But now there are more shouts, and more people are coming running. I can just make out Joel, and Barbara, and Bogdan, and – shrieking loudly enough to cause another avalanche – Mum.
‘Libby?’ Joel shouts up, through cupped hands. ‘Just stay where you are! Don’t jump! Don’t do it!’
‘I’m not bloody jumping!’ I croak. The ledge cracks once more; I can feel, now, that it’s really starting to come away from the wall. ‘Help me!’
‘Nick’s going to come up and try to open that window!’ Joel yells, sounding as cool and calm in this crisis as he did with Nora and the helicopter all those months ago. ‘Just hang on, Libby!’
‘No, he can’t … if he opens the window, there’s nowhere for me to go.’ Another, horrifying crack, and the ledge actually comes away beneath my left foot. ‘A ladder … quick … bring a ladder …’
‘Libby, am imploring you!’ This is Bogdan, now, his voice booming out of the darkness. ‘Do not be doing this. Yes, you are not truly loving Joel. Yes, you are still grieving for the fact that Olly is not loving you as you love him. But death is no solution. Certainly not this horrible, messy death. Could you at least not consider possible option that is not leaving you looking diabolical at funeral?’
Oh, for the love of God.
And I really mean that right in this instant, actually, because just as Bogdan finishes speaking, I feel the other side of the window-ledge crack beneath me.
So this is it.
I hear screams from below, I feel my feet hang free, and I feel the searing pain in my hands as I try, fruitlessly, to grip on to the brickwork for a moment or two longer, for as long as I can take my own weight, at this precarious angle, before I drop.
And then, out of nowhere, I feel a hand grip my wrist.
Really grip it, like a vice.
And then another hand grips the other one.
Shocked, I release my fingers from their futile hold on the wall, and just let myself be lifted up. I can hear astonished shouts, now, from the garden, as I instinctively use my feet, only one of them still clad in its shoe, to push against the wall and take some of my weight out of the hands of whoever it is who’s pulling me up.
When I glance upwards, just for a moment, I can see that it’s Grace Kelly.
And Marilyn Monroe. And Audrey Hepburn.
The shock almost sends me tumbling backwards, despite Grace’s – and Marilyn’s – impressively strong grip, so I focus for a couple of seconds more and use my elbows, as the three of them haul me through the small attic window, to hook myself safely over it. Audrey’s skinny arms are around Grace’s waist, anchoring her to the floor as she takes half my weight from her hold on my left wrist, and Marilyn, a sturdier presence, is pulling me by my right. As soon as the majority of me is safely over the window-ledge, they’re reaching out to pull the rest of me in, too, in a heap of slippery beaded silk, my other shoe falling off as they do so, and tumbling thirty feet through the hole in the balcony to the ground below.
I lie, face-down, on the attic floor for a moment, unable to speak.
‘Well!’ Grace Kelly sounds pretty out of puff herself. ‘I certainly never thought I’d see you again!’
I look up at her. At the three of them.
Grace is far older than the last time I saw her – early fifties, perhaps? – and she’s no longer wearing her wedding dress. Instead she’s in a rather stiff, pale tweed suit over a silk blouse, pristine white gloves on her hands. She still looks ravishing, and her skin still has that incredible pearlescent glow, but she’s fuller-faced, softer-figured, with faint lines etched around her eyes, and her hair looks as if it’s been lacquered into place with Superglue. Marilyn, by contrast, is pretty much exactly the age she was when I last saw her. She’s wearing her nude spangles from Some Like It Hot, candyfloss hair somewhat askew from all her efforts at hauling me from my certain doom. Audrey, her big eyes fixed on me with surprising calmness, is ageless as ever, and wearing exactly what she wore the last time I saw her: her little black Givenchy dress from the opening scene of Tiffany’s, with her hair in a beehive and her hands in elbow-length black gloves.
‘Me either!’ Marilyn, sounding more than a little breathless, leans down to put her arms under my armpits and haul me towards the sofa. ‘Here, honey, you need to sit down … a terrible shock like you’ve just had is enough to knock the wind out of anybody!’
‘I’m … I’m OK,’ I fib, as I feel the Chesterfield take my weight. ‘Thank you – thank you all – so much for saving my life.’
‘Oh, honey, it was nothing!’ Marilyn sits her warm, curvaceous body down right beside me and reaches for a martini glass that’s balanced on the arm of the sofa. ‘Have a sip of this, it’ll help.’
‘I’m … I’m all right,’ I croak, because I’m wise to the fact that whatever cocktail she’s got in there, it’s going to taste absolutely undrinkable. ‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, come on, honey, you look like you need it. I’m only sorry I don’t have any rye whisky, or whatever it is you drink in Canada …’
It might have been eighteen months since I last saw her, but I see that her delusion that I’m Canadian remains as strong as ever.
‘Oh, Marilyn, dear, she’s not Canadian.’ Grace Kelly’s accent sounds more Anglo than American now, or perhaps that’s just in contrast to Marilyn’s all-American burr. ‘She’s British. Or, rather, as British as a person can be when they only exist in my subconscious … Golly,’ she adds, gazing at me for a moment, before coming to sit on the Chesterfield herself, although at a rather more regal distance, down the other end. ‘It’s been a long, long time since I dreamed about you. And I never thought I’d see you in a dream with these two.’ She subjects Marilyn to one of her penetrating stares, and then – less beadily – Audrey, too.
‘Hey! Now just hold on one minute,’ Marilyn says, breathily. ‘You’re trying to say … what? I’m just someone in your dream?’
‘Well, of course, Marilyn!’ Grace looks rather shocked that Marilyn is even asking this. ‘You can’t possibly be here, you’ve been—’
Somehow, despite everything that’s just happened, I have the presence of mind to jab Grace Kelly in the thigh with one of my fingers. And she, somehow, has the presence of mind to realize that I’m warning her not to say the words dead for the last twenty years. She glances at me, along the Chesterfield, with a certain degree of understanding, and nods her graceful head, almost imperceptibly. I don’t think she’s any less certain that we’re all playing parts in her subconscious, but at least she’s sensitive enough to realize that she’d better not blurt out anything about Marilyn’s untimely death to her face.
‘I’ve been what, honey?’ Marilyn asks though, before anyone can answer, she suddenly gives a little shiver. ‘Gee, it’s awful chilly up here, wherever we are. Is this your new apartment, sweetie?’
‘No, it isn’t her new apartment,’ Grace says. ‘And honestly, Marilyn, dear, if you’re chilly here in my head, don’t you think it might behove you to put on a few more clothes? It would hardly be surprising if you caught your death of cold in that skimpy … well, can one actually call that a frock? It looks as if you might have come out in your negligee by mistake.’
‘Well, I sure do appreciate the advice, Your Most Royalness,’ Marilyn says, raising a slightly wobbly Martini glass to Grace before pressing her bosom up right next to my arm as she whispers into my ear, ‘Say, if she was anybody other than Princess Grace, I’d have a thing or two to say about her style. She only got married a couple of years ago, and here she is looking like a fifty-year-old woman! Makes a girl kinda glad she’s never managed to meet a prince herself, right?’
Before I can reply, Audrey has come and sat down in the space between Grace and me, and placed a cool, gloved hand on my shoulder. (The other hand is, naturally, holding on to a cigarette in a long holder, on which she takes an elegant drag before she speaks.)
‘Are you feeling all right, darling?’ she asks, gently. ‘That mu
st have been one heck of a shock for you, back there.’
‘It was … not quite so much as a shock as this, though. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s … amazing to see you again, Audrey …’
‘Wonderful to see you, too.’ She squeezes my shoulder and takes another elegant drag on her cigarette. ‘And it looks like congratulations are in order!’
‘Huh?’
‘The dress.’ Her hand moves down to the fabric of my dress, which she examines, for a moment, in an expert fashion. ‘It’s beautiful. Is this hand-stitched lace? And I just adore this ivory on you. So much more flattering than white.’
‘Hey, Audrey’s right! I didn’t even notice!’ Marilyn gasps, excitedly, as some Martini sloshes out of her glass and lands perilously close to the lace fabric that Audrey is so interested in. ‘Honey, this is terrific news! You gotta tell us all about it! Who’s the guy? Ooooh, is it that one you were always crazy about?’
‘Olly,’ Grace interjects, with a raised eyebrow in my direction. ‘That was the fellow’s name, if I remember correctly? It’s all such an awfully long time ago …’
‘No. I’m not marrying Olly.’ I meet Grace’s eye. ‘It’s the other one. Joel. Remember: the billionaire?’
‘Honey! You bagged yourself a billionaire? Now, this really does call for a celebration! Is he cute? Smart?’ Marilyn flings herself backwards on the Chesterfield, displaying her sumptuous, sequin-covered body to impressive advantage. ‘I always knew you’d end up with a good one, honey, even if it isn’t exactly the one you always wanted …’
‘Honestly, darling, we’d love to hear all about him,’ Audrey tells me. She clears her throat. ‘Though, I’ll admit, it probably isn’t the greatest sign that you ended up on a roof in your wedding gown …’
‘No, no, that was just because Joel’s daughter tried to lock me in a bathroom … which, to be fair, I guess isn’t the greatest sign, either.’ I take a deep, slightly ragged breath. ‘Look, I really don’t have long, guys, because they’ll all be up here in a minute looking for me.’ (In fact, I’m pretty surprised, now I think about it, that they’re not up here already.) ‘So I just need to ask – what the bloody hell do you think I should do?’
‘Do?’ All three of them echo.
‘Yes. Should I get married tomorrow, or shouldn’t I …? I mean, you know what it’s like,’ I go on, turning to look at Grace, on the other side of Audrey. ‘You remember the night before your own wedding, right, and how all those questions were running through your head. About Clark Gable, and whether you’d made a mistake letting that run its course—’
‘Oh, I just adore Clark Gable!’ Marilyn gasps, not terribly helpfully. ‘You know, when I was a little girl, I used to imagine that he was my father.’
‘And I know you were having a few doubts,’ I go on, to Grace, ‘about whether marrying Prince Rainier was going to make you truly happy—’
‘Oh, goodness, no, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them doubts,’ Grace replies, though there’s an edge to her voice that suggests even she knows this is a bit of a fib. ‘I was merely taking the opportunity, given that I’d never had a dream like that before, to ask a few searching questions of myself. And, come to think of it, I’ve never had a dream like that since the night before my wedding … and now here you are, all over again, in a wedding dress of your own this time.’ She puts a rather weary hand to her cheek. ‘Is this because I’ve been so worried about Caroline? She’s been so terribly unlucky in love herself, bless her heart, though she does rather compound the problem by making some dreadful choices.’
‘No, look … it’s not about Caroline. It’s not about you, Princess Grace, really it’s not. Not this time,’ I add, because I can see that she’s going to put up a time-consuming fight if I insist it wasn’t about her the previous times, either. ‘I just really need to know what you think. Marry a man I’m not absolutely certain I’m in love with, to stop myself forever hankering after a life with my soulmate? Or go it alone and take the risk that I never get over losing Olly?’
There’s silence for a moment.
Then Marilyn and Audrey start to speak at exactly the same time.
‘Honey, if I were you …’
‘Well, darling, if it were me …’
‘Oh, sorry, Audrey, honey!’ Marilyn reaches over me with her Martini-holding hand (millimetres away from my Jenny Packham, this time, are the drops of very real-looking cocktail that slosh over the edges of the glass) to give Audrey a little pat on the arm. ‘You go right ahead. What you’ll have to say is bound to be a hell of a lot smarter than anything I have to say.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Marilyn,’ Audrey says, in her gentle, unique voice. ‘Your advice is just as valid as mine. More, probably, for someone who falls in love as easily as you do.’
‘Falls in love is certainly one way of putting it,’ Grace murmurs, not quite quietly enough for Marilyn not to hear.
‘Hey, now, Your Worshipfulness!’ Marilyn sounds indignant as she rounds on Grace. ‘We can’t all be lucky enough to bag ourselves a prince, you know, to get an escape route out of Hollywood!’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Grace snaps back. ‘I wasn’t looking for an escape route out of Hollywood!’
‘Oh, no? Because I sure as hell could use a handsome prince to come and rescue me right about now!’
‘Marilyn, that’s entirely your affair.’ Grace’s voice is crisp as ever, but she sounds more upset than I’ve ever heard before. ‘I didn’t want Rainier to rescue me from anything, least of all Hollywood! Frankly, I’m still … well, I’m rather peeved that I’ve never been able to go back!’
I can hear, down in the distant regions of the ground floor, raised and concerned-sounding voices.
‘Please,’ I beg, ‘just tell me what you were about to say, Audrey. Tell me what I should do.’
‘Oh, darling. I’m never going to tell you what you should do.’ Audrey’s huge, catlike eyes are fixed on mine. ‘All I can tell you is what I’d do. And I’d follow my heart. And never look back.’
And with that, she vanishes. Literally. She just melts into the air around her, as if she’s never been there in the first place.
‘Hey!’ Marilyn sounds even more astonished than I feel. ‘What the … where the hell did Audrey go?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Marilyn, how are you finding this quite so hard to grasp? You’re all in my dream, and—’
‘Marilyn,’ I interrupt Grace, because the voices are getting louder, now, as people head up the first flight of stairs towards us. ‘No time for all that. What would you do?’
‘Honey, you know what I’d do! I’d marry the guy. I always marry the guy. Sure, marriages have their ups and downs, but at the end of the day, a husband is family. And family’s the thing we all want most in the world, right?’
And now it’s her turn to vanish. One moment she’s there, in all her spangly, lustrous Marilyn-ness … the next moment, just like Audrey, it’s as if she’s never been.
‘Well!’ Grace Kelly says, with a note of impatience in her voice. ‘Terribly helpful from both of them, I don’t think! Follow your heart; have a family … I’m sure they were both trying to help, but this is no time for wishy-washy sentiment. You need clarity. A firm opinion. Is that correct?’
I nod, wordlessly, hearing Joel’s voice calling, now, from the floor immediately below the attic.
Grace pulls off one of her pristine gloves and places a cool, slightly powdery hand on top of mine. ‘Marrying a man you don’t really love,’ she says, her bright blue eyes fixed on mine, ‘is never going to lessen the ache in your heart for the one that got away. Now, in my particular case, it had its compensations. If I had to go back and live my life over again, I’d still do exactly the same thing. At least –’ those eyes waver, for just a second –‘that’s how I feel about it most days. I might have the occasional moment of hesitation if you asked me right in the middle of watching somebody else act their little heart out in one
of Hitch’s movies.’
‘Libby?’ Joel’s voice is at the bottom of the attic stairs, now. ‘Are you up there? I’m coming …’
‘But to anyone else who ever asked,’ Grace goes on, hurriedly, ‘to you, in fact, my dear dream-girl … well, there’s only one course of action I can suggest. Don’t marry him. Find another way to make your own Happy Ever After.’
Then she, too, vanishes. Gone. In a flicker of an eye.
Her immaculate white glove is, however, still sitting on my lap where she left it.
And now the door is opening, and Joel is standing in the doorway.
‘Libby,’ he says. ‘Oh my God …’
He hurries through the storage boxes to reach me, on the Chesterfield.
‘The rubble blocked the main entrance,’ he says. ‘And the kitchen door was locked from the inside. It took five minutes to get one of the chefs to hear us banging on it …’ He collapses on to the sofa beside me. ‘What the fuck?’ he goes on, staring at me with wide, shocked eyes. ‘How did you manage to pull yourself up like that? We all thought you were … well, I thought I saw you begin to fall.’
‘I know. I … don’t know how that happened.’
‘No. I mean, I’ve never believed in miracles before, but that sure as hell looked like one.’
I don’t reply to this. I take a deep, deep breath instead.
‘Joel,’ I say, because I know if I don’t get it out straight away, the moment will pass. ‘We can’t do this.’
He opens his mouth, I think about to ask what do you mean. But then he just closes it again.
After a moment, he says, ‘Sorry, Libby, but … have you been smoking up here?’
‘No,’ I say, truthfully. I scrunch Grace’s glove up in my hand, so that he can’t see it, and hope that he doesn’t notice – as I’ve just done – that Marilyn’s half-empty Martini glass is sitting precariously on the arm of the sofa right next to him. ‘I haven’t been smoking. It must have been someone else.’
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 29
