Helen Fielding - Bridget Jones - The Edge of Reason

It's all very well for her to say. If I told a man what I really feel they would run a mile. This - just to pluck an example out of the air - is what I feel at this precise moment.

1) Lonely, tired, frightened, sad, confused and extremely sexually frustrated.

2) Ugly, as hair sticking up in imaginative peaks and shapes and face all puffy from tiredness.

3) Confused and sad as no idea if Mark still likes me or not and scared to ask.

4) V. lovingful of Mark.

5) Tired of going to bed on my own and trying to deal with everything on own.

6) Alarmed by horrifying - thought that have not had sex for fifteen million, one hundred and twenty thousand seconds.

So. To sum up what I really am is a lonely, ugly, sad act gagging for sex. Mmmm: attractive, inviting. Oh, I don't bloody well know what to do. Really fancy a glass of wine. Think will go downstairs. Will not have wine but probably tea. Unless there's some open. I mean it might actually help me sleep.

8 a.m. Crept down towards kitchen. Could not turn on lights as impossible to find designer light switches. Half hoped Mark would wake up when went past his door, but he didn't. Carried on creeping down the stairs, then froze. Was big shadow ahead like man. Shadow moved towards me. Realized it was man - great big man - and started screaming. By time had realized man was Mark - naked - realized he was also screaming. But screaming much more than me. Screaming in complete, abandoned terror. Screaming - in a half-asleep way - as if he had just come across the most horrifying terrible scenario of his life.

Great, I thought: 'Real.' Then this is what happens when he sees me with mad hair and no make-up.

"It's me," I said. "It's Bridget."

For a second I thought he was going to start screaming even more, but then he sank down on the stairs, shaking uncontrollably. "Oh," he said, trying to breathe deeply. Oh, oh."

He looked so vulnerable and cuddly sitting there that could not resist sitting down next to him, Putting arms round him and pulling him close to me.

"Oh God," he said, nestling against my pyjamas. "I feel such an arse." It suddenly struck me as really funny - I mean it was really funny being terrified out of your wits by your own ex-girlfriend. He started laughing too.

"Oh Christ," he said. "It's not very manly, is it, getting scared at night. I thought you were the bullet man."

I stroked his hair, I kissed his bald patch where his fur had been loved off. And then I told him what I felt, what I really, really felt. And the miracle was, when I had finished, he told me he felt pretty much the same.

Hand in hand like the Bisto Kids, we made our way down to the kitchen and, with extreme difficulty, located Horlicks and milk from behind the baffling walls of stainless steel.

"You see, the thing is," said Mark, as we huddled round the oven, clutching our mugs trying to keep warm, "when you didn't reply to my note, I thought that was it, so I didn't want you to feel I was putting any pressure on. I-'

"Wait, wait," I said. "What note?"

"The note I gave you at the poetry reading, just before I left."

"But it was just your dad's 'If ' poem."

Was unbelievable. Turns out when Mark knocked the blue dolphin over he wasn't writing a will he was writing me a note.

"It was my mother who said the only thing to do was to be honest about my feelings," he said.

Tribal elders - hurrah! The note was telling me that he still loved me, and he wasn't with Rebecca, and that I should ring him that night if I felt the same and otherwise he'd never bother me with it again but just be my friend.

"So why did you leave me and go off with her?" I said.

"I didn't! It was you who left me! And I didn't even bloody realize I was supposed to be going out with Rebecca till I got to her summer house party and found myself in the same room as her."

"But ... so you didn't ever sleep with her?"

Was really, really relieved he had not been so callous as to wear my Newcastle United underpants gift for prearranged shag with Rebecca.

"Well." He looked down and smirked. "That night."

"What?" I exploded.

"I mean one's only human. I was a guest. It seemed only polite."

I started trying to hit him around the head.

"As Shazzer says, men have these desires eating away at them all the time," he went on dodging the blows. "She just kept inviting me to things: dinner parties, children's parties with barnyard animals, holidays-"

"Yur, right. And you didn't fancy her at all!"

"Well, she's a very attractive girl, it would have been odd if . . ." He stopped laughing, took hold of my hands and pulled me to him.

"Every time," he whispered urgently, "every time I hoped you'd be there. And that night in Gloucestershire, knowing you were fifty feet away."

"Two hundred yards in the servants" quarters."

"Exactly where you belong and where I intend to keep you till the end of your days."

Fortunately he was still holding me tight, so could not hit him any more. Then he said the house was big, cold and lonely without me. And he really liked it best in my flat where it was cosy. And he said that he loved me, he wasn't exactly sure why, but nothing was any fun without me. And then ... God, that stone floor was cold.

When we got up to his bedroom noticed a little pile of books beside his bed. "What are these?" I said, not believing my eyes. "How to Love and Lose but Keep Your SelfEsteem? How to Win Back the Woman You Love? What Women Want? Mars and Venus on a Date?"

"Oh," he said sheepishly.

"You bastard!" I said. "I threw all mine away." Fist fight broke out again, then one thing led to another and we just shagged, like, all night!!!

8.30 a.m. Mmm. Love looking at him when he's asleep.

8.45 a.m. Wish he would wake up now, though.

9 a.m. Will not actually wake him up, but maybe he will wake up himself just through thought vibes.

10 a.m. Suddenly Mark sat bolt upright and looked at me. Thought he was going to tell me off or start screaming again. But he smiled sleepily, sank back down and pulled me roughly to him.

"Sorry" I said afterwards.

"Yes, you should be, you dirty little bitch," he murmured homily. "What for?"

"Waking you up by staring."

"You know what?" he said. "I kind of missed it."

Ended up staying in bed quite a long time after that, which was fine because Mark didn't have any appointments that couldn't wait and I didn't have any appointments ever again for the rest of life. Just at a crucial moment, though, the phone rang.

"Leave it," gasped Mark, carrying on. The answerphone boomed out.

"Bridget, Richard Finch here. We're doing an item on the New Celibacy. We were trying to find a personable young woman who hadn't had sex for six months. Didn't have any joy. So I thought we'd settle just for any old woman who can't get laid and try you. Bridget? Pick up the phone. I know you're there, your loopy mate Shazzer told me. Bridget. Bridguuuuuuuurt. BRIDGURRRRRRRRRRRT"

Mark paused in his activities, raised one eyebrow in manner of Roger Moore, picked up the phone, murmured, "She's just coming, sir," and dropped it into a glass of water.

Minutes since had sex 0 (hurrah!).

Dreamy day, highlight of which was going to Tesco Metro with Mark Darcy. There was no stopping him putting things into the trolley: raspberries, tubs of Pralines and Cream Hdagen-Daaz, and a chicken with a label on saying 'extra fat thighs'.

When we got to the checkout it was Ј98.70.

"That's incredible," he said, taking out his credit card shaking his head in disbelief.

"I know," I said ruefully, "do you want me to chip in?"

"God, no. This is amazing. How long will this food last for?"

I looked at it doubtfully. "About a week?"