From Notting Hill with Love...Actually (3 page)

***

As I climbed out of the taxi at the front doors of the cinema I rummaged for my purse to pay the fare.

“I sometimes think this thing must have belonged to Mary Poppins once,” I joked with the taxi driver as I groped about in the depths of my bag.

“Bit dressed up for the cinema, aren’t you?” he quipped, determinedly ignoring my joke. I looked down at what I was wearing. My theater attire, although not quite the Stella McCartney gown I’d fantasized about earlier, was a very nice black and white shift dress from Zara.

“I’m not going to see a film actually,” I informed him, as at last I found my purse and thrust a £10 note through the window of the taxi. “I’m here to fix their popcorn machine.” And without waiting for a response, I rushed purposefully into the cinema like a paramedic on her way to tend an emergency.

“Scarlett, thank the Lord you’re here,” George panted as we rushed across the foyer together. “It just packed up again—there was a sort of sizzling noise and then nothing. The Movie Club’s holding their AGM tonight—they simply
must
have popcorn!”

“Don’t panic, George,” I said calmly. “I’m sure I’ll be able to sort it out.” I knelt down behind the machine and began to examine the familiar inner workings with the toolkit George had prepared for me.

I loved George. He looked just like Jack Black, only a quieter and much more reserved version of the Hollywood actor. He was a brilliant cinema manager, always keeping me up to date on what new movies were coming out, and he always knew just which ones I’d enjoy watching. He was more like a friend than a business contact, so I hadn’t minded at all rushing over to the cinema to help him out that evening.

“Is she going to be all right?” he asked after a couple of minutes, peering worriedly over my shoulder.

“
She
, George?” I asked without turning my attention away from the machine.
If I just tighten up that nut, then we should be in business again.

“Er, yes. She’s been with me for a while, has Poppy.”

I bit hard on my lip. “Poppy? You’ve given the machine a name, George?”

“Scarlett, you know how important this cinema is to me. We’re like one big happy family here, including all my machines.”

“Yep, one big happy family, that’s what we are!”

I looked up and saw Marcus, one of the cinema attendants, dispensing Fanta into a plastic cup next to me. He winked. “Isn’t that right, Naomi?”

Naomi passed a packet of Maltesers across the counter to a customer. “Hmm?” she asked distractedly as she opened the till to get change. “What’s that, Marcus?”

“George reckons we’re just one big ol’ happy family here at the cinema.”

Naomi rolled her eyes and carried on serving her customers and I felt sorry for George. He obviously loved this cinema in a way that no one else understood. Probably in the way that I loved movies in a way that no one else seemed to understand either.

“There you go, George, all sorted,” I said, closing up the back of the machine. I brushed some stray pieces of popcorn off my dress as I stood up behind the counter. “Best keep an eye on it though—it…I mean she could still be a bit temperamental. Erm, George…” I thought I’d better tread carefully, so I lowered my voice. “It’s possible we may have to replace Poppy soon. She is getting quite old, you know, and we do have some lovely newer models.”

George looked horrified. “Newer models—but what’s wrong with Poppy? She’s done me well up until now, why would I want to trade her in for a new model?”

“Let’s just see how she goes, eh, George?” I said gently. “I’ve patched her up for now, but how much longer she’ll run for…”

“Sure, Scarlett,” George said, and he patted Poppy lovingly as white fluffy popcorn began dancing about inside her glass cabinet again. “I understand.” He turned to me. “I’ll give you a call if there’s any change in her condition. I guess I’ll be seeing you pretty soon, though—the new Hugh Grant movie’s out next week.”

I nodded eagerly. “You know me too well, George. I’ll be in to see it one evening or even one afternoon if I can get away from work for a couple of hours.”

George winked at me. He knew that “occasionally” I would sneak away from work to catch a movie. There had to be some benefits to doing the job I did, and having to visit cinemas to mend their popcorn machines was one of the few times I got to set foot outside the office.

I bade farewell to George and shivered as I stepped out into the cold January evening once more. The warmth and comfort I always felt at being inside a cinema was at once replaced by the cold reality of life. I pulled my long coat around my shoulders and looked quickly at my watch. If I got a move on I might just make it to the restaurant in time for the first course. I was about to hail a taxi when my mobile phone rang again. I grabbed it from my bag, expecting it to be David checking up on me—but it was Maddie.

***

“No, don’t take the call,” Oscar squealed. “You’ll be late if you do!”

I laughed. “Something tells me you’re getting quite into this, Oscar.”

“Ooh, I like a good soap, me, and this has all the makings of a classic episode. So did you take the call?”

“Yes, I had to. It was my best friend and I hadn’t heard from her in ages.”

“Why? Oh sorry, I’m being nosy again.”

“Since I’m sitting here telling you virtually everything that’s happened in my life over the last week or so, I don’t think that’s classed as being nosy. Maddie’s getting married soon, so she’s been really busy lately…”

“Maddie, I haven’t heard from you in ages.”

“Scarlett, I know—I’m so sorry about that. It’s just with my wedding so close now life’s just been manic.”

“It’s fine. I quite understand.”

“Do you? I would have thought you having a wedding planner to organize your big day took all the stresses away. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

I thought about the wedding planner that David’s parents had insisted we hire to help us plan for our big day. Or Cruella, as I’d renamed her. I could feel stress beginning to seep into my body at the thought.

It wouldn’t have been quite so bad if my wedding planner had been at all like Jennifer Lopez from the film of the same name, as I’d envisaged. Or even Martin Short in
Father
of
the
Bride
, just for the comedy value. But no, my wedding planner was more like Meryl Streep in
The
Devil
Wears
Prada
crossed with Glenn Close playing Cruella De Vil in
101 Dalmatians
.

“So,” I said, quickly changing the subject away from my own wedding which was never something I chose to dwell on for too long, “when
are
we going to see each other? When have you got a window for me in your busy schedule?”

Maddie laughed. “Don’t be daft, Scarlett, you know I always have time for you. How about this weekend?”

“I could do tomorrow,” I said, thinking it would get me out of David’s planned trip to a DIY warehouse he’d found on the Internet that did discount prices in tiles. What were we supposed to be looking at this time? Was it floor tiles for the kitchen, or wall tiles for the bathroom? I could never remember.

“What would you like to do, Maddie?”

“I don’t know, Scarlett, why don’t you decide—wait, as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with the movies.”

“As if!” I said, trying to sound affronted. “I
do
have other interests.”

Maddie laughed. “Scarlett O’Brien, I could count on one hand the times we’ve got together and
you’ve
chosen what we’re doing and it’s not been movie-related. If I have to sit through
Thelma
& Louise
one more time, I swear I’ll scream or, worse, stop fancying Brad Pitt—and
that
would be a real tragedy.”

I was smiling at my end of the phone, but I felt I had to defend my girls. “But wouldn’t you just like to take off like them sometimes, Maddie? Get away from it all and have an adventure, find out what might
really
be waiting for you out there in the world?”

Maddie sighed; we’d had similar conversations many a time. “No, Scarlett, I wouldn’t. Been there, done that, I’m afraid. I’m quite happy with what life’s dealt me now, you know that. And can I remind you while we’re at it just how that film ends?”

There was no point in arguing with her. Maddie was a super-organized, practical person, who’d made just about everything in her life happen for herself. She didn’t believe in fate, destiny, or any of my “airy-fairy” nonsense as she put it, even though she’d met her own fiancé, Felix, in the strangest of places. And you don’t get much stranger than on top of one of the parade floats at Disneyland Paris.

“OK, OK, you win. I know there’s no point in arguing with you. Plus,” I said, looking at my watch again, “if I don’t get to a restaurant soon, I might not have a wedding of my own to organize…” My voice trailed off as I wondered for a moment if that might not be such a bad thing.

“What on earth do you mean, Scarlett?” Maddie asked. “Where are you now? Wait, let me guess—at the cinema, right, just for a change?”

“
Yes
, I am standing outside a cinema, but only because I was here fixing a popcorn machine. I got called out on an emergency.”

Maddie snorted with laughter. “Only you could call fixing a popcorn machine an emergency!”

“It was for the manager—his cinema is very important to him.” I could feel myself starting to get irritated by yet another person’s apparent lack of regard for what I, and now also George, it seemed, considered important in life. But I didn’t want to start an argument with Maddie—I didn’t have time.

“Look, Maddie, I really do have to go. David is waiting for me at a restaurant. What are we going to do this weekend? You pick something if you don’t think I can.”

There was silence at the end of the line for a moment and I just knew that one of Maddie’s more wacky ideas was about to be revealed. Well, it would seem wacky and off-the-wall to me, but completely sane and normal to Maddie.

“How do you fancy an art gallery?” came back her casual reply.

“An art gallery?” I answered cautiously. Our hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon was famous for many things but art wasn’t usually one of them.

“Yes, there’s a touring exhibition I’d quite like to go and see. It’s only here for a week.”

“A touring exhibition of…?”

“Russian Jewish painters.”

There it was—the sting in the tail. “The Madness of Maddie,” as I liked to call it, escaping once more. I’m sure there were plenty of fine works of art by both Jewish and Russian artists, but I couldn’t think of any off the top of my head. Why couldn’t it have been a Monet exhibition or even the guy that cut off his ear? At least I knew some of his paintings—but I had to admit that was only really because I’d once watched an old movie about him that starred Kirk Douglas.

But it had been so long since I’d seen her properly that I decided even a day looking at obscure paintings would be worth enduring.

“Right then, you’re on; the art gallery it is. I’m supposed to be going DIY shopping with David tomorrow but it should be OK—especially since there’s no films involved either.”

Maddie laughed. “Yes, Scarlett. Even
you
can’t find anything to do with movies at an exhibition of Russian Jewish art.”

***

“And did you find anything?” Oscar asked, bringing me back to the present day again. “And what about the meal, Scarlett? You still haven’t told me whether you made it on time.”

I couldn’t believe someone was finding my mundane life so interesting. “All in good time, Oscar,” I smiled. “I’m just coming to that.”

I dashed into the restaurant just as the first course was being served.

Hastily I apologized to our Japanese guests and slipped into my seat while David frowned at me from across the table. As I took a good swig of the wine which the waiter had very efficiently poured into my glass the moment I sat down, I noticed that David was doing something strange with his hand. It was almost as if he’d got some sort of nervous affliction. He kept brushing his hand across the side of his head in very small, swift movements—almost as if he didn’t want anyone else to see.

I looked at him oddly—
what
the
hell
was
he
doing?
It was a most effeminate gesture, like he was trying to smooth his hair down. But David’s very short hair was, as always, immaculately presented, so I couldn’t understand what he was up to at all.

I turned my head to one side as I tried to figure it out. But David just continued to get redder and redder, and his eyes wider and wider as he stared across the table at me. Now he was actually flicking his head to one side—back across his shoulder.

He looked like a very camp advertisement for hair conditioner.

“Escuss, Miss,” the Japanese man sitting next to me said as I turned toward him. “I think Mr. David is trying to tell you this.” He reached into my hair and pulled out a very large piece of fluffy white popcorn.

“Oh…oh right. Er, thank you,” I said, nodding at the Japanese gentleman.

“My pleasure,” he said, giving a small bow in return.

I turned to look back at David who’d stopped doing his Black Beauty impression, but now was doing animal impersonations of a different kind as he growled silently across the table.

I sighed and took another large gulp of my wine.

Perhaps
tonight
just
wasn’t meant to go well
…

After the popcorn incident, the gentlemen from Japan were very pleasant and polite to me in the little bit of conversation we had together through the rest of the evening, but they were there primarily to talk business with David, and talk business is what they did
all
through dinner.

The topic of their conversation was, strangely enough, my favorite subject, but it was the business side of the cinema they were discussing not the fun part, and they weren’t really interested in a little company that supplied popcorn makers to local cinemas.

I tried to sit there being the dutiful hostess for David’s sake—looking pretty and smiling in all the right places—really I did. But I soon got bored and I began to look around for something to amuse myself as I sat there. None of the waiters looked like movie stars; neither did any of the other diners. I’d tried to accept my Oscar earlier in the evening and that had got me into trouble. Plus, I felt Johnny Depp should probably wait for another night when we were less likely to be disturbed.

And unfortunately for me, there were not even any snails on the menu, so I couldn’t have any fun shooting them across the room and calling out “slippery little suckers” as a passing waiter expertly caught them in his outstretched hand à la Julia Roberts in
Pretty
Woman
.

Eventually it was all over, and we bade farewell to our guests. As David and I saw them into taxis bound for their hotel, the last of the Japanese men, the one who had pulled the popcorn from my hair, paused next to me.

“I thank you, Miss Scarlett, for vey pleasant evening,” he said. “But I think you would be enjoying the
Romeo
and
Juliet
story more than the
King
Lear
—yes?”

I smiled at him. “Yes, Mr. Yashimoto, I think I probably would like that one better.”

He nodded. “I thinking this is so. Mr. David is good man, Miss Scarlett, but you are special lady too. I am thinking Mr. Shakespeare vey right when he say, ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’ Hmm?”

I stared at him for a moment. “Er, yes, you could be right there, Mr. Yashimoto. I’ll bear that in mind, thank you.”

“You are vey welcome, Miss Scarlett,” he said and bowed.

I watched with David while he was driven away in his taxi, the words ringing in my ears. Whatever did he mean? I may not have remembered any of the Bard’s other quotes from tonight, but I certainly remembered that one.

***

“The Japanese chappie said that to you?” Oscar asked, aghast. “How very odd!”

“I know, isn’t it? Have you had enough yet?” I asked apologetically. “I did warn you it was a long story.”

“You mean there’s more?” His mouth dropped open.

I nodded. “Oh yes, much more.”

“Then do you know something, darling?” Oscar said, a solemn expression appearing on his face.

I shook my head. Had he had enough? I’d been babbling on for quite a while now.

“If there’s more story to be told, then we’re definitely going to need—
more
biscuits!” Oscar cried, as he leaped off the sofa and hurried back to his kitchen for supplies.

***

The taxi journey back to our house that night was very quiet. David didn’t seem to be in the mood for pleasant chitchat.

And when we got home things weren’t much better.

“Look, David, I’ve said I’m sorry about earlier,” I said, straightening up a plug socket that was hanging off the wall by its wires before I could plug the kettle in. I thought if I made David his favorite hot drink of baby marshmallows in drinking chocolate before we went to bed, it might make up for tonight’s minor disasters on my part. “But I thought it went quite well in the end. The Japanese men all seemed to enjoy themselves.”

“No thanks to you,” David mumbled as he undid his tie and threw it on his Black & Decker Workmate.

“Hey, I heard that,” I said, spinning round.

“You were supposed to.”

I looked around the kitchen—if you could call it a kitchen. At the moment it looked more like the middle of an episode of
Changing
Rooms
. Did I really want to start an argument with David now? It was late and I was tired…but still…

“So what was I supposed to do then? Just ignore George’s call?”

David shrugged and began to walk into the hall.

“Don’t just walk away from me, David. You started this.”

David turned around. “I started this?” he said, his eyes flashing dangerously. “I started this? I started this complete obsession you have with the cinema, so that it interferes with anything and everything we do?”

Oh,
so
that’s his opening gambit tonight? This is a new one
.

“I do not have a complete obsession with the cinema; tonight was about my job.” I corrected myself. “My
business
, actually.”

“I’m not just talking about tonight, about taking the call from George; I’m talking about everything. About the daydreaming for instance, like you were in the theater this evening.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

“Don’t tell me you weren’t, Scarlett, because I know that look on your face. God knows I’ve seen it often enough.”

I folded my arms. But I couldn’t deny what he was saying. And OK, yes, I may be a bit of a daydreamer—but I wasn’t a liar.

“It’s not so bad when you’re a bit bored; I suppose we all have our own ways of passing the time when life becomes dull, and trying to live your life like a movie is certainly different. It’s when it starts to encroach on our lives together that I have a problem with it.”

“I have no idea what you mean, David,” I said haughtily. Even though I had a feeling I knew
exactly
what he meant. I turned away from him and began to clatter mugs and spoons about on the kitchen worktop in an effort to deflect the conversation.

But David wasn’t going to be so easily distracted by a mug of hot chocolate tonight. “So then,” he continued, “how many times do we watch a movie together and you sit there comparing me to the hero, Scarlett, hmm? I can’t be Tom Cruise or Daniel Craig or whoever else it is that night. I’m me, David, not some superhero in tights.”

It was a good job I wasn’t facing him just then because I almost laughed out loud at the image of David prancing about in tights. Luckily I managed to suppress my laughter, and as I turned back to reply to his accusations, another thought occurred to me. If David knew me well at all, he should have known that those were the two least likely Hollywood actors I’d have been comparing him to; they were hardly my favorites.

“David, I can honestly say I’ve never wanted you to wear tights,” I managed to say with a straight face. “And yes, maybe I have compared you to the odd film star on occasion, but that’s not a crime, is it? I bet most women do it when they’re watching a movie.”

“When they’re watching the movie, yes, but not later that day when their man is washing up or shaving or…well, do I have to spell it out for you?”

I swallowed hard. He knew about that?

“So,” I said, desperately grasping at something to change the subject with and to use as ammunition. This argument was becoming decidedly one-sided. The boiling kettle not only made me jump, but also helped me with my task. “How do you think it is for me living in this…this skip of a house?”

David looked blank.

“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s like living in a permanent episode of
DIY
SOS
, without the hope that a bunch of purple-shirted experts are going to come along and rescue me from this Homebase hell.”

David looked completely shocked at my outburst.

“But I thought you liked our house project?” he asked in a small voice, as though I had just come along and knocked down all his sandcastles. “I thought you
liked
us doing up the house together?”

“No,
you
like doing it, David. You’re the one who likes the DIY and makeover programs, not me. I’d just have got someone in to do it all up for us if I’d had my way.”

“But that would have cost a fortune. We’re saving ourselves so much money doing it this way.”

“Are we?” I asked, looking round me. “Take that wall for instance. How many times have you re-tiled it now because it keeps going wrong and the tiles aren’t on straight or the grouting’s not right? We’ve had to buy at least three new lots of tiles that I know of. We might as well have just paid someone to do it right the first time.”

“But I haven’t done tiling before,” David said, smoothing his hand over the tiles. “It isn’t easy to get right the first time.”

“All the more reason to get an expert in then.”

“But they charge so much, Scarlett. It’s just money down the drain.”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, David, for someone who has money, you’re so tight with it!”

“I am not tight. I’m just careful. That is one of the first rules of good business, Scarlett. Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves. You should take note of that and then maybe one day your little business might be as big as ours.”

Whether he’d meant to or not, with that one comment he’d now got me completely riled.

“No, David, you are not just
careful
.
You
are the Ian Beale of the cinema industry. What about our holiday last year?”

“Yes, and what about it? We had one, didn’t we? After I’d been made to sit through yet another of your
girlie
films.” David folded his arms and looked at me meaningfully as if he’d scored yet another point.

“David, we’d been watching
Thelma
& Louise
, and I seem to remember you promised me a road trip?”

David nodded. “Yes—and?”

“And we ended up taking a dilapidated motor home around the Peak District for a week.”

“I got a good deal from this chap I know.”

“Exactly. It was hardly a road trip across America in a Ford Thunderbird, was it?”

David shook his head. “Scarlett, if you’re not happy with the way things are…”

“You know something, I’m not…but it seems I’m not the only one, am I?”

David looked at me. “Perhaps we both need to have a think about some things then?”

“Perhaps we do!”

“Look, I’ll go to the tile warehouse on my own tomorrow if you like. Give you a bit of space here to have a think.”

“No need. I’m going out with Maddie tomorrow so I’ll be out all day anyway.”

“Oh well—that’s good.”

“Yes it is.”

“And should I sleep in the spare room tonight?” David asked, looking at me with big, sorrowful eyes that suggested he hoped I’d say no.

“I’d say yes if it was in a fit state to sleep in,” I said matter-of-factly. David’s face lifted for a moment. “But since it’s not, perhaps you could make up a bed on the sofa.”

And then it fell again.

“Oh, all right,” he said. “That’s probably for the best then.”

“Yes, I think it is.”

While David made himself a cup of tea, and then a bed on the sofa with a pillow and a sleeping bag, I perched on a stool in the kitchen and silently watched him. I didn’t regret my decision for a minute, knowing the last person on earth I wanted sleeping next to me in my bed that night was Ian Beale.

***

Oscar burst out laughing.

“Oh my dear, I can quite understand why you’re here now. I would have wanted to escape from that DIY freak too. But how on earth did you find the house here in Notting Hill?”

“No, Oscar, that’s not the only reason I needed to get away—far from it. I’m coming to that. And to how I got the use of the house. If you still want me to tell you, that is?”

Oscar sat back against the sofa, wide-eyed.

“Well of course I do! Forget sleeping with Ian Beale. This is better than a Sunday omnibus of
EastEnders
,
Hollyoaks
, and
Corrie
all rolled into one!”