Helen Fielding - Bridget Joness Diary

9 a.m.Oh God, I'm so depressed. Everybody's gone to Edinburgh except me.

9:15 a.m.I wonder if Perpetua's left yet?

Midnight.Edinburgh. Oh God. I must go to see something tomorrow. Perpetua thinks I'm mad. She spent the entire train journey with the portable phone pressed to her ear, bellowing at the rest of us. 'Arthur Smith's Hamlet is completely booked up so we could go to the Coen brothers instead at five but that means we'll be too late for Richard Herring. So shall we not go to Jenny Eclair – Chuh! I frankly don't know why she still bother s – and do Lanar k, then try to get into Harry Hill or Bondages and Julian Clary? Hang on. I'll try the Gilded Balloon. No, Harry Hill's booked up, so shall we skip the Coen brothers?'

I said I'd meet them at the Plaisance at six because I wanted to go to the George Hotel and leave a message for Tom, and I bumped into Tina in the bar. I didn't realize how far it was to the Plaisance, and when I got there it had started and there were no seats left. Secretly relieved, I walked or rather mountaineered back to the flat, picked up a lovely baked potato with a chicken curry and watched Casualty. I was supposed to meet Perpetua at the Assembly Rooms at nine. By the time I was ready it was 8:45 but I didn't realize you couldn't ring out on the phone so I couldn't book a taxi and by the time I got there it was too late. I went back to the George bar to look for Tina and find out where Shazzer was. I'd just got myself a Bloody Mary and was trying to pretend I didn't mind not having any friends when I noticed a flurry of lights and cameras in one corner and nearly screamed. It was my mother, done up like Marianne Faithfull and about to interview Alan Yentob.

'Absolute quiet, everyone!' she trilled in a Una Alconbury flower-arranging voice.

'Aaaaand action!!!! Tell me, Alan,' she said, looking traumatized, 'have you ever had . . . suicidal thoughts?'

The telly's been quite good tonight, actually.

No. of shows seen 0.

2 a.m.Can't get to sleep. I bet they're all at a really nice party.

3 a.m.Just heard Perpetua come in, giving her verdict on the alternative comedians: 'Puerile . . . completely childish . . . just silly.' I think she might have misunderstood something somewhere along the line.

5 a.m.There is a man in the house. I can just tell .

6 a.m.He's in Debby from Marketing's room. Blimey.

9:30 a.m.Woken by Perpetua bellowing, 'Anyone coming to the poetry reading?!' Then it all went quiet and I heard Debby and the man whispering and him going into the kitchen. Then Perpetua's voice boomed out, 'What are you doing here?!! I said NO OVERNIGHT GUESTS.'

2 p.m.Oh my God. I've overslept.

7 p.m. King's Cross train.Oh dear. Met Jude in the George at three. We were going to go to a Question and Answer session but we had a few Bloody Marys and remembered that Question and Answer sessions have a bad effect on us. You get hypertense trying to think up a question, putting your hand up and down. You finally get to ask it, in a semi-crouching position and odd high-pitched voice, then sit frozen with embarrassment, nodding like a dog in the back of a car whilst a twenty-minute answer in which you had no interest in the first place is directed at you. Anyway, before we knew where we were it was 5:30. Then Perpetua appeared with a whole bunch of people from the office.

'Ah, Bridget,' she bellowed. 'What have you been to see?' There was a big silence.

'Actually, I'm just about to go to. . . ' I began confidently, ' . . . get the train.'

'You haven't been to see anything at all, have you?' she hooted. 'Anyway, you owe me seventy-five pounds for the room.'

'What?' I stammered.

'Yes!' she yelled. 'It would have been fifty pounds, but it's 50 percent extra if there are two people in the room.' 'But . . . but, there weren't . . . '

Oh, come on , Bridget, we all knew you had a man in there,' she roared. 'Don't worry about it. It isn't love, it's only Edinburgh. I'll make sure it gets back to Daniel and teaches him a lesson.'

9st 6. (full of beer and baked potatoes), alcohol units 6, cigarettes 20, calories 2846,

Got back to message from Mum asking me what I thought about an electric mixer for Christmas, and to remember Christmas Day was a Monday this year so was I coming home on the Friday night or the Saturday?

Considerably less annoyingly, there was a letter from Richard Finch, the editor of Good Afternoon! offering me a job, I think. This is all it said:

OK, my darling. You're on.

9st2,, alcohol units 0 (v.g.), cigarettes 3 (g.), calories 1456 (pre-new-job healthy eating).

10:30 a.m.Office. Just called Richard Finch's assistant Patchouli and it is a job offer but must start in a week. I don't know anything about television but sod it, I'm stuck in a dead end here, and it is just too humiliating working with Daniel now. I had better go and tell him.

11:15 a.m.I can't believe this. Daniel stared at me, ashen-faced. 'You can't do this,' he said. 'Have you any idea how difficult the last few weeks have been for me?' Then Perpetua burst in – she must have been eavesdropping outside the door.

'Daniel,' she exploded. 'You selfish, self-indulgent, manipulative, emotional blackmailer. It was you – for God's sake – who chucked her . So you can just bloody well put up with it.'

Suddenly think I might love Perpetua, though not in a lesbian way.

9st, alcohol units 0, cigarettes 27, calories 15, minutes spent having imaginary conversations with Daniel telling him what I think of him 145 (good, better).

8 a.m.First day at new job. Must begin as mean to go on, with new calm, authoritative image. And no smoking. Smoking is a sign of weakness and undermines one's personal authority.

8:30 a.m.Mum just rang, I assumed to wish me luck for the new job.

'Guess what, darling?' she began.

What?'

'Elaine has invited you to their ruby wedding!' she said, pausing breathlessly and expectantly.

My mind went blank. Elaine? Brian – and – Elaine? Cohn-and-Elaine? Elaine-named-to-Gordon-who-used-to-be-head-of-Tarmacadamin-Kettering-Elaine?

'She thought it might be nice to have one or two young 'uns there to keep Mark company.'

Ah. Malcolm and Elaine. Begetters of the overperfect Mark Darcy.

'Apparently he told Elaine he thought you were very attractive.'

'Durr! Don't lie,' I muttered. Pleased though.

'Well, I'm sure that's what he meant, anyway, darling.'

'What did he say?' I hissed, suddenly suspicious.

'He said you were very . . . '

'Mother . . . '

'Well, the word he actually used, darling, was 'bizarre.' But that's lovely, isn't it – 'bizarre'? Anyway, you can ask him all about it at the ruby wedding.'

'I'm not going all the way to Huntingdon to celebrate the ruby wedding of two people I have spoken to once for eight seconds since I was three, just to throw myself in the path of a rich divorce who describes me as bizarre.'

'Now, don't be silly, darling.'

'Anyway, I've got to go,' I said, foolishly since she then, as always, began to gabble as if I were on death row and this was our last phone call before I was given a lethal injection.

'He was earning thousands of pounds an hour. Had a clock on his desk, tick-tock-tick-tock. Did I tell you I saw Mavis Enderby in the post office?'