Monday
27 March Stairs
to flat: 57. Chances of getting baby into flat without dropping down
stairs: 0. Chances of getting mortgage to buy new flat with no job: 0.
Chances of getting new job while sporting bump obviously containing
baby: 0 (bad). 2pm.
Electric, Portobello Rd. Ugh. How long is intolerable concrete- skyed,
damp wind-flappy weather going to go on? Have come to Electric in middle
of day to stave off unsuitable flat/no job depression, (as well as whole
Katie Holmes/Tom Cruise silent, drug-free Scientology birth story -
which will inevitably lodge in own celebrity-led subconscious and
undermine birth experience) only to find air resounding with
phlegm-regurgitating chesty coughs. Is as if am on top of Northampton
bus, surrounded by old men who've been smoking untipped Capstan Full
Strength for 50 years instead of West London boots-in-jeans, sunglasses
on head clubberati. Plus, someone has hyperactive mobile phone with
ringtone customised as crying baby, adding hint of doctor's waiting room
to whole dispiriting aural design-mix. Grrr. Hate people who keep mobile
phones on in... oh goody - mobile ringing! "Bridget,"
said breathy voice. "It's Harry." Was
momentarily baffled. Harry who? Prince Harry? Harry the Hedgehog?
Harriet Harman? "Good news on the Richard Finch front." Ah.
Always forget that youthful office flirt-magnet "Ashton
Kutcher" also has real name. "He's
had a lot of pressure from the team, about, like, sacking you? When
you're, you know, expecting? Anyway I think Finch has finally realised
it might actually be against the law? and - oh, I'd better, like,
go?" Mmm. Hate
yet love way twenty-somethings phrase everything as question? - perhaps
as result of Antipodean backpacking countercultural influences during
gap year? Gaah, though! Have just been marvelling at clubberati alertly
holding meetings in spite of colds, as if they've been up and on the
phone since 8am, and thinking back in bafflement to how much I used to
get done in the day when I had a job. As Mum always says: if you want
something done, ask a busy person! ie not me - Gaah! Mobile again. "Hi,
Bridget, It's Patchouli. Richard wants you to come in this
afternoon." Then, dramatically changing tone and volume Patchouli
hissed in a gabble "don't mention about being sacked: he's
panicking it's illegal. Get your arse in here at three and make sure you
get the back-pay. Bye." Hurrah!
Money! Gaah! How in the name of arse am I going to get myself hyped up
enough to get on the Tube, let alone re-familiarise self with current
affairs and brush hair? 9pm.
My flat. Need not have worried. Finch, apparently, has been on
coke-fuelled bender for past six days, maintaining only tenuous grip on
world around him. "Bridget
Jones! There you are!" he said, as if the whole traumatic,
baby-impoverishing weeks-long suspension/dismissal had been a mere trip
to the coffee machine, and handed me a piece of paper. "Ring up
these buggers, will you, and ask if they bought their peerages?" "But
Richard, that was last..." interrupted Freddo, grasping
wits-endedly at his hair. "Shut
up, Freddo," said Richard, staring at me while chewing frantically,
twitching one leg up and down. I started
reading down the list: Waheed Alli, Lord Melvyn Bragg, Lord Richard
Rogers, Sir Ben Kingsley... "Sir
Ben Kingsley isn't a peer," I pointed out. "Yes
he is." "No,
he isn't." "He
is." "He
isn't." "He
is." "He
isn't." I sighed.
Had somehow thought that after all this time apart, things might have
become a bit more mature between us. "Look, anyway the point is,
these people haven'tbought their peerages," I said, looking
desperately at the list. "Melvyn Bragg didn't buy his
peerage." "Ieuw,
Ieuw Miss Hoity-Toity Pants. How do you know, if you don't ask
him?" "Because
if he had, he'd have been on the front page of the papers last week
instead of all those mad-haired, wrinkly necked men with wire glasses
who nobody's heard of." "Well
maybe the papers were too scared to ask him. Like you." "I'm
not too scared to ask him." "You
are." "I'm
not." "You
are." "Richard.
I am not. Scared. To ask Melvyn Bragg if he bought his peerage."
"Well ask him, then," he said, holding out the phone. "No,"
I said sulkily. "OK,
then," he said, turning back to his list, "What else do we
have here?" "How
about stag weekends?" said Freddo eagerly. "Friend of mind
just went on his and they Brokeback Mountained him. Made him climb
Scafell dressed in a gold G-string and a pair of leather chaps!" "Shut,
up, Freddo," said Richard. "What
about Old People?" I suggested, catching headline on desk out of
corner of eye, and experiencing moment of panic, suddenly thinking
"what's happened to Granny?" (rather, imagine, as will
experience when baby arrives and remember have left him somewhere)
before remembering Granny died two years ago. "Naaah.
That's such a fucking tired old story," snorted Richard. "We
judge society by the way it treats its elders," said Ashton
Kutcher, looking at me so portentously that I suddenly had an awful
feeling he might mean me. "We
are not. 'Avin. Crinkly. Wrinklies. In the studio. All right?" said
Richard. "Do you all want to end up Davina-ed with no
viewers?" There was
a shocked silence, during which Patchouli tapped me on the shoulder.
"Personnel want to see you," she hissed. Upshot of it is, Personnel are going to pay me for the whole time I was supposed to be sacked, which is brilliant because did not hardly spend anything owing to unemployed. So now have enough money to buy pram, bottle steriliser etc. and might even be able to get mortgage and buy flat with less stairs and is fantastic to have job again, even if boss insane... ooh, goody. Telephone. 9.15pm. Was Daniel, plastered. "Jones," he slurred. "Listen. I've been thinking. Jusss while you're unemployed, all those fucking stairs, you and Junior better come and live with me. Not because I love you or anything. Only till you get another job." |