Mad About the Boy

by Helen Fielding

  Thursday 31 January 2013

  10 a.m. Just logged onto email.

  Sender:

  Brian Katzenberg

  Subject:

  Your screenplay

  10.01 a.m. Yayy! Screenplay has been accepted!

  10.02 a.m Oh.

  Sender:

  Brian Katzenberg

  Subject:

  Your screenplay

  We have a couple of responses on your script. They are passing. The themes are fascinating but they’re wanting more of a romcom feel. I’ll keep trying.

  10.05 a.m. Sent fraudulently cheery email back saying:

  Thanks, Brian. Fingers crossed.

  But now am slumped in despair. Am failure as screenwriter. Am going to go shopping for underwear.

  Noon. Just back from purchasing slip, though am not going to sleep with Roxster. Obviously.

  2 p.m. Just back from leg and bikini wax. Though am not going to sleep with him, obviously.

  At the beauty salon, Chardonnay said I should have a Brazilian because that is what the young men expect these days and suggested I buy a course of laser treatments.

  ‘But’, I said, ‘what if Brazilians go out of fashion and the thing is to have a fulsome giant bush like French people again?’

  At this, Chardonnay revealed that she had had the whole thing lasered so she was like a baby girl. But, as she says, she worries now, what if she sleeps with someone who doesn’t like the full Brazilian? And admitted that she had toyed with the idea of putting that potion onto it that makes bald men’s hair grow back.

  3.15 p.m. In total agony. Opted for a sort of modified Brazilian known as ‘landing strip’. Is no possibility of ever having sex with anyone after this, which is fine as am not going to sleep with him anyway. Obviously.

  Friday 1 February 2013

  9.30 a.m. Leaped furtively into Boots after school drop-off to purchase condoms, since could not do it with children in tow. (Though, on other hand, presence of children might have suggested condom-purchase was sign of responsible attitude to world overpopulation, rather than loose behaviour.)

  Was just standing at till, when had a sense of someone glancing at basket. Looked up to see Mr Wallaker at the next till, now staring implacably ahead, though he had obviously seen the condoms, because of the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.

  Completely brazened it out by also looking straight ahead and saying, ‘Terrible weather for the rugby match today, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s sometimes rather enjoyable in the mud,’ he said, picking up his Boots bag with a tiny snort of amusement. ‘Enjoy your weekend.’

  Humph. Bloody Mr Wallaker. Anyway, what was he bloody well doing in the chemist at half past nine on a weekday morning? Shouldn’t he be at school organizing one of his military uprisings? He was probably buying condoms as well. Coloured condoms.

  On the way home started to panic about leaving the kids with Daniel and called him up.

  ‘Jones, Jones, Jones, Jones, Jones. Whatever can you be suggesting? The darlings will be meticulously cared for, almost to the point of overindulgence. I shall take them,’ he said grandly, ‘to the cinema.’

  ‘What movie?’ I said nervously.

  ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘That was what we human people laughingly call “a joke”, Jones. I have tickets to Wreck-It Ralph. At least, I shall shortly have tickets to Wreck-It Ralph now that you have reminded me about the whole splendid occasion. And then I shall take them to a fine eating establishment, such as McDonald’s Restaurant, and then I shall read them children’s classics until they fall purringly to sleep. And if you send a hairbrush I shall use it to spank them if they misbehave. So anyway. Who ARE you shagging?’

  Just then the text pinged: Roxster.

  < Do you fancy seeing a movie tonight? How about Les Miserables?>

  MOVIE?? I tailspinned. Doesn’t he KNOW I’m doing all this incredibly complicated hoop-jumping-through just so we can sleep together? Slips and bikini waxes and condoms and Daniel and thinking about packing?

  Reminding self of Dating Rules, I took some calming breaths and texted back:

 

  And texting continued with an increasingly risqué tone.

  5 p.m. Massive packing-up preparations for Daniel sleepover included Saliva, various bunnies, Horsio, Mario, Puffles One, Two and Three, Sylvanian bunnies, pyjamas, toothbrushes and toothpaste, crayons and colouring/puzzle books, full box of DVDs in case Daniel ran out of things to do, suitable books to avoid bedtime story from Penthouse Forum, emergency phone number list, full first-aid kit and manual, and, crucially, hairbrush.

  Daniel turned up in a Mercedes with the top down. Had to fight urge to ask him to put the top up. Isn’t it, surely, unsafe to drive children round with the top down? What if a great big plank fell off the back of a lorry onto them? Or they went under a motorway bridge and someone dropped a block of concrete on them?

  ‘Shall we put the top up?’ Daniel said to Billy, reading my face as Billy protested, ‘Noooooo!’

  ‘Just . . . move these . . .’ Daniel said, smoothly picking up some magazines from the front seat, the top one bearing a large caption over a very odd photo saying LATIN LESBIAN CAR WASH!

  ‘Have to learn some time,’ he said cheerfully, climbing into the car and sitting Billy in the front seat. ‘OK, I’ll press the brake and you do the buttons.’

  The children – anxious, freaking-out mother completely forgotten – squealed with excitement as the roof started closing. Until Mabel suddenly looked worried, and said, ‘Uncle Daniel. You’ve forgotten to thtrap uth in.’

  Once I’d managed to persuade Daniel to put Billy in the back seat and they were all strapped in, I waved as the three of them zoomed off without a backward glance.

  And then the house was empty. I cleared all the soft toys and plastic dinosaurs and embarrassing self-help books out of my bedroom, then started on de-childing the living room, but gave up as too monumental a task, and also am not going to sleep with him anyway. Then I ran a hot bath and put sweet-smelling potions in and music on, reminding self that the most important thing was to a) be in a calm yet sexual mood (which wasn’t a problem) and b) turn up in the right place at the right time.

  SECOND DATE WITH TOY BOY

  Friday 1 February 2013 (continued)

  I have literally no idea what goes on in Les Misérables and really must watch it again sometime. I hear it’s terribly good. All I could think about was how horny I felt with Roxster’s knee so close to mine. His hand was on his left thigh, and I kept my hand on my right thigh so that it would only have been a matter of inches for his hand to touch mine. Was incredibly arousing, wondering if he was feeling as aroused as me, but not being quite certain. Suddenly, after quite a long time, Roxster reached across and casually put his hand on my right thigh, his thumb moving the silk of the navy-blue dress across my bare leg. It was a highly effective move, and not one which was, I thought, open to misinterpretation.

  As people continued to throw themselves into weirs and die of bad haircuts to song on the big screen, I glanced across at Roxster. He was looking calmly at the screen, only a slight flicker in his eyes betraying the fact that anything but operatic-misery-watching was going on. Then he leaned across and whispered:

  ‘Shall we go?’

  Once outside we started kissing frantically, then pulled ourselves together and decided we should at least go to a restaurant. The magic of Roxster was that, even in the din of a succession of insanely noisy Soho restaurants with no free tables, he was such fun to talk to. Eventually, after many drinks, and much talking and laughing, we ended up in the restaurant he had booked in the first place for after the movie.

  During the meal, he took hold of my hand and slid his thumb between my fingers. I in turn wrapped my fingers around his thumb and
stroked it up and down in a manner which just stopped on the right side of the line of being an advertisement for a handjob. Throughout, neither of us gave any hint in our conversation that we were anything other than the jolliest of chums. It was wildly sexy. Went to the loos as we left and called Talitha.

  ‘If it feels right, darling, go for it. Any red flags, call me. I’m on the end of the phone.’

  When we got outside – Soho again, but Friday night this time, so seriously no taxis – he said, ‘How are you going to get home? The tubes have stopped.’

  I reeled. After all the preparation, and the thumb stroking, and calling friends, we actually were just jolly friends. This was terrible.

  ‘Jonesey,’ he grinned. ‘Have you ever been on a night bus? I think I’m going to have to see you home.’

  On the night bus, I felt as though parts of other people were going into parts of me I didn’t even know existed. I felt like I was being more intimate with members of the night-bus community than I’d ever been with anyone in my whole life. Roxster, however, looked worried, like the night bus was his fault.

  ‘OK?’ he mouthed.

  I nodded cheerfully, wishing I was squeezed up against Roxster instead of the weird woman with whom I was practically having the sort of lesbian car-wash sex explored in Daniel’s magazine.

  The bus stopped and people started getting off. Roxster muscled through to an empty seat, and sat down, in a way which seemed uncharacteristically ungallant. Then, when everyone had settled down, he got up and installed me in his place. I smiled up at him, proud at how handsome and beefy he was, but saw him looking down with a horrified expression. A woman was silently retching onto my boot.

  Roxster was now trying to control his laughter. It was our stop, and, as we got off, he put his arm round me.

  ‘A night without vomit is a night without Jonesey,’ he said. ‘Hang on.’ He strode into the late-night supermarket and reappeared with a bottle of Evian, a newspaper and a handful of paper napkins.

  ‘I’m going to have to start carrying these with me. Stand still.’

  He poured the water over my boot and knelt down and wiped off the sick. It was terribly romantic.

  ‘Now I smell of sick,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘We can wash it off at home,’ I said, heart leaping that there was a reason for him to come in, even if it was vomit.

  As we got close to the house I could see him looking all around, trying to place where we were, and what sort of place I lived in. I was so nervous when we got to the door. My hands were shaking as I put the key in the lock and couldn’t get it to open.

  ‘Let me do it,’ he said.

  ‘Come in,’ I said, in an absurdly formal voice, as if I was a 1970s cocktail hostess.

  ‘Shall I go somewhere till the babysitter goes?’ he whispered.

  ‘They’re not here,’ I whispered back.

  ‘You have two babysitters? And yet you’ve left the children alone?’

  ‘No,’ I giggled. ‘They’re with their godparents,’ I added, changing Daniel into ‘godparents’ in case Roxster somehow sensed that Daniel is a sexually available man, at least until you get to know him.

  ‘So we’ve got the house to ourselves!’ Roxster boomed. ‘Can I go and wash the sick off?’

  I showed him to the loo halfway up the stairs, then rushed down to the kitchen basement, brushed my hair and put more blusher on, dimming the lights, realizing as I did that Roxster had never actually seen me in daylight.

  Suddenly had vision of self as one of those older women who insist on spending their entire time indoors with the curtains drawn, lit only by firelight or candlelight, then completely miss their mouth with the lipstick whenever anyone comes round.

  Then I had a terrible moment of guilt and panic about Mark. I felt like I was being unfaithful, like I was about to step off a cliff and like I was far, far away from everything that I knew and everything that was safe. I leaned over the sink, feeling as though I was going to be . . . well . . . fittingly, I suppose . . . sick, then suddenly I heard Roxster bursting out laughing. I turned.

  Oh, shit! He was looking at Chloe’s chart.

  Chloe had decided that Billy and Mabel would be far better in the mornings if they had a STRUCTURE, and so had drawn up a chart of what is supposed to happen, more or less moment-by-moment, when she takes them to school. This was absolutely fine, except it was ridiculously large, and one of the entries, which Roxster was now reading out, said:

  7.55 a.m. to 8 a.m. Hugs and Kisses with Mummy!

  ‘Do you even know their names?’ he said. Then seeing my face, he laughed and held his hand out for me to smell.

  ‘They’re perfect,’ I said. ‘Vomit-free. Would you like a glass of . . .?’ but Roxster was already kissing me. He wasn’t rushing at it. He was gentle, almost tender, but in control.

  ‘Shall we go upstairs?’ he whispered. ‘I want hugs and kisses with Mummy.’

  I started off being nervous, wondering if my bum looked fat from behind and below, but realized Roxster was focused, instead, on turning the lights off as we went. ‘Tsk tsk, what about the National Grid, Jonesey?’ Ah, the young people and their concern for the planet!

  When I opened the door to the bedroom the room looked beautiful, just lit by the light from the landing and Roxster at least didn’t turn that one off. He stepped inside, pushing the door half closed behind him. He took off his shirt. I gasped. He looked like an advert. He looked like he’d been airbrushed with a six-pack. There was no one in the house, the lights were low, he was good, he was safe, he was gorgeous beyond belief. Then he said, ‘Come here, baby.’

  DEFLOWERED

  Saturday 2 February 2013

  11.40 a.m. Roxster has just left because the kids are due back in twenty minutes with Daniel. Could not resist putting on Dinah Washington’s ‘Mad About the Boy’ and dancing moonily around the kitchen. I feel so happy and fantastic and as though nothing is a problem any more. I keep wandering around, picking things up and putting them down again in a daze. It is as if I have been bathed in something, like sunshine, or . . . milk, well, not milk. Moments from last night keep coming back to me: Roxster lying back on the bed, looking at me as I walked out of the bathroom in my slip. Removing the slip. Saying I looked better without the slip. Me watching Roxster’s beautiful face above me, lost in what we were doing, the slight gap between his front teeth. Then suddenly the very adult shock wave of the thrust, the unexpected shock and thrill after so, so long of feeling the fullness of him inside me, a moment’s pause to savour it, then starting to move and remembering the ecstasy two bodies can create together. It’s just amazing what bodies can do. And then, when I came, far too soon, Roxster watching my face with a horny, disbelieving expression, then feeling him starting to shake with laughter.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘I was just wondering how long this was going to go on for.’

  Roxster getting hold of my feet under the duvet and suddenly pulling me right down to the bottom of the bed and bursting out laughing. And then starting again at the bottom of the bed.

  Me trying to pretend not to be having an orgasm in case he started laughing at me again.

  Then finally, hours and hours later, stroking his thick, dark hair as he briefly rested on the pillow, taking in every detail of his perfect features, the fine lines, the brow, the nose, the jawline, the lips. Oh God, the fun, the closeness, the ecstasy of being touched after so long by someone so beautiful, so young and so good at it. Resting my head on his chest and talking in the darkness, and then Roxster taking my upper lip and lower lip and holding them together, saying, ‘Shhhhhhhh,’ and me trying to say through his fingers, ‘But I don’t bant to btop talking.’ And Roxster whispering kindly, like I was a child or a lunatic: ‘It’s not stopping talking, it’s more like saving up talking, till the morning.’

  And then . . . Oh, shit – doorbell.

  I opened the door, beaming. The kids looked wild, mad-haired, dirty-faced, but happy. D
aniel took one look at me and said, ‘Jones. It must have been a very good night indeed, you look twenty-five years younger. Will you jiggle on my knee and just quickly run through the details of the whole thing carefully and precisely while they watch SpongeBob SquarePants?’

  Sunday 3 February 2013

  9.15 p.m. Has been a wonderful rest-of-weekend. The kids were happy because I was happy. We went out and climbed trees and then came back and watched Britain’s Got Talent. Roxster texted at 2 p.m. and said it had been wonderful apart from the sick he’d found on the sleeve of his jacket. And I said it had been wonderful apart from the mess he’d made on the sheets. And we both agreed our mental ages were very low and have been demonstrating it in text form ever since.

  I’m so lucky, at this time of my life, to have had that one night, with someone so young and gorgeous. I’m so grateful.

  9.30 p.m. Oh God. Suddenly, for some reason, reminded of a line in the movie The Last King of Scotland where someone says, ‘I prefer sleeping with married women. They’re so grateful.’ Think it was Idi Amin.

  BACK IN THE PRESENT MOMENT

  DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

  Saturday 20 April 2013

  Texts from Roxster 0, number of times checked for texts from Roxster 4567; nits found on Billy 6, nits found on Mabel 0, nits found on me 0; minutes spent thinking back about Mark, loss, sadness, death, life without Mark, trying to be a woman again, Leatherjacketman, dating disasters, child-rearing and whole of last year 395; thoughts prepared for Monday screenplay meeting with Greenlight Productions 0; minutes of sleep 0.