A Night In With Audrey Hepburn

‘Any time.’ He leans over and gives me a swift – very swift – kiss on the top of my head as he gets to his feet. ‘You know that.’

I can’t help but feel a bit empty, when I’ve closed the door on him and have the flatlet to myself again.

Well, to myself and the Chesterfield.

Which, now that we’re alone together – me and the Chesterfield, that is – is just making me feel sadder than ever. I mean, look at it: after its moment of glory on screen, whenever that was, it’s done nothing but moulder away in Uncle Brian’s storeroom ever since.

‘Well,’ I say to the sofa. ‘Everything’s all turned to shit, hasn’t it?’

The sofa, unsurprisingly, has nothing to say in reply to this.

‘I mean, let’s just look at my life, shall we?’ I go on, squeezing round the sofa’s bulky back and picking up my wine bottle from the melamine counter (because if I’m starting to chat to the furniture, then I really, really must be in need of a drink). ‘Because it’s not as if things were exactly terrific this morning, before I lost my job, half of my flat and half of my hair.’ My voice has gone rather small, and very wobbly, so I’m extremely glad that I’m only talking to the sofa, even if it might also be an early sign of impending madness. I hate getting upset in front of real people. No: not just hate it: I just don’t do it. Won’t do it. Haven’t done it, I’m stupidly proud to say, since I blubbed in front of Olly and Nora the first day I met them, at the New Wimbledon Theatre, when my waster of a father cancelled my birthday plans at the last minute. ‘It’s not as if I was making a big success of myself.’

I unscrew the cap, take a large swig, and then another, and then I squeeze my way round the back of the Chesterfield so that I can plonk myself down on one of its doggy-smelling cushions. Then I reach for my bag and dig around to find my iPad. I balance it on one of the sofa’s wide arms – one thing its bulk is useful for, I suppose – and then I go to my stored movies, and tap on Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Because the only way I’m ever going to make it through tonight without drinking all this wine on my own, ordering the largest pizza I can find at Bogdan’s takeaway, scoffing down the entire lot and then – inevitably – drunk-dialling my horrible ex-boyfriend Daniel, who will be just as distantly condescending as he was for the majority of our short relationship, is if I’ve got Audrey to get me through.

I suppose it’s one (and only one) thing I have to be grateful to my father for: the movies. For the way the movies make me feel. For the rush of mingled excitement and serenity that I feel when I settle into the sofa, now, to the orchestral strains of Moon River. And look at Audrey: just look at her. Gliding onto the screen, her beautiful face impassive behind those iconic Oliver Goldsmith tortoiseshell sunglasses, her body moving with dancer’s grace in that black dress. And then there’s that offbeat pearl-and-diamanté necklace and matching tiara, which look precisely like the kind of thing a little girl would pick out of their grandmother’s jewellery box to play dressing-up with, and which – despite Dad’s irritation – were precisely the things I was most dazzled by, when I first watched the movie with him, as a nine-year-old. Those glittering jewels made me think, back then, that this otherwordly being must surely be some sort of princess, and they’ve not lost any of their magic now that I’m two decades older.

Which reminds me: Nora’s bridal necklace.

I haul myself up from the Chesterfield – no mean feat when you could lose a double-decker bus or two down the back of these cushions – and s-q-u-e-e-z-e my way back round it to get to the ‘kitchen’, where most of my boxes are sitting, waiting for me to unpack them. My bead-box will be at the top of one of them, somewhere … yep, here it is, with Nora’s necklace neatly folded inside. In my mind’s eye it was always meant to look like something Holly Golightly might window-shop on one of her jaunts to Tiffany’s, but I don’t know if it’s quite there yet. I’ve strung some gorgeous vintage beads along a plain necklace cord – mostly faux pearl, with the occasional randomly dotted silver filigree – either side of this delicate but dazzling diamanté orchid I found in a retro clothing store in Bermondsey one rainy Saturday when I’d accompanied Olly over there to a food market. The orchid was a brooch, originally, but I’ve used a brooch converter on the back pin to make it a charm suitable for a necklace. I’ve already finished it off with a silver clasp at the back, but I think I might dig out my chain-nosed pliers, remove the clasp, then really Audrey-fy the whole thing up by adding another row of pearls and random filigree beads either side of the orchid, thereby turning a pretty pendant into a dramatic layered show-stopper …

A little way behind me, somebody says, ‘Good evening.’

I spin round, wondering, for a split second, if madness really is setting in, and if – seeing as I was talking to the sofa a few moments ago – I’m starting to hear the sofa talk back to me.

But it’s not the sofa. It’s someone perched, in fact, on the arm of the sofa.

And that someone is Audrey Hepburn.

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OK, first things first: obviously it’s not actually Audrey Hepburn.

I mean, I may just have been chatting to my new sofa, but I’m not 100 per cent crackers, not yet. Obviously there’s no way this is the real, bona-fide, sadly long-dead Hollywood legend Audrey.

But second things second and third things third: if she’s a lookalike, she’s a bloody good one (she’s dressed exactly, but I mean, exactly the same as the Audrey Hepburn I’ve just been watching on screen: black dress, sunglasses, triple-strand pearls and all); but, more to the point, what the hell is an Audrey Hepburn lookalike doing in my flat in Colliers Wood at eight thirty on a Wednesday evening?

Before I can ask this question – while, in fact, I’m still doing a good impression of a goldfish – she gets to her feet, leans slightly over the melamine worktop and extends a gloved hand.

‘I very much hope,’ she says, ‘that I’m not barging in.’

Wow.

She’s got the voice down absolutely pat, I have to say. The elongated vowels, the crisp, elocution-perfect consonants, all adding up to that mysterious not-quite-English-not-quite-European accent. Exactly the way Audrey Hepburn sounds when you hear her in the movies.

‘But how did you get in?’ I glance over at the door, which I’m sure I locked when Olly and Jesse left. There’s no way she can have come in that way … Unless she has a key, of course … ‘Oh, God. Did Bogdan send you?’

Her eyebrows (perfectly arched and realistically thick) lift up over the top rim of her sunglasses.

‘Bogdan?’

‘The man who owns this block. Owns most of Colliers Wood, by the looks of it.’

‘Colliers Wood?’ she repeats, as though they’re words from a foreign language. ‘What a magical-sounding place!’

‘It’s really, really not.’

‘Where is it?’

‘You’re joking, right?’

She stares at me, impassively, from behind the sunglasses. (Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses, I can’t help but notice, in brown tortoiseshell, so she’s certainly done a thorough job of sourcing a fantastic replica pair from some vintage store or other. Or some shop that sells exact-replica Audrey Hepburn gear, because that necklace she’s wearing is an absolute ringer for the one the real Audrey was wearing on my iPad screen a few minutes ago.)

‘It’s in London. Zone Three. Halfway between Tooting and—’

‘How wonderful!’ She claps her hands in delight. ‘I adore London! I lived here just after the war, you know. The tiniest little flat, you wouldn’t believe how small, right in the middle of Mayfair. South Audley Street – do you know it at all?’

‘Yes. I mean, no. I know South Audley Street, but I don’t know where you … rather, where Audrey … look, I don’t mean to be rude, but you have just sort of … showed up. And I’m not sure I’m happy about other people having keys to the flat, so perhaps you could tell Bogdan …’

‘Darling, I’m awfully sorry, but I really don’t know this Bogdan fellow at all. In fact, it’s just occurred to me that you and I haven’t introduced ourselves properly! I’m Audrey.’ She extends a gracious hand, emitting a waft, as she does so, of perfume from her wrist: an oddly familiar scent of jasmine and violets. ‘Audrey Hepburn.’

‘Right,’ I snort. ‘And I’m Princess Diana.’

‘Oh, my goodness!’ She bows her head and drops into an impressively low curtsey. ‘I had no idea I was in the presence of royalty!’

‘No! I mean, obviously I’m not …’

‘I should have realized, Your Highness. I mean, only a princess would have jewels like that.’

I’m confused (make that even more confused) until I realize that I’m still holding Nora’s half-finished diamanté and pearl-bead necklace in my hand.

‘No, no, this isn’t real.’ I shove the necklace back into the bead-box. ‘And I’m not Your Highness. I’m not a princess.’

She glances up, still balanced in her curtsey. ‘But you said …’

‘Yes, because you said you were Audrey Hepburn. Now, don’t get me wrong, you’re doing a fantastic job …’

Which she really, really is, I have to admit, the longer I stare at her.

I mean, I know anyone can recreate the Breakfast at Tiffany’s look without too much trouble – the dress, the sunglasses, the beehive – but she’s really cracked the finer points, too. Her hair isn’t just beehived, it’s exactlythe right shade of chestnut brown; her lips are preciselythe right shape and fullness; her complexion is Hollywood-lustrous and oyster-pale.

Oh, and it’s just occurred to me that I can pin down that familiar jasmine-y, violet-y scent, after all: it’s L’Interdit, the Givenchy perfume created specially for Audrey Hepburn, of course. Mum and Cass gave me a bottle of it several Christmases back.

‘Does it take a really long time?’ I suddenly blurt out.

‘I beg your pardon?’