The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp. Sarra Manning

since Obama became president but, Becky …’ Deep set within his roughly hewn face, Jos’s eyes were troubled.

      Becky placed her hand on his knee. ‘You can tell me anything,’ she whispered, leaning forward so that Jos could tell all his fears and worries to her breasts. ‘I would never judge you.’

      ‘Oh, Becky, I’m so lonely,’ he confessed. He’d never told this sad truth to anyone. ‘Also, and I … I know you might find this hard to believe, but … but … well, I’m shy. Very shy. Always have been.’

      Becky shook her head then turned her face away, then sighed, and the hand that was on Jos’s knee slid up a few centimetres, not enough to cause alarm or raise eyebrows, but Jos’s heart was thundering away as if he’d just done thirty minutes of high-impact cardio. ‘There is a way that you wouldn’t ever have to be lonely again,’ she said, leaning up to whisper in his ear so that her breasts almost brushed his chin and Jos had to close his eyes and practise mindful deep breathing. ‘And, a secret for a secret: I’m shy too. The whole reason I went on Big Brother was to build up my confidence.’ Her hand, almost of its own accord, moved up another inch or so. ‘It’s like we’re kindred spirits, isn’t it?’

      ‘Soulmates,’ Jos agreed and Becky’s face was still tilted up towards his own and he licked his lips nervously and … and … and …

      ‘For fuck’s sake!’

      ‘What the hell?’

      Their romantic moment was cut short by a sudden dousing of cold champagne from the bottle Dobbin had attempted to pour into Jos’s empty flute.

      ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Didn’t want to interrupt you, thought I’d be all stealthy like, but the bottle slipped.’

      ‘I’m soaked!’ Becky snapped, furious both at the interruption and that she’d been taken unawares and sworn, when nice, shy, orphaned young ladies didn’t go round dropping the f-bomb. ‘You should be more careful.’

      Dobbin actually dared to try and mop at her with a napkin held in his huge hands, then caught his cufflink on one of the crystals sewn on to Becky’s borrowed dress, which tore. Not enough to do much damage, to the dress at least, but enough that he apologised again, profusely, and Jos subsided back on his chair with a hopeless look, and the moment was ruined. Completely ruined.

      ‘Bad luck!’ said a silky voice and Becky looked up to see George Wylie standing over her, with a smug expression that made her curl her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms so hard that she’d still have little half-moon marks the next day.

      It was a lost cause after that. Jos drowned his sorrows not just with champagne but with whisky chasers, even though Dobbin warned him that he shouldn’t mix grape with grain.

      ‘I’ll drink what I bloody well like,’ he bellowed belligerently, swaying back from the bar with yet another round. Becky felt her heart sink, knowing only too well that how a man behaved when he was hammered revealed his true nature.

      ‘I’m going to find Emmy.’ She extricated herself from Jos’s clutches: he had also become very handsy, trying to touch what he wouldn’t dare go near when he was sober.

      By the time Becky returned with a predictably agitated Amelia in tow, a large crowd had gathered around Jos who’d attempted to run after Becky but had slipped in the spilt champagne and toppled over on to his back.

      He pitched one way then another like an upended turtle while the crowd of braying posh types roared their approval and held up their next-gen iPhones to record the moment for posterity.

      ‘Up you get, fatso!’ cried one young wag.

      ‘I’m not fat, I’m big boned and heavily muscled,’ Jos panted to even more hoots and jeers.

      ‘We have to help him,’ Amelia cried but Becky held her back. That was a sure way to end up in a video that could well go viral by the next morning.

      ‘We can’t manage him on our own,’ she pointed out reasonably. ‘Where’s your George?’

      George Wylie, of course, had slunk off at the first sign of trouble, as he didn’t want to end up in a viral clip any more than Becky did, so it was left to Dobbin to valiantly step in and hoist Jos to his feet, to a helpful commentary from the peanut gallery.

      ‘Heave! Heave! Heave ho!’ they shouted as Jos was finally levered upright so that he could then lurch unsteadily against their table and send all the glassware flying.

      ‘More champagne!’ Jos shouted, trying to click his fingers to summon a waiter and almost blinding poor Dobbin. ‘Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends!’

      ‘Jos, I am cutting you off!’ Dobbin said very sternly, clamping his arm round Jos’s shoulders and steering him out of the club, with Amelia and Becky bringing up the rear.

      Becky would much rather have stayed. She was sure she’d spotted a couple of young royals at the bar, but Amelia was crying. Much as the missed opportunity stung, she had no option but to leave with their sad, humiliated little party.

      Once they were in the club foyer, George joined them. ‘There you are!’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

      ‘You couldn’t have been looking very hard, then, as you were at our table until poor Jos fell over and then you disappeared,’ Becky pointed out.

      Amelia stopped crying for long enough to gaze damply and disappointedly at George. ‘You didn’t do that, did you?’

      ‘Of course I didn’t. Your little friend must be confused,’ he said firmly as if nothing could be further from the truth. ‘Fell over, did he? But no bones broken? Well, let’s get him and you girls home.’

      Then he took Jos’s other side and the three men lumbered out of the club like some mythical three-headed beast, only to run into a pack of paparazzi who sprang into action in the hope that one of them might be a rat-arsed young royal.

      The popping flashbulbs had a disastrous effect on Jos’s centre of gravity. Or it might have been because George took one look at the cameras and abruptly let Jos go so he could slither back into the shadows. He was a prospective Member of Parliament, after all.

      It was left to Amelia to take up the slack and help Dobbin to support the considerable weight of her brother, to the delight of the smudges. Two posh boys weren’t worth the effort but a Big Brother winner might do for a page-seven lead.

      Then the drunk young Hooray lurched around towards the pretty redhead who’d come second in Big Brother, trailing a few steps behind as if she had nothing to do with the unfortunate trio in front of her, and he broke free of his captors so he could take her in a very enthusiastic embrace. This could be a front-page story after all.

      NEW BALLS PLEASE!

      Big Brother Becky Caught In Clinch With Protein-Ball Millionaire!

       Friends say he wants to put a ring on it!

      She might have only come second in this year’s Big Brother, but beautiful Becky Sharp, 20, looked like a winner last night as she was caught canoodling with Jos Sedley, 33, brother of Amelia Sedley, who snatched the title from her best friend.

      Jos, the brains behind a health-and-fitness lifestyle brand which makes a successful range of protein balls, divides his time between London and LA. But judging by the way he locked lips with Becky, to the delight of the crowd, he’s thinking of making London his permanent base.

      ‘It’s been a whirlwind romance,’ a close friend of the couple reports. ‘They might only have known each other a few weeks but they’re already talking about marriage.’

      Three people who would be delighted to hear wedding bells are Big Brother winner Amelia, 22, who regards Becky as a sister, and her parents Charles and Caroline Sedley, who invited Becky to live with them in their Chelsea townhouse worth £15 million, and have apparently