Chapter 5

 
"You're no one till somebody hates you" as the old song goes. Look what that fatois did for Salman Rushdie's worldwide fame and for his career. My death threats  come via air mail from France but I'm not sure that I know anyone there who would have any motive nor do such a thing. On my instruction the police have arrested my local Pakistani newsagent. He is released  every third day then re-captured on my insistence. On his days outside of jail he is very respectful towards me whenever I see him in his little shop. Another thing though - he seems nervous-shifty."
 
Diane- Death threat recipient, devoted mother to be, selfless. Beautiful
 

All's well that ends well - and a star appears in the East .

 
Mark and Cassie are getting a divorce.
 
Xavier, succeeding where Cassie failed, has managed to commit suicide.
 
Cassie, my daughter, is conducting her side of the divorce from a mental infirmary.
 
Mark has lost interest in most things, though our romance continues. I fear he may be depressed.
 
Rosa, exquisite cook, has been seconded by Mark on to my staff and now cooks for me. On my instruction she adds a certain white powder to all the food prepared for Mark.She does not know what it is. Mark continues to "tell me the truth."
 
Oh, and thank you for asking - me. I'm pregnant. Pregnant, gloriously pregnant with Mark Reynolds baby. 
 
Mark and Cassie are getting a divorce, Mark citing as a cause her adultery with amongst others, a certain Parisienne Jacques Golbaine-Godet. Jacques maintains, between his daily hospital visits, that he was kidnapped by Cassie from a quiet evenings drinking in Kensington. Monsieur Jacques says that he was only in London briefly to look after his business concern, a factory in Hackney that had been left to him in a trust. Since that fateful night he has been repeatedly mugged in the street and anally reamed despite his loud vocal protests. His factory has been burnt to the ground. To his surprise he has found that he has been uninsured for both of these atrocities. Both his personal and business insurance has lapsed null and void with the multi-national insurers Crusader Insurance. Crusader, a Mark Reynolds owned company, maintain that they cannot pay out on his claims. The premiums to keep the policies alive have not been paid or are expunct from their records.
 
Although the Genealogic experts I employed could find no connections between this Jacques and Xavier Le Doute's family, my belief in the duo's complicity is unshaken. They were in cahoots I tell anybody who'll listen. I've never trusted the French. If we don't watch them, they may force us into the Common Market or worse. Oh and their Maradona handled the ball over the line when they won the world Cup off of Brazil.
 
Cassie is installed in a lovely padded madhouse, an upmarket festoon-blinded haven situate in the best reaches of Gloucester near the ladies college. The food there on the two occasions when I've visited her has been delicious. Cassie seems to have no apetite, but as I remind her, as I tuck into her portion, I am eating for two these days. She does'nt have much to say to me or to her therapist whom I have enlisted to report back to me daily. She rarely emerges from her room.
 
Mark has lost his natural bonhomie these days, he is listless, unable to concentrate. The only times that he is animated is when he is receiving his weekly update from Dossarts, the Detective / Inteligence Agency that I have selected for him. They have provided evidence of serial infidelity over a very long passage of time by Cassie. I hardly know where they dredge this stuff up from. Did I mention that I myself have engaged another Detective agency Lesser & Co which I have commissioned to daily feed my information to Dossarts, Marks informants.
Sadly Mark is no longer sexually active, not interested in me nor anyone these days. He fears betrayal and in his more lucid moments says he can trust no one any more. He can only trust me , he tells me as I dispense the medication he craves.
 
Xavier's suicide was sudden, as these things often are. Back in his family gite in the Dordogne he blew his brains out with an army issue standard regulation revolver. An heirloom of his from the Second  World War. Whether the fatal bullet that ended his centuries on this Earth was made out of silver or of kryptonite did not concern Mark or me. We did not go to his funeral. Neither Mark nor I are partial to snails in aspic. 
 
The third gynaecologist that I interviewed was the one that I've retained to monitor my burgeoning pregnancy. He said that I had a lovely womb. Lovely and roomy, he meant.
The previous two fanny fumblers who were up for my contract did not get my royal commission as they insisted on fixing their endeavours on the growing foetus, rather than me.
 
I have much to busy myself with. It's only at these stages that one learns that babes in arms are not accepted at boarding schools. They will only take toddlers- damn their eyes.
 
Now that I have this package in my tummy I'm at a loss to know why I wanted it so badly.
 
Work has been the biggest relief from the family traumas that have been heaped one on top of the other on to me and so I have attended work several times over the last months and even composed a memo or something although in the end Philippa decided not to send it.
 
I am getting sick of the Ivy. I have ate (or starved) there often.
 
So what else does life hold for a beautiful three month pregnant woman ?
 
Channel Four have begged me to do an "Agony Aunt" spot on their most successful daytime "Richard and Judy" show but having seen the contract I turned it down.  They wouldn't agree to minor contractual amendments that I suggested. Changing the title to " The Diane show with Richard" had upset Judy Finnegan.
 
I am a woman who has needs. Lots of men find a radiantly pregnant woman attractive and so I have allowed myself to be pursued by a young spirited famous international footballer who has moved to Spain ahead of his family.  We continually text each other and meet up in a clandestine manner whenever we can tryst. I like to tryst and shake rattle and roll ha ha. Fashion Tip- texting a man is a very safe, discreet way to keep in touch with him. Texts can never be traced or tapped into. His stick like failed singer of a wife suspects nothing.
 
For entertainment I am running Marks businesses. Whenever his advisers phone Mark I grab the phone from Mark's palsied hand and yell "Sell, sell, or buy, buy" depending on how the mood takes me. Stocks in his companies are yo-yo ing. I use the graphs in the bemused Financial Newspapers and on TV as a barometer of my mood swings which are quite normal for a pregnant woman-so my attendant gynae wizard informs me. 
 
With little else to occupy my time I've invited the worlds greatest scholars to sit at my feet and learn from my wisdom.
 
Stephen Hawking had me in stitches with his Dalek impressions and Christopher Reeve declined giving some feeble excuse about his having fallen off of a horse some while ago and having a sore tummy or some other trite nonsense. Crossing him off my list as he didn't even have the decency to write back to me himself. The signature being pp'd by some underling of his.
I was shocked to find that both Spike Milligan and Bob Monkhouse were not able to take up my offer, as they were both dead at the time. Wonder if the other four goons from their goon show know. Due to meet up with Edwina Currie and Maureen Lipman, both good Yiddishe gals and give them the benefit of my experience.
 
Other than that I've engaged a biographer from here on in. If the quality of the journal falters from this stage onwards and deviates from the previous high standards then you have been warned.
 
I spend a lot of time these days correcting the copy of this "ghost writer" who I think has somehow failed to capture my altruistic side. However, I'm persevering and know that it will all come out right in the end.