Page 50 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

I racked my brains. 'I can't say I did, to be honest, other than seeming very sort

of blooming and confident.'

'Hmmm,' he said. 'Anyway. Best get off before it gets dark. Send my love to
Jude. How's she doing?'

Then he hit the bonnet in an off-you-go sort of way but so hard that I had a
feeling he might have broken his hand.

Thought all would be resolved with Daniel on Monday but he wasn't there.
Nor yesterday. Work has become like going to a party in order to get off with
someone and finding they haven't turned up. Worried about own ambition,
career prospects and moral seriousness as seem to reduce everything to level of

scout disco. Eventually managed to worm out of Perpetua that Daniel has gone
to New York. He will clearly by now have got off with thin American cool
person called Winona who puts out, carries a gun and is everything I am not.

On top of everything else, must go to Smug Married dinner party at Magda
and Jeremy's tonight. Such occasions always reduce my ego to size of snail,
which is not to say am not grateful to be asked. I love Magda and Jeremy.
Sometimes I stay at their house, admiring the crisp sheets and many storage jars
full of different kinds of pasta, imagining that they are my parents. But when
they are together with their married friends I feel as if I have turned into Miss

Havisham.

11.45 p.m. Oh God. It was me, four married couples and Jeremy's brother
(forget it, red braces and face. Calls girls 'fillies').

'So, bellowed Cosmo, pouring me a drink. 'How's your love-life?'

Oh no. Why do they do this? Why? Maybe the Smug Marrieds only mix with
other Smug Marrieds and don't known how to relate to individuals any more.
Maybe they really do want to patronize us and make us feel like failed human
beings. Or maybe they are in such a sexual rut they're thinking, 'There's a whole