Helen Fielding Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

CONTENTS

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Also by Helen Fielding

Dedication

Title Page

Prologue

Plenty of Fuckwits

The Art of Concentration

Dark Night of the Soul

Part One: Born‑Again Virgin

2012 Diary

A New Start – A New Me

Social Media Virgin

The Flabby Diaphragm

Makeover!

Smug Married Hell

A Plan

A Daniel in Shining Armour

The Perfect Babysitter

The Stronghold

Aftermath

Women Change Their Minds

Crashing Wave

How Not to Do Dating

The Number One Key Dating Rule

Continuing Dating Incompetence

Escalating Dating Incompetence

Intensive Dating Study

Wallowing in It

Christmas

Part Two: Mad About the Boy

2013 Diary

Perfect Mother

A Needle in a Twitterstack

Do Not Tweet When Drunk

Twunken Aftermath

Screenwriter

Let it Snow!

Do Not Tweet About Date During Date

Date With Toy Boy

Joy Mixed With Sick

Getting to Second Date

Hard‑Hats‑Offing!

The Barnacle’s Penis

To Sleep With or Not to Sleep With?

Second Date With Toy Boy

Deflowered

Back in the Present Moment

Dark Night of the Soul

Power Mother

Nits in the Works

Nit‑Infestered Power Meeting

Fire! Fire!

The Trouble With Summer

Direction!

The Trouble With Outfits

Heady Glamorous Times

Talitha’s Party

Part Three: Descent Into Chaos

Horrible No‑Good Very Bad Day

Overstuffed Lives

Mini‑Break or Break‑Up?

Is it Snow or is it Blossom?

Frantic

Farting Sports Day

The Deep Freeze

That’s What Friends Are For

The Yawning Void

Just the Way They Are

Let’s Face the Music and Tea‑Dance

Getting Online

KBO

The Summer Concert

The Horror, The Horror

Mid‑Match Collision

Rekindling

Blimey

Giving In

Part Four: The Great Tree

Summer of Fun

Back to School

The Mighty Jungle

Parents’ Evening

Fifty Shades of Old

The Sound of Shells Cracking

A Hero Will Rise

’Tis the Season

The Carol Concert

The Owl

The Year’s Progress

Outcome

Acknowledgements

Copyright

ABOUT THE BOOK

WHAT DO YOU DO when a girlfriend’s 60th birthday party is the same day as your boyfriend’s 30th?

IS IT WRONG to lie about your age when online dating?

IS IT MORALLY WRONG to have a blow‑dry when one of your children has head lice?

DOES THE DALAI LAMA actually tweet or is it his assistant?

IS TECHNOLOGY now the fifth element? Or is that wood?

IS SLEEPING WITH SOMEONE after 2 dates and 6 weeks of texting the same as getting married after 2 meetings and 6 months of letter writing in Jane Austen’s day?

Pondering these, and other modern dilemmas, Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of single‑motherhood, tweeting, texting and rediscovering her sexuality in what SOME people rudely and outdatedly call ‘middle age’.

The long‑awaited return of a much‑loved character, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is timely, tender, touching, witty, wise and bloody hilarious.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HELEN FIELDING is the author of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason , and was part of the screenwriting team on the films of the same name. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is her fifth novel. She has two children and lives in London and sometimes Los Angeles.

Also by Helen Fielding

Cause Celeb

Bridget Jones’s Diary

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination

To Dash and Romy

PROLOGUE

Thursday 18 April 2013

2.30 p.m. Talitha just called, talking in that urgent, ‘let’s‑be‑discreet‑but‑wildly‑overdramatic’ voice she always has. ‘Darling, I just want to let you know that it’s my sixtieth on the 24th of May. I’m not SAYING it’s my sixtieth, obviously. And keep it quiet because I’m not asking everyone. I just wanted you to keep the date free.’

I panicked. ‘That would be great!’ I gushed unconvincingly.

‘Bridget. You absolutely can’t not come.’

‘Well, the thing is . . .’

‘What?’

‘It’s Roxster’s thirtieth birthday that night.’

Silence at the end of the phone.

‘I mean, we probably won’t still be together by then, but, if we are, it would be . . .’ I tailed off.

‘I’ve just put “no children” on the invites.’

‘He’ll be thirty by then!’ I said indignantly.

‘I’m just teasing, darling. Of course you must bring your toy boy. I’ll get a bouncy castle! Back on air. Mustrunloveyoubye!’

Tried to turn on telly to see if Talitha had indeed, as so often, been calling me live on air during a film clip. Jabbed confusedly at buttons like a monkey with a mobile phone. Why does turning on a TV these days require three remotes with ninety buttons? Why? Suspect designed by thirteen‑year‑old technogeeks, competing with each other from sordid bedrooms, leaving everyone else thinking they’re the only person in the world who doesn’t understand what the buttons are for, thus wreaking psychological damage on a massive, global scale.

Threw remotes petulantly onto sofa, at which TV randomly burst into life, showing Talitha looking immaculate, one leg sexily crossed over the other, interviewing the dark‑haired Liverpool footballer who has the anger‑management/biting problem. He looked as if he wanted to bite Talitha, though for rather different reasons than on the pitch.

Right. No need for panic – will simply assess pros and cons of Roxster/Talitha party issue in calm and mature manner:

PROS OF TAKING ROXSTER TO PARTY

*It would be terrible not to go to Talitha’s. She has been my friend since our

Sit Up Britain

days, when she was an impossibly glamorous newsreader and I was an impossibly incompetent reporter.

*It would be quite funny to take Roxster, and also smug‑making, because the thirtieth/sixtieth birthday thing would stop all that patronizing pitying‑of‑single‑women‑‘of‑a‑certain‑age’ thing, like they’re terminally stuck with their singleness, whereas single men of that age are snapped up before they’ve had time to draw up the divorce papers. And Roxster is so gorgeous and peach‑like, thereby somehow denying reality of ageing process on self.

CONS OF TAKING ROXSTER TO PARTY

*Roxster is his own man, and would doubtless take exception to being treated as some sort of comedy, or anti‑ageing device.

*Crucially, it might put Roxster off me, to be surrounded by old people at sixtieth birthday party, and make some sort of completely unnecessary point about how old I am though of course am MUCH younger than Talitha. And frankly, I refuse to believe how old I actually am. As Oscar Wilde says, thirty‑five is the perfect age for a woman, so much so that many women have decided to adopt it for the rest of their lives.

*Roxster is probably having his own party with young people squeezed onto his balcony, barbecuing and listening to 70s disco music with ironic ‘retro’ amusement, and is thinking at this moment how to avoid asking me to the party in case his friends find out he is going out with a woman literally old enough to be his mother. Actually, possibly, technically, with the advancement of puberty due to hormones in milk these days – grandmother. Oh God. Why did mind think such a thought?

3.10 p.m. Gaaah! Have got to pick up Mabel in twenty minutes and have not got rice cakes ready. Gaah. Telephone.

‘I have Brian Katzenberg for you.’

My new agent! Actual agent. But I would be BEYOND late for Mabel if I stopped and talked.

‘Can I call Brian back later?’ I trilled, trying to smear pretend‑butter onto the rice cakes, stick them together and put them in a Ziploc with one hand.

‘It’s about your spec script.’

‘Just . . . in . . . a meeting!’ How could I be in a meeting, and yet talking on the phone saying I’m in a meeting? People’s assistants are meant to say they’re in a meeting, not the person themself, who is supposed to be unable to say anything because they’re in the meeting.

Set off on school run, feeling, now, desperate to call back and find out what the call was about. Brian has so far sent it to two production companies, both of whom have turned it down. But now maybe a fish has bitten at the fish hook?

Fought overwhelming urge to ring Brian back claiming ‘meeting’ had come to an abrupt end, but decided far more important to be on time for Mabel: and that’s the sort of caring, prioritizing mother I am.

4.30 p.m. School run was even more chaos than usual: like Where’s Wally? picture of millions of lollipop ladies, babies in prams, white‑van men having standoffs with over‑educated SUV mums, a man cycling with a double bass strapped to his back, and earth mothers on bicycles with tin boxes full of children in the front. Entire road was gridlocked. Suddenly, a frantic woman came running along yelling, ‘Go back, go BACK! Come ON! Nobody is HELPING HERE!’

Realizing there had been a terrible accident, I, and everyone else, started rearing their cars crazily onto pavement and into gardens to make way for Emergency Services. Once road was clear, peered gingerly ahead for the ambulance/bloodbath. But there was not an ambulance, just a very fancy woman, flouncing into a black Porsche, then roaring furiously along the newly cleared road, a smug be‑uniformed small child next to her in the front seat.

By the time I got to the Infants Branch, Mabel was the only child left on the steps, apart from the last straggler, Thelonius, who was about to leave with his mum.

Mabel looked at me with her huge solemn eyes.

‘Come on, Old Pal,’ she said kindly.

‘We wondered where you’d got to!’ said Thelonius’s mum. ‘Did you forget again?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘The road was completely gridlocked.’

‘Mummy’th fifty‑one!’ Mabel suddenly burst out. ‘Mummy’th fifty‑one. She says she’th thirty‑five but she’th really fifty‑one.’

‘Shhh. Hahaha!’ I responded to Thelonius’s mother’s stare. ‘Better run off and get Billy!’

Managed to get Mabel, still yelling ‘Mummy’th fifty‑one!’, into the car, leaning over in the traditional body‑wrenching movement, which gets increasingly awkward with age, fastening the seat belt by waddling my hand in the mess between the seat back and booster seat.

Arrived at Billy’s Junior Branch to see Perfect Nicolette, the Class Mother (perfect house, perfect husband, perfect children: only slight imperfection being name, presumably chosen by parents before invention of popular smoking substitute), surrounded by a gaggle of Junior Branch mothers. Perfect Nicorette was perfectly dressed and perfectly blow‑dried with a perfectly gigantic handbag. Sidled up, panting, to see if I could get the scoop on the latest Area of Concern, just as Nicolette flicked her hair crossly, nearly taking my eye out with the corner of the giant bag.

‘I asked him why Atticus is still in the football Ds – I mean, Atticus has been coming home, literally, in tears – and Mr Wallaker just said, “Because he’s rubbish. Anything else?”’

Glanced over at the Area of Concern/new sports teacher: fit, tall, slightly younger than me, crop‑haired, rather like Daniel Craig in appearance. He was staring broodingly at a group of unruly boys, then suddenly blew a whistle and bellowed, ‘Oi! You lot. In the cloakroom now or I’ll Caution you.’

‘You see?’ Nicolette continued, as the boys formed themselves into a shambolic line, attempting to jog back into school, shouting, ‘One, sir! Two, sir!’ like startled bushmen recruited to form a Spring Uprising, while Mr Wallaker blew his whistle ludicrously in time.

‘He is hot, though,’ said Farzia. Farzia is my favourite school mum, always having her priorities in place.

‘Hot, but married,’ snapped Nicolette. ‘And with children, though you wouldn’t guess it.’

‘I thought he was a friend of the headmaster,’ ventured another mum.

‘Exactly. Is he even trained?’ said Nicolette.

‘Mummy.’ Looked round to see Billy, in his little blazer, dark hair tousled, shirt hanging out of his trousers. ‘I didn’t get picked for chess.’ Those same eyes, those same dark eyes, stabbed with pain.

‘It doesn’t matter about being picked or winning,’ I said, giving Billy a furtive hug. ‘It’s who you are that counts.’

‘Of course it matters.’ Gaah! It was Mr Wallaker. ‘He has to practise. He has to earn it.’ As he turned away, distinctly heard him mutter, ‘The sense of entitlement amongst the mothers in this school defies belief.’

‘Practise?’ I said brightly. ‘Why, I’d never have thought of that! You must be terribly clever, Mr Wallaker. I mean, sir.’

He looked at me with his cold blue eyes.

‘What has this got to do with the Sports Department?’ I continued sweetly.

‘I teach the chess class.’

‘But how lovely! Do you use the whistle?’

Mr Wallaker looked disconcerted for a moment, then said, ‘Eros! Get out of that flower bed. Now!’

‘Mummy,’ said Billy, tugging on my hand, ‘the ones that got picked get two days off school to go to the chess tournament.’

‘I’ll practise with you.’

‘But Mummy, you’re rubbish at chess.’

‘No, I’m not! I’m really good at chess. I beat you!’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I did!’

‘You didn’t!’

‘Well, I was letting you win because you’re a child,’ I burst out. ‘And anyway, it isn’t fair because you have chess classes.’

‘Perhaps you could join the chess classes, Mrs Darcy?’ Oh GOD. What was Mr Wallaker doing still listening? ‘There is an age limit of seven, but if we stretch that to mental age I’m sure you’ll be fine. Did Billy tell you his other news?’

‘Oh!’ said Billy, brightening. ‘I’ve got nits!’

‘Nits!’ I stared at him aghast, hand reaching instinctively to my hair.

‘Yes, nits. They’ve all got them.’ Mr Wallaker looked down, a slight flicker of amusement in his eyes. ‘I realize this will cause a National Emergency amongst the north London Mumserati and their coiffeurs but you simply need to nit‑comb them. And yourself, of course.’

Oh God. Billy had been scratching his head recently but I’d sort of blanked it as one thing too many to take on. Could feel my head starting to crawl as my mind cartwheeled. If Billy’s got nits, then probably Mabel’s got nits, and I’ve got nits, which means that . . . Roxster has got nits.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, no, super!’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine, jolly good, bye then, Mr Wallaker.’

Walked away, holding Billy’s and Mabel’s hands, to hear a ping on my mobile. Hurriedly put on my glasses to read the text. It was from Roxster.

<How late were you this morning, my precious? Shall I hop on the bus tonight and bring round a shepherd’s pie?>

Gaaah! Cannot have Roxster coming over when we have to nit‑comb everyone and wash all the pillowcases. Surely it is not normal to be thinking of an excuse to cancel your toy boy because the entire household has got nits? Why do I keep getting myself into such a mess?

5 p.m. We burst back into our terrace house, with the usual jumble of backpacks, crumpled paintings, squashed bananas, plus a large bag of nit‑combing products from the chemist, and clattered past the ground‑floor ‘lounge/office’ (increasingly redundant apart from the sofa bed and empty John Lewis boxes) and down the stairs into the warm messy basement/kitchen/sitting room where we spend all our time. I settled Billy to do his homework and Mabel to play with her ‘Hellvanians’ (Sylvanian bunnies) while I put on the spag bog. But now am in total fug about what to text Roxster about tonight, and whether I should tell him about the nits.

5.15 p.m. Maybe not.

5.30 p.m. Oh God. Had just texted <Would love you to come, but have to work tonight, so better not> when Mabel suddenly sprang up and started singing Billy’s least favourite song at him, ‘Forgeddabouder money money money!’ Then the phone rang.

Lunged at it, just as Billy jumped up, yelling, ‘Mabel, stop singing Jessie J!’ and a receptionist’s voice purred, ‘I have Brian Katzenberg for you.’

‘Um, could I possibly call Brian back in–’

‘Berbling, berbling!’ sang Mabel, chasing Billy round the table.

‘I have Brian on now.’

‘Nooo! Can you just–’

‘Mabel!’ wailed Billy. ‘Stop iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.’

‘Shhh! I’m on the PHONE!’

‘Heyyyyyy!’ Brian’s brisk cheery voice. ‘So! Great news! Greenlight Productions want to take out an option on your script.’

‘What?’ I said, heart leaping. ‘Does that mean they’re going to make it into a film?’

Brian laughed heartily. ‘It’s the movie business! They’re just going to give you a small amount of money to develop it, and–’

‘Mummeee! Mabel’s got a knife!’

I put my hand over the receiver, hissing, ‘MABEL! Give me the knife! Now!’

‘Hello? Hello?’ Brian was saying. ‘Laura, I think we’ve lost Bridget . . .’

‘No! I’m here!’ I said, flinging myself at Mabel, who was now hurtling after Billy, brandishing the knife.

‘They want to have an exploratory meeting on Monday at noon.’

‘Monday! Great!’ I said, wrestling the knife off Mabel. ‘Is the exploratory meeting like an interview?’

‘Mummeeee!’

‘Shhhh!’ I hustled the two of them onto the sofa, and started struggling with the remotes.

‘They just have a few issues with the script they want to talk about before they decide to go ahead.’

‘Right, right.’ Suddenly felt hurt and indignant. A few issues with my script already ? But what could they possibly be?

‘So, remember they’re not going to–’

‘Mummeee. I’m bleeeeeding!’

‘Shall I call back in a while?’

‘No! All fine!’ I said desperately, as Mabel yelled, ‘Call de ambulance!’

‘You were saying?’

‘They’re not going to want a first‑time writer who’s difficult. You’ve got to find a way to go along with what they want.’

‘Right, right, so not to be sort of a nuisance?’

‘You got it!’ said Brian.

‘My brudder’th going to die!’ sobbed Mabel.

‘Er, is everything–’

‘No, fine, super, twelve o’clock Monday!’ I said, just as Mabel shouted, ‘I’ve killed my brudder!’

‘OK,’ said Brian, sounding nervous. ‘I’ll get Laura to email you the details.’

6 p.m. Once the furore had been dampened, the minuscule snick on Billy’s knee covered in a Superman plaster, black marks placed on Mabel’s Consequences Chart, and spag bog placed in their stomachs, I found my mind flashing through multiple matters, like that of a drowning person, only more optimistic. What was I going to wear for the meeting and was I going to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay? Didn’t Mabel have an early finish on Monday and how was I going to pick them up? What was I going to wear for the Oscar ceremony and ought I to tell the Greenlight Productions team that Billy has got nits?

8 p.m. Nits found 9, actual insects 2, nit eggs 7 (v.g.)

Just bathed the kids and nit‑combed them, which turned out to be brilliant fun. Found two actual insects in Billy’s hair and seven eggs behind his ears – two behind one and a magnificent crop of five behind the other. It’s so satisfying seeing the little black dots appear on the white nit comb. Mabel was upset as she didn’t have any, but cheered up when I let her nit‑comb me to reveal I didn’t have any either. Billy was waving the nit comb, crowing, ‘I got seven!’ but when Mabel burst into tears, he sweetly put three of his into her hair, which meant we had to nit‑comb Mabel all over again.

9.15 p.m. Kids are asleep. Wildly puffed up re meeting. Am professional woman again and going to a meeting! Am going to wear navy silk dress and get hair blow‑dried in spite of Mr bloody Wallaker’s supercilious take on coiffeurs. And in spite of gnawing sense that increasing female blow‑dry habit is turning women into those eighteenth (or seventeenth?) century men who only felt comfortable in public situations when wearing powdered wigs.

9.21 p.m. Oh, though is it morally wrong to get a blow‑dry when I may have undetectable nit eggs at the start of their seven‑day cycle?

9.25 p.m. Yes. It is morally wrong. Maybe Mabel and Billy should not go to play dates either?

9.30 p.m. Also feel should tell Roxster truth about nits, as lies are bad in a relationship. But maybe, in this case, lies better than lice?

9.35 p.m. Nits seem to be throwing up unfeasible number of modern moral dilemmas.

9.40 p.m. Gaah! Just went through entire wardrobe (i.e. pile of clothes heaped on exercise bike) plus actual wardrobes and cannot find navy silk dress. Have nothing to wear for meeting now. Nothing. How is it that have all these clothes stuffed into wardrobe and navy silk dress is only one that can actually wear for anything important?

Resolve in future, instead of spending evenings shoving grated cheese into mouth and trying to avoid glugging wine, to calmly go through all clothes, giving anything that have not worn for a year to the poor, and organize everything else into mixy‑matchy ‘capsule wardrobe’ so that getting dressed becomes a calm joy instead of hysterical scramble. And then will go for twenty minutes on exercise bike. As exercise bike is not wardrobe, obviously, but exercise bike.

9.45 p.m. Though maybe it is all right to wear navy silk dress all the time in manner of Dalai Lama and his robes. If I could find it. Presumably Dalai Lama has several sets of robes, or on‑call dry‑cleaner, and does not leave robes in bottom of wardrobe full of outfits he bought but does not wear from Topshop, Oasis, ASOS, Zara, etc.

9.46 p.m. Or on exercise bike.

9.50 p.m. Just went up to check on children. Mabel was asleep, hair all over her face as usual, so that her head looked back to front, and clutching Saliva. Saliva is Mabel’s dolly. Billy and I both think she has mixed the name up with Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Sylvanian bunnies, but Mabel considers it to be perfect.

Kissed Billy’s hot little cheek, all snuggled in with Mario, Horsio and Puffles One and Two, at which Mabel raised her head, said, ‘Lovely weather we’re havin’,’ then lay back down again.

I watched them, touching their soft cheeks, listening to their snorty breathing – then, the fatal thought ‘If only . . .’ invaded my head without warning. ‘If only . . .’ Darkness, memories, sorrow rearing up, engulfing me like a tsunami.

10 p.m. Just rushed back downstairs to the kitchen. Worse: everything silent, forlorn, empty. ‘If only . . .’ Stoppit. Can’t afford to do this. Switch on the kettle. Don’t go over to the dark side.

10.01 p.m. Doorbell! Thank God! But who can it possibly be at this time of night?

PLENTY OF FUCKWITS

Thursday 18 April 2013 (continued)

10.45 p.m. Was Tom and Jude, both completely plastered, stumbling into the hallway giggling.

‘Can we use your laptop? We were just in Dirty Burger and–’

‘I’s trying to do PlentyofFish on my iPhone and we can’t get it to download a photo from Google so . . .’ Jude clattered down the stairs into the kitchen in her high heels and work suit, while Tom, still dark, buff, handsome and fabulously gay, kissed me extravagantly.

‘Mwah! Bridget! You’ve lost SO much weight!’

(He’s said this every time he’s seen me for the last fifteen years, even when I was nine months pregnant.)

‘’Ere, have you got any wine?’ Jude yelled upstairs from the kitchen.

Turns out Jude – who now practically runs the City, but has continued to translate her love of the financial roller coaster into her love life – was spotted yesterday on an Internet‑dating site by her horrible ex: Vile Richard.

‘And yes!’ announced Tom, as we clattered down to join her. ‘Vile Fuckwit Richard, in spite of having messed this fabulous woman around in a fuckwitted, commitment‑phobic manner for a HUNDRED years, then married her, then left her ten months later, has had the NERVE to send her an indignant message about being on Plentyof . . . find it, Jude . . . find it . . .’

Jude fiddled confusedly with the phone. ‘I can’t find it. Shit, he’s deleted it. Can you delete your own message once you’ve–’

‘Oh, give it to me, dear. Anyway, the point is, Vile Richard sent her this insulting message, then BLOCKED her so . . .’ Tom started laughing. ‘So . . .’

‘We’re going to make up a person on PlentyofFish,’ finished Jude.

‘PlentyofDicks, more like,’ snorted Tom.

‘PlentyofFuckwits, more like, and then we’re going to use the invented girl to torture him!’ said Jude.

We all squeezed onto the sofa and Jude and Tom started sifting through mugshots of twenty‑five‑year‑old blondes on Google Images and trying to download them onto the dating website, while making up insouciant answers to the profile questions. Wished for a moment Shazzer was here to rant feministically, instead of in Silicon Valley being a dot‑com whizz with her unexpectedly‑after‑years‑of‑feminism dot‑com husband.

‘What kind of books does she like?’ said Tom.

‘Put “Seriously, do you care?”’ said Jude. ‘Men love bitches, remember?’

‘Or “Books? What are they?”’ I suggested, then remembered. ‘Wait! Isn’t this completely against the Dating Rules? Number 4? Use authentic, rational communication?’

‘Yes! It’s FABULOUSLY wrong and unhealthy,’ said Tom, who is actually now quite a senior psychologist, ‘but it doesn’t count with fuckwits.’

Was so relieved to be rescued from the Darkness Tsunami, plunging myself into the creation of Revenge‑Girl on PlentyofFish, that I almost forgot my news. ‘Greenlight Productions are going to make my movie!’ I suddenly blurted excitedly.

They stared at me gobsmacked, then interrogation was followed by wild jubilation.

‘You go, girl! Toy boy, screenwriter, you’ve got it all going on now!’ said Jude, as I managed to persuade them out of the door so I could go to sleep.

As Jude stumbled into the street, Tom hesitated, looking at me anxiously. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think so, it’s just . . .’

‘Be careful, hon,’ he said, suddenly sobering up into professional mode. ‘It’s going to be a lot to take on if you’re having proper meetings and deadlines and stuff.’

‘I know, but you said I should start doing work again and be writing and–’

‘Yes. But you’re going to need some more help with the kids. You’re in a bit of a bubble right now. It’s fantastic, how you’ve turned everything round, but you’re still vulnerable underneath and–’

‘Tom!’ called Jude, who was teetering towards a taxi she’d spotted on the main road.

‘You know where we are if you need us,’ Tom said. ‘Any time, day or night.’

10.50 p.m. Thinking about ‘authentic, rational communication’, have decided to call Roxster and tell him about the nits.

10.51 p.m. Though it is a bit late.

10.52 p.m. Also unannounced switch from texting to telephonic communication with Roxster too dramatic: giving undesirable weight and importance to whole nit issue. Will text instead.

<Roxster?>

Very short wait.

<Yes, Jonesey?>

<You know I said I was working tonight?>

<Yes, Jonesey.>

<There was another reason.>

<I know, Jonesey. You are hopeless at lying even via text. Are you having an affair with a younger man?>

<No, but it’s equally embarrassing. It’s related to your love of the natural world and its insect life.>

<Bedbugs?>

<Nearly . . .>

< *Spontaneous crying, starts hysterically scratching head.* Not . . . nits!!!>

<Can you possibly forgive etc?>

There was a brief pause then texting noise.

<Shall I come round now? Am in Camden.>

Dazzled by Roxster’s cheerful gallantry, I texted back.

<Yes, but don’t you mind about the nits?>

<No. I’ve googled them. They’re allergic to testosterone.>

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 908