Lucy Holliday - A Night In With Audrey Hepburn

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.

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 exactly the right shade of chestnut brown; her lips are precisely the right shape and fullness; her complexion is Hollywood-lustrous and oyster-pale.