‘Biding its time.’
‘Hiding its light under a bushel.’
‘Waiting in the wings.’
‘And I’m not even sure,’ I say, ‘that I even liked this one that much anyway.’
‘Me neither.’ Olly peers at the cheese plate, his handsome face looking more noble than ever in the bistro’s candlelight. ‘That Comté looks good, though. You have a bit of that, and I’ll try some of the Camembert.’
We fall into a companionable silence as we find our way around the cheese platter together for the next few minutes.
Well, as companionable a silence as it’s ever going to be between us any more, given that I can’t even look at him without feeling lust and misery wash over me in equal measure.
Then, breaking the silence, he says, ‘You’re probably right about Tash, though, Lib. We do need to make more effort to spend time together. I mean, that’s what grown-up relationships are about, right? Compromising. Going the extra mile.’
I’m about to quip that I wouldn’t know, having never been in a grown-up relationship.
But, somehow, my heart isn’t in it.
So I just nod, as enthusiastically as I know how, and reach out a hand to cut myself a sliver of Roquefort.
*
It’s almost midnight by the time I get home.
Actually, make that ‘home’.
Because grotty and minuscule though it undeniably was, my flat back in Colliers Wood was home. This new place, in posher-than-posh Notting Hill, doesn’t feel like home to me yet. And if my relations with Elvira Roberts-Hoare get any frostier, I don’t imagine I’ll start to really relax here any time soon.
But perhaps it’s just all that champagne making me a bit maudlin and self-pitying. All that champagne in the company of my lost soulmate. We ended up drinking two bottles before we parted ways, Olly back home to Skype Tash, and me back here to …
… well, what is my current plan? A pint of water, take my makeup off and get into bed for a restorative night’s sleep?
Or, instead, how about I crack open the bottle of white wine that I know is nestling in the upstairs fridge, accompany it with the large bag of Frazzles stashed in one of the kitchenette cupboards, slump on the Chesterfield with the remote control and flick through late-night rubbish on the TV to distract myself from dwelling on my evening out with Olly?
Yes. The latter, I think. Temporary painkilling that’s only going to make me feel even worse in the morning. A sensible decision, as ever.
I haul my weary body up the stairs to the kitchen, grab the wine and the Frazzles, and head back down the stairs again to locate the remote control.
‘Excusez-moi?’ says a voice from the Chesterfield sofa.
Oh, my dear God almighty.
It’s Grace Kelly.
And not just any old Grace Kelly: Grace Kelly in full wedding attire. The iconic dress, with its 125-year-old lace bodice and its full silk skirt. The veil, with what must be a hundred yards of tulle suddenly taking up most of the available floor-space in my new living room. The beaded Juliet cap framing, perfectly, her serene face.
Except that she isn’t looking that serene at the moment, it has to be said. Not that I can possibly comment, because I’m probably staring at her like a goldfish who’s just been slapped in the face with a wet kipper. But she’s looking, if it were possible, even more startled to see me than I am to see her.
There’s silence for a moment.
‘Je suis desolée,’ she goes on, in a rather more wobbly voice than I’m used to hearing in her films, though the cut-glass diction remains largely in place. She gets to her feet; she’s taller than I imagined she’d be, or perhaps this is just because she holds herself so well, her broad shoulders pulled back and her neck nothing short of swan-like. ‘Mais je suis un peu … je ne sais pas le mot en français … uh … Parlez-vous anglais?’
‘I AM anglaise,’ I croak.
‘Oh!’ Her elegant eyebrows lift upwards. ‘I’m sorry. I had absolutely no idea there was anyone English working here.’
‘Here …?’
‘The palace. You’ll forgive me, I hope,’ she goes on, her voice more perfectly clipped, now that she’s recovered herself, ‘if I haven’t the faintest idea who you are or what it is you do. It’s been the most impossibly hectic few days since I first arrived, and obviously with the wedding tomorrow morning …’
‘Right,’ I say, faintly. ‘The wedding.’
I mean, you’d think I might be somewhat inured to this by now. You’d think I might even be a bit blasé about what is starting, frankly, to look like an infestation of Hollywood legends, popping out of my magical sofa.
But this is Grace Kelly. Quite literally, Hollywood royalty.
I mean, if it was … I don’t know, Ava Gardner, or Betty Grable, or even Lauren Bacall, I think I’d be a bit more able to take it in my stride.
I can’t take Grace Kelly in my stride.
Yes, Audrey Hepburn was exquisite, and yes, Marilyn Monroe was a knockout. But Grace Kelly, if it were possible, knocks the pair of them into a cocked hat.
Her serene beauty, as she stands here five feet away from me in her wedding dress, is astonishing. She might literally have the most perfect face I’ve ever seen. Which obviously I already knew – it’s not like I haven’t watched and rewatched her movies throughout my life – but seeing it here, in the (sort-of) flesh, it’s … astounding. Not that she looks as if she is made of flesh, to be honest. Her peachy-pale skin is so flawless that it looks as if it might actually be made of pearl nacre and slivers of Grade-A diamond. It’s the same glow that Audrey and Marilyn both seemed to have, in fact, and one that probably owes more to the fact that they’re magical manifestations from down the back of an enchanted Chesterfield rather than a one hundred per cent real deal. Her hair, swept back with its rather touching widow’s peak, is baby-blonde, and her eyes as piercingly blue as they’ve ever been when I’ve seen them on screen. And, just like Audrey and Marilyn, she’s wafting a very real-smelling scent of perfume – something sumptuously floral, in her case, that smells of violets and roses and irises. Fleurissimo by Creed, I suddenly remember, in the way random facts suddenly appear, popping up into your head when you didn’t even know they were there in the first place. The scent made especially for Grace Kelly to wear on her wedding day.
‘Are you one of the girls they assigned to unpack my things?’
‘Huh?’
‘Are you one of the girls,’ she repeats, with that unmistakable New England inflection, all over-emphasized vowels and crisp plosives, ‘they assigned to unpack my things?’ Her manner, now that she’s got over the surprise at seeing me, is polite, but distinctly distant. ‘I
