The Edge of Reason Read online

  Urgent bikini diet weight-loss target program: week 1

  Sun. 20 July 129 lbs.

  Mon. 21 July 128 lbs.

  Tues. 22 July 127 lbs.

  Wed. 23 July 126 lbs.

  Thurs. 24 July 125 lbs.

  Fri. 25 July 124 lbs.

  Sat. 26 July 123 lbs.

  Hurray! So by a week today will be almost down to target weight so then, with body bulk thus adjusted, all will need to do is alter texture and arrangement of fat through exercise.

  Oh fuck. Will never work. Am only sharing a room and probably bed with Shaz. Will concentrate instead on my spirit. Anyway Jude and Shaz are coming round soon. Hurrah!

  Midnight. Lovely evening. V. nice to be back with girls again, though Shaz whipped herself up into such a frenzy of indignation about Daniel was all I could do to stop her ringing the police and having him arrested for date rape.

  “Redundant? You see?” she was ranting. “Daniel’s an absolute archetype of fin-de-millennium male. It’s becoming clear to him that women are the superior race. He’s realizing he has no role or function so what does he do? He turns to violence.”

  “Well, he only tried to kiss her,” said Jude mildly, flicking idly through the pages of What Marquee.

  “Pah! That’s exactly the point. She’s bloody lucky he didn’t burst into her bank dressed as an Urban Warrior and kill seventeen people with a submachine gun.”

  Just then the phone rang. It was Tom, not, unaccountably, ringing to thank me for sending his mobile back after all the bloody trouble the pesky item has caused but wanting my mum’s phone number. Tom seems to be quite pally with Mum, seeing her in what I suspect is a Judy Garland/Ivana Trump kitsch sort of way (which is odd since only last year I remember Mum lecturing me on how gayness was “just laziness, darling, they simply can’t be bothered to relate to the opposite sex”—but then that was last year). Suddenly feared that Tom was going to ask my mother to perform “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” in a sequined dress in a club called Pump, which she would—naively yet egomaniacally—agree to, thinking it was something to do with ancient machinery in Cotswold Mill Houses.

  “What do you want it for?” I said suspiciously.

  “Isn’t she in a book club?”

  “Dunno. Anything’s possible. Why?”

  “Jerome’s sensing his poems are ready, so I’m finding him book club venues. He did one last week in Stoke Newington and it was awesome.”

  “Awesome?” I said, doing a bulging-cheeked vomit face at Jude and Shaz. Ended up giving Tom the number in spite of reservations, as suspect Mum might be needing another diversion now Wellington has gone.

  “What is it about book clubs?” I said when I’d put the phone down. “Is it just me, or have they suddenly sprung up from nowhere? Should we be in one or do you have to be Smug Married?”

  “You have to be Smug Married,” said Shaz definitively. “That’s because they fear their minds are being sucked dry by the paternalistic demands of . . . Oh my God, look at Prince William.”

  “Let me look,” interrupted Jude, snatching the copy of Hello! with its photo of the lithe young royal whippersnapper. Tried not to snatch it myself. Although, clearly, wish to admire as many pictures of Prince William as possible, preferably in a range of outfits, realize urge is both intrusive and wrong. Cannot, though, ignore impression of great things fermenting around in young royal brain, and sense that, at maturity, will rise up like ancient knight of Round Table thrusting sword in air and creating dazzling new order, which will make President Clinton and Tony Blair look like passé elderly gentlemen.

  “How young is too young, would you say?” said Jude dreamily.

  “Too young to be your legal son,” said Shaz definitively as if was already part of government statute: which suppose it is, come to think of it, depending how old you are. Just then the phone rang again.

  “Oh, hello, darling. Guess what?” My mother. “Your friend Tom—you know the ‘homo’—well, he’s bringing a poet to read at the Lifeboat Book Club! He’s going to read us romantic poems. Like Lord Byron! Isn’t that fun?”

  “Er . . . yes?” I floundered.

  “Actually, it’s nothing special,” she sniffed airily. “We often have visiting authors.”

  “Really? Like who?”

  “Oh, lots of them, darling. Penny’s very good friends with Salman Rushdie. Anyway, you will be coming, darling, won’t you?”

  “When is it?”

  “A week on Friday. Una and I are doing vol-au-vents hot with Chunky Chicken.”

  A sudden fear convulsed me. “Are Admiral and Elaine Darcy coming?”

  “Durr! No boys allowed, silly. Elaine’s coming but the chaps are turning up later.”

  “But Tom and Jerome are coming.”

  “Oh, they’re not boys, darling.”

  “Are you sure Jerome’s poems will be the sort of thing that . . .”

  “Bridget. I don’t know what you’re trying to say. We weren’t born yesterday, you know. And the whole point about literature is free expression. Ooh, and I think Mark’s coming along later. He’s up doing Malcolm’s will with him—you never know!”

  FRIDAY 1 AUGUST

  129 lbs. (total failure of bikini diet), cigarettes 19 (diet aid), calories 625 (not too late, surely).

  6:30 p.m. Grr. Grrr. Leaving for Thailand tomorrow, nothing is packed and had failed to realize that “a week on Friday” for book club is to-bloody-night. Really, really do not want to drive all way to Grafton Underwood. Is hot steamy evening and Jude and Shaz are going to lovely party at River Café. Obviously, though, is important to support Mum, Tom’s love life, Art etc. Is respecting self by respecting others. Also does not matter if tired tomorrow when get on plane as going on holiday. Sure trip preparation will not take long as only need capsule wardrobe (just a couple of bodies and a sarong!) and packing always expands to fill the time available so best use of time, surely, is to make time available v. short. Yes! You see! So will do everything!

  Midnight. Just back. Arrived v. late owing to typical motorway signpost debacle (if war today, better, surely, to confuse Germans by leaving signposts up?). Was greeted by Mum, wearing a very strange maroon velvet kaftan which presume she intended to be literary.

  “How’s Salman?” I said as she tut-tutted about my lateness.

  “Oh, we decided to do chicken instead,” she said sniffily, leading me through the ripply-glassed French doors, into the lounge where the first thing I noticed was a garish new “family crest” above the fake stone fireplace saying “Hakuna Matata.”

  “Shh,” said Una, holding a finger up, enraptured.

  Pretentious Jerome, pierced nipple clearly visible through black wet-look vest, was standing in front of the cut-glass dish collection, bellowing belligerently: “I watch his hard, bony, horny, hams. I watch, I want, I grab,” at a semicircle of appalled Jaeger-be-two-pieced Lifeboat Luncheon Book Club ladies on reproduction Regency dining chairs. Across the room I saw Mark Darcy’s mum, Elaine, sporting an expression of suppressed amusement.

  “I want,” Jerome bellowed on. “I seize his horny, hairy, hams. I have to have. I heave, I hump, I . . .”

  “Well! I think that’s been absolutely smashing!” said Mum, jumping to her feet. “Does anyone fancy a vol-au-vent?”

  Is amazing the way the world of middle-class ladies manages to smooth everything into its own, turning all the chaos and complication of the world into a lovely secure mummy stream, rather as lavatory cleaner turns everything in the toilet pink.

  “Oh, I love the spoken and written word! It makes me feel so free!” Una was gushing to Elaine as Penny Husbands-Bosworth and Mavis Enderbury fussed over Pretentious Jerome as if he were T. S. Eliot.

  “But I hadn’t finished,” whined Jerome. “I wanted to do ‘Fister Contempl
ations’ and ‘The Hollow Men-Holes.’ ”

  Just then there was a roar.

  “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.” It was Dad, and Admiral Darcy. Both paralytic. Oh God. Every time I see Dad these days, he seems to be completely pissed, in bizarre father-daughter role-reversal scenario.

  “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,” Admiral Darcy bellowed, leaping on to a chair to a flutter from the assembled ladies.

  “And make allowance for their doubting too,” added Dad, almost tearfully, leaning against the admiral for support.

  The pissed duo proceeded to recite the whole of Rudyard Kipling’s “If” in manner of Sir Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud to the fury of Mum and Pretentious Jerome who started throwing simultaneous hissy fits.

  “It’s typical, typical, typical,” hissed Mum as Admiral Darcy, on his knees, beating his breast, intoned, “Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies.”

  “It’s regressive, colonialist doggerel,” hissed Jerome.

  “If you can force your heart, and nerve and sinew.”

  “I mean it fucking rhymes,” rehissed Jerome.

  “Jerome, I will not have that word in my house,” also rehissed Mum.

  “To serve their turn long after they are gone,” said Dad, then flung himself on the swirly carpet in mock death.

  “Well, why did you invite me then?” hissed Jerome really hissily.

  “And so keep on, when there is nothing in you,” roared the admiral.

  “Except your nerve,” growled Dad from the carpet. “Which says to you”—he leapt to his knees and raised his arms—“hold on!”

  There was a huge cheer and round of applause from the ladies as Jerome flounced out slamming the door and Tom rushed after him. I looked despairingly back at the room straight into the eyes of Mark Darcy.

  “Well! That was interesting!” said Elaine Darcy, coming to stand by me as I bent my head, trying to recover my composure. “Poetry uniting the old and young.”

  “The pissed and sober,” I added.

  At this Admiral Darcy lurched over, clutching his poem.

  “My dear, my dear, my darling!” he said, lunging at Elaine. “Oh here’s what’s-her-name,” he said, peering at me. “Lovely! Mark’s arrived, that’s my boy! Come to pick us up, sober as a judge. All on his own. I don’t know!” he said.

  They both turned to look at Mark who was sitting at Una’s three-penny-bit occasional table, scribbling something, watched over by a blue-glass dolphin.

  “Writing my will for me at a party! I don’t know. Work, work, work!” roared the admiral. “Brought this bit of totty along, what was ’er name, m’dear, Rachel, was it? Betty?”

  “Rebecca,” Elaine said tartly.

  “And the next thing she’s nowhere to be seen. Ask him what’s happened to her, and he mumbles! Can’t stand a mumbler! Never could.”

  “Well, I don’t think she was really . . .” murmured Elaine.

  “Why not! Why not! Perfectly good! I don’t know! Fussing about this, that and the other! I hope you young ladies are not always flitting hither and thither like these young fellers seem to be!”

  “No,” I said ruefully. “In fact if we love someone it’s pretty hard to get them out of our system when they bugger off.”

  There was a crash behind. I turned to see that Mark Darcy had knocked over the blue-glass dolphin, which in turn had dislodged a vase of chrysanthemums and a photo frame, creating a melee of shattered glass, flowers and bits of paper, the hideous dolphin itself remaining miraculously intact.

  There was a commotion as Mum and Elaine and Admiral Darcy all rushed at the scene, the admiral striding around and bellowing, Dad trying to bounce the dolphin on to the floor saying, “Get rid of the bloody thing,” and Mark grabbing at his papers and offering to pay for everything.

  “Are you ready to go, Dad?” muttered Mark, looking deeply embarrassed.

  “No, no, in your own time, I’ve been in very good company, with Brenda here. Get me another port, will you, son?”

  There was an awkward pause as Mark and I looked at each other.

  “Hello, Bridget,” Mark said abruptly. “Come on, Dad, I really think we should go.”

  “Yes, come along, Malcolm,” said Elaine, taking his arm affectionately. “Or you’ll be widdling on the carpet.”

  “Oh, widdling, widdling, I don’t know.”

  The three of them made their good-byes, Mark and Elaine easing the admiral out of the door. I watched, feeling empty and flat, then suddenly Mark reappeared and headed towards me.

  “Ah, forgot my pen,” he said, picking up his Mont Blanc from the occasional table. “When are you going to Thailand?”

  “Tomorrow morning.” For a split second I could swear he looked disappointed. “How did you know I was going to Thailand?”

  “Grafton Underwood speaks of nothing else. Have you packed?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Not a single pant,” he said wryly.

  “Mark,” bellowed his father. “Come on, boy, thought it was you who was keen to be off.”

  “Coming,” said Mark, glancing over his shoulder. “This is for you.” He handed me a scrumpled piece of paper, flashed me a . . . er . . . penetrating look, then left.

  I waited till no one was watching then unfolded the sheet with shaking hands. It was just a copy of Dad and Admiral Darcy’s poem. What did he give me that for?

  SATURDAY 2 AUGUST

  128 lbs. (huh, total preholiday diet failure), alcohol units 5, cigarettes 42, calories 4,457 (total despair), items packed 0, ideas as to whereabouts of passport 6, passport whereabout ideas proved to have any substance whatsoever 0.

  5 a.m. Why oh why am I going on holiday? I will spend the entire holiday wishing Sharon were Mark Darcy, and she that I were Simon. It’s five o’clock in the morning. My entire bedroom is covered in wet washing, ballpoints, and polythene bags. I do not know how many bras to take, I cannot find my little black Jigsaw dress without which I cannot go or my other pink jelly mule, I haven’t got any traveler’s checks yet and do not think my credit card is working. There are now only 1.5 hours left till I have to leave the house and everything will not fit into the suitcase. Maybe will have cigarette and look at brochure for calming few minutes.

  Mmm. Will be lovely just to lie and sunbathe to get all brown on beach. Sunshine and swimming and . . . Oooh. Answerphone light is flashing. How come did not notice?

  5:10 a.m. Pressed ANSWER PLAY.

  “Oh Bridget, it’s Mark. Just wondered. You do realize it’s the rainy season in Thailand? Maybe you should pack an umbrella.”

  * * *

  11

  Thai Takeaway

  SUNDAY 3 AUGUST

  Weightless (in air), alcohol units 8 (but in-flight so canceled out by altitude), cigarettes 0 (desperate: no-smoking seat), calories 1 million (entirely made up of things would never have dreamt of putting in self’s mouth were they not on in-flight tray), farts from traveling companion 38 (so far), variations in fart aroma 0.

  4 p.m. English time. In airplane in sky. Having to pretend to be very busy wearing Walkman and writing as ghastly man next to self in pale brown synthetic-type suit keeps trying to talk to me in between silent but deadly farting. Tried pretending to have fallen asleep whilst holding nose but after a few minutes ghastly man tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Do you have any hobbies?”

  “Yes, napping,” I replied but even that didn’t put him off and within seconds I was plunged into the murky world of early Etruscan coinage.

  Sharon and I are separated as we were so late for plane that there were only separate seats left and Shazzer was in complete grump with me. She seems, however, to have unaccountably got over it, which has clearly nothing to do with fact that she is sitting next to
Harrison Ford–style stranger with jeans and crumpled khaki shirt, laughing like drain (weird expression, surely?) at everything he says. This, in spite of the fact that Shaz hates all men for losing their roles and turning to pashmina-ism and mindless violence. I, meanwhile, am stuck to Mr. Synthetic Fabric Fart Machine, and cannot have cigarette for twelve hours. Thank God have got Nicorette.

  Non-v.g. start but still v. excited re: Thailand trip. Sharon and I are going to be travelers rather than tourists i.e. not stay in hermetically sealed tourist enclaves but really experience the religion and culture.

  Holiday Aims:

  Be hippie-style traveler.

  Lose weight through mild, ideally not life-threatening dysentery.

  Get subtle biscuit-style suntan—not bright orange in manner of George Hamilton, or melanoma- or wrinkle-inducing.

  Have nice time.

  Find self, also sunglasses. (Hopefully are in suitcase.)

  Swim and sunbathe (sure only rains in short tropical bursts).

  See temples (not too many, though, hope).

  Have spiritual epiphany.

  MONDAY 4 AUGUST

  119 lbs. (weighing no longer possible, so can select weight according to mood: excellent advantage of travel), calories 0, minutes not spent on toilet 12 (feels like).

  2 a.m. local time. Bangkok. Shazzer and I are trying to get to sleep in worst place I have ever been in. Think am going to suffocate and stop breathing. When we flew in over Bangkok there was thick gray cloud and it was pissing rain. The Sin Sane (Sin Sae) Guest House has no toilets, just hideous stinking holes in ground in cubicles. Open window and fan make no difference whatsoever since air is nearest possible thing to warm water without actually being it. There is disco underneath (hotel, not toilet) and in pauses can hear everyone in entire street moaning and not able to get to sleep either. Feel like great white flobbering bloated thing. Hair has first turned into feathers then become plastered down on face. Worst of it is, Sharon is wittering on about Harrison Ford–style airline stranger.