Apocalipstick (21 page)

“Brilliant,” Rebecca whispered. “Right, tilt it back.”

As Lipstick lifted the glass dome, Rebecca slid the jar into her handbag. As she closed it, she looked up to see a blonde thicket of English beauty salon managers coming down the stairs, dressed for a slightly upmarket hen night in Cheadle. Rebecca had never seen a picture of Coco, but she was renowned for monochrome, minimalist style and it was quite clear that she wasn’t here, among the Donatella knockoffs. Then from the first landing came the sound of a mobile ringing.

“Oui?”
The woman’s voice echoed off the marble walls.

“Must be Coco,” Rebecca said. She looked up. All she could make out through the chrome balustrade was a straight gray bob and the back of a long black coat.

“Who cares? Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Ah,
Madame N’Femkwe,
” Coco continued,
“c’est toujours un plaisir.”

“She’s the wife of that African dictator,” Rebecca said.

“Fine, whatever. Let’s go.” Lipstick pulled on her friend’s sleeve, but Rebecca was suddenly curious and refused to budge.

“You adore zee gel
pour les yeux
?” Coco chirruped. “Zee under-eye puffiness ’as completely gone?
Magnifique.
What did I tell you? Madame Gaddafy, she swear by eet. . . .
Mais naturellement
—of course I can let you have a free sample of our new
crème
. I will send eet by special courier tonight.”

“Probably go in the same batch as Mrs. Saddam’s depilatory cream,” Rebecca sneered.

“Whatever,” Lipstick said. “Now come on.”

As Rebecca turned to go, she saw Coco Dubonnet coming down the stairs. “Look! Look!” she whispered to Lipstick. “It’s the woman from the restaurant. The one who was insulted by her friend. She’s Coco Dubonnet.”

“OK, right. Brilliant. So what?”

“Well, it means she can’t know how harmful the cream is.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s been dishing it out to all her friends. She’d have to be an evil cow to do that, knowing it was dangerous. This all points to her executives pulling the wool over her eyes.”

“Look,” Lipstick said, utterly exasperated by now, “sorry as I am for her, do you think we can possibly get out of here now?”

They did another of their self-conscious saunters to the door. Murray now had Pierre’s jacket hanging down over his behind, the sleeves tucked into the waistband of his jeans. The receptionist was giving Marcie directions to the Monoprix.

“Your ’usband can wait in an empty office until you get back.”

As Rebecca and Lipstick approached, the receptionist turned round. “But,
mesdames,
you cannot possibly leave. Look, Coco, she is coming now. You must stay to collect your prize,
non
?”

“Already got it,” Rebecca said as she and Lipstick began to squeeze past Murray.

Pierre looked at Lipstick. “You ’ave my phone number,
oui
?” he whispered.

She nodded.

Outside they were met by a blast of icy wind and sheeting rain.

“I think the Metro’s this way,” Rebecca said. They linked arms. Heads bowed against the wind, they half ran, half tottered down the road, past all the big-name fashion houses. They’d been going for a few seconds when they heard Pierre shouting at them to come back.

“Shit, he’s after us.”

“Oh, God,” Lipstick squealed. “What do we do?”

“Just keep running.”

Suddenly Lipstick tripped on an uneven paving stone. Rebecca just managed to stop her falling.

“I can’t run in these,” Lipstick said as she stood, trying to get her breath. “I know, let’s go into Versace. It’s Italian. Maybe we could claim political asylum.”

“Funnee. Come on. You have to keep going.”

“Bernadette, give eet to me.” It was Pierre again. “Pleez, you give eet to me. I must have it.”

“Gawd,” Rebecca said between puffs, “sounds like he’s gaining on us.”

They turned round. In fact, Pierre hadn’t moved more than a few feet from the Mer de Rêves building.

They slowed to a brisk walk.

“Pleez.” It was Pierre again, arms outstretched, begging them.

Lipstick looked at Rebecca. “Do you think he’ll get the sack?”

Rebecca said it was possible.

“Sorry, Pierre,” Lipstick shouted. “I’m truly sorry, but you’ll understand soon.”

They watched him shrug and amble back inside.

They were booked on the seven o’clock Eurostar, but managed to get seats on the five. Rebecca just about had time to pop into a deli round the corner from the station and pick up two baguettes and a jar of bouillabaisse for Rose.

“I’m sorry I got cold feet about chatting up Pierre,” Lipstick said as the train pulled out of Gare du Nord. “I just kept thinking about Stan. I know it sounds pathetic, but it felt like I was cheating on him.”

“You really love him, don’t you?”

“You have no idea,” Lipstick said.

Rebecca squeezed her hand.

“Come on,” Lipstick said after a few moments, “I’m curious. Let’s take a proper look at the cream this time.”

Rebecca reached into her bag and put the jar on the seat, between them. She unscrewed the lid.

Lipstick blinked. “What on earth is that?” she said.

Rebecca prodded the dried planty bits with her finger. Then she picked up the jar and sniffed.

“That,” she said, “if I’m not mistaken, is Moroccan Super Skunk.”

16

L
ipstick, petrified they
would get caught at customs with Pierre’s stash, insisted on getting off the train briefly when it stopped at Calais to dump it in a waste bin.

Rebecca was feeling too fraught about the Mer de Rêves debacle to care what happened to the stuff. Plus she had no use for it, since she didn’t smoke dope. She’d done it a bit at university and when she first started working—enough to recognize Moroccan Super Skunk when she saw it—but it always gave her a double helping of the munchies with paranoia topping. She’d finally given up after downing three tubs of chocolate chip cookie dough in one sitting and spending the entire night accusing Ben and, to a lesser extent Jerry, too, of having it in for her.

She sat gazing out the window, waiting for Lipstick to get back, wondering what she was going to say to Charlie Holland. How could she have been so naive as to think there was cream in the Revivessence jar? If there had been, it would have been kept in a locked and alarmed display case. Pierre and the glass dome were simply for show. From now on, Charlie would never let her loose on anything more challenging than the beauty column. When Nat, the regular cosmetics columnist, came back after maternity leave, she wouldn’t even have that. As for getting serious work on other newspapers, she could kiss that good-bye once word got round about what a cock-up she’d made of the Mer de Rêves story. There was no doubt in Rebecca’s mind that her career as an investigative journalist was over.

She opened her bag and went rummaging for her packet of Wrigley’s. Chewing gum always helped her think.

“I know there’s some here,” she said irritably, pulling stuff out of her bag and putting it on the table. It was then that she saw it. The hole in the bag’s lining. First she pulled out the packet of Wrigley’s. Next came the earplug box.

“Omigod, it’s here!” she squealed. “I didn’t lose it.” She couldn’t have been more excited if George Clooney had walked up to her and announced he wanted her for his sex slave. She pressed the earplug container to her chest. “Thank you, God. Thank you. From now on I will dedicate my life to being a good, kind human being who thinks only of the needs of other people.” She paused. “Well, maybe not actually
dedicate.
I have a life. But you know what I mean.”

Just then Lipstick reappeared, back from her dumping mission.

“You’ll never guess what I’ve found,” Rebecca singsonged.

“What?”

“Ta-dah!” Rebecca cried, holding out the pot.

Lipstick’s face lit up. “My God, you found it. I can’t believe it. Where was it?”

She explained about it having gone through a hole in the lining of her bag.

“Right,” Lipstick said, “now for Chrissake put it away somewhere safe. Listen, I don’t mean to rain on your parade. But you’ll never guess who’s sitting back there.”

Rebecca frowned. “Who?”

“Max.”

“What?”

Lipstick nodded.

“You are kidding, right?”

“Wrong.”

“Shit.”

“And he’s got a woman with him. I assume it’s that Lorna Findlay, not that I’ve ever watched her program. And they seem pretty cozy together.”

“What am I going to do? He
cannot
see me in this getup.”

She’d been determined that the next time she saw Max, she would exude elegance and serenity; an air of easy, but aloof self-confidence, which said: “I am so over you and back in control of my life.” Assuming he’d be back in the office on Monday she’d even sent her powder-blue Whistles suit to the cleaners and booked a blow-dry with Camp David before work.

She looked down at her leopard-print blouse, the nasty micromini with the safety pins down the sides; felt her hair hanging round her face like soggy tagliatelle. The only thing she exuded right now was knackered hooker caught in a downpour and a faint whiff of stress-induced underarm BO.

“OK,” she said to Lipstick, “we have to move into another carriage.”

Lipstick said she had to be joking. It was Friday evening and the train was packed.

“Then we need some kind of disguise.”

Lipstick’s eyes widened. “Ooh, ooh,” she squealed. “I know, chadors. I saw a whole thing about them on the Discovery Channel.”

“Brilliant,” Rebecca said. “I’ll ask one of the stewards, shall I? I’m sure that along with the miniature packs of hickory roasted peanuts and hot towels, they always carry an emergency supply of heavy black robes favored by fundamentalist Muslim women.”

“Stop taking the piss,” Lipstick said. “You haven’t just seen what I’ve seen.”

“Don’t tell me, the next carriage is full of women on their way to a fundamentalist hen night in London.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t know about the hen night bit. They’ve got their husbands with them. But the point is, I just saw a couple of chadors in dry-cleaning bags. They were draped over a suitcase in the luggage rack outside.”

“And your idea is we steal them?”

“Not steal them, exactly,” Lipstick said. “Borrow them. The suitcase had a label tied to it with a London address. We can get them cleaned again and return them with a big bunch of flowers.”

“Don’t be daft. If we get caught, who’s going to believe we were going to return them? We’d be done for theft.”

“OK, what do you suggest? Any minute now, Max or Lorna could come down the carriage.”

Rebecca sat there dithering, drumming her nails on the table. “I don’t know.”

“Come on,” Lipstick urged.

Rebecca stopped drumming. “OK,” she said, her face breaking into a smile. “Let’s do it.”

They decided they would take it in turns to go outside, “borrow” a chador and put it on in the loo. Rebecca couldn’t get over how hot and cumbersome the thing was. On top of that, wearing something that covered most of her face was making her feel decidedly claustrophobic. She looked at herself in the mirror, peering out of the wide cotton mesh, which covered the eye slit.

“God, I look like a pepper grinder in mourning.”

She came out of the loo and shuffled toward the automatic compartment door, praying she wouldn’t catch the hem on one of her stilettos and trip. As she sat down opposite Lipstick, who was already in her chador, a couple of the men in suits sitting at the table on the other side of the aisle stared at her. They were clearly wondering what had happened to the original two women. But they didn’t seem too bothered and quickly returned to their papers and laptops.

“Do you mind telling me,” Lipstick whispered to Rebecca, “how Muslim women flirt wearing this gear?”

There they sat for the rest of the journey, two strict Muslim women swathed in black—one reading
The National Enquirer,
the other with her head buried in
Cosmo,
engrossed in an article entitled “We Reveal the Truth About Anal Orgasm.”

As the train neared London, people started getting up to put their coats on and retrieve bags from the overhead lockers.

Then, she saw him, coming down the aisle toward the loo. Her heart lurched along with the train, which had just taken a bend a bit quickly. He was wearing Paul Smith jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. He looked tired, she thought. Yeah, probably from all the shagging. But much as she tried to hate him, she couldn’t. It was as much as she could do to resist leaping out of her seat and throwing herself at him.

As he drew level with the table, he stepped on a piece of her chador hem, which was sticking out into the aisle.

“Oops, sorry,” he said.

“Oh, no, it’s my fault.” She snatched at the black cloth.

He looked shocked and startled at the sound of her voice. For a second, maybe less, their eyes locked through the chador’s eye mesh. Then, still looking mildly bewildered, he carried on down the aisle.

“Gawd, you nearly blew it there,” Lipstick said.

“I know. I know,” Rebecca came back, her heart still racing from wanting him and the fear of being discovered.

As the train pulled in, Rebecca whispered to Lipstick not to move until everybody had gotten off. “Then we go to the loo and get out of these things. By the time we’ve finished, Max and Lorna will be well away.”

It was a good ten minutes before they left the train. As they stepped onto the platform, they saw a Eurostar steward a few yards in front of them, surrounded by a dozen or so chador-clad women and their bearded husbands. The heavily accented men were waving their arms and shouting, demanding the police be called to investigate the theft of two robes. The hapless steward, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, was trying to calm them down by saying he would go and fetch a more senior member of staff, but the men had formed a tight cordon round him and were refusing to let him go.

“Quick, hand me your chador,” Rebecca said to Lipstick. “I think I’ve found a way to save on postage and flowers.”

A few seconds later she’d carefully folded both robes and put them back, exactly where Lipstick had found them. “If it’s a couple of those black robe things you’re looking for,” she called to the steward, over the din, “they’re on the luggage rack.”

In a second one of the men had climbed back onto the train and retrieved the garments. His wife moved forward, took Rebecca’s hand in both of hers and said she would remember her to Allah in her prayers.

“Me too,” murmured the steward, wiping his forehead.

“Oh, it was nothing,” Rebecca said, offering the woman a smile to melt an ayatollah. “Nothing at all.”

Still giggling, they reached the main concourse. Rebecca looked round for any sign of Max and Lorna. Nothing. Probably got picked up by a limo, Rebecca thought.

“Come on,” Rebecca said, “let’s go and find a cab.”

They headed toward the stand. The queue for taxis was long, but it seemed to be moving at a decent lick. They were almost at the front when Rebecca heard somebody calling her name. She froze.

“My God, tell me this isn’t happening,” she said to Lipstick. “It’s Max. After everything we’ve done to avoid him.”

“Rebecca! Please! We need to talk.”

She turned to see him half walking, half trotting toward the cab stand. He couldn’t go any faster because he was weighed down by the huge leather holdall he was carrying.

“God, why can’t this queue move any faster?” Rebecca muttered.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned round. “Max. What a surprise.”

“I know. I know,” he panted, putting his bags down. “I can’t believe you’re here. I was buying a paper and as I looked up I caught this glimpse of you, disappearing into the crowds. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

She could feel his warm breath on her face. He seemed fraught. Guilt, she assumed.

“So, what are you doing here?” he said.

“Lipstick and I have just gotten back from Paris.”

Lipstick gave him a tentative wave and said hi.

“Really? We must have been on the same train.”

She could tell he was desperate to talk about what was going on between them, but was holding back because Lipstick was there.

By now he had noticed her clothes. A smile began to hover on his lips. “You look very . . . very . . .” He ran the flat of his hand over his head as he searched for the right words. “I mean, the skirt, it’s not very . . .”

“Nice?”

“I was going to say, long. It’s not very long. Looks, you know—like it might be a bit drafty.”

“I’ve been working undercover,” she heard herself say. “Charlie asked me to write a color piece on the Union of Working Women’s annual conference. They don’t allow the press in, so I had to pretend to be a delegate. Lipstick came with me—for moral support.”

Just then a taxi pulled up.

“I’ll get in and ask the driver to wait,” Lipstick said to Rebecca. “’Bye, Max, nice to see you again.”

“Yes, you too,” Max said. He turned back to Rebecca. “So, sounds like an exciting trip.”

“It was. And how’s your story going?”

“Great. Look, can we go somewhere and talk?”

“I don’t think there’s much point, do you? I’ve found out all I need to know.”

“Look, I know it was you who phoned my room when I was in the shower. Lorna told me it was somebody from the office, but I knew just by looking at her that she was lying. I really can explain everything.”

“Oh, come on, Max. I’ve heard it all before.”

“But I can.” Suddenly his eyes shot to his jacket pocket. Inside his mobile was ringing.

“Shit. What now? I’m sorry, but I have to answer it.” He flipped the phone open. “Who?” he barked. “Monsieur who? Look, I’m in the middle of a very important meeting. Can this wait? Can I call you back? . . .
Ah, pardon Monsieur le Premier Ministre . . . non, ce n’est pas une problème. Non, non, pas du tout.”

A look of urgent concentration came over him. He turned and took a few paces back from the road, his finger stuffed in his ear against the traffic noise.

Rebecca stood watching him. If he hadn’t been on the phone to the French prime minister, she might have given in to the impulse to jump up at him, fling her arms round him and beg him to stop loving Lorna.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you home.”

She felt Lipstick take her hand.

“What you need is a night out,” Lipstick declared, once they were in the taxi. “Tell you what, my cousin Donal’s over from Ireland for a couple of weeks. He’s a real laugh. You’ll love him. Why don’t you, me and Jess meet up with him for a drink this week?”

“Great,” Rebecca said, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She didn’t say anything for a minute or so. Then: “Lipstick?”

“What is it?”

“Thanks for coming today. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“My pleasure.”

“You know,” Rebecca went on, “it’s funny the way things have worked out—particularly after the way we hated each other in school.”

Lipstick looked down at her nails. “You know, I really am sorry about the way I bullied you,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you to bring it up. I can’t believe you waited this long. I should have said something myself, but I was frightened it would open old wounds and you’d get angry. Then I suppose another bit of me thought maybe you’d forgotten.”