A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

by Lucy Holliday

  Dillon winces. ‘She was Finnish, actually. But, nevertheless. I deserve that.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘And I had no idea I’d messaged you. Even something as pathetic as that. I just felt so unbelievably shit about myself, Lib, when I came out the other side of … well, that whole episode. I pretty much just wanted to forget you even existed.’

  ‘Well, congratulations, then. Job done.’

  ‘Hey.’ He reaches over and, briefly, touches my shoulder. ‘I said I wanted to. I didn’t say I managed.’

  My shoulder, beneath my stained hoodie, tingles where he’s just put his hand on it.

  Which is the first moment, since we met outside the clinic five minutes ago, that I actually remember that I’m wearing a stained hoodie. And yesterday’s trousers. With my hair uncombed, and my face still coated in yesterday’s makeup, and with the puffy dinginess to my skin that comes from a hangover brought about by drinking too many Manhattans with Marilyn Monroe. (It does give me a bit of a kick, though, that my hangover is the result of late-night drinks with Marilyn. Because for all Dillon’s absurd antics with hot blondes, he’s never managed to match drinks with a blonde quite as hot as that.)

  I mean, this is a long way from the Best Case Scenario in which I might ever have idly imagined reacquainting myself with Dillon. You know, the one where I’ve miraculously lost two stone (from my hips and thighs) and gained thirteen stone (in the form of Daniel Craig, looking tasty, on my arm).

  And here’s Dillon, sitting beside me, looking, himself, like an insanely buff and particularly sexy Greek God.

  Let’s face it, I was disposable enough to Dillon when I was actually making the best of myself. After seeing me today, he’s going to forget I even exist, again, the moment he’s dropped me at my front door.

  Well, sod him. I’m going to forget about him, too. Not quite so easily, perhaps, and with quite a lot more drink involved. But I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of just cruising back into my life, pulling his I’m-too-charming-for-my-pants routine, and then cruising right off back out of it. Changed man or no changed man: he’s not going to take up a single iota of my head-space again.

  ‘It’s pretty great, actually, that I bumped into you right as I was leaving today,’ he’s going on. ‘Because you’ve been right at the very top of my list.’

  This throws me. ‘Your … list?’

  He nods. ‘People I seriously need to apologize to. I mean, I don’t know if you know anything about drink and drugs rehab, Lib, but if you’re doing it at all properly, you end up with a list of friends and family who you finally realize you’ve shafted, or screwed over, or fucked about with in some way. People you’ve really upset, and pissed off, and rightly won’t even speak to you again unless you make some proper amends. And maybe not, in some cases, even then.’

  ‘You want to make amends to me?’

  ‘Christ, woman, of course I fucking do! I’d have given you a call, once I’d worked my nerve up – a lot harder without a drink to help you out – and asked you out for a bite to eat.’

  ‘It would have to have been a bloody expensive meal,’ I retort, ‘if it was going to make amends. Somewhere with three Michelin stars, and vintage champagne, and oysters, and … and foie gras,’ I add, before remembering that I don’t actually eat foie gras, that oysters make me physically ill and that Dillon can’t drink champagne anyway, vintage or otherwise.

  ‘Libby, darling, the meal isn’t the part that’s meant to make amends. It’s just the setting for me to do it in.’

  ‘I see. Then I’ve saved you a pretty penny,’ I say, frostily, ‘by conveniently bumping into you and allowing you to do the whole thing in a minicab, haven’t I?’

  ‘Licensed private hire vehicle,’ the driver mutters from the front seat. ‘Not a minicab. Actually.’

  Oh, for Christ’s sake – how could I have forgotten, again, that there’s someone else in the car when I’m having a private conversation about my disastrous love life? And this time not even Bogdan, who is at least a friend of mine, but a perfect stranger.

  It’s all a cue for me to sit more primly than ever, staring out of my window like Miss Jean Brodie, and willing the traffic to ease up so that this journey can come to a merciful end, so that Dillon can go back to forgetting about me (but more happily than ever, in the knowledge that he’s finally Done The Right Thing by ticking me off his apology list), and so that I can stagger up the stairs to my flat with the hope, at the back of my mind, that Marilyn Monroe might turn up again. Because I could murder another one of her revolting Manhattans, apart from anything else.

  ‘You know what?’ Dillon is saying, as if fully aware that his ‘making amends’ conversation hasn’t gone terribly well, ‘let’s not keep talking about me and all my stupid mistakes any more. I’ve had six weeks of rehab to blether on about myself to anyone who’d fucking listen. Tell me all about what’s happening with you.’

  ‘Just the usual stuff,’ I say, trying to look Extremely Interested in Wimbledon Common as we sail on by.

  ‘Oh, now, come on. Running your own successful jewellery business isn’t “just the usual stuff”. I can’t open a newspaper without reading about you.’

  ‘I’ve done one interview.’ And I am not going to react to the fact that he’s just admitted he read it. ‘With the Evening Standard’s Friday supplement.’

  ‘Well, I read that interview. And I thought about giving you a call then, too, to say how proud I was of you, but that was right at the start of the weekend that sort of precipitated my trip to rehab … You see, I was at this party in Soho that Friday night, and the next thing I knew it was Tuesday morning, and I was in—’

  ‘I thought,’ I mutter, ‘you were tired of blethering on about yourself.’

  He grins, sheepishly. ‘All I’m trying to say, Libby, is that I heard that things were going really well for you on the professional front, and I was dead pleased. Am I allowed to say that?’

  ‘You’re allowed to say whatever you want,’ I say, coolly. ‘It’s a free country.’

  ‘So it is. So it is.’ He looks out of his own window for a couple of minutes, drumming his fingers, casually, on the door handle. ‘And personally?’

  ‘Personally what?’

  ‘On the personal front. How are things going there?’

  ‘Fine, Dillon. Thank you.’

  ‘Any family news? Apart from your sister’s drink problem, that is.’

  ‘No family news, no.’ I’m not going to get into all the stuff about Dad’s wedding, and my new stepfamily, because that was never the kind of stuff I talked about with Dillon.

  ‘That nice-sounding friend of yours had her wedding yet?’

  ‘Late July.’

  ‘Good for her. And is her brother still a massive wanker?’

  ‘Olly’s incredibly well,’ I say, fiercely, ‘and opening up his own restaurant in Clapham any day now, in fact.’

  ‘Jesus. Well, tell me the name of the place so I can avoid it like the plague. I’m not keeling over dead just because Olly fucking Walker has taken it upon himself to put rat poison in my poncey white truffle ravioli.’

  ‘There won’t be any white truffle ravioli. Or any ponciness,’ I say, trying not to look surprised that Dillon actually remembered Olly’s full name. ‘Anyway, rat poison isn’t his style. He’s more likely to clobber you with a cast-iron crepe pan.’

  ‘And finish me off with a squeeze of lemon to the head? Either way,’ Dillon drawls. ‘I’ll still steer clear.’

  We’re on our way down through Wimbledon now, and we’re just passing the old Edwardian theatre, where I once narrowly avoided an audition for The Sound of Music many years ago, and where I first met Olly and Nora, in fact, when Dillon speaks again.

  ‘And are you seeing anyone?’

  I’d love to be able to report that there’s an edge to his voice; something that hints at a soupçon of seething jealousy. But I can’t. Because there isn’t. He’s just asked this quest
ion in the same polite tone that he was using when we talked about my success with work, and Nora’s wedding.

  Which is the only reason I say, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.’

  Just to see if there’s any other reaction. Because I’m suddenly feeling so desperately frustrated, and sad, and angry, that I can’t seem to inspire a single feeling in him except … well, what? A slightly sheepish brotherliness, as if he’s a particularly trying younger sibling who’s left my Barbie doll out in the rain one time too many.

  I know it sounds ridiculous, given that I’ve been craving some sort of apology from him for so many months, but right now I’d rather hand back the apology and have it replaced with something deeply unapologetic but also deeply … passionate.

  ‘Well, that’s terrific news, Libs! Good for you!’ If Dillon were the high-fiving sort, I think he might actually high-five me. ‘Who’s the lucky fellow?’

  ‘His name’s Adam.’ (It’s not a lie. We haven’t actually broken up. Not officially.) ‘He works in private equity, and he lives in Shepherd’s Bush, and he’s a really, really great guy.’

  None of which, again, is actually untrue.

  Well, apart from the bit about him being a really, really great guy, that is. I just think this whole thing won’t have quite the same ring about it if I were to say, He’s a really, really pathological liar.

  ‘Private equity? So he’s a rich fellow as well as a lucky one!’

  ‘He does OK,’ I mumble, not quite able to look Dillon in the eye, and feeling that I might have lost my unassailable position up on the moral high ground, just a smidgen.

  ‘I’ll bet he does. Ah, I think we’re here,’ Dillon says, as we pass Colliers Wood tube station. ‘Somewhere you can stop for a minute, please, mate,’ he tells the driver. ‘I’m just going to see my friend here up to her flat, and then I’ll be right back down.’

  ‘No!’ I yelp.

  Dillon stares at me. So, I can’t help but notice, does the driver, in his rear-view mirror.

  ‘I mean, there’s no need to see me up!’ I know the Marilyn incident might have been a one-off, and I know nobody else ever had even a hint of a sighting of Audrey, but somehow I still don’t want to take the risk. ‘The place is a tip, and I’ve got … er … valuable bits of jewellery lying around on the floor with glue drying, and stuff …’

  ‘All right,’ Dillon says, but he still gets out of his side and walks round to my door to open it for me.

  Which I refuse to let him do, because I won’t let myself be remotely charmed by any of his easy displays of chivalry, so I’m already opening my own door out on to the pavement when he reaches it.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘thanks for the lift, Dillon. And … congratulations. Genuinely. On rehab, I mean. I know how hard it must have been for you.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Libby. I really do.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And congratulations to you, too, sweetheart. On the career thing, and the Adam thing … I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re doing so well. And not being dragged down by an eejit like me.’

  ‘I appreciate that, Dillon.’ I know I’m echoing what he’s just said, but I’d rather play it safe right now; stick to something that I already know sounds mature and polite and well adjusted. Just in case, you know, I accidentally start screaming at him that his apology felt meaningless, that I still think he’s a selfish, arrogant shit, and that I was obviously never any more special to him than sitting down to … to a pleasant cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. ‘I really do.’

  He smiles at me, and leans down to give me another of those soft kisses on the cheek.

  This time, without the distraction of a dozen photographers going wild with their flashes, I’m able to notice that he smells his usual citrusy, musky, cigarette smokey smell, just without the additional aroma of forty per cent proof alcohol.

  I don’t know if anyone else has ever had a heart-stoppingly sexual moment on Colliers Wood High Street before, but I’m willing to bet that, even if they have, the one I’ve just experienced would knock it into a cocked hat.

  ‘I’m really, really, really sorry,’ he murmurs, into my right ear, ‘about it all. About Miami, and the hurricane, and the Finnish model …’

  ‘It’s all right, Dillon,’ I reply, wearily. ‘I mean, you weren’t actually responsible for the hurricane. Even you can’t possibly think you’re quite as God-like as that. And, let’s face it, there was always bound to be a Finnish model. Or a Swedish one, or a Dutch one, or a Venezuelan one.’

  ‘Oh, now, be fair. I don’t think there was ever a Venezuelan model.’

  ‘It was only,’ I tell him, pulling away, ‘a matter of time.’

  Then I turn and walk, quickly, towards my building, hoping that he isn’t going to follow me.

  And hoping, illogically, stupidly, dangerously, that he will follow me, at the same time.

  He hasn’t followed me.

  So I’m taking the stairs up to my flat as quickly as I can, because now that I’m home, I desperately want to know if Marilyn is back for another visit. From the pervading smell of Chanel No. 5, I’m thinking she has to be …

  … but as I open my front door, I can see, straight away, that Marilyn isn’t here.

  Nor, I’m alarmed to notice, are my TV, my coffee table or my Chesterfield sofa.

  It would have to be an extremely strong and equally determined burglar – or, more to the point, two or three of them – to have got the Chesterfield out of my flat in the first place.

  Or …

  … is that the sound of my TV that I can hear coming through the partition door?

  I should explain: this minuscule flat started out life as a slightly larger flat, until my landlord Bogdan (Senior) decided, a couple of days before I moved in, to put up a plasterboard wall and turn the slightly larger flat into two minuscule ones instead, to double his opportunities for rent. But the flat is so very small, and the amount he insists on asking for the rental of it so very large, that nobody has yet expressed the slightest interest in coming to live there. These days, hoping against hope that Bogdan Senior never bothers to drop round to check the place out, I quite often use it as a sort of unofficial work studio, because the light is better in there than in my flat, and because there’s no furniture in it to take up space that I can use to spread all my bits and bobs out in.

  Oh, and it’s no longer a plasterboard wall dividing the two flats, but a flimsy wooden door. Because Bogdan Junior took it upon himself, one day last year, to smash his way through the plasterboard with a sledgehammer. I honestly can’t remember why: I think it was some peculiar attempt to stand up to his father. But eventually he did pop round to make good the hole in the wall, and decided it would be ‘more stylish, Libby, less Soviet-era utilitarianism’ to replace the hole with a door instead of a wall.

  Either way, wall or door, there’s the sound of a television blaring out, loudly, from behind it.

  I’m pretty sure I know what – or rather, who – else is on the other side of that door with it.

  ‘Marilyn,’ I say, a moment later, as I open the door.

  She’s sprawled on the Chesterfield, this time mink-less but wearing a fluffy white bathrobe and a turban-style towel on her head, and she’s gazing at my TV.

  ‘Hi!’ Marilyn turns her head as she hears me come in: beneath the towelling turban, she’s still fully made-up and as glowing as ever. There’s a cocktail shaker and an empty glass perched precariously on the coffee table, and she’s holding, in one perfectly manicured hand, a glass of her own, filled with noxious-looking amber-coloured liquid. ‘You’re just in time, honey! There’s going to be a wedding!’

  I glance at the TV screen in front of her. Kim Kardashian is trying on a huge white wedding dress, while all around her a selection of Kardashian sisters weeps, photogenically.

  ‘You’re watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians?’

  ‘I sure am, and you gotta sit down and watch it with me on this a
mazing television set! Did you notice, honey, that the picture’s in colour?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Incredible.’ Barely tearing her eyes off the screen for even a moment, she leans over to the coffee table, picks up the cocktail shaker, pours it into the empty glass and hands it to me. ‘Have some ice tea,’ she adds, ‘and tell me what you think of the guy who plays the fiancé. I think he’s kinda cute, but I think the writers made a mistake when they picked out a job for him to do. I mean, wrapping gifts in a department store? I don’t think it’ll make for a very exciting storyline. Couldn’t they have made him, like, an African prince, or something?’

  I’ve absolutely no idea what she’s talking about. Until there’s a fleeting glimpse of Kanye West on the screen, and I remember that he’s a rapper, and instantly see where the confusion is coming from.

  ‘And isn’t it amazing, honey, how they managed to find so many actresses that looked so similar, to play the sisters?’ Marilyn takes a sip of her iced tea. ‘They coulda done a better job with the one playing Khloe, though.’

  ‘No, no, Marilyn, they’re not actresses.’

  ‘Well, they’re sure not very good actresses … I mean, don’t get me wrong, honey, it’s absolutely gripping, but I’ve seen better acting from a barn door!’

  ‘No, I mean, they’re not actresses in any way, shape or form. They’re real people. It’s a show about their lives.’ I sink down on to the sofa with my iced tea. ‘So, er, when – no, how, more to the point – did you manage to move my stuff through?’

  ‘While you were out, of course. I mean, I’d no idea, when I first got here, that there were two rooms in this apartment! It’s gonna be nice for us not to be living so much on top of each other, isn’t it? But honey, I don’t understand what you just said.’ She gestures with her glass at the TV screen, where the closing credits are showing. ‘This isn’t a serial? It’s … a documentary?’