Oh God, feel guilty with Jude and Sharon now I have boyfriend, almost like traitorous double-crossing side-switching guerrilla. Have arranged to see Jude tomorrow night instead, with Shaz, and merely talk through everything again on phone tonight, which seemed to go down OK. Now, had better quickly ring Magda and make sure she doesn't feel boring and realizes how opposite-of glamorous job is.
"Thanks, Bridge," said Magda after we'd talked for a bit. "I'm just feeling really low and lonely since the baby. Jeremy's working again tomorrow night. Don't suppose you'd like to come round?"
"Um, well, I'm supposed to be seeing Jude in 192." There was a loaded pause.
"And I suppose I'm too much of a dull Smug Married to come along?"
"No, no, come. Come, that would be great!" I overcompensated. Knew Jude would be cross as would take focus away from Vile Richard but resolved to sort out later. So now am really late and have got to go to Leicestershire without actually having read fox-hunting cuts. Maybe could read in car when at traffic lights. Wonder if should qui
ckly ring Mark Darcy to tell him where am going?
Hmmm. No. Bad move. But then what if I'm late? Had better ring.
11.35 a.m. Humph. Conversation went like this: Mark: Yes? Darcy here.
Me: It's Bridget.
Mark: (pause) Right. Er. Everything OK?
Me: Yes. It was nice last night, wasn't it? I mean - you know, when we ...
Mark: I do know, yes. Exquisite. (Pause) I'm actually with the Indonesian Ambassador, the Head of Amnesty International and the Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry just at the moment.
Me: Oh. Sorry. I'm just going to Leicestershire. I thought I'd let you know in case anything happens to me.
Mark: In case anything. . ? What?
Me: I mean in case I'm ... late. (I finished lamely.)
Mark: Right. Well, why not ring with an ETA when you're through? Jolly good. Bye now.
Hmmm. Don't think I should have done that. It says specifically in Loving Your Separated Man Without Losing Your Mind that the one thing they really do not like is being called up for no real reason when they are busy.
7 p.m. Back in flat. Nightmare rest of day. After challenging traffic and rain-blocked journey, found self in rainswept Leicestershire, knocking on the door of a big square house surrounded by horseboxes, with only thirty minutes to go till transmission. Suddenly the door burst open, and a tall man was standing in corduroy trousers and a quite sexy baggy jumper.
"Hurnph," he said, eyeing me up and down. "Better bloody well come in. Your chaps are out the back. Where have you bloody well been?"
"I have been suddenly diverted from a top political story," I said hoity-toitily, as he led me into a big kitchen full of dogs and bits of saddle. Suddenly he turned and stared at me furiously, then biffed the table.
"It's supposed to be a free country. Once they start telling us we can't even bloody hunt on a Sunday where will it end? Baaaah!"
"Well, you could say that about people keeping slaves, couldn't you?" I muttered. "Or cutting the ears off cats. It just doesn't seem very gentlemanly to me, a crowd of people and dogs careering after one frightened little creature for fun."
"Have you ever bloody seen what a fox does to a chicken?" Sir Hugo bellowed, turning red in the face. "If we don't hunt "em the countryside will be overrun."
"Shoot them then," I said, staring at him murderously. "Humanely. And chase something else on Sundays, like in greyhound racing. Fasten a little fluffy animal impregnated with fox smell on to a wire."
"Shoot them? Have you ever tried to shoot a bloody fox? There'll be your little frightened foxes left wounded in agony all over the bloody shop. Fluffy animal. Grrrrr!"
Suddenly he grabbed the phone and dialled. "Finch, you total arse!" he bellowed. "What have you sent me ... some bloody little pinko? If you think you're coming out with the Quorn next Sunday. . ." At which moment the cameraman put his head round the door and said huffily, "Oh you're here, are you?" Then looked at his watch. "Don't feel you have to let us know or anything."
"Finch wants to talk to you," said Sir Hugo.
Twenty minutes later, under pain of sacking, I was on a horse preparing to trot into shot and interview the Rt Hon. Bossybottom, also on a horse.
"OK, Bridget, we're coming to you in fifteen, go, go, go," yelled Richard Finch in my earpiece from London, at which I squeezed my knees into the horse, as instructed. Unfortunately, however, the horse would not set off.
"Go, go, go, go, go!" yelled Richard. "I thought you said you could bloody ride."