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

“Mark, it’s Bridget. I have something very, very important to say to you. I did not lie to you about the condoms. It was Daniel who lied. It’s you I love. I love you. Please call me. Please call me.”

6.46 p.m. Nothing. Maybe Mark has forgotten his password.

7 p.m. Just texted Mark the same message. Maybe he’s still painting. Maybe I should go round there. Oh God. I have to get some phone, I mean food. Maybe I’ll get some cash first, so nothing else can go wrong.

—

Limped, broken, downstairs to the cash machine booth at the bank. Went through the automatic doors, put my handbag down and entered the PIN. It didn’t work. Why didn’t it work? Maybe I’d entered it too many times. Stumbling, as if in a dream, I went back out to the street, through the automatic doors, then suddenly, just as they closed, saw that my bag was still on the floor inside.

Oh God, oh God. My phone was in the bag, as well as my wallet and the keys to my flat.

And the doors to the bank wouldn’t open.

—

8.30 p.m. Slumped on doorstep outside my flat. Whole idea of making the big small is just bollox. Magda is right.

8.35 p.m. It has started to rain: really lots and lots of rain.

8.40 p.m. Maybe I could ask a kindly stranger to lend me their phone? But then, what is the point if cannot remember anyone’s phone numbers? Still, maybe through a dream state…there is a man approaching!

I started to say, “Excuse me?”—but he just dropped a coin on my coat and hurried off, looking frightened. Obviously thinks am desperate pregnant baby lady, like Thomas Hardy’s Fanny Robin dying in the snow.

Hearing footsteps, I raised my head wearily, perhaps for the last time, and saw, once again, a familiar figure in a dark blue overcoat, striding towards me through the rainy street.

FOURTEEN

RECONCILIATION

WEDNESDAY 14 FEBRUARY

“What are you doing sitting in the rain?” said Mark, hurrying towards me. He helped me up, and started taking off his overcoat. “I just missed your call. I was in court.”

“In court? What about your painting?”

“Terrible rubbish. Don’t mention it again, I’ve been calling you constantly since you rang.”

“My phone’s in my bag stuck in the bank.”

“Your bag’s stuck in the bank? Here, put this on.”

He put his overcoat on my shoulders.

“Why are you on the doorstep? Where are your keys?”

“They’re in the bag in the bank.”

“They’re in the bag in the bank. Jolly good. Won’t enquire further right now. So! Business as usual.”

He rattled the door a few times and tried to slip the lock with his credit card.

“OK,” he said, “probably get barred from the bar for this, but here we go.”

He smashed the side window with his fist and opened the door from the inside.

—

I started my speech on the way up the stairs.