"Hgumph," snorted Shazzer. "That's just retrospective bollocks. If Bridget says she doesn't want to go and he goes without her and he gets off with Rebecca then he's a second-rate charlatan and not worth having. Social partner - pah. We're not in the 1950s now. She's not cleaning the house all day in a pointy bra then entertaining his colleagues like some trophy Stepford wife. Tell him you know Rebecca's after him and that's why you don't want to go."
"But then he'll be flattered," said Jude. "There's nothing a man finds more attractive than a woman who is in love with him."
"Says who?" said Shaz.
"The baroness in The Sound of Music," said Jude, sheepishly.
Unfortunately, by the time we turned our attention back to it the game appeared to be over.
Next thing Mark rang.
"What happened?" he said excitedly.
"Um . . ." I said, gesturing wildly at Jude and Shazzer who looked completely blank.
"You did watch it, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course, football's coming home, it's coming." I sang, vaguely remembering this was something to do with Germany.
"So why don't you know what happened then? I don't believe you."
"We did. But we were..."
"What?"
"Talking," I finished lamely.
"Oh God." There was a long silence. "Listen, do you want to go to Rebecca's?"
I looked from Jude to Shaz, frantically. One yes. One no. And a yes from Magda.
"Yes," I said.
"Oh great. It'll be fun, I think. She said to bring a swimsuit."
A swimsuit! Doom. Dooooooooom.
On way home, discovered same lot of workmen tumbling pissed out of pub. Put nose in air and decided did not care whether they whistled or not but just as walked past was huge cacophony of appreciative noises. Turned round, pleased to give them a filthy look only to find they were all looking the other way and one of them had just thrown a brick through the window of a Volkswagen.
Saturday 22 February
9st 5 (honing), alcohol units 3 (best behaviour), cigarettes
2 (huh), calories 10,000 (probably: suspected Rebecca sabotage), dogs up skin 1 (constantly).
Gloucestershire. Turns out Rebecca's parents" "country cottage" has stable blocks, outbuildings, pool, full staff and its own church in the "garden'. As we scrunched across the gravel, Rebecca - snooker-ball-bottomed in jeans in manner of Ralph Lauren ad - was playing with a dog, sunlight dappling her hair, amongst an array of Saab and BMW convertibles.
"Emma! Get down! Hiiiiil" she cried, at which dog broke free and put its nose straight up my coat.
"Mwah, come and have a drink," she said welcoming Mark as I wrestled with the dog's head.
Mark rescued me, shouting, "Emma! Here!" and chucking the stick, so the dog brought it back, tail wagging. "Oh, she adores you, don't you, darling, don't you, don't you, don't you?" Rebecca cooed, fussing the dog's head like it was her and Mark's first-born baby.
My mobile rang. Tried to ignore it.
"I think that's yours, Bridget," said Mark. I took it out and pressed the button. "Oh, hello, darling, guess what?"
"Mother, what are you ringing me on my mobile for?" I hissed, watching Rebecca leading Mark away.
"We're all going to Miss Saigon next Friday! Una and Geoffrey and Daddy and I and Wellington. He's never been to a musical before. A Kikuyu at Miss Saigon. Isn't that fun? And we've got tickets for you and Mark to join us!
Gaah! Musicals! Strange men standing with their legs apart bellowing songs straight ahead.
By the time I got into house Mark and Rebecca had disappeared and was nobody around except the dog, which put its nose up my coat again.
4 p.m. Just back from walk round 'garden'. Rebecca kept installing me in conversations with men, then dragging Mark off miles ahead of everyone else. Ended up walking along with Rebecca's nephew: sub-Leonardo DiCaprio lookalike, hunted-looking in an Oxfam overcoat, whom everyone referred to as 'Johnny's boy'.
"I mean, like, I do have a name," he muttered.
"Oh don't be absuuuuuuuuuurd!" I said, pretending to be Rebecca. "What is it?"
He paused, looking embarrassed. "St John."
"Oh." I sympathized.
He laughed and offered me a fag.
"Better not," I said, nodding in Mark's direction.
"Is he your boyfriend or your father?"
He steered me off the path towards a mini lake and lit me a cigarette.
Was v. nice smoking and giggling naughtily. "We'd better go back," I said, stubbing cigarette out under my welly. Others were miles ahead, so we had to run: young and wild and free, in manner of Calvin Klein adverts. When we caught up Mark put his arms round me. "What have you been doing?" he said into my hair. "Smoking like a naughty schoolgirl?"
"I haven't had a cigarette for five years!" tinkled Rebecca.
7 p.m. Mmm. Mmm. Mark just got all horny before supper. Mmmmm.
Midnight. Rebecca made a great fuss of putting me next to "Johnny's boy" at dinner - 'You two are getting on sooooooo well!!' - and herself next to Mark.
They looked perfect together in their black tie. Black tie! As Jude said, was only because Rebecca wanted to show off her figure in Country Casuals gear and evening wear like Miss World entrant. Right on cue she went, "Shall we change into our swimwear now?" and tripped off to change, reappearing minutes later in an immaculately cut black swimsuit, legs up to the chandelier.
"Mark," she said, "would you give me a hand? I need to take the cover off the pool."
Mark looked from her to me worriedly.
"Of course. Yes," he said awkwardly and disappeared after her.
"Are you going to swim?" said the whippersnapper. "Well," I began, "I wouldn't want you to think I'm not a determined and keenly motivated sportswoman, but eleven o'clock at night after a five-course dinner is not my most swimmy time."
We chatted for a while, then I noticed the last of our fellow diners were leaving the room.
"Shall we go and have coffee?" I said, getting up. "Bridget." Suddenly, he lurched drunkenly forward, and started trying to kiss me. The door burst open. Was Rebecca and Mark.
"Oops! Sorry" said Rebecca, and shut the door.
"What do you think you're doing!" I hissed, horrified, at the whippersnapper.
"But ... Rebecca said you told her you really fancied me, and, and..."
"And what?"
"She said you and Mark were in the process of splitting up."
I grabbed the table for support. "Who told her that?"
"She said" - he looked so mortified I felt really sorry for him -"she said Mark did."
Sunday 23 February
12st 4 (probably), alcohol units 3 (since midnight and is only 7 a. m.), cigarettes 100,000 (feels like), calories 3,275, positive thoughts 0, boyfriends: extremely uncertain figure.
When I got back to room, Mark was in the bath so I sat in nightie, planning my defence.
"It was not what you think," I said with tremendous originality, as he emerged.
"No?" he said, whisky in hand. He started striding around in his barrister mode, clad only in a towel. Was unnerving, but unbelievably sexy. "Had you a marble stuck in your throat, perhaps?" he said. "Was "St John" being, rather than the trust-funded teenage layabout he appears, actually a top ear, nose and throat surgeon attempting to extract it with his tongue?"
"No," I said, carefully and thoughtfully. "That is not what it was either."
"Then were you hyperventilating? Was "St John" - having garnered the rudiments of first aid into his marijuanaaddled brain, perhaps from a poster on the wall of the many drug rehab units he has visited in his short and otherwise uneventful life - trying to administer the kiss of life? Or did he simply mistake you for a choice morsel of "skunk" and find himself unable to . . ."