A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

by Lucy Holliday

  ‘Darling,’ says Audrey.

  But this makes no sense. How are they doing this: appearing here, in St George’s hospital, miles away from …

  ‘The sofa,’ I mumble.

  The two of them blink at me and then – glancing sideways – blink at each other.

  ‘Is she calling me a sofa?’ Audrey whispers at Marilyn.

  ‘Oh, honey, no, I don’t think that for a second! If she’s calling either of us a sofa, it’s much more likely to be me.’

  ‘Darling, don’t put yourself down – your figure is simply stunning!’

  ‘That’s real sweet of you to say so, honey!’ Marilyn beams at Audrey. ‘Though I always wondered what it would be like to be a dainty little thing, like you.’

  ‘You’re not missing much, darling, I promise you that! It can be the most awful trial finding things that fit, and don’t make me look like a dreadful old ironing board …’

  ‘Oh, honey, if you’re worried about looking a little flat-chested, you should just do what I do, and—’

  ‘Don’t tell her to stuff her bra with pantyhose!’ I yelp. ‘Please!’

  They both look back at me, rather startled.

  ‘I’m just saying,’ I go on, ‘that this is Audrey Hepburn you’re talking to.’

  ‘Well, honey, I know that.’ Marilyn looks faintly peeved. ‘We’ve been getting to know each other over a few cocktails.’

  ‘You know, darling,’ Audrey leans forward to announce to me, ‘Marilyn makes the most divine Manhattan I’ve ever tasted.’

  Which I assume she’s only saying because she’s, well, Audrey, and utterly delightful about everything … but I can’t be so sure about this a moment later, when Marilyn produces a cocktail shaker from beneath her mink stole, and Audrey’s beautiful, feline eyes light up.

  ‘Darling!’ she says, excitedly. ‘You must have read my mind! I’m gasping!’

  ‘Well, then bottoms up!’ Marilyn says, opening the cocktail shaker, pouring some of the contents into the lid and handing it over to Audrey to drink from. ‘You go first, honey,’ she says. ‘I’ll only end up getting lipstick all over it.’

  ‘Oh, well, I won’t say no to that,’ says Audrey, perching on the edge of my bed to take a sip. ‘Heavenly! Now, darling, you wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette lighter, by any chance? I find it awfully hard to drink a Manhattan and not smoke a cigarette at the same time.’

  ‘You can’t smoke!’ I hiss at her. ‘This is a hospital!’

  ‘Darling, if it’s a hospital, I’m quite sure everybody in here must be smoking! Hospitals are ghastly places to be, and smoking’s just about the only thing that could possibly make it bearable.’

  ‘Well, that and a delicious Manhattan,’ Marilyn adds, giving both of us a wink.

  ‘Yes, look, you shouldn’t really be drinking, either … in fact, you shouldn’t actually be here at all,’ I say. ‘Not to mention that I don’t even know how you’re here. I mean, I thought it was all to do with the sofa being enchanted, but …’

  ‘Honey,’ Marilyn whispers to Audrey, ‘she’s talking about that sofa again. Do you think she’s got some kind of a complex about it?’

  ‘I don’t have a complex about the sofa!’

  ‘I mean,’ Marilyn is continuing, ‘I’ve seen a lot of shrinks, and they’ve told me I have complexes about all kinds of things, but I never knew you could have a complex about a sofa.’

  ‘Mmm, I don’t know … she has had a bit of a nasty bump to the head, the poor darling,’ Audrey says, ‘so maybe that’s why she keeps talking about the soft furnishings … head injuries can make you say and do all kinds of peculiar things, after all.’

  Which is when the penny drops. My head injury. That must be why I’m seeing them here, out of the confines of my flat for once. And together. This time it’s not so much magic as concussion.

  It’s a huge relief and a bit of a disappointment at the same time.

  ‘Oooh, maybe we could find that handsome doctor and ask!’ Marilyn’s eyes gleam with excitement. ‘The one that just left here a few minutes ago!’

  ‘That wasn’t a doctor,’ I say. ‘That was Olly.’

  ‘Olly … Olly …’ Marilyn frowns, trying to remember if she’s heard the name before. ‘Say, that wasn’t the guy you always used to talk about when we lived together, was it? The one who kept mistaking you for some kind of cookie? The one you went blonde for?’

  ‘No, look, I didn’t go blonde for anyone,’ I begin. (Though I’m actually starting to doubt that. Because the more I think about it, the more I suspect I was subconsciously trying to look more like Tash, when I suspected Olly was starting to like her.)

  ‘Olly?’ Audrey interrupts. ‘I thought the name of the man you liked so much was Dillon?’

  ‘No. I mean, yes. It was Dillon. But that was just because I didn’t realize that …’ My voice catches at the back of my throat. ‘… that Olly was the one all along.’

  There’s a short silence.

  Then Marilyn leans over the foot of the bed, ample cleavage practically spilling out of her sequinned bodice, and says, in her breathy little-girl voice, to Audrey, ‘I don’t remember anyone called Olly.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Audrey says. ‘I’m not sure she ever mentioned him to me. He must be new on the scene …’

  ‘No! That’s the whole point. He isn’t new on the scene. He’s old on the scene. And the only reason I never mentioned him,’ I add, despairingly, ‘is because he was always there. Always around. So I didn’t really notice him until … well, until he fell for someone else. And now it’s too late.’

  ‘Oh, honey!’ Marilyn sits down on the other side of the bed and generously extends her mink to mop away the tears that have started to come down my cheeks. I’m so grateful for the kind gesture that I don’t even bat the horrible thing away. ‘Don’t cry! He’s not worth it.’

  ‘But that’s just it,’ I gulp. ‘Olly is worth it. He’s the best man I’ve ever met. He’s kind, and funny, and good-looking – nobody ever pointed out to me that he was good-looking! – and he’s been there for me through thick and thin since I was thirteen years old. He’s my soulmate. Or rather, he was my soulmate.’

  ‘Well, if he’s really your soulmate, darling, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.’ Audrey glances over at Marilyn. ‘Isn’t that right, darling?’

  ‘Sure it is! You just need to hang tight, honey,’ Marilyn tells me. ‘Wait until he realizes he just can’t live without you!’

  ‘And then,’ Audrey adds, in a faraway voice, ‘he’ll sweep you up into his arms, and place a kiss on your lips, and—’

  ‘Can we please,’ I interrupt, ‘stop with the fairy-tale endings? I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if I didn’t get so caught up in bloody fairy tales! Peddled,’ I add, unfairly, as I use Marilyn’s mink to scrub my tears dry again, ‘by the likes of you!’

  ‘Oh, now, that’s rather unjust, darling.’ Audrey gives me a disappointed frown.

  ‘Besides,’ Marilyn says, ‘fairy tales can come true!’

  ‘No, they bloody can’t! Not in real life. In the movies, sure – you meet the handsome hero, and he falls in love with you, and you float off into the sunset together …’

  ‘Honey! That’s exactly the plot of this new movie I’m shooting!’ Marilyn announces, to me and Audrey. ‘With Tony Curtis! Now, there’s a handsome man, and no mistake. Oooh, and he’s single, too—’

  ‘But it doesn’t work that way outside the silver screen,’ I go on, before Marilyn can offer to set me up with Tony Curtis or something. ‘In the real world, you can’t see the wood for the trees. In the real world, you spend the next thirty years of your life alone while you watch another woman lead the life you should have had, with the man you can’t get over. But that wouldn’t make for a very entertaining movie.’

  ‘What wouldn’t make for a very entertaining movie?’ says a familiar voice, as a rose bush on legs walks into my cubicle.

  For a sp
lit second I think this is another concussive hallucination, until I realize that it’s Dillon, coming into my cubicle behind the most enormous bouquet of roses in existence.

  And Marilyn and Audrey have both vanished, instantly – or rather, I assume, gone back into the battered parts of my brain that projected them here in the first place.

  ‘Because if you’re talking about the movie I shot with Martin Scorsese last summer,’ Dillon is continuing, ‘you’re wrong, plain wrong, I can tell you. All right, I haven’t seen the finished version yet and, knowing Mr Scorsese’s standards, there’s a very good chance that my scenes are going to end up on the cutting-room floor …’

  ‘This is not going to be happening,’ says Bogdan, who’s sidling in behind Dillon – or as much of a sidle as you can do if you’re the size of Bogdan. ‘No movie director worth his pepper is going to be cutting you out of film.’

  ‘His salt,’ I tell Dillon, who’s just popped his head out from behind the roses to give Bogdan a confused look. ‘And what are you doing here? I’m not meant to be having visitors.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the nurse in charge made that very clear … but I happen to be pretty good with nurses,’ Dillon says, with a grin, ‘and then there was merriment aplenty at the nurses’ station about this being the biggest rose bouquet any of them had ever seen …’

  ‘Is true,’ Bogdan adds, peering around the bouquet himself to give me a rather fierce stare. ‘Is this not most impressive bunch of roses you are ever seeing in your life, Libby? Is it not kind of Dillon to be getting these for you?’

  ‘Er … very kind, yes, but—’

  ‘And all you had to do to get them,’ Dillon interrupts, ‘was involve yourself in a horrific road-traffic accident that could have got you killed.’ He puts the bouquet down, precariously, on the floor beside my bed, then sits down on the bed himself, exactly where Marilyn Monroe was just sitting. (Sorry: exactly where I imagined Marilyn Monroe was just sitting.) ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he goes on, looking deep into my eyes without the slightest hint of his usual cheeky-chappie irony or humour. ‘What in the name of Christ were you playing at, Libby?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure what makes you think I deliberately set out to achieve a nasty concussion and a face that my own mother has just described as horribly mangled …’

  ‘It’s not horribly mangled. It’s just a bit battered. And you still look gorgeous to me.’ Dillon reaches for one of my hands. ‘But seriously, Lib, can you be a bit more careful, please? When Bogdan called me to say you’d had an accident, my blood turned to ice in my veins, I can tell you that.’

  ‘Well, that was nice of Bogdan to call you,’ I say, giving Bogdan a look over Dillon’s shoulder that is intended to let him know I’ve sussed exactly why he did this: because he’ll use any excuse to contact Dillon, frankly. ‘And I’m sorry I gave you a scare.’

  ‘Well, you fucking should be. Now, deep personal regrets aside,’ – he picks up my hand and gives it a swift, rather tender kiss – ‘how are you feeling?’

  ‘I’m all right. My head hurts. And obviously there’s that whole battered-face thing I’ve got going on …’

  ‘But nothing more serious than that, right? I mean, you’re not still seeing stars?’

  ‘Er, well, that might depend on your definition of seeing stars,’ I mumble, before adding, ‘No. There’s a neurologist coming round later, but it sounds like I might even be allowed out of hospital today.’

  ‘Excellent. Then you can come and stay with me until you’re completely recovered.’

  ‘Oh, Dillon.’ I’m even more touched by this than I was by Cass’s offer, and Nurse Esther’s comment about how lucky I am is ringing more true than ever. ‘That’s really sweet of you.’

  ‘Is not just sweet,’ Bogdan looms over my bed to tell me. ‘Is gesture of true gentleman.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Bogdan, I know that.’

  ‘Is beyond and above call of duty.’

  ‘Agreed,’ I tell Bogdan, firmly, before looking at Dillon again. ‘But I can’t take you up on it, Dillon. You don’t need me hanging around your flat, cramping your style.’

  ‘On the contrary. It’s exactly what I need. And anyway,’ he adds, with a grin, ‘if it all gets a bit much, I’ll just call up a nursing agency and get them to send over a couple of nurses. One to take care of you, and one hot one to take care of me.’

  ‘What was it Bogdan was just saying about you being a true gentleman?’ I ask.

  Before Dillon can reply, the cubicle curtain tweaks open, to reveal Nurse Esther, looking distinctly less brusque and tetchy than she was when she was chucking Mum, Cass and Olly out to the coffee shop.

  ‘Ever so sorry to bother you, Mr O’Hara,’ she says, sunnily, ‘but there are a couple of teenage girls who came in a few hours ago with some nasty burns from a séance gone wrong … it would really cheer them up if you’d pop in and say hello to them, take a few pictures …?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that … I’d have to put in a call to my agent, and my manager …’

  ‘Oh! In that case, please don’t worry about it, Mr O’Hara, I’m terribly sorry to have—’

  ‘I’m messing with you,’ Dillon says, getting to his feet and throwing one of his wickedly charming smiles in Nurse Esther’s direction. ‘Couldn’t be happier to come and say hi. You’ll be all right,’ he adds, to me, ‘while I’m gone for a few minutes?’

  ‘In a fully staffed ward at a major hospital? I think I’ll survive, Dillon, thank you.’

  He gives my hand a squeeze, then follows a dazzled-looking Nurse Esther out of the cubicle, leaving me alone with Bogdan.

  It’s Bogdan’s turn to sit, heavily, on the edge of my bed. He gazes, mournfully, at me.

  ‘Am being seriously concerned for your welfare, Libby.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice of you to say, Bogdan, but honestly, I’m fine.’

  ‘Am not talking about head injury. Though obviously you are being my best friend, Libby, so am not wanting you to be in agonizing pain or imminent danger of death, or any such thing.’

  ‘Oh, Bogdan.’ It’s the first time he’s ever called me his best friend. ‘That’s—’

  ‘Am talking about why in the name of God you are turning down the advancing of Dillon O’Hara! And do not be trying to tell me that is anything to do with altered mental state after accident, Libby. He is telling me that you have turned him down last night.’

  ‘Yes. All right. I did.’ I look at him, hard. ‘Did he tell you why?’

  ‘There is no possible reason that I can possibly be accepting for—’

  ‘I found out about Olly being in love with me.’

  Bogdan says nothing for a moment.

  ‘Even this,’ he says sorrowfully, when he does speak, ‘is not good enough reason to be rejecting Dillon O’Hara.’

  I give up.

  ‘All right, yes,’ he goes on, ‘Olly is being in the love with you. I am apologizing for not giving you this information, but am assuming you must be aware already.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware already. Apparently I really am that stupid.’

  ‘But he is moving on, Libby. Are you not seeing him with this Tash last night? He is all under her.’

  ‘All over her,’ I correct him. (At least, I hope it’s a correction.) ‘I know. I know he’s moving on.’

  ‘Then is no problem with you to be moving on, too. With Dillon.’

  ‘I’m not in love with Dillon.’

  Bogdan shrugs. ‘I am not in love with your ex-boyfriend Adam Rosenfeld. This does not mean I am not going on the date with him tomorrow night.’

  ‘Bogdan, for crying out loud! He has a boyfriend!’

  ‘Is open relationship.’

  ‘Says Adam, no doubt? The high grandmaster of truth and honesty? Because I tell you right now, Bogdan, if Benjamin Milne ends up blaming me in any way for this liaison between you and his partner, and decides not to invest in me …’

  ‘Is no chance that this is happening. He is
already planning on the investment. Adam is telling me last night. The pillow talk, if you are knowing what this is.’

  ‘Yes, Bogdan, I know what pillow talk is … but did Adam really say that Ben’s planning to invest in me? I mean, I haven’t even sent over my business plan or anything yet.’ Not to mention the fact – it just occurs to me – that I’ve missed the deadline, given that it’s already Saturday afternoon and I’m lying in a hospital bed with concussion.

  ‘Apparently he is really liking your stuff. And he is a person who is following his guttural instincts.’

  ‘His gut instincts?’

  ‘Yes. He has told Adam he is putting aside forty million pounds for initial investment …’

  ‘Forty million quid?’ I gasp, the blood suddenly pumping so hard in my aching head that I think I’m about to have a seizure.

  ‘Oh. Maybe not million. Am always getting confused with the English numbers. Am thinking now that was forty thousand pounds. Is that sounding more likely?’

  ‘Yes, that sounds quite a lot more likely, Bogdan.’

  Though still astounding, to be honest. I mean, forty thousand pounds’ investment in Libby Goes To Hollywood is pretty much beyond my wildest dreams. It’ll give me the chance to hire a proper web designer for my website; maybe even to hire a tiny studio where I can have more space and more equipment …

  ‘So I would not be worrying, Libby. There is nothing that will be changing Ben’s mind. You can be relaxing. You have made it. Is good,’ he adds, ‘to be achieving major success in the professional life when you are making the ear of the pig when it comes to the personal life.’

  And he’s right: not just about me making a pig’s ear of my personal life, but about it being nice to have a huge professional achievement, at least, to reflect on. Because if it really is true that Benjamin Milne has decided to invest forty grand in me, that’s huge.

  ‘Is exactly,’ he goes on, ‘what am saying to Miss Marilyn Monroe when am making the conversations with her.’

  ‘Bogdan!’ I stare at him. ‘You didn’t tell her she made a pig’s ear of her personal life, did you?’

  ‘Of course am not doing this, Libby. Are you thinking am insensitive idiot? Oh, this is reminding me.’ He starts to reach into the small carrier bag he’s been holding. ‘Am dropping into your flat on way to hospital to pick up any essentials am thinking you might be needing for overnight – hair straighteners, de-frizzing spray, the deep intensive conditioner I am recommending to you last time we are passing Aveda salon …’