Page 246 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

'Are you OK?' she said. 'You look a bit freaked out.'

'No, no, I'm fine,' I said.

'Sure?' she stared at me for a moment. 'Listen, right, you realize he didn't
mean Isabella Rosselli at the meeting, didn't you? He's thinking of Elena
Rossini, right.'

Oh, thank God and all his angels in heaven above. Elena Rossini is the
children's nanny accused of murdering her employer after he allegedly subjected
her to repeated rape and effective house arrest for eighteen months. I grabbed a
couple of newspapers to bone up and ran for a taxi.

3 p.m. Cannot believe what just happened. Was hanging around outside the
High Court for ages with the camera crew and a whole gang of reporters all
waiting for the trial to end. Was bloody good fun, actually. Even started to see
the funny side of being stood up by Mr. Perfect Pants Mark Darcy. Suddenly
realized I'd run out of cigarettes. So I whispered to the cameraman, who was
really nice, if he thought it would be OK if I nipped to the shop for five minutes

and he said it would be fine, because you're always given warning when they're
about to come out and they'd come and get me if it was about to happen.

When they heard I was going to the shop, a lot of reporters asked me if I'd
bring them fags and sweets and so it took quite a while working it all out. I was
just standing in the shop trying to keep all the change separate with the
shopkeeper when this bloke walked in obviously in a real hurry and said. 'Could
you let me have a box of Quality Street?' as if I wasn't there. The poor
shopkeeper looked at me as if not sure what to do.

'Excuse me, does the word 'queue' mean anything to you?' I said in a hoity-
toity voice, turning around to look at him. I made a weird noise. It was Mark
Darcy all dressed up in his barrister outfit. He just stared at me, in that way he

has.