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‘Libby.’
Olly, thank heavens, has stopped me before I can divulge any more of this detailed hotel-trip fantasy that’s really one I’ve often played out in my head for the two of us, on the long nights this past year when the alternative has been crying into my pillow.
‘Sorry, sorry, that was probably a bit too specific—’
‘Is that the mystery cheese?’
This is why he’s stopped me. He’s staring at the cheese plate that’s been sitting between us for the last few minutes.
‘That one, right there,’ he’s going on. He points at the plate. ‘I think it is. I honestly think it might be.’
If this sounds a slightly intense tone to take about cheese, I should probably just fill you in on exactly why this is.
Years ago – when I was eighteen and Olly was turning twenty-one – he and I took a trip over to Paris on the Eurostar for a hedonistic day of drinking, eating, and (this being Olly, a foodie to end all foodies) trudging round various destinations in search of highly specific types of Mirabelle jam, or spiced sausage, or premier cru chocolate. And cheese. So much cheese, in fact, that we ended up digging into it on the Eurostar home, whereupon we discovered that one particular cheese – a creamy white goat’s cheese, rolled in ash, and tart and lemony to the taste – was in fact the exact definition of ambrosia. (This might have had something to do with the amount of vin we’d imbibed on the day’s trek; also, possibly, something to do with the fact that we were deliberately trying to divert attention from the unexpected snog we’d found ourselves having in a bar on the Left Bank at some point in the afternoon, and waxing absurdly lyrical about a cheese seemed, at the time, as good a way as any of achieving this.) We didn’t know the name and – despite many years of searching, or more to the point, Keeping An Eye Out – neither of us ever found that Mystery Cheese again.
‘Well, you’ll have to taste it,’ I say, in an equally intense tone. ‘We won’t know until you try.’
‘We have to taste it,’ he corrects me, picking up his knife and dividing the portion of white, ash-flecked cheese into two with a chef’s deft movement. ‘Come on, Libby. Close your eyes. This could be the moment.’
We both fall into a reverential hush as we each take a half of the cheese, close our eyes, and put it in our mouths.
‘What do you think?’ Olly asks, in a hushed voice, after a moment.
‘I don’t know …’
‘First impressions?’
‘First impression was that it’s definitely not the one … but second impression … I’m not sure. It might be?’
‘The texture doesn’t seem quite right.’
‘I agree. But the taste was pretty much bang-on.’
‘Do you think? I thought the Mystery Cheese had a bit more pepper to it.’
‘Wasn’t it ash?’
‘No, no, I don’t mean pepper in the actual cheese, I mean a peppery taste.’
‘Oh. Right. No, I think you’re right. I mean, you’re the expert.’
‘I’m not the expert!’ He looks faintly annoyed. ‘We were both there!’
‘Yes, OK, but you’re the one who takes this kind of thing that seriously.’
He looks, for a moment, wounded to the core. ‘I thought you took the Mystery Cheese seriously, too.’
‘I do!’
‘I mean, I know it’s only a silly thing, obviously. I’m not that stupid! It was always just … our thing. Wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ My voice has got stuck in my throat. I reach for my champagne glass. ‘I’m not saying I never took it seriously, Ol,’ I say, after a long drink. ‘I’m saying you’re the cheffy, experty, foodie person. You’re the one who remembers the precise taste of a Sangiovese wine you drank in Italy three years ago versus a Sangiovese wine you drank at your parents’ house three weekends ago. I could barely tell you, most days, if I was eating a tuna mayo sandwich for lunch or a chicken mayo sandwich.’
‘Then you need to start buying your lunchtime sandwiches elsewhere,’ Olly says, faintly irritable. ‘There’s absolutely no excuse for tuna to ever taste anything like chicken.’
‘It’s not a big deal. It’s only a sandwich.’
‘And the Mystery Cheese was only a cheese. I get it. It doesn’t matter.’
‘Olly, no, it does matter! Come on.’ I reach across the table, surprising myself even as I do so, and put my hand on his.
I’m seriously hoping he can’t feel the faint throb of my pulse, quickening as my skin meets his skin.
But I don’t think he can, because if he did, he’d react in some way, wouldn’t he? Pull his hand back, or give me a funny look, or ask me if I was about to expire, or something? And he doesn’t do any of those things. He just leaves his own hand exactly where it is, under mine, and says absolutely nothing for a moment.
Then he says, ‘I really don’t think it’s the cheese, anyway.’
‘No. Neither do I.’ I move my hand back to my side of the table. ‘But that’s a good thing, I guess. Because we can keep looking.’
‘Yeah. That’s true. I mean, it’s always been a source of comfort to me,’ he adds, meeting my eyes again and pulling a cheeky grin, ‘knowing that it’s out there.’
We’re piss-taking again. This is a good thing.
‘Just waiting for us to happen upon it,’ I say.
‘Biding its time.’
‘Hiding its light under a bushel.’
‘Waiting in the wings.’
‘And I’m not even sure,’ I say, ‘that I even liked this one that much anyway.’
‘Me neither.’ Olly peers at the cheese plate, his handsome face looking more noble than ever in the bistro’s candlelight. ‘That Comté looks good, though. You have a bit of that, and I’ll try some of the Camembert.’
We fall into a companionable silence as we find our way around the cheese platter together for the next few minutes.
Well, as companionable a silence as it’s ever going to be between us any more, given that I can’t even look at him without feeling lust and misery wash over me in equal measure.
Then, breaking the silence, he says, ‘You’re probably right about Tash, though, Lib. We do need to make more effort to spend time together. I mean, that’s what grown-up relationships are about, right? Compromising. Going the extra mile.’
I’m about to quip that I wouldn’t know, having never been in a grown-up relationship.
But, somehow, my heart isn’t in it.
So I just nod, as enthusiastically as I know how, and reach out a hand to cut myself a sliver of Roquefort.
*
It’s almost midnight by the time I get home.
Actually, make that ‘home’.
Because grotty and minuscule though it undeniably was, my flat back in Colliers Wood was home. This new place, in posher-than-posh Notting Hill, doesn’t feel like home to me yet. And if my relations with Elvira Roberts-Hoare get any frostier, I don’t imagine I’ll start to really relax here any time soon.
But perhaps it’s just all that champagne making me a bit maudlin and self-pitying. All that champagne in the company of my lost soulmate. We ended up drinking two bottles before we parted ways, Olly back home to Skype Tash, and me back here to …
… well, what is my current plan? A pint of water, take my makeup off and get into bed for a restorative night’s sleep?
Or, instead, how about I crack open the bottle of white wine that I know is nestling in the upstairs fridge, accompany it with the large bag of Frazzles stashed in one of the kitchenette cupboards, slump on the Chesterfield with the remote control and flick through late-night rubbish on the TV to distract myself from dwelling on my evening out with Olly?
Yes. The latter, I think. Temporary painkilling that’s only going to make me feel even worse in the morning. A sensible decision, as ever.
I haul my weary body up the stairs to the kitchen, grab the wine and the Frazzles, and head back down the stairs again to locate the remote control.
‘Excusez-moi?’ says a voice from the Chesterfield sofa.
Oh, my dear God almighty.
It’s Grace Kelly.
And not just any old Grace Kelly: Grace Kelly in full wedding attire. The iconic dress, with its 125-year-old lace bodice and its full silk skirt. The veil, with what must be a hundred yards of tulle suddenly taking up most of the available floor-space in my new living room. The beaded Juliet cap framing, perfectly, her serene face.
Except that she isn’t looking that serene at the moment, it has to be said. Not that I can possibly comment, because I’m probably staring at her like a goldfish who’s just been slapped in the face with a wet kipper. But she’s looking, if it were possible, even more startled to see me than I am to see her.
There’s silence for a moment.
‘Je suis desolée,’ she goes on, in a rather more wobbly voice than I’m used to hearing in her films, though the cut-glass diction remains largely in place. She gets to her feet; she’s taller than I imagined she’d be, or perhaps this is just because she holds herself so well, her broad shoulders pulled back and her neck nothing short of swan-like. ‘Mais je suis un peu … je ne sais pas le mot en français … uh … Parlez-vous anglais?’
‘I AM anglaise,’ I croak.
‘Oh!’ Her elegant eyebrows lift upwards. ‘I’m sorry. I had absolutely no idea there was anyone English working here.’
‘Here …?’
‘The palace. You’ll forgive me, I hope,’ she goes on, her voice more perfectly clipped, now that she’s recovered herself, ‘if I haven’t the faintest idea who you are or what it is you do. It’s been the most impossibly hectic few days since I first arrived, and obviously with the wedding tomorrow morning …’
‘Right,’ I say, faintly. ‘The wedding.’
I mean, you’d think I might be somewhat inured to this by now. You’d think I might even be a bit blasé about what is starting, frankly, to look like an infestation of Hollywood legends, popping out of my magical sofa.
But this is Grace Kelly. Quite literally, Hollywood royalty.
I mean, if it was … I don’t know, Ava Gardner, or Betty Grable, or even Lauren Bacall, I think I’d be a bit more able to take it in my stride.
I can’t take Grace Kelly in my stride.
Yes, Audrey Hepburn was exquisite, and yes, Marilyn Monroe was a knockout. But Grace Kelly, if it were possible, knocks the pair of them into a cocked hat.
Her serene beauty, as she stands here five feet away from me in her wedding dress, is astonishing. She might literally have the most perfect face I’ve ever seen. Which obviously I already knew – it’s not like I haven’t watched and rewatched her movies throughout my life – but seeing it here, in the (sort-of) flesh, it’s … astounding. Not that she looks as if she is made of flesh, to be honest. Her peachy-pale skin is so flawless that it looks as if it might actually be made of pearl nacre and slivers of Grade-A diamond. It’s the same glow that Audrey and Marilyn both seemed to have, in fact, and one that probably owes more to the fact that they’re magical manifestations from down the back of an enchanted Chesterfield rather than a one hundred per cent real deal. Her hair, swept back with its rather touching widow’s peak, is baby-blonde, and her eyes as piercingly blue as they’ve ever been when I’ve seen them on screen. And, just like Audrey and Marilyn, she’s wafting a very real-smelling scent of perfume – something sumptuously floral, in her case, that smells of violets and roses and irises. Fleurissimo by Creed, I suddenly remember, in the way random facts suddenly appear, popping up into your head when you didn’t even know they were there in the first place. The scent made especially for Grace Kelly to wear on her wedding day.
‘Are you one of the girls they assigned to unpack my things?’
‘Huh?’
‘Are you one of the girls,’ she repeats, with that unmistakable New England inflection, all over-emphasized vowels and crisp plosives, ‘they assigned to unpack my things?’ Her manner, now that she’s got over the surprise at seeing me, is polite, but distinctly distant. ‘I don’t know if you’re all maids, or secretaries … really, there are so many staff here, it’s a little overwhelming at present.’
‘I’m … I’m not … staff.’
‘Anyway, I wondered if, by any chance, you’d happened to unpack a prayer book?’ She’s ignored what I’ve just said, and is casting her penetrating gaze around the flat, before it alights on one of my as-yet-unpacked boxes. She glides towards it, the train of her dress swishing across the wooden floor, to peer inside. ‘It’s particularly important to me, you see, and … well, obviously the religious ceremony is in the morning. This is my trial run in the dress, if you like. I never do anything without a proper dress rehearsal!’
‘No. I’m quite sure you don’t.’
She looks up, this time fixing that penetrating gaze on to me. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you looked, rather than me? I don’t want to risk damaging the dress.’
‘God, no … I mean, it’s priceless. Iconic.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Just that,’ I swallow, hard, ‘generations of women use it as a kind of Holy Grail of wedding dresses. The acme. The zenith. The … er …’
‘Well, I haven’t even worn it out in public yet!’ She gives a brisk but rather nervous laugh. ‘I know there’s been all kinds of fevered speculation, but I rather think all those generations of women had better reserve judgement until they actually set eyes on it. Don’t you?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Golly,’ she goes on, with a little shiver, ‘it’s chilly up here! I shouldn’t have come in here at all, really, but I just wanted to know what it feels like to move around in the dress, and the palace is so huge, I took at least two wrong turns … I didn’t exactly plan to end up in an attic storeroom, I can tell you that. But while I’m here, I’d very much like to find that prayer book.’
‘But this isn’t … it’s not an attic storeroom. And it’s not the, er, palace in Monaco, either.’
A perfect eyebrow arches. She looks distinctly unimpressed. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘It isn’t a storeroom,’ I say, firmly. ‘You’re not in Monaco.’
Because this is what I vowed I’d do, the very next time this happened: cut to the chase and try to find out what the hell it is with this sofa. I never had the chance with Audrey – and, to be fair, I spent most of the times I saw her convinced I was talking to my very own brain tumour – and when I broached the subject with Marilyn Monroe she just thought I was telling her I was some kind of psychic … but now that it’s Grace Kelly I’m face to face with, my golden opportunity to dig deeper into this mystery has surely arrived. She’s cool, calm and collected, where Marilyn was daffy, breathless and – mostly – slightly squiffy. Admittedly Grace does seem a bit skittish beneath her ice-princess aura, probably down to the fact that, in her world at least, she’s about to become an actual princess tomorrow, marrying a man – in front of billions – that she doesn’t even know that well. But still. She’s Grace Kelly. She’s smart, astute, and Teflon-strong. If I don’t seize this chance, I know I’ll regret it.
She blinks. ‘I’m sorry … you did say you were English?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well, because you’re just not making an awful lot of sense. But it can’t be a language barrier … I’ll tell you what: I’ll just try to make my own way back to my room, and call for someone else on the prince’s staff. Then they can find my prayer book, and I can leave you to get on with … well, whatever it is you do here.’ She takes a step towards the door, as if she’s actually going to be able to get out that way. ‘Very pleasant passing the time with you, Miss … I didn’t get your name?’
‘Lomax. Libby Lomax. Look, Gra …’ I stop myself, just in time. ‘Miss Kelly,’ I go on. ‘There’s something you need to understand. Or, more to the point, I suppose, there’s something I need to understand …’ I point a finger towards the Chesterfield. ‘OK, you see that sofa? It’s magical, all right? Now, I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but people – Hollywood stars, to be more accurate – appear out of it. Audrey Hepburn. Marilyn Monroe. And now you.’
Her blue eyes, the colour of the sky on a sunny midwinter day, rest on me. She doesn’t blink.
There’s a rather long silence.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Her crisp plosives are crisper than ever. ‘You are aware,’ she goes on, ‘of what you just said?’
