Amelia wasn’t crying, which had to be some sort of miracle, but was standing there looking as if she’d been slapped around the face with a kipper.
‘The reason we’re so late has nothing to do with the president of Iceland and everything to do with your brother coming down wearing such a ridiculous suit, a pink-and-grey houndstooth, that I had to send him back to his room to change,’ Becky said airily, and oh yes, here were the inevitable tears, trickling down Amelia’s cheeks like raindrops. She sighed. ‘You haven’t grown up at all, have you? You’re still a very silly girl.’
‘Don’t, Becky,’ Amelia snapped, because she really wasn’t a silly girl at all. She was actually a very silly woman. ‘What do you know about love?’
‘Not a fucking thing, but I do know that if I had a man like that Dobbin, with brains and a heart, I wouldn’t even care about his huge ears and feet.’ Becky paused. ‘Or I wouldn’t care too much.’
‘He doesn’t love me any more and I can’t blame him!’ Amelia burst out, the tears flowing thick and fast now. ‘He’s right, I don’t deserve his love and anyway, I love George. Or I thought I did, when really it was just a silly adolescent crush that should have run its course. It’s all such a mess!’
Amelia’s tearful soliloquy was, thankfully, interrupted by a waiter who appeared in the doorway to inform them that Mr Sedley had just collided with another gentleman and a passing sommelier carrying a bottle of red wine and that Mr Sedley was going to be further detained because he had to go back to his hotel and change again.
‘Oh God,’ Becky groaned. ‘Bring me a glass of champagne, and what do you want, Emmy? Though maybe not any alcohol, because it will just make you cry even more than you normally do.’
‘I don’t cry all the time.’ Amelia raised a tear-soaked face to the waiter who was clearly wishing that he hadn’t drawn the short straw when it came to being the bearer of bad tidings. ‘The man Mr Sedley collided with – was he very tall?’
‘Quite tall.’
‘And was he wearing—’
‘Very tall, very red of face with absolutely huge ears and feet, yes?’ Becky stepped in, otherwise this would take up even more time that it already had.
‘Yes,’ the hapless man agreed. ‘He was in a rush because he’d just ordered a car to the airport.’
‘The airport!’ Emmy wailed. ‘But he was meant to be staying for another day so he could attend a panel on landmines.’
‘What do you care?’ Becky asked, waving the man away because that champagne wasn’t going to get itself. ‘He made his feelings perfectly clear, and anyway, you just said you didn’t deserve his love.’
Amelia tried to glare and cry at the same time, failing to do either effectively. ‘George …’ she sighed. ‘He might not have bought Pianoforte, but he still reached out to me and we were … We were intimate, it was why we were in Cannes, so he does … did love me.’
‘Ah, Cannes.’ It was Becky’s turn to sigh. ‘I won’t say I did it out of the goodness of my heart, because I didn’t. I did it because George had earned some payback from me, but for goodness’ sake, Emmy, I told you at the time that a man in love doesn’t behave the way he did in Cannes.’
‘You led him on,’ said the feminist campaigner who was always banging on about the solidarity of the sisterhood.
‘Believe me, I didn’t have to lead him very far.’ Becky started scrolling through her phone. ‘This was all George,’ she added, holding up the screen so that Amelia could see the note George had written on the back of a canapé menu. Becky had photographed it (because who knew when it might come in handy?) before she’d tossed it out of the back of her limo on the way to catch a private jet to Paris.
Darling, delicious Becky
As if you could ever imagine that Emmy means anything to me. She’s a stupid little girl while you’re all woman. As for Rawdon, he’s too dumb to appreciate what he has. Why did you have to marry him when if you’d waited, you could have had me?
Together we would have been magnificent, unstoppable, so at least let us have this one night.
I ache to possess you.
Your Gorgeous George xxx
‘Judging by the date of the birth announcement, you must have already been pregnant when George was aching to possess me,’ Becky said with a grateful smile at a new waiter who’d been persuaded to bring her a glass of champagne.
‘Georgy …’ Amelia moaned faintly. ‘I have to think of little Georgy.’
‘Because big George is such a hands-on parent, is he?’ Never had Becky so eagerly awaited the arrival of Jos Sedley because this conversation with Amelia was torturous. In fact, waterboarding had to be preferable to this. ‘Oh, Emmy, we both know what you really want, so can we just stop all the amateur dramatics and tedious soul-searching?’
‘I’m sorry if my pain and confusion is boring you,’ Amelia sniffed, but she couldn’t help but take the bait. ‘What do I want, then? I wish you’d tell me because I’m sure I don’t know.’
Becky leaned back in her chair and took a long sip of her drink. ‘You want to race out of the restaurant just as a cab will inevitably pull up, and before its passengers can get out, you’ll have already jumped in so you can scream, “To the airport!” Although by now you’re a good half an hour behind old Dobbin – all the better, so that when you do get there, you can see that his flight is about to depart and you jump the barriers and there’s police and guards running after you – though maybe they might just shoot you in the back because we are living in times of heightened security – and then you jump on to one of those airport buggies and you get to the gate just as Dobbin goes through and you call out his name and then …’
Becky took another long, long, loooonnnnggggg sip of her drink.
Amelia was in a torment. ‘And then … and then what?’ she begged.
‘He turns around and sees you. He wants to be angry with you, wants to flounce away and cut off his huge nose to spite his big, red face, but he’s loved you for so many years that he doesn’t know how not to love you. And you’ve made this big, romantic gesture so maybe, just maybe, you do love him a fraction as much as he loves you, and even though he has important work to do – more orphans to drag out of burning buildings, no doubt – he has to take this chance. By now, you’re thinking that you’ve blown it because Dobbin is just standing there with a gormless look on his face. You say his name again, falteringly, sadly, and he springs to life, fighting his way through the people still trying to board, falling over bits of hand luggage for comic effect …’
‘Becky!’ Amelia admonished. ‘Don’t be mean. Then what happens?’
‘You run over to him, he holds out his arms and you jump into them and you kiss …’
‘And everyone claps and cheers and I say that I’ve loved him, that I’ve always loved him …’
‘And then the police arrive and they arrest you for half a dozen crimes relating to terrorism and they send you off to Guantanamo Bay, never to be seen again,’ Becky said with some relish.
‘They closed Guantanamo Bay,’ Amelia said, but her eyes were sparkling and full of hope. ‘Oh! It’s so romantic, like something out of a film. If I go now, I’d only be about fifteen minutes behind Dobbin.’ She was already gathering up bag and pashmina shawl. ‘I have to give it a shot. I have to show Dobbin that I do deserve his love.’
She was already halfway out of the room so Becky could finally yawn, then had to snap her mouth shut as Amelia’s head popped round the door. ‘But what about George’s political career? He’s tipped to be Prime Minister one day.’
‘Ha! I very much doubt that,’ Becky said. She’d just taken on a PA who’d been a junior researcher for the MP who had the office next door to George at Westminster. She’d had plenty to say about Gorgeous George and his extra-curricular activities with half the research staff of the House of Commons. Becky already had a lunch booked in with Laura Steyne, who owed her a huge favour now that she was running her father’s empire. ‘Go on! You only get one chance at love!’
‘Becky, you’re the best,’ Amelia yelped and she was gone.
Becky Sharp smiled to herself. ‘I know.’