I open my eyes, hoping to see a Givenchy-clad vision on the sofa beside me. But still, there’s nothing.
All right, well, what’s Plan B?
I’ll get on and pack, because I really need to hurry up here, and because – now that I think about it – Audrey has always popped up, before now, when I haven’t actually been expecting her.
With slightly shaky legs (I still can’t quite believe Dillon said all those lovely things to me just now; that he thinks them, in fact) I hurry over to my boxes and start looking for the squashed-up holdall that I know will be in there somewhere.
‘Am blue with envy,’ comes a voice behind me.
Nope: not Audrey. Bogdan Son of Bogdan.
It’s not that I’m not pleased to see him, it’s just that there’s no chance of Audrey making an appearance if he’s here.
‘You are agreeing to go to Rome?’
‘Yes, I’m agreeing,’ I say, finally locating the holdall and shaking it out. ‘Help me, Bogdan! I don’t know what to pack.’
‘For weekend away with bad-boy actor Dillon O’Hara? Who, by the way Libby, am giving you much kudos for snaggling.’
‘I think you mean snaring. But thanks anyway, Bogdan.’
‘For weekend away with this man, am thinking naughty knickers and not much alternative.’
‘Well, sure.’ My cheeks are flushing and my heart is racing at the mere prospect of this. ‘But I do need a few more bits and bobs, Bogdan. For sightseeing, and meals, and stuff …’
‘Why not be taking new things from Net-a-Porter order?’
Oh, Christ, that bloody order!
‘No, Bogdan, I can’t do that, in fact I really have to send it all back …’
‘Oh, Libby, please do not be doing that!’ He disappears through his hole in the wall for a moment, and then re-emerges holding several pieces of clothing in his huge hands. ‘Am loving this pencil skirt. Is perfect with this stripy T. And dress by Victoria Beckham is almost as gorgeous as husband—’
‘Bogdan! You shouldn’t have got it all out! Oh, God, you haven’t taken the labels off, have you?’
‘Do not be worrying, Libby, am doing no such thing. You are able to be wearing clothes for weekend in Rome and then returning them when back.’
‘No! I’m not doing that!’ (It’s not that I’m not tempted, but on the form of the past few days, I’ll accidentally set light to the pencil skirt and somehow contrive to stumble upon an open-air paintballing battle the moment I step out of the hotel in the – admittedly absolutely stunning – Victoria Beckham column dress). ‘Look, I’ve got enough OK stuff of my own already to be able to pack for a weekend. I just need one dress, and some decent jeans … there should be a skinny pair folded up in one of the boxes …’
‘All right. Am putting some things in bag for you while you are fixing make-up.’
‘I don’t need to fix my make-up.’
‘You are needing,’ he tells me, firmly, ‘to fix make-up.’
Seeing as it was seven o’clock this morning when I first put my full face on, he’s probably got a point. And anyway, I don’t have time to do both – pack and glam up a bit – by myself. So we work in companionable silence for two or three minutes, Bogdan holding up bits and bobs of my clothing, regarding them mournfully and then either discarding them or popping them into the holdall, and me putting on fresh blusher and mascara, plus another layer of concealer on my eye, then dashing over to the bathroom across the hallway to do my teeth and grab my wash-bag.
‘Am packing black dress, grey skinny jeans, selection tops, nice shoes. Am not packing diabolical grey hoodies. And am assuming,’ Bogdan intones, holding out the full-to-bursting bag as I come back into the flat, ‘you are preferring to be packing naughty knickers yourself. In handbag, perhaps.’
‘Yes, you’re right. Thanks, Bogdan.’ I pop my wash-bag and make-up into the holdall and zip it up. ‘In fact …’ I see one final opportunity to have a moment of alone-time. ‘… while I do that, can you maybe pop down and tell Dillon I’ll be two more minutes?’
‘Of course. Will be taking bag and coat down for you,’ he says, taking the holdall back, picking up my black trench from the arm of the sofa and sloping off out of the door to go down to the street.
OK; this really is the last chance before I go.
‘Audrey?’ I hiss, while simultaneously rummaging through one of my clothes boxes in search of … a lacy black bra and knickers, yep … and this sort of see-through floaty nightie thing, perfect … I pop both into my handbag before scuttling to the Chesterfield and sitting down. ‘Please turn up, just for a minute. I’m going away to Rome for the weekend – with Dillon, can you believe it? – and I really, really wanted to tell you something before I go.’
Again, nothing happens.
‘Can you hear me, at least?’
There’s no answer to this question, one way or the other.
‘The thing is, I just wanted to say thank you, Audrey. From the bottom of my heart. Because I went to meet my dad tonight, and even though it was awful at first, it ended up going just the way you said. Like this rope was unfurling itself from around me … well, I probably don’t need to explain it to you, do I? The fact is, it’s just … better.’
But still the only sound I can hear is the low traffic rumble from Colliers Wood High Street outside.
‘Anyway, I’m off for this weekend away with Dillon now, of all things. I don’t know what you’d say about it if you were here. I hope you’d think it’s insanely romantic. Maybe you’d just think it’s insane. But this sort of thing has never happened to me before – getting swept off to the airport by a gorgeous modelizer – so I’m seizing the moment for once in my life. And it’s Rome, Audrey! You of all people must understand why I’m going?’
This time, when there’s no reply, I decide it’s time to call it a day.
I’m not sure exactly why, but I’m getting the feeling that I won’t be seeing Audrey Hepburn again. On the haunted Chesterfield, or anywhere else for that matter.
I just have this sense that she knows I’m going to be OK.
Or maybe it’s just that I know I’m going to be OK.
I hastily locate my passport – miraculously exactly where I hoped it would be, in a large box-file marked IMPORTANT STUFF – then pop it into my handbag alongside the naughty knickers, which I’m going to have to do a better job of stashing in an inside pocket before we go through security at Heathrow. I grab my keys and head for the door.
‘It was wonderful hanging out with you, Audrey,’ I say, to the apricot-coloured Chesterfield. ‘Drop by for a Nespresso any time.’
And then I close the door behind me.
Dillon’s waiting taxi is contributing to something of a snarl-up on Colliers Wood High Street: a van has pulled up on the opposite side and is starting to unload huge crates of (dear God, I hope) dead chickens for delivery to Bogdan’s Chicken ’n’ Ribz, which means that larger vehicles like buses and lorries are struggling to get through the narrow gap. So I put a bit of speed on and hurry towards it.
Dillon and Bogdan are standing on the pavement, chatting (‘you are really thinking I should be opening own salon? You are thinking I am having what it is taking?’) and Dillon’s handsome face lights up in a smile when he sees me coming.
‘Perfect timing,’ he says, as he opens the taxi door for me; then, before I get in, places my trench-coat solicitously over my shoulders. ‘Amazing shades, by the way,’ he adds. ‘Just the thing for Rome.’
‘Shades?’
‘They fell out of your coat pocket when Bogdan handed it to me. I hope they’re not damaged, or anything.’
‘Sure, but I don’t actually …’ I slide a hand into the pocket of my trench and pull out a pair of sunglasses.
Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses. In brown tortoiseshell.
I glance over at Bogdan.
‘Bogdan, did you …’ I try to sound more casual, because Dillon is standing right here, after all. ‘I thought I said
I didn’t want to bring anything from that Net-a-Porter order.’
Because that’s where they must have come from, surely?
‘You are saying this, Libby, yes.’
‘But these sunglasses—’
‘Are not from order. Am not seeing them at all before now.’
‘They’re pretty fabulous,’ Dillon says, putting the sexiest of hands in the small of my back and starting to guide me into the taxi. ‘A lot like the ones Audrey Hepburn wears in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.’
That’s because, I know without a shadow of a doubt as I look more closely at them, they are the ones Audrey Hepburn wears in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
The ones she lost, and then found down the side of the sofa.
But they definitely haven’t been in my coat pocket before now. Definitely weren’t in my coat pocket when I was coming back from The Jade Dragon, earlier. I had my hands shoved in my pockets for most of the walk home, because of the nip in the air, so I think I’d have noticed.
I think – in fact, somehow, don’t ask me how, I know – that Audrey has left them behind for me. Deliberately, before she went on her way, as a sort of memento of her existence. A souvenir of our time together.
And if the sunglasses are so real that they’re here in my hand now, in the outside world, for Dillon and Bogdan to see as well as me … well, does it mean that Audrey, too, was somehow … real, after all?
‘Libby?’ Dillon slides an arm around me as the taxi moves off; I hadn’t even noticed he’d got in beside me. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s good. Better than good. Perfect.’
‘That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say.’ He leans closer and gently, spine-tinglingly, nuzzles my neck. ‘I’m really glad I met you, Fire Girl,’ he murmurs.
‘And I’m glad I …’
There’s a quiet ping, from my iPhone.
‘… met you,’ I finish.
‘Traffic’s looking iffy on the A3, mate,’ the taxi driver is suddenly pulling open his little screen to say. ‘Happy for me to try the South Circ instead?’
As Dillon leans forward to discuss this with him, I reach for my bag and slide out my iPhone.
It’s Olly – a reply to my last text about my dad.
Proud of you, Lib. Speak in the morning. Sleep well O xx
I would reply that sleep might be a bit tricky tonight, seeing as I’m on my way to catch a late-night flight to Rome with Dillon O’Hara, but given how much Olly seems to dislike Dillon – and wary of inciting another Le Creuset threat – I obviously don’t do this.
Thanks, Olly, I text back. And if I didn’t make this clear enough earlier, you’re definitely not a Labrador. Love you loads. L xx
‘He’s going to take the South Circular,’ Dillon tells me, sitting back again and sliding that arm back round my shoulders. ‘But don’t you worry; we’re going to get ourselves to Rome tonight, even if I have to sprout wings. Or hire a private jet and fly us there myself. That would’ve sounded a bit cooler if I’d said it first, wouldn’t it?’
‘Oh, Dillon.’ I pull him in closer. ‘When did you ever need to worry about not sounding cool?’
He laughs, and leans down, and starts to kiss me, as our taxi wends its way through the dusk towards the South Circular, and Heathrow, and our Roman holiday.
As I open the front door to my building, I’m assaulted by the most overpowering smell coming out of the hallway. I wish I could say this was something new.
Unfortunately, ever since the latest in my landlord’s ever-expanding empire of fast-food restaurants, ‘Bogdan’s Noodlez’, opened a couple of months ago, I’m assailed by this smell on a daily basis. It’s a sort of soupy, oniony aroma, with (mmmm) undertones of fish sauce and cabbage and it hasn’t exactly convinced me to pop downstairs and get a takeaway from there, no matter how many times I’ve been assured of ten per cent off any noodle dish of my choice (for my first order only).
Still, I suppose it’s at least made me grateful for the hike up four steep flights of stairs to reach my front door. Up here, thank God, the smell is merely a lingering whiff rather than a full-on pong.
It’s a bit weird, though, because there is a strong smell up here on the fourth floor this evening. Not soupy or cabbagey in the least – in fact it’s a deeply musky floral smell, like a rose garden at midnight – but it’s pretty overpowering nevertheless.
I hurriedly rifle in my bag to find my keys, because I’m suddenly worried that I might have spilled some body lotion all over the floor when I was getting ready this morning. Though it would have to be a pretty serious amount of body lotion – like, a dozen bottles’ worth – to cause quite this intensity of scent. I put my key in the door and enter the teeny-tiny ‘bijou’ flat that I’m starting to think of as home.
And anyway, the body lotion I’m currently using is that custardy-coloured Kiehls one with almost no smell to it whatsoever. Dillon bought a huge bottle for me in New York, so I dollop it on pretty thickly all over, on the assumption that he likes it mainly because all his previous girlfriends have used it. And seeing as his previous girlfriends were, pretty much to a woman, dewey-limbed lingerie models, I think that slathering on custardy body lotion like it’s going out of fashion is a perfectly …
Oh, no. Not this. Not again.
It’s Marilyn Monroe. Sitting on my Chesterfield sofa. No, lounging on my Chesterfield sofa, her feet at one end and her platinum-coloured head lolling at the other – with her mascara-heavy eyes half-closed and her lipstick-glossy mouth half-open. Her eyes flicker wide open as she notices me come in, and she sits up, slightly.
‘Oh, hi, there!’ she says, with a sweet, slightly confused smile. ‘Do you mind if I don’t get up? It’s just that this sofa is dreamy!’
Her voice is breathy, little-girly, exactly the way you’ve always heard it in the movies. And she looks exactly the way you’ve always seen her in the movies: not just that platinum halo of hair and that glossy mouth, but everything else, too. She’s wearing – barely wearing – the sparkly nude-tone dress she wore in Some Like It Hot, the daring one that more than hints at the shape of her breasts and the precise size and location of her nipples, and her skin is glowing as if it’s been lit from within by the floodlights of a sixty-thousand-seat football stadium. It’s that radiance people always mention when they talk about Marilyn, the astonishing way the light reflected off her hair and her skin, and right here in front of my very eyes, in my dingy little living room, it’s absolutely dazzling.
And if you’re wondering why I’m not running screaming for the hills because a scary (and scarily-convincing) Marilyn Monroe impersonator has broken into my flat; or calling for an ambulance to take me at speed to the nearest psychiatric ward; or even, perhaps, fainting dead away where I stand, it’s because this has happened before.
Only last time, it was Audrey Hepburn. And I’m fairly certain, after much, much thought on the matter, that Audrey somehow materialized into my flat through the medium of my rose-patterned Chesterfield.
This shimmering, almost crystalline vision of Marilyn has, I think, just arrived in exactly the same way.
‘Oh, dear …’ My silence has clearly alarmed Marilyn, because she’s getting to her feet, adjusting herself in her nearly-nude frock with a little wriggle of her shoulders as she does so. Upright, she’s slighter than I’d have thought: curvy as anything, yes, but teeny-waisted and slender with it. ‘Are you alright, honey? You look absolutely all in!’
‘I’m alright …’ I croak.
‘You don’t look alright!’ She leans down to pick up a snowdrift-white fur stole, which I now notice was draped over the arm of the Chesterfield where her head was resting, and shimmies her way towards me. As she holds out the stole, there’s a fresh waft of midnight rose-garden scent that – of course – I suddenly recognize as Chanel No 5. ‘Pop this on – it’ll make you so warm and toasty! – and I’ll fix you a nice drink.’
I wave the fur stole away.
&nb
sp; ‘But honey, it’s real mink!’
‘I don’t wear fur,’ I manage to say.
‘You don’t have any furs?’ she gasps. ‘Then, honey, keep this one! I’ve dozens and dozens of them, most of them I didn’t even have to buy myself, they were just gifts from sweet, generous men.’ She puts one hand to her cheek for a moment and frowns, almost comically, thinking about this. ‘Well, certainly generous men. I guess some of them weren’t all that sweet …’
‘No, look, it’s not that I don’t have any furs, it’s that …’
You know, somehow it strikes me that this isn’t the time or the place for an anti-fur conversation. And that, let’s face it, the perennially mink-clad Marilyn isn’t the best person to be having that conversation with, anytime, anywhere.
‘Drink,’ I say. ‘You mentioned a drink.’
‘Well, now you’re talkin’, honey!’ She visibly brightens at this – as if, in her lustrous state, she could get any brighter – and spins on one heel to head for the kitchen. ‘What’ll it be, a Manhattan?’
I don’t answer – can’t answer – because I’m literally dumbstruck by watching her walk away from me. Her rear view, in those flesh-toned sparkles, is even more impossible to tear your eyes off than it is when you see it on-screen … and if there isn’t actually a saxophone suddenly playing sultry jazz notes somewhere in my flat, then I’m doing a hell of a job of imagining one.
‘Honey? Would you like a Manhattan?’ Marilyn repeats, as – good God – she bends over to lean into my fridge in search, I imagine, of alcohol. ‘And where d’you keep your cocktail shaker?’
‘I don’t have a cocktail shaker.’
Her head swivels to look at me, her mouth slack with shock.
‘You don’t have a cocktail shaker?’
‘No. Or … well, whatever ingredients go in a Manhattan.’
‘Oh, honey, it’s nothing fancy, just a little whisky and vermouth …’
‘I don’t have whisky,’ I say, apologetically. ‘Or vermouth.’
‘… and a Maraschino cherry to garnish.’
A Night In With Audrey Hepburn Page 28
