Free Bridget Jones's Baby by Helen Fielding Page A

like that. The trick is to deal with what is. You always wanted a baby, now, didn’t you?”
    “Well, always in about three years’ time for about two hours,” I said sheepishly. “But I realize now, yes, I did.”
    “And now you’re going to get your baby. And he’s going to be the luckiest baby in the world because he’s got you as his mother. There won’t be a more loving, kind mother than you—think of the fun that little chap’s going to have with you. Now you go out there, do your best, and don’t get caught up in everyone else’s nonsense. It’ll turn out fine, I promise you.”
    —
    Dad walked with me to Mark’s car, with the waiting driver, promising he wouldn’t tell Mum. When Mark appeared, looking upset and shaken, Dad clapped him on the shoulder in a manly way and gave him a conspiratorial smile. But he didn’t say anything. That’s the brilliance of Dad. He knew Mark would hate it, and that he didn’t need to.
    —
    As the car purred off, I took a leaf out of Dad’s book and simply put my head on Mark’s shoulder and closed my eyes. As I drifted off to sleep, I’m sure I heard Mark whisper, “Even if the baby does turn out to be Daniel’s, I still want to be his dad.”
    S ATURDAY 4 N OVEMBER
    5 p.m. Just got back from baby shopping in John Lewis department store with Mark and Daniel. They always say if anything really bad happens you should go to John Lewis, because nothing really bad ever happens in John Lewis.
    —
    Mark was holding a huge pile of baby books and a box of muslin baby blankets that said “Huggy Swaddle.”
    “Swaddling?” said Daniel incredulously, holding a miniature Chelsea football outfit. “You’re into swaddling?”
    “It can be effective,” said Mark, with the air of an expert witness who had been called on to advise on military intervention versus peacekeeping, “if it’s not too tight.”
    “…and you’re an Egyptian peasant in the fourth century B.C.”
    “It promotes sleep,” said Mark, picking up a wipe-warmer, as if hardly aware of Daniel’s presence.
    “What? When they’re strapped to a board? Isn’t that a little Abu Ghraib?”
    “Yes, you have no sense whatsoever as to what is and isn’t appropriate in terms of what you apparently consider a ‘joke.’ Presumably, you would have the child screaming all night till he falls asleep, drunk on teaspoons of whiskey.”
    “You take that back!”
    —
    They were quickly removed from the store by the John Lewis security team. Nothing bad is ever allowed to happen in John Lewis. Sadly, it is not so everywhere.
    S UNDAY 12 N OVEMBER
    5 p.m. My flat. Just back from childbirth class. Mark rushed up late, talking on the phone, briefcase in hand, and acknowledged Daniel and myself with a brief nod, still talking on the phone.
    “Turn it off, Darce, there’s a good chap,” said Daniel.
    We signed in at reception and burst through the double doors to find an instructor in front of a table with a rubber model of the bottom half of a woman. Couples were sitting in lines at tables, each of them trying to put a nappy on a plastic baby.
    “Ah!” said the instructor. “Welcome! Find yourselves a baby in the bin there!”
    There was just one brown plastic baby doll left in the bin.
    “If we’d got here on time we could have had a white baby,” whispered Daniel, to appalled stares.
    “Daniel,” I hissed. “Shut urrrrp!”
    “Right!” said the instructor, smoothing it over. “Who have we here? Mark? Daniel? You’re our second same-sex couple today.”
    Everyone applauded politely as Daniel smirked at Mark’s expression.
    “And Bridget? You’re the surrogate? Welcome!”
    Didn’t think it was a good idea to explain at that particular juncture, so I just smiled vaguely while everyone fussed around rearranging the chairs.
    “No,” said Mark suddenly, “we are not a couple.”
    There was a moment’s silence while everybody stared.
    “Right…sooo…?” said the instructor. “So you and