'Am I going to be 80 and casting murderous glances at Daniel in an old people's home?' 

Published: 11 August 2005 
Monday 1 August 
10.00am. In Sit Up Britain office, simulating phone interview with Scotland Yard whilst actually talking to Jude about accidental Daniel shag.

"It doesn't count as being promiscuous if it's with your ex," Jude was saying.
  
"Yup, yup, officer ...how come?" I quietly hissed.
  
"Because in the singleton urban family, many people provide the traditional functions of one old fashioned 'husband'. You've always had good sex with Daniel without really going out with him. Besides, if you're going to have a one-night stand, far better to do it with someone you've already fucked up the relationship with."
  
"Why?" I said, adding for good measure,"Chief Superintendent?"
  
"Then you don't have to feel like you've sat on exam - or two exams - givent that you slept with Mark as well - and wait for the phone to ring with your results."
  
",,,because you know you've failed?" I wailed.
  
"No, no ...look, I've got to go, I'm in a board meeting."
  
"What? Scotland Yard are actually admitting they've failed?" shrieked Freddo, Richard Finch's hideous new eavesdropping, quasi-teenage, Oxbridge sidekick. :Richard!" he falsettoed. "The Yard are admitting a huuuge policy bungle. It;'s a scoop!"
  
"Oh for God's sake, shut up Freddo," I rasped, feeling like smoke-ridden middle aged hack who was about to change tack and growl:'Do you want a sherry darling? Why don't you slip into my office?'"

10.30am. Look. A woman has her Needs. I can  have discreet liason like mature, silk stockinged Parisian woman without reflexively waiting for phot to ring in manner of Pavlov's Dog.

10.31.am. Why hasn't Daniel called me? Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?

10.32am Because it;'s only ten-thirty and he won't have got to work yet..

Friday August 5
Calls from Mark Darcy, 0; Calls from Daniel Cleaver, 0

7pm. Hurrah! Telephone!
7:30pm. Humph. My mother: "I didn't think you'd be in on a Friday night, darling. Anyway, just checking you're coming to the school concert to see Susan Howard."

"Who's Susan Howard?"

"Susan Howard, darling?" The girl who played the cello and got into the Royal Philharmonic? She's doing a solo with her children accompanying her on the flute."

Where was this leading I wondered? Another dig at me for being childless perhaps? or for having never accompanied her on the flute with talented twin?

"They're adopted, of course - Chinese. A lot of people are adopting them now. Look at Angelina Jolie." My mother has now like everyone else- begun to live her - or more precisely my - life according to the social mores of celebrities.

"I think you'll find Maddox is Cambodian, Mother," I said wearily.

"Well something, darling."

"Mother, you can't say things like that in ...
"Oh, don't be silly, darling," she said crossly. "The point is, Angelina adopted this little baby and then she got Brad Pitt."

"I don't think that's why she got Brad Pitt."

"Oh, it was," she said airily, as if she had been to Brad only the other day at Una's Brunchtime Karaoke. "That's what attracted him, because Jen wouldn't have children because she wanted to do films. And now this Angelina has another little baby from Ethopia. Anyway, you can chat to Susan about it after the concert, can't you? Better than sitting home every night."

The thing about my mother is that she prattles on in such a cheery middle-class way, that the outrageous non-PC ness and effrontery of what's she's saying doesn't immediately hit you - ie given that am now too shrivelled to have children than maybe, inspired by Brad/Angelina and further prompted by Susan Howard's adopted flautist offspring I should adopt baby of Chinese/Cambodian extraction in order to secure man; then adopt another child from Horn of Africa.

"Mind you," Mother crashed on. "That's where some of these bombers came from, isn't it?"

Grasped wall for support. Could she possibly, conceiveably now be doing a volte-face over fears that I might inadvertently adopt potential suicide bomber?

7:45 pm. Maybe is not her fault. Maybe she's just like everyone else (except people who read the Economist all the way through). Her head is filled with fuzzy soap opera-like world view, based entirely on headlines, soundbites, and Hollywood celebrities. But because, unlike me, she grew up in pre-media age without bombarding, conflicting images of how she should be, and has always lived in the same place, with same people - she's entirely confident in herself and her views. So she feels she can spout anything without questioning it.

8 pm. Oh God, though. Is this going to go on for the rest of my life? Am I goiing to be 80 and casting muderous glances at Daniel over dominoes in old people's home, then having one too many cream sherries, tittering coquettishly and tumbling into bed with him? Would Daniel have to use erection simulating drug? Actually Daniel has so much superfluous drive that by the time gets to 80 will just have calmed down enough to behave like normal boyfriend instead of person chained to out-of-control maniac.Trouble was by the time I got to the Electric last Sunday with Jude and Shaz, had wound self into such a state, re: being old and barren that in mind was hunched, line Driving Miss Daisy figure. Went to loos immediately to check make-up, and not saying that what looked back at self was Angelina Jolie, but realized was overacting a touch. Even started to think if had baby wouldn't be in Electric but in dingy room festooned with nappies, stuck poo downwards to empty pizza cartons, with baby abandoned in cot because I was a heroin addict. Simultaneously realize this was extreme thinking, possibly due to excess and confusion of Government advertising. But still.

When went back in, Daniel was at bar looking all depressed, but when he saw me his face lit up.. Jude is right - is something comforting about someone's known you forever and seen you at your worst and still wants to shag you.

"Jones, you gorgeous little devil, he murmured. "Always were, always wll be. Come sit on my knee." Was too sudden a leap from Driving Miss Daisy to resist. ... Gosh! Telephone. Is Daniel's caller ID. Hurrah!