“Oh good, well hurry up we need drinkies first to fortify us. Actually, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”
“What?” I said, relieved that Magda wasn’t completely furious. It was all turning into a jolly day out.
“Um, it’s about the other godparent.”
“Yeees?”
“Look, I’m really sorry. We’ve had so many kids we’ve completely run out of any remotely solvent males. Jeremy asked him without telling me.”
“Asked who?”
There was a pause with screaming in the background. Then a single word cut me like a French cook’s knife through goats cheese.
“Mark.”
“You are joking,” said Shazzer.
Silence.
“No, seriously, you are joking, Magda?” said Shazzer. “What the fuck, fuck are you fucking doing, you masochistic maniac? You are not making her stand at the fucking font with Mark Darcy, in front of a fucking smug married/smug motherfucking…”
“Constance! Put it back. BACK IN THE TOILET! Sorry, got to go!”
The phone cut out.
“Stop the car,” said Shaz. “We’re not going. Turn round.”
“Take the next. Legal. U-turn,” said the car.
“Just because Magda is so desperate to hang on to Jeremy she’s had an ‘accidental’ late baby and therefore run out of godparents, there’s no reason to have you playing mummies and daddies at the altar with your anally retentive ex.”
“But I have to go. It’s my duty. I’m the godmother. People go to Afghanistan.”
“Bridget, this is not Afghanistan, it’s a ridiculous, tired, social clusterfuck. Pull over.”
I tried to pull over, but everyone started hysterically honking. Eventually I found a petrol station attached to Sainsbury’s Homebase.
“Bridge.” Shazzer looked at me and brushed a bit of hair away from my face. For a moment I thought maybe she was a lesbian.
I mean, young people apparently don’t see themselves as either gay or straight now, they just ARE: and also women are so much easier to relate to than men. But then I like having sex with men, and I’ve never…
“Bridget!” said Shazzer sternly. “You’ve gone into a trance again. You spend your whole time doing what everyone else wants. Get what you need. Get some sex. If you’re hell-bent on going to this fucked-up nightmare, get some sex AT THE NIGHTMARE. That’s exactly what I’m going to do, not at the nightmare, but in my flat, and if you’re determined to put yourself in a COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE situation to please everyone else I’m going to get in a cab. I, for one, am going to spend the afternoon christening my toy boy.”
—
But Magda is my friend and has always been kind. So I drove to the christening having a pity party about what might have been, all alone apart from my new car, which was fortunately feeling quite chatty.
———
FIVE YEARS BEFORE
I still can’t believe what happened. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. I was just trying to be nice. Shazzer is right. I must go back and do more reading: e.g., Why Men Love Bitches.
—
Mark and I had our engagement party in Claridge’s Ballroom. I’d rather have had it somewhere a bit more bohemian, with fairy lights, baskets instead of lampshades, sofas outside that are meant to be inside, etc. But Claridge’s is the sort of place Mark thinks is right for engagements, and that’s the point in relationships, you have to adapt. And Mark, who cannot sing, sang. He had rewritten the words to “My Funny Valentine.”
My funny valentine, sweet funny valentine,