Bridget Jones's Baby Read Online Free PDF Page A

like trying to extract a condom from its packaging, and actually— Oh! My darlings! My dearest readers and finalists! It’s a draw!—between Omaguli Qulawe for
The Sound of Timeless Tears
and Angela Binks for
The Soundless Tears of Time.
”
    —
    As soon as the speeches were over, Daniel was swamped by a sea of gorgeous young publicists and I dived off to the Ladies’ to recover my composure.
    “Don’t even start with that line of thought,” said Tom, as I excused myself from the table. “Give it a few more years and all the power is with the women. Fuckwittage becomes a luxury you can’t afford when your hair’s falling out and your stomach’s hanging over your waistband.”
    Had total meltdown in the Ladies’, thinking that I looked a hundred years old, and started plastering myself with makeup, at which Tom put his head round the door and said, “Stop right there, darling, or you’ll come out looking like Barbara Cartland.” Eventually I emerged from the Ladies’ into the hall and came face-to-face with Daniel.
    “Jones, you gorgeous creature,” he cried, delighted. “You look younger and more attractive than when I last saw you five years ago. No, seriously, Jones, I don’t know whether to marry you or adopt you.”
    “Daniel!” said Julian Barnes, approaching with his thin-lipped smile.
    “Julian! Have you met my young niece, Bridget Jones?”
    —
    9 p.m. In loos again, touching up own youthful beauty with more blusher. Blurry good party. Thing about Daniel is he’s really is very charming and I really don’t feel old anymore.
    Which was, in a way, what I
think
the entire Archer-Biro Prize was saying one ought
not
to allow oneself to feel because of a man.
    “Go for it, girl,” said Tom, handing me a drink as I emerged from the loos again. “Get back on that horse.”
    —
    10 p.m. Daniel and I were stumbling, wine-filled, in the flow of drunken attendees pouring out of the venue.
    “So what happened to the princess?” I said.
    “Oh, over, over. Shame, really. I think I would ultimately have made rather an effective king: cruel, but beloved.”
    “Oh dear. What went wrong?”
    “Perfection blunted the horn, Jones. Every night, the same glossy hair splayed on the pillow. The same exquisite features frozen in ecstasy. It was as if the very sexual act had been digitally performance-captured. You, Jones, in contrast, are like that mysterious, lumpy parcel that arrives on a Christmas morning, odd, a little misshapen but…”
    “…one you always want to get inside. Well, thank you, Daniel. Lovely to catch up! I’ll be getting a cab now.”
    “I meant it as a compliment, Jones. Besides, firstly, there are no cabs; and, secondly, if there were, you would be competing for them with five hundred other giants of the literary stage, all of them with full beards and moustaches.”
    I was trying to call a minicab, but the voicemail was saying, “All our customer service agents are currently busy, as we are currently experiencing unusually long wait times for this location.”
    “Look,” said Daniel, “my flat is three minutes away. Let me arrange you a ride home from there. Least I can do.”
    I watched as Annie Proulx and Pat Barker snapped up the last remaining cab, Jung Chan bounding in behind them.
    —
    10.30 p.m. Daniel’s flat. I stood in Daniel’s familiar, designer shag-pad, overlooking the Thames. All the car companies were still “currently experiencing unexpected delays.”
    “Seen Darcy since he returned?” said Daniel, holding out a glass of champagne. “In emotional ignominy and failure? Hardly surprising for a man who looks in the mirror every morning and is startled by a complete stranger. Did he weep after sex? Or before? Or was it during? I forget.”
    “Right, Daniel, that’s enough,” I said indignantly. “I have not come into your flat to be treated to a litany of very unpositive bad karmic vibes about somebody who—”
    Suddenly Daniel kissed me on the lips.