The Girl at the Bus-Stop (27 page)

‘What about our clothes?’ said Lucy, ‘we can’t go home in the nude.’

‘You should have thought of that before stripping off,’ said Becky.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Rudge , ‘ I’ll throw them down to you, now get out.’

Rudge slammed the door behind them and picked up the telephone.

‘It’s Mr Rudge,’ he said, ‘there’s a group of undesirables heading down to reception, make sure they leave the building pronto and keep them out.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the concierge replied.

As Rudge walked back into the living area, he saw Becky sitting on a balcony chair crying. He lifted the fallen chair from the floor and sat opposite her, taking her hands in his.

‘This dream is rapidly turning into a fucking nightmare,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry, Becky,’ he replied, kissing the top of her head, ‘I feel really bad that you’ve had to go through all this. It’s very upsetting.’

‘They’re all nutters,’ she said, ‘but I suppose I should be used to it by now.’

 
‘They’re certainly a breed apart,’ agreed Rudge, ‘and I certainly don’t want to see any of them again. I’ll make us some tea, and we’ll just try and forget about it.’

Becky lit up a cigarette as Rudge disappeared inside the apartment. She stood up and looked over the balcony, and spotted Henshall and Lucy standing on the path below looking up. Passers-by gazed at the naked couple curiously, some pointing, and others taking photographs and video footage. Teachers escorting schoolchildren to visit The Globe Theatre and The Tate Modern tried unsuccessfully to shield their charges from seeing the couple.

Becky rooted around the living area for the couple’s clothing and gathered it up into a bundle. She found a plastic bin-liner in one of the kitchen drawers and stuffed the garments inside, along with Lucy’s handbag.

‘I’d forgotten about those two,’ said Rudge, following her back out to the balcony with the tea. He placed the mugs on the table and looked over the edge, lifting the black plastic bag and looking down.

‘If you chuck it down it may hit someone,’ said Becky, ‘and the last thing we want is a law suit.’

Rudge nodded, and carried the bag through the apartment and out of the main door. He took the lift down to reception and walked out on to the street. At the front of the building the couple were still looking up anxiously, shivering in the wintry waterfront breeze.

‘Here,’ said Rudge standing behind them, ‘now you’d better get dressed before the police get here.’

‘Thank you,’ said Lucy, ‘but we really wouldn’t mind getting arrested. I’ve often fantasised about being locked up naked in a cell.’

‘Me too,’ said Henshall, ‘especially when they look at you through the peephole.’

‘Don’t you people ever think about anything else?’ said Rudge, shaking his head and plonking the bag down in front of them.

‘Now that the sequel’s been destroyed, do we get our fifty grand back off Ms Caine?’ asked Lucy, crouching down to rummage inside the bag.

‘What fifty grand?’

‘That’s why were in the apartment,’ said Henshall, reluctantly pulling on his underpants, ‘to make sure we were featured in the book.’

‘We’ve already told all our friends,’ said Lucy, hastily pulling on her jeans, ‘and now there’s not going to be any sequel.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ said Rudge, ‘I’m sure Ms Caine will be able to knock one up in no time.’

A few minutes later Rudge rejoined Becky on the balcony and took a sip of his tea.

‘You were a long time,’ she said.

‘They were telling me about the fifty thousand pounds they left you,’ replied Rudge, ‘to guarantee them a place in the sequel.’

‘Oh, that,’ Becky replied, ‘it’s on the coffee table. They may as well have it back now that the book’s been lost forever.’

‘What makes you think that?’ asked Rudge.

‘The laptop of course,’ she replied, ‘unless it has a waterproof hard disk and you hire a team of divers to fish it out, I’d say it was pretty well gone for good wouldn’t you?’

‘Oh, I’m not bothered about that old thing,’ said Rudge, ‘it’s been so unreliable over the years I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did. It was forever crashing on me in my shed, and besides, we’ve got new ones anyway.’

‘What difference does that make?’ she replied, ‘I’m hardly likely to be able to rattle out the sequel off the top of my head, am I?’

Rudge reached into his tracksuit bottoms and retrieved a USB stick and placed it on the table.

‘You won’t need to,’ he smiled.

‘What’s that?’ said Becky.

‘The back-up of course.’ smiled Rudge, ‘I always backed up the data files every time I used that laptop. I just never knew when the hard disk was going to give up the ghost altogether.’

 
‘So when did you last back it up?’

‘This morning, before I went down the gym,’ Rudge replied, ‘I knew you’d been using it to write the book, so I didn’t want to take any chances.’

Becky picked up the USB stick and kissed it, before leaning across and kissing Rudge.

 
‘As soon as the sequel is published we can distance ourselves from the lot of them.’ she said, ‘I thought I was happy here in London, but that lot has well and truly ruined it for me.’

‘Do you really mean that?’ he replied, ‘I thought you liked this new life of ours.’

‘Some of it, yes,’ she said, ‘being here with you, but when it comes to the weird and wonderful world of the rich and famous, you can forget it.’

 
‘Let’s sit down and go through the manuscript together this evening,’ Rudge suggested, ‘we can share an Indian takeaway and have an early night. I think I’ve come up with some good character and chapter names, so we can finish the bloody thing off once and for all.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then what, what?’

‘What comes next?’ she said seriously, ‘Will they want another sequel to the sequel written? I don’t think I could face writing another one.’

‘We only promised them one sequel, nothing more,’ said Rudge, ‘as far as I’m concerned Raspberry Caine can vanish off the face of the earth.’

 
The next morning Rudge and Becky took the lift to the ground floor, and left the draft manuscript for the publisher’s courier to collect from the concierge.

‘I can’t wait to get down to Bournemouth,’ said Becky, ‘I hope Harry picks us up on time.’

‘Harry’s booked on another job this morning, so I’ve hired a car,’ said Rudge as they walked out on to the pavement.

He stood alongside a black and silver Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé, and opened the passenger door for Becky.

‘What the hell is this?’ she said.

‘I know it’s a little ostentatious,’ he said.

‘No it’s not,’ she replied, ‘my Dad had an Austin and it was nothing like this. It looks more like a big flash Rolls Royce.’

‘So that’s what the RR stands for?’ he replied, ‘And there was me thinking they’d personalised it for me with my initials.’

‘Very funny.’

 
‘It’s a lovely sunny day,’ said Rudge, looking skywards, ‘shall we put the roof down?’

‘Not on your Nellie,’ replied Becky, ‘I don’t want to show off your obscene decadence in front of the whole of workaday London.’

‘Why not?’ said Rudge, ‘I want everyone to see what a beautiful woman I’ve got sitting next to me.’

‘Oh, so I’m a trophy bird now, Rudge,’ she said, ‘just someone to make you look good.’

Rudge shook his head and pulled the key fob from his trouser pocket.

‘Okay, you can drive it and I’ll be your trophy bloke.’

‘Are you sure?’ she said, looking excited.

‘You may as well, I’ve put us both down on the insurance.’

Becky drove the huge car with some care through the short narrow streets alongside the apartment building, and out on to the main road before driving over Southwark Bridge. As they headed towards Central London, Rudge gazed out at the pedestrian commuters hurrying along on the crowded pavements and smiled with genuine sympathy.

A fat, balding and bespectacled man was waiting at the kerb to cross the busy road, wearing a crumpled blue suit which was far too tight for him. He paused as the Rolls moved past him at walking pace, and stared at Rudge in disbelief, before shaking his head.

‘It can’t be, I must be seeing things,’ he said aloud, before hurrying across the busy road.

Dave Banstead was en route to yet another interview, having been forced to cast his net far and wide. Although London was a long daily commute, he’d go anywhere to get a job.
Gallie
& Hobbes – Motor Factors had been impressed by his CV, but then so had Crisp &
Critchley
a few days before. El-
Bizri
&
Englefield
seemed to like him last week. Since the interviews he’d heard nothing back from any of them.

In a traffic jam in Richmond, Becky was getting fed up of the verbal abuse hurled at the Rolls Royce from neighbouring motorists.
 
A shaven headed van driver heading into London leered down at her through the window of his Ford Transit.

‘How many blokes did you have to shag to get a car like that, darlin’?’ he shouted in a pseudo-Cockney dialect.

‘Probably not as many as you did to afford that poxy old van,’ she shouted back, gesturing with the middle finger of her right hand.

As the man had an apoplectic fit behind the steering wheel, Becky powered the hood into the closed position, shutting out the noise from the barrage of expletives.

‘I don’t really want to blast down the motorway with the top down anyway,’ she said, ‘I’ve only just had my hair done.’

‘The diesel fumes were doing my head in,’ replied Rudge, ‘I feel as high as a kite.’

Two hours later they were cruising around Bournemouth town centre’s one-way system, looking for a parking space. Eventually they drove into the car park in front of The Pavilion theatre, and eventually found a space big enough for the huge vehicle.

‘We can walk to the pier through the gardens,’ suggested Rudge, ‘I don’t know what will be open this time of year, but the amusement arcade should be.’