The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp. Sarra Manning

about is Dobbin and Gav the Chav. Any more men you want to taunt me with?’

      ‘Oh, no!’ Amelia put a hand to her heart at the very suggestion, her face as round and as red as an autumn apple. ‘I wasn’t taunting.’ She seized every last atom of courage she possessed. ‘I have missed you, George.’

      George sighed to himself. Hopefully, once she’d done with university and a few more unsuitable men like Gav, Amelia would toughen up a bit. She was a sweet girl but you got sick of sweet after a while; started to crave something tart, acidic …

      Amelia plucked at George’s sleeve again, her expression pleading. ‘Have you missed me too? Even a little bit?’

      George patted Amelia’s hand and gently removed it from his arm. ‘Of course I have,’ he said, but his smile wasn’t as warm as it had been and his eyes were fixed on a point across the terrace. ‘Come on. We should really go and rescue poor Jos before your friend Rebecca eats him alive.’

      ‘She’s not like that and her name’s Becky,’ Amelia insisted, but she didn’t protest too much because then George’s arm was around her waist (she sucked in her butterfly-filled stomach) and he was steering her over to where Becky was daring Jos to eat a mini doughnut, even though everyone knew perfectly well that he hadn’t eaten a carb in five years.

       Chapter 6

      While Amelia and Becky’s former housemates made the most of what time they had left to get paid for nightclub appearances and sponsored posts on Instagram, the odd appearance in the tabloids and a few kiss-and-tell-everything stories, the Sedleys had decided that enough was enough.

      Despite her desperate pleas, Rhoda, Amelia’s publicist, was dismissed because, while Big Brother had been an amusing diversion, Mrs Sedley was still being ostracised at the tennis club and Mr Sedley had had to fire one of his underlings at the bank when he discovered a picture of his darling Emmy in a bikini as the man’s screensaver.

      Amelia couldn’t hide her relief that she no longer had to stammer her way through any more exclusive interviews. Instead she could go back to her normal life of beauty treatments and shopping and coffee dates and lunch dates, all the while complaining that she’d hardly had a holiday this summer at all, what with being in Niger then in the Big Brother house, and having to go back to university in a few short weeks.

      Becky was less relieved. She’d been hoping that Rhoda might overlook the fact that she was already signed with Babs Pinkerton and find her some lucrative media opportunities. But now Rhoda wasn’t returning Becky’s calls and Becky’s position in the Sedley household was starting to feel quite precarious.

      Mrs Sedley had even asked via Mrs Blenkinsop, the housekeeper, what Becky’s plans were and just how much longer she intended to stay. But Becky had learned from Jemima Pinkerton that to be rude to the help was unforgivable, and Mrs Blenkinsop was not Mrs Sedley’s biggest fan anyway (she micro-managed Mrs Blenkinsop beyond all measure and insisted she use a solution of white-wine vinegar and baking soda to clean everything when Cillit Bang did the job much better). So she and Becky were already firm friends and when Mrs Blenkinsop said that Mrs Sedley wanted her gone, Becky had burst into pitiful, anguished tears.

      Mrs Blenkinsop had marched downstairs, shot Mrs Sedley (who, for all the micro-managing, was secretly more terrified of Mrs Blenkinsop than she was of any of the women at the tennis club) a black look and then taken out her fury on the Miele vacuum cleaner and Mrs Sedley’s new floors.

      Nothing more was asked about Becky’s future plans, but Becky knew that she needed a plan B, and fast. Once Amelia had resumed her studies at Durham University, it would leave Becky without a friend in all the world and with nothing in the way of an income – when she’d phoned Babs Pinkerton to ask for her cut from the sale of Jemima’s bungalow, Babs had just laughed and hung up. Becky was left with no choice but to make hay, and other things, while the sun still shone.

      So, while Amelia was still in bed, Becky spent her mornings in Kensington Gardens with Jos Sedley. He had been planning to go back to LA and his protein balls weeks before, but if he’d done that, then he wouldn’t have been able to devise a fitness programme for Becky.

      ‘But you’re perfect,’ he gasped when Becky had descended the stairs on that first morning in the Lululemon workout gear he’d bought for Amelia, which his sister couldn’t squeeze into. ‘You are fit. I mean, you don’t need to get fit.’

      ‘But I’m not firm. Everything wobbles. Look!’ Becky had done a shimmy, which had made everything wobble, including Jos. Becky had looked down at her chest and shimmied again. ‘Particularly these.’

      Jos had clung on to the banister for dear life. ‘I … I see what you mean.’

      ‘You naughty boy,’ Becky had purred in a low voice and Jos’s torture wasn’t over, because she turned around and stuck out her Lycra-encased bottom. ‘This jiggles too.’

      ‘Dear Lord …’

      ‘I bet the women in LA are firm,’ Becky had lamented, taking a step closer to Jos, who thought that he might be having a relapse back to his childhood asthma. ‘Taut. Supple.’

      She was face to face with Jos now, who swallowed convulsively – was he in heaven or hell or some heady combination of both?

      ‘Feel my thighs, Jos,’ Becky had commanded and she’d taken his hand and placed it just above her left knee. ‘They’re so fleshy. Can you do something about it?’

      ‘Water!’ Jos choked. ‘We need water!’ And he’d snatched his hand away and hobbled in the direction of the kitchen as if he was in great pain.

      He’d then devised a programme for her that involved a lot of squats and lunges while he stood behind her with a sports bag clutched to his groin. Then there were a lot of exercises that thrust her chest forward, by which time Jos was standing in front of her, and though she said that she should probably work on her triceps too, Jos said that it was best to concentrate on her glutes and her pectorals for now.

      Afterwards he’d help her stretch in a secluded spot.

      ‘I can’t help but groan when you’re manhandling me, Jos. Especially when you have my legs hooked over your shoulders. It burns but it’s the good kind of burn, do you know what I mean?’

      ‘No pain, no gain, eh?’ Jos would say every time. He’d grown a lot more comfortable in Becky’s presence, though after her stretches, he could often hardly talk on their walk back to the house.

      In the afternoons, Becky would spend time with Amelia and whichever combination of the M’s, usually Minty and Muffin, she’d made plans with. Usually they’d have a mani/pedi or a facial, maybe even a stress-busting massage at the fancy spa on Kensington Church Street where Amelia had an account.

      Then it was out in the evenings. To dinner, then to a bar or club with some more M’s and their dreary, chinless, floppy-haired boyfriends.

      ‘We should ask Jos to come,’ Becky would say each evening as she and Amelia were getting ready to go out. ‘It’s so lovely to see the two of you becoming closer. I wish I had an elder brother.’

      ‘And it’s lovely to see the two of you becoming closer as well,’ Amelia would sigh and she’d insist that Jos should come with them, and the upshot of it was that Jos hadn’t been to a Crossfit session in weeks and he could now say whole sentences to Becky without breaking into a sweat and his face changing colour.

      Amelia watched the courtship with barely concealed delight. Her Jos and her dear Becky, who might actually become a real sister.

      Mr and Mrs Sedley could conceal their delight only too well. ‘Why is that girl still living with us?’ Mrs Sedley asked after they’d waved off their offspring and the ubiquitous Becky to deepest, darkest Fulham to celebrate the birthday of one of the M’s’ floppy-haired beaux. ‘Do you see the way she cosies up to Jos? I’d have