It seems like Bogdan has the same view of hospital essentials as my sister does.
‘Because seriously, Libby, there is no reason to be having terrible hair just because you are in serious road-traffic accident …’
‘Actually, I think of all the times it would be understandable to have terrible hair—’
‘And anyway, while am in your flat, am seeing this left on top of television.’
He pulls out, from the carrier, the tiny glass vial of Chanel No. 5 that Marilyn spritzed me with the night she gave me all her advice on how to Marilyn-ify myself.
‘Am thinking is not sort of thing you are owning yourself. Am thinking is something that is being left for you.’
I take the bottle from him and gaze down at it. The bright neon hospital lights glitter and gleam off its faceted sides and for a moment – just for a moment – I almost imagine I see Marilyn’s face glittering and gleaming out at me, too.
And then I have no time to imagine anything any more, because I can suddenly hear Nora’s anxious voice out in the ward behind the curtains of my cubicle.
‘Sorry, I know you wouldn’t normally let a friend in to see someone, but I really, really need to see if she’s all right … and actually, she’s not my friend, she’s more like my sister …’
I feel such an immense weight off my bruised shoulders that it’s all I can do not to jump out of the bed and run out there to greet her.
But obviously I’m still hooked up to the scary machine, for one thing, and I wouldn’t like to encounter the wrath of any of the nurses, for another.
So I prod Bogdan in the ribs.
‘Can you go and tell her I’m in here?’ I ask. ‘And that I’m absolutely desperate to see her?’
Because it’s true what Nurse Esther said: I am lucky. I have, despite myself, the best friends in the entire world.
And I’m going to need them, let’s face it, if I’m going to get over Olly.
As Bogdan gets up and pops his head out of the cubicle, I take the lid off the glass perfume bottle, hold it to my wrist and give it a little spray. I bring my wrist up to my nose and inhale.
It’s like having one of those friends, Marilyn Monroe, here with me once more. Which is nice, apart from anything else, because I have a suspicion that this was her parting gift, and that – head injuries and concussion-related sightings aside – I’m never going to see her again.
Then I fold my hand around the little glass perfume bottle and hold it, very tightly, beneath the bed covers, as Nora comes hurrying through the Dettol-coloured curtains towards me.
She’s holding Grandmother’s veil, with Marilyn’s rhinestone bracelet still dangling off the end of it.
I can see a small rip, just on the hem where the bracelet is hanging.
But apart from that, it’s still, somehow, undamaged.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With colossal thanks to Kate Bradley, Charlottes Brabbin and Ledger, Kate Elton and all at HarperFiction; and to Clare Alexander. Also, just as colossal thanks to my parents and to Josh, without whom this book would just never have ended up written.
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.
Also by Lucy Holliday
A Night in with Audrey Hepburn
About the Publisher
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A Night In With Marilyn Monroe Page 29