Bridget Joness Diary

NOVEMBER. A Criminal in the Family

8st 13lb 8oz (yesss! yesss!), alcohol units 2 (v.g.), cigarettes 4 (but could not smoke at Tom's in case set Alternative Miss World costume alight), calories 1848 (g.), Smoothies 12 (excellent progress).

'Just went round to Tom's for top-level summit to discuss the Mark Darcy scenario. Found Tom, however, in a complete lather about the forthcoming Alternative Miss World contest. Having decided ages ago to go as 'Miss Global Warming,' he was having a crisis of confidence.

'I haven't got a hope in hell,' he was saying, looking in the mirror, then flouncing to the window. He was wearing a polystyrene sphere painted like map of the globe but with the polar ice caps melting and a large burn mark on Brazil. In one hand he was holding a piece of tropical hardwood and a Lynx aerosol, and in the other an indeterminate furry item which he claimed was a dead ocelot. 'Do you think I should have a melanoma?' he asked.

'Is it a beauty contest or a fancy dress contest?'

'That's just it, I don't know, no one knows,' said Tom, throwing down his headdress – a miniature tree which he was intending to set alight during the contest. 'It's both. It's everything. Beauty. Originality. Artistry. It's all ridiculously unclear.'

'Do you have to be a pouff to enter?' I asked, fiddling with a bit of polystyrene.

'No. Anyone can enter: women, animals, anything. That's exactly the problem,' he said, flouncing back to the mirror. 'Sometimes I think I'd stand more chance trying to win with a really confident dog.'

Eventually we agreed that though the global warming theme in itself was faultless, the polystyrene sphere was not, perhaps, the most flattering shape for evening wear. In fact in the end we found we were thinking more toward a fluid sheath of shot-silk-effect Yves Klein blue, floating over smoke and earth shades to symbolize the melting of the polar ice caps.

Deciding I wasn't going to get the best out of Tom over Mark Darcy just at the moment, I excused myself before it got too late, promising to think hard about Swim and Daywear. When I got back I called Jude but she started telling me about a marvelous new oriental idea in this month's Cosmopolitan called Feng Shui, which helps you get everything you want in life. All you have to do, apparently, is clean out all the cupboards in your flat to unblock yourself, then divide the flat up into nine sections (which is called mapping the ba-gua), each of which represents a different area of your life: career, family, relationships, wealth, or offspring, for example. Whatever you have in that area of your house will govern how that area of your life performs. For example, if you keep finding you have no money it could be due to the presence of a wastepaper basket in your Wealth Comer.

V. excited by new theory as could explain a lot. Resolve to buy Cosmo at earliest opportunity. Jude says not to tell Sharon as, naturally, she thinks Feng Shui is bollocks. Managed, eventually, to bring conversation round to Mark Darcy.

'Of course you don't fancy him, Bridge, the thought never crossed my mind for a second,' said Jude. She said the answer was obvious: I should have a dinner party and invite him.

'It's perfect,' she said. 'It's not like asking him for a date, so it takes away all the pressure and you can show off like mad and get all your friends to pretend to think you're marvelous.'

'Jude,' I said, hurt, 'did you say, 'pretend'?'

9st2 (humph), alcohol units 2, cigarettes 8, Smoothies 13, calories 5245.

11 a.m. V. excited about dinner party. Have bought marvelous new recipe book by Marco Pierre White. At last understand the simple difference between home cooking and restaurant food. As Marco says, it is all to do with concentration of taste. The secret of sauces, of course, apart from taste concentration, lies in real stock. One must boil up large pans of fish bones, chicken carcasses, etc., then freeze them in form of ice-stockcubes. Then cooking to Michelin star standard becomes as easy as making shepherd's pie: easier, in fact, as do not need to peel potatoes, merely confit them in goose fat. Cannot believe have not realized this before.

This will be the menu:

Veloute of Celery (v. simple and cheap when have made stock).

Char-grilled Tuna on Veloute of Cherry Tomatoes Coulis with Confit of Garlic and Fondant Potatoes.

Confit of Oranges. Grand Marnier Creme Anglaise.

Will be marvelous. Will become known as brilliant but apparently effortless cook.

People will flock to my dinner parties, enthusing, 'It's really great going to Bridget's for dinner, one gets Michelin star-style food in a bohemian setting.' Mark Darcy will be v. impressed and will realize I am not common or incompetent.

9st (disaster), cigarettes 32, alcohol units 6 (shop has run out of Smoothies–careless bastards), calories 2266, lottery tickets 4.

7 p.m. Humph. Bonfire night and not invited to any bonfires. Rockets going off tauntingly left right and center. Going round to Tom's.

11 p.m. Bloody good evening at Tom's, who was trying to deal with the fact that the Alternative Miss World title had gone to Joan of Bloody Arc.

'The thing that makes me really angry is that they say it isn't a beauty contest but really it is. I mean, I'm sure if it wasn't for this nose . . . ' said Tom, staring at himself furiously in the mirror.

'What?'

'My nose.'

'What's wrong with it?'

'What's wrong with it? Chuh! Look at it.'

It turned Out there was a very, very tiny bump where someone had shoved a glass in his face when he was seventeen. 'Do you see what I mean?'

My feeling was, as I explained, that the bump in itself couldn't be blamed for Joan of Arc snatching the title from directly beneath it, as it were, unless the judges were using a Hubble telescope, but then Tom started saying he was too fat as well and was going on a diet.

'How many calories are you supposed to eat if you're on a diet?' he said.

'About a thousand. Well, I usually aim for a thousand and come in at about fifteen hundred,' I said, realizing as I said it that the last bit wasn't strictly true.

'A thousand?' said Tom, incredulously. 'But I thought you needed two thousand just to survive.'

I looked at him nonplussed. I realized that I have spent so many years being on a diet that the idea that you might actually need calories to survive has been completely wiped out of my conscious– ness. Have reached point where believe nutritional ideal is to eat nothing at all and that the only reason people eat is because they are so greedy they cannot stop themselves from breaking out and ruining their diets.

'How many calories in a boiled egg?' said Tom.

'Seventy-five.'

'Banana?'

'Large or small?'

'Small.'

'Peeled?'

'Yes.'

'Eighty,' I said, confidently.

'Olive?'

'Black or green?'

'Black.'

'Nine.'

'Chocolate biscuit?'

'A hundred and twenty-one.'

'Box of Milk Tray?'

'Ten thousand eight hundred and ninety-six.'

'How do you know all this?'

I thought about it. 'I just do, as one knows one's alphabet or times tables.'

'OK. Nine eights,' said Tom.

'Sixty-four. No, fifty-six. Seventy-two.'

'What letter comes before J? Quick.'

'P. L, I mean.'

Tom says I am sick but I happen to know for a fact that I am normal and no different from everyone else, i.e., Sharon and Jude. Frankly, I am quite worried about Tom. I think taking part in a beauty contest has started to make him crack under the pressures we women have long been subjected to and he is becoming insecure, appearance obsessed and borderline anorexic.

Evening climaxed with Tom cheering himself up letting off rockets from the roof terrace into the garden of the people below who Tom says are homophobic.

8st 13 (better without Smoothies), alcohol units 5 (better than having huge stomach full of pureed fruit), cigarettes 12, calories 1456 (excellent).

V. excited about the dinner party. Fixed for a week on Tuesday. This is the guest list:

Jude Vile Richard

Shazzer

Tom Pretentious Jerome

(unless get v. lucky and it is off

between him and Tom by Tuesday)

Magda Jeremy

Me Mark Darcy

Mark Darcy seemed very pleased when I rang him up.

'What are you going to cook?' he said. 'Are you good at cooking?'

'Oh, you know . . . ' I said. 'Actually, I usually use Marco Pierre White. It's amazing how simple it can be if one goes for a concentration of taste.'

He laughed and then said, 'Well, don't do anything too complicated. Remember everyone's coming to see you, not to eat parfaits in sugar cages.'

Daniel would never have said anything nice like that. V. much looking forward to the dinner party.

8st 12, alcohol units 4, cigarettes 35 (crisis), calories 456 (off food).

Tom has disappeared. First began to fear for him this morning when Sharon rang saying wouldn't swear on her mother's life but thought she'd seen him from the window of a taxi on Thursday night wandering along Ladbroke Grove with his hand over his mouth and, she thought, a black eye. By the time she'd got the taxi to go back he'd disappeared. She'd left two messages for him yesterday asking if he was OK but had had no reply.

I suddenly realized, as she spoke, that I had left a message for Tom myself on Wednesday asking if he was around at the weekend and he hadn't replied, which is not like him at all. Frantic phoning ensued. Tom's phone just rang and rang, so I called Jude who said she hadn't heard from him either. I tried Tom's Pretentious Jerome: nothing. Jude said she'd ring Simon, who lives in next street to Tom, and get him to go round. She called back twenty minutes later saying Simon had rung Tom's bell for ages and hammered on the door but no reply. Then Sharon rang again. She'd spoken to Rebecca, who thought Tom was supposed to be going to Michael's for lunch. I called Michael who said Tom had left a weird message talking in an odd distorted voice saying he wasn't going to be able to come and hadn't given a reason.

3 p.m. Starting to feel really panicky, at the same time enjoying sense of being at center of drama. Am practically Tom's best friend so everyone is ringing me and am adopting calm yet deeply concerned air about whole thing. Suddenly occurs to me that maybe he's Just met someone new and is enjoying honeymoon-style shag hideaway for a few days. Maybe it wasn't him Sharon saw, or black eye is just product of lively enthusiastic young sex or postmodern– style ironic retrospective Rocky Horror Show makeup. Must make more phone calls to test new theory.

3:30 p.m. General opinion quashes new theory, since it is widely agreed to be impossible for Tom to meet new man, let alone start affair, without ringing everyone up to show off. Cannot argue with that. Wild thoughts ranging through head. No denying that Tom has been disturbed lately. Start to wonder whether am really good friend. We are all so selfish and busy in London. Would it be possible for one of my friends to be so unhappy that they . . . ooh, that's where I put this month's Marie Claire: on top of fridge!

As flicked through Marie Claire started fantasizing about Tom's funeral and what I would wear. Aaargh, have suddenly remembered MP who died in a plastic bag with tubes around neck and chocolate orange in mouth or something. Wonder if Tom has been doing weird sexual practices without telling us?

5 p.m. Just called Jude again.

'Do you think we should call the police and get them to break in?' I said.

'I already rang them,' said Jude.

'What did they say?' I couldn't help feeling secretly annoyed that Jude had rung the police without clearing it with me first. I am Tom's best friend, not Jude.

'They didn't seem very impressed. They said to call them if we still couldn't find him by Monday. You can see their point. It does seem a bit alarmist to report that a twenty-nine-year-old single man is not in on Saturday morning and has failed to turn up for a lunch party he said he wouldn't be corning to anyway.'

'Something's wrong, though, I just know,' I said in a mysterious, loaded voice, realizing for the first time what an intensely instinctive and intuitive person I am.

'I know what you mean,' said Jude, portentously. 'I can feel it, too. Something's definitely wrong.'

7 p.m. Extraordinary. After spoke to Jude could not face shopping or similar lighthearted things. Thought this might be the perfect time to do the Feng Shui so went out and bought Cosmopolitan. Carefully, using the drawing in Cosmo, I mapped the ba-gua of the flat. Had a flash of horrified realization. There was a wastepaper basket in my Helpful Friends Corner. No wonder bloody Tom had disappeared.

Quickly rang Jude to report same. Jude said to move the wastepaper basket.

'Where to, though?' I said. 'I'm not putting it in my Relationship or Offspring Corners.'

Jude said hang on, she'd go have a look at Cosmo.

'How about Wealth?' she said, when she came back.

'Hmm, I don't know, what with Christmas coming up and everything,' I said, feeling really mean even as I said it.

'Well, if that's the way you look at things. I mean you're probably going to have one less present to buy anyway . . . ' said Jude accusingly.

In the end I decided to put the wastepaper basket in my Knowledge Corner and went out to the greengrocer to get some plants with round leaves to put in the Family and Helpful Friends Corners (spiky-leaved plants, particularly cacti, are counterproductive). Was just getting plant pot out of the cupboard under sink when heard a jangling sound. I suddenly hit myself hard on the forehead. They were Tom's spare keys from when he went to Ibiza.

For a moment I thought about going round there without Jude. I mean, she rang the police without telling me, didn't she? But in the end it seemed too mean, so I rang her and we decided we'd get Shazzer to come as well, because she'd raised the alert in the first place. As we turned into Tom's street, though, I came out of my fantasy about how dignified, tragic and articulate I would be when interviewed by the newspapers, along with a parallel paranoid fear that the police would decide it was me who had murdered Tom. Suddenly it stopped being a game. Maybe something terrible and tragic actually had happened.

None of us spoke or looked at each other as we walked up the front steps.

'Should you ring first?' whispered Sharon as I lifted the key to the lock.

'I'll do it,' said Jude. She looked at us quickly, then pressed the buzzer.

We stood in silence. Nothing. She pressed again. I was just about to slip the key in the lock when a voice on the intercom said, 'Hello?'

'Who's that?' I said tremulously. 'Who'd you think it is, you daft cow.'

'Tom!' I bellowed joyfully. 'Let us in.'

'Who's us?' he said suspiciously.

'Me, Jude and Shazzer.'

'I'd rather you didn't come up, hon, to be honest.'

'Oh, bloody hell,' said Sharon, pushing past me. 'Tom, you silly bloody queen, you've only had half London up in arms ringing the police, combing the metropolis for you because no one knows where you are. Bloody well let us in.'

'I don't want anyone except Bridget,' said Tom petulantly. I beamed beatifically at the others.

'Don't be such a prima bloody donna,' said Shazzer.

Silence. 'Come on, you silly sod. Let us in.'

There was a pause, then the buzzer went. 'Bzzz.'

'Are you ready for this?' came his voice as we reached the top floor and he opened the door.

All three of us cried out. Tom's whole face was distorted, hideous yellow and black, and encased in plaster.

'Tom, what's happened to you?' I cried, clumsily trying to embrace him and ending up kissing his ear. Jude burst into tears and Shazzer kicked the wall.

'Don't worry, Tom,' she growled. 'We'll find the bastards who did this.'

'What happened?' I said again, tears beginning to plop down my cheeks. 'Er, well . . . ' said Tom, extracting himself awkwardly from my embrace, 'actually I, er, I had a nose job.'

Turned out Tom had secretly had the operation on Wednesday but was too embarrassed to tell us because we'd all been so dismissive about his minuscule nasal bump. He was supposed to have been looked after by Jerome, henceforth to be known as Creepy Jerome (it was going to be heartless Jerome but we all agreed that sounded too interesting). When, however, Creepy Jerome saw him after the operation he was so repulsed he said he was going away for a few days, buggered off and hasn't been seen or heard of since. Poor Tom was so depressed and traumatized and so weird from the anaesthetic that he just unplugged the phone, hid under the blankets and slept.

'Was it you I saw in Ladbroke Grove on Thursday night, then?' said Shazzer.

It was. Apparently he had waited till dead of night to go out and forage for food under cover of darkness. In spite of our high spirits that he was alive Tom was still very unhappy about Jerome.

'Nobody loves me,' he said.

I told him to ring my answerphone, which held twenty-two frantic messages from his friends, all distraught because he had disappeared for twenty-four hours, which put paid to all our fears about dying alone and being eaten by an Alsatian.

'Or not being found for three months . . . and bursting all over the carpet,' said Tom.

Anyway, we told him, how could one moody geek with a stupid name make him think nobody loves him?

Two Bloody Marys later he was laughing at Jerome's obsessive use of the tern 'self-aware,' and his skintight calf-length Calvin Klein underpants. Meanwhile, Simon, Michael, Rebecca, Magda, Jeremy and a boy claiming to be called Elsie had all rung to see how he was.

'I know we're all psychotic, single and completely dysfunctional and it's all done over the phone,' Tom slurred sentimentally, 'but it's a bit like a family, isn't it?'

I knew the Feng Shui would work. Now-its task completed – I am going to quickly move the round-leaved plant to my Relationship Corner. Wish there was a Cookery Corner too. Only nine days to go.

8st 12 (v.g.), cigarettes 0 (v. bad to smoke when performing culinary miracles), alcohol units 3, calories 200 (effort of going to supermarket must have burnt off more calories than purchased, let alone ate).

7 p.m. Just returned from hideous middle-class Singleton guilt experience at supermarket, standing at checkout next to functional adults with children buying beans, fish fingers, alphabetti spaghetti, etc., when had the following in my trolley:

20 heads of garlic

tin of goose fat

bottle of Grand Marnier

8 tuna steaks

36 oranges

4 pints of double cream

4 vanilla beans at ?1.39 each.

Have to start preparations tonight as working tomorrow.

8 p.m. Ugh, do not feel like cooking. Especially dealing with grotesque bag of chicken carcasses: completely disgusting.

10 p.m. Have got chicken carcasses in pan now. Trouble is, Marco says am supposed to tie flavor-enhancing leek and celery together with string but only string have got is blue. Oh well, expect it will be OK.

11 p.m. God, stock took bloody ages to do but worth it as will end up with over 2 gallons, frozen in ice-cube form and only cost ?l.70. Mmm, confit of oranges will be delicious also. Now all have got to do is finely slice thirty-six oranges and grate zest. Shouldn't take too long.

1 a.m. Too tired to stay awake now but stock is supposed to cook for another two hours and oranges need another hour in oven. I know. Will leave the stock on v. low heat overnight, also oranges on lowest oven setting, so will become v. tender in manner of a stew.

8st 11 (nerves eat fat), alcohol units 9 (v. bad indeed), cigarettes 37 (v.v. bad), calories 3479 (and all disgusting).

9:30 a.m. Just opened pan. Hoped-for 2-gallon stock taste-explosion has turned into burnt chicken carcasses coated in jelly. Orange confit looks fantastic, though, just like in picture only darker. Must go to work. Am going to leave by four, then will think of answer to soup crisis.

5 p.m. Oh God. Entire day has turned into nightmare. Richard Finch gave me a real blowing-up at the morning meeting in front of everyone. 'Bridget, put that recipe book away for God's sake. Fireworks Burns Kids. I'm thinking maiming, I'm thinking happy family celebrations turned into nightmares. I'm thinking twenty years from now. What about that kid who had his penis burnt off by firecrackers in his pockets back in the sixties? Where is he now? Bridget, find me the Fireworks Kid with no Penis. Find me the Sixties Guy Fawkes Bobbit.'

Ugh. I was just grumpily making my forty-eighth phone call to find out if there was a burnt-off-penis victims' support group when my phone rang.

'Hello, darling, it's Mummy here.' She sounded unusually high-pitched and hysterical.

'Hi, Mum.'

'Hello, darling, just called to say 'bye before I go, and hope everything goes well.'

'Go? Go where?'

'Oh. Ahahahaha. I told you, Julio and I are popping over to Portugal for a couple of weeks, just to see the family and so on, get a bit of a suntan before Christmas.'

'You didn't tell me.'

'Oh, don't be a silly-willy, darling. Of course I told you. You must learn to listen. Anyway, do take care, won't you?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, darling, just one more thing.'

'What?'

'For some reason I've been so busy I forgot to order my travelers' checks from the bank.'

'Oh, don't worry, you can get them at the airport.'

'But the thing is, darling, I'm just on my way to the airport now, and I've forgotten my banker's card.'

I blinked at the phone.

'Such a nuisance. I was wondering . . . You couldn't possibly lend me some cash? I mean not much, just a couple of hundred quid or something so I can get some travelers' checks.'

The way she said it reminded me of the way winos ask for money for a cup of tea.

'I'm in the middle of work, Mum. Can't Julio lend you some money?'

She went all huffy. 'I can't believe you're being so mean, darling. After all I've done for you. I gave you the gift of life and you can't even loan your mother a few pounds for some travelers' checks.'

'But how am I going to get it to you? I'll have to go out to the cash machine and put it on a motorbike. Then it will be stolen and it'll all be ridiculous. Where are you?'

'Oooh. Well, actually, as luck would have it I'm ever so close, so if you just pop out to the NatWest opposite I'll meet you there in five minutes,' she gabbled. 'Super, darling. Byee!'

'Bridget, where the fuck are you off to?' yelled Richard as I tried to sneak out. 'You found the Banger Bobbit Boy yet?'

'Got a hot tip,' I said, tapping my nose, then made a dash for it. I was waiting for my money to come, freshly baked and piping hot, out of the cash machine, wondering how my mother was going to manage for two weeks in Portugal on two hundred pounds, when I spotted her scurrying towards me, wearing sunglasses, even though it was pissing with rain, and looking shiftily from side to side.

'Oh, there you are, darling. You are sweet. Thank you very much. Must dash, going to miss the plane. Byee!' she said, grabbing the banknotes from my hand.

'What's going on?' I said. 'What are you doing outside here when it's not on your way to the airport? How are you going to manage without your banker's card? Why can't Julio lend you the money? Why? What are you up to? What?'

For a second she looked frightened, as if she was going to cry, then, her eyes fixed on the middle distance, she adopted her wounded Princess Diana look.

'I'll be fine, darling.' She gave her special brave smile. 'Take care,' she said in a faltering voice, hugged me quickly then was off, waving the traffic to a standstill and tripping across the road.

7 p.m. Just got home. Right. Calm, calm. Inner poise. Soup will be absolutely fine. Will simply cook and puree vegetables as instructed and then-to give concentration of flavor-rinse blue jelly off chicken carcases and boil them up with cream in the soup.

8:30 p.m. All going marvelously. Guests are all in living room. Mark Darcy is being v. nice and brought champagne and a box of Belgian chocolates. Have not done main course yet apart from fondant potatoes but sure will be v. quick. Anyway, soup is first.

8:35 p.m. Oh my God. Just took lid off casserole to remove carcasses. Soup is bright blue.

9 p.m. Love the lovely friends. Were more than sporting about the blue soup, Mark Darcy and Tom even making lengthy argument for less color prejudice in the world of food. Why, after all, as Mark said – just because one cannot readily think of a blue vegetable – should one object to blue soup? Fish fingers, after all, are not naturally orange. (Truth is, after all the effort, soup just tasted like big bowl of boiled cream which Vile Richard rather unkindly pointed out. At which point Mark Darcy asked him what he did for a living, which was v. amusing because Vile Richard was sacked last week for fiddling his expenses.) Never mind, anyway. Main course will be v. tasty. Right, will start on veloute of cherry tomatoes.

9:15 p.m. Oh dear. Think there must have been something in the blender, e.g. washing-up liquid, as cherry tomato puree seems to be foaming and three times original volume. Also fondant potatoes were meant to be ready ten minutes ago and are hard as rock. Maybe should put in microwave. Aargh aargh. Just looked in fudge and tuna is not there. What has become of tuna? What? What?

9:30 p.m. Thank God. Jude and Mark Darcy came in kitchen and helped me make big omelette and mashed up half-done fondant potatoes and fried them in the frying pan in manner of hash browns, and put the recipe book on the table so we could all look at the pictures of what chargrilled tuna would have been like. At least orange confit will be good. Looks fantastic. Tom said not to bother with Grand Marnier Creme Anglaise but merely drink Grand Marnier.

10 p.m. V. sad. Looked expectantly round table as everyone took first mouthful of confit. There was an embarrassed silence.

'What's this, hon?' said Tom eventually. 'Is it marmalade?'

Horror-struck, took mouthful myself. It was, as he said, marmalade. Realize after all effort and expense have served my guests:

Blue soup

Omelette

Marmalade

Am disastrous failure. Michelin-star cookery? Kwik-fit, more like.

Did not think things could get any worse after the marmalade. But no sooner was the horrible meal cleared away than the phone went. Fortunately I took it in the bedroom. It was Dad.

'Are you on your own?' he said. 'No. Everyone's round here, Jude and everyone. Why?'

'I – wanted you to be with someone when . . . I'm sorry, Bridget. I'm afraid there's been some rather bad news.'

'What? What?'

'Your mother and Julio are wanted by the police.'

2 a.m. Northamptonshire in single bed in the Alconburys' spare room. Ugh. Had to sit down and get my breath back while Dad said, 'Bridget? Bridget? Bridget?' over and over again in manner of a parrot.

'What's happened?' I managed to get out eventually. 'I'm afraid they – possibly, and I pray, without your mother's knowledge – have defrauded a large number of people, including myself and some of our very closest friends, out of a great deal of money. We don't know the scale of the fraud at the moment, but I'm afraid, from what the police are saying, it's possible that your mother may have to go to prison for a considerable period of time.'

'Oh my God. So that's why she's gone off to Portugal with my two hundred quid.'

'She may well be further afield by now.'

I saw the future unfolding before me like a horrible nightmare: Richard Finch dubbing me Good Afternoon!'s 'Suddenly Single's Jailbird's Daughter, and forcing me to do a live interview down the line from the Holloway visitors' room before being Suddenly Sacked on air.

'What did they do?'

'Apparently Julio, using your mother as – as it were – 'front man,' has relieved Una and Geoffrey, Nigel and Elizabeth and Malcolm and Elaine' (oh my God, Mark Darcy's parents) 'of quite considerable sums of money-many, many thousands of pounds, as down payments on time-share apartments.'

'Didn't you know?'

'No. Presumably because they were unable to overcome some slight vestigial embarrassment about doing business with the greasy beperfumed wop who has cuckolded one of their oldest friends they omitted to mention the whole business to me.'

'So what happened?'

'The time-share apartments never existed. Not a penny of your mother's and my savings or pension fund remains. I also was unwise enough to leave the house in her name, and she has remortgaged it. We are ruined, destitute and homeless, Bridget, and your mother is to be branded a common criminal.'

After that he broke down. Una came to the phone, saying that she was going to give Dad some Ovaltine. I told her I'd be there in two hours but she said not to drive till I'd got over the shock, there was nothing to be done, and to leave it till the morning. Replacing the receiver, I slumped against the wall cursing myself feebly for leaving my cigarettes in the living room. Immediately though, Jude appeared with a glass of Grand Marnier.

'What happened?' she said.

I told her the whole story, pouring the Grand Marnier straight down my throat as I did. Jude didn't say a word but immediately went and fetched Mark Darcy.

'I blame myself,' he said, running his hands through his hair. 'I should have made myself more clear at the Tarts and Vicars party. I knew there was something dodgy about Julio.'

'What do you mean?'

'I heard him talking on his portable phone by the herbaceous border. He didn't know he was being overheard. If I'd had any idea that my parents were involved I'd . . . He shook his head. 'Now that I think about it, I do remember my mother mentioning something, but I got so upset at the mere mention of the words 'timeshare' that I must have terrorized her into shutting up. Where's your mother now?'

'I don't know. Portugal? Rio de Janeiro? Having her hair done?'

He started to pace around the room firing questions like a top barrister.

'What's being done to find her?' 'What are the sums involved?' 'How did the matter come to light?' 'What is the police's involvement?' 'Who knows about it?' 'Where is your father now?' 'Would you like to go to him?' 'Will you allow me to take you?' It was pretty damn sexy, I can tell you.

Jude appeared with coffee. Mark decided the best thing would be if he got his driver to take him and me up to Grafton Underwood and, for a fleeting second, I experienced the totally novel sensation of being grateful to my mother.

It was all very dramatic when we got to Una and Geoffrey's, with Enderbys and Alconburys all over the shop, everyone in tears and Mark Darcy striding around making phone calls. Found myself feeling guilty, since part of self – despite horror – was hugely enjoying the fact of normal business being suspended, everything different from usual and everyone allowed to throw entire glasses of sherry and salmon-paste sandwiches down their throats in manner of Christmas. Was exactly the same feeling as when Granny turned schizophrenic and took all her clothes off, ran off into Penny Husbands-Bosworth's orchard and had to be rounded up by the police.

8st 10 (hurrah!), alcohol units 3, cigarettes 27 (completely understandable when Mum is common criminal), calories 5671 (oh dear, seem to have regained appetite), Instants 7 (unselfish act to try to win back everyone's money, though maybe would not give them all of it, come to think of it), total winnings ,10, total profit ,3 (got to start somewhere).

10 a.m. Back in flat, completely exhausted after no sleep. On top of everything else, have to go to work and get told off for being late. Dad seemed to be rallying a little when I left: alternating between moments of wild cheerfulness that Julio proved to be a bounder so Mum might come back and start a new life with him and deep depression that the new life in question will be one of prison-visiting using public transport.

Mark Darcy went back to London in small hours. I left a message on his answerphone saying thank you for helping and everything, but he has not rung me back. Cannot blame him. Bet Natasha and similar would not feed him blue soup and turn out to be the daughter of criminal.

Una and Geoffrey said not to worry about Dad as Brian and Mavis are going to stay and help look after him. Find myself wondering why it is always 'Una and Geoffrey' not 'Geothey and Una' and yet 'Malcolm and Elaine' and 'Brian and Mavis.' And yet, on the other hand, 'Nigel and Audrey' Coles. Just as one would never, never say 'Geoffrey and Una' so, conversely, one would never say 'Elaine and Malcolm.' Why? Why? Find self, in spite of self; trying out own name imagining Sharon or Jude in years to come, boring their daughters rigid by going 'You know Bridget and Mark, darling, who live in the big house in Holland Park and go on lots of holidays to the Caribbean.' That's it. It would be Bridget and Mark. Bridget and Mark Darcy. The Darcys. Not Mark and Bridget Darcy. Heaven forbid. All wrong. Then suddenly feel terrible for thinking about Mark Darcy in these terms, like Maria with Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music, and that I must run away and go to see Mother Superior, who will sing 'Climb Every Mountain' to me.

8st 13, alcohol units 4 (but drunk in police presence so clearly OK), cigarettes 0, calories 1760, 1471 calls to see if Mark Darcy has rung 11.

10:30 p.m. Everything is going from bad to worse. Had thought only silver lining in cloud of mother's criminality was that it might bring me and Mark Darcy closer together but have not heard a peep from him since he left the Alconburys'. Have just been interviewed in my flat by police officers. Started behaving like people who are interviewed on the television after plane crashes in their front gardens, talking in formulaic phrases borrowed from news broadcasts, courtroom dramas or similar. Found myself describing my mother as being 'Caucasian' and 'of medium build.'

Policemen were incredibly charming and reassuring, though. They stayed quite late, in fact, and one of the detectives said he'd pop round again when he was passing by and let me know how everything was going. He was really friendly, actually.

9st, alcohol units 2 (sherry, ugh), cigarettes 3 (smoked out of Alconburys' window), calories, 4567 (entirely custard creams and salmon spread sandwiches), 1471 calls to see if Mark Darcy has rung 9 (g.).

Thank God. Dad has had a phone call from Mum. Apparently, she said not to worry, she was safe and everything was going to be all right, then hung up immediately. The police were at Una and Geoffrey's tapping the phone line as in Thelma and Louise and said she was definitely calling from Portugal but they didn't manage to get where. So much wish Mark Darcy would ring. Was obviously completely put off by culinary disasters and criminal element in family, but too polite to show it at time. Paddling-pool bonding evidently pales into insignificance alongside theft of parents' savings by naughty Bridget's nasty mummy. Am going to see Dad this afternoon, in manner of tragic spinster spurned by all men instead of in manner to which have been accustomed: in chauffeur-driven car with top barrister.

1 p.m. Hurrah! Hurrah! Just as I was leaving had phone call, but could not hear anything but beeping sound at the other end. Then the phone rang again. It was Mark, from Portugal. Just incredibly kind and brilliant of him. Apparently he has been talking to the police all week in between being top barrister and flew out to Albufeira yesterday. The police over there have found Mum and Mark thinks she will get off because it will be pretty obvious she had no idea what Julio was up to. They've managed to track down some of the money, but haven't found Julio yet. Mum is coming back tonight, but will have to go straight to a police station for questioning. He said not to worry, it will probably all be OK, but he's made arrangements for bail if it turns out to be necessary. Then we got cut off before I even had time to say thank you. Desperate to ring Tom to tell him fantastic news but remember no one is supposed to know about Mum and, unfortunately, last time I spoke to Tom about Mark Darcy I think I might have implied he was a creepy mummy's boy.

9st 1, alcohol Units 0, cigarettes 1/2 (fat chance of any more), calories God knows, minutes spent wanting to kill mother 188 (conservative estimate).

Nightmare day. Having first expected Mum back last night, then this morning, then this afternoon and having almost set off to Gatwick a total of three times, it turned out she was arriving this evening at Luton, under police escort. Dad and I were preparing ourselves to comfort a very different person from the one we had last been told off by, naively assuming that Mum would be chastened by what she had gone through

'Let go of me, you silly billy,' a voice rang out through the arrival lounge. 'Now we're on British soil I'm certain to be recognized and I don't want everyone seeing me being manhandled by a policeman. Ooh, d'you know? I think I've left my sun hat on the airplane under the seat.'

The two policemen rolled their eyes as Mum, dressed in a sixties-style black-and-white checked coat (presumably carefully planned to coordinate with the policemen), head scarf and dark glasses, zoomed back towards the baggage hall with the officers of the law wearily tagging after her. Forty-five minutes later they were back. One of the policemen was carrying the sun hat.

There was nearly a stand-up fight when they tried to get her into the police car. Dad was sitting in the front of his Sierra in tears and I was trying to explain to her that she had to go to the station to see whether she was going to be charged with anything, but she just kept going, 'Oh, don't be silly, darling. Come here. What have you got on your face? Haven't you got a tissue?'

'Mum,' I remonstrated as she took a handkerchief out of her pocket and spat on it. 'You might be charged with a criminal offense,' I protested as she started to dab at my face. 'I think you should go quietly to the station with the policemen.'

'We'll see, darling. Maybe tomorrow when I've cleaned out the vegetable basket. I left two pounds of King Edwards in there and I bet they've sprouted. Nobody's touched the plants, apparently, the entire time I've been away, and I bet you anything Una's left the heating on.'

It was only when Dad came over and curtly told her the house was about to be repossessed, vegetable basket included, that she shut up and huffily allowed herself to be put in the back of the car next to the policeman.

9st 1., alcohol units 0, cigarettes 50 (yesss! yesss!), 1471 calls to see Mark Darcy has rung 12, hours of sleep 0.

9 a.m. Just having last fag before going to work. Completely shattered. Dad and I were made to wait on a bench in the police Station for two hours last night. Eventually we heard a voice approaching along the corridor. 'Yes, that's right it's mee! 'Suddenly Single' every morning! Of course you can. Have you got a pen? On here? Who shall I put it to? Oh, you naughty man. Do you know I've been dying to try one of those on . . . '

'Oh, there you are, Daddy,' said Mum, appearing round the corner wearing a policeman's helmet. 'Is the car outside? Oof, d'you know – I'm dying to get home and get the kettle on. Did Una remember to turn on the timer?'

Dad looked rumpled, startled and confused and I didn't feel any less so myself.

'Have you walked free?' I said.

'Oh, don't be silly, darling. Walked free! I don't know!' said Mum rolling her eyes at the senior detective and bustling me out of the door ahead of her. The way the detective was blushing and fussing around her I wouldn't have been in the least surprised if she'd got herself off by giving him sexual favors in the interview room.

'So what happened?' I said, when Dad had finished putting all her suitcases, hats, straw donkey (' Isn't it super?') and castanets in the trunk of the Sierra and had started the engine. I was determined she wasn't going to brazen this one out, sweep the whole thing under the carpet and start patronizing us again.

'All sorted out now, darling, just a silly misunderstanding. Has someone been smoking in this car?'

'What happened, Mother?' I said dangerously. 'What about everyone's money and the time-share apartments? Where's my two hundred quid?'

'Durr! It was just some silly problem with the planning permission. They can be very corrupt, you know, the Portuguese authorities. It's all bribery and baksheesh like Winnie Mandela. So Julio's just paid all the deposits back. We had a super holiday, actually! The weather was very mixed, but . . . '

'Where is Julio?' I said, suspiciously.

'Oh, he's stayed behind in Portugal to sort out all this planning permission palaver.'

'What about my house?' said Dad. 'And the savings?'

'I don't know what you're talking about, Daddy. There's nothing wrong with the house.'

Unfortunately for Mum, however, when we got back to The Gables all the locks had been changed, so we had to go back to Una and Geoffrey's.

'Oof, do you know, Una, I'm so exhausted, I think I'm going to have to go straight to bed,' said Mum after one look at the resentful faces, wilting cold collation and tired beetroot slices.

The phone rang for Dad.

'That was Mark Darcy,' said Dad when he came back. My heart leaped into my mouth as I tried to control my features. 'He's in Albufeira. Apparently some sort of deal's been done with . . . with the filthy wop . . . and they've recovered some of the money. I think The Gables may be saved . . . '

At this a loud cheer went up from us all and Geoffrey launched into 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.' I waited for Una to make some remark about me but none was forthcoming. Typical. The minute I decide I like Mark Darcy, everyone immediately stops trying to fix me up with him.

'Is that too milky for you, Cohn?' said Una, passing Dad a mug of tea decorated with apricot floral frieze.

'I don't know . . . I don't understand why . . . I don't know what to think,' Dad said worriedly.

'Look, there's absolutely no need to worry,' said Una, with an unusual air of calmness and control, which suddenly made me see her as the mummy I'd never really had. 'It's because I've put a bit too much milk in. I'll just tip a bit out and top it up with hot water.'

When finally got away from scene of mayhem, drove far too fast on way back to London, smoking fags all the way as act of mindless rebellion.