I mean, no. I know South Audley Street, but I don’t know where you … rather, where Audrey … look, I don’t mean to be rude, but you have just sort of … showed up. And I’m not sure I’m happy about other people having keys to the flat, so perhaps you could tell Bogdan …’
‘Darling, I’m awfully sorry, but I really don’t know this Bogdan fellow at all. In fact, it’s just occurred to me that you and I haven’t introduced ourselves properly! I’m Audrey.’ She extends a gracious hand, emitting a waft, as she does so, of perfume from her wrist: an oddly familiar scent of jasmine and violets. ‘Audrey Hepburn.’
‘Right,’ I snort. ‘And I’m Princess Diana.’
‘Oh, my goodness!’ She bows her head and drops into an impressively low curtsey. ‘I had no idea I was in the presence of royalty!’
‘No! I mean, obviously I’m not …’
‘I should have realized, Your Highness. I mean, only a princess would have jewels like that.’
I’m confused (make that even more confused) until I realize that I’m still holding Nora’s half-finished diamanté and pearl-bead necklace in my hand.
‘No, no, this isn’t real.’ I shove the necklace back into the bead-box. ‘And I’m not Your Highness. I’m not a princess.’
She glances up, still balanced in her curtsey. ‘But you said …’
‘Yes, because you said you were Audrey Hepburn. Now, don’t get me wrong, you’re doing a fantastic job …’
Which she really, really is, I have to admit, the longer I stare at her.
I mean, I know anyone can recreate the Breakfast at Tiffany’s look without too much trouble – the dress, the sunglasses, the beehive – but she’s really cracked the finer points, too. Her hair isn’t just beehived, it’s exactly the right shade of chestnut brown; her lips are precisely the right shape and fullness; her complexion is Hollywood-lustrous and oyster-pale.
Oh, and it’s just occurred to me that I can pin down that familiar jasmine-y, violet-y scent, after all: it’s L’Interdit, the Givenchy perfume created specially for Audrey Hepburn, of course. Mum and Cass gave me a bottle of it several Christmases back.
‘Does it take a really long time?’ I suddenly blurt out.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The whole Audrey look. The hair. The make-up. Does it take a really long time?’
‘Oh, well, I have dressers to help me when I’m working, if that’s what you’re asking about. And of course I have darling Hubert to make me the most perfect frocks – this is one of his that I’m wearing right now, in fact! Do you like it? He’s such a brilliant designer – and, trust me, it takes some brilliance to put me in a long dress and not make me look like an ironing board! – and such a dear friend, too!’
As she talks, a second possibility is starting to dawn on me.
Which is that she’s not an extremely good professional lookalike but is, in fact, an escaped lunatic.
Because she really seems to believe that she is Audrey Hepburn. In the way that you hear about people really believing that they are (usually) Napoleon, or Jesus Christ. Or Princess Diana, come to that.
‘Look,’ I say, more gently than I’ve been speaking for the past couple of minutes. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you tell me who I can call. A friend? Boyfriend? A … well, a nurse?’
‘Nurse?’ She laughs, musically. ‘But I’m not ill!’
‘Well, of course! Absolutely you’re not ill!’ I’m nowhere near well enough versed in psychology to know whether someone who thinks they’re Audrey Hepburn could become dangerous if confronted with the fact that they’re not. ‘But it’s getting late, and I’ve got quite a lot of unpacking to do. So if you’d rather I just called you a taxi …’
‘I can help you with the unpacking!’
‘God, no, that’s not what I meant!’
But she’s not listening. She’s tripping daintily over to my boxes, kneeling down beside them and starting to pull off the masking tape.
‘I adore unpacking,’ she says. ‘Making a house a home! Well, in your case, a flat. And this one is simply delightful!’
Now I know she’s suffering from delusions.
‘Though I must say, darling, you’ve not done yourself any favours by putting this huge sofa in here. You’d be far better off with some sort of lovely leather armchair … Goodness! What on earth is this?’
She’s pulled the Nespresso machine out of the top of the box she’s kneeling beside, and is gazing at it, from behind her sunglasses, in awe and wonderment.
‘Is it a camera? A microwave oven?’
‘It’s a Nespresso machine,’ I say, rather irritably, because whether it’s an act or whether it’s a delusion, this whole thing is starting to get a bit much. I’m even starting to wonder if putting in a quick call to Bogdan might be just the thing. After all, if your dodgy landlord can’t get rid of Audrey Hepburn lookalikes who won’t leave your flat, what is he good for? ‘You must have seen the adverts, with George Clooney.’
‘Is he any relation to Rosemary?’ she asks, brightly.
‘Rosemary Clooney? I don’t know, might be a nephew or something. Now, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to—’
‘Oh, no, darling, he can’t be a nephew! Rosemary would have told me if she had a nephew!’ She turns back to look at the Nespresso machine, taking her sunglasses off so that she can gaze at it more closely. She puts the sunglasses down on the melamine. ‘Nespresso, you say? It sounds as though it’s the sort of thing that might make you a cup of coffee?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what it does, but you already …’
I stop.
She’s looking right at me, without the sunglasses.
And I feel a bit funny, all of a sudden.
Because – and this is going to sound certifiably insane, I have to warn you – now that I can see her eyes, I’m not so sure that she’s an escaped lunatic after all. Or a professional lookalike, for that matter.
I think that, maybe … well, that maybe she is Audrey Hepburn.
I warned you I’d sound crazy.
I mean, what am I actually saying here? That Audrey Hepburn is miraculously, Lazarus-like, back from the dead? And that instead of coming back from the dead to visit her beloved family, or continue her charity work for UNICEF, she’s dropped by my titchy little flat in Colliers Wood instead?
No: of course I’m not saying that. Nobody comes back from the dead, to Colliers Wood or anywhere else, for that matter.
But
