Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries (Bridget Jones 4)

“Has he gone somewhere scary?”

“Just, arm, yup off the radar. Jolly good.”

That’s odd. Ooh, text.

DANIEL FUCKWIT DO NOT ANSWER

All set for the scan tomorrow, Jones? See how our little express train’s coming along?

Looks like it’s just me and Daniel again. At least he remembered. Maybe he’s changed.

THURSDAY 16 NOVEMBER

8 a.m. Hospital waiting room. Daniel is not here.

8.10 a.m. Daniel is still not here. Oh God oh God oh God. I’m supposed to be at work in fifty minutes. Peri Campos will kill me, then eat me.

8.20 a.m. Receptionist just said, “If you don’t go in now you’ll miss your slot.”

—

Was just gathering up my bags when Daniel burst in, bad mood written all over him (well, not literally, that would be weird).

“Traffic total hell, entire city bloody gridlocked. Why did you have to fix it so bloody early, Jones? Come on, let’s get on with it. Where’s Darcy, anyway?”

“He isn’t here.”

Didn’t seem a good idea to tell Daniel that Mark was out of the picture: rather like when you’re trying to get everyone behind an idea at work, and if one person drops out, then they all do. Definitely am not going to tell him.

“No Darce?”

“Mark’s not coming,” I blurted. “He wrote me a letter. He doesn’t want to join in anymore.”

There was a momentary glint of triumph in Daniel’s eye. “It’s the ego. Always the ego with Mrs. Darcy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing, just that childbirthing class.”

“You might have apologized,” I said.

“For what, Jones? It was jolly good fun. Everyone had a whale of a time except Mrs. D. Don’t have to treat the whole thing like it’s an execution in a grungy prison in Arabia.”

The terrible thing was that Dr. Rawlings had been called away to a delivery (assumed of another baby, not FedEx parcel). Found myself unexpectedly feeling jealous of the other baby and Dr. Rawlings, almost as if she was cheating on me. And, worse, we had a male technician instead, so Daniel had no one to flirt with. All the energy seemed to have gone out of Daniel. Without Mark to compete with, he just seemed to be going through the motions.

I, meanwhile, was so overwhelmed with love and seeing how my little gorgeous sweetheart had grown, his round head, his little nose, his hands, that I totally forgot about the time.

“Gaaaaaah!” I said when we got out on the street. “It’s 9.15—I was supposed to be at work fifteen minutes ago.”

“OK, OK. No need to overdo it. I’ll take you to work,” said Daniel, adding under his breath, “Never mind my galleys, my proofreading. Sit Up Britain must reign supreme.”

—

Car journey could only be described as tense. I was trying to mentally force the clock on the dashboard to go backwards, and move lorries and bicycles out of the way by the sheer power of thought, whilst realizing we were half an hour past the moment when I was supposed to be at my desk. Daniel was preoccupied and twitching, playing with the controls on the car and suddenly zooming and braking, in a way that made me think I was going to be sick in it again.

When we got to the Sit Up Britain building, Daniel stayed sitting down, with the engine running. “All right, then, Jones. Well, great to catch up.”

“?‘Great to catch up’?” I said.