A Night In With Grace Kelly

‘Oh, OK, well, Skype, or something, then. I mean, whatever’s easiest, what with her being in Moldova.’

‘But Aunt Vanya is not living in Moldova. She is living in London. She is married to leading member of Haringey Council.’

‘Oh! That’s … I didn’t expect that.’ I’m really curious now. ‘And her husband – the Haringey Council man – he doesn’t mind that she’s a … a mystic? With a specialist knowledge of enchanted furniture?’

Bogdan shrugs. ‘He is man of world. Besides, he is experiencing some pretty strange things himself, in the cut-throat world of the politics of Haringey.’

‘Right. Well, I’d really appreciate it, Bogdan, if you could let me meet her some time soon?’

‘Will be getting in touch with her,’ he says, in a mysterious tone that makes me wonder if he’s planning to contact her by smoke signal, or Ouija board, or something, and then leaves me surprised when he simply pulls out his mobile phone. ‘The text message is probably the safest way. Last time I am speaking to her she is convinced her phone is being monitored by husband’s greatest rival, head of North London Waste Authority.’

‘OK, well, I’ll just nip up the road and get some milk for our tea, and maybe you could start taking a look at the flat-pack stuff while I’m gone?’

‘Yes, can be doing this. And after, we can be taking serious look at your hair.’

‘I’m fine with my hair, Bogdan.’

‘This is what is worrying me,’ he sighs. ‘Am sympathizing, Libby, that you are losing your soulmate. But this is no reason to be letting self go.’

‘I haven’t let myself go!’

‘Is important to be looking good for yourself, Libby, not just for man.’

‘I don’t have a man!’

He arches an eyebrow. ‘And you are never wondering why?’

OK, I’m not quite sure how I’ve ended up backed into this corner, but it’s a unique genius of Bogdan’s: to somehow bring us on to the topic of Men. More specifically, why I don’t have a Man. More specifically even than that, why I’m not, in the absence of anyone else in my life, going at it like a rabbit with my ex, Dillon O’Hara.

‘Am sorry for you,’ he’s going on, ‘that you are doomed never to be with your one true love …’

‘OK, I think doomed is a pretty strong way to put it. It’s just … the way the cookie has crumbled.’

‘… but this is no reason to hide away from the romance for the rest of life.’

‘I’m not hiding away from romance, Bogdan. And if you’re about to suggest that I’m doing anything of the sort, just because I’m not picking up the phone for a booty call with Dillon every night …’

‘Am not suggesting this. Well, am not saying this is bad idea …’ He looks serious – well, more serious than ever – for a moment. ‘But is time for you to be taking control of your own destiny. Am not saying has to be Dillon. But you are too young, Libby, to be coconut-shying away from men for ever. Too young and too pretty. And too nice.’

‘Oh, Bogdan.’ I feel a lump in my throat. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

‘Is nothing.’ His eyes narrow, for a moment. ‘Do not be thinking that this means am forgetting about catastrophe in hair department.’

‘Heaven forfend.’ I pick up my bag. ‘And I promise you, Bogdan, just for saying all that, the very next time I meet a tall, handsome stranger – because they’re just crawling out of the woodwork, obviously – I’ll let him sweep me off my feet and give me the full fairy-tale ending I so richly deserve, OK? Just for you.’

‘This,’ says Bogdan, evidently not picking up on my attempt at irony, ‘is what am wanting to be hearing.’

Then he goes back to texting Aunt Vanya while I head down the stairs, out of the front door, and towards the main road to buy the milk.

I pull my phone out of my pocket as I go, so I can take the opportunity to FaceTime Nora back. She’s heading down to London later this week – a rare enough occurrence, unfortunately – to drop her daughter Clara off with her parents so that she and Mark can have a weekend away for their first wedding anniversary. We need to speak, even if only briefly (which, what with work and baby-feeding and what seems like endless hours trying to convince Clara that she actually wants to go to sleep, our calls always are, anyway) to arrange how and where we’re going to meet each other for the couple of hours that she’s here. A hasty coffee, a cheeky glass of wine …

‘Nora!’ I say, already feeling approximately six thousand per cent more cheerful as her face pops up on my phone. ‘I’ve caught you!’

‘Hi!’ she says – or rather, mouths at me. Her eyes are rather wide and she’s looking slightly terrified. ‘Hang on a sec …’ she adds, still mouthing, before vanishing from the screen for a moment. Everything goes rather wobbly, and then black, before she reappears a couple of moments later, still looking faintly terrified but talking normally. Well, in a loud whisper. ‘Sorry! I’ve literally only just got her down for a nap! In five minutes’ time a bomb could go off in her room and it wouldn’t wake her, but right now a pin might drop in the street outside and she’ll bloody wake up again. I’m just going,’ she adds, ‘up to the top-floor bathroom. It’s the opposite side of the house, so if I lean out of the skylight there, she won’t hear me talking.’

‘Lean out of the skylight?’ I’m slightly alarmed; I’ve only been to Nora’s new house up in Glasgow once, but it’s a four-storey townhouse with a paving-slab patio for a garden. ‘You’ll be careful, won’t you?’

‘Oh, yes, yes, I do it all the time! And frankly, Lib, I’d rather risk plummeting to my death on the patio below than risk waking her up!’ Nora adds, cheerfully. ‘How’s everything down there?’ she asks. ‘I gather you had an evening out with Olly last night?’

‘Yes. Um, did he tell you that, or did—’

And suddenly, I’m taking off.

Literally, I mean: into the air. My feet are leaving the pavement, and I fly up, up, sideways and up … before landing – ow – on my backside on another bit of the pavement about five feet away.

I sprawl there for a moment, too dazed to really understand what’s happened, until I see a man’s face hovering over me.

‘Oh, my God! Are you all right?’

‘Hnh?’

‘Can you move? Can you talk? Do you think anything’s broken? Did you hit your head?’

I don’t know how to respond to any of these questions. So I just say, again, gormlessly, ‘Hnh?’

‘Oh, God, you can’t talk … I’m calling an ambulance … Esti, call an ambulance!’ he says, over his shoulder, to whoever it is who’s with him.

‘No, no, don’t do that!’ I sit bolt upright, and it’s only thanks to his sharp reactions that we don’t end up cracking our foreheads together.

He is, I notice the moment I sit up, incredibly handsome.

I mean, incredibly.

He’s dark-haired, blue-eyed and long-lashed, with skin the colour of vanilla fudge. It’s quite an astonishing combination.

I’m interrupted, though, in my reverie by the sudden appearance of the Esti he just called out to.

‘Everything OK here?’ she asks, sticking her head over the man’s shoulder. ‘What can I do?’

‘Don’t call an ambulance. I can talk! Fine I am. I mean,’ I say, correcting myself from talking like Yoda, or one of the characters from a Dr Seuss book, ‘really, I’m absolutely fine.’

‘But you went right over.’

His accent, like his delicious skin colour, is also hard to place. It’s a little bit American, a little bit British, a little bit … Dutch? Scandinavian? As he starts to help me to my feet, I can feel some impressive muscles in his arms and back. Which makes sense, because he’s wearing running gear and a jacket that says FitRox Training. He must be one of the trainers from the gym just along the road, the one Cass mentioned she’d trained at. And this Esti woman is, presumably, one of his clients – or, more likely, even another trainer, because she’s super-fit-looking, too, with Madonna-esque arms and Ninja Turtle abs visible under the edge of her cropped running top.

‘And you look a bit … pale.’ The personal trainer guy looks worried. ‘I think you should have a hot drink, something with sugar in …’

‘Oh, that’s OK, I was actually just on my way to get milk for tea.’

‘I’ll get you a cup of tea.’

‘That’s all right, honestly.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m buying you a cup of tea. It’s the least I can do.’ He turns to point up to the main road. ‘Starbucks OK?’

‘Yes, sure, but really—’

‘Esti, maybe you could pop up and get some tea?’ he suggests, to super-fit Esti, who is still jogging, slightly annoyingly, on the spot. ‘I’ll wait here with … sorry, I didn’t even get your name before I knocked you into next Tuesday.’

‘Libby.’

‘I’ll wait here with Libby,’ he adds, ‘so she can have a bit of a sit-down for a moment. Here,’ he suggests, guiding me to a low wall outside one of the houses on the street. ‘We’ll just sit here for a moment, and my very kind – er – friend Esti will go and get you something to drink.’

‘Sure,’ says Esti.

Although, come to think of it, it was probably more of a sure? As in are you sure? Because the personal trainer guy gives a little nod of the head, and it’s only then that she jogs off in the direction of Starbucks.

I’m still a bit dazed, as I watch her pert, Lycra-clad buttocks round the corner and disappear.

‘Can we chat a little bit?’ the personal trainer asks. ‘Just so I can reassure myself you don’t have a terrible concussion, or anything equally alarming.’

‘Oh, yes, right.’ I glance at him. Wow. He’s even better-looking, now that I’m upright and a bit more sentient, than I realized. Once you can see past those incredibly bright-blue eyes and that vanilla-fudge skin, you get to see that he’s also got a handsome jawline, and full, soft lips, and … bloody hell, even his ears are attractive. ‘Are you supposed to ask me who the prime minister is, and stuff?’

‘Yeah, that’s the sort of thing. Days of the week might do, too.’

‘Ah. Trouble is, I’m never that good on days of the week even under normal circumstances. I had a head injury about a year ago, and even then I was never sure if I couldn’t name the day of the week because I was concussed, or because I honestly for the life of me can never remember if it’s a Tuesday or a Thursday.’

‘Oh, God, you’ve already had a recent head injury?’ He looks appalled. ‘Are you sure we shouldn’t be getting a cab to the hospital?’

‘I’m honestly fine. Besides, it was a year ago. And it’s Wednesday today. See?’

‘Impressive.’ He smiles at me, looking a little bit less stressed.

I smile back. ‘So, you work on this street, right?’

‘Sorry?’

‘The jacket. You’re a personal trainer, obviously. At FitRox.’

He glances down at his jacket and touches the logo for a moment. ‘That’s … well-spotted.’

‘My sister trained there a while ago, when she thought she might get a spot on Strictly Come Dancing.’

‘How … er … extraordinary.’

‘That she thought she might get a spot on Strictly Come Dancing? Well, in a way, yes, because she can’t really dance for toffee. But she is reasonably well known, so it wasn’t a total shot in the dark, I guess. I mean, she wasn’t just some random fan of the show, thinking she might get given a chance to go on it, or something …’ I’m blithering, I know. It’s the effect very handsome men have on me. ‘So, what’s your name?’ I add, because if I can get him talking, that ought to stop me.

‘Joel. My name’s Joel. I …’ He stops. He’s staring at me. ‘You know, Libby,’ he says, after a moment, ‘I’d really appreciate it if you’d do one thing for me.’

‘Sure. Anything.’

Though I’m not a hundred per cent certain that promising a strange man, even one as apparently nice as this one, that you’ll do anything is necessarily the most sensible idea I’ve ever had.

‘I mean, within reason, of course,’ I add, hastily.

‘God, yes, yes, of course.’ He fixes his blue eyes on to mine; they’re incredibly earnest and seem to be looking deep into me. ‘The question is, do you think it would be within reason for you to come out to dinner with me tonight?’

This is absolutely not what I was expecting.

‘I mean, you may not be free …’ he adds. ‘In fact, you may not even be single …?’

‘Oh, I’m single. And I’m free,’ I go on. ‘This evening. But … look, there’s really no need to take me out to dinner to apologize again.’

‘Then I won’t apologize again. For the entirety of our dinner, not a single word of regret or remorse shall pass my lips.’

I smile. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

‘Good. It’s settled, then. What works for you? I could come and pick you up from … sorry, do you live around here, or something?’

‘Yes, I live on this street. I’ve just moved in. Well, I’m living above my new studio, really – I’m a jewellery designer – and I don’t own it, or anything, it’s just …’ I stop myself blithering again. ‘Yes, you could pick me up here. I guess it’ll be convenient for you, too, after you’ve finished work?’

‘Yes, it will. So … eight-thirty?’

‘Yes. That would be lovely.’

‘Terrific. Shall we go for a drink first and then we can decide what we fancy. To eat, I mean,’ he adds, quickly. ‘Sound good?’

‘Sounds great.’

‘Great. Ah, here comes Esti, with the tea …’

And here, too, at the same moment, comes Bogdan, who must have glanced out of the window and seen me sitting on the wall over the road.

And who, I’ll wager, also spotted the incredibly handsome man sitting next to me.

‘Libby?’ He breaks into a little jog himself as he crosses the road. ‘What is surpassing?’

‘Nothing. Just a very small accident. This is a friend of mine,’ I say, hastily, to Joel, just in case he hasn’t noticed the rainbow trousers and the Harry Styles T-shirt, and thinks Bogdan is my boyfriend, or something. ‘And I should really let you get on with your run.’

‘I just got you an English Breakfast,’ Esti is saying, in a pretty indefinable accent of her own, as she reaches us. She hands over a large Starbucks cup. ‘Is that all right?’

‘It’s great, thank you, it’s really kind of you.’

‘OK, well, if you’re sure you’re OK,’ Joel says, getting to his feet, ‘we’ll leave you in the capable hands of … er …’

‘Bogdan,’ Bogdan intones, gazing at Joel with a similar expression on his face to the one he had when he was mooning about Grace Kelly earlier. ‘Am extra-delighted to be making the acquainting of you.’

‘Please,’ I say, rather desperately, ‘continue your run. I’ll see you this evening.’

‘Eight-thirty,’ Joel reconfirms. ‘Looking forward to it. See you later, Libby.

Bogdan and I stand and watch as Joel and Esti jog away in the general direction of the park.

‘Am never knowing,’ Bogdan says, in a marvelling whisper, ‘how you are doing it.’

‘How I’m doing what?’

‘Having the super-hot men fall before you like the dead moths in the flame.’

‘He didn’t fall before me. He’s invited me out to dinner because he felt bad about knocking me over.’

Bogdan snorts. ‘This is your biggest problem, Libby. That you are naïve. That you are not seeing the thing that is staring in your face.’

‘Hang on, I thought my biggest problem was that I won’t let you give me a proper fringe.’

‘You are having,’ he clarifies, ‘many problems. But biggest problem of all is that you are never paying attention to the Destiny. Are you not just saying that you are waiting for dark, handsome stranger to sweep you off the feet?’

Oh.

I suppose I did say that.

But … you know. In jest.

I wasn’t actually expecting a dark, handsome stranger to … well, quite literally sweep me off my feet.

Before I can think about this too long or hard, my phone starts to ring. It’s ringing, in fact, from somewhere in the nearby gutter, where it must have been knocked when I went flying.

‘It’s Nora,’ I tell Bogdan. ‘I’d better get it. She’ll be wondering why I vanished so suddenly.’

‘All right. But do not be taking too long. Will be finishing the flat-pack furniture in half-hour and then we can be sorting out hair before tonight’s hot date.’

I answer the phone to Nora’s worried face, and begin the explanation about where I suddenly disappeared to as I follow Bogdan, feeling rather sore as I do so, back towards my front door.

Being a dutiful daughter, I’m obviously still planning to stick to the agreement to go and see Mum at the hospital this evening, even though (as Bogdan has helpfully pointed out) I could really, really use the time to get ready for my evening out with Joel the personal trainer.

Because, despite Bogdan’s hovering around with a pair of scissors and a hopeful expression most of the afternoon, I didn’t end up agreeing to a full makeover (plus fringe sculpt). In amongst all this craziness – Grace Kelly showing up, handsome strangers appearing out of nowhere – I do still have a business to run. This afternoon I spent two solid hours catching up on (mostly bridal) emails before popping up the road again to Starbucks to meet a new (bridal) client face to face to discuss the eight matching pendants she wants to give to her small army of bridesmaids to wear on her wedding day and, of course, the vintage-style bridal tiara she’s really hoping I can make for her in time for her wedding next month.

Oh, and then just as I was hoping I might get the chance to jump in the shower, shave all the relevant bits that I prefer to shave before I go out for the evening with a man as gorgeous as Joel, then pick out something über-flattering to wear and trowel on a shedload of subtle, natural-looking makeup, Elvira called.

So obviously I had to answer.

It wasn’t great, incidentally. Any progress I thought we might have made on the getting-along front yesterday has, obviously, been shattered into pieces. I got a blow-by-blow update on Tino’s appointment at the vet’s (no broken bones or internal damage, apparently, but this hasn’t stopped the vet charging her two hundred quid for the appointment, nor did it stop her announcing that she’ll be sending me the bill) and then she finished up the call with what she called an Official Warning. I must have been feeling emboldened by something, or imbued with some of Grace Kelly’s Teflon exterior, perhaps, because I did ask if it was actually fair to give me an ‘official warning’ when I’m still – nominally, if nothing else – working for myself, in charge of my own company. Which didn’t go down well with Elvira, obviously, and simply led to another ten minutes of her ranting on about how I need to be careful about biting the hand that feeds me, and The Importance Of Trust, and Taking Responsibility for my mistakes.

So although I did get to shower, thank heavens, it was a hasty jobbie, and there was no time to linger in front of my wardrobe and pick out something heart-stoppingly fabulous, and there was certainly no time to apply quite as much makeup as I’d have liked. But still, despite the fact I’ve played it a bit safe in skinny jeans, vest top and blazer, and ended up doing most of my makeup at the back of the bus on the way to Harley Street to visit Mum, I feel – possibly mistakenly – as if I’ll pass muster.

Not because I’m expecting anything to come of the evening. But still, it’s a night out with an extremely handsome man, so I don’t want to turn up looking like something the cat dragged in.

Talking of something the cat dragged in, though … I’ve just made my way to Mum’s room, up on the third floor of the hospital, and a truly astonishing sight greets my eyes.

Not Mum, prone from her surgery. Mum, in fact, is nowhere to be seen. I mean, her bed is actually empty.

It’s Cass.

At least, I think it’s Cass.

She – the possible-Cass – is sitting next to an open window, smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke out into the street below. Her hair is scraped into a ratty ponytail and she’s wearing – bloody hell – not a single scrap of makeup. I mean, not even concealer. Not even eyebrow pencil. She’s wearing leggings, and a baggy jumper, and the sort of papery flip-flops you sometimes get given after a posh pedicure.

She looks so different from the usual Cass – Cass of the five-inch heels, and the tight skirts, and the bouncy blow-dry; the Cass that I just saw the day before yesterday, in fact – that my heart skips a beat.

‘Oh, my God, Cass … is it Mum? Has something happened to her?’

‘What?’ she snaps. ‘No! She’s in the bathroom –’ she indicates the closed door on the opposite wall, from which I can now hear a shower running –‘getting herself freshened up.’

‘Then what … Cass, what’s wrong with you?’

‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong! Zoltan’s fucking kids, that’s what’s wrong!’

Ah.

So the whole stepmothering thing isn’t going quite as well as she imagined.

‘Cass.’ I go over to the window, take her cigarette from her hand, and stub it out in a tea mug beside Mum’s bed before the smoke sets off any alarms and we get thrown out of the hospital. ‘What’s happened?’

‘They’ve only bloody come to live with us, the little fuckers!’

‘OK, you can’t call a six year old and a nine year old little fuckers …’

‘You can,’ she says, savagely, ‘if they are little fuckers.’

‘… but what on earth do you mean, they’ve come to live with you?’

‘It’s her. The ex-wife. Her revenge on me. She drove them round last night, just when Zoltan and I were about to go to bed with a bottle of champagne. Dumped them on the doorstep and said she’s going away to stay with a friend in New York for a few weeks, and they can stay with their father. Thanks to that, I’ve not had a single minute of Me Time all day! I haven’t so much as had a shower, or done my makeup, or my hair … and they went into my room, without asking, and started playing Shoe Shops with all my shoes! Sticky fingers all over my Louboutins! And snot – actual snot, Libby! – on my new Kurt Geiger sandals! I mean, they said it was an accident, but I don’t believe that for a minute, the horrible little vandals …’

‘OK, Cass, calm down. They’re just children. And come on, they’ve only been living with you for one day!’

‘Yeah, and it’s one day too fucking many, I’ll tell you that … anyway, what would you know? Little Miss Footloose and Fancy-Free.’ She scowls at me. ‘Why are you so glammed up this evening?’

‘I’m going out.’

‘Huh! Must be nice.’

‘Well, you know, Cass,’ I say, ‘if you hadn’t got involved with a married man with kids …’

She sulks, but doesn’t say anything.

“Look, can’t you and Zoltan have a proper talk? See if there’s a dignified way out of this mess?’

Cass crumples up her pretty, unpowdered nose for a moment, as she thinks about this.

‘You mean, tell him we need a full-time nanny?’

‘No!’

‘Two full-time nannies?’

‘Cass …’

‘Or are you thinking boarding school?’

I stare at her. ‘For a six and a nine year old?’

‘Yeah. You can get boarding schools for kids that age, can’t you?’

‘I’m sure you can. But why not just send them to the workhouse and be done with it?’

‘Ooooh, I haven’t heard of the workhouse,’ Cass says, leaning forward, eagerly. ‘Is it far away? Do they let them out for half-term?’

My reply to this – which contains more swearing than I’m normally comfortable with – will have to wait, because the bathroom door is opening and Mum is on her way out.

She doesn’t look too bad for a woman in her early sixties who’s just had her gallstones out – sorry, sorry, minor cosmetic surgery. In fact, in her silk kimono and what look an awful lot like cashmere slippers, she’s actually terribly glamorous. For a moment, and it’s a rare moment, I feel rather proud of her. There’s a certain kind of chutzpah, a certain kind of bloody-minded grit, behind the ability to look fabulous only forty-eight hours after invasive surgery, and Mum has it in spades.