Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason

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 blood-stained 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 un-penitent 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.

9st 1, 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, terracotta 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 oilburners."

"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 magazie."

"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 gyrn 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 pre-nuptial 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.

9st 3, 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 underway 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.