A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

‘… quite sure Adam didn’t bring that one over in Fritz’s bag of stuff, when he dropped him off?’ Posh James is asking, as two pairs of footsteps – one heavy and male, one lighter and ballet-pump-wearing, make their way on to the marble floor. ‘Weren’t there about half a million squeaky toys in there?’

‘Not the green and white one,’ says Lottie, before adding, ‘Go on, Fritzy! Go find your toy! Go find!’

Hang on: they’ve brought Fritz with them, too?

I don’t even need to ask myself the question, because there’s a pitter-pattering of doggy feet across the marble floor, and a moment later I’m gazing, from my crouched position behind the safety gate, deep into Fritz’s chocolate-brown, adoring, eyes.

He starts – surprise, surprise – barking.

‘Fritz, no!’ I whisper, flapping my hands at him. ‘Go away! I don’t have any pâté! Ich habe,’ I hazard, in desperation, dredging up the German I studied, half-heartedly, when I was fourteen years old, ‘kein pâté!’

Mentioning pâté was, with hindsight, a mistake, in either language.

Fritz goes berserk.

‘What the fuck’s he barking about now?’ I can just about hear Posh James saying over the torrent of noise Fritz is making.

‘The toy must be in his den,’ I hear Lottie say. ‘Clever boy!’

His toy! His green and white squeaky toy! That’ll get rid of him. I see it in here, nestling to the side of his (Alessi) bowl, grab it and then, making sure I lean right through the bars of the safety gate for maximum distance, skim the bloody thing as far away across the kitchen floor from the den, and me, as it’ll go.

Which makes not the slightest difference. Fritz could no longer care less about his squeaky toy, not when his beloved Bringer Of Pâté is right here before him, cornered behind his safety gate. Besides, now that I’ve made the mistake of putting my head through the bars to chuck his toy, he’s licking my face, practically water-boarding me with meaty-smelling saliva.

It’s a bit gross, and I can’t pull my head back through the bars fast enough.

Except I can’t pull my head back through the bars at all.

I’m serious. I can’t get my head out.

It makes no sense … I mean, I got my head through them one way, didn’t I?

Unless it’s the Marilyn Monroe earrings. These great, big, chandelier-style Marilyn Monroe earrings. Jamming up against the outside of the bars, making it impossible for me to squeeze my head back through.

Just as this horrible fact dawns on me, a pair of leopard-print French Sole ballet pumps comes past the range cooker and stops, abruptly, right in front of me.

‘Oh, dear God,’ says Lottie Cadwalladr, about four feet above my head.

Which sums it up pretty neatly, really.

‘James!’ she goes on, in a horrified voice. ‘Come quick! Adam’s got some woman … imprisoned back here!’

‘Some woman?’ echoes Posh James.

‘No, no, no!’ I sound a bit panicked, which is understandable, under the circumstances, but is only going to make me feel more mortified in the long run. I’d prefer to sound more nonchalant, debonair, even, because I’ve learned from past experience that if you take this sort of appalling humiliation in your stride yourself, other people have no choice but to take it in their stride along with you. ‘I’m not a woman,’ I go on, in as laid-back a way as I can possibly manage. ‘I mean, I’m not just any old woman! It’s me, Libby Lomax. Um, Adam’s girlfriend? The jewellery designer?’

‘Libby?’ Lottie gasps.

‘That’s right. Hello!’ I add. ‘Nice to see you again!’

Posh James’s shoes arrive, now, and I hear an appalled, ‘For fuck’s sake,’ before he grabs Fritz’s collar and – helpfully – puts an end to the water torture by manhandling him back towards the kitchen door and putting him out in the hallway.

‘Thanks!’ I say, still trying to sound relaxed about all this, in the hope that it convinces them there’s really nothing so very extraordinary about finding a virtual stranger with their head wedged between a set of iron bars at the neighbour’s house, with only some strands of ribbon and elastic to protect her modesty. ‘Much appreciated.’

‘But, Libby …’ Lottie isn’t sounding remotely relaxed. ‘You have to tell me. Are you … in this position … voluntarily?’

‘Adam hasn’t fucking imprisoned her in a sex dungeon, or anything,’ Posh James says, cuttingly. ‘He’s not even home. I saw her letting herself in about an hour ago. At least, I think it’s her …’ There’s a pause. I don’t know why, but I get the impression of a neck being craned. ‘She looks a bit different from this angle.’

‘Then stop looking from that angle!’ Lottie snaps. ‘Let the poor girl have a shred of dignity, will you?’

What I’d quite like, right now, is for the floor beneath Fritz’s den to open up like a large sinkhole, drag me down deep into the earth’s crust, and finish me off in a pit of molten lava.

‘Anyway, if he’s not imprisoned her, what the hell is she doing in here?’ Lottie demands, before crouching down to meet me at eye level. Her pretty face is creased with genuine concern. ‘What are you doing in here?’ she repeats the question to me. ‘If you’re too scared to say anything aloud, just … I don’t know … blink three times … or do you have a safe word, or something …?’

‘No, there’s no safe word!’ I really, really want my very nice new client to stop thinking I’m heavily into sadomasochism. ‘This is all just a silly accident. I put my head through the bars, you see,’ I go on, cleverly avoiding any mention of why I put on slutty lingerie to do this in the first place. ‘I think the problem is my earrings, actually, so perhaps …’ I reach one hand up to start undoing one of the chandelier earrings on one side and then, the moment it’s fallen free, do the same to the other. ‘I’m sure I’ll be able to get my head out, now.’

Wrong again.

My head, even without the earrings, still won’t slide back out through the bars of the safety gate.

‘My head hasn’t grown, has it?’ I’m sounding panicked again. ‘Could that have happened? Do heads just spontaneously grow?’

‘I don’t know about that.’ Lottie puts her own head on one side. ‘I suppose it could have expanded a teeny bit, or something … From the friction of you trying to pull it out, maybe?’

‘For fuck’s sake, the two of you. It isn’t amateur physicist week.’ Posh James doesn’t sound the least bit impressed. ‘Obviously what we need is some sort of lubricant.’

‘James!’ Lottie gasps.

‘To rub on the bars,’ he explains. ‘To help her slide out. Olive oil, butter …’

‘Oh. Well, yes, that might be a good idea, actually. I’ll go and look in the fridge,’ Lottie says, getting to her feet and heading across to the other end of the kitchen. ‘Keep talking to her, James!’ she calls over one shoulder. ‘In case she goes into shock, or something.’

‘She’s not going to go into bloody shock,’ Posh James replies, irritably, before thinking slightly better of this and turning back to ask me, ‘are you?’

‘No,’ I mumble.

‘Good. I might, though.’

Which I think is just him being rude – extremely rude – about the nightmare-inducing sight of my bum, on the other side of the bars from him, until he goes on: ‘I mean, I honestly didn’t know Adam had it in him. I was pretty sure – a hundred per cent sure, in fact – that Adam batted for the other team.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Drove on the right-hand side of the road.’

‘Um, are you pointing out that he’s American, because I did already realize—’

‘I thought he was gay.’

I blink at Posh James. To be more precise, I blink at his battered Converse.