A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

A voice, right behind me, makes me turn round.

It’s Dad, with one arm around his new wife, Phoebe, and the other arm around the pretty dark-haired girl who acted as the bridesmaid in the ceremony just now: Rosie, Phoebe’s seventeen-year-old daughter.

The fact that Phoebe has a daughter was news to me last night. I mean, the first I’d even heard of Phoebe herself was when the wedding e-vite popped up in my inbox back in April. And I’ve only had the briefest of text-message exchanges with Dad about the wedding since, purely centred on whether or not he might be able to get me the family discount on the room rate at the hotel. (Turns out he could. Which is just about the most family-oriented thing Dad’s done for me at any point in the last thirty years.) Any details – how they met, how long they’ve been together – were a total mystery to me until yesterday. Just for the record, I learned last night that they met last September when Phoebe started teaching speech therapy at the university where Dad lectures in film studies. Which is also when I learned of the existence of Rosie, my – wince alert – brand new stepsister.

‘Dad,’ I say. ‘Phoebe. Congratulations!’

Then, because if I don’t do it, he certainly won’t, I lean forward and give him a quick hug, and then do the same to Phoebe.

‘Aw, thanks, Libby.’ Phoebe, a forty-year-old stunner in a wasp-waisted, extremely plunging wedding gown, returns the hug in a nice, if distracted way. ‘So good of you to come all this way, love.’

‘Oh, that’s OK! It was good of you to invite me.’

‘Glad you could make it,’ says Dad, with one of his rare and extremely fleeting smiles. ‘I know you’re really busy these days.’

‘Honestly, Dad, I wouldn’t have missed it.’

And then there’s a moment of silence.

This, exactly this, is the reason I didn’t bring Adam up here today instead of Olly. This sheer, tooth-clenching awkwardness. And this is better than usual, believe it or not. Up until last summer, it had been years since I’d even spoken to Dad. It took quite a leap of faith, and some gentle pushing from … well, from a new friend of mine … to break that ice at all last year.

‘You should meet your brand-new stepsister!’ Phoebe says.

I wince. Thank God, nobody notices.

‘Rosie, this is Libby. Libby, this is Rosie.’

‘Hi!’ I say.

‘Hi,’ says Rosie.

‘Rosie’s about to start her final year of college,’ Phoebe goes on, ‘and she’s just starting to think which uni courses she might apply for. And you, Libby … you work in a jewellery shop, is that right?’

‘Um, well, I sort of design my own jewellery, actually.’

‘So you’re artistic! That’s nice. Rosie’s very artistic, too. She’s thinking of applying for a fine art degree, or maybe something related to theatre design … oh! I’d better just go over and say hi to Jenny and Nick … no, no, Eddie, you stay here,’ she says, firmly, as Dad does his best to escape after her, ‘and catch up with Libby properly. Get the two girls chatting!’ she adds, making a sort of criss-cross gesture with her hands at Rosie and me. ‘Help them get to know each other!’

This is going to be tricky for Dad, given that he doesn’t even know me himself. So – after shooting a slightly panicked look of my own in the direction of the dance floor, where Olly (oh, God) is now being engaged in extremely intense conversation by Grandmother – I take pity on him and decide it’s best if I take charge of the conversation myself.

‘So! Rosie … you’re … er … about to apply to university!’

‘Yep.’ Rosie nods. Pretty in her pale green bridesmaid’s dress, she has a confident look about her that suggests she’s one of the popular crowd at school. I don’t think her lack of interest in me is anything personal so much as the fact that to her I’m just some boring older person who doesn’t know the ins and outs of her social life. ‘Just like Mum already told you.’

‘Right. So, theatre design, maybe?’

‘Not if I have my way,’ Dad says. ‘You know, this girl here is a contender for a top-notch media and communications course anywhere in the country. I’m trying to persuade her to apply to Kingston, because that’s one of the best places for a terrific all-round media education. And she can specialize in film history in her third year.’

‘Oh.’ I’m slightly startled that Dad is even interested in Rosie’s upcoming choice of tertiary education, let alone quite this invested in it. ‘So you’re a film fan, then, Rosie?’

‘God, yeah, I love movies. Especially all the classics. Eddie’s introduced me and Mum to so many of them. We do, like, these old movie nights on Sundays, and I invite my friends over and stuff—’

‘And I try not to be too much of an old bore and stop the film every five minutes to lecture them all on the things they should have noticed,’ Dad interrupts, with a chuckle.

Yes, that’s right: a chuckle.

A chuckle isn’t something I’ve ever heard Dad emit before.

‘Oh, you’re all right, Eddie,’ Rosie tells him, with a laugh of her own. ‘Anyway, if you do too much of that, we just send you out for more popcorn.’

‘So that’s what I’m reduced to, is it?’ Dad says, with another – another – chuckle. ‘A PhD, and all my years of experience, and author of a highly regarded book on the history of cinema, and you and your mates just want to send me out for popcorn!’

‘Oh, talking of your book,’ says Rosie, ‘my friend Jasper’s been reading it over the holidays, and he said it’s amazing. Like, he’s learned absolutely loads from it.’

‘Well, Jasper is obviously going places!’ Dad says. Only semi-jokingly.

But then Dad is always at his most pompous where His Book is concerned. Which I suppose is a good thing in some ways, because it was the writing of His Book that dominated his life and made him such a crappy, absent father to me for over twenty-five years.

Perhaps it’s the fact that the book finally came out last year that has enabled him to be (as he so clearly is) a pretty involved stepdad to Rosie.

Just at this moment, I feel a gentle touch to my elbow, and glance around to see that Olly has come over to join us.

I don’t actually throw myself on him like a drowning woman might throw herself on a passing lifeguard, but it’s a pretty close thing.

‘Hi,’ says Olly, extending a pleasant, if rather chilly, hand to my dad. ‘Congratulations, Mr Lomax.’

‘Oh, thanks … you’re … uh … Oscar, is it?’

‘Olly,’ I say.

‘Are you Libby’s boyfriend?’ Rosie asks, suddenly perking up and showing a bit more interest in me.

Or, to be more specific, in Olly.

At least, I assume this is what all the sudden pouty lips and hair-flicky action are about.

And Olly is looking nice today, in his smart suit, and with his sandy hair vaguely tidy for once, so I suppose I can’t blame Rosie for all the pouting and flicking, even if it does feel a bit … incestuous. Because she’s my (wince) new stepsister, and Olly is practically my brother.

‘No, no,’ I say, hastily, before Olly has to be the one to do so. ‘We’re just friends.’

‘Oh,’ says Rosie, meaningfully, as if Olly, being helpfully single, might suddenly decide that a seventeen-year-old is a suitable match for him, at thirty-three, and whisk her on to the dance floor for a bit of a smooch.

‘I just came over, Libby,’ Olly says, tactfully ignoring Rosie’s eager body language and turning to me instead, ‘to see if you wanted a dance. I think I might have worn your grandmother out, unfortunately, so I’m a partner down. I get the impression the jazz band are keen for some enthusiastic participants, though, so if you’re up for cutting a rug …?’

‘Delighted to,’ I say, with abject relief, as I clasp his outstretched hand. ‘I’ll catch you later, Dad. You probably need to circulate anyway, right?’

‘Absolutely,’ Dad says, looking pretty abjectly relieved, himself, to be rid of me.

‘And great to meet you, Rosie,’ I add, with what I hope is a suitably friendly-but-not-overly-intimate stepsisterly wave. ‘Maybe we can … er … keep in touch? I’m sure Dad can give you my email address if you’d like.’