The Edge of Reason Page 17

  Lurched in horror, dimly remembering offer to spend Saturday taking Magda’s infants to the swings while she spends day having hair done and lunching with Jude and Shazzer like single girl.

  Panicking, I pressed the buzzer, flung on only dressing gown could find—unsuitable, v. short, translucent—and started running round the flat to remove ashtrays, mugs of vodka, broken glass etc., etc.

  “Fwoff. Here we are! I’m afraid Harry’s got a bit of a snuffle, haven’t we?” crooned Magda, clunking up the stairs, festooned with prams and bags like a homeless person. “Ooof. What’s that smell?”

  Constance, my goddaughter, who is three next week, said she had brought me a present. She seemed very pleased indeed with her gift choice and sure that I would like it. Unwrapped it excitedly. It was a fireplace catalogue.

  “I think she thought it was a magazine,” whispered Magda.

  Demonstrated massive delight. Constance beamed smugly and gave me a kiss, which I liked, then sat down happily in front of the Pingu video.

  “Sorry. I’m going to have to dump and dash, I’m late for my highlights,” said Magda. “There’s everything you need in the bag under the pram. Don’t let them fall out of the hole in the wall.”

  It all seemed fine. The baby was asleep, Harry, who is nearly one, was sitting in the double pram next to him, holding a very battered rabbit and looking as if he was about to fall asleep too. But the second the door slammed downstairs, Harry and the baby began to scream blue murder, writhing and kicking when I tried to pick them up, like violent deportees.

  Found self trying to do anything (though obviously not gagging with tape) to make them stop: dancing, waving and pretending to blow imaginary trumpet to no avail.

  Constance looked up solemnly from the video, removing her own bottle from her mouth. “They’re probably thirsty,” she said. “You can see through your nightie.”

  Humiliated at being out-earth-mothered by someone not quite three, I found the bottles in the bag, handed them over and sure enough both babies stopped crying and sat there sucking, busily watching me from beneath lowered brows as if I were someone very nasty from the Home Office.

  I tried to slip next door to put some clothes on, at which they took the bottles out and started yelling again. Finally, I ended up dressing in the sitting room while they watched intently as if I were a bizarre reverse striptease artist.

  After forty-five minutes of Gulf War–style operation to get them, plus the prams and bags, downstairs, we reached the street. Was very nice when we got to the swings. Harry, as Magda says, has not mastered the human language yet but Constance developed a very sweet, all-adults-together confidential tone with me, saying, “I think he wants to go on the swing,” when he talked gibberish, and when I bought a packet of Minstrels saying solemnly, “I don’t think we’d better tell people about this.”

  Unfortunately, for some reason when we got to the front door, Harry started sneezing and a huge web of projectile green snot seemed to fly into the air then flop back over his face like something from Dr. Who. Constance then gagged in horror and threw up on my hair and the baby started screaming, which set the other two off. Desperately trying to calm the situation, I bent down, wiped the snot off Harry, and put his dummy back into his mouth while beginning a soothing rendition of “I Will Always Love You.”

  For a miraculous second, there was silence. Thrilled with my gifts as a natural mother, I launched into a second verse, beaming into Harry’s face, at which he abruptly pulled the dummy out of his mouth and shoved it into mine.

  “Hello again,” said a manly voice as Harry started to scream once more. I turned round, dummy in mouth and sick all over hair to find Mark Darcy looking extremely puzzled.

  “They’re Magda’s,” I said eventually.

  “Ah, I thought it was all a bit quick. Or a very well-kept secret.”

  “Who’s that?” Constance put her hand in mine, looking up at him suspiciously.

  “I’m Mark,” he said. “I’m Bridget’s friend.”

  “Oh,” she said, still looking suspicious.

  “She’s got the same expression as you anyway,” he said, looking at me in a way I couldn’t fathom. “Can I give you a hand upstairs?”

  Ended up with me carrying the baby and holding Constance’s hand and Mark bringing the pram and holding Harry’s hand. For some reason neither of us could speak, except to the children. But then I was aware of voices on the stairs. Rounded the corner and there were two policemen emptying the hall cupboard. They’d had a complaint from next door about the smell.

  “You take the children upstairs, I’ll deal with this,” said Mark quietly. Felt like Maria in The Sound of Music when they’ve been singing in the concert and she has to get the children into the car while Captain Von Trapp confronts the Gestapo.

  Talking in a cheery, fraudulently confident whisper, I put the Pingu video back on, gave them all some sugar-free juice in their bottles and sat on the floor between them, which they seemed more than contented about.

  Then policeman appeared clutching a holdall I recognized as mine. He pulled a polythene bag of stinking blood-smeared flesh accusingly from the zip pocket with his gloved hand and said, “Is this yours, miss? It was in the hall cupboard. Could we ask you a few questions?”

  I got up, leaving the children staring rapt at Pingu as Mark appeared in the doorway.

  “As I said, I’m a lawyer,” he said pleasantly to the young policemen, with just the merest steely hint of “so you’d better watch what you’re doing” in his voice.

  Just then the phone rang.

  “Shall I get that for you, miss?” said one of the officers suspiciously, as if it might be my bits-of-dead-person supplier. I just couldn’t work out how bloodstained flesh had got in my bag. The policeman put the phone to his ear, looked completely terrified for a moment, then shoved the phone at me.

  “Oh, hello, darling, who’s that? Have you got a man in the house?”

  Suddenly the penny dropped. The last time I used that bag was when I went to Mum and Dad’s for lunch.

  “Mother,” I said, “when I came down for lunch, did you put anything in my bag?”

  “Yes, in actual fact I did, come to mention it. Two pieces of fillet steak. And you never said thank you. In the zip pocket. I mean as I was saying to Una, it’s not cheap isn’t fillet steak.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I hissed.

  Finally managed to get a totally unpenitent mother to confess to the policemen. Even then they started saying they wanted to take the fillet steak off for analysis and maybe hold me for questioning at which Constance started crying, I picked her up, and she put her arm round my neck, holding on to my jumper as if I were about to be wrested from her and thrown in a pit with bears.

  Mark just laughed, put his hand on one of the policemen’s shoulder and said, “Come on, boys. It’s a couple of pieces of fillet steak from her mother. I’m sure there’s better things you could be doing with your time.”

  The policemen looked at each other, and nodded, then they started closing their notebooks and picking their helmets up. Then the main one said, “OK, Miss Jones, just keep an eye on what your mother puts in your bag in future. Thanks for your help, sir. Have a good evening. Have a good evening, miss.”

  There was a second’s pause when Mark stared at the hole in the wall, looking unsure what to do, then he suddenly said, “Enjoy Pingu,” and bolted off down the stairs after the policemen.

  WEDNESDAY 21 MAY

  127 lbs., alcohol units 3 (v.g.), cigarettes 12 (excellent), calories 3,425 (off food), progress of hole in wall by Gary 0, positive thoughts about furnishing fabric as special-occasion-wear look 0.

  Jude has gone completely mad. Just went round to her house to find entire place strewn with bridal magazines, lace swatches, gold-sprayed raspberries, tureen and grapefruit-knife brochures, terra-cotta pots with weeds in and bits of straw.

  “I want a gurd,” she was saying. “Or is it a yurd? Instead
of a marquee. It’s like a nomad’s tent in Afghanistan with rugs on the floor, and I want long-stemmed patinated oil burners.”

  “What are you wearing?” I said, leafing through pictures of embroidered stick-thin models with flower arrangements on their heads and wondering whether to call an ambulance.

  “I’m having it made. Abe Hamilton! Lace and lots of cleavage.”

  “What cleavage?” muttered Shaz murderously.

  “That’s what they should call Loaded magazine.”

  “I’m sorry?” said Jude coldly.

  “ ‘What Cleavage?’ ” I explained. “Like What Car?”

  “It’s not What Car? It’s Which Car?” said Shaz.

  “Girls,” said Jude, over-pleasantly, like a gym mistress about to make us stand in the corridor in our gym knickers, “can we get on?”

  Interesting how “we” had crept in. Suddenly was not Jude’s wedding but our wedding and we were having to do all these lunatic tasks like tying straw round 150 patinated oil burners and going away to a health farm to give Jude a shower.

  “Can I just say something?” said Shaz.

  “Yes,” said Jude.

  “DON’T BLOODY MARRY VILE RICHARD. He’s an unreliable, selfish, idle, unfaithful fuckwit from hell. If you marry him, he’ll take half your money and run off with a bimbo. I know they have the prenuptial agreements but . . .”

  Jude went all quiet. Suddenly realized—feeling her shoe hit my shin—I was supposed to back Shazzie up.

  “Listen to this,” I said hopefully, reading from the Bride’s Wedding Guide. “ ‘Best Man: the groom should ideally choose a level-headed responsible person . . .’ ”

  I looked round smugly as if to prove Shaz’s point but the response was chilly. “Also,” said Shaz, “don’t you think a wedding puts too much pressure on a relationship? I mean it’s not exactly playing hard to get, is it?”

  Jude breathed in deeply through her nose while we watched, on tenterhooks.

  “Now!” she said eventually, looking up with a brave smile. “The bridesmaids’ duties!”

  Shaz lit a Silk Cut. “What are we wearing?”

  “Well!” gushed Jude. “I think we should have them made. And look at this!” It was an article entitled “50 Ways to Save Money on the Big Day.” “ ‘For bridesmaids, furnishing fabrics can work surprisingly well’!”

  Furnishing fabrics?

  “You see,” Jude was going on, “with the guest list it says, don’t feel you have to invite guest’s new partners—but the minute I mentioned it she said, ‘Oh we’d love to come.’ ”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Rebecca.”

  I looked at Jude, dumbstruck. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t expect me to walk down the aisle dressed as a sofa while Mark Darcy sat with Rebecca, would she?

  “And I mean they have asked me to go on holiday with them. Not that I would go, of course. But I think Rebecca was a bit hurt that I hadn’t told her before.”

  “What?” exploded Shazzer. “Have you no concept of the meaning of the word ‘girlfriend’? Bridget’s your best friend joint with me, and Rebecca has shamelessly stolen Mark, and instead of being tactful about it, she’s trying to hoover everyone into her revolting social web so he’s so woven in he’ll never get away. And you’re not taking a bloody stand. That’s the trouble with the modern world—everything’s forgivable. Well, it makes me sick, Jude. If that’s the sort of friend you are you can walk down the aisle with Rebecca behind you wearing Ikea curtains and not us. And then see how you like it. And you can stuff your yurd, gurd, turd or whatever it is up your bum!”

  So now Sharon and I are not speaking to Jude. Oh dear. Oh dear.

  * * *

  9

  Social Hell

  SUNDAY 22 JUNE

  129 lbs., alcohol units 6 (felt I owed it to Constance), cigarettes 5 (v.g.), calories 2,455 (but mainly items covered in orange icing), escaped barn animals 1, attacks on self by children 2.

  Yesterday was Constance’s birthday party. Arrived about an hour late and made my way through Magda’s house, following the sound of screaming into the garden where a scene of unbridled carnage was under way with adults chasing after children, children chasing rabbits and, in the corner, a little fence behind which were two rabbits, a gerbil, an ill-looking sheep and a pot-bellied pig.

  I paused at the French windows, looking around nervously. Heart lurched when located him, standing on his own, in traditional Mark Darcy party mode, looking detached and distant. He glanced towards the door where I was standing and for a second we were locked in each other’s gaze before he gave me a confused nod, then looked away. Then I noticed Rebecca crouched down beside him with Constance.

  “Constance! Constance! Constance!” Rebecca was cooing, waving a Japanese fan in her face at which Constance was glowering and blinking crossly.

  “Look who’s come!” said Magda, bending down to Constance and pointing across at me.

  A surreptitious smile crept across Constance’s face and she set off determinedly, if slightly wobbly, towards me, leaving Rebecca looking foolish with the fan. I bent down when she got near and she put her arm round my neck and pressed her little hot face against mine.

  “Have you brought me a present?” she whispered.

  Relieved that this blatant example of cupboard love was inaudible to anyone but me I whispered, “Might have done.”

  “Where is it?”

  “In my bag.”

  “Shall we go and get it?”

  “Oh, isn’t that sweet?” I heard Rebecca coo and looked up to see her and Mark watching as Constance took me by the hand and led me into the cool of the house.

  Was quite pleased with Constance’s present actually, a packet of Minstrels and a pink Barbie tutu with a gold and pink net sticking-out skirt, which had had to trawl two branches of Woolworth’s to find. She liked it very much and naturally—as would any woman—wished to put it on immediately.

  “Constance,” I said when we had admired it from every angle, “were you pleased to see me because of me or because of the present?”

  She looked at me under lowered brows. “The present.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “Bridget?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know in your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why haven’t you got any toys?”

  “Well, because I don’t really play with that sort of toy.”

  “Oh. Why haven’t you got a playroom?”

  “Because I don’t do that sort of playing.”

  “Why haven’t you got a man?”

  Couldn’t believe it. Had only just walked into the party and was being Smug Marrieded by someone who was three.

  Had long quite serious conversation then, sitting on the stairs, about everyone being different and some people being Singletons, then heard a noise and looked up to see Mark Darcy looking down at us.

  “Just, er. The loo is upstairs, I assume?” he said uninterestedly. “Hello, Constance. How’s Pingu?”

  “He isn’t real,” she said, glowering at him.

  “Right, right,” he said. “Sorry. Stupid of me to be so”—he looked straight into my eyes—“gullible. Happy birthday, anyway.” Then he made his way past us without even giving me a kiss hello or anything. “Gullible.” Did he still think I was unfaithful with Gary the Builder and the dry-cleaning man? Anyway, I thought, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Everything’s fine and I’m completely over him.

  “You look sad,” said Constance. She thought for a moment, then took a half-sucked Minstrel out of her mouth and put it in mine. We decided to go back outside to show off the tutu, and Constance was immediately swept up by a maniacal Rebecca.

  “Ooh, look, it’s a fairy. Are you a fairy? What kind of fairy are you? Where’s your wand?” she gabbled.

  “Great present, Bridge,” said Magda. “Let me get you a drink. You know Cosmo, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, heart sinking,
taking in the quivering jowls of the enormous merchant banker.

  “So! Bridget, great to see you!” bellowed Cosmo, eyeing me up and down leerily. “How’s work?”

  “Oh, great actually,” I lied, relieved that he wasn’t launching straight into my love life. How things had moved on! “I’m working in TV now.”

  “TV? Marvelous! Bloody marvelous! Are you in front of the camera?”

  “Only occasionally,” I said in the sort of modest tone that suggested I was practically Kate Winslet but didn’t want anyone to know.

  “Oh! A celebrity, eh? And”—he leaned forward in a concerned manner—“are you getting the rest of your life sorted out?”

  Unfortunately at that moment Sharon happened to be passing. She stared at Cosmo, looking like Clint Eastwood when he thinks somebody is trying to double-cross him.

  “What kind of question is that?” she growled.

  “What?” said Cosmo, looking round at her, startled.

  “ ‘Are you getting the rest of your life sorted out?’ What do you mean by that exactly?”

  “Well, ah, you know . . . when is she going to get . . . you know . . .”

  “Married? So basically just because her life isn’t exactly like yours you think it isn’t sorted out, do you? And are you getting the rest of your life sorted out, Cosmo? How are things going with Woney?”

  “Well I . . . well,” huffed Cosmo, going bright red in the face.

  “Oh, I am sorry. We’ve obviously hit a sore spot. Come on, Bridget, before I put my big foot in it again!”

  “Shazzer!” I said, when we were at a safe distance.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “Enough, already. They just can’t go around randomly patronizing people and insulting their lifestyles. Cosmo probably wishes Woney would lose thirty pounds and stop doing that shrieking laugh all day but we don’t just assume that the minute we’ve met him, and decide it’s our business to rub it in, do we?” An evil gleam came into her eye. “Or maybe we should,” she said, grabbing hold of my arm and changing direction back towards Cosmo, only to be confronted by Mark and Rebecca and Constance again. Oh Christ.