Page 124 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

1 chocolate Viennoise dessert thing with cream on top (greedy baby

incredibly demanding) Steamed broccoli (attempt to nourish baby and stop it
growing up spoilt).

4 cold Frankfurter sausages, (only available tin in cupboard too exhausted
by pregnancy to go out to shop again).

Oh dear. Am starting to get carried away with idea of self as Calvin Klein-style
mother figure, poss. wearing crop-top or throwing baby in the air, laughing

fulfilledly in advert for designer gas cooker, feel-good movie or similar.

In the office today Perpetua was at her most obnoxious, spending 45 minutes
on the phone to Desdemona, discussing whether yellow walls would look nice

with pink-and-grey ruched blinds or whether she and Hugo should go for Blood
Red with a floral freize. For one 15-minute interlude she said nothing
whatsoever except, 'Absolutely . . . no, absolutely . . . absolutely,' then
concluded, 'But of course, in a sense, one could make exactly the same argument
for the red.'

Instead of wanting to staple things to her head, I merely smiled in a beatific
sort of way, thinking how soon all these things were to be immaterial to me,
alongside caring for another tiny human being. Next I discovered a whole new
world of Daniel fantasies: Daniel carrying the baby in a sling, Daniel rushing

home from work, thrilled to find the two of us pink and glowing in the bath, and,
in years to come, being incredibly impressive at parent/teacher evenings.

But then Daniel appeared. I have never seen him look worse, The only

possible explanation was that on leaving me yesterday he had carried on
drinking. He looked over at me, briefly, with the expression of an axe-murderer.