Time passed. Champagne was now over half an hour late and Jane was beginning to feel vaguely mortified. She had polished off an entire bottle of sparkling mineral water and was desperate for the loo but, having no idea where they were, was reluctant to perform the required bottom-shimmy through the tables again in what would doubtless be the wrong direction.
Suddenly, a wave of perfume so strong it could have wiped out Barbados came crashing into her nostrils. The waiters wiped the sneers off their faces and goggled. Champagne had arrived, clutching Gucci and an armful of vast carrier bags emblazoned with the best of Bond Street.
Jane stood up so Champagne could smash both her cheekbones into her face. 'Darling!' Champagne yelled. As intended, her look-at-me voice had the desired effect. There was a snapping of neck joints all round as everyone in the restaurant undid weeks of careful work by their masseurs and craned to stare. Once there were enough people looking at her, Champagne pushed her black lace microskirt up as far as possible and sat down.
Under her arm, Gucci stared out, his bead-like little eyes shining malevolently. 'Doesn't he look splendid?' gushed Champagne, lifting the poodle and dangling him towards Jane. 'Don't you just
adore
his collar?'
Jane stared at the row of diamonds glittering round the
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dog's skinny neck. Economics was hardly her strong point, but the collar was, she realised, probably worth more than the GDP of a smallish East European country.
'It's Guccigoo's birthday,' Champagne explained, setting Gucci on the table where he lost no time sticking his nose in the bread and his tongue in the butter. 'That collar's got forty diamonds on it,' she boasted. She leant towards Jane conspiratorially, displaying a cleavage deep enough to bungee-jump down to two passing, plate-laden waiters. Four first courses wobbled perilously for a few seconds. Champagne cast a sideways glance at Gucci, who by now was scrabbling furiously at the tiny dishes of salt and pepper and scattering their contents all over the tablecloth.
'It's worth a hundred thousand pounds!' Champagne whispered loudly. Jane's mouth fell open. 'Of course, the whole thing was the most
enormous
secret,' Champagne continued, widening her eyes as if to convey the unimaginable subterfuge that had been involved. 'I didn't want Gucci to guess
anything.
It was the most
wonderful surprise
for him this morning.'
She leant back triumphantly in her chair and took a sip from the glass of chilled champagne from the complimentary bottle that had appeared as if by magic on the table. The oleaginous manager swept by, nodding and beaming. Jane wondered when Champagne would get to the brilliant news and amazing offers. She looked at her miserably. With her perfect, arrogant face unmarked by so much as a wrinkle, her white-blonde hair a shining mass on her shoulders and her tiny dress rucked up to show as much of her slender body as possible, it was not difficult to see why Tom had been tempted. Jane tried not to look at Champagne's perfect bare legs and tried to hide as
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much of her own stubby fetlocks under the table as possible.
Champagne was beaming at her. Her glossy lips parted to treat Jane to a smile so brilliant it could probably have been seen from Mir. Jane shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Being on the receiving end of Champagne's charm offensive somehow felt worse than when she was just being offensive.
'Darling! How
are
you,' Champagne gushed. 'It's
heaven
to see you. You're looking absolutely
wonderful'
She raked Jane with her hard, green eyes. 'You're
so
lucky,' she declared. 'You
so
suit no make-up.'
Jane blushed deeply. Trust Champagne to zoom in on that. She knew she should have made time for a little mascara, at least. But lately she hadn't seen the point of putting it on. It scarcely improved the way you looked and it was a bore to have to clean it off at night. Besides, she thought miserably, it only streaked when you cried.
'You really do have the most
wonderful
cheekbones,' Champagne continued. Jane was aware that lack of sleep and general anguish had scooped great care-worn hollows from her cheeks. But she doubted they improved her appearance.
The waiter glided up. As she ordered, utterly at random, and barely glancing at the menu, Jane wondered if Champagne was ever going to get to the point.
'Christ, I'm absolutely
pooped?
Champagne announced brightly, looking with deep satisfaction at the carrier bags crowding the floor. 'Signing all those credit card slips
really
takes it out of you.
Exhausting?
'What have you bought?' asked Jane. Everything, by the look of it, she thought.
'Oh, these aren't for
me?
said Champagne, gesturing at
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the bags. 'No, all
my
things are in the limo.' She waved a perfectly-manicured hand in the general direction of the restaurant window and the shining Rover visible outside. 'These/ she announced, waving at the bags which lapped around their table like a tide, 'are for my brother.'
'Your brother?' said Jane, dimly remembering the photograph on the top of the piano in Champagne's flat. It was the first time Champagne had ever mentioned him.
'Yes,' barked Champagne. 'You know. Or you should. You've been shagging him for the past week, at least.'
'What?' said Jane slowly. This was too incredible. Surely Champagne didn't mean . . . 'You don't mean .. . Tom?' she croaked.
'Of course I bloody mean Tom,' said Champagne, draining her glass. 'Unless you've been shagging someone else as well.'
Jane's bowels felt loose with shock and her tired head was spinning as she struggled to get a grip. Tom was Champagne's
brother!
He couldn't be. No two people could
possibly
be less alike. Tom was an obscure, impoverished writer who lived in a basement below a brothel in Soho, while Champagne was a Belgravia-dwelling professional socialite whose dog had a £100,000 diamond collar. Tom wrote seriously, and every word himself. The same certainly couldn't be said for Champagne.
Tom wore battered leather jackets and jumble-sale T-shirts. Champagne wore head-to-toe designer labels with little or no clothing attached. Tom had dirty blond hair that looked as if it was cut with a knife and fork. Champagne's shining mane was professionally blow-dried every day. And yet, Jane thought, gawping at Champagne as if seeing her for the first time, there
was
something
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about the cheekbones, the green eyes, the sultry, naughty smile ...
'But you don't even have the same name,' stammered Jane. 'Tom's surname is Seton.'
Champagne drew on her cigarette and fired it out in two volleys from her nostrils. 'He
writes
under that name, sure,' she said. 'But his actual surname is D'Vyne. Tom's full name is, er,' she stopped and wrinkled her nose, as if preparing for a great feat of memory, 'Thomas Charles Gregorian Seton D'Vyne. Mine is,' she paused again, 'urn, Champagne Olivia Wilnelia Seton D'Vyne,' she finished triumphantly.
Wow, thought Jane. Champagne's family had hardly held back over the font. Then again, there seemed to be an unwritten rule that the upper classes could have more names than everybody else. She remembered that from Cambridge. Along the corridor she had lived on, everyone but herself seemed to have three or more initials painted up above their door. Tally had had at least five.
'Tom dropped the D'Vyne because he said he thought it sounded too grand for a struggling writer,' said Champagne, a faint note of scorn in her voice. 'But I'm convinced the real reason is that he disapproves of my lifestyle. He hates socialites and the whole London party scene and didn't want anyone to connect him with my column inches.
Or
me. He's always been obsessed with money,' she finished, stabbing out her cigarette.
'Has
he?' asked Jane, astounded. In the short time she had known him, Tom had seemed the most generous soul imaginable. He had practically emptied his pockets for the beggar they had met on the way back from San Lorenzo. He had not struck her as the mean type, still less the rich type.
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'Obsessed with not having it, I mean,' honked Champagne. 'He refused his part of our trust fund because he wanted to make it on his own. And I was never allowed to mention him in the column, in case people stopped taking him
seriously
as a
writer'
Champagne rolled her eyes mockingly. 'I mean, as if there was the faintest
possibility
that anyone could
not
take him seriously as a writer. He's hardly a laugh a minute on the subject, is he?'
Jane shook her head dumbly. If only she'd stopped a few more seconds and allowed Tom to explain. She'd blown it yet again.
She put her head in her hands and groaned. The horrible reality of the situation pressed in on her like a smothering pillow. And not just the dreadful misunderstanding, either. There was also the hideous fact that she had managed to fall in love with Champagne's
brother.
Of all the brothers in all the world, she had to fall in love with that one.
'Yah, he told me about this girl he's met,' Champagne said, eyeing Jane assessingly. 'Never thought for a
minute
it was
you.
Bit
odd,
though, I must say, the way you rushed off the other day. Tom was a bit cut up after you'd gone, actually. Dashed straight out after you, but you'd scarpered.'
'I, er, thought ... I mean, I thought you .. . the .. .' She stopped and gazed miserably at Champagne.
'Oh, for Christ's sake,' Champagne boomed suddenly, so loud that the entire restaurant stopped to listen. 'You surely didn't think I was shagging my own
brother?
She shrieked with mirth. The clatter of dropped jaws and forks all round was deafening.
'Oh God,' said Jane, panicking. 'What am I going to do now? I've ruined everything. Tom'll probably never
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speak to me again. He'll think I'm a hysterical freak.'
Champagne patted her hand. 'Oh,
all
his girlfriends are. I wouldn't worry. Ha ha ha.' She giggled at Jane's horrorstruck expression. 'J
ust
teasing. Can't you take a joke? Pop round and see him tonight.'
Til go round now,' muttered Jane, getting to her feet. The room whirled around her. She swayed, feeling as if she was about to faint, and sat down again.
'He won't be there,' Champagne said, examining her nails with satisfaction. 'I tried to get him to come shopping but he told me he was spending every afternoon this week researching in some mouldy library somewhere.
Not
my idea of fun. Now look,' she boomed, 'there's something
really
bloody important I need to talk to you about now, OK?'
The earth-shattering revelations about Tom, then, were obviously just an aperitif, thought Jane. She dreaded to think what was coming next.
'Tom's not the only writer in the family,' Champagne honked, her green eyes blazing triumphantly. 'I've been offered a vast sum to write a novel myself. Brilliant, isn't it? Aren't you thrilled?'
'That's nice,' said Jane, wondering why on earth
she
should be pleased.
Champagne stared at her in amazement. 'What's the matter with you?' Several heads turned their way. 'You should be dancing on the
tables.
They're offering me half a million, OK? Serious dosh. Big potatoes.'
'I don't understand,' said Jane with as much dignity as she could muster, 'why 7 should be pleased that
my
work on
your
columns has got
you
a big fat novel deal. I'm
not
thrilled.' Her voice had risen to a faintly hysterical pitch. 'If anything
I'm furious.'
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There. She had said it. And if Champagne resigned from
Fabulous
as a result of it, she didn't care. She'd had enough. Of everything. The last forty-eight hours had left her drained, weak, bewildered and exhausted. And rather drunk. The bottle, she saw, was now empty. She had had a lot of champagne on an empty stomach. In more ways than one.
Champagne stared at her with amused astonishment. 'You
idiot,'
she honked. 'You don't understand, do you? I'm asking you to write this novel
for
me. We split the money. Two hundred and fifty grand each.' She smashed her empty glass against Jane's. 'Yah?' she boomed. 'Brilliant, eh?'
A sudden vision of freedom flashed before Jane's eyes. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. She could pack in her job. She was about to be sacked anyway, she thought, remembering her date with Archie Fitzherbert that afternoon. And what was the point of staying at
Fabulous
when Victoria was likely to sweep back into her editor's glass box any minute and make Jane's life an utter misery?
'We've got six months to do it in,' rasped Champagne, 'so you pack your shitty job in right now and we'll get cracking. All we have to do is rehash the columns and sort of link them together in some kind of storyline. Money for old rope.'
Jane looked away from Champagne's commanding gaze. Was she sure she wanted to get into this? The money was good, certainly, but would it be worth risking her sanity? Knocking out a monthly column with Champagne was torture enough. Six months' solid novel-writing would probably reduce her to care in the community status. She didn't feel all that far from it already.