"Bats will start eating the sun," I expanded. "Horses will be born with tails on their heads, and cubes of frozen urine will land on our roof terraces offering us cigarettes."
"And now Princess Diana is dead," said Shazzer, solemnly.
The mood abruptly changed. We all feIl silent, trying to absorb this violent, shocking and unthinkable thought. "Strange times," pronounced Shaz shaking her head with heavy portentousness. "Strange times indeed."
Tuesday 2 September
8st 3 (will definitely stop gorging tomorrow), alcohol units 6 (must not start drinking too much), cigarettes 27 (must not start smoking too much), calories 6,285 (must not start eating too much).
8 a.m. My flat. Owing to Diana death Richard Finch has cancelled all the stuff they were doing on Thai Drug Girl (me) and given me two days off to sort myself out. Cannot come to terms with death or anything else come to think of it. Maybe there will be national depression now. Is end of era, no two ways about it, but also start of new era in manner of autumn term. It is a time for new beginnings.
Determined not to sink back into old ways, spending entire life checking answerphone and waiting for Mark to ring, but to be calm and centred.
8.05 a.m. But why did Mark split up with Rebecca? Why is she going out with speccy Giles Benwick? WHY? WHY? Did he go to Dubai because he still loves me? But why hasn't he rung me back? Why? Why?
Anyway. All that is irrelevant to me now. I am working on myself. I am going to get my legs waxed.
10.30 a.m. Back in flat. Turned up late (8.30 a.m.) for leg wax only to find that beautician was not coming in 'Because of Princess Diana'. Receptionist was almost sarcastic about this but, as I pointed out, who are we to judge what each individual is going through? If all this has taught us one thing it is not to judge others. Mood was hard to sustain on way home, however, when was caught in massive traffic jam in Kensington High Street rendering normal ten-minute journey home four times normal length. When reached jam-source turned out to be road works only quite inactive and workman-free with merely sign saying: "The men working on this road have decided to stop work for the next four days as a mark of respect to Princess Diana."
Ooh answerphone is flashing.
Was Mark! He sounded very faint and crackly. "Bridget ... only just got the news. I'm delighted you're free. Delighted. I'll be back later in the There was a loud hiss on the line, then it clicked off.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang. "Oh, hello, darling, guess what?"
My mother. My own mother! Felt great overwhelming rush of love.
What?" I said, feeling tears welling up.
"'Go quietly amidst the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence.'"
There was a long pause. "Mum?" I said eventually.
"Shhh, darling, silence." (More pause.) "'Remember what peace there may be in silence."'
I took a big breath, tucked the phone under my chin, and carried on making the coffee. You see what I have learned is the importance of detaching from other people's lunacy as one has enough to worry about keeping oneself on course. Just then the mobile started ringing.
Trying to ignore the first phone, which had started vibrating and yelling: "Bridget, you'll never find equilibrium if you don't learn to work with silence," I pressed OK on the mobile. It was only dad.
"Ah, Bridget," he said in a stiff, military-style voice. "Will you speak to your mother on the land-line? Seems to have got herself worked up into a bit of a state."
She was in a state? Didn't they care about me at all? Their own flesh and blood?
There was a series of sobs, shrieks and unexplained crashes on the 'land-line'.
"OK, Dad, bye," I said, and picked up the real phone again.
"Darling," croaked Mum, in a hoarse, self-pitying whisper. "There's something I have to tell you. I cannot keep it from my family and loved ones any longer."
Trying not to dwell on the distinction between 'family' and 'loved ones', I said brightly, "Well! Don't feel you have to tell me if you don't want to."
"What would you have me do?" she yelled histrionically. "Live a lie? I'm an addict, darling, an addict!"
I racked my brains as to what she could have decided she's addicted to. My mum has never drunk more than a single glass of cream sherry since Mavis Enderbury got drunk at her twenty-first birthday party in 1952 and had to be taken home on th
e crossbar of a bicycle belonging to someone called 'Peewee'. Her drug intake is limited to the occasional Fisherman's Friend in response to a tickly cough triggered during the bi-annual performances of Kettering Amateur Dramatic Society.
"I'm an addict," she said again, then paused dramatically.