A Night In With Audrey Hepburn

As we both are, in fact. Cheese was one of the very first things we bonded over, and cheese has continued to play a front-and-centre role in our friendship ever since. We sometimes go to cheese-tasting evenings – right here, at Le Grand Fromage on New Quebec Street, or at Neal’s Yard Dairy in Covent Garden; we once went to an entire cheese festival, at some Nineties rock star’s country farm down in Somerset; when I was nineteen and he was turning twenty-one, we celebrated his significant birthday by taking the Eurostar over to Paris for the day, wandering around the first arrondissement, from fromagerie to fromagerie (with l’occasional stop-off at le bar on the way), buying more cheese than we could possibly afford, and eating most of it on the Eurostar on the way back home. Le Marathon de Cheese, we called it, and we’ve long talked about repeating the performance.

The owner of Le Grand Fromage recognizes me by now, and waves to me from behind the counter as I make my way through the door and into her shop.

‘Hi, there! Libby, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right!’ I don’t know her name; she did mention it to me once, but I’ve forgotten it and now it’s too embarrassing to ask again. In my head I just call her The Big Cheese Woman. Which makes her sound like she’s made entirely from wheels of cheddar, with mini Babybels for her eyes and nose, when in fact she’s a pleasant-looking forty-something with a petite figure and an enviable choppy haircut. (Enviable even before I burnt half my hair off this morning. Right now, I might actually kill to have hair like hers.) ‘You called to say my cheese order was ready?’

‘That’s right! All cut and ready to go. The Brie de Meaux, the Fourme d’Ambert, and the aged Comté. Oh, and something else …’

‘No, no, nothing else,’ I say, hastily, because I’m not sure my precarious bank balance can take any more posher-than-posh cheese just now.

‘No, I was just going to say that I’m popping in a little sample of something for you to try. A goat’s cheese. Because don’t I remember you asking about a particular goat’s cheese the last time you were in? Something rolled in ash, with a cross shape printed in it?’

Oh, my God.

Is it possible that she’s found the ‘mystery cheese’ from Le Marathon?

There was this one particular goat’s cheese, in all the cheeses we stuffed ourselves with on the way back home on the Eurostar that day, that Olly and I still talk about in mystic, hallowed terms, the way football nuts might talk about a incredible volleyed header that won a cup final. It was light as a soufflé and tangy on the tongue, it was rolled in ashes with a cross shape on the top, and we’ve never been able to track it down before or since.

‘Hold on a sec.’ The Big Cheese Woman is heading off the shop floor and into the cool, straw-lined room at the back where all the cheeses are kept.

If this really is the mystery cheese, it will be a big moment. I know it sounds silly, but the search for this cheese has been a bit of a thing for me and Olly for the past decade.

Though I suppose, if I’m being entirely honest, that some of our obsession with tracking down the cheese is – for both of us – our unspoken way of detracting attention from the Mistaken Thing that happened on that Paris trip, in a corner booth in a quiet bar somewhere on the Left Bank.

Which is that, just after we ordered a second bottle of white, we suddenly, somehow, found ourselves kissing as if our lives depended on it. An extremely Mistaken Thing to do when you’ve been friends for years and when, thanks to your Best Friendship with his sister, his entire family have sort of unofficially adopted you as one of their own.

I’m still not sure how it happened exactly. All I can really remember is that one minute we were talking about unrequited love, and Olly was telling me about the girl that he’d loved from afar for, well, it sounded like years, but I must have got that bit wrong and then the next minute we were snogging as if the world was about to end. I’ve no idea which of his friends it was, even all these years later – Alison, probably, the old college friend he eventually went out with for several years. The kiss was finally interrupted by the arrival of that bottle of wine. Realizing what we had just done and in a bit of a panic, I blurted out, ‘Well, when you get to kiss the real love of your life just make sure you’re not as drunk as we are!’ and laughed like some sort of crazed lunatic – just to make absolutely sure that Olly knew I understood that he was unrequitedly in love with another girl, and that I wasn’t going to get all silly and take that kiss as anything other than a Chablis-induced mistake. I think that is what I thought anyway. Now I just remember the look on his face as I spoke the words and the feeling of teetering on the verge of something and of stepping back from the edge.

And thank God we did! Olly must have been as drunk as I was or utterly appalled by the fact he’d just ended up in a drunken clinch with his little sister’s best mate. Either way, he didn’t have much to say at all until we caught our Eurostar a couple of hours later, by which time the mystery cheese had found its way into our lives and we could spend the journey home talking about that instead) because neither of us has ever mentioned the Mistaken Thing since. I’ve barely even let myself think about it, in my case, and I’m certain in Olly’s case, too.

‘Was this the one you were looking for?’

The Big Cheese Woman has re-emerged, and is holding a cheese out towards me. I stare at it: it’s flat, and circular, and ash-covered, with a cross on the top.

‘Um … I’m pretty sure it could be … I’d have to taste it to be certain …’

‘Yep, well, that’s why I thought I’d pop one in your order. It’s called Cathare, and it’s made near Toulouse. You must let me know if it turns out to be the right one or not.’

After a morning like the one I’ve had, I actually feel like I could leap across her counter and kiss her. Blow the fact I’d squash the precious cheese in the process.

‘That’s so nice of you!’

‘Oh, it’s nothing! Happy to try to help. Now, the other cheeses will be … thirty-seven pounds in total, please.’

I can feel myself actually wince as I hand over my debit card.

‘Sorry,’ the Big Cheese Woman says, clearly noticing my wince. ‘The Comté was a pricey choice, I’m afraid.’

‘No, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not your fault. I just … well, I lost my job today, that’s all.’

‘Oh, my God! I’m so sorry to hear that!’

‘Oh, no, don’t worry. It’s absolutely fine. Better than fine, in fact.’

She gives me a funny look. ‘Really?’

‘Yep. Losing my job,’ I tell her, ‘is going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.’

This is the tactic I’ve decided to take, anyway, since I slunk away from King’s Cross this morning with my tail between my legs. Accentuating the positive. Because in all seriousness, what’s the point of sitting around weeping and wailing and gnashing my teeth? Where will it get me? Nowhere, that’s where. And anyway, I’ve got loads to be cheerful about. I have my health. I have my friends. I will have – when I pick up the keys a couple of hours from now – a brand-new flat.

The trick, for the time being, is just to try and ignore the fact that I haven’t told my mother I’ve lost my job and that I might not be able to pay next month’s rent to my slightly scary new landlord.

‘Wow. I really admire your attitude!’ the Big Cheese Woman tells me, handing over the machine for me to type my PIN into. ‘Positive thinking will get you a long way in life.’

‘Exactly!’ I say, (also ignoring the fact that, actually, positive thinking hasn’t got me all that far in life up to this point). ‘It’s just like trying to track down this mystery cheese! Where would we be if we all just gave up at the first hurdle?’

‘That’s the spirit!’ But the Big Cheese Woman can’t cheer me on any more, because she’s just being asked by another customer if she stocks organic Roquefort. She hands me my Visa and my carrier bag, and I head out into the warm sunshine.

It’s only when I peer into the carrier to check that she’s put the receipt inside that I realize she’s only charged me half what she should have, and thrown in a packet of posh shortbread biscuits into the bargain.

Which is lovely of her, and proves that a positive attitude reaps its own rewards.

Oh, and talking of lovely, and positive attitudes, my phone has just pinged with a text from my best friend, Nora.

U in the new flat yet??? Hope my bro is helping you get settled? Nxxxx

Nora’s ‘bro’ is Olly, and they’ve pretty much ended up as surrogate brother and sister to me since that day I met them in the big old Edwardian theatre in Wimbledon. It’s weird, actually, now that I think of Olly as my surrogate brother, to remember that first meeting. Specifically – thanks, teenage hormones – the part where I thought he might be about to kiss me. Anyway, despite them coming from a proper showbiz family (there’s not just their mum with her am-dram group in Woking, but also one other sister who’s now a dancer with the Royal Ballet, and of course Kitty, the youngest, who’s a presenter on a Saturday morning kids’ TV show), Nora has the most serious, grown-up job of anybody I know: she’s an A&E doctor at a huge teaching hospital in Glasgow.

I miss her like mad.

Though, of course, now that I’m about to get settled in my own flat, it’ll be easy as pie for me to invite her and her lovely fiancé Mark down for the weekend. We’ll be able to do all the kinds of things you can only do when you’ve got your own place: brunch on Saturday morning – perhaps with Olly, too, if he can make it – and a casual party on Saturday night, with random friends dropping round with bottles of wine while I whip up a delicious stew in the kitchen … or maybe Olly could come over again and do the stew bit, come to think of it, because I can’t actually cook for toffee. And, seeing as it’ll be a rare weekend off work for Nora and Mark, I don’t think she’d be too happy if she ended up having to administer emergency medical treatment to the other guests if I’ve accidentally poisoned them with my Lancashire hotpot.

On way to flat right now!! I text Nora. BTW it’s possible have tracked down mystery cheese from Le Marathon.

She must be in a lull between ward rounds, because amazingly she texts straight back: You and Olly and that bloody cheese. V exciting re flat. What is big plan for first night on your own?

Hmm, that’s a good question. Because, in all honesty, my plan – once Olly has come and gone, that is – is to put on my pyjamas and curl up in front of one of my favourite old movies on my iPad. Perhaps, for maximum granny-era bliss, with my vintage bead-box and my ribbon bag for a bit of cosy crafting at the same time.

I mean, come on, it’s not like it’s knitting, or anything.

But I can’t tell Nora this. Nora thinks it might as well be knitting. (Though unlike Cass, she at least fully appreciates the results, and I’m hoping she’ll love the beautiful, Breakfast at Tiffany’s-inspired necklace I’m currently working on to give her to wear on her wedding day.) More to the point, Nora worries that I spend far too long not dealing with my problems in the real world by escaping into Hollywood fantasy.

She’d worry even more if I ever admitted that I still, sometimes, allow myself these silly daydreams I used to have when I was about twelve, where Audrey Hepburn is my best friend, and we spend our time hanging out together.

I mean, I don’t do it often these days, I’d like to point out, if that makes me sound any less weird and sad at all? Only when I feel in need of a bit of comfort.

And we all do weird things for comfort, don’t we? Some people eat entire tubs of Phish Food ice cream. Some people have kinky sex with complete strangers. So it’s pretty harmless, surely, that I occasionally like to zone out with an imaginary shopping trip, or afternoon tea, or night out dancing, in the company of the delightful Miss Hepburn?

My phone pings with another text from Nora: Please Libby for love of all that is holy don’t tell me you’re just going to string beads and watch back-to-back Audrey Hepburn films in your PJs all night. If u wanted to do that u could have stayed living in old bedroom with your mother.

Damn and blast her.

No intention of anything of sort, I text Nora back. Am planning productive evening of unpacking, sorting out, and then might spend five mins on Amazon looking up best cookbook to buy for delicious stew-making.

Which is met with total silence, either because she’s been called away to a life-threatening medical emergency or because she just doesn’t believe me.

Anyway, I need to hop back on the tube now and make my way to Colliers Wood, because it’s time for me to pick up the keys to my brand-new, grown-up, very own home.

*

The shops in the little parade beneath my new flat are an eclectic mix, with one unifying theme.

BOGDAN’S TV REPAIRZ

BOGDAN’S DIY SUPPLIEZ

BOGDAN’S CHICKEN ’N’ RIBZ

And finally, just in case you started to worry that Bogdan didn’t get quite enough of a good deal on the letter Z from his sign-making people:

BOGDAN’S PIZZA PIZZAZZ!

My particular flat, somewhat unfortunately, is right above this final one. But still, this might have its advantages, because I won’t even have to change out of those pyjamas Nora is being so negative about if I get a sudden craving for pizza, with pizzazz or otherwise, at ten o’clock at night.

And it’s at Pizza Pizzazz that I’m due to collect the keys, where Bogdan the landlord has left them for me.

The keys are handed over to me by a very large, rather frighteningly silent woman (who does not possess, if truth be told, the smallest hint of pizzazz), and I let myself in at the little door outside the pizza parlour before climbing the stairs all the way to the third … no, hang on, I forgot, fourth floor, where there are three doors arranged around a little landing. Which is odd, because I only remember there being two doors. Anyway, mine, Flat F, is on the side closest to the street.

I try to control the little chill of excitement I get as I turn the key in the lock, and …

OK, it’s … well, it’s quite a bit smaller than I remember.

I told you I’d seen rappers’ downstairs loos that were bigger, didn’t I?

I think, actually, that I’ve also seen public conveniences that are bigger.

I step inside, trying to estimate how big it really is (eight feet by ten?) and offset this against how big I remember it (fifteen feet by ten?).

How can it have shrunk by seventy square feet since I first saw it? And – by the looks of things – lost a window and … an entire shower room … at the same time?

Though it’s the very last thing I want to do, I’m going to have to phone the landlord.

He picks up after a couple of rings.

‘Is Bogdan.’

‘Bogdan, hi! It’s Libby Lomax …’

‘You are happy with flat?’

‘Well, that’s the thing, Bogdan, I—’

‘You are liking renovations?’

‘Renovations?’ It’s only now that I notice the smell of fresh paint and the faint hint of sawdust. ‘Um, Bogdan, have you … put up a partition wall, or something?’

‘Well observed, Libby. Am turning one flat into two.’

As I stare around the place now, it’s quite clear that this is exactly what he’s done. Turned one small flat into two tiny ones, taking one of my two windows and my only bathroom with it.

‘You are liking? Is perfect, yes? Is more compact, is more cosy, is more easy to be keeping clean …’

‘But Bogdan—’

‘And you can be recommending next-door flat to friend, perhaps? I am thinking girl friend,’ he adds, for clarity, breathing hotly into his end of the phone. ‘As you will be needing to share bathroom.’

‘Bogdan.’ I try to sound as stern as possible, so he’ll know I’m Not Messing Around. ‘What have you done with the bathroom?’

‘Is only across hallway. Have put it all in new. Is what girls like, yes? New bathroom suite for pampering? For shaving the legs, for taking the bubble bath, for putting on the body lotion …’

I make a mental note to ask Olly to check this bathroom out for hidden cameras before I so much as brush my teeth in there.

‘But the thing is, Bogdan, I’m paying rent for a flat twice the size of this one.’

‘But you are getting brand-new bathroom suite.’

‘A brand-new shared bathroom suite! Across the hallway from a flat you’ve cut in two!’

‘Is chic studio,’ he counters. ‘Is minimalist lifestyle.’

‘But I don’t want a studio!’ I ignore the fact that this place, with its wonky partition wall and its general aroma of sawdust, isn’t even in the region of chic. ‘I wanted a proper flat, Bogdan! With a bedroom and a bathroom.’

‘In Moldova,’ Bogdan tells me, sternly, ‘whole families, with ten children, are living in less than half space than you are getting now.’

Which – if it’s true – makes me feel like the worst kind of spoilt brat.

On the other hand, he would say that, wouldn’t he? He’s the one trying to fob me off with a divvied-up flat.

I mean, look at this place. I’m never going to be able to do any of those things I planned here. Those cosy stew parties, for example: how am I (or how is Olly) going to cook when the kitchen space has been reduced to a tiny corner with a single wall-hung cabinet, a two-ring hob and a mini-fridge? And where are my friends going to fit when they pop round for the evening with bottles of red wine? I may not have hundreds of friends, but right now I’m worried that even letting Nora bring Mark with her is going to be an issue. And it’s even worse than this! I’d almost forgotten about the furniture Olly is bringing round any minute now. Yes, I was very careful about choosing only small pieces, but obviously there was nothing in the props storeroom that was actually doll-sized. The lovely leather armchair I picked out will fit in OK, but only if I abandon any hope of also fitting in the little gate-legged table. And I’d chosen this really nice walnut-wood coffee table, and a small but incredibly useful chest of drawers, and Olly is bringing me an old futon from his own flat …

Where the hell is it all going to go?

‘Bogdan. Look …’

The buzzer goes.

That’ll be Olly. With all my furniture.

I can’t leave him to wait, because he’ll probably be pulled up on a yellow line on the main road, with traffic wardens circling like vultures.

‘I have to go. My friend Olly’s just arrived with my furniture.’

‘Dolly?’ Bogdan asks, excitedly. ‘She is good girlfriend of yours …?

‘Olly. Short for Oliver. A boy friend. Well, not like a boyfriend, but …’ Actually, there’s no harm in Bogdan thinking I have a boyfriend. The buzzer goes again. ‘I’ll call to discuss this again tomorrow,’ I say, in the firmest tone of voice I can summon.

‘I will be looking forward to it, Libby. You can be telling me what you are thinking of new bathroom suite.’

I press the entry-phone buzzer to let Olly up, and open my front door just as he turns the landing onto the fourth floor.

‘Lib.’ He takes the last three steps in one and envelops me in an enormous hug. ‘I haven’t been able to get hold of you all afternoon. Are you OK?’

‘Well, the flat’s half the size I thought it was going to be,’ I say, into his chest, ‘and the landlord seems to have a college dorm fetish, but I suppose it could be …’

‘I meant what happened on location today. The fire thing.’ He pulls back and looks down at me, wincing, as if he hardly dares peek under the straw sunhat I’m still wearing. ‘I wasn’t sure how much to believe of what the crew were saying, but have you actually burnt off all your hair?’

‘No, no, only half. Do you promise not to laugh?’

‘Of course.’

I wouldn’t do this for many people – in fact, Olly and Nora are pretty much the only ones I can think of – but, with a bit of a flourish, I take off my sunhat.

Olly presses his lips together, hard, but he can’t disguise the fact they’re curling upwards.

‘You promised,’ I remind him, ‘not to laugh.’

‘I’m not laughing. I’m absolutely not. Honestly, Lib, it’s not even that bad …’

‘Liar.’ I open the front door further so he can come in. ‘Anyway, believe it or not, losing half my hair – oh, and my job, by the way – is only the second worst thing that’s happened to me today … Ta-da!’

With another flourish, I display my chopped-in-half flatlet.

‘You lost your job?’ Olly says. He’s staring at me, and not at the flatlet.

I nod.

‘But … that sucks.’

I nod, again.

‘Well, do you want me to speak to Vanessa for you? Threaten to put the catering truck on strike if you’re not reinstated as … hang on, what was the part you were meant to be playing today?’

‘Extra-terrestrial Spaceship Technician.’

‘… reinstated as Extra-terrestrial Spaceship Technician? I’m serious, Libby, I’ll do it. And Vanessa would have to listen to me, because if there aren’t any bacon sandwiches ready at six in the morning the next time that crew is on location, she’ll have a riot on her hands.’

‘That’s really nice of you, Ol, but I don’t want that.’ I don’t add the obvious – that wild horses couldn’t drag me back to work on The Time Guardians after my toe-curling humiliation this morning – but there’s no need to, because I can see that Olly gets it without me having to say anything. ‘I’ll be fine. Job-wise, I mean. I’ve pre-paid the first month’s rent to Bogdan, and I’ll find something new in time to cover next month’s.’

‘Sorry – Bogdan?’

‘Oh, yeah, he’s my new landlord. In fact, that reminds me, Olly, you don’t happen to know what a secret camera in a bathroom might be hidden behind, by any chance?’

‘What?’

‘It’s just that Bogdan seems to have a bit of a thing about girls taking showers and putting on body lotion …’

‘OK, that’s it.’ Looking more than just a little alarmed, now, Olly picks up my jacket from where I’ve hung it on the back of the door, and holds it out for me to put on. ‘You’re coming back to my flat tonight.’

‘No, Olly, seriously, it’s fine. He thinks I’ve got a boyfriend now, anyway.’

‘Who?’

‘Bogdan.’

‘No, I mean, who does he think your boyfriend is?’

‘Oh, well, you, of course. So apologies, Ol, but you’ve just accidentally got stuck with me as an unwanted girlfriend!’ This is getting dangerously close to Mistaken Thing territory, I realise, so I add, hastily, ‘But don’t worry, you can dump me as soon as I’m sure there really aren’t any hidden cameras in the bathroom. Or anywhere else, for that matter.’

Olly turns round for a moment to hang my coat back up on the door, which takes him a lot longer than you’d think, because he keeps fumbling with the loop on the inside of the collar and almost dropping it on the floor.

‘Well, anyway,’ he says, as he eventually succeeds in getting the coat hung and turns back to me, ‘I’m a little bit worried about getting all your furniture in here. The place is quite a bit smaller than I thought it would be.’

‘Yes, that’s what I was trying to tell you earlier. Bogdan’s put that bloody wall up and made one flat into two!’

Olly gazes around the flat for the first time – well, gazes is a bit inaccurate, given that it only takes about three-quarters of a second to look at the place in its tiny entirety – and lets out a whistle.

‘You know, I really don’t think the furniture is going to fit.’

‘Look, can’t we start bringing it up before I start panicking about that?’

‘Lib, there’s no way we can get all that heavy stuff up here by ourselves. Which is why I asked Jesse to meet me here … ah, hang on. That could be a text from him right now.’ He fishes in his jacket pocket, takes out his phone, and nods. ‘Yep. That’s him, on his way from the tube. Look, I’ll go down and meet him, and you can crack …’ He produces, from the paper carrier I’ve only just noticed he brought with him, a bottle of champagne. ‘… this open!’