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.