Summary
Bridget fills the first hot days of summer with fantasies about mini-breaks with Daniel and paranoia he is having an affair because all he wants to do on weekends is close the curtains and watch cricket on TV. At drinks with friends, a friend of a friend Bridget dislikes, Rebecca, makes a passive-aggressive comment about Bridget looking older than Magda. Bridget spends days obsessing over her prematurely aging face and wearing too much makeup until Tom tells her she looks about sixteen.
Most of June passes with Bridget fantasizing about holidays she sees in various brochures. Finally one Sunday they are watching cricket while he fiddles with her nipples under her shirt when she demands to know why Daniel doesn’t want to take her away somewhere. He replies that that’s a great idea and tells Bridget to book a hotel for the following weekend; he’ll pay.
Bridget is excited all week but Daniel doesn’t want to talk about it until they’re actually on their way to the hotel. It turns out to be too “nouveau riche” for Daniel’s taste, as there are ostentatious cars parked there. There is also a wedding happening at the hotel while they are staying, to Bridget’s disappointment. During the weekend, Daniel suggests a new diet for women in which you only eat food that men pay for. He says you start plump, and then when your hipbones are protruding alluringly, men take you out because they want to sleep with you; after you gain the weight back, they stop taking you out, so you slim down again. Bridget tells him the idea is appallingly sexist and “fattist.” He tells her she must realize that men don’t want stick-insect women and actually “want a bottom they can park a bike in and balance a pint of beer on.” Bridget is torn between fury at his provocative sexism and curiosity about whether he might be right and that she should therefore have something delicious to eat.
In July, Bridget’s mother invites her to the Alconburys’ Tarts and Vicars party, saying Bridget should bring Daniel, who they haven’t met. While Bridget is on the phone, Daniel wakes up and asks to speak to Bridget’s mother; he agrees to come and then tells her they must get back to sleep. After ending the call, Daniel tells Bridget that a “firm hand” is all that’s needed. Despite her initial resistance, Bridget looks forward to having Daniel meet her parents. The day before the Saturday of the party, Daniel helps Bridget choose a racy outfit for the event—a skimpy bunny/maid costume. She notes that he is particularly keen on sex that night.
On the morning of the party, Daniel sleeps in late, then tells Bridget he can’t come after all because he has to catch up on work. Bridget drives there alone, and arrives to discover that it is no longer a Tarts and Vicars party; Geoffrey was supposed to tell her but might have messed up leaving a message. Bridget tries to unpin her bunny tail, feeling Mark’s eyes on her bottom.
Mark is there with his date, Natasha, the thin and glamorous family-law barrister. Bridget borrows an old puffy bridesmaid dress from Una. Over conversation, Daniel comes up, and Mark expresses disapproval to Una. Bridget accuses him of jealousy. Mark tells her to take care of herself, and advises that Bridget’s mother watch out for Julio as well.
Bridget leaves after forty-five minutes, passing her father as she drives; she sees Penny Husbands-Bosworth, a widow, in his passenger seat; she is dressed in a red lacy bra and bunny ears. Feeling like she needs consoling, Bridget goes to Daniel’s, but he won’t let her in when she buzzes. They speak on the phone and he tells her to wait for him at the pub while he is on the phone to America. She turns back, believing she will see a woman leave his flat. She buzzes in this time, saying the pub is closed, and checks cupboards and the bathroom for signs of another woman.
Daniel asks Bridget why she is acting so erratically. Bridget feels bad for suspecting him, and figures it is Mark’s fault for sowing the doubt. However, she hears a scrape on the roof and dashes for the stairs to the roof, raises the hatch, and finds a bronze-skinned, long-limbed blonde woman sunbathing stark-naked. The woman lifts her head and says to Daniel in an American accent, “Honey, I thought you said she was thin.”
Analysis
Despite the sense Bridget had that things were beginning to go her way, the summer brings new self-doubt as Bridget worries over Daniel’s preference for staying in watching cricket on Sundays. While Bridget’s head is full of fantasies of romantic weekend getaways, Daniel shows no interest in these standard couple’s activities, only ever getting excited by the prospect of sex. A discerning reader should be able to see that his lack of interest in a loving partnership with Bridget is captured in the symbolic gesture of drawing the curtains, switching on the TV, and watching cricket.
Although Bridget gets her wish of going away (after more or less pleading with Daniel), the hotel where they stay caters to people who have money but no refined taste, which provokes scorn from the old-money, Cambridge-educated Daniel. In a moment that builds on the theme of satirizing middle-class social conventions, Bridget realizes her middle-class fantasy of getting out of the city for the weekend with her boyfriend was misplaced. In reality, they argue, and he says sexist things about her body and those of women generally.
Things go from bad to worse when Daniel cancels on his promise to attend the Alconburys’ garden party just before they are meant to leave. While the event was supposed to be another middle-class social ritual in which Bridget would show off her boyfriend to the older people who have been harassing her about being single, the party turns out to be an unmitigated disaster. Not only has Una discerned that Daniel’s excuse of having to work on the weekend is weak and likely a lie, in an instance of situational irony, Bridget shows up dressed as like a Playboy bunny, not having learned the racy theme was changed. Bridget also humiliates herself in front of Mark and his distinguished girlfriend, Natasha.
Signs that the foundation of Bridget and Daniel’s relationship is wobbly accrue until the relationship completely collapses. Upon leaving the party earlier, Bridget goes to Daniel’s flat to find him acting strangely. Suddenly a detective, Bridget tries to figure out who or what Daniel might be hiding in his flat. The comedic hunt begins to look like paranoia as Daniel reprimands Bridget for running around and behaving oddly. However, the sound of a scrape on the roof—an example of auditory imagery—confirms what Bridget has sensed the entire time.
Bridget runs to the roof to find a naked American woman Daniel has been having an affair with. To add insult to injury, the woman casually disregards Bridget’s presence, as if she is no threat to her at all, and comments on Bridget not being as thin as Daniel seems to have claimed. Making the nightmare worse for Bridget, not only is Daniel having an affair, he is having an affair with a slim woman, contradicting his sexist talk at the hotel of men wanting a large-enough bottom to “park a bike in.” With this scene, Fielding makes clear what has been hinted at throughout but Bridget has attempted to deny: when it comes to Bridget and her friends’ fear of men engaging in “emotional fuckwittage,” Daniel is among the worst examples.
