The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp. Sarra Manning

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СКАЧАТЬ that it had been cirrhosis of the liver and the only person at his side had been a prison chaplain, as Francis Henry Sharp had been serving seven years at Her Majesty’s Pleasure for five counts of fraud and one count of ABH for breaking the nose of the arresting officer.

      Next to her, Amelia snivelled a little and the journalist leaned closer. ‘And your mother died when you were still quite young?’

      Becky did her best brave face. Downcast eyes, a little half-smile, a sudden intake of breath as if she was fighting to control herself. ‘Yes, by the time I was eight, it was just Daddy and me. I’m sorry, can I have a moment?’

      ‘It’s very painful for Becky to talk about,’ Amelia whispered, taking hold of Becky’s hand as if she could loan her friend some of her own meagre courage. ‘Are you OK to carry on? Do you want some water?’

      An intern was despatched to bring Becky water. Sparkling water in a cut-glass tumbler with crushed ice and a big chunk of lime.

      Who could blame a girl for not wanting to go back to a life where there was only tap water in any receptacle that was vaguely clean?

      ‘Your mother?’ Emily prompted. ‘You said in the house that she was French.’

      ‘Mais oui, maman etait francaise. She came from a very old family, the Mortmerencys, and she was a model. No! You wouldn’t have heard of her. She did a little catwalk, but mostly fit work,’ Becky explained, though the closest her mother had come to the catwalk was draping herself over the bonnet of a Ford Fiesta at a motoring exhibition at Olympia. She had been quite pretty before the booze and the pills and the putting up with Frank Sharp had taken their toll on her. ‘Her passing was very sudden.’

      Hurling yourself in front of the 7.08 District Line train pulling into Fulham Broadway station didn’t lend itself to a long, lingering death.

      ‘Oh, Becky,’ both Amelia and Emily exclaimed.

      ‘Sorry, it’s just that it’s painful to talk about.’

      Had it been painful at the time? Becky could hardly remember. Sidonie had barely fulfilled her job description. She swung from high to low, as Mr Sharp had vacillated from sweet to mean, so from a very young age, Becky had learned to keep her head down, stay out of the line of fire, especially when her parents had fought, which they did with intense ferocity. If that was love, then you could shove it.

      ‘So, Becky, let’s switch it up, shall we?’ Emily asked.

      Becky clapped her hands together. ‘God, yes, please, let’s!’

      Where had she gone to school?

       School of hard knocks.

      Had she had many boyfriends?

       Only if you count a Bournemouth vicar who used to try to put his hand up my skirt when I was helping with the church jumble sale.

      Who were her celebrity crushes?

       What would be the point of having a crush on some distant celebrity who would be of absolutely no use to me?

      Dear, sweet Emily and her voice recorder would probably both short circuit if Becky told them a few home truths, so she settled for the current truth and put her arm around Amelia.

      ‘I’m just here for moral support. Emmy’s the star and so she’s the one you should be asking about boyfriends and crushes.’ Becky nudged Amelia who giggled obligingly.

      ‘There is someone,’ Emmy confided, because it never occurred to her that she could fudge the details, hint, or stretch, bend and pull the truth this way and that, so it hardly even resembled the truth any more. ‘I’ve known him all my life, he was at school with my brother Jos, so I’m sure he thinks I’m still the silly little girl that he always teased.’

      Such a cliché. The haughty older boy who …

      ‘… used to pull my pigtails.’

      Even Emily was starting to look as if her back teeth were aching from Amelia’s brand of simpering, saccharine sweetness.

      ‘And does this someone have a name?’ Emily asked with the weary air of a woman who had an Oxbridge degree and a childhood ambition to be a lady war correspondent, but was currently interviewing the winner (and runner-up!) of a reality TV show.

      Amelia ducked her hair. ‘George,’ she said on a gasp, as if even saying his name out loud was tempting fate. ‘His name is George.’

       Chapter 5

      ‘He’s very good looking,’ Becky whispered loudly to Amelia as they stood in the doorway of the Sedleys’ drawing room later that evening and she caught sight of the man sitting on an antique loveseat, his gaze fixed on his iPad. ‘You might have thought to mention it!’

      Amelia frowned. ‘Really? Do you think so?’ The frown was replaced by a mischievous smile. ‘Shall I tell him?’

      ‘I’ll hate you for ever if you do,’ Becky said, noting the way the man began to stab frantically at his touch screen, as if he’d actually heard every word of their conversation.

      It was no wonder that Jos Sedley – the object of Becky’s affection, Amelia’s own brother, and both the brains and the brawn behind A Load Of Balls, the second-largest protein-ball company on the West Coast (soon to make major inroads into the East Coast market too) – had caught Becky’s attention.

      He truly was a sight to behold. A cross-fit addict who could bench press his own weight (two hundred and ten pounds) and a man who hadn’t knowingly eaten a carb in five years, Jos Sedley was triangular in shape. His over-muscled top half, bulging biceps, pecs even perter than Becky’s, strained the seams of his tight T-shirt, which was daringly low cut to show off his stunning he-vage. His spindly, skinny, jeans-clad legs didn’t look able to support all that complex musculature.

      It took a while for Becky’s eye to take it all in and travel adoringly up Jos’s physique, past his thick neck to a face still resolutely fixed on his iPad screen. It wasn’t a distinguished face. If it weren’t for his extraordinary physique, it would be hard to pick Jos out in a police line-up. The only remarkable thing about it was that, like the rest of him, it was somewhere between teak and mahogany on the fake-tan colour spectrum.

      ‘Jos! Nothing on your iPad could be as interesting as my Becky,’ Amelia said and finally Jos looked up from where he’d been studying a new pull-up technique that his personal trainer had devised for him.

      Becky had been gazing down at the Aubusson rug because it would have been rude to keep staring at Jos even though he really was a fascinating sight, but now she looked up too in time to see Jos blush fiercely as their eyes collided.

      ‘Any friend of Emmy’s and all that …’ He muttered awkwardly as he stood up, trying desperately to remember the most appropriate way to greet his sister’s friends. He’d spent his formative years in all-male boarding schools and he’d been a fat kid. A fat, shy kid. Even when there’d been dances with the neighbouring girls’ boarding schools, Jos had stayed on the sidelines, never daring to try and steal a kiss or cop a feel during the last dance. Since moving to LA after an СКАЧАТЬ