Mad About the Boy (Bridget Jones 3)

‘He always comes back to life!’ said Imogen, smiling at me.

‘You mean she’s resuscitated?’ said George.

‘Like Fool’s Gold meets ER meets The Passion of the Christ!’ enthused Damian, adding hurriedly, ‘but without the Jewish controversy.’

‘Try it, send us the rewrite by Thursday and see how it comes off the page,’ said George in his deep voice. ‘Right, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got a conference call.’

The phone vibrated. Roxster:

Once euphoric farewells were made – ‘You did really well in there! I love your dress’ – and hugs exchanged, whilst I tried to keep my head oddly at an angle because of the nits (I mean, what if they got in Damian’s lopsided haircut?), I sat down in reception and looked at my latest texts.

Chloe:

Roxster:

Instead of processing the whole meeting, calling Brian to get him to get them to give me more time, then rushing home to see how Billy is, and having a serious think about telling Chloe she has to make decisions herself if I am in important meetings, I replied to Roxster with a complete list of every item of food in the meeting, adding:

NITS IN THE WORKS

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Minutes spent writing script 0, minutes spent dealing with people’s nits instead of getting on with work 507, people whom family might have infested with nits (including Tom, Jude, all Jude’s recent dates, Talitha, Roxster, Arkis, Sergei, Grazina the Cleaner, Chloe, Brian the Agent – but only if nits can get down phone – and entire Greenlight Productions team) 23 (not counting people above people might have infested with nits).

9.30 a.m. Right. This is my first official rewriting day on The Leaves in His Hair. Feel marvellous and proud! Almost like it was just a sort of hobby before but now it is real.

10.05 a.m. Grrr. This is really quite difficult, though. Don’t want to be a Prima Donna, but setting Hedda Gabbler on a yacht in Hawaii is somehow changing the mood and meaning of the whole piece. It brings up all sorts of difficulties, which weren’t there with the terrace house in Queen’s Park. Ooh, goody. Text!

10.45 a.m. Was Tom.

Freaked out, I texted back: – but even as I texted, my head started to itch.

Tom again.

Paroxysms of guilt. Tom sleeping with Arkis is the product of months of discussion and strategizing and I have potentially ruined it!

11 a.m. Just texted Tom list of nit products, combs, etc., offered to nit-comb him if he wanted to come round.

11.15 a.m. Jude just rang, talking in a wobbly, sepulchral voice.

‘Vile Richard has blocked Isabella.’

‘Who’s Isabella?’

‘The made-up girl on PlentyofFish.com, remember? She stood him up on Saturday and now . . .’

Jude was really upset.

‘What?’

‘Vile Richard replaced his profile with a message saying he’s no longer available because he’s met someone else. I just feel really, really hurt, Bridget. How could he meet someone else so quickly?’

Tried to explain to Jude that Isabella wasn’t real, and Vile Richard clearly hadn’t met someone else, he was just trying to get back at Isabella for standing him up, even though Isabella didn’t exist, at which Jude seemed to brighten and said: ‘The guy I met on Saturday was nice, though, you know the one from the dance-lover site. Though he hates dancing. He says they must have passed his profile on from a snowboarding site.’

At least she didn’t mention anything about nits.

Noon. Right. Now Jude is all calm and happy again, will get on with The Leaves in His Hair.

The trouble is, people don’t LIVE on yachts, do they? Or maybe they do? Like people who live on barges on the canal. But don’t yacht-type people live in big houses and just go on holiday on the yachts? And, more to the point, honeymoons.