The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp

by Sarra Manning

  ‘It’s fine. I’m fine,’ Rawdon said, though his cuts and bruises stung like a bitch and he was pretty sure that he’d broken a couple of fingers. ‘Thanks for bailing me out.’

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ Jane assured him, her plump, homely features creased with concern. ‘You know, it was actually quite exciting, like being in a film or something.’ She pulled an apologetic face. ‘Sorry, probably not quite so exciting for you.’

  ‘I’ve had worse nights,’ Rawdon said, though he hadn’t, not even when he’d been roughed up by those gangsters in Saint-Denis. At least that time, Becky had rescued him, but then, she’d given him fair warning that she wouldn’t do it again.

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ Jane asked as the taxi driver obligingly did another circuit of Trafalgar Square. ‘Our place in Chelsea or … let me take you home, back to Queen’s Crawley.’

  ‘Queen’s Crawley isn’t home,’ Rawdon said, blinking bloodshot eyes at his sister-in-law. ‘My home is meant to be with Becky …’

  ‘Rawdon, I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ Jane said. But, ignoring her advice, Rawdon leaned forward to slide back the glass panel.

  ‘Primrose Hill, please, mate.’

  Chapter 35

  It was just gone eleven when the taxi dropped him off in Gloucester Crescent, the full moon staring impassively down at Rawdon as he climbed the steps up to the house.

  Normally Firkin was at your side as soon as you walked in, ready to take jackets and bags and silently do your bidding, but there was no one there to greet Rawdon as he came through the door.

  The ground-floor rooms were empty but there was music coming from above and as he climbed the stairs, he could hear a man speaking, then Becky laughing. The rippling cadence of her mirth seemed to have a mocking tone.

  There was no longer any cocaine in his bloodstream so Rawdon didn’t take the stairs two at a time. Didn’t send the door to Becky’s bedroom crashing back on its hinges. Didn’t shout and scream and swear, but just stood quietly taking in the scene afforded to him by the door left ajar.

  That filthy Steyne was lounging awkwardly on the bed, Becky’s bed, their marital bed – though there’d been precious little marital anything in it lately. Steyne wasn’t the lounging sort and it wasn’t the most flattering angle for an elderly man. His paunch, usually hidden in a well-cut suit, strained against his shirt and his trouser legs were hitched up, showing spindly legs and pale-blue socks that were a perfect colour match for the veins that snaked up his skin.

  The thought of Becky being touched by Steyne’s hands, paper-skinned and liver-spotted, kissing his thin lips, reaching past the paunch to undo his trousers, didn’t make Rawdon hard. It made him want to throw up a mouthful of bile. Made him want to punch someone or something.

  ‘You really are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Mrs Crawley,’ Steyne said, rubbing his hands together delightedly. ‘And I’ve had two Miss Worlds, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you say that to all the girls,’ trilled Rawdon’s wife from her en suite bathroom, and then she was there in the doorway. They’d obviously just got in from one of the dull parties that Becky loved to go to, for she was wearing a little black dress, emphasis on the little, and she was glowing, sparkling, from the jewels around her wrists, neck, in her ears, even threaded through her hair. ‘But you’re not going to have me, are you?’

  ‘Nothing, and I mean nothing would delight me more,’ Steyne wheezed, his wrinkled hands clawing in anticipation.

  ‘You misunderstood me. I said that you’re not going to have me.’ Becky ran a hand down her delectable body lovingly showcased in black silk. ‘You can look but that’s all you’re ever going to do.’

  ‘Mrs Crawley, you never fail to amuse me, but let’s get down to business, shall we? It’s time for you to pay the piper, sweetheart.’ Steyne was still smiling but it was the kind of smile that the wolf gave to the lamb before it ripped the lamb’s head off.

  ‘What exactly am I meant to be paying the piper for?’ Becky didn’t flinch, her own smile didn’t falter, and as much as he hated the sight of her, Rawdon had to admire her sheer audacity.

  ‘Services rendered,’ Steyne reminded her tightly.

  ‘I thought those services were freely given.’

  ‘Really? I never took you for a fool, Mrs Crawley. Seems I was wrong.’ Steyne tutted and shook his head. ‘Let me spell it out. You owe me and so I own you. I can do whatever I like with you. And what I’d like to do and what I shall do is fuck you.’

  ‘I thought we were friends, Tom,’ Becky said reproachfully. ‘You’re not being very friendly. All this talk of owning me. Nobody owns me.’

  ‘Beg to differ. I own you, I all but created you, and I could destroy you with just a couple of phone calls.’ He smiled again, showing yellowed teeth. ‘Did you really think that I was going to let you have everything you wanted without taking something for myself?’

  Rawdon couldn’t bear it any longer. He shouldered open the door. ‘My wife isn’t yours for the taking, you disgusting old goat!’

  Becky’s mouth fell open so that in that second she looked almost ugly. ‘Oh God, Rawdy, what the fuck are you doing here?’ she gasped, irritation flashing across her face.

  ‘Well, this is awkward,’ Steyne said, struggling to sit up straight from his reclined position.

  He wasn’t even embarrassed, though Becky had the good grace to cringe where she stood, arms wrapped tightly around her now. ‘Shut up,’ she hissed at Steyne. ‘You’re making things worse.’

  ‘Things are already worse,’ Rawdon rasped in a rusty voice like he’d swallowed a bucketful of metal shavings. ‘How could you?’

  ‘How could I what? What exactly am I meant to have done?’ Becky asked, suddenly cool again with her hands on her hips.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ Rawdon said dully, because in the face of her irritation and Steyne’s amusement, he wasn’t angry any more. Instead it was as if he was the one that was intruding, though he had every right to be there. But this … this battle of wills he’d just witnessed – an irresistible force meeting an immovable object – wasn’t at all what he’d expected to find when he’d climbed the stairs. ‘Wait, so you’re really not sleeping with him?’

  ‘No! Not everything is about sex.’ She had the nerve to roll her eyes.

  ‘But it’s the only currency you have,’ Steyne reminded her silkily. ‘I certainly haven’t stuck around this long because of your conversational skills. Not that they aren’t delightful.’

  ‘Do you swear that you haven’t slept with him?’ Rawdon asked again. ‘Not even once?’ He realised his mistake as soon as the words left his mouth and hung in the air with nowhere to go. Becky hated to be doubted and to repeat the question made her visibly furious: she strode towards him so that they were nose to nose.

  ‘I don’t mind you hating me for the things I have done, but I won’t have you hating me for the things I haven’t done.’ She stared Rawdon down, so he didn’t even dare to blink. ‘I’m sick to the back teeth of people underestimating me, thinking I’m that predictable.’ She flicked an insolent glance towards Steyne, paused and then lifted her chin. ‘And you might think I’m a whore but you’re the one who has to pay for sex, so what does that make you?’

  Steyne sucked a breath in. ‘You treacherous little bitch. You were nothing, a nobody, before you met me. Just another social media wannabe with no talent, no substance. And by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be less than nothing.’

  Becky’s eyes flashed in a way that Rawdon knew only too well, because it always led to his downfall. ‘Maybe I’ve already taken out some insurance on you,’ she suggested. ‘Maybe I have the means to destroy you.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You’re clever, I’ll give you that, but you’re also a whore and every whore has their price …’

  She fluttered a hand, swatting Steyne’s words away. ‘I certainly won’t be your whore. I didn’t mind people thinking tha
t we were sleeping together because where’s the harm? But no, you couldn’t be happy with that. I don’t even care that you just tried to blackmail me into bed; I’ve been expecting it for weeks. But how dare you try to take all the credit for who I am, what I’ve become, when it was my own bloody hard work and sacrifice that got me here?’

  Steyne was rendered speechless. His mouth opened, spittle clinging to the edge of his dry, thin lips, but no words came out. Becky turned away from him to set her husband back in her sights. ‘Anyway, Rawdy, what gives you the right to charge in here acting like the wronged husband. I’ve done nothing, I’m innocent—’

  ‘Innocent?’ Steyne finally exclaimed, hoisting himself to his feet. ‘You’re about as innocent as your slut of a mother and the conman she claimed was your father.’ His face was almost purple with rage, eyes bulging, a vein pulsing at his temple. ‘And you, boy?’ He turned to Rawdon. ‘You were quite happy to pimp out your wife, weren’t you, for the sake of your career, but believe me, she wasn’t worth the bother.’ He tried to snap rheumatic fingers at Becky, who shook her head in denial, her mouth a thin, tight line. ‘I will have my pound of flesh, Mrs Crawley. I didn’t give you all those diamonds you wear so prettily out of the goodness of my heart. You might have acquired expensive tastes but you’re still a common little tart who likely only exists because your mother would forgo a johnny for an extra fiver.’

  ‘You impotent old bastard! You’ve got absolutely nothing on me.’ Becky pointed an imperious finger in the direction of the exit. ‘Get out!’

  ‘Gladly, my dear.’ Steyne picked up his jacket, the panama hat he wore in summer in the city, and walked casually towards the door where Rawdon was still motionless. ‘Out of my way, boy,’ he purred, utterly at ease, confident that the man he’d tried to cuckold would step aside.

  But Rawdon sprang to life, seizing the other man by his collar, until Steyne writhed under his arm, forcing him towards to the floor.

  ‘For God’s sake Rawdy, don’t kill him, you idiot! Aren’t you in enough trouble?’ Becky screamed, and suddenly she was on Rawdon’s back, pulling him away from the choking Steyne with a strength that Rawdon wouldn’t have believed possible. But it was still easy enough to fling her away.

  ‘Take them off! Take off every last thing he gave you!’ Rawdon demanded. Becky sighed and shook her head as if he was being ridiculous, tiresome, but when Rawdon took a step towards her she began to remove Steyne’s sordid gifts until all that was left was the pear-drop diamond round her neck. She struggled with the clasp until Rawdon wrenched it free himself so he could fling the necklace at the prostrate Steyne, striking him on his bald forehead and cutting the skin, a scar he’d carry to his dying day. ‘What else? What else did he give you?’

  ‘God, Rawdy, don’t kill me,’ Becky said with a spluttery little laugh as if it were possible to turn his heartbreak, her betrayal, into a joke. But her hands were shaking as she tried to touch Rawdon’s face, press a gentle finger to the cut above his left eyebrow. ‘What a mess they’ve made of you.’

  He tore himself out of her grip. ‘You’ve done this,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You’ve made a mess of me, of our marriage …’

  She stepped back again, cold once more, folding her arms. ‘Actually, Rawdon, I think you’ll find that you did that all by yourself.’

  From behind them, Steyne gave a groan, but Rawdon ignored him and instead took hold of his wife, fingers gripping her upper arms hard enough to leave bruises so he could haul her close in a parody of a lover’s embrace. She’d betrayed him for the last time.

  ‘He’s right, you know, you were a nobody when I met you. I should have told Mattie to leave you to rot in Mudbury.’

  Becky stared Rawdon down, her face a perfect blank. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Though he now realised that in all the time they’d been acquainted, he’d never once understood what really went on in her head.

  ‘That’s not true, Rawdy, and it’s actually rather hurtful,’ she said calmly and she only squeaked when his grip on her arms tightened and he began to walk her backwards. ‘What are you doing?’

  He steered her across the room and threw her down on the pink chaise longue that had belonged to his aunt.

  ‘What else did he give you?’ he asked, not waiting for a reply but striding over to her dressing table and pulling out the drawers so he could rifle through the stack of velvet jewellery boxes. She’d accumulated quite a collection. ‘You’ll be telling me these are all fakes too? Out on loan, are they? Well, these prove you a liar, don’t they?’ He waved a handful of certificates of authentication that were in one of the drawers.

  There was a movement behind him and Rawdon turned in time to see Steyne limp out of the door. Once they’d heard his unsteady tread on the stairs, Becky clasped her hands together. ‘Who can blame me for taking advantage of his vanity? It doesn’t make me a whore; it makes me smart, and him a fool. Anyway, you weren’t exactly complaining when you got to benefit from the fact that Steyne had the hots for me.’

  ‘You might not have fucked him but you still sold yourself to the highest bidder,’ Rawdon said bitterly, holding up a huge stack of £20 notes. It didn’t even look like real money, more like a prop from one of his films. ‘About time people found out what you really are.’

  ‘You’re just being silly now, Rawdy.’ Becky stood up with as much ease and assurance as if she were wearing a suit, not a flimsy black dress that revealed more than it concealed. She walked over to where he was still going through her ill-gotten gains: a banker’s draft from Steyne made out for £50,000; the deeds to the house that Pitt had said he’d signed over to both of them, though only Becky’s name was on them; and come to think of it, some of that jewellery really did look like the glittery things he remembered his mother wearing.

  Rawdon rounded on her again, seizing hold of her. ‘Did you sleep with Pitt? My own brother?’

  ‘You’ve always been obsessed with the idea of other men fucking me, haven’t you?’ she asked with a smile. All it took was a shift of her hips and she was pressed against him. And just like that, Rawdon was hard and he hated himself for it. Then she pushed him away with the tips of her fingers. ‘No, I didn’t sleep with your brother. Or your father. Or any of the other men who thought they were using me when I was using them. If you’d looked after me like you promised you would, I wouldn’t have had to do any of this. So, really, when you think about it, Rawdy, this is your fault.’

  ‘What? No, it isn’t,’ he protested weakly, because he no longer had the courage of his convictions. She always managed to tie him up in knots of his own making. ‘I was fine before I met you. And we were fine when we first got married. But you always wanted more …’

  In his clenched fist was a flash drive. Becky uncurled each one of his fingers so she could take it from him.

  ‘What I wanted was a husband who didn’t do drugs, didn’t gamble, didn’t think only of himself,’ Becky said sadly. She shook her head. ‘No wonder I’ve had to hustle so hard. Without me, we’d have been destitute. I’ve been destitute before. Believe me, Rawdy, you wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘You’re twisting everything,’ Rawdon insisted and he knew he was right, but when Becky looked at him in confusion, again he wasn’t sure of anything. ‘Even if I hadn’t gone off the rails in Paris, even if a couple of my films hadn’t bombed, if we’d kept living the sweet life, it wouldn’t have been enough for you. You always want more. Christ, you’re insatiable.’

  ‘This is getting boring now, Rawdy.’ Becky drew herself up and pointed an imperious finger towards the door. ‘You have to leave.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything,’ Rawdon said and he reached for her, because his wife could be scary, she could be a regular bitch goddess, but she was still his wife and she wasn’t going to order him out of his own … her own …

  ‘I really don’t want to call the police, especially when I’m covered in bruises, and aren’t you out on bail? I mean, it is still a crim
inal offence for a man to beat his wife, isn’t it?’ Becky pondered, holding out her arms so Rawdon could see the patterns his bruising fingers had made on her pale skin.

  ‘You’re a bitch,’ he told her as he slunk towards the door.

  ‘Well, I suppose that makes a nice change from you calling me a whore,’ Becky decided with a sniff, and though it just about killed him, Rawdon had to let her have the last word, then left the house that would have been his if she hadn’t stolen it out from under him.

  He didn’t even have the money for a bus fare, let alone a taxi, so he walked across town to Pitt and Jane’s London residence, his father’s old house in Chelsea. Bought for a pittance with the money from Sir Pitt’s first lead role back in the seventies and now worth a king’s ransom.

  ‘You can stay here as long as you like, Rawdon,’ Pitt said awkwardly and held out his arms as if he wanted to hug his wayward younger brother, then dropped them. Rawdon could hardly bring himself to look at Pitt. Not just because of the liberties that Pitt might have taken with his wife. But because he hated to think that he was just as weak as his brother, had been just as blinded by Becky Sharp.

  ‘It’s only a short stay. I’m going to be arrested in the morning,’ Rawdon said as Jane gasped in dismay from behind Pitt. ‘Or maybe even later tonight. I assaulted Steyne, though what I really wanted to do was wring his fucking neck. And Becky …’

  ‘Rawdon, you didn’t,’ Jane said sadly and with a disappointed expression that – despite all the other indignities that had been heaped on poor Rawdon Crawley in the last forty-eight hours – made him fall to his knees and cry like a little boy.

  *