget when I came in? She seems to have rather vanished." "Yes!
Hahahahahaha! Not feeling well. Morning sickness!" "I
see. Would that be tomorrow morning or this morning?" "Shaz,
I've got to go," I hissed, while furiously pinching my cheeks in the
mirror to induce radiance. I opened the door at which Mark tumbled
backwards into the bathroom sending us into an ungainly tangle which
ended with my mouth pressed against his neck like a vampire. "Just
going get you a glass of water!" shrieked Magda and hurried off. Started
to untangle myself but something about the familiar scent of Mark Darcy
got in the way and before I knew it we were kissing each other. "Hello,"
he said, then started kissing me again, kicking the door shut and
locking it. Realized
after a while, that although we'd been there quite some time Magda
strangely had not reappeared to hammer on the door. "You
look awfully sexy, pregnant." murmured Mark. "I
look like a kelly doll." "That's
what I mean. Look, what are you going to do?" "Well,
you know, have the baby." "There
are 57 stairs to your flat." "Well..."
"And
you haven't got a job." "I've
only been suspended," I said, indignantly. "I haven't been sacked." "Is
Cleaver going to do anything to support you?" "Well
he came to the scan, and he did buy some lovely bootees at Christmas..."
I tailed off. "Why
don't I adopt the child?" I
gasped: "Like Maddox and Zahara?" "What?"
Honestly.
Sometimes is as if Mark Darcy is from another planet. "You know: Brad
Pitt adopting..." The
mobile started vibrating on the washbasin, ‘Daniel Cleaver' flashing
on the screen. Why oh why didn't I fling it in the bath? Instead I
stared like a goon while a text message unfurled: ‘Jones, you little
devil. What colour Mummy pants are you wearing?' And before I knew it, Mark had let himself out of the bathroom and Magda’s front door and strode or stridden off into the night. |