actually really, really nice up here, once you’ve recovered from the climb up the half-billion stairs, that is. Row F, that’s where I always used to hang out: I ended up feeling quite at home there on all those endless cold November days, with a good book, and my Discman, and a posh, weekly-allowance-busting chicken Caesar sandwich from the Pret a Manger opposite the station.
I settle down into seat number 23, perfectly situated halfway along the aisle, and reach back into my rucksack for my book.
Actually, my books. Three of them, placed on special order from our local library in Kensal Rise, and just come in yesterday.
Humphrey Bogart: A Biography.
The Man, the Dancer: The Life of Fred Astaire.
Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn.
Hmmm.
Now that I’ve actually got them, here in my hands, I’m not looking forward to ploughing into them quite as much as I’d thought.
They look a bit …
Well, I don’t want to actually think the word boring. Because these are all books that Dad recommended I read – books he recommends to his film studies students – and I doubt he’d have suggested them if they were really as dull as they look.
And I’m sure they won’t be dull at all, once I actually get into them.
It’s just that it’s the movies themselves I love, and not (what Mum, rather dismissively, calls) all the pontificating about them.
Which Dad doesn’t do. Pontificate, I mean. Even though it’s his job to pontificate, so it wouldn’t be wrong if he did.
I do sometimes think it’s just a little bit of a shame, though, that he doesn’t seem to be able to really enjoy the movies themselves any more. Especially when it was him who introduced them all to me, on the nights when I used to go and stay at his place. And he picked them carefully as well, starting out with the lighter stuff – Some Like It Hot, It’s a Wonderful Life, Roman Holiday – when I was seven or eight, and moving on to more grown-up fare – Casablanca, Sunset Boulevard – by the time I was ten or eleven. I might not have always understood everything I was watching (in fact, in the case of Citizen Kane, for example, I understood precisely nothing of what I was watching), but that never stopped me being dazzled. I mean, just the Hollywood glow of it all. And Dad would make popcorn – well, he made popcorn a couple of times – and turn off all the lights so that, with his huge TV, it was almost like we were in a proper cinema … and these screen legends just seemed to come to life. Marilyn Monroe. Ingrid Bergman. Grace Kelly. Lauren Bacall. Audrey Hepburn – most of all, Audrey Hepburn.
No: I’m quite sure a book about Audrey Hepburn isn’t going to be dull. How could it possibly be? My favourite of favourites, the movie star I’ve worshipped from the moment I first saw her.
I’ll make a start on this one first – and leave Bogey and Fred Astaire for another day – so that I can talk about it with Dad when I see him tonight. He’s bound to have read them all already: he’s writing a book, my Dad is, not just about Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, but a … hang on, what did he call it the last time he mentioned it? A definitive, fully updated, no-holds-barred history of Hollywood’s most exciting era. So it’ll be really nice, over dinner tonight, to discuss everything I’ve been reading, and hopefully—
‘Anything good?’
It’s a boy.
Sitting two rows behind me, on Row H.
Well, I say ‘boy’; he sounds – and looks, now I’ve spun round to stare at him – fourteen or fifteen, so ‘young man’ might be a more accurate description. He’s tall, maybe over six foot, if his legs dangling over into Row G are anything to go by, and he’s wearing a light brown Stüssy sweatshirt that matches his hair and, because it’s too big across his shoulders, makes him look a little bit lanky.
‘The book, I mean,’ he goes on. ‘Anything good?’ Then, probably because I’m just staring at him with a startled-goldfish look on my face, he adds, hastily, ‘I didn’t follow you up here, or anything, by the way. I was just sitting and having a bit of a break when you came in.’
‘A break from the auditions?’ I ask, in the sort of flat, bored-sounding voice you’re meant to use with boys (and that I’m not very good at; I always end up sounding like a depressed robot).
‘Christ, no! I’m not actually doing an audition. I’m just here with my sisters. My mum had to take one of my other sisters to an audition for the Royal Ballet School today, and she didn’t want them travelling all the way to Wimbledon on the buses by themselves.’
Sisters – plural – auditioning for this show, and another one trying out for the Royal Ballet School …
‘You’re not one of the Showbiz Walkers, are you?’ I ask.
He looks startled for a moment, and then laughs.
‘Bloody hell. Is that what my family’s known as?’
‘Sorry … I’m really sorry … that sounded weird. It’s only me who calls you that. And only in my head, I don’t say it to anyone else.’
‘It’s all right. Do you want a sandwich?’
It’s my turn to look a bit startled, because it’s such a non sequitur, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s busily opening a large plastic container on the seat next to him, and taking out a large wedge of something wrapped in waxed paper, some sliced tomatoes and fresh lettuce leaves, and a small penknife.
‘I always bring my own stuff when I know I’m going to get stuck waiting about at these stupid auditions,’ he’s saying, reaching down beneath his seat and producing, rather like a magician, an entire baguette in a paper bag. ‘And this cheddar is amazing. It’s Irish. My sisters got it for me for my birthday.’
‘They gave you cheese for your birthday?’
‘No, sorry, that sounds weird. They gave me membership of a cheese club. You get sent a different cheese through the post each month.’ He uses the penknife to hack, enthusiastically, at the cheddar. ‘So? Would you like a sandwich, or not?’
‘Yes. Please. I’d love a sandwich.’
‘Coming right up. I’m Olly, by the way. Olly Showbiz-Walker.’
I grin at him. ‘I’m Libby. Libby Lomax.’
‘So are you auditioning, then?’
I’m actually surprised he has to ask, thanks to the egg-yolk-yellow dirndl, and all. But it’s just possible he thinks I actually dress like this … I reach for my rucksack again and hastily drag out the grey hooded top I know is in there, pulling it on to disguise the worst of the faux-Austrian look.
‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘But only because of my little sister. She’s the showbiz one in our family. I’ve just ended up sort of sucked into it because of her.’
‘Oh? You look quite keen on the whole showbiz thing yourself.’ When I obviously look a bit confused, he
