Lucy Holliday - A Night In With Grace Kelly

Minimalism. That’s the look I’ll have to say I was going for.

Clean lines, a sense of space, the total absence of clutter.

All of which are actually perfectly sensible ways to keep your living space, especially if, like me, you’re a designer by profession. It’s just that in my particular case, the sense of space and total absence of clutter in this, my brand-new flat, are less to do with any creative sensibility and more because of the fact that my last flat was roughly the size of a broom cupboard. So I barely own any furniture. The handful of furnishings I do own, which used to make the old place feel over-stuffed and faintly claustrophobic, barely even make a dent here in the new one.

And, to be honest, it’s not the worst thing in the world to pretend that all this empty space is a Design Statement rather than a mundane necessity. In half an hour’s time my investor, Ben, who’s just flown into London for a couple of days, is dropping round for a meeting. Bringing his BFF Elvira with him.

Elvira being Elvira Roberts-Hoare: ex-model, bohemian aristocrat, Ben’s chief talent scout and also, as of yesterday, my brand-new landlord.

I mean, her own flat, just a short distance away in South Kensington, is practically a museum to her incredible vintage fashion archive, with Ferragamo shoes displayed in a custom-made Perspex sideboard and Alexander McQueen scarves draped artfully over the soft furnishings. I know this not because I’ve ever been invited, obviously, but because I saw it in all its glory in a recent issue of Elle Decor magazine. My own attempts at turning this gorgeous flat into something worthy of Elle Decor are being seriously hampered by the fact that I don’t have an incredible vintage fashion archive to display like artwork. And, even if I did, it would be let down by my crappy and – as I’ve already said – paltry furnishings: a futon, an IKEA wardrobe, a glass coffee table and – last but absolutely not least – a huge and ancient Chesterfield sofa upholstered in apricot-coloured rose fabric and smelling of damp dog.

Actually, now that I look at it, the mere presence of the Chesterfield, in all its chintzy, overblown glory, is a bit of a strike against my claims that I’m deliberately styling this place in a minimalist fashion.

Though I’m also being hamstrung by the fact that my sister Cass showed up ten minutes ago and is somehow, in her own inimitable way, cluttering up the place. Handbag slung on the floor, tea sloshing out of her mug, and just generally sort of filling the room up with herself.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! ’ she’s shrieking now, peering down at her phone, and splashing yet more tea on the floor beside her. ‘Zoltan’s ex has been speaking to the Mirror. It’s all over their website.’

This, by the way, is the latest in the long-running series of Massive Dramas that make up Cass’s lifehsq. A week ago, my little sister was outed for the three-month-long affair she’s been having with a Premiership footballer. A married Premiership footballer, to be more precise. And while I may be wearily familiar with her nasty little habit of getting involved with married men, this particular married man’s wife was not. The whole thing came as such a horrible shock to the poor woman, in fact, that she bodily threw her cheating scumbag of a husband out of their home and went on a rant on Mumsnet – a rant that was then picked up by the Daily Mail … The rest, as they say, is history.

It’s even made its sordid way into this week’s OK! magazine, a copy of which Cass brandished at me, with something disturbingly close to triumph, when she showed up at my door. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure that triumphantly brandishing a copy of OK! was the reason she showed up at my door in the first place. It certainly wasn’t to help me get my flat ready for my impending visitors.

‘I don’t know if it’s all that fair, Cass,’ I say, ‘for you to be the one talking about having no shame.’

Though frankly I don’t know why I bother continuing to express my disapproval over Cass’s extramarital shenanigans. It’s not like she’s paid the slightest bit of attention to me at any other time in the last three years. Her relationship with Zoltan – a Charlton Athletic defender and member of Bulgaria’s national team – is coming hot on the heels of her last married boyfriend, Vile Dave. (I called him Vile Dave, by the way, in my head; it wasn’t like that was actually his name, or anything.)

And, as I expected, she ignores me.

‘Isn’t there anyone I can complain to?’ she asks, dramatically. ‘Some sort of – I don’t know – union, or something?’

‘A union for women who’ve been sleeping with other women’s husbands?’

‘No!’ she says. ‘I meant someone to complain to about the constant press intrusion!’ Then she thinks about this for a moment. ‘ Is there a union for women who’ve been sleeping with other women’s husbands, though? Because even if my situation is a bit unusual, me being a celebrity, and all that … if there was somewhere I could get some expert advice …?’

My sister (half-sister, if we’re being really specific, and on occasions like this, I have to say, I find myself emphasizing the half part) has her own reality TV show, Considering Cassidy . Hence her ‘celebrity’ status. Hence, I guess, the reason she’s made it into a quarter-page snippet in the OK! that’s now lying on my coffee table, with Prince Albert of Monaco and his lovely blonde wife Charlene smiling rather fixedly at me from the cover.

‘I honestly don’t think there’s a union for that, Cass,’ I say, firmly. ‘Now, look, if you don’t mind, lovely though it is for you to have dropped round to see my new flat …’

‘Oh, well done , Libby,’ she pouts, with a swish of her hair and another swill of her tea everywhere. ‘Nice way to drop your swanky new Notting Hill pad into the conversation.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything of the sort! Besides, it’s not my swanky new Notting Hill pad. ’ I feel the need to point this out to Cass, partly because it all still feels a bit surreal to me myself. ‘I’m only living here because I’m renting the studio below.’

And because, despite the extremely hefty discount Elvira Roberts-Hoare is giving me on the rent of the ground-floor studio that Ben wanted me to start working out of – the posh address and upmarket surroundings making it ideal to use as a showroom – I still can’t afford to pay that and to rent somewhere else to actually live in as well.

But still, Cass is right about one thing. This side street, a little to the north of Notting Hill, is a hell of a lot swankier than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. And this flat is a hell of a lot swankier, too: a bit jumbled-up, with the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom crammed up on the top floor and this, the living room, here in the middle, but I’m never going to complain about that. I’m living here, in a particularly gorgeous bit of Zone One, pretty much for free. Sure, I have no security on the place, and Elvira can throw me out tomorrow if she decides to find a new, proper tenant, but it’s worth it for the sheer joy of living somewhere – anywhere – that doesn’t rumble every time a tube train passes underneath it and doesn’t have eye-wateringly pungent aromas wafting up from the takeaways below.

For the sheer joy of living and working somewhere this … fabulous.

‘You know, I had a personal trainer that worked in a private gym on this same road a couple of years ago, when I was getting in shape for Strictly. Or rather,’ Cass adds, bitterly, ‘when Mum led me to believe that I was in with a shot of getting Strictly .’ She’s perched her perfectly plump posterior on the arm of my Chesterfield. ‘I should probably go and start training there again and get in amazing shape, if I’m going to end up splashed all over the tabloids every five minutes.’