From Notting Hill with Love Actually

by Ali McNamara

  “Stop it, Scarlett,” I admonished myself. “You’ve got more than a burned dinner to worry about now.”

  I was right for once. What I’d done tonight was unforgivable. I’d put everyone at the dinner party in an awkward position, and I wouldn’t blame any of them if they never wanted to speak to me again—particularly my parents.

  “Oh, poor Mum.” I buried my face in my hands as I recalled the expression on her face as she’d looked around at everyone in the hallway staring at her.

  And Dad. How was I ever going to explain all this to him?

  I rested my head on the back of the bench and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night and I could see the stars twinkling above me. It was just like the evening I’d sat out here with Sean—the only difference was, that night I’d felt excited and optimistic about the days that lay ahead of me. Now I only felt sadness that my time here was so rapidly coming to an end and I seemed to have caused so much pain and achieved so little.

  I sat on the bench for quite a while just thinking, until my feet began to feel like they were encased in ice, and my hands, even though they were shoved in my pockets, would have sat well on the end of Jack Frost’s arms.

  When I’d left the house earlier I’d secretly hoped that someone might come after me. Or that by now I might at least have heard the faraway call of my name floating down the street. But instead I saw no one and heard nothing.

  If this had been a movie, the hero would have known right away where to come looking for me. He’d have found me sitting here all alone on my little bench and come along and comforted me in his big strong arms. While everyone else had no idea where I’d gone, my hero would have known straight away.

  Perhaps everyone was right? Maybe life never did happen the same way it did in the cinema. I thought about all of the movie scenes I’d added to my list so far. Every time I’d tried to orchestrate one of those scenes myself something had gone wrong. I’d been lucky enough to pick up some coincidental ones along the way, but even those weren’t quite the same as the originals. Had I just been imagining the similarities for my own benefit? And now, I’d just made a wonderfully dramatic exit from my house in the dead of the night—in a scene that would have made any director proud—and yet not one person had come looking for me. I’d have thought at least Sean might have guessed where I was and come to my rescue.

  I looked toward the gate hopefully, in case he might be there desperately searching through the railings for me. But sadly he wasn’t. Instead, a bright white light shone through the bars, almost blinding me.

  I held my arm up over my eyes.

  “Are you OK, miss?” I heard a voice call.

  The spotlight was aimed at the ground now, so at least I could see again. I blinked at the railings and saw a young police officer peering through them.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks, officer.”

  “What are you doing sitting all alone there in the dark?” he asked, shining his flashlight around the surrounding area.

  “Nothing really, officer,” I said, racking my brains for a reason to be here.

  The policeman rattled on the gate. “This gate appears to be locked, miss. You do have a key for this park, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, telling the truth. OK, I might not have it on me just now…

  “Would you mind coming over here and showing me?” the officer asked. “Only we get quite a few reports of vandals trying to get in these gardens, so I have to check, you see. It’s all because of that film they made here a few years ago. I don’t know if you know it at all—Notting Hill, it was called.”

  “Er yes, I do know it.” I got up from the bench and made my way slowly across to the railings. I tried to make small talk while I felt around in my pockets, praying I’d find a key. “It’s a good film, have you seen it?”

  “Yeah, several times, my girlfriend loves it. Loves old Hughie boy, more like. We have to go and see every bloody film he’s in.”

  “But you must have enjoyed watching Julia Roberts,” I said, stalling for time.

  “Yeah, she’s OK. Prefer blondes myself. Cameron Diaz—now she’s much more my cup of tea.”

  My hand struck on something hard—hoorah!

  “Here’s my key,” I said, confidently holding up the key to Belinda’s jewelry box. I’d been having a nose about the house on one of my “down” days a while ago, and had bent the tiny key while trying to get it into the lock on the box. I’d put it in my pocket to remind me to get a new one cut while I was out. But then everything had kicked off with my mother, and I’d never got around to it.

  The police officer looked doubtfully at the key. “It looks a bit small, miss.”

  “No, this is the key. How else would I have got in here otherwise?”

  “Perhaps you’d like to open the gate for me then, miss. Then I can leave you be and carry on my way.”

  “Er…right then.” Hopefully I tried the tiny key in the lock, praying that it might just “pick” the mechanism and open it. Well, stranger things had happened.

  But unfortunately they weren’t going to happen to me tonight.

  “Ah, it appears to be stuck,” I said, rattling the key about in the oversized lock.

  The police officer raised his eyebrows at me. “I think both of us know that key has never opened up this gate, don’t we, miss?”

  I looked down at the ground and made patterns in the dust with my toe.

  “I’ll ask you my earlier question again, miss. Just what are you doing in that garden?”

  “I do have a key, honestly, Officer. It’s just I came out in a rush—and forgot it.”

  “In that case, Miss, just how did you get into the garden tonight?”

  “I climbed over the top,” I mumbled.

  “I beg your pardon, miss?”

  “I said I climbed over the railings.”

  “I think you’d better wait right there, miss.” The officer bent down to his lapel and spoke into his radio. “Bravo One to Charlie Four—I require some assistance at the gardens just off Rosmead.”

  “Roger, Bravo One, right with you,” came back the crackly reply.

  “Look, I’m not a hooligan or anything like that,” I protested, imagining myself being handcuffed and carted away in the back of a police van. “I really do have a key—I live in Lansdowne Road.”

  “Could I see some ID then, please, miss?”

  “Yes, of cour—” I reached for my missing bag. “No, I don’t actually have any on me right now.”

  “I thought not. If you could just wait there, please, miss.”

  I leaned my head against the railings. Could tonight get any worse?

  Charlie Four quickly showed up. He was a fair bit older than Bravo One, and although he didn’t quite say, ’ello, ’ello, ’ello, what ’ave we ’ere then?” he might as well have, as he inspected me standing miserably behind the bars. Oh my God, it was like being in prison already!

  “What’s all this then, Constable?” he asked Bravo One.

  “Well, Sarge, this lady claims she has a key for this park, but she admits to entering it earlier by climbing over the top of the railings.”

  “I see. Is this right, miss?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “One moment, Miss,” he said, holding up his hand. “Your turn will come. What else, Constable?”

  “She also claims to live in Lansdowne Road but doesn’t have any ID on her to prove it.”

  “I see. Anything else, Constable?”

  “No, Sarge. That is the situation as it appears to me.”

  “’Right, miss. Do you wish to add anything to the constable’s statement?”

  Didn’t I need a lawyer present before making a statement to the police?

  “I guess that’s kind of what happened. But you don’t understand. The reason I don’t have a key or any ID is because I had an argument tonight at home, and I had to come out in a hurry. I’m not a criminal.”

  “Is that everything, miss?�
�� the sergeant asked, eyeing me up and down through the railings.

  I nodded my head sadly. Wasn’t it enough?

  “Right then, you leave us no alternative. Constable, go to work.”

  Bravo One looked blankly at his sergeant.

  “The equipment, Constable?” Charlie Four demanded. “You do have it?”

  Bravo One’s cheeks flushed and then he shrugged and shook his head.

  Charlie Four rolled his eyes and sighed. “Then I shall have to improvise.” He reached for his handcuffs.

  Oh no, were they going to cuff me to the gates until backup was called?

  But instead of removing the handcuffs from his belt, he lifted them up and groped about in his pocket. “Nope, I don’t seem to have anything suitable,” he announced. “Constable, empty your pockets, please.”

  “Sarge?”

  “Your pockets—empty them. I’m looking for something to pick the lock with.”

  The constable slowly emptied his pockets. One by one a tissue, a piece of string, a stick of gum, and a condom were placed into the sergeant’s outstretched palm.

  The sergeant raised his eyebrows at the condom.

  “I was a Boy Scout,” the constable explained. “Be prepared?”

  “Indeed, Constable, we’ll discuss that fact later. But none of this is any good for getting the lock undone, now, is it?” He looked at me through the bars again. “I don’t suppose you have a hairpin on you, do you, miss?”

  “Er, no,” I said, absentmindedly feeling about in my hair. I had worn it down tonight, so there were no accessories of any kind hidden in there.

  “Then I shall have to ask you to remove your hat, Constable,” the sergeant instructed.

  “But why, Sarge?”

  “Come along now, Constable. I think you know why? Let’s not mess about in front of the lady.”

  The constable slowly removed his hat and the sergeant swiftly plucked a hairpin from his head.

  “There now, that’s better,” he said, inserting the pin into the lock.

  “It was my girlfriend’s idea,” the constable quickly explained to me while the sergeant expertly picked at the lock. “I have an unusually small head for a man, and they didn’t do a hat small enough to fit me properly. The pins help me keep it up above my eyes, see.”

  I nodded, thinking how bizarre this was—one policeman picking a lock in front of me while the other explained the benefits of hair accessories.

  “There. All done,” Charlie Four announced at last, swinging open the gate. “Now, if you’d like to come this way, miss.”

  “Are you taking me down the station?” I asked worriedly.

  “You’ve been watching too many episodes of The Bill, miss,” he said, holding out his arm in an “after you” gesture. “We’re just going to walk you safely home, that’s all.”

  “But I thought—”

  “Notting Hill, right?” the sergeant asked, giving me the onceover again now I wasn’t “behind bars.”

  I nodded. “How did you guess?”

  “You look the type. All full of romance and nostalgia. We’ve seen it a hundred times since that film came out. They’re not usually on their own though, like you—are they, Constable? We usually find them in pairs.”

  The constable nodded.

  “Well, I…” My voice trailed off. It was much too long a story to explain why I was there on my own.

  “Never mind, miss. We don’t need to know why. Let’s get you home.”

  Charlie Four and Bravo One escorted me back to the house.

  They may not have been arresting me, but I felt like a criminal being walked home by two policemen. Thank goodness it would probably only be Dad and David there when I got home; everyone else would be long gone by now.

  There was still a light on in the hall as I approached the house. I climbed the steps while the sergeant and his constable watched me from the pavement below. I held my hand up to knock gingerly on the door, but it swung open before I had the chance to.

  “Scarlett!” Sean exclaimed. He hurriedly crept out on to the step next to me and pulled the door to behind him. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked, lowering his voice. “We’ve all been worried sick.” He looked down at the two policemen standing on the pavement. “Are you all right? Has something happened?”

  “I’m assuming you know this lady then, sir?” Charlie Four called to Sean. “And you can confirm she does actually live here?”

  “Yes, yes she does, why?”

  “That’s all we need to know, sir. We’ll leave her with you now, if we may? But perhaps you can do one thing for us in the future?”

  “Yes?” Sean asked, looking mystified.

  “Next time she goes out, sir, just make sure she takes a key with her, OK?”

  As the two policemen ambled away together down the road, Sean held his finger to his lips and pulled me silently inside the house. Then he gently closed the door behind us. “What’s he talking about, Scarlett?” he whispered. “What’s been going on?”

  “It’s a long story, Sean.” I looked around the house. It seemed very quiet. “Has everyone gone home?” I asked, keeping my own voice low. “Why are you still here?”

  “Oscar and Ursula have left, yes. But I didn’t want to go home until I knew you were back safely. Your father is in the lounge. But David and I have been trying to keep him calm.”

  “Thanks,” I said gratefully. “You didn’t have to stay.”

  “I wanted to.” Sean smiled. “You don’t need to worry about your mother either. Ursula and Oscar found her in a café down the road. And she’s fine.”

  “How did they…oh, it must have been Kelly’s they went to. And she’s really OK?” I asked him. “You’re not just saying that? What did they say?”

  “She’s fine, Scarlett. A bit shaken up, but once you’ve spoken to her and explained I’m sure all will be well again.”

  How did Sean always know how to make everything right?

  “You look frozen, Scarlett,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you go upstairs and put something a little warmer on? I’ll make you a cup of tea and then you can deal with your father. Five more minutes won’t hurt, will it?”

  I nodded at him gratefully. “You’re too good to me, Sean, do you know that?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling, “I do.”

  I began to climb the stairs and then I turned back. “Wait, you said before you and David had been working together to keep Dad calm? How did that happen?”

  Sean shrugged. “I guess we both had something in common for once.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We both love you, Scarlett,” he said, looking up at me for a moment before he disappeared into the kitchen. I heard my father’s voice from the lounge, and David replying, so I quickly ran up the stairs to my bedroom, dissecting Sean’s last comment as I went.

  What did he mean—love? Did he mean love as in “care about”? Or love as in “fall in love”?

  I rubbed at my forehead. Now was not the time to be throwing even more complex questions into my pounding brain. I knew there were going to be plenty of those later.

  Thirty-Five

  When I’d got changed and tidied up I ventured downstairs again. I stood in the hall, taking deep breaths to calm myself. David emerged from the bathroom while I was standing there. He jumped when he saw me. “So you decided to come back?”

  “Yes, and I’m really sorry for storming out the way I did earlier…So, how’s Dad?”

  “He’s a bit shaken after seeing your mother, which is understandable. But I’ve been keeping him calm with the inside of your friends’ liquor cabinet—so you may have to replace a few items before they return home.”

  “Sure, I will. Thanks, David…for everything. I know it can’t have been easy for you being here tonight with Sean.”

  “Hmm, that…I think we have a lot to talk about, Scarlett—and soon. But right now you have a more important issue to deal wit
h waiting for you in the lounge.”

  I hugged David. “What was that for?” he asked, holding me in his arms and looking at me with a puzzled expression.

  “For putting up with me and understanding. You’re too good to me, David, do you know that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I do.”

  I froze, realizing that I’d just said the same thing to Sean a few minutes ago.

  “But that’s all right,” David continued. “Because I love you—and I know once this is all over everything’s going to return to normal again. These hitches are only temporary ones.”

  I was about to ask him what he meant by temporary hitches, when Sean appeared from the kitchen carrying two mugs.

  Quickly I wriggled from David’s embrace.

  “Scarlett,” Sean said, not looking me in the eye. “I’ve told your dad you’re back, and he’d like a word when you’re ready.`

  “Ah, right,” I said, looking with trepidation toward the lounge door.

  “You’d best take these,” he said, passing me the mugs, one of which was my tea and the other a mug of black coffee. “He might be needing it.”

  I took the mugs from Sean as David dived for the lounge door to open it for me.

  “Good luck, sweetheart,” he said as I passed him.

  When did David ever call me that?

  “Thanks,” I said as I saw Dad sitting on the sofa flicking through the channels on the TV. I glanced back at Sean standing in the hall.

  “Go for it, Red,” he mouthed silently as David closed the door behind me.

  My father looked up as I entered the room.

  “I brought you some coffee,” I said, holding the mug out as a peace offering.

  Dad looked at the coffee mug and then he looked at me. And for one awful moment as we stood staring at each other I thought he wasn’t going to take it.

  “Thanks,” he said, eventually reaching out and taking the mug. With his other hand he switched the TV off with the remote control.

  I sat down next to him on the sofa, strangely in the exact place I’d sat with Mum only a few days previously.