A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

by Lucy Holliday

  ‘It’s reality TV, that’s all.’

  ‘What TV?’

  ‘Reality. They’re a real family. Well, real-ish. They actually are all sisters, and the bride really is getting married … But Marilyn, you still haven’t told me how you got the sofa in here.’

  ‘Oh, this incredibly sweet homo helped me with it. At least, I think he was a homo, because when he showed up, I accidentally answered the door in my birthday suit, and he couldn’t have been less interested in, well, any of that. All he wanted to talk about was my hair.’

  I stare at her. ‘You answered the door to … a gay man? Who wanted to talk about your hair?’

  ‘Oh, Lord, no, honey, he really wasn’t all that gay! I mean, he was sweet, and all that, but he was sort of gloomy, to be honest with you. But I guess Russians are often like that, right? Or he coulda been one of those Bulgarians, or a Polack, or—’

  ‘Moldovan.’

  Because it was Bogdan who helped her move the Chesterfield, wasn’t it?

  Magical Marilyn has met Bogdan.

  And, more to the point, Bogdan has met her.

  ‘Ooooh, another episode!’ Marilyn suddenly shrieks with excitement as Keeping Up with the Kardashians starts up again on the TV screen. ‘I just can’t believe this is real, honey. I mean, isn’t that a clever idea? To just film people going about their everyday lives, and all?’

  I’m not paying much attention; I pull out my phone and go, hastily, to my messages.

  OK, so Bogdan hasn’t sent a message. There are no missed calls from him, no voicemails asking why a naked girl looking exactly like Marilyn Monroe – and, I presume, calling herself Marilyn Monroe – invited him into the flat this afternoon to help her move my sofa.

  ‘Did you tell him who you were?’ I ask, taking a sip from my iced-tea glass to steady my nerves, and then promptly spitting it straight back into the glass again. It’s just as revolting as the Manhattans she made yesterday. ‘Jesus! What’s in that?’

  ‘Just a splash or two of vodka, honey.’ Marilyn gives me a little wink, steadying her turban for a moment as she does so. ‘Iced tea is awful dull otherwise, don’t you think? And I told him my name was Marilyn, if that’s what you’re asking. Hey, what’s that you’re holding?’

  ‘My phone.’

  ‘Gee, you Canadians sure have funny-looking phones!’

  ‘It’s a mobile phone. It means I can take calls when I’m out.’ I shove my phone back into the pocket of my hoodie. ‘Well, I suppose I’ll just have to ask him about it the next time I see him,’ I mutter. ‘Maybe he thought you were a lookalike, or something.’

  After all, it’s what I thought when I first met Audrey.

  And it is – just – possible that Bogdan was so interested in Marilyn’s hair that he didn’t think twice about who she might really be.

  ‘Now,’ says Marilyn, ‘can we stop talking about the gloomy homo for a moment?’

  ‘Marilyn, just while we’re at it, you really can’t say—’

  ‘And you can tell me, honey –’ she turns her attention back to the TV screen – ‘how I can get myself on to a show like this one.’

  ‘You … want to go on Keeping Up with the Kardashians?’

  Her eyes widen. ‘Oh! Do you think they’d have me?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘No, no, honey, it’s a great idea! I just need to know how I go about it. You say this is their real lives, right? So, would I have to meet them somehow? Make friends with them? Because I think I could get along real well with Khloe. I’m not too sure if Kim would like me all that much, though—’

  I’m distracted, momentarily, by a ping from my phone in my pocket.

  It’s Mum.

  JUST HAD CALL FROM DAVE RE CASS’S INCARCERATION IN MENTAL INSTITUTION.

  Oh, God. I know what’s coming next.

  DID YOU NOT THINK IT REMOTELY IMPORTANT TO TELL ME, LIBBY??????!!!!!!

  I begin to type a reply when a third message appears.

  COMING HOME TOMORROW. MEET ME 4.45 PADDINGTON STATION.

  ‘… and the mother seems a little scary.’

  ‘She’s not scary. She’s just a massive pain in the backside,’ I say, before realizing that Marilyn is still staring at the screen, and that she’s talking about the Kardashians’ mother, and not my own. ‘But, Marilyn, trust me: you have bigger and better things in your future than trying to get a guest spot on a reality TV show. I mean, I know I put it badly when we talked about it the other day, but you mustn’t get it into your head that you’re not talented enough to become a huge movie star. One of the biggest the world has ever seen, in fact.’

  ‘Gee, honey.’ This gets Marilyn’s attention off the TV. So much so, in fact, that she actually picks up the remote control and deftly switches it off. She stares at me now, instead of Kim, Kourtney and Khloe. ‘You really believe in me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I do.’

  ‘Well, that’s just about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.’

  Her wide-eyed gaze, not unlike the way Fritz looked at me right after I handed him a morsel of pâté, is actually making me a little bit uncomfortable. ‘I’m only telling you because it’s a fact.’

  ‘You’re swell, honey,’ she goes on, ‘did anyone ever tell you that?’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I say, awkwardly.

  ‘But you are. And you know, while we’re on the subject of believing in yourself, maybe you should try it, too.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m fine.’

  By which all I’m trying to say is that I’m not plagued by the sort of crippling self-doubt that afflicted Marilyn Monroe.

  ‘I mean,’ I go on, without quite meaning to, ‘obviously I do have the occasional wobble on the whole self-belief front. Mostly down to the fact that no matter what I do, I can’t seem to stop being a human digestive—’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Oh, you might call it a graham cracker, I suppose? I mean the really boring, pointless biscuits that everybody overlooks on their way to grabbing the more exciting, chocolately, delicious ones.’

  ‘You’re saying you feel like the cookie nobody wants?’

  ‘Yes!’ I stare at her. ‘You get it.’

  ‘Well, of course I get it, honey. I spent my entire life being the graham cracker. Mousy little Norma Jeane, with her no-good family and her no-hope future. She got overlooked by everybody, all the time. But then … well, I don’t know what happened.’ Marilyn shrugs. ‘I guess my figure got a little more womanly, and the boys seemed to like that … say, is it a boy you’re talking about?’ she adds, suddenly. ‘The one who thinks you’re a graham cracker?’

  ‘Amongst others.’ I take another gulp of vodka-laced iced tea. ‘His name’s Dillon.’

  ‘And he doesn’t know you exist?’

  ‘No, that’s not quite it. He knows I exist; he just knows a lot of other women exist as well.’

  ‘Oh, honey, I can help you with that!’ she gasps. ‘Men always seem to notice me in a crowd of other girls!’ She tilts her turbaned head slightly. ‘Though, you know, I never stopped to think exactly why …’

  This is so surprisingly sweet and naïve of her that I forget to feel miserable about Dillon for a second.

  ‘… but maybe I could think about it right now and see if there’s anything I do that you could do, too!’ She beams at me. ‘Passing on tips, kind of like we’re sisters!’

  ‘That’s really, really nice of you, Marilyn, but I don’t think there’s anything you do that I could do. I mean, for starters, I don’t have your figure.’

  ‘Oh, just stuff your bra with pantyhose, honey.’ Marilyn waves a dismissive hand. ‘Even I do that. It never hurts to enhance what Mother Nature gave you! And you know the other thing you could do right away? Lose the black pants.’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with the black pants!’ I say, defensively. ‘I used to wear nothing, absolutely nothing, for Dillon, except a cheeky smile and a pair of high heels. It stil
l didn’t stop him ditching me for a Norwegian lingerie model the moment he met one, and forgetting I even existed.’

  ‘Oh, honey, that’s—’

  ‘Sorry, Finnish.’

  ‘Well, I would have, honey, but you just interrupted me.’

  ‘No, I meant the model was Finnish. From Finland.’

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ says Marilyn, in the sort of voice that implies she doesn’t get it at all, before she goes on, ‘Ooooh, and maybe you oughta think about lightening your hair. My modelling agency nagged at me to do it for ages and ages and ages, and then when I finally did …’ She snaps her fingers together. ‘Bam! It was like I was suddenly walking around with my own little spotlight above me.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m quite happy with brown hair, really.’

  ‘And another thing! You should start wearing makeup.’

  ‘I do wear makeup!’

  ‘Then wear a lot more makeup. And wear a lot tighter clothes. A whole size smaller,’ she goes on; ‘at least, that’s what I always do. Nothing a man likes more than looking at a woman who seems as if she might fall out of her clothes any minute! Now, if you wore a nice pencil skirt, a low-cut blouse, a little belt to cinch your waist in, some cute peep-toe heels …

  ‘Marilyn … er, look, I’m grateful for the advice – really grateful – but it all just seems a bit … surface.’

  ‘Well, of course it is, honey.’ She reaches out a hand and touches me, lightly, on my shoulder for a moment. ‘You seem like a real sweet person on the inside. It’s just your outside that could do with a little work.’

  I take this in the spirit in which I’m sure it was intended.

  And I don’t say – because she’s been so enthusiastic about all this that I don’t want to bring her down – that, actually, sweet person or not, I’m pretty sure my inside could do with a little work, too. After all, even if blonde hair and tight clothes worked like a charm with Dillon, they wouldn’t have the slightest impact on the other significant people in my life to whom I’m usually an afterthought: my family.

  ‘Oh, and I just thought of one more thing I do!’

  ‘You shave down the heel on one of your shoes?’ I ask.

  She blinks at me. ‘Why on God’s green earth would I do that, honey?’

  ‘I thought I read, once, that it was something you … er, I mean, that people do, to give them a sexy wiggle when they walk.’

  ‘That would give you a sexy wiggle when you walk?’ She frowns. ‘Wouldn’t it just put you in the hospital with acute lumbago?’

  ‘Probably. Look, I don’t know, OK … It was just a thought.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, honey, I’m not saying I won’t try it! But that isn’t what I was about to say.’ Marilyn reaches down into the pocket of her dressing gown and pulls out a little vial of perfume. ‘Chanel Number Five,’ she breathes, holding it up as if it’s some sort of elixir of life. ‘I’m telling you, honey, no man I’ve ever met has been able to resist it. You know, one time, I told this guy it was all I wore in bed … and whaddya know,’ her eyes widen, ‘the next thing, he’s buying me that beautiful mink!’ She takes the lid off the vial, picks up my hand and spritzes a cloud of Chanel No. 5 on to my wrist. ‘Isn’t that good? Doesn’t it make you feel prettier, just wearing that alone?’

  ‘It does,’ I assure her, because she seems so excited. ‘And I appreciate all the suggestions, Marilyn, I really do.’

  ‘Oh, honey, I’m happy to help! And trust me, if you do all that stuff, this beau of yours will only have eyes for you! You’ll be his snickerdoodle.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Instead of his graham cracker … oh, maybe you don’t get snickerdoodles in Canada … they’re these little sugar cookies, honey, rolled in cinnamon. One of my foster mothers used to bake the most delicious snickerdoodles I ever tasted – warm from the oven, crisp on the outside and melting on the inside.’

  ‘Ah. Right. Got it. But remember, I’m not from—’

  ‘Good!’ She lets go of my hand, reaches for the remote control, and – rather niftily, for a woman who’s just here on loan from the early 1950s – gets the TV started again. ‘Now, let’s get on with the really important stuff, honey, and carry on with this … what did you just call it? Say Hello to the Keshishians?’

  ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians.’

  ‘Isn’t that what I said? Anyway, it’s the big wedding coming up in this episode, and I can’t wait to see whether the brother turns up or not!’

  So we settle in for a night of vodka-laced iced tea and Armenian-American high drama.

  Which, I suppose, is as good a way to spend an evening with Marilyn Monroe as any.

  And, if nothing else, it might stop me thinking about Dillon.

  I don’t need to be at Paddington to meet Mum until mid-afternoon. So, although it’s a golden opportunity to stay at home, put on the kettle and catch up on the mammoth amount of jewellery orders I’ve neglected, horribly, for the last few days, I’m not going to do this.

  One, because Marilyn Monroe is still, when I glanced through the partition door this morning, asleep in front of the TV in the room where I’d normally be getting on with making my designs.

  And two, because I’ve decided to go to the restaurant premises in Clapham, just like I promised Olly I would, and do whatever I can to help out.

  It doesn’t hurt that, with any luck, Bogdan will be working on-site there, and I can take the opportunity to ask him about his encounter with my brand-new roomie.

  I did try texting him late last night, but in the end I gave up because I wasn’t sure how to word it. I couldn’t just write, Hi, B, hope all OK with you, btw I gather you met Marilyn Monroe at my flat y’day? Do you think this is something we should talk about?

  You see my difficulty.

  It’ll be much easier – if not actually all that easy – to discuss it face to face.

  And, talking of difficult text messages, here’s another one in Mum’s latest series, showing up on my phone as I get off the tube at Clapham North.

  STORY ABOUT CASS ON HEATWORLD AND POPBITCH THIS MORNING!!! I TOLD YOU ONLY MATTER OF TIME BEFORE PRESS GET HOLD OF IT.

  A second text, sent only a couple of minutes later, follows.

  SUGGEST YOU COME TO STATION IN DISGUISE. PAPARAZZI WILL BE WATCHING.

  Which would sound sinister if it didn’t sound so ridiculous.

  I text back: OK, will come in disguise. What do you suggest? False moustache and glasses? Richard Nixon mask? Pantomime horse (back or front)?

  Mum replies a moment later.

  DON’T BE RIDICULOUS LIBBY. SUGGEST SIMPLE BUT EFFECTIVE COMBINATION OF BASEBALL CAP AND LARGE PASHMINA. MAYBE HUGE BLUE 100% CASHMERE BRORA ONE I GAVE YOU FOR B’DAY?

  Mum didn’t give me a huge blue Brora cashmere pashmina for my birthday; she gave me a gift set of Space NK body lotion and shower gel.

  OH HANG ON, another message comes through, PASHMINA WAS CASS’S B’DAY PRESENT NOT YOURS SORRY

  A gift set of body lotion and shower gel I was perfectly happy with (despite the full knowledge that Mum only buys me stuff from Space NK so she can get the extra reward points on her store card) until learning, right this minute, that Cass’s birthday gift was a rather snazzy-sounding huge cashmere pashmina instead.

  Anyway, it’s convenient that Mum has asked me to come in disguise, because I already feel as if I’ve come out in some sort of costume this morning.

  I might have taken some of Marilyn’s advice a bit more seriously than I thought I was going to.

  I haven’t exactly gone totally off-piste, given that pretty much everything in my wardrobe these days, post-Audrey, tends towards the blacker end of the spectrum. But still, after my shower this morning, I dug out a pencil skirt, a white blouse and – just for kicks – my highest pair of nude-tone heels as well. I think I must have bought them when I was trying to channel Kate Middleton, right before the royal wedding a few years ago. Anyway, the pencil skirt, although still in th
e dreaded black, conforms neatly to Marilyn’s diktat about wearing clothes a size too small, because I last wore this when I was that good half-stone lighter, last autumn. It was a squeeze to get the zip done up, and I certainly won’t be able to actually eat anything while I’m wearing it … but I can’t deny that it does give a certain wiggle to the hips, wearing a skirt so tight that I can only take extremely small steps in it. And it’s a refreshing change to wear a smart white blouse, even if I do worry that Olly is going to think that, rather that coming to help out for free, I’m in fact hoping for a part-time job as a waitress.

  I have unbuttoned an extra button on it, too.

  Though I haven’t – I couldn’t – go as far as stuffing my bra with old tights. No amount of feeling sidelined could possibly make me go that far.

  The main trouble with Marilyn’s outfit advice is that it isn’t all that conducive to getting anywhere very fast, and it takes me fifteen minutes to make the three-minute walk to Olly’s restaurant-to-be.

  It’s just off the main Clapham High Road, overlooking the wide green space of the common, and sandwiched between a posh French patisserie on one side and a newsagent’s/mini-mart on the other.

  And I have to say, as I approach it (slowly), I’m already wildly impressed by how it’s looking on the outside.

  Last time I was here, for example, there weren’t even any windows: just a big wooden hoarding that had been unattractively fly-posted with adverts for an upcoming family fair on the common. But now the hoarding and its unattractive adverts have gone, replaced by large plate-glass windows that, as soon as the builders’ dust is cleaned off them, are going to look fabulously shiny and … professional-looking.

  I know it sounds stupid, but seeing just these windows, and not even the rest of the place inside yet, is giving me a bit of a lump in my throat.

  I mean, how well has Olly done, to be opening up his own restaurant with his own windows? Olly who, on our very first evening out together over a decade and a half ago, borrowed a biro from my rucksack and wrote out, on a napkin at the Chinese restaurant we were eating at, the entire menu he planned, one day, to serve at his very own place. I can’t remember all the details of it, because Nora and I were far more interested in ‘helping’ him come up with ever-more ridiculous restaurant names, but unless he’s intending to serve up retro-late-Nineties cuisine, with truffle oil in abundance, and prosciutto wrapped around absolutely everything, I expect the napkin menu will have been long forgotten.