wine bottle.
‘Libby, why ever not?’ Audrey’s huge eyes are open even wider, in genuine dismay. ‘Don’t you like him? This gentleman that asked you out?’
‘No, no, that’s not it. I mean, I like him a lot … the gentleman, that is …’ Though the thought of Dillon-as-gentleman is distinctly amusing. (Not to mention the fact that not a single one of the things he’s been doing, in my head, ever since I first met him yesterday morning, has been in the least bit gentlemanly.) ‘I just decided against going. And it wasn’t really a date, anyway. Not in the true sense of the word.’
‘Did he ask you to dinner? Drinks?’
‘God, no, nothing like that. Though we did have lunch together today, as it happens …’
‘Libby!’ she gasps. ‘You had lunch and he asked you out the same night? He must be awfully keen on you!’
‘Er – honestly, it’s not like that. He has a girlfriend, for one thing. Well, sort of. Rhea Haverstock-Harley. Though I did catch her cheating on him today, with a very large Swede.’
‘The vegetable?’
‘The nationality.’
‘Oh, thank heavens,’ she says, rather faintly. ‘Though not terribly nice, either way, for your poor gentleman friend. And probably why he’d much rather take you out for the evening instead of her.’
‘But he’s not asking me out romantically. I think he just enjoys chatting to a normal person, for a change. He’s used to dating Victoria’s Secret models, you see … lingerie models,’ I clarify when her forehead furrows in confusion. ‘They’re all gorgeous and leggy and Amazonian and they strut up and down the catwalk in nothing but a bikini and a set of angel wings.’
‘That all sounds dreadfully vulgar. No wonder he prefers talking to you.’ She considers me for a moment. ‘Which is not to say you wouldn’t benefit from revealing a tiny bit more skin yourself when you go out with him this evening.’
‘But I’m not going out with him this evening.’
‘But you simply must.’
‘But I simply won’t.’
‘But. You. Simply. Will.’
I’m rather startled when, as she says this, she fixes me with a distinctly steely look. A distinctly un-doe-eyed, not-at-all Audrey look.
‘I’m not taking no for an answer on this, Libby,’ she goes on. ‘Because – and do correct me if I’m wrong – it’s not as if you’re beating off male admirers with a big stick, now, is it?’
‘There’s no need to put it quite like that,’ I mumble.
‘My point is, Libby,’ – she squeezes round the Chesterfield; it takes a few moments – ‘that you oughtn’t be sitting around here with me.’ She kneels down beside me, grabs both my hands and looks deep into my eyes. ‘You ought to be out! Having a wonderful evening! With a man who adores you!’
‘He really, really doesn’t adore me. Anyway, I can’t.’ My throat is going dry and feels a bit like it’s seizing up. ‘Honestly,’ I manage to say, after a sip of wine, ‘I just can’t. You haven’t seen the sort of girl he usually goes out with.’
‘I’ll bet my bottom dollar,’ Audrey cries, ‘they’re not a patch on you!’
I reach for the iPad, Google ‘Rhea Haverstock-Harley’ and shove the resulting images in her direction: Rhea draped seductively over a lucky rock by the sea in an itsy-bitsy bikini; Rhea striding along a catwalk wearing a diamanté bra, matching thong, and glittery angel wings; Rhea posing in nothing but a pair of high heels on a backwards-facing chair à la Christine Keeler …
‘Well!’ Audrey says, a little too brightly, after a long, silent moment. ‘We’ll just have to find you something really, really lovely and flattering to wear tonight, won’t we?’
‘No, we won’t, because – as I think I’ve already said – I’m not going.’
‘Darling. Far be it from me to pull rank.’ She stands up, folds her skinny arms, and eyeballs me again. ‘But I am Audrey Hepburn, you know.’
Hallucination or otherwise, it’s just a little harder than it was, a moment ago, to disagree with her.
‘And do you know the one thing I’m most proud of?’ she goes on. ‘It’s that I don’t let anything scare me. I wasn’t qualified to act opposite Gregory Peck. I wasn’t good enough to dance with Fred Astaire. But I damn well got on with it and gave it my all, because that’s the only way a girl is going to find her place in this world.’
It’s stirring stuff, I have to admit.
And, quite suddenly, she’s less the elfin style queen I’ve always imagined myself being shopping buddies with. Standing here, right now, she’s a warrior princess. She’s a Givenchy-clad Boudicca, a kohl-rimmed Joan of Arc …
‘All right.’ I get to my feet, too. ‘I will go out this evening! After all, if you can dance with Fred Astaire, I can get on the tube and—’
‘My Nespresso!’ she suddenly shrieks, as the machine bleeps its readiness to make her coffee. She practically knocks me over as she squeezes round the sofa to get to the kitchen. ‘Now, where does the little pod go?’
‘Look, can we worry about that later? I need to get ready for this party before I change my mind.’
‘Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right.’ Audrey abandons the coffee machine a second time. ‘Now, we were going to find you something spectacular to wear, weren’t we?’
‘No, no, no,’ I say, hastily, as she heads, in a flurry of couture satin and taffeta, for the clothes box that she discarded earlier. ‘You said something lovely and flattering. Not spectacular. I don’t want spectacular. My sister’s going to be at the same party, and it’s a really big night for her. And she’s going to be pissed off enough that I’m even there in the first place. So I really want to wear something … well, perfectly nice but inoffensive.’
‘A little black dress!’
‘Well, I suppose that would probably be all right …’
‘Darling, a little black dress is always all right.’ She’s already delving into the clothes in the box, shoving aside marl grey hoodie after marl grey hoodie. ‘Do you have one by Hubert, by any chance?’
‘Do I have a little black dress by Hubert de Givenchy? No. No, I don’t.’
‘Well, there’s no need to worry about that; I’m sure we’ll find something else lovely …’ Though her elegant bare shoulders sag, visibly, as she casts aside yet another (when did I buy all these?) grey hoodie. ‘You do own a dress, darling? One is all we need.’
‘Yes, I own a dress! Look, I obviously need a bit of a wardrobe update, OK?’ But fortunately I’ve just spotted a different sort of grey fabric in the heap of grey fabric, and I pull it out – it’s the Whistles
