Page 107 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

noticed that, unfortunately, Simon from Marketing was talking to Julian Barnes.

Suspecting that I might not be able to fully pull off crying, 'Simon Barnett!
Julian Barnes!' with quite the required gaiety and tone, I hovered indecisively
then started to sidle away, at which point Simon said in an irritated superior
voice (one you, funnily enough, never hear him use when he is trying to get off
with you by the photocopier), 'Did you want something, Bridget?'

'Ah! Yes!' I said, panicking wildly about what it was I could possibly want.
'Ahm.'

'Yeees?' Simon and Julian Barnes looked at me expectantly.

'Do you know where the toilets are?' I blurted out. Damn. Damn. Why? Why

did I say that? I saw a faint smile hover over the thin-but-attractive lips of Julian
Barnes.

'Ah, actually I think they're over there. Jolly good. Thanks,' I said, and made
for the exit. Once out of the swinging doors I slumped against the wall, trying to
get my breath back, thinking, 'inner poise, inner poise.' It was not going
particularly well so far, there were no two ways about it.

I looked wistfully at the stairs. The thought of going home, putting my nightie
on and turning on the telly began to seem irresistibly attractive. Remembering
the Party Objectives, though, I breathed in deeply through my nose, murmured,
'inner poise' and pushed through the doors back into the party. Perpetua was still
by the door, talking to her ghastly friends Piggy and Arabella.

'Ah, Bridget,' she said. 'Are you going to get a drink?' and held out her glass.
When I returned with three glasses of wine and a Perrier they were in full
autowitter.

'I have to say, I think it's disgraceful. All it means in this day and age is that a
whole generation of people only get to know the great works of literature -
Austen, Eliot, Dickens, Shakespeare, and so on - through the television.'

'Well, quite. It's absurd. Criminal.'