Bridget Jones's diary

Monday 5 June

9 st, alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, calories 4,200.

I think I am pregnant. How could we have been so stupid? Daniel and I were so carried away with euphoria at being back together again, that reality seemed to go out of the window - and once you've ... oh, look, I don't want to talk about it. This morning I definitely felt the beginnings of morning sickness, but that could be because I was so hungover after Daniel left yesterday that I ate the following things to try to make myself feel better:

2 packets Emmenthal cheese slices; 1 litre freshly squeezed orange juice; 1 cold jacket potato; 2 pieces unbaked lemon cheesecake (very light, also possibly eating for two); 1 Milky Way (Body's enthusiastic response to cheesecake suggested Baby needed sugar); 1 chocolate Viennoise dessert thing with cream on top (greedy Baby incredibly demanding); steamed broccoli (attempt to nourish Baby and stop it growing up spoilt); 4 cold frankfurter sausages (only available tin in cupboard. Too exhausted by pregnancy to go out to shop again).

Oh, dear. Am starting to get carried away with idea of self as Conran shop- style mother figure, poss wearing crop top and throwing Baby in the air, laughing fulfilledly in advert for designer gas cooker, feel- good movie or similar.

In the office today, Perpetua was at her most obnoxious, spending 45 minutes on the phone to someone called Desdemona, discussing whether yellow walls would look nice with pink and grey ruched blinds or whether she and Hugo should go for blood red with a floral frieze. For one 15-minute interlude she said nothing whatsoever except, "Absolutely ... no, absolutely ... absolutely", then concluded, "But, of course, you could make exactly the same argument for the red." Instead of wanting to staple things to her head, I smiled in a beatific sort of way, thinking how soon all these things would be immaterial to me, alongside caring for another tiny human being.

Next I discovered a whole new world of Daniel fantasies: Daniel carrying the baby in a sling, Daniel rushing home from work thrilled to find the two of us pink and glowing in the bath and, in years to come, being incredibly impressive at parents/teachers evenings. "Miss Wutherspoon - as I think I remember from when I took my Cambridge double first in English literature ..." But then Daniel appeared. I swear to God I have never seen him look worse. The only possible explanation was that, on leaving me yesterday, he had carried on drinking. He looked over at me, briefly, with the expression of an axe-murderer. Suddenly the fantasies were replaced by images from that film Barfly, where a couple spend the whole time blind drunk, screaming and throwing bottles at each other - or Harry Enfield's The Slobs with Daniel yelling, "Bridge. The baby is bawlin' its 'ead off." And me retorting, "Daniel. I am 'avin' ay fag."

Thursday night

Help. Monday and most of Tuesday I sort of thought I was pregnant, but knew I wasn't, really - rather like when you're walking home late at night and think someone is following you, but know they're not really. But then they suddenly grab you round the neck and now I'm two days late. Daniel ignored me all day Monday then caught me at 6pm and said, "Listen, I'm going to be at the sales conference in Portsmouth all week. I'll see you Friday night, OK?" He hasn't called.

Friday 9 June

Went to the chemist to discreetly buy a pregnancy test. I was just shoving the packet at the girl on the till, with my head down, wishing I'd thought to put my ring on my wedding finger, when the chemist yelled, "You want a pregnancy test?"

"Shhh," I hissed, looking over my shoulder.

"How late's your period?" he bellowed. "You'd be better with the blue one. It tells you if you're pregnant on the first day after your period is due." I grabbed the blue one, handing over the eight pounds sodding ninety-five and scuttled out.

For the first two hours this morning I kept staring at my handbag as if it was an unexploded bomb. At 12.30 I could stand it no longer, grabbed the handbag, got in the lift and went to the loos two floors down to avoid the risk of anyone I knew hearing suspicious rustling. For some reason the whole business suddenly made me furious with Daniel. It was his responsibility, too, and he wasn't having to spend pounds 8.95 and hide in the toilets trying to wee on a stick. I unwrapped the packet in a fury, shoving the box and everything in the bin and getting on with it, then put the stick upside down on the back of the loo without looking at it. Three minutes. There was no way I was going to watch my fate being sealed by a slowly forming thin blue line. Somehow I got through those hundred and eighty seconds, my last hundred and eighty seconds of freedom, picked up the stick and nearly screamed. There in the little window was a thin blue line, bold as brass. Aargh! Aargh!