Apocalipstick (3 page)

“Lucretia’s on her way up.” It was Snow calling to her from the other side of the office. “Planning meeting, two minutes.”

Rebecca picked up her notebook and headed off toward the magazine conference room.

She was almost there when she saw Lucretia step out of the lift.

Sorrento?
Rebecca thought to herself. What
had
the ditsy Snow been on about before, with her “Lucretia’s going to be ten minutes late on account of her only just having left southern Italy”?

Lucretia was wearing a heavily embroidered black silk kimono, white toweling turban and satin mules.

Rebecca stood shaking her head with confusion and amusement. Maybe the Turkish baths were having a formal night. It was only as she carried on watching Lucretia sashaying toward the main office, Snow a respectful couple of paces behind holding a suit carrier, a plastic container full of salad leaves and two liter bottles of Lucretia’s fashionable Kaballah water, that Rebecca noticed something even odder about Lucretia’s appearance.

Her skin—at least the bits of it Rebecca could see—looked dreadful, not in an “Oh, dear, did we forget to clarify, tone and moisturize last night?” sense, but more in an “Oh, my God, the woman has clearly suffered some kind of catastrophic dermal eruption, which has left her smothered in a crusty, lumpy lava, the color of Marmite” sense.

Rebecca screwed up her face. What on earth was wrong with her? Maybe she was suffering from one of those appalling flesh-eating diseases. That would explain the kimono. The soft light silk was probably all she could bear next to her skin.

A few of the journalists gave Lucretia a quick smile or said hello as she passed, but mostly people carried on working. For the life of her, Rebecca couldn’t work out why, when the fashion, beauty and lifestyle editor was clearly rotting and decomposing before their very eyes, nobody seemed even remotely bothered.

2

OK
” Lucretia said
briskly, using two menstrual red talons to pincer off a cruddy brown bit from her wrist, which she then crumbled into the ashtray. “So far this month we’ve got Sheherazade’s feature for the health page—‘Stars and Their Scars.’ Fashionwise it’s Madonna, Calista and Gwyneth on ‘Pleats in My Life.’ Beauty—we’ve decided lips are still in. Oh, and I don’t want a repeat of the faux pas we had last week with the evening wear shoot. There was a definite trace of nipple on one of the models.”

Lucretia was a contradiction. She was elegant and glamorous—sexy in a postmenopausal Barbie kind of way—but she was also a prude. She was famous for it and made no apologies. She flinched at the mere mention of the word
sex
and had stopped going to the movies and watching TV on the grounds of the “execrable filth” being shown. She loathed anybody in the office talking about their sex life or telling an even remotely risqué joke around her—although everybody did, especially the blokes, just to wind her up.

It was all very odd, since Lucretia, who was expelled from one of the top girls’ boarding schools after being caught at age fifteen with a gardener in her bed, had begun her career in journalism working on porn mags. By the midseventies, she was editing one called
Tongue.
She shot to fame when the magazine was unsuccessfully prosecuted for seditious libel and blasphemy, and each day she turned up at the trial dressed in a skimpy black rubber minidress and thigh boots. Spurred on by winning the case, she then stood as a candidate for the Party Party in the 1992 election (manifesto commitment: bondage gear on the National Health Service). Naturally she lost her deposit. After that, she set up her own magazine,
Suck.
Then, suddenly, in the early nineties, she had a religious epiphany, which she described in her biography
Out of the Blue.

She was alone in her office at
Suck
editing a piece called
Around the World in Eighty Shags
when she heard God speaking to her and telling her to give up her life of debauchery.

“The Lord explained my mission,” she wrote. “I was to go out into the world and, through my writing, save the souls of fat ugly women with no fashion sense. I was to preach to them about the sacraments of waxing, exfoliation and laser dermabrasion, teach them they were doing the devil’s work by wearing Miu Miu over the age of twenty-five.”

A year after her visitation, the rubber bondage gear had gone and she emerged as a self-appointed fashion and beauty guru. By coincidence the
Vanguard
had decided to start a Saturday supplement aimed at women and they took her on to edit it.

“Right,” Lucretia continued. “Any more thoughts?”

As the writers and features editor continued to put up ideas, Rebecca turned to Snow, who was sitting next to her at the far end of the conference table.

“Isn’t Lucretia just so brave?” she whispered.

“How d’you mean?” Snow mouthed.

“You know, her skin. Is she in terrible pain?”

“What, from the Sorrento?”

“Sorrento?” Rebecca said. “What’s Sorrento got to do with it? It’s January. Even in southern Italy, she couldn’t have gotten sunburned.”

Snow did her best to stifle her giggles. “She didn’t
go
to Sorrento. She went
for
a Sorrento.”

Rebecca gave her a quizzical look.

“She has it once a fortnight,” Snow explained. “It’s a fake tan. Right mess it makes ’n all. They cover you in this muddy gunk that gets left to dry. You can shower it off at the salon after about half an hour, but Lucretia likes to leave it on because the longer you leave it, the deeper the color. She’ll pop to the office shower just before lunch. I can’t believe you haven’t heard of it, what with you writing a beauty column.”

Rebecca gave Snow a sheepish smile and immediately looked round with a start. Lucretia was saying her name.

“Er, Rebecca, if you’d care to join us.”

“Sorry, Lucretia.”

Suddenly Lucretia turned to Snow. “God, I nearly forgot. Did you pick up my cans of oxygen from Harvey Nicks?”

Everybody was used to seeing Lucretia gulping pure oxygen from what appeared to be empty drink cans. The idea was it energized and revitalized the entire body. In Lucretia’s case she took such huge amounts that it was as much as she could do to stop from keeling over.

“No, Lucretia, not yet,” Snow said meekly. Rebecca wished that just once, Snow would pluck up the courage to tell Lucretia to go to hell.

“Well, I suggest you go now. And get me a large half fat decaf cap on your way back.”

Snow stood up, head bowed ever so slightly, and walked to the door.

“Right, Rebecca, as I was saying,” Lucretia went on, “I’ve got this brilliant idea for your column this week. Tonight is the Mer de Rêves Winter White Party.
Le tout
Londres
will be there. Bound to make great copy. It was dazzling last year . . .”

“God, yeah,” Sheherazade butted in, stubbing out her fag. She was a vague, grubby Sloane with lank hair and permanently dilated pupils. “I mean, like, all the food was served by these like cute little guys in white sequinned G-strings. Not one of them was like more than three feet tall.”

Lucretia grimaced—at the mention of men in G-strings, Rebecca presumed, rather than Sheherazade’s limited eloquence.

Rebecca moaned inwardly. She couldn’t bear the thought of another cosmetics company bash. Another night of air kissing X-ray celebs, fashion and beauty hacks, most of whom were about as deep as a worm’s grave. Plus she owned nothing white. It looked dreadful on her. It wasn’t just that it instantly added ten pounds to her hips and made her look like a bandaged Anne Widdecombe. It also drained every ounce of color from her face, leaving her with the complexion of an anemic geisha.

It was Sheherazade who, seeing her expression, nudged her and whispered that there was loads of white gear in the fashion cupboard. “Take what you need. The rest of us do. Nobody minds.”

“Right,” Lucretia said, “any other ideas before we wind up?”

“Well, I thought we could do a piece on ways to ring the changes with bottled water.” It was Butter. She was from L.A. “I mean water cocktails are just so right now. Personally I’m into two parts Evian, one part Volvic.”

“Brilliant. Absolutely inspired,” Lucretia declared, making a note. “Right, that it?”

“Well,” Rebecca piped up hesitantly. This being her first fashion, beauty and lifestyle planning meeting, she was feeling distinctly nervous. “I thought maybe we could do a hard-hitting feature on wrinkle creams. I mean everybody buys them, but we all know they’re a con and chip oil’s probably just as good. Then there’s all the meaningless made-up vocabulary the manufacturers use. I mean, who are the people who sit round all day thinking up words like
lyposculpt
? Anyway, I thought we could get women to test a load of creams—maybe pay a dermatologist to write a report. It would cost a bit, but . . .”

The room fell deathly silent. Rebecca found herself wondering if she’d farted without realizing.

“Rebecca,” Lucretia said, her expression and tone equally scathing, “I have one word to say to you—advertising. How on earth do you think the magazine makes money?” She began gathering up her bag and notebook.

Rebecca colored up. “Oh, God. I didn’t think.”

“Clearly.” Lucretia stood up to go.

It was obvious to Rebecca that the fashion, beauty and lifestyle editor was doing her utmost to dispense an acrid smile, but was having some difficulty making her mouth obey her brain. It took her several seconds before she remembered what Snow had told her about Lucretia’s lust for rejuvenating (mostly freebie) facial procedures and realized there probably wasn’t a muscle left in her Sorrento-ed, wrong-side-of-forty-five-year-old face that hadn’t been frozen with Botox.

The moment Rebecca got back to her desk, the phone rang.

“Hi, Max darling, it’s me,” the young woman’s voice purred, before Rebecca had a chance to speak. “Just wanted to check everything’s OK for tonight.”

“Sorry,” Rebecca said, “but I’m afraid you’ve come through to the wrong extension.” She transferred the woman back to the switchboard. Twenty minutes later another woman called for Max. Again Rebecca transferred her back to the switchboard. Realizing the switchboard had gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick regarding the Max/Rebecca desk situation, she complained to the operator, but it did no good. Ten seconds later the caller was back. Rebecca offered to take a message, but the woman said it was personal and she’d try him on his mobile. Half an hour went by and a third woman was on the line—another personal call. Each of the callers had been young and sexy-sounding—confirming Rebecca’s growing suspicions that Max Stoddart was something of a babe magnet. Not that his private life was any of her business. As far as she was concerned, he could have hordes of naked women chasing him down Farringdon Road after work every night, so long as they didn’t call him on her extension.

By the time the fourth woman rang, Rebecca had had enough. OK, she decided, indignation and sense of mischief rising, if she’d become Max Stoddart’s messaging service, she might as well make a decent job of it. She picked up the phone.

“Hello,” she said in her best breathy siren voice, “you’ve reached the Big Max Hot Line. To find out Max’s star sign and favorite pizza topping, press one on your telephone keypad now. To hear an inspirational spiritual message, press two. To check his current availability for dinner, theater and bar mitzvahs, press three. To leave a message, press the star key at any time.”

“Max?” the woman’s voice piped up. “It’s Beth. What’s going on? I take it this is one of your daft jokes. I’ll speak to you later. Anyway, for now I have one word to say to you—fireworks. With a bit of luck, tonight is going to go with such a bang.” Then she giggled and hung up.

Rebecca snorted with laughter. Her “Big Max” epithet was inspired, she thought.

As she turned back to her computer she realized she hadn’t told Jess she couldn’t make it to her place tonight on account of the Mer de Rêves do. She picked up the phone and punched in Jess’s number.

Jess didn’t seem too bothered about Rebecca’s not coming round, since Diggory had started dropping off for a few hours round about nine and it would give her a chance to get some extra sleep. Rebecca promised to pop in for tea the next day instead. She had two days to write the column, so could easily afford to take an afternoon off.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, “you’ll never guess what happened with Small Penis Guy from this morning . . .”

She recounted the story, ending with her fake messaging service performance.

Jess roared and agreed the “Big Max Hot Line” was, indeed, inspired. “Mind you,” Jess said, “if he’s as good-looking as you say he is, he’s bound to have loads of women after him.”

“I guess.”

“Ooh,” Jess came back, “do I detect the slightly maudlin tone of a woman who’d hoped she was in with a chance of a leg over?”

“Don’t be daft. He’s not my type. Too posh. Too smooth, and I could never go out with a bloke who spent more time in front of the bathroom mirror than me.”

Jess gave a small laugh. “Right, if you say so.”

After half an hour rummaging through the fashion cupboard she finally came up with some beautifully cut white hipster flares and a matching satiny blouse. When she looked in the mirror, even she had to admit the outfit wasn’t entirely unflattering.

Her newfound confidence in her ability to wear white was, however, short-lived. She arrived at The Sanderson to find everybody dressed in black. How could she have been so stupid? She might have known Fleet Street’s fashion and beauty queens would refuse to be cowed into abandoning their regulation uniform—even by an edict from the director of Maison Mer de Rêves, Coco Dubonnet du Sauvignon.

Only a handful of people had made the effort—mainly Mer de Rêves employees and those who could carry it off, like Jerry Hall—who was all golden mane and white cashmere legs, looking, Rebecca thought, like an exquisitely coutured Palomino—and Vivienne Westwood, who had come as a bride. Fergie’s attempt to get into the spirit of the occasion had been less successful. Her weight had clearly taken a turn for the wurst and the layer upon layer of sticky-out white tulle she was wearing did nothing to disguise the fact. The words
Sugar Plump Fairy
were being bandied about by the gay waiters who were wearing ironic white polo necks over the tightest leather hot pants.

Since she couldn’t take refuge with the photographers, who were all in the street waiting to snap the stars as they got out of their limos, she decided to take a wander round the room, writing down names of celebs, whom they were with and what they were wearing.

She’d been doing this for a few minutes when she suddenly became aware that somebody was following her. Each time she turned round the same woman, about her own age, a Mer de Rêves employee or publicist she assumed since she was wearing white, was hovering a few feet behind. The woman followed her to the bar and a few minutes later into the ladies’ room, where she took the next-door cubicle. As Rebecca sat peeing she couldn’t make up her mind whether she should be worried about this person trailing her or dismiss the whole thing as meaningless coincidence. She decided on the latter. As they stood washing their hands, Rebecca smiled at her through the over-basin mirror. The woman returned it briefly and opened her mouth as if she were about to say something, then, clearly thinking better of it, she made a beeline for the door, her hands still dripping wet.

Rebecca shrugged. Then she picked up one of the small linen towels and dried her hands.

Back at the party, she decided to go up to Fergie—whom she’d interviewed at a couple of charity dos and rather liked—to see if she could get a quote for her column. She greeted Rebecca warmly and swore blind she remembered meeting her. Rebecca couldn’t help feeling flattered. They’d been standing chatting about what Fergie described as the “dazzling decor” (vast potted trees sprayed white, their branches laced with tiny white fairy lights, ten-foot ice statues, a purple-draped ceiling twinkling with stars) and the food, which was equally “dazzling,” when Rebecca realized the woman was still watching her. Feeling slightly spooked by now, she decided to go over and say something. Just then Victoria Posh came over and collared Fergie, enabling Rebecca to make a discreet exit.