From Notting Hill with Love Actually

by Ali McNamara

  “Don’t ignore me, both of you. Especially you!” David said, pushing Sean’s shoulder.

  Sean turned. “Don’t do that,” he said, his eyes flashing dangerously.

  David pushed Sean’s other shoulder. “Or what? I know your sort, full of clever words and empty threats.”

  “And unfortunately, David, I’ve also come across your sort too many times before. Come on, Scarlett,” Sean said, putting his arm around my shoulders, “I’ll take you back inside if you like.”

  “You’re not taking her anywhere. Not now, not ever.”

  “And just how do you propose to try and stop me?” Sean said, throwing David a pitying look.

  David lunged at Sean, who swiftly sidestepped him so that David went crashing to the ground.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” Sean looked down at David sprawled on the tarmac. “Come on, Scarlett.”

  I hesitated, torn by my desire to go with Sean and my loyalty to David.

  “See, she doesn’t want to go with you,” David said, picking himself up off the floor. “She’s mine.”

  “Excuse me, I’m not any—” I began to say. But my words were lost, as David lunged with all his force into Sean again. This time Sean wasn’t ready and they both fell to the ground. They tumbled down a slope covered in bright winter flowers. Over and over they rolled until finally they splashed into the fountain below.

  They pulled themselves up in about a foot of water and began to throw punches at each other, most of which missed their target as they kept slipping on the muddy base of the pond.

  “Stop it!” I called, running down the hill. I paused halfway down as I heard a commotion—other than the idiots that were splashing about in the water below. At the entrance of the hotel, I saw a horse-drawn carriage pulling up outside.

  Oh no, Maddie and Felix were about to leave.

  I hurried down the rest of the hill, just as all the guests began to spill out into the courtyard to see the happy couple on their way.

  “Stop it!” I shrieked at Sean and David. “Maddie is about to leave, and I won’t have any part of her day ruined by you two play-fighting in a paddling pool!”

  To my surprise, they ceased their fighting and looked at me.

  “I mean it!” I said, as they stood up in the water like a pair of naughty schoolchildren in front of their headmistress. “Just try and look normal!”

  I climbed over the picket fence and stood by the edge of the fountain, hoping to hide the two wet and bedraggled men standing behind me. At least we were over here, a little bit out of the way—perhaps no one would notice us.

  Maddie and Felix appeared in their going-away outfits, my wedding gift to them. They’d been outfitted in clothes of their choice (Maddie’s choice mostly) from Selfridges, when we’d had a fun day out, just the three of us in London, in the January sales. And as they climbed up into their carriage, Maddie wearing an elegant winter white trouser suit and Felix looking much more casual now in a petrol-blue cashmere sweater and navy blue cords, Maddie was still carrying her bouquet.

  “Ladies,” she called. “The time has come for us to see who will be the next lucky female to walk down the aisle! Are you ready?”

  There was a surge toward the carriage as half the guests piled forward. I held my ground by the fountain—there was no way I was going to leave these two delinquents alone for a second.

  Maddie stood up and looked around her, then she peered out into the sea of guests.

  Oh no, she wasn’t looking for me, was she? Just throw it, Maddie, I willed her. Don’t worry where I am! I prayed she wouldn’t see me, or that, if she did, there was no way she’d get the bouquet this far.

  But she spied me standing by the water and grinned. Then she closed her eyes, reached way back behind her, and threw the bouquet as far into the distance as she could. I’d forgotten that Maddie used to play in a women’s American football team when she was at university and could easily throw a ball twenty meters down a field. As if in slow motion, the bouquet sailed over the heads of the desperate females—who jumped and leaped in the air to try and intercept it—and landed firmly in my hands, ready for a touchdown.

  Everyone turned to look at me.

  I held the bouquet aloft and quickly moved forward to try and distract attention from Sean and David, still standing in the water behind me.

  Maddie waved, then winked at me knowingly, as she saw the two bedraggled men. Then she and Felix sat down, and everyone waved good-bye as they rode off together, out of the park gates and along to a taxi I knew was waiting around the corner ready to take them to their hotel in the center of Paris.

  Slowly, the crowd began to disperse as everyone moved back into the hotel.

  I turned around to look at the two disheveled specimens behind me.

  “I guess I should be saying thank you for providing me with yet another movie scene to add to my collection,” I told them sternly. “You two did a fine job of recreating the fight between Mark and Daniel in the second Bridget Jones film. But I won’t, because you’re just ridiculous. Two grown men fighting about…well, what are you fighting about?”

  Sean and David looked at each other and I thought for one awful moment they were going to start again.

  “David, just wait there,” I said, holding up my left hand like I was directing traffic. “I just want to talk to Sean for a moment. Sean,” I said, beckoning him with my right hand, which was still holding Maddie’s bouquet, “you come this way.”

  We left David standing in the fountain, as Sean waded through the water toward me. The wet white shirt that clung tightly to his torso had become almost transparent as he climbed out of the water.

  “I’m sorry…” he began as he pushed his hair back off his face.

  “Over here,” I said, pulling him away from the water and out of David’s earshot.

  “Hey, did I give you another movie moment there?” Sean asked. “I must have looked a lot like Mr. Darcy coming out of the water just then.”

  He had, actually, but I’d tried hard not to think about it.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “And anyway, you’re thinking of the TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, there was no lake scene in the film.”

  Sean shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

  “Look, Sean, you’d better go and get some dry clothes on,” I said, aware that David was still close by. “And then maybe you should go and find Danielle. She must be wondering where you are—that’s if she didn’t notice you in the water.”

  “I doubt it,” Sean said. “I think she got the message when I wouldn’t dance with her to Robbie Williams. I hate that song.”

  I smiled. Of course he’d hate it; I should have known.

  “What’s funny about that? I do. Anyway, I was looking for an excuse to get away from her—she was really starting to get on my nerves.”

  “But I thought you were enjoying her company?”

  Sean frowned. “No. I was just putting up with her for something to do.”

  “But I thought…”

  “You thought what, Scarlett? That I fancied her?” Sean raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know anyone at this wedding; she was the only person that wanted to talk to me for more than a couple of minutes.”

  “You knew me.”

  “Yeah, but you were with David, and I could hardly play gooseberry all evening, could I?”

  “Oh, Sean, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

  “I’d rather have been with you.”

  We looked into each other’s eyes and at that moment all I wanted to do was put my arms around him again. I almost forgot David was still waiting in the water.

  “Ahem,” David said. He had pulled himself out of the fountain and was standing just a few feet away from us.

  “Sean’s just going inside,” I insisted. “Aren’t you, Sean?”

  Sean nodded. “I think I’d best call it a night,” he said, backing away. “I’ll see you i
n the morning, Scarlett. Shall I book us a taxi to go into Paris?”

  “Sure, that’ll be fine. See you tomorrow.”

  I watched Sean walk away, and then I turned to David.

  “What does he mean, book you a taxi to go into Paris? You’re not spending tomorrow with him, Scarlett. Have you forgotten what day it will be?”

  “Er…”

  “February the 14th. Valentine’s Day.”

  Oh God, I had forgotten.

  “The thing is, David—it’s complicated.”

  “You’re telling me, Scarlett.” David ran his hands through his own wet hair, but he didn’t look anywhere near as sexy doing it as Sean had done a few minutes earlier. “I thought we agreed we were going to spend the day together before we flew home tomorrow night? And now you want to spend it with him. Who, ten minutes ago, do I need to remind you, was found by me with his hands all over you?”

  “No, Sean isn’t the complication.” Well, he was part of it, but I wasn’t going to tell David that. “There’s something else.”

  “You mean to tell me there’s more going on than you running off to London for a month’s holiday away from me? A month that I now fear I was very much mistaken in allowing you to have? More than you spending all your time with another man—who you’ve not only tried to make out is nothing more than ‘just a friend,’ but who you now announce you would rather spend Valentine’s Day with than me? There’s more to it than that, Scarlett?”

  “Yes, David, there is.”

  “Well let’s hear it then, because I’m sure this will be very illuminating.”

  “Why don’t we go back to our room? You can get dried off, and then we can talk as much as you like.”

  David looked down at the puddle around his feet.

  He doesn’t look anywhere near as good wet as Sean did…

  I shook my head—I had to stop these comparisons, they were almost as bad as my movie ones.

  “No, Scarlett,” David said, staring angrily at me. “I think I want to hear everything right now, before you have time to think up more excuses for your behavior. You at least owe me that.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” I said, and I told David as quickly as I could about what had been going on with my mother, how Sean and I had been chasing leads all over the place, and why I now really needed to go with him into Paris tomorrow. By the time I had finished, he was starting to look very cold.

  “David, let’s go inside and finish talking about this. You’ll catch pneumonia if you continue to stand out here soaking wet.”

  “Just answer me three questions,” David said, appearing not to hear me. “Do you love me, Scarlett?”

  “Yes, of course I do. What sort—”

  David cut me short. “Do you love him?”

  “Who? You mean Sean?”

  David nodded.

  My mouth went dry and I swallowed hard. “No.”

  “Do you love your father?”

  “What the hell sort of question is that? Of course I do!”

  “Then leave it, Scarlett. Leave this whole notion of finding your mother alone. You’ll only end up getting hurt. And you’re going to end up hurting others too.”

  I thought about what he’d just said. “What do you mean, people are going to get hurt? Are you talking about Dad and me if I find my mother? Or me and you if I go with Sean to find her?”

  “Everyone, Scarlett—this whole process is going to end in heartbreak somewhere along the line. This started out as a simple—but now I see stupid—idea for you to have some time away, to ‘get your head together,’ I think was the exact phrase put to me. And it’s now escalated into this quite mad notion you’re going to find your mother. And what if you do, Scarlett? What if you find her and she doesn’t want anything to do with you? She didn’t all those years ago. Have you thought about that? How you’re going to feel if she rejects you all over again?”

  I hadn’t even considered that possibility in all my euphoria.

  “How will your father feel if by some chance she wants to be a part of your life once more? Have you thought about what that would do to him?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, I thought not. And have you thought about how I’m feeling in all this, when you, the woman I’m going to marry in a few weeks, is running around the country with another man? Have you ever stopped to think for one moment how that might make me feel? Have you?”

  I hung my head and looked at the ground.

  “When are you going to start realizing, Scarlett, this isn’t a movie you’re in now—this is real life, real people, and there might not be a happy ending if you continue messing with our lives like this.”

  I looked up at David. He’d given it to me straight, and he was right. Everything he’d said had been true, and I hadn’t ever stopped to consider it.

  “But what if I don’t see this through, David? I might never find out if I can have that happy ending with my mum. And that’s all I really want, to be happy, and to know that I did everything I could to give myself the chance to be.”

  David shook his head despairingly. “If I hadn’t given my word to your father…” he muttered.

  “What do you mean? What did you say to him?”

  “It’s not what I said to him, Scarlett—it’s what he said to me.”

  “I don’t understand. Explain yourself, David.”

  “I can’t. I gave him my word when I went to see him that I wouldn’t get involved in this. And against my better judgment, that’s just what I’m not going to do.” He straightened himself up. “Scarlett, you win—I trust you. Go to Paris with Sean tomorrow—go to the moon with him for all I care. Just promise me you’ll be at that church, by my side, in April. You do still want that, don’t you, for us to be married?”

  “I do, David,” I said, solemnly looking into his eyes. “Really, I do. I just need to do this one thing first.”

  “Then that’s all I want, Scarlett. For you to be there that day, saying those same words to me.”

  “David, I promise you that on our wedding day I’ll be in London, in my wedding dress, saying the words I do.”

  Twenty-One

  Sean and I stood on the pavement in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe. We’d been in Paris for most of the day, visiting the many Louis Vuitton stores that were scattered across the city. Now we had just emerged from the Metro yet again and we found ourselves this time on the bustling and ultra-chic Champs-Elysées.

  “Right, I think it’s this way,” Sean said, looking up from his map. “We’re looking for 101.” Eagerly he set off along the pavement.

  With slightly less enthusiasm, I followed.

  It had not been a very successful morning so far. To begin with, there had been a decidedly chilly air in the hotel room as I’d packed my things into my suitcase and prepared to meet Sean downstairs after breakfast.

  David hadn’t said too much after the events of the night before. He’d been polite and courteous, as he always was, but he’d been distant too.

  I couldn’t say I blamed him. After what he’d told me last night, I realized he was right—I hadn’t given any thought to how all this must seem to him. If the shoe had been on the other foot, and it was David racing about with another woman in tow, would I have been as gracious to David as he had been to me, and let him continue? I think, not.

  I vowed once this was all over I would somehow make it up to him.

  Not that I wanted it all to be over: that was something else I hadn’t given much thought to—returning home again. Once my time was up, that was it—I would return to Stratford, to Maddie, my father, and to David, and I would probably never see Ursula, Oscar, or, more importantly, Sean ever again.

  I sighed heavily.

  “Hey, buck up,” Sean said. “She has to be at one of them—it’s just a matter of time.”

  “It’s not that. I was just thinking about something David said last night.”

  It was Sean’s turn to sigh now. I knew he hadn’t b
een very impressed by David’s actions.

  “What has he said this time?”

  “He asked me what would happen if we do find my mother and she doesn’t want anything to do with me. After all, if she didn’t want me when I was a baby, why should she want me now?”

  Sean stopped walking, placed his hands firmly on my shoulders, and turned me around to face him.

  “Stop this,” he ordered, looking directly into my eyes. “You were so enthusiastic about all this before last night—there were no doubts in your mind at all about what you were doing. All you wanted was to find your mother. You weren’t worrying about who she was, or what she’d think of you—just that you’d finally get to meet her.”

  “I know but…”

  “But nothing, Scarlett—it’s David who has put all these doubts in your mind. I don’t know what he said to you after I left last night, but it hasn’t done you any good.”

  “David was very understanding about everything, actually.”

  Sean let go of my shoulders and spun away from me, rolling his eyes. “Understanding—yeah right, that’s what it was. Controlling, more like.”

  “Sean, please,” I said, putting my hand on his arm. “Let’s not argue about David. My mind is in enough turmoil thinking my mother could be just around the corner every time we get off the Metro. I can’t deal with this right now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sean said, giving me an apologetic smile. “I won’t mention his name again.” He put his arm through mine and saluted with his other hand. “Right then, Red, it’s full speed ahead. The next handbag shop awaits us!”

  We walked a bit further along the Champs-Elysées and there, as promised, was another Louis Vuitton shop, selling its distinctive luxury leather luggage and bags. Sean pushed open the door and we went inside.

  “Bonjour,” he said to the exquisitely made-up assistant behind the desk. “Parlez-vous anglais?”

  “Oui, monsieur, I most certainly do,” she replied in extremely good English. “How can I help?”

  It was always a relief when the assistant spoke English. It was hard enough explaining to someone in our own language who we were looking for and why. But in the little bit of French Sean and I could cobble together between us, it was virtually impossible. I watched her while Sean spoke; with her short cropped hair and elfin features, she had an aura of Amélie about her, which I felt only boded well.