The Vanity Game

by H. J. Hampson

  They make me pretend I'm cooking something in the kitchen while she perches on a stool at the breakfast island, and then we change clothes before a few shots in the lounge and then again for some outside shots.

  The scruffy twat has to go and get a huge lamp out of their van to fake the sunshine as we shiver under the overcast sky. It looks like it's going to piss it down. I wish it would.

  "Cuddle her," the Margot bitch coos at me. I blanch with revulsion but do as she asks. I feel her body tense as I close my arms around her, me standing behind her, my face above hers. My crotch is pressing against her arse as the camera snaps and I'm overcome by the urge to rip her dress off and fuck her violently here on the patio. That would teach the bitch, maybe after they've gone I will, or even now. What would they do if I did? What a big Chic! exclusive that would be. That thought helps me shut out the rest of the traumatic photo-shoot. Then we're just left with the bland old Cathy who sits down with us in the lounge to do the interview.

  "So tell me Krystal, how did Beaumont propose to you?" Cathy asks, leaning over and shrugging her shoulders with excitement at the lucrative info that's about to be revealed to her.

  Yeah, how did I propose Denise? On bended knee? Did I shove that gorgeous ring in your face?

  "Oh," she gasps, clasping her hands together – so fucking fake – "it was amazing. Well as you know we'd had a bit of, er, trouble, recently."

  She turns to me and gives me this look as if to say 'naughty boy', I smile back through gritted teeth.

  "But Beaumont was cutting himself up inside. He cried a lot."

  Crying? Great, the lads will love that. I try to say something but she starts up again.

  "Crying and begging me to forgive him. I came home one day, went upstairs and there it was – written on the bed in rose petals: 'will you marry me?' He's such a romantic at heart."

  I cringe silently. Great, she's making out I'm some wet poof and there's nothing I can do to stop her. Bland old Cathy is loving it. She scribbles madly into her note-book.

  "And do you think married life will change you?"

  She's straight in there again: "Well hopefully Beaumont will give up Stinky-choo the bear."

  "What?" I say, making Cathy laugh nervously.

  "Oh come on darling," the bitch says, ruffling my hair, I push her hand away, "You, know, Stinky-choo, the teddy bear you can't sleep without."

  She turns to Cathy, "He's had it since he was a baby and can't be parted from

  it, it's so cute. That's Stinky-choo –S T I N K…"

  And so it goes on, the bitch has it all worked out. She tells that cunning cow from the magazine that I wax my chest, cry at Disney films (Okay so I cried at Dumbo but how the fuck would she know that?), and that I'm obsessed with George Michael (again, this is obviously true, but I'm a little embarrassed about it appearing in the press), and I just sit there, watching with horror as ugly old Cathy scribbles it down in all its fucking glory. There's nothing I can do. If I kicked off it would look way too suspicious so I just sit there, shaking with rage and humiliation.

  FORTY-TWO

  "What the hell were you doing?" I scream at her when the evil bastards have left. I have to stop myself going for her throat. "You humiliated me, you total bitch!"

  She just stands there, gloating. God, I want to kill her. I want to wring her neck, listen to her choke to death. I don't care about prison.

  "Yeah well," she says slowly, looking me dead in the eye, "it's only what you deserve."

  "What? What have I done to you?" I say, slightly freaked out by her.

  Does she know something about Krystal?

  She smiles again. She obviously knows something, but hell, she doesn't know I've got a little deal going with the coppers. I wish I could tell her that, wipe the smile off her face, but I can't.

  "You've done a lot of bad things, Beaumont."

  She's staring straight ahead, right through me, like a total psychopath.

  "Oh yeah, and what would you know?" I say, trying to sound as calm as I can about it.

  Suddenly the smile drops off her face.

  "You killed my best friend," she says, still looking beyond me, staring at the wall.

  Best friend? Who the hell is she? A psycho school friend of Krystal? What the fuck is she on about?

  "Not your ex-girlfriend, if that's what you're thinking."

  "What?" I whisper.

  There's no-one else, unless Dean was a fucking bird too.

  "My friend, Monica."

  She looks back into my face, her blue eyes watery, like she's going to cry.

  "Monica? Who the hell is Monica? You're crazy," I shout, I'm starting to get nervous. This bitch is unhinged, no lie.

  "You probably knew her as Monique."

  Monique? Monique…Monique, the waitress I –

  "Well I say knew … you met her at the Clyde D Vine party. We were working there, as waitresses. You wanted her… and you took her, didn't you? You just grabbed her like a rag doll and raped her," she says, her voice breaking as she tries to stop herself from crying.

  Oh fuck. I see it now – clean and huge and sharp as a movie screen: that party at The Clancy, Monique laughing with that other waitress, the one who looked like Krystal... That other waitress was Denise.

  "Denise, I didn't kill her."

  "No? She couldn't cope with it. She felt dirty, like nothing. She had to go for counselling but it didn't help 'cause she was too scared to tell anyone but me what had happened – who had done that to her. She didn't even go with men any more, not since – we were in love!"

  She's clenching her fists now, and has this crazy, psycho look in her eyes.

  "We were sharing a flat. I got in from work one day and found her, hanging from the shower-rail. You understand? Hanging with a noose made out of a ripped sheet round her neck. My beautiful Monica."

  I think I'm going to throw up. No, this can't be true, she can't have killed herself over that … what I'd done … it was just … sex.

  "She left a note. Oh, don't think it was just you. Mon had a few problems before you, but you summed up everything that she hated in the world, everything that she couldn't deal with. Like men – do you know what it's like doing what we did? Being dressed up like little dolls, little playthings, just for the men. And you were the worst man. She said she couldn't live with herself and she couldn't escape you. You were everywhere she went, on TV, in the papers, on adverts at bus stops."

  "I did regret it. A lot." I say quietly, now my voice won't come out as anything but a croak as well.

  "But you did fuck all about it."

  "I…"

  "She said you threw money down, afterwards, like she was some whore. You made my girl feel like a whore." She's screaming now, right in my face.

  "I'm sorry… I didn't mean to. I had no idea… I was fucked on coke... I, I thought she wanted it," I lie, and instantly regret it.

  She steps back and scowls at me. I can feel water welling in my eyes but I don't know if crying would have a good or bad effect on her.

  She shakes her head.

  "She would never, ever have touched a vain, arrogant bastard like you."

  This is a bad situation. Here I am with the crazy lesbian lover of a girl I raped and whose suicide I now find I'm kind of responsible for, the crazy lesbian lover herself a reincarnation of the girlfriend I've murdered. God, Kobe's God, will be sending me straight to hell, guaranteed.

  "If I could go back in time, I wouldn't have done it, but I can't. This isn't going to help you though Denise. These people you're involved with, The Substitutors, they're dangerous people. They're just using you."

  "Yeah? Well as long as I can make your life as miserable as possible in the meantime I don't give a shit. My God, you don't know how happy I was when they came to me. I thought the guy was some jerk, just hitting on me, telling me how much I looked like that slut you killed, but then he made me an offer. How could I refuse?" She's looking vacantly at the wall again.

>   Silence, as I try to understand what the hell is going on.

  And then she makes this weird rasping noise and flings her head forward. Something warm and moist hits my face … her spit.

  "You bitch…"

  "I wish you'd go and top yourself too," she screams as she backs away from me and I wipe the vile substance from my cheek.

  "Yeah last night I nearly did," I cry after her, but she ignores me, as she runs out of the room and up the stairs.

  I go to the kitchen and rub anti-bacterial hand wash over my face. It will probably bring me out in a rash but it's better than catching something off her. Despite this and splash after splash of water it still feels as if thousands of germs are swarming over me. 'Mon had a few problems before' …Yeah, I bet she had, so many she thought she was a fucking dyke. Like fuck was it me that drove her to it.

  No, if she'd been that upset she could have gone to the papers, or the police. But a quiet voice is also whispering things that make me wish I had died last night. That night at Clyde D Vine's party … was that the start of it all? Seems like all the shit that's happened since can play itself out backwards, it all links up, and the chain is getting stronger and tighter as it goes along.

  I can't see any way of breaking it now. The only way of getting rid of her would be to kill her, but then they'll just send in another clone. They – who are they? And when are they going to make themselves known?

  I go and lock myself in the games room and try to play for a while on the latest Manhunt game, but I'm disgusted and bored by the pointless violence. When I finally go upstairs it's a relief to see that the lights are all off in her wing.

  As I'm lying in bed I wonder what else she might try to do. Now that she's managed to completely humiliate me, maybe she'll leave me be for a while. Soon she'll get sucked in anyway by the glamorous dresses, the parties and modelling contracts, and then let's see how quickly she forgets about her poor Monique….

  …I wake up in a cold sweat. It's sometime in the middle of the night. The vision of the gently swinging, limp body remains, so real it could be in front of me, as I sit up in the bed, listening to my own heavy breathing. I flick on the lamp, just to check it's not there in the darkness, take a sip of water and try to talk myself down from the nightmare. I am in my own bed, there is no corpse in the room hanging from the rafters, there are no corpses in the kitchen, there is no evil teddy bear called Stinky-choo on the rampage. If only Stella was here, some company right now would be nice, no lie. Being alone is the worst thing.

  I climb out of bed, shivering in just my boxer shorts and, using my mobile as a light, peer under it. I can just make out the box in the dark shadows so I reach under and pull it towards me. Bobby the Bear is trapped under my Under 14s London and the Home Countries Championship Cup, but the sight of my favourite childhood toy in his retro England kit makes me feel happy and sad at the same time. I pull the bear out of the box and hold him close to my nose. The scent of home, my old bedroom, flushes away the horrible images of my nightmares. I climb back into bed, holding the bear close to me. It's weird how much he comforts me and makes me feel less alone, and I hope the smell will take my dreams back to happier places.

  FORTY-THREE

  Leaked quotes from the interview are all over the tabloids.

  'Beaumont's bear necessity' or 'Meet Beaumont's new squeeze'. Their sense of humour cracks me up. Not.

  She's sat in the kitchen when I go to make breakfast, flicking through the papers with this superior look on her face. I ignore her.

  There's a few more scumbags outside the gates today. One of the fuckers has even brought a huge, blue teddy bear and waves it in front of me as I steer the car out of the gates. Hilarious.

  The lads are merciless at training, as I expected they would be. Even quiet little Kobe can't hold back a guilty smile when Dobson's really going for it in the dressing room. 'Stinky-choo, Stinky-choo, Beaumont loves you' he sings in a childish voice as the others double up with laughter. I could have punched them all; there used to be a time when no-one would have dared laugh at me, especially with that twat Dobson leading the charge. Even Di Cotto makes some catty, sarcastic comment. Bunch of fucking comedians the lot of them.

  So, I'm feeling pretty pissed off as I drive to the deserted industrial estate where Dante has told me to meet him. It's near the river, not too far from where we laid Krystal to rest and dumped Dean and I'm sitting here with the engine still running and I wonder if he knows this. Fuck, maybe this is a trap? What if ... what if...

  A knock on the window of the passenger side. The beer belly and the cheap shirt... Dante. He opens the door and gets in the passenger seat without waiting for me to ask him to.

  He stinks of fried food, of chip shops.

  "Should keep it locked. First rule of undercover work is never assume meets are safe," he says, tutting.

  I sigh.

  "Well..." he starts to say, then makes some joke about the fucking Chic! interview.

  Obviously he thinks the papers are pretty fucking funny as well. But I can't bring myself to tell him the truth about the whole Monique thing.

  "Yeah, she's the friend of a girl I was seeing for a while. It was nothing and over in couple of weeks, but the chick had problems and didn't take it well when I finished it."

  "Oh aye…"

  "She ended up topping herself. I mean she had a load of other problems too, but this Denise bitch blames me. That's why she's here."

  "I see, I see," he says.

  He shifts in his seat and starts digging around in his pockets. He finally pulls out a packet of Polos and I watch as his fat fingers peel back the tin foil.

  He offers me one, but I refuse.

  "Listen, I don't care why she's there, what I care about is who put her there. We need to get to the people running this thing, okay? Has she said anything about that?"

  The jerk that she thought was hitting on her. I tell Dante what she said.

  "And you didn't ask where she met this guy?"

  Erm, she was kind of screaming in my face at that point so...

  "No," I say. Dante tuts again and shakes his head.

  "Well, humour her, be nice, try and get her talking about that again."

  Humour her… I'm like a rat in a cage, just waiting for their next little experiment.

  "Is it just me? Am I the only lead you've got?" I can't help but lose it a bit. Dante looks directly at me and is going to say something but his phone beeps. He swears and, again with some effort, pulls it out of his pocket.

  He bites his lip as he reads the message. "Look, sorry, I've got to go. But no, Beaumont, you're not the only lead."

  He nods at me and then is getting out of the car, slamming the door shut and walking away. I watch him through the wing mirror as he gets into a black car that's parked up behind me and drives off, going to wherever he is needed. It must be nice to be needed.

  Back at the house I can't motivate myself to do anything. I'm dreading her coming back. The rest of the day stretches out in front of me, empty. There's the gym downstairs where I could beat out my nervous energy on the punch bag, but then the physio had advised against doing too much exercise at home. Or there's my computer games but I'm bored with them all. And the electric guitar Stella bought me for my birthday just seems way too complicated for my brain to handle right now. I sit down on the sofa feeling proper pissed off and glance at my phone in case anyone has called or texted me and I've not heard it. I'll admit that basically I want them to call me, to give me some clue about the next stage of the game. But no, nothing. I chuck my phone down in disgust.

  Stella … what's she doing now? I wonder as I let my head fall back and close my eyes. She must have met up with her mum by now. I wonder how they are getting on. In a few days' time she'll call me – all being well – that'll be some relief at least. It'll be nice to hear her voice again. Fuck, and when she left I could hardly be bothered to say goodbye. What's wrong with me? Or am I not really missing her at all, but re
ally missing Krystal? Fucking hell, at any rate I should have gone with Stella to Australia.

  But I was too selfish, thinking it would be good to be free and single for a while. And I'd thought I could out-play them. Now I feel so lonely, and I've walked right into their trap. What a complete headfuck.

  I get up and pour myself a whisky, sipping it and enjoying the way the sweet, antiseptic liquid numbs my mouth. I flick on the TV and surf the channels but there's jack-shit on, just news, or cookery programs or cartoons. I scroll through to the porn channels where girls in tight clothing and too much make-up writhe suggestively above phone numbers. I contemplate getting a porno on pay-per-view. It'd be all right that, guaranteed, to be sat here watching some bongo with my cock out when she walks in. Give the dyke a glimpse of the offending cock that murdered her lover. It seems like the most constructive thing I can do so I check out the titles. Nothing on the list appeals – two I've seen before and they're pretty lame and the others just sound like crap too, vanilla soft stuff. It's too early for the decent, harder stuff, I guess. There's no point going into it with a bored frame of mind anyway. And at the thought of sex, I think of Monique, her hanging body.

  Shit, it's like it's become some kind of sexual mental block, what if it's permanent? What if I can never get a hard-on again? What if that bitch has made me impotent? That's a terrifying thought and I start to freak out, but at least it gives me some kind of direction. I realise what I need to do is get out of here. I'll grab some food and then call round a few people – see if anyone's up for going out, maybe scoring a bit of coke and hunting down some pussy. That'll exorcise a few of these demons, guaranteed.