The Girl at the Bus-Stop (30 page)

‘I see,’ said Rudge with a wink, ‘something I should know about?’

‘She now thinks that she’s in love with me, that’s all.’ replied Becky, ‘She wants me to call round to her place sometime.’

‘What on earth for?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Talking of lezzers,’ said Rudge, ‘there’s an invitation to attend Kat Katkins’s party. I’m not invited because it’s for empowered women only, so that’ll be a barrel of laughs.’

‘You never know, perhaps it will be quite a civilised evening.’

‘You’ll have to buy some festive dungarees,’ said Rudge with a grin, ‘then of course visit the hairdressers and demand a haircut using blunt scissors by a stylist wearing a blindfold. Then buy some smelly monkey boots, not forgetting the dirty pink socks with cats embroidered all over them.’

‘You’re rotten, Rudge,’ said Becky, ‘Ms Katkins might be a very nice person.’

‘Nah,’ said Rudge, ‘she writes about Armageddon as if she can’t wait for it to happen. Like it’s the only opportunity she’ll ever get to impose her feminist ideals on the survivors and take over the world, or what’s left of it.’

‘It might not be such a bad thing,’ said Becky, ‘she couldn’t do any worse than you blokes.’

‘Not even if she banned cosmetics, fragrant toiletries, armpit, leg and pussy shaving?’

‘I hardly think she’ll insist on those going in her manifesto.’

‘The only other name I recognise is Millicent Winstanley, and she’s booked a function room in a five star hotel
 
for her festive bash.’

‘I’ve never heard of her.’

‘She’s one of Gale Buckingham’s contemporaries,’ Rudge explained, ‘but her career was exclusively in British horror films.’

‘A bit of a beauty then, is she?’

‘Well actually, yes,’ replied Rudge, sipping his tea,’ or at least she was twenty odd years ago. She always played the innocent village girl who gets seduced by the evil count, before losing all her clothes and becoming a lesbian vampire.’

‘So I can take a wild guess at what her party will be like.’

‘Yes, it’s a horror-themed fancy dress ball,’ said Rudge, ‘so you can expect to see some weird counts there.’

‘It’s a shame that the Hotel Cassendre won’t be sorted until after Christmas,’ said Becky, ‘I would have loved to have put on a Christmas party for the under-privileged kids.’

‘We can always do that when it opens,’ said Rudge, ‘whether it’s March, April or August we’ll just pretend it’s Christmas.’

‘Yes, we can organise bouncy castles, jugglers, conjurors and all sorts,’ said Becky, ‘and if the weather’s nice we can have a sand castle building contest on the beach.’

‘Fantastic, I’d love that.’

‘You’re not going to be allowed to enter though. The poor little sods will be all happy building neat little sand castles, and along comes Michelangelo Rudge with scale model of the New York skyline, I’m not having that.’

‘Okay, I’ll just be one of the judges, but until then we’ve got
Starstruck
to worry about,’ said Rudge,’ I’ve had an e-mail from Fantasy-Lit, or rather Raspberry Caine has. The editing has to be completed as soon as possible, so you’ll have to talk to them about arranging dates and times.’

‘No problem,’ said Becky, ‘now what’s that other letter you’ve got in your hand?’

‘Another one for you,
as in
Becky
Waters, not Raspberry Caine.
’ he said examining the envelope, ‘It’s marked ‘Inter-Planetary’ something or other, but the rest of it is smudged. Are you planning a trip into outer space or something?’

‘Never you mind what I’m planning,’ she said, snatching the envelope from his hand, ‘just keep your beak out, Rudge.’

Rudge walked out to join her and she folded the envelope and put it in her pocket.

‘Talking of surprises, it’s your twenty-fifth birthday on Friday.’

‘I hope you haven’t planned a surprise party,’ she replied, ‘I already told you I didn’t want one.’

‘I have a surprise for you, but not a party as such,’ said Rudge raising his eyebrows, ‘so just pack a bag on Friday morning. All will be revealed when we get there.’

‘If I must, but if I don’t like it I’m coming straight back.’ she warned, ‘Now get yourself changed and we can go out somewhere for lunch.’

Becky stepped out on to the balcony, closing the glass doors behind her. She retrieved the envelope from her pocket and opened it carefully. Rudge made his way to the bedroom, and turned to see Becky jumping up and down on the balcony, punching her fist jubilantly into the air.

On Friday morning the big Mercedes pulled up outside Rudge’s semi-detached house, and Harry got out and opened the rear doors. Rudge and Becky stepped out and retrieved their overnight bags from the boot.

‘Thanks, Harry,’ said Rudge, slipping the driver a twenty pound note, ‘now you shoot off and get yourself
 
a late breakfast. Can you pick us up at around one?’

As the Mercedes pulled away, Rudge bent down to pick up the post from inside the porch. He unlocked the inner door and switched off the burglar alarm, before carrying the bags into the hall. Becky followed him inside, gazing around at the new decor.

‘This place is amazing, Reuben, I can’t imagine why you would want to part with it.’

‘Well that’s easy,’ he replied, closing the front door, ‘Mrs Rudge wants her share of the house sale as quickly as possible, and I don’t want to live here anymore.’

‘Surely you could pay her off without selling it,’ she suggested, ‘how much is she expecting?’

Rudge thought for a few moments as he took his coat off and draped it over the bannister.

‘After settling the outstanding mortgage, paying the estate agent’s and legal fees she’ll get roughly around a hundred and seventy five thousand.’

 
‘Just send her a cheque,’ said Becky.

‘No way, she can bloody wait,’ said Rudge, ‘why should I make life easy for her after the misery she put me through over the years.’

Becky wandered through to the designer kitchen and opened a few of the drawers and cupboards, before filling the kettle and switching it on. Rudge was seated in the living room reading through the post as Becky walked in and sat down beside him.

‘I always dreamed of a house like this when I was a kid,’ she said, tucking her arm into his.

‘If you’d seen it before it was more like a nightmare,’ replied Rudge, ‘we just never had any money to spend on it.’

‘Well your builders have done a fantastic job,’ she said, ‘do you mind if I take a look upstairs?’

‘Don’t be silly of course not,’ said Rudge kissing her hand.

Becky ran up the staircase and quickly, and Rudge let her reach the landing before following behind slowly. He heard her shriek with delight, and he jumped up the last three steps and rushed through to join her.

She stood in the doorway looking at the king sized double bed, which was covered in bouquet after bouquet of red roses. Dozens of helium filled heart shaped balloons rested on the ceiling, all proclaiming ‘Happy 25
^th
Becky’. In the middle of the bed was a large box wrapped up in gold paper and secured by silver ribbons. Rudge put his arms around her waist and kissed her on the back of the neck.

‘Happy birthday, Becky,’ he whispered, ‘now open your present.’

She ran to the bed like an excited child on Christmas morning, and carefully lifted the box away from the delicate array of flowers.

‘What on earth is it?’ she said, looking back at Rudge.

‘Well I’m hardly likely to tell you, am I?’ he replied, ‘Just open it.’

Becky carefully untied the ribbons before slipping a long finger nail into the seam of the paper, slicing it open neatly. She removed the rest of the paper to reveal a plain cardboard box. She peeled back the sticky tape securing the lid, and opened one of the leaves. Inside there was a smaller box, which she pulled out. After opening this one, there was another, and another until all that was left to open was a small blue velvet jewellery box.

She sat on the edge of the bed and opened the hinged lid and peered inside. She gasped as she saw the beautiful diamond ring in its simple setting of white gold.

‘It’s gorgeous,’ she said, ‘no, it’s better than that it’s absolutely beautiful.’

‘Don’t put it on, ‘said Rudge, sitting down beside her, ‘that’s my job.’

‘What do you mean?’

Rudge carefully removed the ring from the box, knelt down next to the bed and pushed it gently along the third finger of her left hand.

‘I love you, Becky,’ he said softly, ‘and if you’ll consent to be my wife you’ll make me the happiest man in the whole of Christendom.’

‘That’s a bit corny if you don’t mind me saying so.’ she replied with a smile, ‘Very un-Rudge-like behaviour. Besides, have you forgotten about your wife?’

‘Well obviously we’ll have to wait until my divorce comes through,’ he said, looking sheepish, ‘but I think it’s a pretty quick process these days. Do you think I’ve jumped the gun a bit?’

‘Of course not,’ she said, leaning forward to kiss him, ‘I love you, Reuben Rudge, and nothing on this earth will stop me from marrying you.’

‘Do you really mean that?’ said Rudge, his eyes welling up with tears, ‘I wasn’t really sure about asking you at first in case I spoiled everything.’

‘If you hadn’t proposed, I was going to ask you,’ Becky replied tearfully.

They both broke down and sobbed, Rudge resting his head on her shoulder as she stroked the back of his neck and cried into his shirt collar. They stayed in each other’s arms for several minutes until the silence was broken by the pip of a car horn outside.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot,’ said Rudge, getting to his feet and wiping his eyes.

He fumbled in his trouser pocket and retrieved a brown paper bag.

‘What’s this?’

‘I’m sorry it’s not wrapped,’ he said.

Becky looked at him curiously and looked inside. She pulled out a little die-cast model of a white Porsche sports car and looked up at Rudge.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘just what I’ve always wanted.’

‘If you go back downstairs your other birthday present is just outside,’ said Rudge grinning, ‘it was a little too big to bring indoors.’