'Mum. No. Couldn't we all talk this through together over lunch?' I said, as if this were Sleepless in Seattle and lunch was going to end up with Mum and Dad holding hands and me winking cutely at the camera, wearing a luminous rucksack.
'Just you wait,' she said darkly. 'You'll find out what men are like.'
'But I already . . . ' I began.'
'I'm going out, darling,' she said. I'm going out to get laid.'
At 2 o'clock Dad arrived at the door with a neatly folded copy of the Sunday Telegraph. As he sat down on the sofa, his face crumpled and tears began to splosh down his cheeks.
'She's been like this since she went to Albufeira with Una Alconbury and Audrey Coles,' he sobbed, trying to wipe his cheek with his fist. 'When she got back she started saying she wanted to be paid for doing the housework, and she'd wasted her life being our slave.' (Our slave? I knew it. This is all my fault. If I were a better person, Mum would not have stopped loving Dad.) 'She wants me to move out for a while, she says, and . . . and. . . . ' He collapsed in quiet sobs.
'And what, Dad?'
'She said I thought the clitoris was something from Nigel Coles's lepidoptery collection.'
9st 1, alcohol units 5, cigarettes 0 (spiritual enrichment removes need to smoke – massive breakthrough), calories 2845.
Though heartbroken by my parents' distress, I have to admit parallel and shameful feeling of smugness over my new role as carer and, though I say it myself, wise counselor. It is so long since I have done anything at all for anyone else that it is a totally new and heady sensation. This is what has been missing in my life. I am having fantasies about becoming a Samaritan or Sunday school teacher, making soup for the homeless (or, as my friend Tom suggested, darling mini-bruschettas with pesto sauce), or even retraining as a doctor. Maybe going out with a doctor would be better still, both sexually and spiritually fulfilling. I even began to wonder about putting an ad in the lonely hearts column of the Lancet. I could take his messages, tell patients wanting night visits to bugger off, cook him little goat cheese souffles, then end up in a foul mood with him when I am sixty, like Mum.
Oh God. Valentine's Day tomorrow. Why? Why? Why is entire world geared to make people not involved in romance feel stupid when everyone knows romance does not work anyway. Look at royal family. Look at Mum and Dad.
Valentine's Day purely commercial, cynical enterprise, anyway. Matter of supreme indifference to me.
9st, alcohol units 2 (romantic Valentine's Day treat 2 bottles Becks, on own, huh), cigarettes 12, calories 1545.
8 a.m. Oooh, goody. Valentine's Day. Wonder if the post has come yet. Maybe there will be a card from Daniel. Or a secret admirer. Or some flowers or heart-shaped chocolates. Quite excited, actually.
Brief moment of wild joy when discovered bunch of roses in the hallway. Daniel! Rushed down and gleefully picked them up just as the downstairs-flat door opened and Vanessa came out.
'Ooh, they look nice,' she said enviously. 'Who are they from?'
'I don't know!' I said coyly, glancing down at the card. 'Ah . . . I tailed off. 'They're for you.'
'Never mind. Look, this is for you,' said Vanessa, encouragingly. It was an Access bill.
Decided to have cappuccino and chocolate croissants on way to work to cheer self up. Do not care about figure. Is no point as no one loves or cares about me.
On the way in on the tube you could see who had had Valentine cards and who hadn't. Everyone was looking round trying to catch each other's eye and either smirking or looking away defensively.
Got into the office to find Perpetua had a bunch of flowers the size of a sheep on her desk.
'Well, Bridget!' she bellowed so that everyone could hear. 'How many did you get?'
I slumped into my seat muttering, 'Shud-urrrrrrrp,' out of the side of my mouth like a humiliated teenager.
'Come on! How many?'
I thought she was going to get hold of my earlobe and start twisting it or something.
'The whole thing is ridiculous and meaningless. Complete commercial exploitation.'
'I knew you didn't get any,' crowed Perpetua. It was only then that I noticed Daniel was listening to us across the room and laughing.
Unexpected surprise, Was just leaving flat for work when noticed there was a pink envelope on the table – obviously a late Valentine – which said, 'To the Dusky Beauty'. For a moment I was excited, imagining it was for me and suddenly seeing myself as a dark, mysterious object of desire to men out in the street. Then I remembered bloody Vanessa and her slinky dark bob. Humph.
9 p.m. Just got back and card is still there.
10 p.m. Still there.
11.p.m. Unbelievable. The card is still there. Maybe Vanessa hasn't got back yet.
8st 12 (weight loss through use of stairs), alcohol units 0 (excellent), cigarettes 5 (excellent), calories 2452 (not vg.), times gone down stairs to check for Valent-ne-type envelope 18 (bad psychologically but v.g. exercise).
The card is still there! Obviously it is like eating the last Milk Tray or taking the last slice of cake. We are both too polite to take it.
8st 12, alcohol units 1 (v.g.) cigarettes 2 (v.g.), calories 3241 (bad but burnt off by stairs), checks on card 12 (obsessive).
9 a.m. Card is still there.
9 p.m. Still there.
9.30 p.m. Still there. Could stand it no longer. Could tell Vanessa was in as cooking smells emanating from flat, so knocked on door. 'I think this must be for you,' I said, holding out the card as she opened the door.
'Oh, I thought it must be for you,' she said.
'Shall we open it?' I said.
'OK.' I handed it to her, she gave it back to me, giggling. I gave it back to her. I love girls.
'Go on,' I said, and she slit open the envelope with the kitchen knife she was holding. It was rather an arty card as if it might have been bought in an art gallery.
She pulled a face.
'Means nothing to me she said, holding out the card.
Inside it said, 'A piece of ridiculous and meaningless commercial exploitation – for my darling little frigid cow.'
I let out a high-pitched noise.
10 p.m. Just called Sharon and recounted whole thing to her. She said I should not allow my head to be turned by a cheap card and should lay off Daniel as he is not a very nice person and no good will come of it.
Called Tom for second opinion, particularly on whether I should call Daniel over the weekend. 'Noooooooo!' he yelled. He asked me various probing questions: for example, what Daniel's behaviour had been like over the last few days when, having sent the card, he had had no response from me. I reported that he had seemed flirtier than usual. Tom's prescription was wait till next week and remain aloof.
9st, alcohol units 4, cigarettes 6, calories 2746, correct lottery numbers 2 (v,g.).
At last I got to the bottom of Mum and Dad. I was beginning to suspect a post-Portuguese-holiday Shirley-Valentine-style scenario and that I would open the Sunday People to see my mother sporting dyed blond hair and a leopard-skin top sitting on a sofa with someone in stone-washed jeans called Gonzales and explaining that, if you really love someone, a forty-six year age gap really doesn't matter.