A Night In With Audrey Hepburn

The last thing I want to do is criticize Olly, not when he’s being so lovely and so helpful, but he and Jesse are taking a bloody long time to start getting this furniture in, aren’t they? I mean, seriously, it’s only a small armchair, a coffee table and a three-drawer plywood chest. If it weren’t for the bulk, I’m sure I’d be able to bring them up by myself.

Still, at least I’ve had the time to get all these boxes up, and I ought to be able to find the glasses in one of them. This one, most likely, that I’ve labelled NESPRESSO MACHINE AND MISC: sounds like it’s where I might have packed my kitchen bits and bobs. I open it up just as I hear a rather out-of-breath voice behind me.

‘I’m telling you, Lib. This isn’t going to fit.’

It’s Olly, who’s coming through the doorway. He’s purple in the face with exertion, his shoulders are straining underneath his T-shirt, and he’s gripping one end of the most enormous sofa I’ve ever seen.

Not only enormous, in fact, but upholstered in some truly terrible apricot-hued rose-patterned fabric that makes it look like a bomb has gone off in the world’s most twee garden centre.

‘Well, it might technically fit,’ an equally purple-faced Jesse grunts, inching through the door with the other end of the sofa, ‘but there’s not going to be much room for anything else.’

‘But this isn’t the sofa I put aside!’

‘What do you mean?’ Olly cranes his head round to look at me.

‘I mean, this isn’t the sofa I put aside! I didn’t put aside a sofa at all, in fact! It was meant to be a leather armchair.’

‘Well, this is the stuff Uncle Brian told us you’d chosen.’

Uncle Brian has made, it appears, a terrible, terrible error.

‘And there isn’t a leather armchair in the van,’ Olly adds. ‘There’s this sofa, and the oak blanket box, and the big mahogany chest of drawers, and …’

‘But I didn’t choose any of those things either! I chose an armchair, and a little walnut coffee table, and a small chest for my clothes.’

‘Walnut coffee table?’ Olly turns back to Jesse. ‘Hang on – where have I seen a walnut coffee table recently?’

‘There was one in the stuff we dropped off with your mum last night, for the Woking Players,’ Jesse says, scratching his head in a manner that suggests he’s not quite cottoned on to what’s happened.

Whereas it’s becoming fairly clear to me that the Woking Players are getting my furniture, and that I am getting the Woking Players’ set-dressing for whatever Noël Coward play or Stephen Sondheim musical they’re performing for the next couple of weeks.

‘I’m really sorry, Lib.’ Olly bends his knees to lower the sofa to the floor, and indicates that Jesse should do the same. I can hardly blame them; it must weigh a tonne. ‘Do you want us just to take it back to the van?’

‘Yes … well, no … I mean, did you bring that futon you mentioned?’

‘Futon …’ Olly looks blank-eyed for a moment, until recognition dawns. He slaps a hand to his head. ‘Shit. I forgot about that.’

‘It’s all right. But you’d better leave the sofa here. I’ve not got anything else to sleep on.’

‘Are you sure? I mean, apart from anything else, it’s a bit … well, up close, it’s pretty pongy.’

‘Sort of—’ Jesse leans down and inhales one of the overstuffed cushions – ‘doggy-smelling.’

He’s right, in one sense: the smell coming up out of the sofa cushions, now that they mention it, is distinctly doggy. More specifically, the smell of a dog that’s been out in the rain all morning and is now drying by a warm radiator, whilst letting out the occasional contented fart. Quite a lot like Olly and Nora’s ancient Labrador, Tilly, who farted her way to the grand old age of seventeen; she died five or six years ago but I can still remember her musty pong. Not to mention that there are deep grooves scratched into the wooden part of the arm on one side, as if the rain-dampened dog had a good old go with its claws on there before heading off to dry.

I stare up at Olly, despair taking hold. ‘Did you really think this was the sofa I’d chosen? You didn’t stop to question it at any point?’

‘Well, I don’t know your precise taste in soft furnishings!’ Olly says, indignantly. ‘You make vintage-style jewellery. I thought maybe you wanted a vintage-style living room.’

‘This sofa isn’t vintage style, it’s …’ I glower down at the sofa, blaming it, in all its apricot-hued vileness, for everything that’s gone wrong for me today.

I mean, let’s not beat around the bush: it’s been a torrent of crap ever since I got out of bed this morning. Losing half my hair, losing my job, getting short-changed out of a proper flat, Cass riding off into the sunset with Dillon …

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, plopping myself down, wearily, on the sofa, whereupon a cloud of doggy-smelling dust billows out. It actually makes my eyes water, which obviously makes it look like I’m crying. The irony being that, actually, that’s exactly what I feel like doing. If it were just Olly here, and not Jesse, whom I barely know, I’d probably be bawling my eyes out right now. ‘You’ve been so lovely,’ I sniff. ‘You, too, Jesse, for lugging the bloody thing all the way up here. I’m sorry.’

There’s a short, slightly awkward silence, ended by Olly folding his six-foot-three bulk onto the cushion next to me and putting a brotherly arm around my shoulders.

‘Look, Lib. Why don’t we leave the rest of the furniture in the van to take away with us, and then go and find your new local? Save you worrying about wine glasses.’

Much as a drink at the pub – even the inauspicious surroundings of the dodgy-looking one (no doubt owned by Bogdan) down the road – would probably do me good right now, I just don’t have any energy left to make a positive out of the evening. Honestly, all I want to do right now is stick to Plan A: dig my pyjamas out of one of the boxes, pop open the champagne so I can scoff the lot myself without having to worry about finding any glasses, and – oh, heavenly bliss, after the day I’ve endured – curl up in front of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (or Tea at Tesco’s as Olly calls it, in honour of our first meeting)on my iPad.

‘Thanks, Olly, but I’m really tired. I think the best thing is to get an early night.’

‘Ooops, sorry.’ Jesse makes a beeline in the direction of the front door. ‘You don’t want a third wheel around at this time of night. I’ll leave you two to it.’

‘Us two?’ I blink up at him. ‘God, no, no, me and Olly aren’t—’

‘We’re not together, mate,’ Olly interrupts, firmly. ‘I’m fairly sure Libby meant an early night on her own.’

‘Ohhhhh … OK, I just thought … still, I’ll be on my way, anyway.’

‘Thanks again, Jesse. You really must let me buy you a drink, I’m really grateful …’

But he’s already gone.

‘Sorry about that,’ says Olly, not meeting my eye. Which is understandable, because the Mistaken Thing is rearing its mortifying head for the second time tonight – twice more than it normally does in the space of months or even years – and I know he’d like to put it back in its box as fast and definitively as possible. ‘I’m not sure where he got that idea. But in all seriousness, are you sure you’re going to be OK here tonight? I mean, you don’t even have anything to sleep on.’

‘Yes, I do. What’s the point of having a colossal sofa if it can’t double up as a bed for the night?’

‘Well, if you’re sure … look, why don’t I come over tomorrow night and help you unpack, then we can talk more about what you’re going to do next? I’ll even cook you a slap-up dinner, how about that?’

‘In this kitchen?’

‘Oh, ye of little faith. Have you forgotten that time I cooked an entire three-course meal in Nora’s student bedsit? With only a clapped-out old microwave and a single-ring electric hob?’ He casts an eye over my minuscule ‘kitchen’. ‘This is professional-standard by comparison. I’ll do you a nice roast chicken. Easy as pie. Oh, and I’ll even make a pie, come to think of it. A pie of your choosing. Lemon meringue, apple and blackberry … your pie wish is my command.’

‘That’s lovely of you, Ol, but let me cook for you, for a change. As a thank you for all your help.’

‘Er …’

‘Oh, come on! I’m not that bad a cook! I can rustle up a tasty stew.’

‘Can you?’

I give him a Look.

‘OK, OK … well, that would be lovely, if you’re sure, Libby,’ he says, looking pretty un-sure himself. ‘And I’ll bring that pie for dessert.’

‘Thank you. For everything, I mean.’