Page 268 - Bridget Jones's Diary - by Helen FIELDING

after the operation he was so repulsed he said he was going away for a few days,

buggered off and hasn't been seen or heard of since. Poor Tom was so depressed
and traumatized and so weird from the anaesthetic that he just unplugged the
phone, hid under the blankets and slept.

'Was it you I saw in Ladbroke Grove on Thursday night, then?' said Shazzer.

It was. Apparently he had waited till dead of night to go out and forage for

food under cover of darkness. In spite of our high spirits that he was alive Tom
was still very unhappy about Jerome.

'Nobody loves me,' he said.

I told him to ring my answerphone, which held twenty-two frantic messages
from his friends, all distraught because he had disappeared for twenty-four
hours, which put paid to all our fears about dying alone and being eaten by an

Alsatian.

'Or not being found for three months . . . and bursting all over the carpet,' said
Tom.

Anyway, we told him, how could one moody geek with a stupid name make
him think nobody loves him?

Two Bloody Marys later he was laughing at Jerome's obsessive use of the tern
'self-aware,' and his skintight calf-length Calvin Klein underpants. Meanwhile,
Simon, Michael, Rebecca, Magda, Jeremy and a boy claiming to be called Elsie
had all rung to see how he was.

'I know we're all psychotic, single and completely dysfunctional and it's all
done over the phone,' Tom slurred sentimentally, 'but it's a bit like a family, isn't

it?'

I knew the Feng Shui would work. Now-its task completed - I am going to
quickly move the round-leaved plant to my Relationship Corner. Wish there was