When I was 20, my American model agency, Ford, asked me to come to New York for a month in order to build my portfolio. I learnt how to navigate both Manhattan and the myriad editors, photographers and stylists to whom I was sent on ‘go-sees’ – around 10 a day, in rickety walk-ups, pristine corporate buildings, wisteria-clad brownstones and ornate lofts in SoHo with tin ceilings.
I stayed with a girlfriend on Christopher Street, in a dot of a ground floor apartment that had a shower in the kitchen. Our shared bed was within spitting distance of an alleyway behind a bar. I soon realised why she gave me the window side.
I woke, one early morning, to what could best be described as a group carnal situation in the alley outside, happening inches away from the open window and my nightie-clad form. It was quite surprising. The participants and I had a brief, agonising eye lock, and then we all politely looked away. They got on with the task at hand. I hid under the covers. My friend, inured to such activity after six months in the apartment, slept on. The alley cacophony was our nightly sonata and I was thus overjoyed when another friend, whose parents lived uptown by Central Park and were away, invited me to come and stay with him.
I kissed my old friend, waved goodbye to the new ones in the alley and took the subway up to Lexington Avenue smart-ish, thanking my lucky stars. A functional family house offers a total oasis when you are a young person who’s been travelling or staying with other young people. For a grubby youth, to be greeted by a fridge heaving with food, clean sheets, a bathroom with bath salts and bleach is a balm of civilisation.
I was met by my friend Raffy, the air full of the scent of Manuel Canovas candles and beeswax floor polish. He handed me a glass of wine and pointed me towards the chintziest, squashiest, most all-embracing sofas, ever. Those sofas became ever after the template for comfort. I spent a lot of time on them, as I developed pneumonia within 24 hours of arrival and was ministered to by the charming family doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, chicken soup and rest, rest, rest.
Being ill somewhere that is not home is a discombobulating experience. I remember dappled trees on the wall, classical music and hushed voices: the apartment a peaceful, fragrant tomb. The city felt far away. Raffy, his girlfriend, his sister and I lay on the sofas and worked through the classics: Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, ET – we sobbed our way through, eating pints of ice cream and takeout noodles.
And then, one morning, I woke, a bit peaky looking – as my granny would say – but human once more. I unfurled from a nest of blankets and the welcoming sofa. Apologising for being the worst house guest ever, I hugged my hosts and left, pallid but grateful.
I’ve been looking for the sofas ever since. They were deep and squashy, but with a firmness that meant you could exit them with ease. Their pillows were plump and feathered. I hunted high, I hunted low, I bought without sitting on them, based just on a tantalising picture: a newbie error. Gustavian, modular, fringed, kilim clad, the sofas arrived in procession over the decades. Often, they were the wrong size and, like a philistine, I chopped their feet off to get them through a door.
I learnt through this trial and error that I admire a sofa that looks like a finely upholstered Edwardian matron. But what use posh upholstery, if the bones are made from MDF? A sofa to my mind needs to have a hardwood base to be the unsinkable Molly Brown of the sitting room. You must be prepared for animals to do potentially unspeakable things on it, or for visiting children to upend their drinks in its vicinity and for the sofa to emerge, victorious. It’s imperative to that end that it has a pattern or washable upholstery, or is covered by a throw. It can’t be precious; it has a job to do. After 25 years, my own pin-up sofa has arrived, courtesy of Nick Plant Furniture. Bespoke, it is all the things I’ve yearned for. Soft, shapely, neat of foot. It fits.
No one is more grateful than the dog. She lies splayed in the middle of it, snout reverently pointing to heaven. As Nancy Mitford wrote in The Pursuit of Love, ‘Life is sad and often dull, but there are currants in the cake, and here is one of them.’
