Apocalipstick Read online

  “Oh hi, Gran,” she said. “How are you?” She shoved the mobile between her shoulder and chin and put the banana down on the passenger seat.

  “I’m on this diet Estelle recommended. She reckons losing a few pounds might help bring my blood pressure down. The thing is with it, there’s not enough to eat. So, I’ve decided to go on another one at the same time. Anyway, I was just phoning to say how much I enjoyed the bouillabaisse. It was wonderful and I’ve still got loads left.”

  “But it’s full of fat, you know, Gran.” Rebecca said, spotting a rest area and deciding to pull in to look for her map book. “You should do some exercise to work it off.”

  “Exercise, schmexercise. So, I’ll eat briskly.”

  Rebecca slowed down and pulled into the rest area.

  “Look, sweetie,” Rose went on. “I’ve been trying to think of some way to help you get over Max.”

  “Gran, that’s really kind of you, but I don’t need any help. Honest.”

  “I hate the idea of you sitting and moping. You know I heard Warren, the nice town planner chap, has finished with that model he was seeing. She ditched him for some actor. Maybe you should give him a call. Or, better still, I could.”

  Rebecca let out a yelp of panic. “No! No, Gran. Please. Promise you won’t do that.”

  “But you need cheering up.”

  “I’m cheered. Really, I’m perfectly cheered. Never felt cheerier.”

  “But you need to get out and meet new people.”

  “I am. I’m out all the time. I’m never in. Try me any night on my home phone. You’ll never catch me. That’s because I’m out being extremely cheery with men. Lots of men. Hundreds of them. All the time.”

  “Well, if you’re sure you’re all right.”

  “I’m sure. Couldn’t be surer.”

  “OK, sweetheart. Love you. ’Bye.”

  “Yeah, love you too. ’Bye, Gran.”

  Rebecca threw back her head, put the phone down on the seat next to her and let out a loud sigh. Noticing a litter bin, she unwound the window, leaned out and lobbed in the banana. Then she searched the glove compartment and under the seats for her map book. Eventually she remembered Lipstick had it. She’d borrowed it when she drove to Manchester to see Stan.

  She’d been back on the road for less than a minute when she looked in her rearview mirror and noticed a dark Mercedes with blacked-out windows directly behind her. She vaguely wondered who might be in it and decided it was a toss-up between Iraqi secret agents and some naff D-list celeb. She thought no more about it until she’d been twice round the same roundabout, trying to decide which exit to take, and noticed it was still there. It struck her as a bit odd, but she assumed the driver must be lost too and carried on. When the car was still with her a mile down the road, she started to feel distinctly uneasy and it occurred to her that she was being followed. But it was ridiculous. Why would anybody want to follow her?

  After another few hundred yards, she noticed her petrol gauge was registering low. There was a garage up ahead. She decided to pull in and fill up. As she slowed down, the Mercedes slowed down behind her. When she indicated left, it did the same. By now she was feeling really scared. She pulled in. So did it. Suddenly she realized what was happening.

  “Omigod. It’s the Mer de Rêves people. They’ve already threatened Wendy; now they’re on to me.”

  Instead of stopping at one of the pumps, she sped through the forecourt. As she waited at the exit for a break in the traffic, the Mercedes was behind her. She put her foot down on the accelerator and pulled out into a woefully inadequate gap in the traffic. There was a screech of brakes and a bloke in a Mondeo started hooting and waving at her. Ignoring him, she pulled into the outside lane and kept her foot down. She looked in her mirror. Shit, the Merc was still on her tail. By now her heart was galloping and she was beginning to shake.

  “God. What do I do? They’re going to kill me.”

  As she swerved in and out of traffic, doing her best to lose the Mercedes, cars were hooting and flashing all over the place. No matter how fast she went, the Mercedes stayed with her, feet from her rear bumper. She decided she had two choices: she could drive on until her car ran out of petrol, after which she would no doubt be dragged from it and bundled into the Merc by a couple of sawed-off-shotgun-wielding hoodlums. They would drive her, gagged and blindfolded, to a breaker’s yard in Essex, where they would throw her into a car crusher and she would end up as a small cube. On the other hand, she could pull over now, sit with her hazards and horn going and phone the police on her mobile. She decided to pull over. Cutting off a Fiesta on the inside lane, she slowed the car onto the side of the road and began leaning on her horn. In her panic and confusion she couldn’t find the hazard light switch and ended up with her heated rear window and windscreen wipers going.

  She watched the Mercedes pull up and a guy get out—six foot six, black suit, dark glasses, gold hoops in both ears. Adrenaline surging through her, she ran her hand over the seat looking for her phone. Where the fuck was her phone? Where was it? The guy’s face was peering in through the window. Shit, she was dead. She was so dead. He motioned for her to unwind it. Yeah, right, like she was about to open the window so that he could blow off her face. He tapped on the glass.

  “Miss?”

  She ignored him and carried on honking.

  “Miss, please.”

  If he was a hired hit man, he was an exceedingly polite one. Another tap. She hesitated, then opened the window half an inch.

  “Wow, I thought I’d never catch you,” he said, smiling. “That was some driving back there.”

  She swallowed. Behind her, her hand was still scrabbling frantically over the passenger seat, looking for her phone.

  “Miss, is this what you’re looking for?”

  He held up her phone.

  She unwound the window fully.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I saw you at the rest area. I was standing a few feet away and saw you drop it into the litter bin by accident. Well, I assume it was an accident. I can’t imagine anybody throwing away a brand-new Ericsson T39 with built-in organizer and Internet access.”

  She turned and saw the manky banana lying on the seat in a brown speckled smile.

  A few hours later, she was sitting in a bar in Soho telling the story to Jess, Lipstick and Lipstick’s cousin Donal from Ireland.

  “Anyway, after I’d apologized to the driver and explained how I’d got so cross with my gran that subconsciously I’d probably chucked the phone away on purpose, we got chatting and it turns out he works for a posh limo company and he’s got some celebs in the back of the car.”

  “God,” Jess said. “So, you’re thinking is it Madonna and Guy? Michael and Catherine?”

  “Eddie,” Lipstick piped up.

  “Eddie?” the rest of them said as one.

  “You know, the dog. From Frasier.”

  “So, come on,” Donal said when everybody had stopped laughing. “Who was it?”

  Rebecca giggled. “Four of the children from The Sound of Music,” she said.

  They all laughed, apart from Lipstick, who sat looking offended. Rebecca had forgotten it was one of her favorite films and that she’d been four times to Singalong—Sound of Music.

  “How can you not like it?” she said. “It’s got everything—love, adventure, politics, comedy, music …”

  “… all those ridiculous song lyrics,” Donal said.

  A second later he and Jess had linked arms and were singing “adieu, adieu to yieu and yieu and yieu” at the tops of their lungs.

  Looking defeated, Lipstick got up to buy another round of drinks. Jess went with her to help her carry the glasses.

  “So, Donal,” Rebecca said, “whereabouts in Ireland are you from?” He was thirty-six, intelligent, witty, good-looking, she supposed. Not that she fancied him. She couldn’t work out why, but there was something distinctly asexual about him. She was sure he wasn’t
gay. Try as she might, she couldn’t work him out. In the end she’d put it down to his fringe—a complete turnoff as far as she was concerned in any male over the age of thirteen.

  He told her he lived in Skibbereen, a small town south of Cork.

  “And what do you do in Skibbereen?”

  “Well, actually, I’m …”

  But she wasn’t listening. Out of her peripheral vision, she’d seen Max coming down the stairs into the bar. Of course, she thought, they were in Soho. Max was viewing his film rushes all this week at Channel 6. The office was a couple of blocks down the road. He was probably meeting up with Bloody Lorna.

  Suddenly she could hear Jess’s words echoing in her head about having Max see her with another bloke. Talk about getting your own back. He was getting closer. He was going to spot her any moment now.

  She looked at Donal and cleared her throat. “Er, Donal, look, I know we hardly know each other, but do you think you could do me a huge favor?”

  “If I can.”

  “OK—would you please kiss me?”

  “Kiss you?” He looked distinctly uneasy. “Why?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, it’s not really something I feel very comfor—”

  But before he had a chance to finish, she’d clamped her hand onto the back of his neck and was pulling his head toward hers. A moment later they had locked lips. She could feel his entire body going rigid. Then he started to struggle. By now, both her arms were round his neck. When she finally let him go, his face was crimson and he was gasping for breath. She glanced up to see Max retreating toward the stairs.

  “Yesss,” she muttered to herself. “Yesss.”

  Just then Jess and Lipstick appeared with the drinks.

  “OK,” Jess said, “the Jack Daniel’s is for Becks.”

  She leaned across the table, toward Donal. “And the Grolsch is for you, Father.”

  The next morning, Rebecca was still cringing with embarrassment. “But I don’t understand,” she said to Lipstick, who was sitting at the kitchen table with Harrison on her lap, feeding him lightly poached egg off a teaspoon. “How could you forget to tell me he was a priest?”

  “I’m sorry. I just did, that’s all. Anyway, once you’d explained why you’d snogged him, he didn’t seem to mind. Between you and me I think he secretly enjoyed it. I bet he went to bed last night and broke a fairly major vow.”

  She cackled and turned back to Harrison. “Come on, baby,” she said. “One more bit of eggy for Mummy. It’ll bind you up. I’m afraid Hawwie’s got a bit of a runny tum this morning. But he was a good boy. He did it all in his tray, didn’t you, baby?”

  Rebecca grimaced and pushed away her bowl of Weetabix.

  “So,” Lipstick said, “how does it feel, getting your own back on Max?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “Great for a bit. Now I feel pretty rubbish, to tell you the truth.”

  “That’s because you still love him. Even though he hurt you, you can’t bear the thought of hurting him back.”

  “He deserved it, though. After the way he behaved.”

  “Maybe he did, but in my experience tit for tat behavior never makes you feel better. Best to let go. Isn’t that right, Hawwie? Isn’t it best just to let it go?” She picked up Harrison’s Burberry mac from the table and started pushing his paws into it. “Right, we’ve got a vet’s appointment in fifteen minutes. I’ll take Hawwie into the salon today to keep an eye on him.”

  Rebecca had just gotten out of the bath when the phone rang. It was the chap from the lab.

  “I have run this test over and over and I have to say, it’s a very odd result. Basically, it’s a standard skin preparation. They’re all pretty much the same and none, if I may tell you, as effective as Vaseline. But this cream does contain an unusual ingredient: Kenbarbitol Cyclamate.”

  “What’s that? It sounds like something that reduces you to a nine-inch-high plastic figure with a miniature moped.”

  “Hmm, yes, well, I know this is going to sound a bit James Bond, but believe it or not it’s a very powerful truth drug. It was invented by the Germans during the war. They used to inject it into suspected spies. People squealed almost immediately, apparently. Afterward psychiatrists used it for years to help patients lose their inhibitions and open up about their problems, but it disappeared in the sixties when drug therapies went out of fashion.”

  Of course, it made perfect sense. Lucretia confessing all her sexual fantasies, the Harrods customer telling Lady Axminster she’d slept with her husband, the woman in the restaurant in Paris telling her friend how much she hated her and that her husband was gay. It wasn’t that Revivessence simply sent people loopy—it was a truth drug.

  “But why put it in a face cream?”

  “I had the same thought, so I dug out some of the literature. Apparently it has a fairly major side effect. It plumps up aging skin and fills out wrinkles. Nobody knows how it works, but somehow it boosts the body’s ability to produce collagen.”

  “So is it dangerous?” She was especially worried about Lucretia.

  “Not in the short term and with the relatively small amounts being used. I’m also pretty sure that the truth-telling effect isn’t permanent. The likelihood is, it wears off an hour or so after using the cream. But there’s no way of knowing what the long-term effects might be. I’d hate to think what could happen if this stuff were ever sold over the counter.”

  She put down the phone.

  “Yesss! Oh, yesss!” She punched the air and did a little dance round the living room in her bath towel. At last something in her life was going right. She’d pulled it off—her first major investigative story. Pretty soon job offers would be flooding and she’d be able to kiss the makeup column good-bye. All she needed to do now was to phone Charlie, who was in Nigeria. A peace deal was about to be signed by two warring African states and Charlie, who had a special interest in African affairs from his days as a correspondent in South Africa, had insisted on covering the story himself rather than sending a reporter.

  She would tell Charlie about her sensational truth drug discovery and find out how he saw the story being written. She looked at her watch. They were only an hour ahead in Lagos. If she was lucky she might catch him before he left his hotel for the day.

  He picked up almost immediately.

  “Sorry, Rebecca, can’t talk for long. All hell’s broken out here.”

  He explained that he’d just gotten back from an all-night sitting of the peace conference. Apparently the parties were on the point of reaching a peace settlement, when Madame N’Femkwe, the wife of T’chala N’Femkwe, one of the warring leaders, burst into the compound occupied by the rival delegation screaming that the wife of the enemy leader was a bitch whore daughter of Satan who couldn’t grind cassava to save her life and, more to the point, was having a passionate affair with T’chala’s brother.

  “Oh, my God,” Rebecca gasped, her mind shooting back to Paris and Coco Dubonnet’s conversation with Madame N’Femkwe. “She uses Revivessence. Madame N’Femkwe uses Revivessence. Coco sent her a freebie sample.”

  “Fascinating cosmetic detail, Rebecca,” Charlie said dismissively, “but the point is the peace agreement here’s in absolute tatters. I tell you we could be looking at a major African conflict unless Bush or Blair steps in a bit sharpish with some fancy diplomatic footwork.”

  “Charlie, Charlie, you don’t understand. This is relevant. I know why this has happened. The Mer de Rêves cream contains …”

  But the line was beginning to crack up.

  “Charlie, can you hear me?”

  Nothing. She tried ringing back, but the line seemed to be down.

  “Fuck!”

  She started pacing. What did she do now? A story that had begun as a fairly straightforward investigation had suddenly acquired ridiculous significance, and with her bizarrely at the epicenter. The whole of Africa was about to descend into war and she alone knew what ha
d caused it and had the power to stop it. She, Rebecca Fine, makeup columnist, held the future of the African peace deal in her hands. The news had been full of stuff about how, unless the deal was signed, oil prices were going to skyrocket and the economy would be plunged into recession.

  It was up to her to find a way of convincing the African heads of state that Madame N’Femkwe had only behaved the way she did because of the truth drug.

  Sod the bloody Press Awards, she thought to herself. If she pulled this off, we could be talking Nobel Peace prize here. Her face formed a smug smile. Bloody Lorna would be so jealous she’d eat her own head.

  In the end it didn’t take her long to work out her next move. Mad, who’d painted Woman Wanking, had a friend, Ruby, who was the editor of Anne-Marie, a fashionable women’s magazine with intellectual pretensions to a social conscience. And Ruby was huge mates with the Blairs. She and Cherie had done a nanny share years ago, when the Blairs lived in Islington. She picked up the phone.

  “Mad, listen. Can you phone your mate Ruby and get me an urgent five-minute appointment with the prime minister?”

  18

  Mad said she was happy to phone Ruby, but felt she needed to be able to tell her why Rebecca wanted to speak to the prime minister.

  “OK, but this is top, top secret, right? Apart from Ruby, you cannot tell another living soul.”

  Mad agreed.

  When Rebecca got to the end of explaining that the entire African peace deal had been scuppered, not because Madame N’Femkwe was an evil warmonger, but because there was a truth drug in her antiwrinkle cream, Mad burst out laughing.

  “A truth drug in her antiwrinkle cream. Oh, come on.”

  “Look, I know it sounds a bit unlikely.”

  “You think?”

  “No, really. It’s true. You have to believe me. I’ve even had it analyzed.”

  It took some time, but somehow Rebecca convinced her to phone Ruby. Five minutes later, she was back on the phone.

  “Sorry,” Mad said, “Ruby’s reaction was much the same as mine. But she did say her magazine was doing a feature on women who suffer from poisoning fantasies, and were you up to being interviewed?”