‘Ding-dong! Jones,’ he said. ‘Have you been on a diet? I thought I’d never see you looking like this again.’
It’s horrifying how differently some people treat you when you’re fat, to when you’re not. And when you’re all done up and when you’re just normal. No wonder women are so insecure. I know men are too. But when one is a woman, with all the tools at a modern woman’s disposal, one can literally look like a completely different person from one half-hour to the next.
Even then, you think you don’t look like you should. Sometimes look at billboards of beautiful models, and the real people underneath, and think it’s a bit like if we were on a planet where all the space creatures were short, green and fat. Except a very few of them were tall, thin and yellow. And all the advertising was of the tall, yellow ones, airbrushed to make them even taller and yellower. So all the little green space creatures spent their whole time feeling sad because they weren’t tall, thin and yellow.
‘Jones? Are you still inhabiting your head? I said, I suppose a fuck would be out of the question?’
‘Yes!’ I said, jerking back to the present. ‘Yes, it would. Though this is in no way a sign of my lack of gratitude for the babysit.’ Rattled through a gabble of instructions and thanks and shot out of the door, feeling outraged as a feminist by Daniel’s complex fattist pass, but uplifted as a female.
When I arrived at Talitha’s, however, Tom burst out laughing. ‘Seriously? Dolly Parton?’
‘You can’t rely on your arse in jeans at our age,’ said Talitha briskly, sweeping in with a tray of mojitos. ‘You’ve got to have something else going on.’
‘I don’t want to look like mutton,’ I said. ‘Or a prostitute.’
‘Well, quite, but you need something to start the idea of sexuality. Legs or boobs. Not both.’
‘What about one leg and one boob?’ said Tom.
Eventually I ended up in a very expensive short black silk tunic of Talitha’s and insanely high Yves Saint Laurent thigh boots.
‘But I can’t walk in them.’
‘Honey,’ said Talitha, ‘you’re not going to need to walk.’
In the cab started to think about how much Mark would have loved the thigh boots.
‘Stoppit,’ said Tom, seeing my face. ‘He would want you to have a life.’
Next I started to panic about the children. Talitha, who has known Daniel since Sit Up Britain days, took out her phone and texted:
<Daniel. Please reassure Bridget that the children are fine and asleep and you will text the moment they’re not.>
No reply. We all stared nervously at the phone.
‘Daniel doesn’t text,’ I said, suddenly remembering. Then added, giggling, ‘He’s too old.’
Talitha put her mobile on speakerphone and called him.
‘Daniel, you bloody old bastard?’
‘Talitha! My dear girl! The very thought of you finds me suddenly, unaccountably, over-aroused. What are you up to at this moment and what colour are your panties?’
Grrr. He was supposed to be BABYSITTING.
‘I’m with Bridget,’ she said, drily. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Yup, all perfectly splendid. Children fast asleep. Am patrolling the doors, windows and corridors like a sentry. I shall be impeccable.’
‘Good.’
She clicked off the phone. ‘You see? It will all be fine. Now stop worrying.’
THE STRONGHOLD