The Girl at the Bus-Stop (13 page)

Becky grabbed the twin door knobs and pulled open the doors before turning to face her.

‘Really, Gale? So how humiliating would it be if your neighbours saw you flying through that fucking window with my boot up your backside.’

She left the room slamming the doors behind her and walked briskly along the hallway, the heels clacking loudly on the tiled floor.

Shona appeared from nowhere carrying Becky’s jacket, helping her on with it before opening the front door. Without a word Becky ran down the steps on to the pavement, waving frantically at a passing London cab.

  
Becky walked into Rudge’s wing of the apartment looking flustered, tossing her mobile ‘phone on to the leather sofa.
    

 
‘I don’t believe that bloody woman,’ she said, ‘that’s eight times she’s called me in the last two days.’

‘La Buckingham, I presume?’ asked Rudge, looking up from his laptop, ‘Looking back it’s hard to imagine that I used to have a crush on her in my adolescent years. Never meet your heroes, Becky.’

‘She’s still badgering me to re-enact chapter fourteen of your bloody book,’ she replied, kicking off her flip-flops, ‘if she wants to be Faye Delahaye, why can’t she just go to a dominatrix prostitute?’

‘She probably doesn’t want to end up in the Sunday ‘papers,’ replied Rudge, ‘that’s why these famous folk rely on a small circle of trusted staff and friends. They don’t want the more unsavoury aspects of their cosseted life made public.’

‘I suppose you’re right, but why does she want to include me on her list?
 
I hardly know the woman.’

Rudge nodded his head sagely before looking up at her from his laptop.

‘That could be part of the reason,’ he said, ‘you didn’t even know who she was when you first met her, so you’re not in awe of her celebrity status.’

‘I think it’s just the book,’ said Becky, ‘she’s just desperate to live out the role of Faye Delahaye.’

‘I based that character on the wife of my old boss, Faye Hetherington.’

‘Was she into all that, you know, stuff?’

‘I haven’t a clue what she got up to in her private life, I only spoke to her once.’ Rudge replied, matter-of-factly, ‘about five years ago when she breezed into the office. She was taking her old man out to lunch, and ordered me to collect her car from the garage after its service. She told me not to take all day about it either, the cheeky cow.’

‘Charming, is that why you wanted her humiliated in the book?’ said Becky, ‘Like that old saying, ‘revenge is a dish best served cold’, or something like that.’

‘Who knows? I hadn’t given the woman a second thought in all that time, but I was pissed when I wrote the thing. Perhaps I wanted to right a few wrongs which had been festering in the back of my mind all these years. I’m no psychologist but that’s all I can come up with.’

Becky lay back on the sofa and stretched out her arms.

‘I’ve been reading the book properly after Gale almost caught me out, but its hard going. I’m up to chapter twelve at the moment.’

‘When you get to the man who likes having his erect penis thrashed with a supple twig in chapter fifteen,’ Rudge said, grinning, ‘I based him on that stand-in bus driver we had a couple of months ago. You know, the chat-up merchant who thought he was a super cool dude wearing those ridiculous wraparound sunglasses. It must have been quite an ordeal for you young women getting on the bus and having to listen to his basement banter.’

‘Jim, you mean?’ Becky replied, ‘I liked him, he was quite good looking.’

‘I found him very rude and discourteous,’ Rudge replied disdainfully, ‘and he was only friendly towards attractive young female passengers like you.’

‘I’ll have to remember to read that chapter if he’s in it,’ she said, ‘does he strip off?’

‘Completely,’ said Rudge, ‘but don’t get your hopes up. He’s hiding latent homosexual desires, and he ends up with a Master who loans him out to his rough trade buddies at a dockside pub called
The Jolly Roger
.’

‘Oh, no, poor Jim,
 
I don’t think I want to read that bit now.’

‘It’s okay, he’s perfectly happy,’ Rudge assured her, ‘you could say he ends up being totally fulfilled, in more ways than one.’

Becky sat up again and plonked her feet on the Chinese silk rug on the floor and sighed.

‘Reuben, how long do you think this thing is all going to last?’ she asked wiggling her silver glitter-varnished toes.

‘No idea. We’ll just have to put up with this decadent lifestyle for as long as possible I’m afraid,’ he said, cheerfully, ‘why, don’t you like it?’

‘It’s not that, it’s just that we’ve both given up our day jobs now and you’re paying me a good salary, which is brilliant. But what comes next?’ she said, a slight frown creasing her forehead, ‘Do I move out of my flat back home permanently, or will it all end in a few months and I’m back to square one? I’m still paying rent on my old place.’

Rudge stood up and walked to the window and looked down at Southwark Bridge, and then towards the Millennium Footbridge and across the river to the dome of St Paul’s. He waved his hand to beckon her over, and she jumped to her feet and walked over to join him.

‘See that?’ he said putting his arm around her, ‘at this precise moment in time it all belongs to us. We can live well, have a good time and not have to worry about tomorrow. We’re both on good money, and without you none of this success would have been possible.’

‘As I keep telling you, I haven’t really done anything,’ she replied, ‘you’re the writer and without you there would be no Raspberry Caine.’

‘Nonsense,’ Rudge said, ‘as far as I’m concerned this is a fifty-fifty arrangement. As soon as I get the quarterly figures from the accountant you’ll be paid a dividend the same as me.’

‘I don’t want a dividend,’ she replied, ‘all I’ve done is to buy loads of clothes from expensive shops, get my hair done in overpriced salons twice a week and lounge about. Okay, I’ve had to put myself about networking with a load of arty-farty celebs, but as they’re mostly either pissed or off their heads on cocaine it’s been quite a laugh.’

‘We’re a partnership and I depend on you, Becky,’ Rudge replied seriously, ‘and even if the book was pulled off the shelves tomorrow, as long as we don’t go silly we can remain very comfortably off.’

‘I’m quite happy with my wages,’ she replied, ‘ but the thing is that I don’t know whether to stash the money for a rainy day, buy a car, go on a holiday, buy my own place or what.’

‘This place is big enough isn’t it?’ said Rudge, ‘You’ve got your own privacy, so if you meet Mr Right you can invite him home for coffee. Or if you want to throw wild drug crazed parties for your celebrity friends, I’m not going to get in the way. Mind you, I suppose with me hanging round it must feel like living with your Dad sometimes.’

‘You’re not anything like my Dad, thank goodness, he’s a rotten bastard’ she replied, reaching up and kissing him on the cheek, ‘you may be closer to his age than mine, but I’ve had more fun with you than with anyone I can remember.’

‘Thank you for saying that, it means an lot to me,’ Rudge said squeezing her affectionately, ‘but unless you have a burning desire to return to your one bedroomed flat and resume your old life, the future is here in London and ours for the taking.’

‘That suits me fine,’ she said with a grin, ‘I don’t think I could face living in my old place again, not after this. I’ve never earned much money before and the little I saved my parents used to steal from me, until I left home of course. I could barely afford the rent and Council Tax on my grotty little place, but at least I could sleep easy knowing that those two vulchers weren’t rifling through my purse.’

‘Parents can be a nightmare,’ said Rudge sadly, ‘but you’re living somewhere perfect now.’

‘You’re telling me, I mean, it’s got proper heating for a start,’ she said enthusiastically, ‘ and there’s always plenty of hot water. As for the size of that TV, I doubt I’d even get it through the front door at my place.’

‘It is a wonderful apartment, but it’s just a shame that when my wife gets back from Lanzarote I’ll have to go home every weekend again.’ he replied with a heavy sigh, ‘I’m surprised you haven’t got a young good looking boyfriend waiting for you at home.’

‘Nah,’ she said shaking her head, ‘everyone I meet back home turns out to be a complete wanker. I’m no Mastermind champion but blokes these days can be so thick, almost like they went to school all them years and switched their brains off. If there was a GCSE exam in tired old clichés though, they’d all get top grades.’

‘You’re bound to meet someone in London who’ll take your fancy,’ said Rudge, ‘it’s almost guaranteed in the circles you’re mixing in. That young bloke you were talking to the other night, he’s in a big rock band isn’t he?’

‘Yes,
The Invalid Characters
,’ she replied, ‘but that was Mitch Millais, and he’s not young. He’s been a drummer in loads of bands right back to the early ‘80s, so he’s probably older than you even.’

‘He looks a hell of a lot younger than me.’

‘It’s just hair colouring and the fake tan. He’s bound to have had a bit of the old
cosmo
-surgery as well, most of those stars do from what I can make out.’

‘What about that TV actor bloke you were propping up the bar with the other night?’ said Rudge, ‘You remember, when Fantasy-Lit sent us to that trendy celeb-haunt restaurant,
Animal, Vegetable and Minimal
. He’s definitely close to your age.’

‘Jack Foster-Colquiss, you mean?’ she replied, shaking her head, ‘No thank you. Don’t get me wrong, he’s good looking in a pretty boy model magazine advert sort of way, but he’s so far up his own arse he could watch his dinner digest.’

‘When I looked over you were chatting away like old friends.’

‘Chatting involved more than one person, and I could barely get a word in.’ she replied, ‘He just kept wittering on about himself all the time, and how he’s going to make it big in Hollywood by the time he’s thirty.
 
I was so bored I ended up counting the peanuts in the dish on the bar.’

‘That agent woman who was sitting at our table told me that he was the quintessential English romantic lead,’ said Rudge, ‘and he’s been recently been asked to test for the new
James Bond.
’

‘No way, ‘she said vehemently, ‘he has the personality of a used carpet tile, and breath to match.’

‘Never mind, I’m sure you’ll meet the right man one day,’ Rudge assured her, ‘there’s plenty of time. What age are you anyway, twenty three, twenty four?’

‘I’ll be twenty five soon,’ she said, ‘and I suppose you’re right, I’m in no rush. If I don’t have any luck I can always shack up with Gale Buckingham, she’s definitely taken a shine to me.’

‘Now there’s a thought,’ laughed Rudge, ‘perhaps I should include that in the sequel.’

Becky walked over to his laptop and looked at the screen.

‘It looks like it might be the only thing in the next book,’ she said,’ you haven’t exactly got very far with it. How long has it taken you to come up with the words ‘Chapter’ and ‘One’?’

Rudge walked over to join her and sat down at the table.

‘I’m really struggling,’ he confessed, ‘you see, I don’t remember writing the first manuscript, it’s a complete blur. I just don’t seem to have any ideas whatsoever. I suppose I could always get drunk again and have another go.’

‘Never mind, you’re accompanying me to this masked fancy dress masked ball tomorrow night. Most of the guests are rich and famous and into BDSM, so you might find some inspiration.’