Just going to the ladies, I said through clenched teeth like a ventriloquist keeping my face fixed, to reduce the appearance of wrinkles.
Really? said Rebecca, then left a long, embarrassed pause. Well, Magdas lucky. Shes got really good skin.’
Envy summer life on the Continent, where men in smart lightweight suits and designer sunglasses glide around calmly in smart air-conditioned cars, maybe stopping for a citron pressé in a shady pavement café in an ancient square, totally cool about the sun and ignoring it because they know for a fact that it will still be shining at the weekend, when they can go and lie quietly on the yacht.
2 p.m. OK, so this afternoon I am really going to work and get everything done before the evening, then can go out. V. sleepy, though. Its so hot. Maybe Ill just close my eyes for five minutes. Catnaps are said to be an excellent way of reviving oneself. Used to excellent effect by Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill. Good idea. Maybe Ill lie down on the bed.
11 a.m. Phone just rang. It was Simon, to tell me about the latest girl he has got his eye on. How old is she? I said, suspiciously, Twenty-four.’
Shes incredibly attractive, isnt she?’
11.50 a.m. Hmmm. Nail really is scratchy. Actually, if dont do something about it Ill start picking at it and next thing Ill have no fingernail left. Right, Id better go and find an emery board.
8 p.m. Right. Ridiculous to have had video for two years and never to have been able to make it record anything. Also is marvellous FV 67 HV VideoPlus. Simple matter of following operating instructions, locating buttons, etc., certain.
As I emerged from my bath Daniel was lying on the bed giggling. Ive got a new diet for you,’
I grasped the table for support, trying to get my breath. I am ageing prematurely, I realized. Like a time-release film of a plum turning into a prune.
I glanced in the mock Victorian pub mirror. I looked like a garish clown with bright pink cheeks, two dead crows for eyes and the bulk of the white cliffs of Dover smeared underneath.
Dont say "what", Bridget, say "pardon". The thing is Im going to be out because Una wants to see a slide show of the Nile so Penny and I wondered if youd record it . . . Ooh, better dash — theres the butcher!’
10.18 p.m. Ah, Thelma and Louise is in there.
Just called Tom and asked him if he could record Penny Husbands-Bosworth but he said he didnt know how to work his video either.
7 p.m. Oh no. Turns out Rebecca is coming. An evening with Rebecca is like swimming in sea with jellyfish: all will be going along perfectly pleasantly then suddenly you get painful lashing, destroying confidence at stroke. Trouble is, Rebeccas stings are aimed so subtly at ones Achilles’
Sunday 25 June 8st 11, alcohol units 7, cigarettes 2, calories 4587 (ooops).
Serbian or Bosnian?’
I was torn between a gross image of myself with a bicycle parked in my bottom and a pint of beer balanced on it, fury at Daniel for his blatantly provocative sexism and suddenly wondering if he might be right about my concept of my body in relation- to men, and, in which case, whether I should have something delicious to eat straight away and what that might be.
Oh, for Gods sake. Its that bloody Rebecca, isnt it? he said. Shazzer told me about the Magda conversation. Its ridiculous. You look about sixteen.’
"Your face. You look like Barbara Cartland.’
Daniel! I exploded. Thats the most appalling sexist, fattist, cynical thing Ive ever heard.’
Will just ring Tom then get down to work.
5.30 p.m. Brrr. Instead of lying side by side with Daniel in hot sun at the side of the lake wearing a long floaty dress, I ended up blue with cold in a rowing boat with one of the hotel bath towels
The more the sun shines the more obvious it seems that others are making fuller, better use of it elsewhere: possibly at some giant softball game to which everyone is invited except me; possibly alone with their lover in a rustic glade by waterfalls where Bambis graze, or at some large public celebratory event, probably including the Queen Mother and one or more of the football tenors, to mark the exquisite summer which I am failing to get the best out of. Maybe it is our climatic past that is99lib.net to blame. Maybe we do not yet have the mentality to deal with a sun and cloudless blue sky, which is anything other than a freak incident. The instinct to panic, run out of the office, take most of your clothes off and lie panting on the fire escape is still too strong.
Love Tom. Even though suspected he might have been lying still feel hugely cheered up as even Tom would surely not say looked sixteen if looked forty-five.
The trouble with trying to go out with people when you get older is that everything becomes so loaded. When you are partnerless in your thirties, the mild bore of not being in a relationship — no sex, not having anyone to hang out with on Sundays, going home from parties on your own all the time — gets infused with the paranoid notion that the reason you are not in a relationship is your age, you have had your last ever relationship and sexual experience ever, and it is all your fault for being too wild or wilful to settle down in the first bloom of youth.
Sundress 1.
Good God, said Tom when I arrived.
Are you all right, Bridge? said rude.
Mmm, I said.
Sunday 8 June 8st 12, alcohol units 3, cigarettes 17.
Im prematurely ageing, I muttered.
No, you look like a five-year-old in your mothers make-up, he said. Look.’
Noon. It is such a bloody bore when the weather is so hot and ones soi-disant boyfriend refuses to go anywhere nice with you. Feel he thinks I am trying to trap him into a mini-break; as if it were not a mini-break but marriage, three kids and cleaning out the toilet in house full of stripped pine in Stoke Newington. I think this is turning into a psychological crisis. Im going to call Tom (can always do the catalogue stuff for Perpetua this evening).
7 p.m. Mum just rang. Oh, hello, darling. Guess what? Penny Husbands-Bosworth is on Newsnight!!!’
You completely forget the fact that when you were twenty-two and you didnt have boyfriend or meet anyone you remotely fancied for twenty-three months you just thought it was a bit of a drag.
10.25 p.m. Have got new cassette in now. Right. Turn to Recording.
Who?’
11.35 a.m. God. I just started having paranoid fantasy for no reason about Daniel having an affair with someone else and thinking up dignified but cutting remarks to make him sorry. Now why should that be? Have I sensed with a womans intuition that he is having an affair?
Aargh aargh. Newsnight is starting.
After sitting in semi-darkness for the third weekend running with Daniels hand down my bra, fiddling with my nipple as if it were a sort of worry bead and me occasionally feebly saying, Was that a run? I suddenly blurted out, Why cant we go on a mini-break? Why? Why? Why?’
10.19 p.m. Thelma and Louise will not come out.
12.40 p.m. These shorts and T-shirt are too uncomfortable in this heat. Im going to change into a long floaty dress.
God, its hot. Quite like leaning out of the window. Someone is playing a saxophone in effort to pretend we are all in a film set in New York, and can hear voices all around because everyones windows are open, and smell cooking from restaurants. Hmm. Think would like to move to New York: though probably, come to think of it, not v. g. area for mini-breaks. Unless mini-break actually is to New York, which would be pointless if one were already in New York.
8 p.m. Just going round to Tom for a quick drink. Just for half an hour.
1 p.m. Lunchtime! At last a bit of time off.
Shit. Shit. Realize in excitement have sat on remote control.
Recording will start when in Tuner Mode when any button is pressed (apart from Mem).What, though, is Tuner Mode? When recording from a camcorder or similar press AV prog source 3 x during a bilingual transmission press 1/2 and hold for 3 seconds to make your choice of language.’
At this point the commissionaire, who was dressed in knickerbockers, white socks, patent leather buckled shoes, a frock coat and a powdered wig, leaned over and said, I think youll find the former inhabitants of Srebrenica and of Sarajevo are Bosnian Muslims, sir. Adding pointedly, Will you be requiring a newspaper in the morning at all, sir?’
Whats going on? he said.
Anyway. Daniel and I are going to a party tonight at his friend Wicksys, then tomorrow I expect we will go to the park o九九藏书r out to a lovely pub in the country for lunch. It is marvellous having a boyfriend.
12.55 p.m. Thats better.
8.55 p.m. Decide to ignore that page. Turn to Timer-controlled recordings with VideoPlus: 1.
dupe us all. Feel incompetent fool and as if everyone else in world understands something which is being kept from me.
Tuesday 6 June 9st 2, alcohol units 4, cigarettes 3 (v.g.), calories 1326, Instants 0 (excellent), 1471 calls 12 (bad), hours spent asleep 15 (bad, but not selfs fault as heatwave).
Aargh. Instead of denying it, Jude and Shazzer were accepting my premature ageing as read, tactfully trying to change the subject to spare my feelings. I sat, in a spiral of terror, grasping my sagging face.
were enjoying a refreshing drink in a pavement café, we can do it too — their expressions of angst merely brief and fleeting which say, Ought we to be at an outdoor performance of A Midsummer Nights Dream?’
Look, will you shut up?’
I cannot believe the size of that mans lapels., Suddenly I had the unmistakable feeling that Daniel was trying to change the subject.
Thats a good idea, said Daniel, mildly, taking his hand out of my dress. Why dont you book somewhere for next weekend? Nice country house hotel. Ill pay.’
And who are the Bosnian Muslims?’
Fn, I replied stiffly.
You don t.’
Daniel, said Wicksy, have you met Vanessa?’
Finding it impossible to concentrate on almost anything in the heat except fantasies about going on mini-breaks with Daniel. Head is filled with visions of us lying in glades by rivers, me in long white floaty dress, Daniel and I sitting outside ancient Cornish waterside pub sipping pints in matching striped T-shirts and watching the sun set over the sea; Daniel and I eating candlelit dinners in historic country-house-hotel courtyards then retiring to our room to shag all hot summer night.
Just called Jude and she cant work hers either. Aaargh. Aargh. Is 10.15. Newsnight in 15 minutes.
9.16 p.m. When you turn your recorder on you must adjust the clock and the calendar for precise TIMER-controlled recording (dont forget to use the quick-adjust options to switch between summer and winter time). Clock menus called with red and digital number 6.’
God, look at that bridesmaids tits.’
Srebrenica is a safe area, said Daniel in deeply patronizing tones.
You know the Husbands-Bosworths, darling. Ursula was in the year above you at the High School. Herbert died of leukaemia . . . ‘
Aaargh. All going mad. Cassette has started rewinding and now stopped and ejected. Why?
Saturday 3 June 8st 13, alcohol units 5, cigarettes 25, calories 600, minutes spent looking at brochures: long-haul 45, mini-break 87, 1471 calls 7 (g.).
No, said Daniel, putting on his most flirtatious seductive grin and holding out his hand. Nice to meet you.’
I do.’
4 p.m. Going out to meet Tom for tea. Decided needed to spend more time on appearance like Hollywood stars and have therefore spent ages putting concealer under eyes, blusher on cheeks and defining fading features.
Long floaty white dress 1.
7.30 p.m. Oh, Bloody Hell.
8.35 p.m. Hah! Found operating instructions under Hello! Right. Programming your video is as easy as making a phone call. Excellent.
So you do think Im fat.’
8.15 p.m. Humph. Cannot locate operating instructions.
Feel certain this has been factor behind our waning national confidence ever since we started to travel and notice it. I suppose things might change. More and more tables are on pavements.
7 p.m. Humph. Daniel has just gone home. Bit fed up, actually. Was really lovely hot Sunday but Daniel did not want to go out or discuss mini-breaks and insisted on spending all afternoon with the curtains drawn, watching the cricket. Also the party was quite nice last night, but at one point we went over to join Wicksy and a very pretty girl he was talking to. I did notice, as we approached, that she looked rather defensive.
12.45 p.m. In fact think might put the Glossies- bra on to match if I can find it.
Press red and nothing happens. Press numbers and nothing happens. Wish stupid video had never been invented.
Midnight. Argor es wororrible. Am olanpassit. Face collapsin.
Oh God. Stupid manual reminds me of Linguistics professor had at Bangor, who was so immersed in finer points of language that could not speak without veering off into analysis of each individual word: This morning I would . . . now "would" you see, in 1570 . . . ‘
What?’
What? I said. What?’
Monday 12 June 9st 1, alcohol units 3 (v.g.), cigarettes 13 (g.), minutes spent trying to programme video 210 (poor).
There was a crack of thunder as I teetered, shivering, after Daniel to find the foyer stuffed with bridesmaids and men in cream suits and to discover that we were the only guests staying in the hotel who were not in the wedding party.
Once in front of the mirror I reeled as the harsh overhead lighting revealed my thick, age-hardened, sagging flesh. I imagined the others back at the table, chiding Rebecca for alerting me to what everyone had long been saying about me but I never needed to know.
Well, if you spent a bit less time reading brochures and more time reading the papers you might know, smirked Daniel.
Chuh! Isnt it dreadful whats happening in Srebrenica, I chattered maniacally to try to put out problems in proportion. To be honest, I never feel Ive quite pinned down whats going on in Bosnia. I thought the Bosnians were the ones in Sarajevo and the Serbians were attacking them, so who are the Bosnian Serbs?’
12.30 p.m. Hmmm. Tom says if you go mini-breaking with somebody you are having a relationship with you spend the whole time worrying about how the relationship is going, so it is better just to go with a friend.
Bras, pants, stockings, suspenders (various).
I started blinking very rapidly, trying to come to terms with the realization that some hideous time-bomb in my skin had suddenly, irrevocably, shrivelled it up. I look really old for my age, dont I? I said, miserably.
Saturday 10 June Ugh. Woke up this morning feeling happy (still drunk from last night), then suddenly remembered horror of how yesterdays girls night had turned out. After first bottle of Chardonnay was just about to broach subject of constant mini-break frustration when Rebecca suddenly said, Hows Magda?’
Sunday 4 June 9st, alcohol units 3 (g.), cigarettes 13 (g.), Minutes spent looking at brochures: long-haul 30 (g.), mini-break 52, 1471 calls 3 (g.).
10.45 p.m. Oh God. Daniel fell about laughing when said I could not programme video. Said he would do it for me. Still, at least have done best for Mum. It is exciting and historic when ones friends are on TV.
Suddenly understood how old women end up wandering around over-made-up with everyone sniggering at them and resolved not to snigger any more.
OK, this is it. Its very simple. All you do is not eat any food which you have to pay for. So at the start of the diet youre a bit porky and no one asks you out to dinner. Then you lose weight and get a bit leggy and shag-me hippy and people start taking you out for meals. So then you put a few pounds on, the invitations tail off and you start losing weight again.’
Ill just pop the telly on, said Daniel, taking advantage of my temporary speechlessness to press the remote-control button, and moving towards the curtains, which were those thick hotel ones with blackout lining. Seconds later the room was in complete darkness apart from the flickering light of the cricket. Daniel had lit a fag and was calling down to room service for six cans of Fosters.
Apart from sex, I say. Apart from sex, he agrees. Im going to meet Tom tonight with brochures to plan fantasy, or phantom mini-break. So I must work really hard this afternoon.
11 a.m. Right: am going to, concentrate now.
Aargh aargh. Have reached the age when men of my own age no longer find their contemporaries attractive.
I felt the blood draining from my brain as the horrible truth of what Rebecca was saying hit me.
Silence.
Whose territory is Srebrenica in, then?’
Hows your diet going, Rebecca?, said Shazzer.
Is it that? Or is it that there is something wrong with me being with Daniel? Is Daniel having an affair?
And shes amazingly young-looking — I mean she could easily pass for twenty-four or twenty-five. You were at school together, werent you, Bridget? Was she three or four years below you?’
You dont know whats going on in Bosnia either.’
I do.’
Just tell me if the Bosnians in Srebrenica are the same lot as hｔtp://ｗｗw•９９liｂ.netthe ones in Sarajevo.’
Bikinis 1.
8.40 p.m. Point the remote control at the video recorder. V. easy. Turn to Index. Aargh, horror list with Timer controlled simultaneous HiFi sound recordings, the decoder needed for encoded programmes, etc. Merely wish to record Penny Husbands-Bosworths rant, not spend all evening reading treatise on spying techniques.
Meet the requirements for VideoPlus. What requirements? Hate the stupid video. Feel exactly the same as feel when trying to follow signposts on roads. Know in heart that signposts and video manual do not make sense but still cannot believe authorities would be so cruel as to deliberately
10.21 p.m. Frenziedly press all buttons. Cassette comes out and goes back in again.
Managed to persuade Perpetua to let me stay at home to work. Certain she only agreed because she wants to sunbathe too. Mmmm. Got lovely new mini-break brochure: Pride of Britain: Leading Country House Hotels of the British Isles. Marvellous. Going through all pages one by one imagining Daniel and me being alternately sexual and romantic in all the bedrooms and dining rooms.
heels, like Gulf War missiles going Fzzzzzz whoossssh through Baghdad hotel corridors, that never see them coming. Sharon says am not twenty-four any more and should be mature enough to deal with Rebecca. She is right.
Friday 9 June 9st 2, alcohol units 7, cigarettes 22, calories 2145, minutes spent inspecting face for wrinkles 230.
he said.
But there, too, is confusion. It is not the thing to go out courting malignant growths any more so what should you do? A shady barbecue, perhaps? Starve your friends while you tamper with fire for hours then poison them with burnt yet still quivering slices of underdone suckling pig? Or organize picnics in the park and end up with all the women scraping squashed gobbets of mozzarella off tinfoil and yelling at children with ozone asthma attacks; while the men swig warm white wine in the fierce midday sun, staring at the nearby softball games with left-out shame.
Come to think of it, this nail varnish generally is looking a bit scrotty. I really need to take it all off and start again. Might as well do it now while I think about it.
10.33 p. Yesss, yesss. RECORDING CURRENT PROGRAMME. Have done it!
Oh dear. Daniel decided the place was nouveau from the moment we arrived, because there were three Rolls-Royces parked outside, and one of them yellow. I was fighting a sinking realization that it was suddenly freezing cold and I had packed for 900 heat. This was my packing: Swimsuits 2.
Wednesday 21 June 8st 11 (v.v.g.), alcohol units 1, cigarettes 2, Instants 2 (v.g.), minutes spent looking at mini-break brochures 237 (bad).
You dont.’
Daniel, said Vanessa, folding her arms and looking absolutely livid, Weve slept together.’
Black silk teddy.
Oh, dont be like that, Bridge, he said. Its the logical extension of what you really think. I keep telling you nobody wants legs like a stick insect. They want a bottom they can park a bike in and balance a pint of beer on.’
So how come the people from the safe area were attacking before? Shut up.’
Oh dear, my pants show through this dress now. Id better put some flesh-coloured ones on in case someone comes to the door. Now, my Gossard Glossies ones would be perfect. I wonder where they are.
10.35 p.m. Frantic now. Have rung Shazzer, Rebecca, Simon, Magda. Nobody knows how to programme their videos. Only person I know who knows how to do it is Daniel.
Once get on tack of thinking about ageing there is no escape. Life suddenly seems like holiday where, halfway through, everything starts accelerating towards the end. Feel need to do something to stop ageing process, but what? Cannot afford face-lift. Caught in hideous cleft stick as both fatness and dieting are in themselves ageing. Why do I look old? Why? Stare at old ladies in street trying to work out all tiny processes by which faces become old not young. Scour newspapers for ages of everyone, trying to decide if they look old for their age.
11.30 p.m. Daniel just called. Er, sorry, Bridge. Im not quite sure what went wrong. Its recorded Barry Norman.’
Are the Bosnian Serbs the same lot who were attacking Sarajevo? I asked.
Diners are managing to sit calmly a
www.99lib.nett them, only occasionally remembering the sun and turning their faces to it with closed eyes, breaking into huge excited grins at passer-by — Look, look,
I mean, she doesnt smile as much as you do. Thats probably why she hasnt got so many lines.’
11.15 p.m. Humph. Mum just rang. Sorry, darling. It isnt Newsnight, its Breakfast News tomorrow. Could you set it for seven oclock tomorrow morning. BBC 1?’
Somewhere at the back of my mind is a new-born, tremulous notion that maybe Daniel is right: what you are supposed to do when its hot is go to sleep under a tree or watch cricket with the curtains drawn. But to my way of thinking, to actually get to sleep youd have to know that the next day would be hot as well, and the one after that, and that enough hot days lay in store in your lifetime to do all conceivable hot-day activities in a calm and measured manner with no sense of urgency whatsoever. Fat chance.
10.17 p.m. Cassette will not go in.
Shes six months older, I said, feeling the first twinges of horror.
Tea-rose-pink suede mini dress 1.
So what is going on?’
wrapped round me. Eventually we gave up to retire to our room for a hot bath and Codis, discovering en route that another couple were to be sharing the non-wedding party dining room with us that evening, the female half of which was a girl called Eileen whom Daniel had slept with twice, inadvertently bitten dangerously hard on the breast and never spoken to since.
Do you want anything, Bridge? he said, smirking. Cream tea, maybe? Ill pay.’
Another wasted Sunday. It seems the entire summer is doomed to be spent watching the cricket with the curtains drawn. Feel strange sense of unease with the summer and not just because of the drawn curtains on Sundays and mini-break ban. Realize, as the long hot days freakishly repeat themselves, one after the other, that whatever I am doing I really think I ought to be doing something else. It comes from the same feeling family as the one which periodically makes you think that just because you live in central London you should be out at the RSC/Albert Hall/ Tower of London/Royal Academy/Madame Tussauds, instead of hanging around in bars enjoying yourself.
8.50 p.m. Ah. Diagram. Buttons for IMC functions. But what are IMC functions?
Daniel has refused to discuss the mini-break any more, or look at the brochure, and has forbidden me from mentioning it until we actually set off on Saturday. How can he expect me not to be excited when I have been longing for this for so long? Why is it that men have not yet learnt to fantasize about holidays, choose them from brochures and plan and fantasize about them in the way that they (or some of them) have learnt to cook or sew? The singlehanded mini-break responsibility is hideous for me. Wovingham Hall seems ideal — tasteful without being over-formal, with four-poster beds, a lake and even a fitness centre (not to go in), but what if Daniel doesnt like it?
10.31 p.m. OK. OK. Calm. Penny Husbands-Bosworths asbestos leukaemia item is not on yet.
11.25 a.m. Hmmm, got a bit of a scratchy nail.
Sunday 11 June 8st 13 (v.g, too hot to eat), alcohol units 3, cigarettes 0 (v. g., too hot to smoke), calories 759 (entirely ice-cream).
Suddenly there is clicking noise within video and the news is replaced, incomprehensibly, by Blind Date.
Fine, I replied.
The whole thing builds up out of all proportion, so finding a relationship seems a dazzling, almost insurmountable goal, and when you do start going out with someone it cannot possibly live up to expectations.
Muslims, said Daniel triumphantly.
I thought Daniel was going to hit him. I found myself stroking his arm murmuring, OK now, easy, easy, as if he were a racehorse that had been frightened by a van.
Was suddenly overwhelmed by urge to rush out and ask all the diners how old they thought I was: like at school once, when I conceived private conviction that I was mentally subnormal and went round asking everyone in the playground, Am I mental? and twenty-eight of them said, Yes.’
9 a.m. Hurrah! Night out with girls tonight.
Trailer-park-trash pink jelly mules 1 pair.
9.25 p.m. Aargh. Suddenly main menu is on TV saying Press 6. Oh dear. Realize was using telly remote control by mistake. Now news has come on.