Page 75 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

Saturday 4 March

9st (what is point of dieting for whole of Feb when end up exactly same weight at
start of March as start of Feb? Huh. Am going to stop getting weighed and
counting things every day as no sodding point).

My mother has become a force I no longer recognize. She burst into my flat this
morning as I sat slumped in my dressing gown, sulkily painting my toenails and
watching the preamble to the racing.

'Darling, can I leave these here for a few hours?' she trilled, flinging an armful
of carrier bags down and heading for my bedroom.

Minutes later, in a fit of mild curiosity, I slobbed after her to see what she was
doing. She was sitting in front of the mirror in an expensive-looking coffee-
colored bra-slip, mascara-ing her eyelashes with her mouth wide open (necessity
of open mouth during mascara application great unexplained mystery of nature).

'Don't you think you should get dressed, darling?'

She looked stunning: skin clear, hair shining. I caught sight of myself in the
mirror. I really should have taken my makeup off last night. One side of my hair
was plastered to my head, the other sticking out in a series of peaks and horns. It
is as if the hairs on my head have a life of their own, behaving perfectly sensibly
all day, then waiting till I drop off to sleep and starting to run and jump about
childishly, saying, 'Now what shall we do?'

'You know,' said Mum, dabbing Givenchy II in her cleavage, 'all these years
your father's made such a fuss about doing the bills and the taxes - as if that