‘I don’t have any of those, either.’
She laughs, a musical tinkle. ‘But everybody has Maraschino cherries!’
‘Sorry. I don’t think they’re quite as popular here, these days, as they used to be.’
‘Here?’ she repeats, before going on. ‘That’s right, I almost forgot to ask! Where are we?’
‘London.’
‘London?’ Her face falls. ‘Oh, honey. You’re not about to tell me we’ve gotta spend the evening with that pompous ass Sir Olivier, are you?’
‘Laurence Olivier? No, no! At least, I certainly hope not …’
Because really, the ghost of Laurence Olivier popping up from my Chesterfield, Hamlet-ing all over the place, would be way more than I could deal with right now.
‘Because I made a movie with that man once, and if I never had to see him again, it’d be a hundred years too soon. Hey, let’s celebrate with those Manhattans!’
‘Yes, but, um, you did hear what I said, about not having the whisky or the vermouth either?’
‘Well, sure, honey, but I assumed,’ – another musical laugh, but less certain this time – ‘you were joking.’
I shake my head.
‘But what do you do if a man comes over?’ She looks truly appalled now. ‘Offer him soda water? Orange juice? Coca-cola from a can?’
‘I don’t have men over.’
The expression on Marilyn’s mobile face says, without her needing to utter a word, well, if you won’t wear fur and you don’t make cocktails, no wonder men don’t come over.
‘I mean,’ I say, a bit huffy now, ‘I have a boyfriend.’
‘Ooooooh! You have a beau!’ Her eyes are suddenly sparkling again, and she’s closing the fridge, wiggling back over to me, then taking me by the arm and leading me back to the Chesterfield. ‘Is he ever so handsome? Does he treat you nice? I haven’t had a lot of luck with men myself,’ she adds, wistfully, as she pats the cushion for me to sit down beside her, ‘so I always want to know other girls’ secrets.’
This may be the most surreal experience I’ve had since … well, since Audrey Hepburn popped up in my living room, but I’m not too stunned by it all that I can’t formulate this thought: that if Marilyn were ever to meet Dillon, she wouldn’t need to know my ‘secrets’. Let’s face it, she’s blonde enough, curvy enough and gorgeous enough to be, quite literally, his ideal woman. He’d be leapfrogging the Chesterfield, and me, to get to her.
‘Oh, I know everyone always thinks guys are leapfrogging the furniture to get to me,’ Marilyn says, as if she’s just read my mind. (Which, I suppose, isn’t the most unlikely thing that’s happened since I walked into my flat this evening.) ‘Trouble is, what happens after the leapfrogging? When they’ve leapfrogged you into bed, and leapfrogged themselves back out again?’
She jerks her head each time she says the word leapfrog, making her platinum curls bob with the motion, and lets out another of those little laughs at the same time.
It’s an empty little laugh, though. Terribly empty.
And all I want to do, despite the fact I’ve only just met her, and despite the fact she’s a spectral being who might possibly vanish in a puff of Chanel No 5-scented smoke if I touch her, is put my arms around her and give her a huge, warming hug.
But instead, I get to my feet, pick up her mink stole (with the tips of my fingers, and – well done, Libby – without actually grimacing) from the arm of the Chesterfield, and hand that back to her to wrap round herself in lieu of a hug. Then I head back to the fridge, on a renewed mission.
‘You know what,’ I tell her, ‘I’m pretty sure my boyfriend must have left some vodka in the freezer compartment the last time he was over. It won’t make much of a cocktail, but it’ll do, don’t you think?’
‘Perfectly, honey!’
At the prospect of vodka, Marilyn’s face is radiant with a smile again, and she leans back on the Chesterfield, enveloping herself in the white mink, in the same languorous position as I found her in five minutes ago.
‘So!’ she breathes. ‘A girls’ night! And you were just about to tell me all about that man of yours …’
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Heartfelt thanks to Kate Bradley, Kate Elton and all the team at HarperFiction, without whom this book would simply not exist. Thanks, too, to Clare Alexander for wisdom above and beyond the call of agenting, and to Lana Bonacic for telling me all about working as an extra on a film set. And, if I may be so bold, to Audrey Hepburn, for being Audrey Hepburn.
About the Author
Lucy Holliday’s first major work, a four-line poem called ‘The Postman is Very Good’, was completed shortly before her fifth birthday. It was such an enjoyable experience that she has wanted to be a writer ever since. She is married with a daughter and lives in Wimbledon.
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A Night In With Audrey Hepburn Page 29