From Notting Hill with Love Actually

by Ali McNamara

  I didn’t know whether I was crying because I wasn’t going to see Sean anymore, because Sean had made me face up to a few home truths about my life, or just because I was a complete sucker for a soppy scene in a movie.

  The only thing I knew was that every time I watched one of those big romantic finales, I was more certain than I’d ever been that I never would experience one for myself. And that thought made me cry all the more.

  ***

  The next morning I waited in front of the big bay window that looked out on to Lansdowne Road. I hoped I’d see Sean heading off to work, so then I could just “happen” to be going out at the same time as him and we would “accidentally” bump into each other again.

  But he must have left pretty early that morning, because at 11 a.m. there was still no sign of him.

  I sighed as I sat in the window. I didn’t like this feeling—up until now everything had been fun and new since I’d arrived in Notting Hill. I’d always had somewhere to go and someone to go with. But now I had no one. I felt very, very alone.

  This routine continued for the next couple of days. I’d rise early and wait fully dressed and made up for Sean to leave his house—but every day I seemed to miss him. I’d then watch movies or, if I was desperate, the occasional bit of daytime TV for the rest of the day, until I thought it might be time for him to return in the evening. I would then begin the same vigil by the window, just watching and waiting. During this time I played Belinda and Harry’s copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary over and over again. Not always the whole movie, quite often just the part where Bridget mimes to “All by Myself,” as it seemed particularly appropriate.

  I had to pop out occasionally for food and supplies, and it must have been on these brief occasions that I missed Sean returning to his house.

  I didn’t know why I was going through this ridiculous charade every day—after all it was me that had cooled it between us in Paris, not him. But I couldn’t bear the thought of us not being friends, not after everything we’d been through together recently. I just needed to see him again and hear his voice reassuring me everything was all right between us.

  But after nearly three days of waiting, I still hadn’t seen him.

  I knew I should really try to start going out a bit more, there was no point in spending my remaining time in London shut up in the house. But I just couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm if Sean wasn’t there alongside me.

  But this afternoon I had no choice about whether I left the house or not. I was forced into going out for longer today, because I had an appointment I had to keep—for a fitting for my wedding dress.

  I was just about to input Buster’s code into his box on the wall when the doorbell rang.

  I looked though the peephole and saw Oscar and Ursula standing on my doorstep, chatting and laughing together.

  “Scarlett!” Oscar said, hugging me as I opened the door to them. “Where have you been hiding yourself? We haven’t seen you for days.” He popped Delilah down on the floor. “Away you go and be a good girl for Daddy.”

  Delilah, wearing a pale lilac knitted dog coat, trotted off into the lounge.

  “Sean said you got back on Monday,” Ursula said, appearing next to Oscar. “What have you been up to since then?”

  “You’ve spoken to Sean?” I asked.

  “Yes, he phoned from New York the other day—he’s buying some business or other over there at the moment. I think from the sounds of it, it’s turned out more complicated than he first thought it would be. Anyway, he asked how you were and if we’d seen you at all. When I said no, he asked if we’d come and check on you.”

  “I feel awful now for not doing so before, darling,” Oscar said. “But we thought you must have been out and about finding your movies and hadn’t had time to call in on us for a bit of gossip.”

  “I’ve just been under the weather since Paris,” I said. It was partly true—I had been feeling pretty rough.

  “But you look lovely today, darling. Are you off out somewhere? You’re all dressed up.”

  “Er, yes I am, actually.”

  “Ooh, somewhere nice?”

  “I’m going for a fitting for my wedding dress.”

  “Oh, how lovely,” Ursula said. “Somewhere local?”

  “Not too far away from here. It’s at a shop that my friend Maddie’s sister owns.”

  “Is Maddie meeting you there?” Oscar asked, looking around him.

  “Er, no. She’s still on her own honeymoon unfortunately.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame,” Ursula said. “She’s going to be your bridesmaid like you were for her, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” I could see where this was heading. I looked at my watch. “I’m sorry, but I’m really going to have to go in a minute.”

  “So who’s going with you?” Oscar blurted out. “To give an opinion on your dress, I mean?”

  I looked between the two of them. How sad was I going to sound now? I had thought originally I might ask Sean along to this. It would have been a good excuse to re-create another movie moment—there were so many films where the bride went for a fitting for her wedding dress, but I was specifically thinking of Four Weddings and a Funeral. All I had to do was to get Sean to say something about a meringue and I was home and dry. But after everything that had happened between us, it wouldn’t have seemed appropriate, even if I had seen him to ask.

  “It’s just going to be me and my wedding planner at the fitting,” I said, trying to sound positive at the thought of an afternoon spent with Cruella.

  Oscar and Ursula looked at each other. Then they turned and looked at me.

  “Mind if we tag along, darling?” Oscar asked. “I’m a sucker for a shop full of bridal gowns.”

  I smiled gratefully at them. “Are you sure you want to come?”

  They stood either side of me and slipped their arms through mine.

  “It would be our pleasure, Scarlett,” Ursula said. “There’s nothing like a bit of romance and some pretty dresses to brighten up a Thursday afternoon.”

  ***

  I stood in front of the three of them now.

  Oscar in his emerald-green geometric-print shirt and purple designer jeans and Ursula in her sixties-style white minidress, black tights, and black pumps sat on a velvet half-moon settee in the center of the changing room.

  They were a stark contrast to Cruella (or Priscilla, as her business cards told us she was really called) who was wearing a gray jacket and skirt suit, and white high-necked blouse. Her silver hair was tied up tightly at the back of her head in a very efficient looking bun.

  She stood away from them at the side of the room making notes in her folder. Or my wedding “objective,” as I was supposed to call it.

  “What do you think?” I asked, spinning around in front of them. “Is it too much?”

  I’d always thought when it finally came to the time for me to choose my own wedding dress the task would be easy. I’d go for something slim and sleek, simple and not too fussy. But when I’d got into the shop for the first time a few months ago and seen all the dresses and the books of samples, my common sense had gone right out of the window.

  It was my day, after all, and this was the only thing I was having my say on. Why shouldn’t I choose something a bit more…memorable?

  “It’s…big,” Oscar said, tilting his head to one side.

  “Is it?” I asked, hurrying over to one of the many mirrors lining the walls and turning to and fro in front of it. “Where, around the bodice?”

  “No, I mean the skirt is big. I just imagined you in something a little more…fitted.”

  “So did I originally,” I said, coming back over to them. “But when I saw this I knew I had to have it. It just makes such a statement.”

  “It sure does that,” Oscar said, pursing his lips.

  Ursula nudged him.

  “I think it looks lovely, Scarlett. It’s so romantic to have a dress like that these days.” She stood
up and came over to me. “It’s like the sort of wedding dress you imagine you’re going to have as a little girl.” She looked wistful. “Big tulle net skirts, a beautiful bodice encrusted with pearls, maybe even a long train carried by six pretty bridesmaids…”

  I could tell Ursula had thought a lot about this.

  “I’ve got the white tulle skirts, Ursula,” I said, swishing them about a little. “And the bodice is embroidered—with tiny white beads though, not pearls. But I’m afraid I have to draw the line at the six bridesmaids and the long train. I’m just having Maddie.”

  Ursula shook her head. “I’m sorry, I got a little carried away there for a moment. Sean always said I was too romantic for my own good.”

  “What do you think?” Oscar asked, looking over his shoulder at Cruella.

  She slowly lifted her head from her notes and her electronic organizer.

  “It’s quite suitable,” she said, looking at me over the top of her rimless spectacles.

  “Glad you approve!” Oscar turned back to us, sticking out his tongue and pretending to slit his throat with his finger.

  “She doesn’t have a choice,” I whispered, as we all leaned in toward each other in a conspiratorial huddle. “This is the only thing I’m allowed; she can’t quibble about. It was part of the deal in me allowing David’s parents to hire her.”

  “However,” we heard her say, “I do have an issue with your choice of bridesmaid’s gown. Perhaps we could take a look at it when you’ve finished here. It’s hanging in the next room.”

  I rolled my eyes. We all stood up straight again from our huddle.

  “Maybe I can help?” Oscar said, winking at me. He leaped up and bounded over to Cruella. “I run my own very successful fashion chain based in Kensington. I have more experience in gown dilemmas than you’ve had…” He paused as he looked at Cruella’s bony frame. “Than you’ve had carb-free meals, darling!”

  I watched as he guided Cruella in the direction of the exit.

  Ursula smiled. “It really is a princess of a dress, Scarlett,” she said, gently stroking some of the fabric. “You’ll have a happy ending when you wear this dress, that’s for sure.”

  I looked at myself in the mirror again.

  “You said before that Sean said you were too romantic, Ursula. Isn’t he ever, then?”

  Ursula turned and faced the mirror too.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just when I was at his house once I saw all these books on his shelf.”

  “Sean’s always been a big reader.”

  “Yes, I know, but among them were authors such as Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte; there was even a book called Love Letters of Great Men. Those aren’t the sort of books read by someone who’s unromantic, are they?”

  “Oh, that’s where it went,” Ursula said, rolling her eyes. “That book is mine. I bought it because it was in the Sex and the City movie—but of course you probably knew that.”

  I nodded.

  “I must have left it at Sean’s when I was waiting in for a delivery for him once. I wondered where it had gone.” She laughed. “I can’t imagine Sean reading that, can you? It’s not really his scene.”

  I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face.

  So that explained it. Sean wasn’t romantic at all, and he never would be.

  Ursula must have sensed something. “It’s not entirely Sean’s fault he’s the way he is,” she said, turning toward me. She glanced toward the door where Oscar and Cruella had just exited, and she lowered her voice. “A few years ago there were some…problems between Sean and Oscar’s sister, Jennifer.”

  “Yes, I know, Sean told me.”

  “He did?” Ursula said, sounding surprised.

  “Yes, when we were in Glasgow. Oh, and he mentioned it when we were in Paris too.”

  “I see.” Ursula looked thoughtful. “Anyway. That experience knocked Sean pretty badly at the time. He’s never been quite the same since.”

  I was about to ask how when Oscar and Cruella returned.

  I stared at Cruella. She looked different.

  What was it about her, had she changed her clothes?

  No, she was actually smiling for once.

  “All sorted,” Oscar sang as he twirled around in the center of the room. “Just ask Uncle Oscar to wave his magical wand and all shall come good!”

  I wondered if Oscar might like to wave that wand over some other areas of my life that were needing a sprinkle of magic right now.

  ***

  When the wedding dress fitting was over Oscar and Ursula suggested we go on somewhere else.

  “That’s why we originally dropped by earlier, to invite you out for the evening, isn’t it, Ursula?” Oscar said as he skipped down the street carrying Delilah (did she ever walk? I wondered), admiring his reflection in the shop windows he passed.

  Ursula nodded. “We thought we’d take a trip to the cinema tonight—you’d be up for that, Scarlett, wouldn’t you?”

  It was a rare occasion I wasn’t, and they knew it. “There is a new Hugh Grant movie out I haven’t seen yet.”

  “Oh, I love Hugh,” Ursula cried. “What do you say, Oscar? Do you fancy a bit of Hugh Grant tonight?”

  “Darling,” Oscar said with a flourish. “I fancy a bit of Hugh every night.”

  The Coronet in Notting Hill Gate had to be the most wonderful cinema I’d ever been in. The opulent red plush interiors edged with gilt took me back to the height of Hollywood glamour.

  “Ah, I do love it here,” Oscar sighed, as we relaxed in our velvet-covered seats. “It’s so glam.”

  The Coronet cinema, I discovered once we were inside, was originally a nineteenth-century theater, converted in modern times to a picture house. So, unusually, when we bought our tickets we had the choice of whether to sit in the stalls or the upper circle to watch the film.

  We plumped for the upper circle, and now, while we sat there waiting for the adverts and trailers to begin, I felt as if I was going to watch a theater production rather than a movie.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” I said. “So different from our local multiplex back home.”

  “I should have searched out some diving goggles to wear when I dropped Delilah back at the house and then you’d have felt even more at home,” Oscar said, holding his fingers over his eyes in two circles.

  “Diving goggles? I don’t get…wait, is this the cinema from Notting Hill?”

  Ursula nodded. “Yep, I thought you’d have recognized it straight away!”

  “I thought it looked familiar,” I said, taking a good look around me. “Well, we may not have any diving goggles to re-create that scene, but Hugh Grant is going to be joining us in a few minutes, so I guess that will have to do!”

  The lights in the auditorium dimmed, and the curtains were pulled back to reveal the huge cinema screen. Immediately I was plunged back into my comfort zone again. A zone where someone else’s life was all I had to concern myself with for the next two hours, and my own, ever more complicated one, could temporarily be forgotten.

  It was a good movie, as nearly all Hugh’s were. The only thing that could have made it better was if Sean had been sitting there next to me rather than Oscar.

  You have to stop this, Scarlett, I told myself as the final credits rolled up the screen. You’ve made your choice, now you have to live with it.

  “Shall we go for something to eat?” Ursula asked as we left the cinema. “There’s a lovely Indian restaurant just up the road from here. Oscar and I often go there when we’ve been to see a movie.”

  “Yes, why not?” I said, thinking of the empty house waiting for me. “That would be great. Hold on, let me just check how much money I’ve got left, I may have to stop at an ATM along the way.” I felt for where my bag would usually hang but instead felt only my hip. “My bag! Oh, I must have left it in the cinema—just wait here a minute. I’ll be right back.”

  I hurried back to where we’d been seate
d a few minutes ago—but there was no bag waiting for me when I got there.

  I felt under the seat, then looked all around where we’d been sitting in case it had been kicked along the floor when everybody had been leaving, but there was still no sign of it.

  “Excuse me?” I heard a voice calling from down below. I looked over the top of the balcony, and saw one of the usherettes holding up a bag—my bag. “Is this yours?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I called out. “Yes it is! One minute, I’ll be right down.”

  I rushed to the exit and then down the stairs.

  “Thank you,” I called, as I hurried toward the woman. “I thought I’d lost it.”

  “You’re lucky,” she said. “It’s a good bag too. Gucci, right?”

  “It’s a fake, actually,” I admitted. As I approached her, I realized she was older than I’d thought.

  “I did know, I can tell.”

  “Can you really? How?” I’d thought it had been a pretty good copy when I’d bought it off eBay a couple of months ago.

  “It’s all in the logo,” she said, pointing at the clasp on the front. She looked up at me as I arrived in front of her. “You see just here, it’s…” Her voice trailed off.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s the difference?”

  But she continued to stare at me. It was unnerving; she didn’t speak—she just stared. I knew I shouldn’t have bought a fake handbag off eBay. Knowing my luck she’d turn out to be some sort of part-time counterfeits officer, on the lookout for fake designer goods.

  Her eyes dropped away from mine, and she swallowed. “Here—just take your bag,” she said in a low voice. A strand of black hair fell across her face.

  I reached out and took my bag. As I did so my hand brushed against hers. What felt like a bolt of lightning shot up through my arm—and spread right through me like an enormous wave of emotion.

  I looked closely at her again and in the dim light noticed that her eyes were an intense shade of green, just like mine. She stared helplessly back at me.