in Sabrina.
There are no words to describe how beautiful this dress is, up close.
Even if it does clash, a bit, with the apricot roses on the sofa.
The sofa she’s suddenly delving down between the cushions of, her brow furrowed.
‘I thought maybe they might have dropped down between the cushions … my sunglasses, I mean … I don’t suppose you’ve come across them, and put them somewhere safe? It’s just that they are rather a special pair …’
She glances back up at me, her eyes looking almost absurdly huge in that perfectly framed face. In fact, she looks even more beautiful than she did yesterday, although I’ve always preferred Sabrina Audrey to Tiffany’s Audrey. Her cropped hair highlights her perfect collarbones, her skin looks as if it’s been coated in a fine spray of crushed pearls, and the scent of L’Interdit is stronger now, so I wasn’t imagining it at all …
Except that I was, of course. Because I’m hallucinating this whole thing again, aren’t I?
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Libby!’
‘Sorry … it’s just …’ It’s a brain tumour, isn’t it? It has to be. ‘Or schizophrenia,’ I blurt out. ‘It could be schizophrenia.’
‘What could be schizophrenia, darling?’ But her attention is only half focused on me; she’s gazing at the iPad screen. ‘How terribly sweet!’
‘You mean – er – the Danish pastry?’
‘No, no, I meant your darling little television screen. Though that horrible Danish was sweet, actually. Cloyingly so. I can’t bear the things. I begged them to let me eat an ice cream in that scene instead, but no such luck … I can’t see an aerial.’
‘Er …?’
‘For your little television.’ She points a long, gloved finger at the iPad. ‘An aerial. Doesn’t it need one?’
‘It’s not a television. It’s an iPad.’ I rub my eyes, fiercely, but when I pull my hands away I can still see her. ‘I think I need a drink.’
‘Another difficult day, darling?’ Audrey Hepburn asks, as she picks up the iPad and studies it, admiringly. ‘Exquisite! What did you call it? A padlet?’
‘It’s an iPad. You use it for the internet, for email …’
She blinks at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language she’s never even heard before.
‘You know what?’ I say, ‘just have a play around with it while I get myself a drink. It’s easy. You’ll get the hang.’
‘Ooooh, thank you, darling!’ She takes me at my word and starts tapping and pressing at the iPad with her long, elegant fingertips. ‘Golly, it’s ever so clever,’ she marvels, as random stuff – the weather forecast; photos of me and Nora at her engagement party; the Net-a-Porter app I muck around with when I fancy a bit of lush designer window-shopping – pop up and down again. ‘Honestly, darling, you do own the most marvellous gadgets. Oh! That reminds me. Your lovely coffee machine! I’ve been talking about it to everyone I know!’
Great: now I’m not only imagining that I’m chatting to Audrey Hepburn, but that she’s chatting to other people as well. The mind boggles as to who it is she could be referring to: a spectral Marilyn? A phantasmagoric Cary Grant? A virtual Liz Taylor?
‘I wonder,’ she asks, clasping her hands in a girlish manner, ‘did you manage to find your pods yet?’
‘The coffee pods? Uh, actually, no …’
‘Well, I’m sure they’re in one of these boxes. Why don’t I take a look?’
Before I can reply, she springs off the Chesterfield and kneels down in front of the biggest heap of boxes, not seeming to care that she’s getting Olly’s van dust all over the hem of her ethereal ball gown.
‘This looks a good place to start.’ She’s opening the box at the top of the pile. ‘Oh, this could be useful, actually. It’s your cleaning rags.’
‘I don’t have a box of cleaning rags …’ I get up, too, and peer into the box she’s just opened. ‘That’s my clothes!’
‘Gosh, I’m so sorry, darling!’
I snatch the box away from her, wishing, more than ever, that I were actually able to afford the things I drool over on that Net-a-Porter app from time to time. ‘We can’t all own wardrobes full of exquisite designer ball gowns, you know.’
‘Well, of course, I simply thought … well, everything in there looked so very grey …’
I stamp off to my mini-fridge for that open bottle from last night.
‘If it helps at all,’ she says, in a contrite tone, ‘your hair looks absolutely marvellous.’
‘You really think?’
‘I do! And I told you all it needed was a good wash and blow-dry.’
‘Actually, this was done by a hairdresser,’ I say, pointedly, as I get the wine from the fridge and head back to the sofa. ‘It didn’t need a wash and blow-dry, it needed a trained professional with a proper pair of scissors.’
‘And didn’t I tell you’ – I think she’s ignoring me, because she’s turning back to the boxes and opening another – ‘that a little fringe would suit … oh! I think I’ve found them!’
She turns, brandishing a small wooden box with a Nespresso label.
‘Yes, that’s the pods.’
She lets out a little shriek of delight, gets to her feet and practically falls over the dusty hem of the ball gown trying to get round the Chesterfield and to the coffee machine on the counter.
‘Oooooooohhhhh,’ she breathes, a moment later, opening the box and gazing in awe at the little guide on the inside of the lid. ‘Ethiopian Sidamo …’
This is not what I was hoping for when I thought I might like to chat to Audrey about the events of today: me on the sofa mainlining wine from the bottle while she fires up the Nespresso machine. But it looks like even my own subconscious isn’t that interested in the details of my day.
‘Not even,’ I mutter at my subconscious, ‘when I got asked out on a proper date this evening.’
‘A date?’ Audrey Hepburn spins round, ball gown swishing, Ethiopian Sidamo forgotten. ‘Libby, that’s so exciting!’
OK, so my subconscious is forgiven. I even feel a bit embarrassed, now, about making a big deal of it.
‘It wasn’t really a date …’
‘Who is he? When is it?’
‘Well, sort of now.’
‘What
