The Rise and Fall of Becky Sharp: ‘A razor-sharp retelling of Vanity Fair’ Louise O’Neill

‘Of course I do,’ Amelia gasped, because her sweet young mind wasn’t capable of such a calculated thought. ‘I’m sure it’s not that bad. You’ll feel much better after you’ve had some breakfast.’

‘I can’t eat. Food would choke me,’ Becky declared, a trembling hand to her throat as if she was already finding it hard to breathe. She stood at her bedroom door, her body barring Amelia from the room, not just for full dramatic effect but because there were a few items that had found their way into Becky’s possession that she hadn’t had a chance to squirrel away yet. ‘I’m going to pack. I’ll be gone in a few hours.’

But Becky wasn’t packing at all. She was leaning out of the window of the second-floor guest room as she waited for the first sight of Jos lumbering into the square. He’d have a terrible hangover, which was his own fault, as nobody had forced him to drink all that champagne, and he’d be sweating profusely. Becky would let him stammer and stutter his way through a series of abject apologies for humiliating her.

After a tense two minutes – no, make it three – she’d forgive Jos, which would make him feel even worse, even more ashamed. Then with some gentle nudging, and that thing she did with her eyes, he’d admit that he’d wanted to kiss her ever since he first saw her. He’d then go on to confess that the kiss in front of the paparazzi, despite its sordid circumstances, had been the happiest moment of his life.

‘We could have more happy moments like that, Jos,’ she’d say, her voice catching, then she’d look away. Though sometimes, actually all the time, it was hard work trying to tunnel through Jos’s thick skull, so perhaps she’d have to be a lot less subtle. ‘Our whole life would be a series of happy moments. Of kisses …’

Of course, Jos would ask her to come back to LA with him. Once they were in LA, away from the annoying presence of his mother and father, and the bad influence of George Wylie, then Becky wouldn’t let Jos do anything more than kiss her and paw her over her clothes, and a proposal would be inevitable.

So, all was not lost. Far from it. Though Becky hadn’t gone to the papers (and no one could prove it either way), there was no reason why this had to end in tragedy.

Becky leaned out a little further, just in time to see George Wylie come striding around the corner. She beat a frantic retreat, banging her head so hard on the sash window that it brought tears to her eyes, especially as it had all been in vain because that smug little fucker waved cheerfully up at her.

‘Ha! Caught you!’ he cried.

Still, Becky’s tears were no match for the flood of eye-water and snot that Amelia had been producing ever since Becky had shut the bedroom door in her face. She cried even harder as George described, with particular relish, what a sorry state he’d left Jos in.

‘Been chundering for six hours straight. I left him prostrate on Dobbin’s sofa. And it’s just as well we did take him to Dobbin’s last night, as he’s the only man in London whose dressing gown would fit round your brother. Pity that he puked down it,’ George finished with an appreciative chuckle. The whole episode reminded him of similar japes at Oxford.

Also, the fact that they’d taken Sedley to Dobbin’s and not to George’s own flat in Victoria, had made him quite light-headed with relief.

‘I never thought you could be so mean,’ Amelia sobbed.

‘Then you haven’t been paying attention,’ Becky said from the doorway, because staying upstairs and sulking would achieve absolutely nothing. Not when there was no sign of a suitably contrite Jos and in his place was George Wylie, who might just explode from sheer malicious delight. Here’s hoping. ‘Where’s Jos?’

George turned around, eyes gleaming, his delight magnified now that Becky had joined them. ‘I’m afraid Jos sends his regrets but he’s otherwise engaged. Oh! Sorry! Bad choice of words. Otherwise detained, shall we say?’

Becky’s innate distrust and dislike of George Wylie, in that moment, crystallised and hardened into anger; a stinging, corrosive fury that this arrogant, odious prick had the nerve to mock her, laugh at her. It was only through a sheer accident of birth that the whole world was his for the taking and that she had nothing – not even the clothes she stood up in, because they were borrowed from Amelia.

There was an edge to George Wylie this morning, a febrile glitter in his eyes, high on his own triumph. He must have said something to Jos about her which had frightened Jos off, and Becky knew then that Jos wasn’t going to turn up and beg for her forgiveness. It wasn’t all going to come good in the end.

Oh, but she would make George Wylie pay. She would ruin him, destroy everything that he’d worked so hard for.

Not that she was going to tell him that, like some second-rate Scarlett O’Hara.

‘You’re always joking,’ she noted with a quiet dignity that made George falter. ‘It’s not nice to be the punchline of a joke, especially when there’s no one here to defend me.’

Then she walked away and George was left with Amelia, who had stopped crying and was now looking at him with a furrowed brow and jutting bottom lip. It was almost as if … as if she, silly little Amelia Sedley, was disappointed in him. ‘That wasn’t very kind of you,’ she said quietly and George immediately felt the need to squirm, even though kindness wasn’t a quality that he thought much of.

‘Amelia, you are too good for me.’ It was the most sincere thing he’d ever said. ‘Look, I know you’ve hugged orphans in the Third World and spent a few weeks with a bunch of chavs, but you don’t understand the world the way that I do. That Sharp girl overplayed her hand and Jos has had a lucky escape.’

Amelia’s heart gave a sad little flutter. ‘So, he’s really not coming, then?’

‘He’s not,’ George confirmed. ‘Believe me, it’s for the best. I volunteered to fetch his things because, actually, I can be kind, Emmy. This whole business with that Sharp girl – I was only looking out for Jos because he’s your brother and well, I do rather care about you, you know.’

The sad little flutter transformed into a rapturous symphony when George took Amelia in his arms.

He smelt delicious – a heady mix of citrus and spices from the cologne that he favoured. But though Amelia raised her face to his, her lips slightly pursed, he kissed her forehead.

‘I’m … well, I rather care about you too, George,’ she dared to say and the smile he gave her then was kindness personified.

‘I know.’

After George left, it took quite a bit of time and some dawdling, before Amelia felt brave enough to face her friend.

Becky was perched on the window seat on the first-floor landing, her gaze fixed morosely on the square outside, the Daily Mail a crumpled, torn heap of paper at her feet.

‘You never know, he might still come,’ Amelia said consolingly.

‘Really? Have you spoken to him?’ Becky asked and even though it was hopeless, she couldn’t help the eager note in her voice.

‘I could speak to him,’ Amelia offered just as her phone chimed. She pulled it out of the pocket of her jeans. ‘I don’t need to! He’s just texted me. Let’s see … oh …’

Ems 2 ill 2 say gdbye. Hv 2 go back 2 LA due 2 protein-ball emergency. Will b gon v.long time. Pls send bst wishes 2 Becky. I was v.drunk lst nite & she shld 4get everything I said.

Luv Jos xxx

Chapter 10

Of course, Amelia made it all about her. Crying over and on top of Becky so Becky could hardly think straight.

‘I can’t believe he didn’t say goodbye,’ Amelia wailed at such length, and there was no time to process, recover, regroup.

In fact, Becky was still reeling when there was an imperious peal on the doorbell, and who should be standing on the other side of the door but Babs Pinkerton, summoned by Mrs Sedley, who hadn’t been zonked out on Valium in the master bedroom suite but actually plotting Becky’s immediate departure.

‘Pack your bags, sweetie, you’re being thrown out,’ Babs said by way of greeting when a fuming Mrs Blenkinsop showed her into the drawing room where Becky was still being wept on by Amelia.

Amelia protested, tearfully, to her mother who pointed out that Amelia would be leaving for Durham at the end of the week.

‘So, you see, she had to leave sooner or later, and it was only ever meant to be a temporary arrangement,’ Mrs Sedley explained as she stroked her daughter’s hair and wished that she hadn’t just taken her Valium, because she really didn’t have the energy to deal with this. ‘I understand that Barbara, who says she’s always been like a mother to Rebecca, has found her a lovely little job as a nanny with a charming family. In the country. Deep in the country. Miles and miles away from here. She’ll be fine.’

Becky had been with the Sedleys for almost a month but it would take no more than twenty minutes to remove all traces of her from their house. It wasn’t as if she had any choice when Sam, Mrs Sedley’s driver, was pointedly lingering in the hall with ‘strict instructions to take you to the station’.

He didn’t come into Becky’s room – no, not her room, not any more, it was the guest room – while she packed, which was just as well. Becky tucked away several of Amelia’s dresses, which looked much better on her, a few pieces of jewellery that Amelia wouldn’t even miss, an iPad that Amelia had thought she’d lost and had already replaced, and several other items that technically didn’t belong to Becky. All the while Babs Pinkerton, in her trademark cerise which did absolutely nothing for her gin-raddled complexion, lounged on the bed enjoying Becky’s impending banishment far too much.

‘A nanny?’ Becky spat in disbelief when Babs told her where she was going. ‘In some place in the back of beyond? I went to the country once and it stunk of cow shit.’

‘You should feel right at home then,’ Babs said with a delighted smile. ‘Actually, it’s a country estate. Beautiful big house, set in acres of land, horses, duck pond, and all that jazz. And you’ll be looking after the children of Sir Pitt Crawley,’ she added like she was presenting Becky with a winning scratchcard.

‘Pitt who? Never heard of him,’ Becky muttered savagely as she stuffed a Rolex watch, which had been a silver anniversary present from Mr Sedley to his wife, into one of her trainers.

‘The Crawleys! One of Britain’s premier acting dynasties, you little imbecile,’ Babs drawled. ‘Sir Pitt was quite the sex symbol back in the day.’

‘When was back in the day?’ Becky asked, pausing her suitcase-stuffing. Working for some famous actor might not be so bad.

‘Before you were born. In the seventies,’ Babs said, which might just as well have been the Dark Ages. Yet he was still famous and he had a house, a very big house, in the country. He was bound to have his celebrity friends constantly dropping by and if he was very famous, then he was very rich too. There’d obviously be an indoor swimming pool, one of those fancy screening rooms and the children would be at school for most of the day, so it wasn’t as if Becky would have to do much nannying.

It might be the perfect opportunity to reassess things. Maybe even catch the eye of one of those celebrity friends that dropped by … but still the country wasn’t London, and London was the most likely place where a girl with no prospects but a hell of a lot of ambition could find fame, fortune and fools ready to give them to her.

‘No. It’s not happening, Babs. I came second in Big Brother …’

‘What you mean is that you didn’t win Big Brother …’

‘Whatever! Come on! You could find me some other job. Something more exciting, better paid.’ Becky zipped up her tatty holdall. ‘You know, I could do a kiss-and-tell on how Jos Sedley did me wrong.’ No, that wasn’t enough. ‘How he turned out to be a complete love rat after I’d given him …’

‘Boring!’ Babs yawned exaggeratedly. ‘The photos of him tumbling out of that club with his hand down your dress were one thing, but you wouldn’t get more than a couple of hundred quid for a follow-up.’ She examined her neon-pink talons. ‘The problem, my darling, is that you missed your window. I hate to be the one to say I told you so, but I told you so. Couldn’t even get you a thousand if you dropped your knickers for the Sunday Sport. Are you done packing, ’cause you do have a train to catch?’

Mrs Sedley had gone back to bed so it was left to Amelia to say a fitting goodbye. She clung on to Becky and Becky clung back, in the vain hope that if she attached herself barnacle-like to Amelia, then she might never have to leave.

‘We have to go now,’ Sam said implacably and firmly from behind them, and Babs sighed impatiently and Amelia was persuaded to release Becky from her Vulcan clutches.

‘This is from Mummy,’ she murmured brokenly, tucking an envelope, which at least felt like it contained a wad of banknotes, into Becky’s hand. ‘And you’re still my sister from another mister. I’m going to text you before you’ve even got in the car, and I get really long holidays so I’ll see you soon.’

‘I probably won’t be allowed the time off,’ Becky said with a pathetic little sniff that tore at Amelia’s soul, though Becky wouldn’t be taken for a fool twice and she was going to get time off and sick pay and whatever the going rate was for nannying the children of a famous actor. ‘You know how people exploit their domestic staff. I bet I won’t even get minimum wage with the hours they’ll expect me to work.’

‘Oh, Becky, I wish there was something I could do,’ Amelia cried imploringly.

‘It’s all right,’ Becky said as Babs took her arm in an uncompromising grip and began walking her towards the door. ‘I don’t blame you.’

No, Amelia was the one person that she didn’t blame. She blamed George Wylie, above all others. Next came Barbara Pinkerton, who could easily have found something exciting and well paid for Becky to do, and also Becky was pretty sure that Jemima’s bungalow had already been sold and that Babs would make sure she’d never see a penny of the £250,000 it was worth when Becky had had a valuation done before Jemima had died. She also blamed Jos Sedley for being weak and foolish and easily influenced but alas, not easily influenced by her. And though Mrs Sedley had sent her on her way with £500, Becky added her name to the list of people who’d done her wrong: one day she’d be in a position to pay them all back.

But right now, as she sat in a second-class carriage on her way to Southampton where she had to change on to a branch line, Becky wasn’t in any position but to take the job that Barbara Pinkerton had grudgingly found for her.

She was twenty, without any family. It wasn’t just a line she spun for sympathy; those were the facts. There wasn’t a parent or a grandparent, not even a stray aunt or uncle who’d take her in. Apart from the few trinkets she’d acquired from the Sedleys to go with the trinkets that Jemima Pinkerton would have wanted her to have, Becky had no assets. She didn’t even have a bank account.

If she threw herself on the mercy of the state, she might be found a bed in a hostel and if she was really, really lucky she’d be given a zero-hours contract on minimum wage stacking shelves or working in a call centre. Which was fine. The world needed people to stack shelves and work in call centres, but Becky wasn’t one of those people. Just as George Wylie and Amelia and the five M’s had been born into wealth and privilege, Becky had been born with beauty and a native cunning. She was meant for more than a bed in a hostel and a zero-hours contract. Maybe she was meant for gracious country living. Wafting about a huge mansion, being spoiled by a very famous actor in his dotage. As soon as she could get a decent WiFi signal, Becky would google the hell out of Sir Pitt Crawley, she decided, and she straightened her posture and put her shoulders back. Down but not out. If she didn’t make the most of this opportunity that fate had thrown at her, then she deserved to be stacking shelves.

*

It was raining when Becky finally reached her destination: Mudbury. The light was fading and everything was grey as she came out of the station to find herself in a dismal little backwater, rather than a charming and bucolic village. It boasted a convenience store, which was closed, a pub, which was less of a charming country inn and more like a glorified Portakabin, and a bus-shelter covered in graffiti.

Only one other person had got off the train and they had already got into a car that had been waiting outside the station and driven off.

Babs had told her that someone would pick her up at the station but there were no signs of life. She squinted left, then right for the welcoming glow of a pair of headlights coming towards her, but all she could see was sheeting rain in all directions.

Becky hurried over to the bus shelter but there was no timetable and from the barrenness of her surroundings, it was clear that Mudbury was the type of place where the bus only came once on market days and market days only happened every other week. She shivered inside her jacket. When she had left London, it had been late summer, the sun still shining, the weather warm enough that most days she didn’t even need a jacket. But in the course of four hours and two trains, winter had come.

She debated waiting inside the pub. It might be quite cosy once she was inside – or she could be raped and murdered by a bunch of inbred villagers. Just when Becky had decided that at least she’d be dry even if she did have to fight them off with a pool cue, she heard the rumbling of an engine over the persistent drumming of the rain on the roof of the bus shelter. When she peered out, there were the headlights she was longing to see. She didn’t even care if it was her lift. She ran into the road to wave whoever it was down and beg them to take her back to civilisation. Or to the nearest mainline station, at least.

The battered, ancient Land Rover came to a juddering halt and Becky scrabbled at the door handle, which swung open with help from inside.

‘You be the young lady coming up t’ Big House?’

There was no light inside the vehicle, just two shadowy figures, one of which had just spoken to her in such a rough, local dialect that Becky had trouble understanding him.

‘I’m Becky Sharp and you’re late!’ she snapped. ‘Does Sir Crawley know that you’ve kept me waiting in the pouring rain?’

There was a diffident grunt. Then, ‘Just light drizzle, lassie. Jump in. Don’t mind old Hodson. Wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

It turned out that the shadowy figure closest to her was a dog; a big, hairy, foul-smelling beast that growled at Becky as she hefted her bags and herself into the Land Rover. The back of the Sedleys’ chauffeur-driven, air-conditioned Bentley already seemed as if it belonged to another world, another life, as the man sped off with a crunching of gears. The suspension was shot and the vehicle, and Becky, shook every time they hit a bump or a hole in the road.

It was pitch black outside, but there didn’t seem to be anything to look at out of the windows, which were streaming with condensation. It was just country. Fields and hedges, and when they turned off on to a smaller road, more of a rugged track really, the branches from the overhanging trees skittered across the roof of the car and Becky stole a glance at the man driving.

Her eyes had adjusted to the gloom by now and she could see that her saviour was a grizzled old man, though the grizzle was probably dirt, because he didn’t smell that fresh. In fact, she wasn’t sure which one of them was the most malodorous – the old man or Hodson, who kept wiping his slobbery snout on Becky’s shoulder. Most of the man’s face was obscured by a filthy trucker’s cap that was pulled down so she could only make out his mouth and chin, which didn’t look like it had seen a razor in months. His clothes looked and smelt filthy too: a pair of ragged trousers and an old jumper full of holes.

He could be anyone. Maybe he’d lured many a young woman to a grisly end by picking them up outside the station. Maybe that was why the Crawleys needed a new nanny, because each new nanny was intercepted before she could start her new job.

‘Do you work for Sir Crawley, then?’ she asked, striving hard to keep the belligerence out of her voice. ‘Is it far to the house?’

‘Far enough.’

Becky settled back with a tiny but discontent huff. She had done all that boxing with Jos, so if worst came to worst, she could whack him around the head followed up by a swift knee to his bollocks, then she’d run for her life.

They rounded a bend at breakneck speed, which threw Becky against the door, and just as she righted herself, she could see that they were travelling up a drive lined by trees, and in the distance there was a big house, the warm glow of electric light at some of its many windows. They were crunching over gravel now as they drove around a big ornamental pond then veered left. Maybe her dreams of gracious country living were about to come true after all. Or maybe not.

‘This is Queen’s Crawley, is it?’ Becky asked as they whisked past the grand front door. She thought she might cry if they kept going, disappearing back into the darkness until they reached this man’s hovel and whatever terrible fate awaited her.

They took a sharp right, just past the house, under an arch and Becky let out a shaky breath as they came to a jerky halt inside a yard, which must have been the old stable block.

‘Front door ain’t for the likes of us, is it?’ The man opened his door so he could cough then spit on to the gravel.

Becky clenched her fists, felt Hodson’s hot breath on her neck again.

Enough!

‘How dare you!’ she hissed, turning to the man so he could get the full benefit of her fury. She was so angry she could hardly force the words out. ‘Just wait until Sir Pitt Crawley hears about the way you’ve treated me.’ Even in the midst of her rage, she wasn’t going to admit that she’d been scared half to death. Wouldn’t give this … this … dim-witted yokel the satisfaction. ‘You’re rude and you’re inconsiderate and you smell like a rubbish tip!’

She expected him to spit on the ground again. Or worse, spit on her, but he did neither, just took off his cap so Becky could see that his greasy hair was as neglected as the rest of him. He looked at her and grinned – she was surprised to see that his teeth weren’t blackened pegs but actually were even and gleamed white in the gloom – and there was an expectant air about him, as if he was waiting for Becky to say that she wouldn’t really go to Sir Pitt Crawley and do everything in her power to have him fired.

In that case, he was going to be disappointed.

‘I might only be the nanny but I’m not some silly little girl who’s only used to dealing with naughty toddlers.’ She drew herself up. ‘You try something like this again, and I will make you sorry you were ever fucking born,’ she finished with a determined sniff.

There was a moment’s silence as they both stared at each other, weighing up their enemy, then the man smiled again. He ran his fingers, nails black with dirt, through his hair, then offered his hand to Becky who looked at it in much the same way that she’d look at Hodson if he suddenly took a dump on her bag.

‘Are we clear?’ she asked.

‘Clear as crystal,’ he said, not in a guttural drawl but in plummy tones that had delighted both theatre-goers and film critics alike. ‘I’m Sir Pitt Crawley, delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Sharp. May I welcome you to Queen’s Crawley, and I hope that your stay here will be a long and happy one.’

Chapter 11

Sir Pitt Crawley, knighted by the Queen for his ground-breaking contribution to British film and theatre, had woken up one morning, taken stock of his life and decided that it was shallow and empty.

He was in LA at the time and had been woken up by the sound of his girlfriend (the second Lady Crawley turned a blind and grateful eye to Pitt’s peccadillos) on the phone to her therapist. Or he might have been pulled out of sleep by the sound of his gardening crew trimming the hedges that had been trimmed only the day before. Or awoken by his personal trainer calling him on his cellphone because Sir Pitt was currently meant to be doing lunges, squats, burpees and other undignified exercises in his basement gym.