Page 49 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

'Mother,' I said. 'Tom has known he was a homosexual since he was ten.'

'Oh, darling! Honestly' You know how people get these silly ideas. You can
always talk them out of it.'

'Does that mean if I talked to you really persuasively you'd leave Dad and start
an affair with Auntie Audrey?'

'Now you're just being silly, darling,' she said.

'Exactly,' Dad joined in. 'Auntie Audrey looks like a kettle.'

'Oh, for heaven's sake, John,' Mum snapped, which struck me as odd as she
doesn't usually snap at Dad.

My dad, somewhat bizarrely, insisted on giving my car a full service before I
left, even though I assured him there was nothing wrong with it. I rather showed
myself up by not remembering how to open the bonnet.

'Have you noticed anything odd about your mother?' he said in a stiff,
embarrassed way as he fiddled around with the oil stick, wiping it with rags and
plunging it back in a not unworrying manner, if one were a Freudian. Which I

am not.

'You mean apart from being bright orange?' I said.

'Well yes, and . . . well, you know, the usual, er qualities.'

'She did seem unusually aerated about homosexuality.'

Oh no, that was just the Vicar's new vestments which set her off this morning.

They were a little on the frou-frou side, to tell the truth. He's just come back
from a trip to Rome with the Abbot of Dumfries. Dressed from head to toe in
rose pink. No, I mean did you notice anything different from usual about
Mummy?'