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‘Bloody hell. Is that what my family’s known as?’
‘Sorry … I’m really sorry … that sounded weird. It’s only me who calls you that. And only in my head, I don’t say it to anyone else.’
‘It’s all right. Do you want a sandwich?’
It’s my turn to look a bit startled, because it’s such a non sequitur, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s busily opening a large plastic container on the seat next to him, and taking out a large wedge of something wrapped in waxed paper, some sliced tomatoes and fresh lettuce leaves, and a small penknife.
‘I always bring my own stuff when I know I’m going to get stuck waiting about at these stupid auditions,’ he’s saying, reaching down beneath his seat and producing, rather like a magician, an entire baguette in a paper bag. ‘And this cheddar is amazing. It’s Irish. My sisters got it for me for my birthday.’
‘They gave you cheese for your birthday?’
‘No, sorry, that sounds weird. They gave me membership of a cheese club. You get sent a different cheese through the post each month.’ He uses the penknife to hack, enthusiastically, at the cheddar. ‘So? Would you like a sandwich, or not?’
‘Yes. Please. I’d love a sandwich.’
‘Coming right up. I’m Olly, by the way. Olly Showbiz-Walker.’
I grin at him. ‘I’m Libby. Libby Lomax.’
‘So are you auditioning, then?’
I’m actually surprised he has to ask, thanks to the egg-yolk-yellow dirndl, and all. But it’s just possible he thinks I actually dress like this … I reach for my rucksack again and hastily drag out the grey hooded top I know is in there, pulling it on to disguise the worst of the faux-Austrian look.
‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘But only because of my little sister. She’s the showbiz one in our family. I’ve just ended up sort of sucked into it because of her.’
‘Oh? You look quite keen on the whole showbiz thing yourself.’ When I obviously look a bit confused, he gestures towards the book I’m holding. ‘Audrey Hepburn,’ he adds. ‘Are you a big fan?’
‘Isn’t everyone?’
He shrugs. ‘I’m not. I don’t get what makes everyone so gaga about her.’
I stare at him. ‘Not even in Breakfast at Tiffany’s?’
‘Never seen it. Never seen a single one of her films, now I come to think of it.’
‘Well, then, you can’t possibly say you don’t like her! And you really should see one of her films. There’s an Audrey Hepburn—’ I have to pause for a moment, because I almost always get this word wrong – ‘retrospective, right now, at the Prince Charles cinema in Leicester Square. A commemorative thing, because she would have been seventy this year. I’m going there with my dad this evening, in fact.’
‘Hmmm. You do know that The Matrix is on in Leicester Square, don’t you?’
‘The Matrix,’ I say, rather haughtily, ‘is notBreakfast at Tiffany’s.’
‘Right. OK. Well, you’re obviously a total Audrey Hepburn nut,’ Olly Walker says, cheerfully. ‘I can tell there’ll be no reasoning with you.’
‘I’m not an Audrey Hepburn nut!’ I protest.
On the other hand …
Well, I don’t tell many people this … in fact, I’ve never told anyone this, but I do sometimes have this … well, I don’t know what you’d call it. A daydream? A fantasy?
In which I imagine that I’m best friends with Audrey Hepburn; that she and I hang out together in amazing locations all over New York and Paris; that we window-shop on Fifth Avenue and take tea at the Ritz; and that, most of all, she’s always there to talk to me, to listen to me about stuff that’s going wrong in my life, to dispense calm and wise and perfectly judged advice, all the while looking breathtakingly chic in Givenchy couture and radiating her aura of gentle serenity.
Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed by now, but calmness and wisdom and gentle serenity aren’t things I have very much of in my real, non-fantasy life.
Or Givenchy couture, come to mention it.
And I know it might sound a bit weird – OK, I know it definitely sounds completely weird – but honestly, who wouldn’t want a best friend like Audrey Hepburn? Sweet, stylish, and utterly lovely in every imaginable way? Who better to ‘chat’ to, in your idle moments, about anything and everything that’s bothering you, from the unfortunate outbreak of zits along the entire length of your jawline the night before the end-of-term disco, to your mother’s refusal to accept that you might not be cut out for a career on the stage … to worrying, just occasionally, that your dad enjoys spending time in the company of long-dead movie stars more than he enjoys spending time with you …
‘Libby?’
Olly Walker is looking straight at me, a concerned expression on his face.
It’s a pretty good-looking face, now I come to notice it. He’s got these really interesting grey-coloured eyes, like pebbles on a Cornish beach, and his smile is sweet, and ever so slightly wonky, and – hang on, what’s going on here? – he’s reaching over the back of my seat, and taking my hand, and gently splaying out my fingers with his own, and …
Wrapping them around a large, freshly made cheese sandwich.
‘You look like you need this,’ he says, kindly.
Ridiculous of me. How could I ever have thought he was going to … what? Hold my hand? Kiss me?
‘Oh, no, no,’ I say, shoving the sandwich back in his direction. ‘You should have the first one!’
‘I’m all right. I’ll make another.’
And then Mum’s Nokia starts ringing, right at the bottom of my rucksack.
Annoyingly, I don’t get to the phone in time before it stops ringing.
‘You’ve got your own mobile phone?’ Olly Walker glances up from his sandwich-making, looking impressed.
‘God, no. This is my mum’s.’ I glance at the screen, which is displaying Dad’s number as the last caller. ‘I’d better call my dad back, if you don’t mind? He’s picking me up here after my audition.’
‘Of course. For your Audrey Hepburn retrospective.’
‘Yep. And,’ I add, because I’m getting the ever-so-slight impression that Olly Walker thinks the Audrey Hepburn retrospective is a little bit pompous, ‘to go for a meal in Chinatown.’
‘Hey, great, where?’ He’s looking a lot more interested in the Chinese meal than in the retrospective. ‘I know a couple of really amazing Chinese restaurants in Soho, if you’re interested? I did some work experience in a bistro in Soho last summer – I’m going to catering college when I leave school – and after we’d finished our shifts, all the kitchen staff would always head to this fantastic Chinese on Lisle Street …’
‘It’s OK. My dad’s booked his favourite place already. The Jade Dragon, on Gerrard Street. He’s a regular there.’
‘Oh, right.’ He looks a bit crushed, and it occurs to me, a moment too late, that – maybe? – he was trying to impress me with his work experience story. ‘Is it good?’ he asks me.
I can’t say whether it is or it isn’t, because I’ve never actually been to The Jade Dragon before. Dad’s planned to take me several times, but it’s never actually worked out. He’s been really, really busy over the last few months – well, years, I suppose – and a lot of our plans to go and have a nice meal together after a movie end up getting cancelled at the last minute.
Oh, the phone’s going again. I get to it quickly this time.
‘Marilyn, hi,’ comes Dad’s voice, as soon as I answer. ‘Look, you’re going to have to tell Libby I’m not going to make—’
‘Dad! Hi!’ (I remember, too late, that he prefers to be called by his first name, Eddie, rather than being boring old Dad.) ‘I mean, Eddie, sorry. It’s not Mum, it’s me.’
‘Libby!’ He sounds startled. ‘I didn’t expect you.’
‘No, Mum gave me her phone, I was meant to be calling you, actually, to remind you that you’re picking me up outside the theatre in Wimbledon. Not at the house.’
‘Yeah, that’s why I’m calling, sweetheart. I can’t make it.’
‘You can’t …’ I stop. I take a deep breath. ‘But I thought we were going to celebrate my birthday.’
‘Mm. That’s right. But we’ll do it another time, sweetheart, I promise.’
You said that, I almost say, the last time. And the time before that.
‘I’m just pushing really, really hard for this new deadline, and the college isn’t giving me any time off teaching like they said they were going to—’
‘That’s OK.’ I use my calmest, most mature voice, because I want Dad to know I’m not going to be a baby about this. ‘Obviously you need time and space to write, Dad. I mean, Eddie. It’s perfectly OK. We’ll do it another time, like you said.’
‘Exactly. I can always rely on you to understand, Libby. I’ll call with some dates, yeah?’
‘Well, I’m pretty free next weekend, and the weekend after that, or …’
‘Great. So I’ll call. And I’ll see you really soon, OK?’
‘OK, Eddie, just let me know wh—’
‘Bye, sweetheart.’
He’s gone.
I drop the phone, casually, back into my rucksack, and busy myself nibbling the outer edge of my sandwich. ‘It’s really good,’ I say. I don’t meet Olly Walker’s eye.
‘It’s your birthday?’ he asks, after a moment, in this weird voice – like, a super-gentle voice, all of a sudden, as if he thinks I might break or something.
‘No, no! My birthday was weeks ago. Well, months, actually, back in February.’
‘But you said, on the phone …’
‘Oh, that’s just because I didn’t get to see my dad on my actual birthday. He was … we were both really busy around then. So today was going to be a belated birthday thing. It’s no big deal. We’ll do it in a couple of weeks, or whenever.’
‘Right.’ He falls silent for a moment, then clears his throat and says, ‘Hey, you know, if you wanted to see a film and have dinner this evening anyway, I could always take you to The Matrix and a Chinese restaurant. If your mum would let you, I mean.’
‘Oh!’ I look at him properly now, startled. Is this … is a boy asking me on a date, for the first time ever?
‘I … I don’t—’
‘I’d get my sister Nora to come, too!’ he says, hastily, ‘so it wouldn’t just be, like, us two, or anything.’
Oh. Right. So it wasn’t a date, then. Of course it wasn’t.
Suddenly – I don’t know why, because it’s not like I’ve never been disappointed by something a boy has said or done before – I feel these awful, sharp tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. Without any further warning, three of them – I can feel each individual one – stop pricking the backs of my eyes and start sliding out of the fronts.
‘Oh, Jesus.’ Olly Walker, who can’t have failed to notice the tears, is looking agonized, as if he wishes he’d never mentioned films or Chinese food. As if he’d never heard of films or Chinese food. Or – most of all – as if he’d never met me. ‘I didn’t mean to … look, it doesn’t even have to be The Matrix! I’ll go and see your Audrey Hepburn retro-whatsit, if you want to. I’m sure Nora would much prefer that, anyway … oh, here she is now!’ he practically gasps with relief, waving like a drowning man towards the Upper Circle entrance several rows down, where a girl has just appeared.
Nora is, of course, the pretty, blonde, prospective Louisa who told the littlest Showbiz-Walker off for doing showy-off splits downstairs.
‘Olly, hi.’ She starts to make her way up the aisle towards us, squinting through the gloom, while I scrub away the tears with the back of my hand. ‘I just came to say they’ve moved Kitty’s audition fifteen minutes later – something to do with another girl having a family emergency – so … oh,’ she stops next to row F, noticing me. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ I gulp. ‘I’m Libby.’
‘I’m Nora. I’m Olly’s …’ She stops. ‘Are you crying?’
‘No! Not at all!’ I lie, putting on a huge, bright smile that, along with the tear-stained cheeks and the dribbly nose, probably makes me look a bit deranged, as well as a liar.
‘Olly!’ She turns to him. ‘What have you done?’
‘I didn’t do anything!’ Olly protests. ‘She was meant to be seeing her dad this evening, and he had to cancel.’
‘It’s nothing to do with my dad. Anyway, I’m fine. I’m not crying! In fact, I probably ought to be getting back downstairs, I’ve got an audition in … well, about three hours …’
‘Oh, God, not you, too.’ Nora Walker pulls a sympathetic face that makes her look just like her older brother, for a moment. ‘This is seriously the last one of these godawful things I’m agreeing to come to just to keep my mum happy. And you don’t look any keener on it than I am.’
I’m torn between sounding like a wuss who can’t stand up to my mum, and sounding like the sort of person who actually wants to star in The Sound of Music at the New Wimbledon Theatre.
‘Do you want to go and get a drink, or something?’ Nora Showbiz-Walker asks, in a properly mature-sounding voice, rather than the one I was trying to use with Dad earlier. ‘There’s a café just over the Broadway that does these really amazing smoothies.’
‘Oh, I know the one,’ Olly chips in. ‘They do a pretty good lemon drizzle cake, too.’
I’m starting to wonder if it shouldn’t be the Showbiz Walkers so much as the Food-Obsessed Walkers.
‘I can leave my little sister annoying everybody downstairs for a bit,’ Nora adds. ‘Or you could go and chaperone her, Olly.’
‘Oh. I thought I might come and have a smoothie and a bit of cake,’ Olly says, looking like a Labrador that’s just been deprived of a doggy treat. ‘It’s hours until we can get out of here.’
‘Fine,’ Nora sighs. ‘I’ll ask one of the mums to keep an eye on her. If you’d like to go and get a drink, Libby, that is?’
‘Yes. I’d love to.’
‘Ace. Why don’t you walk Libby over there, Ol, and I’ll go and find a random stage mum to watch Kitty.’
I don’t suggest that she ask my mum, unless she wants her little sister to end up suffering a nasty and suspicious accident that takes her out of the running for the part of Brigitta and, potentially, any other role for the rest of her child-acting life.
Olly looks hesitant for a moment – presumably concerned that, if left alone with me, I’ll start bawling like a baby again – but then Nora adds, cheerily, ‘And order me something with lots of pineapple and stuff in it. But not kiwi. I hate kiwi,’ and starts to head back down the aisle towards the doors. So he doesn’t really have much choice about the being-left-alone-with-me part.
Still, he’s a trooper, because he just starts to gather up his stuff ready to leave, while I do the same, and then we both start to make our way towards the Upper Circle exit doors too.
‘You’re wrong about The Matrix, by the way,’ he says, as we reach the doors and he holds one of them open for me. ‘I mean, it may not be Brunch at Bloomingdales, or whatever your Audrey Hepburn thing is called—’
‘It’s not called Brunch at Bloomingdale’s!’ I gasp, until I see his grin and realize that he’s joking.
‘Dinner at Debenhams, then?’ he hazards.
