Hello? Oh, hello, darling, guess what?' she said, again.
'What?' I said resignedly.
'Una and Geoffrey are having a Tarts and Vicars party in the garden on the twenty-ninth of July. Don't you thin that's fun! Tarts and Vicars! Imagine!'
I tried hard not to, fighting off a vision of Una Alconbury in thigh boots, fishnet nights and a peephole bra. For sixty-year-olds to organize such an event seemed unnatural and wrong.
'Anyway, we thought it would be super if you and' – coy, loaded pause – 'Daniel, could come. We're all dying to meet him.'
My heart sank at the thought of my relationship with Daniel being dissected in dose and intimate detail amongst the Lifeboat luncheons of Northamptonshire.
'I don't think it's really Daniel's – ' Just as I said that the chair I had, for some reason, been balancing on with my knees while I leaned over the table fell over with a crash.
When I retrieved the phone my mother was still talking.
'Yes, super. Mark Darcy's going to be there, apparently, with someone, so . . . '
'What's going on?' Daniel was standing stark naked in the doorway. 'Who are you talking to?'
'My mother,' I said, desperately, out of the corner of my mouth.
'Give it to me,' he said, taking the phone. I like it when he is authoritative without being cross like this.
'Mrs Jones,' he said, in his most charming voice. It's Daniel here.'
I could practically hear her going all fluttery.
'This is very bright and early on a Sunday morning for a phone call. Yes, it is an absolutely beautiful day. What can we do for you?'
He looked at me while she chattered for a few seconds then turned back to the receiver.
'Well, that'll be lovely. I shall put that in the diary for the twenty-ninth and look out my dog collar. Now, we'd better get back and catch up on our sleep. You take care of yourself, now. Cheerio. Yes. Cheerio,' he said firmly, and put the phone down.
'You see,' he said smugly, 'a firm hand, that's all it needs.'
8st 11 (hmm must get 1lb off), alcohol units 2, cigarettes 7, calories 1562.
Actually I am really excited about Daniel coming to the Tarts and Vicars party with me next Saturday. It will be so lovely for once not to have to drive up on my own, arrive on my own and face all that barrage of inquisition about why I haven't got a boyfriend. It will be a gorgeous hot day. Maybe we could even make a mini-break of it and stay in a pub (or other hotel without televisions in the bedroom). I'm really looking forward to Daniel meeting my dad. I hope he likes him.
2 a.m. Woke up in floods of tears from, a hideous dream I keep having where I'm sitting A-level French and realize as I turn over the paper that I have forgotten to do any revision and I'm wearing nothing except my Domestic Science apron, trying desperately to pull it round me so Miss Chignall won't see that I'm wearing no pants. I expected Daniel to at least be sympathetic. I know-it's all to do with my worries about where my career is leading me but he just lit himself a cigarette and asked me to run over the bit about the Domestic Science apron again.
'It's all right for you with your bloody Cambridge First.' I whispered, sniffing. 'I'll never forget the moment when I looked at the notice board and saw a D next to French and knew I couldn't go to Manchester. It altered the course of my whole life.'
'You should thank your lucky stars, Bridge,' he said, lying on his back and blowing smoke at the ceiling. 'You'd probably have married some crashing Geoffrey Boycott character and spent the rest of your life cleaning out the whippet cage. Anyway . . . ' he started laughing, ' . . . there's nothing wrong with a degree from . . . from . . . ' (he was so amused now he could hardly speak) ' . . . Bangor.'
'Right, that's it. I'm sleeping on the sofa,' I yelled, jumping out of bed.
'Hey, don't be like that, Bridge,' he said, pulling me back. 'You know I think you're a . . . an intellectual giant. You just need to learn how to interpret dreams.'
'What's the dream telling me, then?' I said sulkily. 'That I haven't fulfilled my potential inteflectually?'
'Not exactly.'
'What, then?'
'Well, I think the pantless apron is a pretty obvious symbol, isn't it?'
'What?'
'It means that the vain pursuit of an intellectual life is getting in the way of your true purpose.'
'Which is what?'
'Well, to cook all my meals for me, of course, darling,' he said, beside himself at his own amusingness again. 'And walk around my flat with no pants on.'
8st 12 (must do diet before tomorrow), alcohol units I (v.g.), cigarettes 8, calories 345.
Mmmm. Daniel was really sweet tonight and spent ages helping me choose my outfit for the Tarts and Vicars. He kept suggesting different ensembles for me to try on while he weighed it up. He was quite keen on a dog collar and black T-shirt with black lace-topped hold-ups as a cross between a tart and a vicar but in the end, after I'd walked about for quite a while in both of them, he decided the best one was a black lacy Marks and Spencer body, with stockings and suspenders, a French maid's-style apron which we'd made out of two hankies and a piece of ribbon, a bow-tie, and a cotton-wool rabbit's tail. It was really good of him to give up the time. Sometimes I think he really is quite caring. He seemed particularly keen on sex tonight as well.
Ooh, I am so looking forward to tomorrow.
8st 11 9v.g.), alcohol units 7, cigarettes 8, calories 6245 (sodding Una Alconbury, Mark Darcy, Daniel, Mum, everybody).
2 p.m. Cannot believe what has happened. By 1 p.m. Daniel had still not woken up and I was starting to worry because the party starts at 2.30. Eventually I woke him with a cup of coffee and said, 'I thought you needed to wake up because we're supposed to be there at two-thirty.'
'Where?' he said.
'The Tarts and Vicars.
'Oh God, love. Listen, I've just realized, I've got so-much work to do this weekend. I'm really going to have to stay at home and get down to it.'
I couldn't believe it. He promised to come. Everyone knows when you are going out with someone they are supposed to support you at hideous family occasions, and he thinks if he so much as mentions the word 'work' he can get out of anything. Now all the Alconburys' friends will spend the entire time asking me if I've got a boyfriend yet and no one will believe me.
10 p.m. Cannot believe what I have been through. I drove for two hours, parked at the front of the Alconburys' and, hoping I looked OK in the bunny girl outfit, walked round the side to the garden where I could hear voices raised in merriment. As I started to cross the lawn they all went quiet, and I realized to my horror that instead of Tarts and Vicars, the ladies were in Country Casuals-style calf-length floral two-pieces and the men were in slacks and V-necked sweaters. I stood there, frozen, like, well, a rabbit. Then while everyone stared, Una Alconbury came flapping across the lawn in pleated fuchsia holding out a plastic tumbler full of bits of apple and leaves.