A little way behind me, somebody says, ‘Good evening.’
I spin round, wondering, for a split second, if madness really is setting in, and if – seeing as I was talking to the sofa a few moments ago – I’m starting to hear the sofa talk back to me.
But it’s not the sofa. It’s someone perched, in fact, on the arm of the sofa.
And that someone is Audrey Hepburn.
OK, first things first: obviously it’s not actually Audrey Hepburn.
I mean, I may just have been chatting to my new sofa, but I’m not 100 per cent crackers, not yet. Obviously there’s no way this is the real, bona-fide, sadly long-dead Hollywood legend Audrey.
But second things second and third things third: if she’s a lookalike, she’s a bloody good one (she’s dressed exactly, but I mean, exactly the same as the Audrey Hepburn I’ve just been watching on screen: black dress, sunglasses, triple-strand pearls and all); but, more to the point, what the hell is an Audrey Hepburn lookalike doing in my flat in Colliers Wood at eight thirty on a Wednesday evening?
Before I can ask this question – while, in fact, I’m still doing a good impression of a goldfish – she gets to her feet, leans slightly over the melamine worktop and extends a gloved hand.
‘I very much hope,’ she says, ‘that I’m not barging in.’
Wow.
She’s got the voice down absolutely pat, I have to say. The elongated vowels, the crisp, elocution-perfect consonants, all adding up to that mysterious not-quite-English-not-quite-European accent. Exactly the way Audrey Hepburn sounds when you hear her in the movies.
‘But how did you get in?’ I glance over at the door, which I’m sure I locked when Olly and Jesse left. There’s no way she can have come in that way … Unless she has a key, of course … ‘Oh, God. Did Bogdan send you?’
Her eyebrows (perfectly arched and realistically thick) lift up over the top rim of her sunglasses.
‘Bogdan?’
‘The man who owns this block. Owns most of Colliers Wood, by the looks of it.’
‘Colliers Wood?’ she repeats, as though they’re words from a foreign language. ‘What a magical-sounding place!’
‘It’s really, really not.’
‘Where is it?’
‘You’re joking, right?’
She stares at me, impassively, from behind the sunglasses. (Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses, I can’t help but notice, in brown tortoiseshell, so she’s certainly done a thorough job of sourcing a fantastic replica pair from some vintage store or other. Or some shop that sells exact-replica Audrey Hepburn gear, because that necklace she’s wearing is an absolute ringer for the one the real Audrey was wearing on my iPad screen a few minutes ago.)
‘It’s in London. Zone Three. Halfway between Tooting and—’
‘How wonderful!’ She claps her hands in delight. ‘I adore London! I lived here just after the war, you know. The tiniest little flat, you wouldn’t believe how small, right in the middle of Mayfair. South Audley Street – do you know it at all?’
‘Yes. I mean, no. I know South Audley Street, but I don’t know where you … rather, where Audrey … look, I don’t mean to be rude, but you have just sort of … showed up. And I’m not sure I’m happy about other people having keys to the flat, so perhaps you could tell Bogdan …’
‘Darling, I’m awfully sorry, but I really don’t know this Bogdan fellow at all. In fact, it’s just occurred to me that you and I haven’t introduced ourselves properly! I’m Audrey.’ She extends a gracious hand, emitting a waft, as she does so, of perfume from her wrist: an oddly familiar scent of jasmine and violets. ‘Audrey Hepburn.’
‘Right,’ I snort. ‘And I’m Princess Diana.’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ She bows her head and drops into an impressively low curtsey. ‘I had no idea I was in the presence of royalty!’
‘No! I mean, obviously I’m not …’
‘I should have realized, Your Highness. I mean, only a princess would have jewels like that.’
I’m confused (make that even more confused) until I realize that I’m still holding Nora’s half-finished diamanté and pearl-bead necklace in my hand.
‘No, no, this isn’t real.’ I shove the necklace back into the bead-box. ‘And I’m not Your Highness. I’m not a princess.’
She glances up, still balanced in her curtsey. ‘But you said …’
‘Yes, because you said you were Audrey Hepburn. Now, don’t get me wrong, you’re doing a fantastic job …’
Which she really, really is, I have to admit, the longer I stare at her.
I mean, I know anyone can recreate the Breakfast at Tiffany’s look without too much trouble – the dress, the sunglasses, the beehive – but she’s really cracked the finer points, too. Her hair isn’t just beehived, it’s exactly the right shade of chestnut brown; her lips are precisely the right shape and fullness; her complexion is Hollywood-lustrous and oyster-pale.
Oh, and it’s just occurred to me that I can pin down that familiar jasmine-y, violet-y scent, after all: it’s L’Interdit, the Givenchy perfume created specially for Audrey Hepburn, of course. Mum and Cass gave me a bottle of it several Christmases back.
‘Does it take a really long time?’ I suddenly blurt out.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The whole Audrey look. The hair. The make-up. Does it take a really long time?’
‘Oh, well, I have dressers to help me when I’m working, if that’s what you’re asking about. And of course I have darling Hubert to make me the most perfect frocks – this is one of his that I’m wearing right now, in fact! Do you like it? He’s such a brilliant designer – and, trust me, it takes some brilliance to put me in a long dress and not make me look like an ironing board! – and such a dear friend, too!’
As she talks, a second possibility is starting to dawn on me.
Which is that she’s not an extremely good professional lookalike but is, in fact, an escaped lunatic.
Because she really seems to believe that she is Audrey Hepburn. In the way that you hear about people really believing that they are (usually) Napoleon, or Jesus Christ. Or Princess Diana, come to that.
‘Look,’ I say, more gently than I’ve been speaking for the past couple of minutes. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you tell me who I can call. A friend? Boyfriend? A … well, a nurse?’
‘Nurse?’ She laughs, musically. ‘But I’m not ill!’
‘Well, of course! Absolutely you’re not ill!’ I’m nowhere near well enough versed in psychology to know whether someone who thinks they’re Audrey Hepburn could become dangerous if confronted with the fact that they’re not. ‘But it’s getting late, and I’ve got quite a lot of unpacking to do. So if you’d rather I just called you a taxi …’
‘I can help you with the unpacking!’
‘God, no, that’s not what I meant!’
But she’s not listening. She’s tripping daintily over to my boxes, kneeling down beside them and starting to pull off the masking tape.
‘I adore unpacking,’ she says. ‘Making a house a home! Well, in your case, a flat. And this one is simply delightful!’
Now I know she’s suffering from delusions.
‘Though I must say, darling, you’ve not done yourself any favours by putting this huge sofa in here. You’d be far better off with some sort of lovely leather armchair … Goodness! What on earth is this?’
She’s pulled the Nespresso machine out of the top of the box she’s kneeling beside, and is gazing at it, from behind her sunglasses, in awe and wonderment.
‘Is it a camera? A microwave oven?’
‘It’s a Nespresso machine,’ I say, rather irritably, because whether it’s an act or whether it’s a delusion, this whole thing is starting to get a bit much. I’m even starting to wonder if putting in a quick call to Bogdan might be just the thing. After all, if your dodgy landlord can’t get rid of Audrey Hepburn lookalikes who won’t leave your flat, what is he good for? ‘You must have seen t
he adverts, with George Clooney.’
‘Is he any relation to Rosemary?’ she asks, brightly.
‘Rosemary Clooney? I don’t know, might be a nephew or something. Now, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to—’
‘Oh, no, darling, he can’t be a nephew! Rosemary would have told me if she had a nephew!’ She turns back to look at the Nespresso machine, taking her sunglasses off so that she can gaze at it more closely. She puts the sunglasses down on the melamine. ‘Nespresso, you say? It sounds as though it’s the sort of thing that might make you a cup of coffee?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what it does, but you already …’
I stop.
She’s looking right at me, without the sunglasses.
And I feel a bit funny, all of a sudden.
Because – and this is going to sound certifiably insane, I have to warn you – now that I can see her eyes, I’m not so sure that she’s an escaped lunatic after all. Or a professional lookalike, for that matter.
I think that, maybe … well, that maybe she is Audrey Hepburn.
I warned you I’d sound crazy.
I mean, what am I actually saying here? That Audrey Hepburn is miraculously, Lazarus-like, back from the dead? And that instead of coming back from the dead to visit her beloved family, or continue her charity work for UNICEF, she’s dropped by my titchy little flat in Colliers Wood instead?
No: of course I’m not saying that. Nobody comes back from the dead, to Colliers Wood or anywhere else, for that matter.
But the way those eyes are looking at me … and you can’t fake eyes. Yes, you can buy coloured contact lenses to make them the right shade of chocolate brown; yes, you can bung on a shedload of false eyelashes; yes, you can master the art of the perfectly feline kohl flick.
But you can’t, you absolutely cannot, fake the way your eyes look at people. You can’t fake the light in them, the life in them. Nobody could fake that expression she’s fixing on me right now, the expression with which Audrey Hepburn has stared out at me from the screen the countless times I’ve watched her movies.
So really, there are only two explanations, as far as I can see it.
Either this is the ghost of Audrey Hepburn, paying me a visit like something out of a Charles Dickens novel; or I’m the one suffering, for some worrying reason, from borderline-psychotic delusions, and this whole encounter is nothing more than a vivid product of my own imagination.
Thing is, I don’t believe in ghosts.
‘I suppose … I mean, I have had a very stressful day …’
‘Have you, darling?’ She pats me kindly on the shoulder, although her full attention is still being held by the Nespresso machine. ‘Ooooh, I tell you what – we could make ourselves a delicious coffee and you could tell me all about it!’
‘A coffee … actually, that’s a good idea.’
In fact, it occurs to me now that – seeing as I haven’t eaten or drunk anything (except those swigs of wine) since this morning – a hot, sugary cup of coffee would actually be a very good idea. I never did get that cup of tea Dillon was going on about.
So this is probably all just delayed shock! Combined, possibly, with some seriously low blood sugar. As soon as I’ve got something into my system, I’ll be as right as rain! This (admittedly incredibly vivid) hallucination will fade away, and I can go back to watching a celluloid Audrey on my iPad again. Instead of watching this real-looking Audrey, standing in my flat, surreally oohing and aahing over a Nespresso machine.
‘I’ll just find the pods.’ I head for the box she’s just been rootling in and start to look for the complimentary box of coffee pods that came with the machine.
‘Pods?’
‘Yes, the machine needs pods. They should be in here somewhere … a whole box of them …’
But they’re not. There are lots of other things – three boxes of energy-saving light bulbs: what on earth am I doing with those?; an old leather-covered Roberts radio that I’m fairly sure has been broken since my horrible ex-boyfriend Daniel spilled red wine all over it whilst lecturing me on post-structuralist philosophy; a few random espresso cups and saucers that aren’t going to be much use to us unless we can actually make any espressos, and a pair of (what I think must be Mum’s) orange kitchen scissors – but no coffee pods.
‘I don’t understand it. I must have packed them when I packed the machine!’
‘Diana, really, it’s quite all right, we can just—’
‘My name’s not Diana,’ I say, tersely, pulling another box towards me, ripping off the masking tape, and delving in. ‘I know I already said I wasn’t a princess, but my name’s not Diana either. It’s Libby. Libby Lomax.’
‘I see,’ Audrey Hepburn says, though in a rather confused voice, as if she doesn’t see at all. ‘Well … Libby – let’s not trouble ourselves with coffee after all, shall we? It does seem to be … upsetting you rather.’
‘It’s not upsetting me!’ Though as I say this I realize, to my surprise, that I’ve got warm tears spilling out of my eyes and down my cheeks. ‘Sorry,’ I sniffle, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, which drags a long line of damp snot, attractively, from my nostrils to my jawline. This, you see, is why I haven’t cried in front of anyone for the past sixteen years. ‘This is all just a bit overwhelming.’
‘Oh, but of course it is!’ she cries. ‘Unpacking is awfully stressful at the best of times, especially when one can’t find the … what did you call them? Coffee pods?’
‘That’s not what I meant. It’s you. Chatting with you like this … It’s exactly the sort of thing I’ve always dreamed about, and now that it’s actually happening – even if it isn’t, really, not outside my own head, I mean – it’s all going wrong.’
Audrey Hepburn doesn’t say anything; she simply takes me by one elbow, pulls me gently to my feet, and helps me over to the Chesterfield. Then she settles me down amongst the voluminous cushions, plumping them around me rather expertly, and managing only the merest wrinkle of the nose when the doggy smell hits her full in her beautiful face.
‘There!’ she says, as delightfully as ever. ‘Now, isn’t that already a bit better?’
‘Of course it fucking isn’t!’
OK, I didn’t mean to actually yell. Or swear. You don’t shout obscenities at Audrey Hepburn, for Christ’s sake. Not even one you’ve accidentally hallucinated.
But I don’t seem to be able to stop myself, now that the floodgates have opened.
‘How can anything possibly be a bit better, sitting on this joke of a sofa? In this joke of a flat? After my joke of a day?’ I stop myself before I can add in the middle of my joke of a life, because that feels way, way too close to the bone, and will almost certainly result in me starting to sob uncontrollably, quite possibly whilst also rocking back and forth and hugging my knees. ‘And now even my subconscious is playing jokes on me!’
‘Your subconscious?’
‘You and I were supposed to window-shop on Fifth Avenue! We were supposed to drink champagne in Paris! But oh, no – we’re here in my horrible little flat, sitting on a sofa that smells like a mouldering Alsatian, and with nothing to sustain us but a Nespresso machine. Unless we pop down the stairs to one of Bogdan’s takeaways, that is, for some chicken and ribs and deep-pan pizza.’
Audrey Hepburn turns rather pale. ‘Actually, darling, I’m perfectly happy without anything to eat.’
‘It’s just that nothing is going anything like it was supposed to.’
‘Oh, darling. Nothing ever goes how it was supposed to go.’ She sits down on the cushion next to mine and – seemingly from nowhere – produces a lit cigarette. She pops it into her cigarette holder and takes an extremely elegant little draw on it before continuing. ‘You know, the first time I met Cary Grant, I spilled an entire bottle of wine all over him.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘I did. Red wine. And he was wearing a cream suit.’
Even though I’m fairly convinced
that she – that my subconscious, I mean – is making this up in order to make me feel better, I still think I can top this one. I point at her cigarette.
‘I set fire to my own hair with one of those today. While I was talking to the best-looking man on the planet. Who, by the way, is probably making wild, passionate, gravity-defying love to my sister right at this very moment.’
Audrey Hepburn almost drops her cigarette. Her feline eyes widen in horror. ‘Your sister is in bed with Gregory Peck?’
‘What? No, no! Jesus, no! The best-looking man I’ve ever met in real life, I mean.’
‘Oh, thank heavens!’ She looks weak with relief. ‘I wouldn’t have known what to say to Veronique the next time I see her!’
‘Yes, well, I’m talking about Dillon O’Hara. He’s an actor too, as it happens.’ Though actually, this makes me feel a tiny bit better about my disastrous encounter with Dillon: I mean, sure, he’s good-looking and talented and all that, but he’s no Gregory Peck, is he?
‘Well, I’ve never heard of him,’ Audrey declares. ‘And he can’t be so very wonderful if he broke up with you to go out with your sister instead!’
I snort so loudly at the ludicrousness of this that more of that damp snot billows out of my nose.
‘God, no! That’s not what happened. I only met Dillon this morning. And, anyway, Dillon would never give a second glance to a girl like me, even if he didn’t have a thing for pneumatic blondes. Like my curvier, blonder, prettier little sister.’
‘Darling, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. You’re extremely pretty!’ She doesn’t, I can’t help but notice, comment on the curvy and blonde thing. ‘Now, if you’d just stop hiding yourself away underneath that hat …’
A Night In With Audrey Hepburn Page 7
