Apocalipstick (8 page)

“So,” Jess said, “how was the hot date?”

Rebecca explained. “I’ve blown it, haven’t I? I mean why else wouldn’t he call? Oh, God, please tell me I’m not going to end up married to a stupid town planner with a head full of ginger pubes.”

Jess laughed. “Why don’t you call him?”

“Who? Ginger pubes?”

“No, you dope. Max.”

“I called last night,” Rebecca pronounced. “Now it’s his turn.”

Her friend snorted with impatience. “Oh, for Gawd’s sake get off your high horse. Just phone.”

Jess handed her the phone and she rang his mobile. When she got his voice mail, she tried the office. He picked up immediately.

“Hi, Rebecca—God, synchronicity. I’ve just this second walked in. I was about to phone you. Look, I am so sorry about last night. I hope you can forgive me.”

She frowned. “Forgive you?”

“Yeah, I left messages on your answer machine—just after six last night. You know, about being stuck in the biodiversity meeting.”

God, she hadn’t played back her messages.

“Oh, yes,” she said brightly, doing her best to disguise her unease, “of course you did.”

“In the end I didn’t get home until three in the morning. Then when I got in I realized I’d had some problem with my mobile and I can’t access any of my messages.”

Her face could have lit up a small town.

“Look, these things happen,” she said, her voice oozing understanding. “Please don’t worry about it.”

“So,” he said, “what are you doing tonight?”

5

H
ideous as they
were, the huge, industrial-strength control pants provided her with a positively prairie-flat stomach. If Max made a move, she would simply say she had a strict no-sex-on-the-first-date rule. This was true, although in Max Stoddart’s case, she had been prepared to make an exception.

Her cleavage came courtesy of a wondrously sexy, ninety-pound La Perla bra. (She’d justified the expense on the grounds that spending money was her only extravagance.) A pair of Kurt Geiger killer heels gave the illusion she possessed ankles. These had cost even more than the bra, but, as she kept reminding herself, Cinderella didn’t flirt wearing Birkenstocks.

Thanks to La Perla, Herr Geiger and the pants, the blue dress looked and felt fantastic.

As she waited to be shown to Max’s table she slipped off her pashmina (thereby offering him an eyeful of her gorgeously sexy shoulders and cleavage as she walked in). Then she turned to face one of the restaurant’s mirror-covered pillars so that she could touch up her lipstick. She lifted her hand to her face and froze. Armpit stubble! Four days’ worth, at least. And it was flecked in deodorant. She screwed up her face in horror. She’d shaved her pits less than an hour ago—in the shower. She lifted the other arm from her side. Depilated to perfection. She immediately realized what had happened. She’d been so engrossed listening to
PM
on Radio 4 that she’d lost concentration and shaved one pit twice. By now sweat had started breaking through her expensive freebie foundation.

She took a deep in-through-the-nose, out-through-the-mouth yoga breath. OK, she could handle this. She would just have to keep the pashmina on. Bummer. Now he wouldn’t get to see her shoulders and cleavage. And there could be no question of a good-night kiss. The moment she put her arms round his neck, he was bound to notice the fuzz.

Max was sitting at a table by the window—gray suit, purple open-neck shirt—stirring the ice in his Scotch. Her heart rate picked up. He stood up the moment he saw her. She gave him a tiny wave and quickened her step toward him, unaware that the waiter was leading her in a completely different direction.

The next thing she knew she was lying on the floor, her head pounding and spinning. Max and the waiter were helping her up.

“Rebecca, you all right?” Max said. His face was full of concern. Despite the pounding and spinning in her head, she managed to register how sublimely sexy she found this.

“Yeah,” she said, “just a bit dizzy, that’s all.”

The waiter disappeared to get her some water.

“God,” she said, brushing some flecks of dirt off her dress, “what happened?”

“The wall’s made of mirrors,” he said. “You were waving at my reflection and you ran into it. You’ve cut your forehead. Let’s sit you down and take a look at it.”

It was only now that she realized her pashmina had come off in the fall and was lying on the floor. Even with her left arm clamped to her side, she could see the little tarantula legs sticking out. If she wasn’t careful, he’d see it and think she was a member of some weird cult that only shaved one armpit. How she was going to get the pashmina on again with only one arm, she hadn’t the foggiest. But before she had a chance to try, Max had picked it up and draped it round her shoulders.

As Max guided her to their table, she could feel warm blood starting to trickle down her forehead.

Once she’d sat down, he crouched in front of her and gently lifted her fringe. She got the faintest whiff of expensive aftershave.

“It’s not huge, but it’s pretty deep,” he said, dabbing at it with a napkin. “I think we should get you to the ER. You might need a stitch in it. And there’s always the possibility you could have concussion.”

“No, I’ll be fine,” she said, still shaking. “Tell you what, though, I wouldn’t mind a vodka and tonic.”

She wondered if it was possible to be concussed while at the same time as horny as a herd of rampant rhinoceroses.

When Rebecca’s head was still hurting two vodkas later and the bleeding was refusing to stop, Max absolutely insisted on skipping dinner and driving her to the hospital. (He’d gotten his car back that morning. The police had found it abandoned in Ilford minus only its CD player.)

She spent most of the journey apologizing and remembering to dab at the cut with her right arm.

The ER was pretty empty, but the electronic notice board was indicating a two-hour wait. The TV was blaring in the corner (
BallyK
) and they sat on red plastic chairs eating salt-and-vinegar-flavored Monster Munch, which was all the machine had left.

“At least you’re a cheap date,” Max said, smiling.

They passed the time talking about work. She told him how she was just doing the beauty column to pay the bills. “It’s not really me,” she said, “I’m desperate to get stuck into a proper story.”

“You shouldn’t knock the beauty,” he said. “Great stories often crop up where you’d least expect them.”

“Funny you should say that.” She told him about the weird phone call from the woman who got sacked from Mer de Rêves. “I’ve agreed to see her, but she’s probably just some nutter.”

“Maybe. But you never know. You could be on the verge of a huge beauty industry exposé.”

“Yeah, right,” she said, laughing, “I can see it now: ‘Rebecca Fine peels off face mask of lies and deceit in deep cleanser scandal.’ They could call it exfoli-gate.”

“You know, you’re very funny.”

She could feel herself going red. “So,” she said, “tell me a bit more about this French story you said you were working on.”

He explained that just over a year ago a partly British-built nuclear power plant eighty miles east of Paris had come within minutes of blowing up. Had it happened, it would have left a radiation cloud over the whole Paris region and part of southern England, too.

“Apparently the workers were having a Christmas party and nobody noticed the radiation leak. Of course . . .” he lowered his voice to whisper, “the French government and ours have been trying to cover it up. At least two people who’ve tried to tell their stories have been bumped off.”

“Blimey. Aren’t you scared that they could do the same to you?”

“A bit, but it’s unlikely.”

He explained that the moment he’d uncovered the story (which had come via a physicist he’d known since his post-grad student days at the Sorbonne), the
Vanguard
had insisted on sharing it with
Liberation
and a French TV company, as well as Channel 6.

“The plan is to release the story simultaneously. It’s all about safety in numbers.” He started grinning. “If the French government finds out we’re on to them and tries to stop us, there’d be a heck of a lot of people to kill.”

“But they could still try.”

He shrugged. “I try not to think about it.”

How could he be so cool, so laid back? She hadn’t felt so horny since that bit in
Braveheart
where Mel Gibson saves his wife from being raped.

Her head X ray was clear, but the harassed junior doctor said the cut was deep and needed a couple of stitches.

Rebecca was no coward. On a school Outward Bound trip to Wales when she was sixteen, she’d rappelled down a forty-foot rock face and canoed through rapids. On holiday in Corfu a couple of years ago she’d had a go at paragliding. Despite her undoubted bravado, she couldn’t bear the thought, let alone the sight, of needles.

“Can’t you put one of those sticky tape things over it?” she asked the doctor, having explained about her fear of needles.

The doctor said he wouldn’t advise it as the wound would only open up again. When he offered her a couple of Valium to calm her down, she agreed straight away.

She started to feel woozy almost immediately. It was probably made worse by the two double vodkas she’d downed on an empty stomach.

While the doctor fiddled around with surgical gloves and tools, she could feel herself getting more and more relaxed. She barely flinched as he injected the area round the cut with local anesthetic. Max was looking down at her.

“You all right?” he asked gently.

“Couldn’t be better,” she said with a drunken, and drugged to boot, giggle. She paused. “Has anybody ever told you how incredibly sexy you are?”

Max reddened and exchanged a glance with the doctor, but Rebecca didn’t notice. “Doctor,” she carried on, “don’t you agree that this is one of the sexiest men you have ever seen? I mean I know you’re a bloke and everything, but I reckon even blokes know when another bloke’s sexy.”

Then she must have drifted off.

“Right, that’s it. All done,” the doctor announced as she started to come round again. He snapped off his gloves.

She was aware of Max sitting at the end of the cubicle. He was sipping coffee, but so Valiumed-up was she, that she was convinced he was licking ice cream from a cornet.

“God, I bet you give the best oral sex,” she said woozily.

The doctor suggested they leave her to sleep off the effect of the Valium for a half hour or so. When she woke up, she still felt pretty doped and had no memory of what she’d said. Max insisted on driving her home. They stopped off at a drive-through Burger King. She had a veggie burger because they were less fatty than meat burgers, which tended to give her indigestion.

“Look, I am just so sorry for the way tonight turned out,” she said as he pulled up outside her flat. “I ruined everything. Do you forgive me?”

He didn’t answer. Instead he cupped her face in his hands and drew her toward him. Then he kissed her lightly on the lips. Oh God, she wanted his head between her legs and she wanted it now.

“Just to show you how much I forgive you,” he said, “why don’t you let me cook you dinner tomorrow night?”

“That would be lovely,” she said, running her hand through her hair and realizing too late that her underarm fuzz was on full view.

6

OK
there has
to be a catch,” Rebecca said to Jess the next morning, as she lay on the sofa in her Angelica Rugrat PJs, cordless to her ear. “No man is this perfect. Not only is he gorgeous, intelligent and kind, but he is risking his life for the sake of justice and truth.”

“Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.”

“What?” Rebecca said.

“Sorry. Diglet and I were in the middle of our history lesson when you phoned. We’re doing Henry the Eighth. Why on earth should there be a catch? You’re being paranoid. Maybe that bump on your head was more serious than you thought.”

“Don’t be daft. I’m fine. No, there has to be something wrong with him. I know—I bet he’s a veggie. God, yeah, that’s bound to be it.”

In Rebecca’s book real men ate food that had parents. Veggie blokes on the other hand had lifetime membership to the National Trust, ran like girls and wore prosthetic sympathy stomachs when their wives were pregnant.

“What’s the betting he goes on Tyrolean walking holidays?”

Jess laughed and told her to stop being so stupid.

“So how are things?” Rebecca asked.

“Nightmare. Ed still can’t get it up. 1535, dissolution of the monasteries begins and Thomas More is executed. . . . Says he doesn’t know why. Swears he still adores my body.”

“See, what have I been telling you?” Rebecca said.

Jess didn’t say anything.

“Jess, you there?”

“Yes, yes I’m here,” she said, her voice suddenly brimming with excitement. “God, I think the Digman just said ‘Papal Bull.’”

“Jess, he’s two months old. He was probably bringing up some wind.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She paused. “Becks, tell me honestly, do you think I control Ed too much?”

“What, like the other day when you told him to stop breathing because it was getting on your nerves?”

“No, I was thinking more of the way I choose all his clothes.”

“Can’t see anything wrong with that. Loads of women do it. It’s ’cause we have the more sophisticated style gene. It’s thanks to us that the entire male population isn’t swanning around in Aussie ranchman hats and espadrilles.”

“But maybe I’m undermining his self-esteem,” Jess said. “Perhaps he feels emasculated. That would explain the willy-nilly. I’m wondering whether I should stop telling him what to wear, hand over all the financial decision making to him and become a surrendered wife. I read somewhere that subservience is the new pashmina.”

“The financial stuff I can understand. It’s a pain in the arse. I’d love some bloke to do it for me. But handing over sartorial responsibility to a man.” Rebecca breathed in sharply through her teeth. “We are talking major risk here. I mean suppose he came home one night with a mullet or vinyl trousers? Or even worse—what if he grew a beard and no mustache?”

“Oh, come on,” Jess laughed. “I’ve taught him everything he knows about style and fashion. He wouldn’t do anything like that. I know he wouldn’t.”

When Rebecca arrived at Salvo’s, Wendy from Mer de Rêves was already there, sitting alone at a table for four. She was wearing a denim jacket over a bright pink polo neck. A funky multicolored woolen hat was pulled down over her dark bob. She looked far prettier than she had at the party and not in the remotest bit mad or threatening. Nevertheless, Rebecca still felt wary.

The moment their eyes met, Wendy stood up and smiled.

“Hi,” she said, extending a hand. “Thank you so much for coming. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Particularly after my behavior the other night. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“That’s OK,” Rebecca said, shaking her hand and returning the smile.

As they sat drinking cappuccino, Wendy explained that she’d been with Mer de Rêves for five years. It was her second job since leaving school and she’d worked her way up to personal assistant to one of the managing directors.

“I’d always been really happy there. Then over the last year or so the atmosphere changed. I can’t quite put a finger on it, but suddenly this air of secrecy sort of descended. Everywhere I went there were executives whispering in corners. My boss would break off in the middle of a telephone conversation the moment I came into his office with a cup of coffee.”

Rebecca suggested he was talking to his mistress.

“No—he’s divorced. Then about six months ago they stopped me taking the minutes at board meetings and began holding them in private. Anyway, I’d gotten so curious about what was going on, that a couple of weeks ago I stood outside the door and listened. I know I shouldn’t have, but I just couldn’t help myself.”

“So did you hear what was being said?”

“Bits and pieces. From what I could make out, they’re about to put this new wrinkle cream on the market that contains some wonder ingredient.”

Rebecca instantly remembered her conversation with Mimi Frascatti. “Yeah, I know about this,” she said, seriously intrigued by now. “It’s called Revivessence.”

“That’s it,” Wendy said. “Well, the thing is, I think it may be dangerous.”

“In what way? The PR I spoke to said there was a secret ingredient, but it was entirely organic.”

“Then why did I hear them referring to ‘the chemical’? And why were one or two of the directors dead set against it? They kept going on about the risks and that the company would never get away with it. Anyway, then it got really heated. Everybody was talking at once and I couldn’t follow what they were saying. Of course by then I was convinced there was something illegal going on. I thought about it for a few days. Then I decided I just had to go to the papers. I mean, God knows what this chemical’s going to do to people. I knew there’d be journalists at the party. I recognized you from your picture at the top of your beauty column. But I lost my nerve. My boss is a pretty scary guy and I knew I was putting my job at risk. Then the day after the party I was made redundant. The letter from personnel said the company was cutting back. But as far as I know they haven’t sacked anybody else.”

“Do you think somebody saw you listening outside?” Rebecca asked.

Wendy shrugged. “Possibly.”

“So, you’re sure that’s all you can remember. There’s nothing else? No clues as to what this chemical might be, or its effects?”

Wendy shook her head. Rebecca turned to a clean page in her notebook and wrote down her home and mobile numbers.

“If anything else occurs to you,” she said, “or anybody from the company starts threatening you, please just pick up the phone.”

“Do you think they might?” Wendy said uneasily as she wrote down her own number and handed it to Rebecca.

“It’s possible. They might want to warn you off talking to the press.” She patted Wendy’s hand and said she should try not to worry. “Meanwhile,” Rebecca said, closing her notebook, “I intend to find out precisely what’s in this cream.”

“I wish you luck. I know for a fact that until the official launch it’s being kept under lock and key at the factory in France. Although I think there’s also some at the Mer de Rêves office in Paris. The lab is there. It’s where they develop new products.”

It wasn’t until after they’d said their good-byes that Rebecca allowed herself to get excited. Of course it could all come to nothing. Wendy could still be a delusional nutter, but Rebecca didn’t think so. God, now she could show off to Max about having her own Deep Throat. He was bound to be impressed. Although she supposed that since this was a cosmetics story, Wendy was more of a Smooth Throat.

She spent the rest of the morning working on her girl band story. She looked for Max, but he wasn’t around. Then she remembered him telling her he had a meeting at Channel 6 with the director of the documentary that was to accompany his French nuclear story.

At lunchtime she took the tube to Selfridges. She’d decided to buy the matching pants to the La Perla bra on the off chance that Max turned out to be carnivorous (therefore still fanciable) and made a move on her. After last night’s wondrous snog she was pretty sure he would.

Once again she spent ages getting tarted up. Only tonight it took longer than ever. This was on account of her fringe, which refused to stay put and cover up the cut on her head. In the end she smothered it in so much wax, it virtually stuck to her skin. On top of the fringe problem she couldn’t decide what to wear. She wanted sexy, but casual. Definitely not trousers. Not if there was any possibility of sleeping with Max. She hated all that endless farting around to get them off because they were so bloody tight. Then there was the embarrassing hosiery issue. How many times had she ended up on some bloke’s sofa—having been finally divested of her trousers and knickers—starkers except for her flesh-colored M&S Knee Highs?

In the end she decided on her purple satin A-line skirt with a matching lace-edged cardie. The skirt made her hips look big. On the other hand the cropped, low-cut cardie more than compensated because it showed off her tits and offered just a hint of midriff, which was still vaguely tanned from last summer.

She was just about to put on her makeup when she decided to try the sample of freebie lip plump, which she’d been sent a few days ago. Of course, it was bound not to work. On the other hand, if by some miracle it did, she had to admit she rather fancied the idea of an ever so slightly fuller, more sensuous pout.

After half an hour her lips looked no fuller, more sensuous or poutier than usual. No surprise there, then. What she hadn’t bargained for was her lips starting to go dental anesthetic numb. She tried speaking. Definite slurring. Panic rose inside her. She was due at chez Max in Highgate in less than an hour. Considering and immediately rejecting the possibility that he might have a thing for palsied women, she phoned Jess for advice.

Jess assured her the numbness would wear off after a few minutes.

“How d’you know?” Rebecca asked, enunciating as best she could.

“’Cause it’ll be the same stuff I used. Take a look at the tube. Does it say ‘Luscious Lip for Lady Woman’?”

Rebecca looked. It did. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “It’s only made in Kowea.”

Rebecca hadn’t so much as glanced at the tube before she tried the lip plump. She’d just assumed it was a posh European or American make, along with all the other samples.

“I knew it was a con,” Jess said, “but that manky chemist at the end of my road had it on special offer. Turned out to be totally useless, though. My labia are just as shriveled and wrinkly as they always were.”

But by the time she arrived at Max’s flat there was still no improvement.

He opened the door wearing jeans and a baggy T-shirt. He also had bare feet, which she found particularly sexy. The first thing he did was give her a hello kiss on the lips. She tried to pucker up to return the gesture, but couldn’t.

“You OK?” he said, clearly sensing her unease.

She decided to tell him she’d just gotten back from the dentist. “Had a fiwing this afternoon,” she said, rubbing the side of her mouth. “Stiw a bit num.”

“Oh, I hate that. Always end up biting chunks out of my cheek when I eat.”

As he led her down the hall toward the kitchen he asked after the cut on her head. Then he told her how beautiful she looked.

“’hanks,” she said, blushing with pleasure and at the same time sniffing the air for signs of meat. There were hot oveny smells, but nothing that actually shouted animal.

The kitchen was tiny, with eighties orangey pine units, beige wall tiles with dirty grouting and a bare frosted window over the stainless steel sink. The mixer tap was crusted with lime scale. It was lit by a single fluorescent strip. Rebecca was reminded of a kitchen in a slightly seedy holiday cottage somewhere like Great Yarmouth.

“You’ll have to excuse the place,” he said. “I’ve been here a year, but I still haven’t got round to doing it up. Apart from the bedroom and bathroom, everything needs ripping out.”

“Reawy?” she said. “I hadn’t noticed.”

He poured her a glass of wine. She took a sip.

“Whoops,” he said, grinning. A moment later he was dabbing wine dribble from her chin with a napkin. He did it slowly, looking into her eyes all the time. She thought he might kiss her, but he didn’t.

She sat down on a kitchen stool and they chatted while he made salad dressing. Gradually and to her huge relief, the numbness began to wear off.

She told him about her meeting with Wendy.

“And you think she’s on the level?” Max said.

Rebecca shrugged. “I think so.”

Just then the intercom buzzer went.

“Oh, that’ll be my sister,” he said, putting down his wineglass and heading toward the door. “She’ll only be a minute. She popped round earlier on to borrow my laptop and my little nephew left his blankey thing here. Won’t go to bed without it.”

A few moments later he was back. Behind him were a slim pretty woman with expensive Fulham highlights and a rather tearful-looking boy of about four, dressed in a Thunderbird outfit.

“Rebecca, this is my sister Beth.”

Beth? Rebecca did a double take. Oh, God, Beth was the sister who had heard her Big Max Hot Line performance.

“Hi,” she said, taking Beth’s hand, “pleased to meet you.”

“And this,” Beth said, “is one extremely overtired and miserable Jake. Look, I’m so sorry to barge in like this, but he gets hysterical if he hasn’t got blankey at bedtime.”

Rebecca turned to the little boy. “Wow, great costume,” she said. “So which Thunderbird are you? Don’t tell me. Scott Tracy.”

“I’m Vergil,” he said grumpily, looking at her as if she were a complete fool. “Scott wears a yellow sash.”

Beth rolled her eyes and told Jake to stop being so rude. “Sorry,” she said to Rebecca. “He should have been in bed over an hour ago.”

Max crouched down so that he was on a level with the boy. “Hey, Jake. Come on, cheer up. Remember what we say.”

Jake gave a self-conscious grin.

Max’s hand went to his head in solemn salute. His face became grave. Jake followed suit.

“OK,” Max said, “let’s see if you remember how it goes: All hail the
goosenflappers,
masters of the park, lords of all things that flap . . . come on, you have to say it, too.”