Is he serious?
Is this, then, the real reason he made the effort to contact me for the first time in five years? To leech off my sudden wellspring of Twitter followers?
I should probably be angry, but all this is only making me feel more and more sorry for him. I mean, he hasn’t seen me in five years. Hasn’t had a conversation, apart from two minutes of funeral-related chitchat, with me for ten. He doesn’t know – hasn’t asked – where I’m living, or if I’m still single, or if I’ve had a couple of children of my own. The only thing he wants, apparently, from his only daughter, is help with a sales boost.
Which, just like that, uncoils the final loop of the rope.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I’ll do that for you.’
And then I start to get to my feet and signal the waiter for the bill.
Dad blinks up at me in amazement, almost as wide-eyed as Ziggy Stardust in the picture on his T-shirt. Because, let’s be honest, he’s the one that always does the leaving. Anything else makes no sense to him whatsoever.
‘Well, you have an early start, as you said,’ I say, by way of explanation, as I pull on my trench-coat and belt it at the waist. ‘But it was nice to see you. We should …’ The words do this again sometime can’t quite make their way past my lips; I’m not, and never will be, as huge-hearted and gracious as Audrey Hepburn. ‘… keep in touch a bit more,’ I finish, and surprise myself by finding that I mean it.
‘But I’m going on a book tour really soon; it’ll be weeks until I’m back in London and …’
‘It’s all right,’ I tell him, before he feels the need to run through his entire itinerary for the next six months just so he can make it clear that he’s the one who’s too busy to keep in touch with me and not the other way around. ‘Just the occasional text message would be nice.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘Advice about a good new movie to go and see, or something,’ I say, because I guess if there’s one thing he’s given me – one thing that despite everything, I’ll always be grateful for – it’s my love of the movies. He might be no real father, but he’s a pretty decent film critic. And it feels strangely fulfilling to let him play to the one strength he’s ever exhibited.
‘I mean, no pressure,’ I add.
And then, because he suddenly looks so old, sitting there in his teenager’s clothing, I lean down and give him a kiss on the cheek.
‘Bye, Eddie,’ I say. ‘Good luck with the book tour.’
I hand two ten-pound notes to the waiter on my way out and – in what I now call, with an unavoidable pang of pain, Dillon-style – don’t wait around for whatever change is due to come my way.
Then I get my phone out of my bag, and send a quick text to Olly.
Finished dinner. Leaving now. L xx
About fifteen seconds later, he replies.
Are you OK? Was it awful? O xx
I stop outside The Jade Dragon, just for a moment, and look back in through one of the plate-glass windows.
Dad is reaching out with one hand to help himself, absently, to a piece of cold salt-and-pepper squid. With the other hand he’s reaching into his jacket pocket to take out a book – something about James Stewart, it looks like from the photo on the cover – and starts to read. He hasn’t even noticed the waiter hovering at his shoulder, trying to give him the change from my twenty-pound note.
Not awful at all, really, I reply to Olly’s text message. Just Dad.
Then, without looking back, I set off along Gerrard Street towards Leicester Square tube station.
It was stupid of me not to have waited for my change at the restaurant, now I come to think of it, because it’s left me too broke to do what I really want to do now, which is to pick up a (cheap) bottle of fizzy wine from the off-licence near Colliers Wood tube station, take it back to my flat, and do my damnedest to get hold of Audrey Hepburn so that I can raise a glass to her and thank her, from the bottom of my heart, for the advice about dealing with my father.
Honestly, I feel like I’ve drunk an entire bottle of fizz already, and proper, vintage champagne at that, not just some cheapo Cava. I feel free. Light. As if I could break into dance at any moment, walking along this chewing-gum-pocked pavement from the tube to my flat, a bit like Audrey herself in the beatnik nightclub in Funny Face.
I don’t even care, any more, about the still-fresh wound left by Dillon’s betrayal. Because for the first time in my life, at the ripe old age of 29, I actually feel like a grown-up. Like a proper woman, not a messed-up little girl.
And though I realize I should probably have got there long ago – put my father, mentally, in a box marked ‘Simply Incapable’, rather than letting that heavy old rope wrap itself around me all my life – it’s a pretty momentous occasion for me.
Oh, well, I’ve probably got a bottle of red stashed away at the bottom of one of my moving boxes, which will do perfectly well for toasting the amazing Audrey.
Not forgetting, of course, that as soon as I’ve brought her up to speed on what just happened with Dad, I really do need, now, to confront her head-on about the whole ghost thing.
There’s a conversation I can’t say I’m going to relish.
I mean, how do you broach something like that? To someone’s face, especially a beautiful, sensitive, alive face like Audrey’s? Do you go super-formal: Sorry to bring this up, but I just wanted to say that I’m not sure you’re a figment of my imagination after all, and I was wondering if you’d mind discussing the possibility that you might be some sort of phantom? Or possibly a poltergeist. I’m not sure of the correct terminology. Or go the opposite way, and just chuck it casually into a conversation about something else: Another glass of wine, Audrey, or shall we crack open something stronger? Oh, and talking of spirits …
Maybe I’d just be better off not mentioning anything at all.
Because it’s not as if it really matters, I guess, whether she came out of my head or out of the ancient Chesterfield sofa. The only thing that matters is that along with the crazy haircut, the Nespresso fixation and the insanely large Net-a-Porter order that … shit … I’ve still got to call them to come and pick up, the advent of Audrey has turned my life around in more ways than one.
After all, if it weren’t for her, this Emma Watson stuff would never have happened. And, alright, the Dillon wound is still horribly fresh, but thanks to Audrey, I still got to have that amazing night with him, which – once the wound has healed – I’m sure I’ll be able to look back on with more than mere fondness …
The odd thing is that I can hear Dillon’s voice now.
Not in my head, I mean, saying all the insanely sexy things he was saying to me between his rumpled sheets.
But actually here, at the top of the stairs as I climb them up to my flat, right now.
‘… so you’d suggest a little bit off the front? You don’t think the floppy fringe is working for me?’
Sweet Jesus. He’s not … he can’t be … talking to Audrey?
‘Is what am suggesting, yes. Less floppy, more choppy.’
Oh, thank God. It’s not Audrey. It’s Bogdan Son of Bogdan.
Though my relief (that Dillon hasn’t met my house-ghost) is swiftly replaced by unease (that Dillon is chatting to Bogdan) and confusion (that Dillon is here at all).
I take the last flight of stairs three at a time and hurry through the door to my flat, which is open.
Dillon and Bogdan are sitting on the Chesterfield, passing Bogdan’s thermos of tea back and forth between them.
‘Can be doing it for you now, if you are liking,’ Bogdan is saying, ‘while we are killing the time, before Libby is getting back.’
‘Libby’s here now,’ I say, and at least get the satisfaction of seeing them both jump, then turn to look at me. ‘Dillon,’ I add, as he gets to his feet. ‘What are you doing here? How do you even know where I live?’
‘Detective work. Well, a couple of pestering phone calls to Scary Vanessa, actually. She had your addr
ess on file. And I did call on my way here, by the way, but it just went to voicemail.’
‘I’ve been on the tube.’
‘Well, luckily your friend Bogdan here let me in …’
‘Am here to put back plasterboard wall,’ Bogdan tells me, sadly, nodding towards the hole in the wall that he must have climbed through to let Dillon into my flat. ‘Father is going wobbly when am telling him that am taking wall down.’
‘Throwing a wobbly,’ I correct him. ‘I’m really sorry about that, Bogdan. But perhaps you should just put the wall back for now, and then try to work out another way of standing up to him soon. Something a bit less … messy.’
‘I’m with Libby on this one, mate,’ Dillon tells him, clapping a hand on Bogdan’s huge shoulder. ‘I’d just quietly focus on your hairdressing, if I were you. Play the long game. Maybe try to save up a bit of money and think about opening a salon of your own. Then just invite your dad along to your grand opening – preferably when there are plenty of witnesses around – and that’ll say more about your independence than knocking down his walls ever could.’
Irritatingly, this is good advice.
But I’m not about to let it sway my low opinion of Dillon. Not one little bit.
‘You are amazing,’ Bogdan tells him. ‘Libby,’ he adds, to me, ‘this is amazing man. At first am thinking he is only good-looker, but we are chatting for last half-hour and he is very lovely, too. Thoughtful and kind. And wonderful. You are lucky to be knowing him, Libby. You are fortunate to—’
‘Yes, I get the message, Bogdan, thanks.’ I give him a look that quite clearly means can you make yourself scarce for a bit so I can find out exactly what Mr Wonderful is doing here, but it’s possible that this look translates badly into mangled English/Moldovan, because Bogdan just stands there, beaming happily between the pair of us, like a vicar at a Richard Curtis wedding, and doesn’t move a muscle.
‘Bogdan, mate, I was wondering, could you maybe pop down and offer some of that tea to the taxi driver? Just while I have a word with Libby here?’
Bogdan, eager to do Dillon’s bidding, is off out of the door with his thermos so fast he doesn’t even have time to stop and tell me more about how amazing Dillon is before he goes.
‘He’s a sweetheart,’ says Dillon, as we both hear Bogdan thundering down flight after flight of stairs. ‘Nasty-sounding father, though.’
I can’t do this again. Stand around listening to Dillon’s charming chitchat until he gets around to realizing that I’m upset about something and then comes up with some fairy tale about New York, and Martin Scorsese auditions … a fairy tale that I cretinously swallow, just because he’s so sexy and gorgeous, and because he (mostly) makes me feel like the warm sun is shining right down on me just because he’s asked it to.
‘Was any of it true?’ I hear myself ask. ‘I mean, did you really go to New York that morning? Or did you go to Rhea’s instead?’
‘Yes, I went to New York that morning. No, I didn’t go to Rhea’s. I’m not with Rhea.’
‘I see. So that was just a recording of her voice I heard through the phone earlier.’
‘No. It was her. Messing with you.’
I don’t react to this right away. Instead I put my bag down on the Chesterfield, then coolly and calmly remove my trench-coat and drape it over the arm of the sofa. Only then do I look at him – right at him – and speak.
‘Messing with me?’
‘I went to her flat, after filming yesterday morning, to tell her to take that stupid Instagram video down. I mean, all right, it’s probably pretty pointless, seeing as it’s been re-tweeted half a million times …’
Well, I suppose it’s nice to be popular.
‘… but as a gesture, I think it’s the least she could do. Though you probably won’t be all that surprised to hear that she refused.’
‘And then you went ahead and slept with her anyway?’
‘No! Jesus, Libby, will you stop thinking the absolute worst of me, every five minutes. Of course I didn’t bloody sleep with her! We just rowed, the way we always do. And then you called, and she heard me talking to you, and she obviously decided to get her kicks by pretending to call me back to bed. Because she’s really not a big fan of yours, Libby, I hate to tell you. She’s jealous, which is a pretty new feeling for her.’
‘Jealous? Of me?’
‘Yeah. Because I told her how I feel about you. And even if she doesn’t want to be with me enough to not be fucking some guy at the gym (which she very charmingly told me all about, in quite some anatomical detail, I might add, this afternoon), she still doesn’t want me to fall for somebody else. Especially when she knows I never fell for her the same way. That I’ve never really fallen for anyone in the same way, to be honest with you.’
The poise I’ve been so proud of ever since we started this conversation has vanished.
I can’t speak. I mean, I can’t croak out a single, solitary word.
‘Fire Girl.’ He comes towards me and cups my face in his hands. ‘Look. I don’t know what this is. It doesn’t make all that much sense to me. I’m not used to feeling like this. But I do know that I’d really like you to stick with me while I work it out.’
OK, and that hasn’t done much for my powers of speech, either.
Because – and do correct me if I’ve got completely the wrong end of the stick here – I think Dillon is telling me that he wants me. And not just in bed, either, for my ego-boosting enthusiasm between the sheets, but for something more.
‘You’d turn down,’ I say, ‘a supermodel, in favour of me?’
‘I’d turn down five supermodels, darling, all at the same time, in favour of you.’ He grins, wickedly but sweetly. ‘I’ve had five supermodels, all at the same time, and it all gets a bit confusing, I can tell you. Too much hair. Too many limbs. And it didn’t make me feel any less like shit when I looked at myself in the mirror the next morning.’
Well, you have to admire his honesty, even though – if I’m going to be able to do this with Dillon – I’m going to have to work triple-time to get the image of him with five perfect-ten models out of my head …
Hang on, he’s reaching into his pocket now, and taking out a folded sheet of paper, which he hands to me.
‘What’s this?’ I ask, without opening it.
‘A boarding pass. I want you to come with me for the weekend, Libby. Come to Rome.’
‘Rome?’
‘Yeah, it’s this major European capital city,’ he says, ‘in a country called Italy. Maybe you’ve heard of it? They eat pizza, and pasta, and drive around on Vespas …’
‘Dillon. Why do you want me to come to Rome?’
‘Because you make me laugh. Because you make me comfortable. Because I fancy the pants off you, and because they’re putting me up in a nice hotel overlooking the city, and because I want to take you to bed and do extremely un-holy things to you while we watch the sun set over St Peter’s. Because you’re my lucky charm, so I need you close by when I meet Martin Scorsese. And because no matter what happens in that meeting, I want to go back to that hotel room with you afterwards, and order wine and gelato, and stay up so late talking that we sleep in and miss our flight home the next morning.’
Damn him and his way with words.
And that way he has of looking at me that makes me certain, despite everything, that they’re not just words, and that he really, truly means it.
‘I’d need … I mean, there’s packing … and what time’s the flight?’
‘Ten forty-five. It’s why I’ve a taxi waiting for us outside. If we leave pretty soon, we’ll get there in time. Assuming there’s no traffic build-up near junction ten at this time of night, that is.’
I wonder what the sudden pointed tone is about, until I remember that peculiar disagreement with Olly.
‘Libby?’ he adds. ‘Come on, sweetheart. What’s your decision?’
What is my decision?
For a moment, I can almost hear
Audrey’s voice in my head, telling me I need a bit more fire in my life.
But, like I say, Audrey’s not the one who’s ever been in danger of getting burnt.
And this isn’t just being near fire, this is playing with fire. There’s the modelizing. The drinking. The suspicious white powder on the marble basin-top.
But it’s Dillon. And it’s Rome. And he wants to do incredible things to me while we watch the sun set over St Paul’s … sorry, I mean St Peter’s … and the mere thought of the incredible things is making it difficult to keep my head straight …
‘I’ll come.’
His face breaks into a broad smile, and he leans down and kisses me.
If it weren’t for the fact I have to hastily pack for a weekend in Rome with him, I’d never want this kiss to stop.
But I do have to pack, and locate my passport in one of these unpacked boxes, and I’m quite sure there’ll be a few more of these kisses to look forward to as soon as we’re Heathrow-bound, so I pull away.
‘I need to get some clothes into a bag …’
‘Sure. Just not too many,’ he says, with a cheeky wink. ‘I’ll go and tell the taxi we’ll be a few more minutes. You know, this is a cute little place, Libby,’ he adds, as he heads for the door. ‘Cosy. And that’s quite a hunk of sofa.’
The Chesterfield. Audrey.
If I wanted to speak to her before this astounding development with Dillon, I want to speak to her more than ever now.
Well, I’m going to have to try to get hold of her while I pack, because there isn’t really time to do it any other way.
As soon as Dillon closes the front door behind him, I plonk myself down on the sofa. Because the sofa, as far as I can tell, is where this all emanated from in the first place.
‘Audrey? Audrey, it’s me. Are you there? Can we talk?’
Nothing.
I close my eyes, in case that might help.
‘Audrey, I have to talk to you! The most amazing things have been happening. Are you there?’
A Night In With Audrey Hepburn Page 27
