quantity of champagne I’ve drunk this evening. ‘Look,’ I try one more time, rather desperately, ‘I don’t know if you ever met Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe …’
‘Well, of course I have. They’re sweet girls … Oh!’ Grace gasps. ‘Is this another message? Because they do say that the prince was interested in meeting Marilyn Monroe, as a prospective bride, before he met me. Not that anything of that sort would have stood a chance of success, of course. Nothing against Marilyn, but I don’t think the people of Monaco would have stood for that.’
And then, quite abruptly, she stops talking.
She’s staring down at my coffee table.
More accurately, she’s staring down at the OK! magazine that Cass dumped on my coffee table when she was round earlier this afternoon. The one with Prince Albert of Monaco, his wife Charlene and their children on the cover.
‘Who is that woman?’ Grace asks, pointing a rather shaky finger at the magazine’s cover. ‘And why is she wearing my earrings?’
A terrible feeling of dread pulses through me.
I can’t tell Grace Kelly – even a magical Grace Kelly – that this is her adult son, a son who, as far as she’s concerned, hasn’t even been conceived yet. Can I? Even if she believes I’m a dream, some harbinger of her future, it’s just too close to her tragic reality, too uncomfortable for me to voice …
‘And who,’ she asks, in a much smaller, fainter voice, all trace of regal grandiosity completely disappeared, ‘is that man she’s with?’
I open my mouth to tell her … what?
I mean, really, what? Because it says, quite plainly, in the magazine’s block-lettered headline, that this is ALBERT OF MONACO AND HIS BEAUTIFUL FAMILY ON THE EVE OF PUBLICATION OF NEW OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY OF HIS BELOVED MOTHER, PRINCESS GRACE.
‘Miss Kelly,’ I begin. I take a very deep breath. ‘Grace …’
But she’s gone. Disappeared. Vanished.
Where she was sitting, just three seconds ago, is now nothing but thin air.
Thin air wafting, of course, with the rose- and violet-tinged scent of her Fleurissimo perfume.
Hangover or no hangover, I’ve tidied the entire flat this morning – and hidden the offending copy of OK! safely at the bottom of the magazine pile – ready for Bogdan’s arrival at ten a.m.
Bogdan (Son of Bogdan) is – as the name might suggest – the son of my former landlord, Bogdan Senior, and now one of my greatest friends. He’s a part-time handyman and a part-time hairdresser (secretly, because his Moldovan crime-lord father would have a thing or two to say about the hairdressing if he knew about it), and both those skills have come in very handy to me since I got to know him. This morning, he’s popping over to help me put up a little flat-pack IKEA desk in the studio, so that I can work properly out of there until I decide exactly what to do with the space.
And, although he doesn’t know it yet, to discuss last night’s mystical arrival on the sofa. Because Bogdan is the only person in my life who’s undergone the full magical Chesterfield experience. My memory is forever imprinted, in fact, with the image of him sitting on the sofa, chattering away nineteen to the dozen with Marilyn Monroe, and – always the hairdresser – attempting to persuade her to ditch her trademark blonde (‘too much cliché, Miss Marilyn’) and become a brunette. Bogdan’s sang-froid in the face of the mind-boggling was nothing less than astounding and, though we’ve rarely spoken about it since, it’s been a huge relief to know that he’s in on the whole bizarre situation too.
I’ve just put the kettle on for one of Bogdan’s strong cups of black tea when there’s a knock all the way downstairs and I head down to let him in.
When I open the front door, he’s standing on the pavement outside wearing his usual air of mild-to-moderate tragedy, along with a pair of (extremely brave) rainbow-striped cargo trousers, and a T-shirt that informs me that Harry Styles Is Cute … But His Boyfriend Is Cuter.
I still can’t quite believe that his father hasn’t noticed anything about Bogdan yet. Though I suppose it’s possible that Bogdan leaves the family house in the morning wearing traditional Moldovan dress, or whatever else his scary dad would approve of, and then puts on his rainbow-themed, Harry-Styles-appreciating garb when he’s at a safe distance.
‘Good morning,’ Bogdan informs me now, in his usual lugubrious manner. ‘This is most exciting occasion.’
‘It is?’
‘New flat,’ he reminds me. He uses a huge hand to wave at the street. ‘In tiptop surroundings. Are you meeting celebrity neighbours?’
‘I don’t think I have celebrity neighbours.’
Bogdan makes a tsk noise before heading through the door and closing it behind him. ‘Of course you are having the celebrity neighbours. Is Notting Hill, Libby. Am thinking you will be bumping into Claudia Schiffer when you are popping to Whole Foods for guarana smoothies and cashew nuts. Am thinking you will be exchanging the nod with Elle Macpherson when you are going for early morning run. Am thinking …’
‘Hang on,’ I say, leading the way up the stairs. ‘What makes you think that now that I live in Notting Hill I’m automatically going to become some sort of healthy-living obsessive?’
‘But this is exactly what you must be doing!’ He sounds appalled that I’ve not considered this. ‘You are very pretty girl, Libby, but I cannot be making words into mincemeat.’
‘You’re not going to mince your words, you mean?’
‘Yes. Am saying that if you are successful jewellery designer living in Notting Hill, you are needing to be looking part.’ He gives my outfit – jeans and a grey hoodie, which to be fair to me I only slung on because I was tidying up this morning – a disapproving once-over. ‘Come to be thinking of it, guarana smoothie and early morning jog may be too advanced for now. Perhaps we are needing to be focusing on grooming basics before we are worrying about this.’
‘Thanks, Bogdan, but I don’t actually need your help with grooming basics …’
‘Am begging to be different. You are being in very urgent need of help with hair, for starters, Libby.’ He stares, in a woebegone fashion, at my straggly mouse-brown ponytail. ‘Am not able to be punching the pulls …’
‘Pulling punches,’ I correct him, and then, because I can’t deal with too many more incidents of Bogdan mangling his English idioms this morning, I go on, ‘Look, we can discuss my hair later. Right now, I need to talk to you about something more important.’
‘More important than hair?’
‘More important than hair, Bogdan, yes.’ I go over to the sofa and put a hand on the over-stuffed back. ‘It’s happened again.’
‘What is happening again?’
