Читать книгу Lucy Holliday 2-Book Collection: A Night In with Audrey Hepburn and A Night In with Marilyn Monroe - Lucy Holliday - Страница 15

My phone bleeps as I open the door to my flat, but it’s still not Dillon. It’s a text from Olly.

That’s a shame. So sorry you’re feeling ill. Anything I can do?

This is because I texted him, on the walk from the tube, to cancel our stew-eating plans for this evening.

I know. I shouldn’t be lying. Especially not to one of my best friends.

And I shouldn’t be cancelling, either, not now that I’m not going to the Depot party. I’ve only done it because I’m feeling so furious with myself for being such a pathetic scaredy-cat about Dillon that, masochistically, I want the punishment of not having a nice evening at all.

I feel even worse about it now that he’s texted so sweetly.

In fact, there goes another ping from my phone now – Olly again.

If is flu-like can bring chicken soap?

A third text comes through a few seconds later.

Obv that should have said soup.

And another one about ten seconds after that.

However will do best to track down novelty soap fashioned in shape of chicken if any chance would help?

He’s such a sweetheart.

I’m a fool to have rejected a nice cosy evening with him, for an evening alone instead.

Though I’ll only be alone, of course, if I don’t hallucinate myself a little bit more Audrey for the evening.

It won’t happen again, though. It was just a one-off. And, by the way, I don’t want it to happen again. When it happens just the once, you can put it down to stress. Twice … well, you’d be forgiven for starting to think that it might be something a bit more …

… sinister?

Neurologically, I mean.

So let’s really, really hope it doesn’t happen again. Tonight or any other night.

The thing is, though, that now that I’m back here on my own, I can’t help thinking that it might be quite nice to hallucinate Audrey Hepburn again.

Because it was sort of fun, last night, when all’s said and done. It might not have been Fifth Avenue or the Tuileries, but it was still Audrey. And if my overwrought synapses did conjure her up again this evening, I’d be able to tell her about my afternoon with Dillon. And she’d listen carefully and thoughtfully, the way she always did in my Audrey dreamworld, and then she’d say something perfectly incisive and understanding that would make me feel better, instantly, about being too much of a wimp to go to the party with him tonight.

But I suppose then we might be getting into scary territory, with those worrying neurological implications I can’t quite bring myself to dwell on. Like … well, like schizophrenia. Or a brain tumour.

Though I suppose I could …

No. That would be weird.

Well, I was just going to say, I suppose what I could do is get Audrey Hepburn up on screen, press pause and quickly run through the details of my extraordinary afternoon with her on my iPad.

That would be weird, wouldn’t it?

But it’s not like I’d actually think she was really there. Not like I’d really believe she could hear me, or anything. All I’d really be doing is popping on one of my favourite Audrey Hepburn films. Nothing weird about settling down to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is there, after a long and frankly peculiar day in which I’ve been psychoanalysed by Mum, yelled at by a supermodel, seen parts of a stranger’s anatomy that I’d really have been absolutely fine not seeing …

Yes. I think I’ll fire up the iPad again, take off my trench-coat, settle down on the sofa, and see if I can go to my happy place.

Three minutes later, I know it’s been the right thing to do. I’m not bothered about the unpacking mess, about the doggy sofa I’m sitting on, or about the fact that I should be getting ready to go to a party with Dillon O’Hara right now. I start to relax the moment I see Audrey Hepburn amble down Fifth Avenue with her little cup of coffee and her Danish pastry. She’s just so exquisite, and her dress and jewellery so beautiful, and you can almost catch the faintest violet-and-jasmine hint of the L’Interdit perfume she was probably wearing when she filmed it …

‘You haven’t seen my sunglasses, have you?’

I let out an actual shriek.

‘Gosh, I’m awfully sorry, did I startle you?’

It’s her. It’s Audrey Hepburn. Again.

Sitting three inches away from me on the other half of the Chesterfield sofa.

But this time she’s not, actually, in black-dress-and-beehive Tiffany’s mode. Her hair is in her trademark elfin crop and she’s wearing the rose-embroidered ball gown she deploys to dazzle William Holden in Sabrina.

There are no words to describe how beautiful this dress is, up close.

Even if it does clash, a bit, with the apricot roses on the sofa.

The sofa she’s suddenly delving down between the cushions of, her brow furrowed.

‘I thought maybe they might have dropped down between the cushions … my sunglasses, I mean … I don’t suppose you’ve come across them, and put them somewhere safe? It’s just that they are rather a special pair …’

She glances back up at me, her eyes looking almost absurdly huge in that perfectly framed face. In fact, she looks even more beautiful than she did yesterday, although I’ve always preferred Sabrina Audrey to Tiffany’s Audrey. Her cropped hair highlights her perfect collarbones, her skin looks as if it’s been coated in a fine spray of crushed pearls, and the scent of L’Interdit is stronger now, so I wasn’t imagining it at all …

Except that I was, of course. Because I’m hallucinating this whole thing again, aren’t I?

‘Oh, shit.’

‘Libby!’

‘Sorry … it’s just …’ It’s a brain tumour, isn’t it? It has to be. ‘Or schizophrenia,’ I blurt out. ‘It could be schizophrenia.’

‘What could be schizophrenia, darling?’ But her attention is only half focused on me; she’s gazing at the iPad screen. ‘How terribly sweet!’

‘You mean – er – the Danish pastry?’

‘No, no, I meant your darling little television screen. Though that horrible Danish was sweet, actually. Cloyingly so. I can’t bear the things. I begged them to let me eat an ice cream in that scene instead, but no such luck … I can’t see an aerial.’

‘Er …?’

‘For your little television.’ She points a long, gloved finger at the iPad. ‘An aerial. Doesn’t it need one?’

‘It’s not a television. It’s an iPad.’ I rub my eyes, fiercely, but when I pull my hands away I can still see her. ‘I think I need a drink.’

‘Another difficult day, darling?’ Audrey Hepburn asks, as she picks up the iPad and studies it, admiringly. ‘Exquisite! What did you call it? A padlet?’

‘It’s an iPad. You use it for the internet, for email …’

She blinks at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language she’s never even heard before.

‘You know what?’ I say, ‘just have a play around with it while I get myself a drink. It’s easy. You’ll get the hang.’

‘Ooooh, thank you, darling!’ She takes me at my word and starts tapping and pressing at the iPad with her long, elegant fingertips. ‘Golly, it’s ever so clever,’ she marvels, as random stuff – the weather forecast; photos of me and Nora at her engagement party; the Net-a-Porter app I muck around with when I fancy a bit of lush designer window-shopping – pop up and down again. ‘Honestly, darling, you do own the most marvellous gadgets. Oh! That reminds me. Your lovely coffee machine! I’ve been talking about it to everyone I know!’

Great: now I’m not only imagining that I’m chatting to Audrey Hepburn, but that she’s chatting to other people as well. The mind boggles as to who it is she could be referring to: a spectral Marilyn? A phantasmagoric Cary Grant? A virtual Liz Taylor?

‘I wonder,’ she asks, clasping her hands in a girlish manner, ‘did you manage to find your pods yet?’

‘The coffee pods? Uh, actually, no …’

‘Well, I’m sure they’re in one of these boxes. Why don’t I take a look?’

Before I can reply, she springs off the Chesterfield and kneels down in front of the biggest heap of boxes, not seeming to care that she’s getting Olly’s van dust all over the hem of her ethereal ball gown.

‘This looks a good place to start.’ She’s opening the box at the top of the pile. ‘Oh, this could be useful, actually. It’s your cleaning rags.’

‘I don’t have a box of cleaning rags …’ I get up, too, and peer into the box she’s just opened. ‘That’s my clothes!’

‘Gosh, I’m so sorry, darling!’

I snatch the box away from her, wishing, more than ever, that I were actually able to afford the things I drool over on that Net-a-Porter app from time to time. ‘We can’t all own wardrobes full of exquisite designer ball gowns, you know.’

‘Well, of course, I simply thought … well, everything in there looked so very grey …’

I stamp off to my mini-fridge for that open bottle from last night.

‘If it helps at all,’ she says, in a contrite tone, ‘your hair looks absolutely marvellous.’

‘You really think?’

‘I do! And I told you all it needed was a good wash and blow-dry.’

‘Actually, this was done by a hairdresser,’ I say, pointedly, as I get the wine from the fridge and head back to the sofa. ‘It didn’t need a wash and blow-dry, it needed a trained professional with a proper pair of scissors.’

‘And didn’t I tell you’ – I think she’s ignoring me, because she’s turning back to the boxes and opening another – ‘that a little fringe would suit … oh! I think I’ve found them!’

She turns, brandishing a small wooden box with a Nespresso label.

‘Yes, that’s the pods.’

She lets out a little shriek of delight, gets to her feet and practically falls over the dusty hem of the ball gown trying to get round the Chesterfield and to the coffee machine on the counter.

‘Oooooooohhhhh,’ she breathes, a moment later, opening the box and gazing in awe at the little guide on the inside of the lid. ‘Ethiopian Sidamo …’

This is not what I was hoping for when I thought I might like to chat to Audrey about the events of today: me on the sofa mainlining wine from the bottle while she fires up the Nespresso machine. But it looks like even my own subconscious isn’t that interested in the details of my day.

‘Not even,’ I mutter at my subconscious, ‘when I got asked out on a proper date this evening.’

‘A date?’ Audrey Hepburn spins round, ball gown swishing, Ethiopian Sidamo forgotten. ‘Libby, that’s so exciting!’

OK, so my subconscious is forgiven. I even feel a bit embarrassed, now, about making a big deal of it.

‘It wasn’t really a date …’

‘Who is he? When is it?’

‘Well, sort of now.’

‘What do you mean, now?’

‘That’s when the date should be happening. Tonight.’

‘And you’re not going?’

I shake my head firmly and take a drink from the wine bottle.

‘Libby, why ever not?’ Audrey’s huge eyes are open even wider, in genuine dismay. ‘Don’t you like him? This gentleman that asked you out?’

‘No, no, that’s not it. I mean, I like him a lot … the gentleman, that is …’ Though the thought of Dillon-as-gentleman is distinctly amusing. (Not to mention the fact that not a single one of the things he’s been doing, in my head, ever since I first met him yesterday morning, has been in the least bit gentlemanly.) ‘I just decided against going. And it wasn’t really a date, anyway. Not in the true sense of the word.’

‘Did he ask you to dinner? Drinks?’

‘God, no, nothing like that. Though we did have lunch together today, as it happens …’

‘Libby!’ she gasps. ‘You had lunch and he asked you out the same night? He must be awfully keen on you!’

‘Er – honestly, it’s not like that. He has a girlfriend, for one thing. Well, sort of. Rhea Haverstock-Harley. Though I did catch her cheating on him today, with a very large Swede.’

‘The vegetable?’

‘The nationality.’

‘Oh, thank heavens,’ she says, rather faintly. ‘Though not terribly nice, either way, for your poor gentleman friend. And probably why he’d much rather take you out for the evening instead of her.’

‘But he’s not asking me out romantically. I think he just enjoys chatting to a normal person, for a change. He’s used to dating Victoria’s Secret models, you see … lingerie models,’ I clarify when her forehead furrows in confusion. ‘They’re all gorgeous and leggy and Amazonian and they strut up and down the catwalk in nothing but a bikini and a set of angel wings.’

‘That all sounds dreadfully vulgar. No wonder he prefers talking to you.’ She considers me for a moment. ‘Which is not to say you wouldn’t benefit from revealing a tiny bit more skin yourself when you go out with him this evening.’

‘But I’m not going out with him this evening.’

‘But you simply must.’

‘But I simply won’t.’

‘But. You. Simply. Will.’

I’m rather startled when, as she says this, she fixes me with a distinctly steely look. A distinctly un-doe-eyed, not-at-all Audrey look.

‘I’m not taking no for an answer on this, Libby,’ she goes on. ‘Because – and do correct me if I’m wrong – it’s not as if you’re beating off male admirers with a big stick, now, is it?’

‘There’s no need to put it quite like that,’ I mumble.

‘My point is, Libby,’ – she squeezes round the Chesterfield; it takes a few moments – ‘that you oughtn’t be sitting around here with me.’ She kneels down beside me, grabs both my hands and looks deep into my eyes. ‘You ought to be out! Having a wonderful evening! With a man who adores you!’

‘He really, really doesn’t adore me. Anyway, I can’t.’ My throat is going dry and feels a bit like it’s seizing up. ‘Honestly,’ I manage to say, after a sip of wine, ‘I just can’t. You haven’t seen the sort of girl he usually goes out with.’

‘I’ll bet my bottom dollar,’ Audrey cries, ‘they’re not a patch on you!’

I reach for the iPad, Google ‘Rhea Haverstock-Harley’ and shove the resulting images in her direction: Rhea draped seductively over a lucky rock by the sea in an itsy-bitsy bikini; Rhea striding along a catwalk wearing a diamanté bra, matching thong, and glittery angel wings; Rhea posing in nothing but a pair of high heels on a backwards-facing chair à la Christine Keeler …

‘Well!’ Audrey says, a little too brightly, after a long, silent moment. ‘We’ll just have to find you something really, really lovely and flattering to wear tonight, won’t we?’

‘No, we won’t, because – as I think I’ve already said – I’m not going.’

‘Darling. Far be it from me to pull rank.’ She stands up, folds her skinny arms, and eyeballs me again. ‘But I am Audrey Hepburn, you know.’

Hallucination or otherwise, it’s just a little harder than it was, a moment ago, to disagree with her.

‘And do you know the one thing I’m most proud of?’ she goes on. ‘It’s that I don’t let anything scare me. I wasn’t qualified to act opposite Gregory Peck. I wasn’t good enough to dance with Fred Astaire. But I damn well got on with it and gave it my all, because that’s the only way a girl is going to find her place in this world.’

It’s stirring stuff, I have to admit.

And, quite suddenly, she’s less the elfin style queen I’ve always imagined myself being shopping buddies with. Standing here, right now, she’s a warrior princess. She’s a Givenchy-clad Boudicca, a kohl-rimmed Joan of Arc …

‘All right.’ I get to my feet, too. ‘I will go out this evening! After all, if you can dance with Fred Astaire, I can get on the tube and—’

‘My Nespresso!’ she suddenly shrieks, as the machine bleeps its readiness to make her coffee. She practically knocks me over as she squeezes round the sofa to get to the kitchen. ‘Now, where does the little pod go?’

‘Look, can we worry about that later? I need to get ready for this party before I change my mind.’

‘Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right.’ Audrey abandons the coffee machine a second time. ‘Now, we were going to find you something spectacular to wear, weren’t we?’

‘No, no, no,’ I say, hastily, as she heads, in a flurry of couture satin and taffeta, for the clothes box that she discarded earlier. ‘You said something lovely and flattering. Not spectacular. I don’t want spectacular. My sister’s going to be at the same party, and it’s a really big night for her. And she’s going to be pissed off enough that I’m even there in the first place. So I really want to wear something … well, perfectly nice but inoffensive.’

‘A little black dress!’

‘Well, I suppose that would probably be all right …’

‘Darling, a little black dress is always all right.’ She’s already delving into the clothes in the box, shoving aside marl grey hoodie after marl grey hoodie. ‘Do you have one by Hubert, by any chance?’

‘Do I have a little black dress by Hubert de Givenchy? No. No, I don’t.’

‘Well, there’s no need to worry about that; I’m sure we’ll find something else lovely …’ Though her elegant bare shoulders sag, visibly, as she casts aside yet another (when did I buy all these?) grey hoodie. ‘You do own a dress, darling? One is all we need.’

‘Yes, I own a dress! Look, I obviously need a bit of a wardrobe update, OK?’ But fortunately I’ve just spotted a different sort of grey fabric in the heap of grey fabric, and I pull it out – it’s the Whistles slate-grey silky wrap dress I’ve worn on several Big Occasions over the past few years: my first date with Daniel; my last birthday drinks; the after-party when Cass was nominated (but didn’t win) for a National Reality Television Award for her appearance on Mary Berry’s Celebrity Cupcake-Off. ‘Ha! A dress!’ I declare, waving it at her in triumph.

Audrey Hepburn stares at the wrap dress. ‘Is it?’

‘Yes! It’s a wrap dress!’

‘But darling …’ She’s looking appalled. ‘It’s just a piece of material. It has no line. No structure.’

‘It doesn’t need to! It’s universally flattering! It skims over your curves. It creates a waist.’

I realize that I’m simply parroting everything I’ve ever read about wrap dresses, which is why I spent a small fortune on it in the first place. And now I come to remember it, this dress didn’t skim over my curves or create a waist; all it did was hang rather limply off my negligible chest and threaten to expose unflattering amounts of upper thigh every time I took more than three steps in succession. But it’s the most expensive dress I’ve ever owned, which is why I’ve hung onto it instead of consigning it to the charity bin.

From the expression on Audrey’s face right now, it really needs to be consigned to the charity bin. Or, more likely, the rubbish bin.

‘Fine,’ I say, putting the wrap dress down. ‘You win. I won’t wear this one.’

‘I think,’ she says kindly, ‘that would best.’

And then she practically disappears into the box, head down like a dabbling duck, leaving nothing much of herself visible except for the embroidered train of her ball gown. It’s a moment later when she pops back up again with a triumphant look on her face and a black dress in one hand.

‘Now, this looks much more the sort of thing!’

The dress she’s holding is a rather sober shift with a boat neckline and a tricky-to-pull-off hemline that sits, if I recall, at mid-calf. I bought it from Primark without bothering to try it on, in the futile hope – funnily enough – that it would make me look like Audrey Hepburn.

Needless to say, it didn’t, and, even more needless to say, it’s never seen the light of day since the depressing trying-on session when I got home and took it out of its carrier bag.

‘Are you sure?’ I look at the dress with a lot less enthusiasm than she’s displaying. ‘It’s just a cheapo thing from Primark.’

‘Well, I can’t say I’m familiar with Mr Primark’s work …’

‘No, no, it’s not a Mr, it’s just a—’

‘But I think this will do very nicely indeed!’ She holds the dress up against me. ‘All you need is that rather smart trench-coat of yours, slung over your shoulders, and a few well-chosen accessories. That neckline, for example, is simply crying out for a sweet little diamond pendant, or an elegant string of pearls.’

‘Right, well, I’ll call my bank in Zurich, then get them to crack open the largest of my safety deposit boxes and have a selection flown over to me by private jet.’

‘Unfortunately I don’t think there’s going to be time for that,’ she says, in deadly earnest. ‘But didn’t I see you with a pearl and diamond necklace when I first met you?’

‘I highly doubt that … oh, you mean Nora’s wedding pendant?’

‘All I know is that you put it in your little box over here.’ Audrey is swooshing over to the kitchen counter, where my bead-box is still sitting, and opening it up. ‘Oh, this will be wonderful on you!’

‘I don’t know. It’s for my best friend, on her wedding day. And I’m not even sure I’ve quite finished it yet.’

She’s ignoring me, placing the necklace around my neck and doing up the clasp. ‘Like I thought,’ she says. ‘Wonderful.’

It does feel rather nice, I have to admit, with the cool weight of the diamanté charm against my skin, and the silky smoothness of the vintage pearl beads … Well, I’ll just have to justify it as a trial run for Nora’s special present: helping me decide whether the necklace should stay as it is, or if it needs that double layer of pearl beads after all.

‘Now, the right shoes, of course, always make or break any outfit. Do you have a nice simple pump?’ Audrey asks me. ‘Something with a kitten heel, perhaps?’

‘Oh, no. I’m not wearing a kitten heel. Not when I’m going to spend the evening with a bunch of six-foot-in-their-bare-feet models.’ I haven’t forgotten the way Rhea towered over me at FitLondon this morning; there might be all kinds of reasons why I feel small and insignificant at this party tonight, but I’m not about to let my shoes be one of them. ‘I’m wearing these,’ I say, delving back into the box and rooting around for the only pair of really glamorous shoes I own, a pair of silvery sandals with an ankle strap and a teetering platform heel.

This time Audrey actually looks ill.

‘But you could break your ankle in those! And surely … well, a kitten heel would be so much more chic …’

‘That’s what you said before you mangled my fringe last night,’ I tell her, glad of the fact that she only exists in my imagination, because I’m not sure this is an argument I’d feel confident having if I really were talking to one of the most ineffably stylish women that has ever existed. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t care less if they’re chic or not – they make me look five inches taller and half a stone lighter. I’m wearing them. Now, do you think I need any Spanx?’

‘Oh!’ Her hands fly to her cheeks, which are burning red all of a sudden. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s going to be entirely up to the proclivities of the gentleman you’re going out with this evening! And really, Libby, what you want to do in the privacy of the bedroom is really none of my—’

‘Spanx knickers!’ I say, even more mortified by the misunderstanding than she is. ‘It’s a kind of underwear … look, never mind. I really need to start getting ready.’

‘Of course.’ She looks relieved by the change of subject. ‘What time is he picking you up?’

‘He’s not. I’ll meet him at the party.’

‘Why on earth isn’t he coming to collect you?’

‘For one thing, because I told him I wasn’t coming. And for another thing, because it’s London. In the twenty-first century.’

‘That’s no excuse!’ She looks genuinely upset. ‘When a man takes you out for the evening, he should come to collect you at your door! With a bouquet of your favourite flowers!’

Again, I’m starting to see what life really is like if you’re a beautiful movie star.

‘Libby …’ She’s peering at me, curious now. ‘Has a man never brought you flowers before a date?’

‘No.’

I don’t add – because she’s a figment of my subconscious, and my subconscious already knows this – that I’ve never really been on a date before. That all my so-called relationships (Horrible Daniel, Unreliable Iain, Brief-but-Mistaken Martin) have started in the same fuzzy, ill-defined way that they went on and the same fuzzy, ill-defined way they all finally ended. A few too many drinks and a bit of a snog, followed by a few months (or in Martin’s case, thank heavens, only weeks) of not-that-satisfactory sex and introducing each other, uncomfortably, to our respective friends as ‘the person I’ve been seeing’. No dates. No flowers. No fun.

‘Then you’ve been treated very badly.’ Audrey Hepburn sounds quite cross. ‘And frankly, this Dillon fellow is going to have to wake his ideas up a bit if he’s lucky enough to be in with a chance of dating you.’

Now, this, right here, is why I always wanted Audrey Hepburn to be my best friend.

I know she’s a figment of my imagination; I know, therefore, that what she’s just ‘said’ is actually the equivalent of a positively affirming Post-it Note stuck on a bathroom mirror (‘You Look Thin And Beautiful Today!’). But still, the warm glow that’s spreading through me is no figment of my imagination. And it’s good, even if only for a moment, to believe that what she’s just said is true.

‘Now,’ she goes on, ‘you’d better be taking a nice long bubble bath, then when you get out I can help you with your make-up.’

‘Actually, there’s only a shower. But some help with my make-up afterwards would be lovely.’

Because make-up isn’t like a haircut, is it? Getting my hallucinated Audrey to help me put on some nice smoky eye make-up isn’t going to involve any setting about my head with a dangerous implement. The very worst that will happen is that, in (what I assume to be) my current dream-state, I jab myself in the eye with the mascara wand or something.

‘Then help I shall!’ She’s already setting off for the coffee machine. ‘Off you go and perform your ablutions, and I’ll make you a nice fortifying espresso to drink while we make you up. Some fluttery eyelashes, elegant red lips … we’ll pull out all the stops, darling! This Dillon fellow isn’t going to recognize you!’

*

OK, I’m not sure Dillon is going to recognize me.

The trouble is that there’s a very good chance he’s going to mistake me for a drag queen.

‘Are you quite sure,’ I ask Audrey Hepburn, as I look at myself in my little round mirror, ‘that this looks all right?’

‘You think one more layer of mascara? Another strip of eyelashes?’

‘No, no, Christ, no!’

‘More eyebrow pencil?’

‘Definitely no more eyebrow pencil.’

I’m regretting, in fact, that I ever dug around in the far reaches of my make-up bag to find an eyebrow pencil, an item I’ve never once used since it came Free With Purchase from No. 7 a few years ago. I was hoping I might be able to emulate Audrey’s trademark strong eyebrow, but I’m a little bit concerned that it actually looks like I’ve superglued two sunburned caterpillars over my eyes instead.

‘Well, I’ve already set your lipstick with powder, darling, so I don’t think I can go back and put more of that on …’

‘No, look, I’m not saying I want more of anything. In fact, I think maybe I ought to go with a bit less.’

‘But you look so glamorous! So ladylike! And really, Libby, that dress is so simple, it won’t look finished without proper make-up. This tinted moisturizer nonsense,’ she adds, regarding my tube of the stuff with almost as much horror as she looked at my shoes. ‘And whatever that fruity gloop is that you wanted to put on instead of a nice elegant lipstick …’

‘Juicy Tube.’

She shudders at the mere memory. ‘Darling, I’m telling you. You look like a proper grown-up woman. Doesn’t that give you the most wonderful feeling of confidence?’

Given that I’m fairly convinced that what I look like is a proper grown-up man, it doesn’t give me all that much confidence. But she’s so glowy with pride that I don’t feel I can just scrub it all off with a flannel and bung on the tinted moisturizer and lip-gloss I’d normally use. Anyway, let’s face it, on some level, I must want to look like I’ve run amok at the Estée Lauder counter, because it’s obviously really been me who’s trowelled it all on. Perhaps because the only way I feel brave enough to mingle with the Beautiful People at this showbizzy party is under the protection of a full layer (or four) of war paint.

‘All right, I’ll keep it on.’ I get to my feet – tricky, because I’m sitting on the cavernous Chesterfield and wearing these absurdly high heels that (whisper it) I’m already starting to regret – and grab the little Accessorize clutch bag that Audrey located in the bottom of my clothes box. Which is the first time I realize that my hands are shaking. And realize, ridiculous though it sounds, that I’d actually really like it if I could take my imaginary Audrey to the party with me this evening.

‘Now, you must have a wonderful time! And don’t worry in the slightest about me,’ she adds. ‘I’ll be perfectly all right here on my own.’

‘You’re … er … staying here for the evening?’

‘Just for a little longer. If it’s all right with you?’

‘But don’t I actually need to be here in order for you to … You want to stay and play around with the Nespresso machine,’ I add, with a sigh, as I see her feline eyes wandering in the direction of the kitchen worktop, ‘don’t you?’

Audrey turns a delicate shade of pink. ‘Well, I did rather fancy trying the cappuccino frother.’

‘Fine. Whatever.’ My brain isn’t capable of stretching to the limits of understanding this, so if my imaginary Audrey claims she’s going to spend a happy evening here with a jet of air and a pint of milk, that’s just something I’m going to have to accept. ‘Froth away all you like.’

Looking delighted, she leans forward in a L’Interdit cloud and gives me the lightest, gentlest peck: first on one cheek, and then the other. Then she picks up my trench-coat from where I’ve slung it on the arm of the sofa and drapes it, stylishly, over my shoulders.

‘I know you’ll have the most wonderful evening,’ she says.

And then somehow she’s managed to manhandle me to the door, opened it, given me a little shove out onto the landing, and then closed the door behind me.

I can hear a shriek of frothing-related delight as I tread my way carefully down the four flights of stairs to the bottom.

When I open the door to the street, there’s someone standing right outside it, their hand on the buzzer.

It’s Olly.

‘Sorry,’ he begins when I jump, ‘I was just about to ring up to my friend’s fl …’ He stops, and looks at me again. ‘Libby?’

‘Hi, Olly, I …’

‘But I thought … you look … aren’t you ill?’

Shit – I never should have put on all that face powder, should I?

And then I realize. He’s not telling me I look ill because my make-up is so unflattering. He’s telling me I’m meant to be ill, because that’s why I told him I couldn’t do dinner.

‘Yes. I am ill. Well, I was …’

‘And now you’re … off out?’

‘Mmm, I suddenly started to feel a lot better. And you know how it is, when you’ve been feeling ill, sometimes you just need to have a bit of fresh air, a walk around the block …’

‘You’re quite dressed up for a walk around the block.’

‘What?’ I try a laugh. He doesn’t join me in it. ‘This old thing?’

‘A cocktail dress and heels. And a pearl necklace.’

‘Oh, is it a cocktail dress?’ I glance down, trying to look surprised, as if I might have imagined myself to be in tracksuit bottoms and one of my myriad grey hoodies. ‘I just threw on the first thing I could pull out of the boxes …’

OK, I give up. I’m a crap liar. And I hate lying to Olly.

‘I’m going out,’ I admit. ‘And I’m really sorry, I should have told you the truth. Especially when I know you wouldn’t really have minded anyway.’

‘Who says I wouldn’t have minded?’

He looks annoyed. No, scratch that: it’s worse. He looks disappointed.

‘Come on, Olly, it was only eating badly made stew in my crappy flat. I’m sure you’ve got about a million better ways to spend an evening than that!’

He presses his lips together for a moment, then says, tightly, ‘I cancelled other plans with some friends to hang out with you this evening. Actually.’

‘Ol, you really, really shouldn’t have!’

‘So where are you off to,’ he asks, ‘anyway?’

‘Well, you won’t believe this, but I’m going to a party with Dillon O’Hara.’

‘Dillon O’Hara from the show?’