by Ali McNamara
“Yes?” I asked suspiciously. I hoped “The Madness of Maddie” wasn’t going to erupt into some tin pot scheme as it had a habit of doing occasionally when left unchecked for too long.
“Well, how would you like to relive some of that movie? Actually, come to think of it, I’m giving you two movies for the price of one here.”
“Just what are you talking about, Maddie?”
“Scarlett, I have managed to obtain for you a little luxury pad just off the Portobello Road to house-sit for a month!”
“How on earth have you done that?” I asked, completely amazed at my friend’s ingenuity.
“Ah, you just have to know the right people,” she said, tapping the side of her nose. “No seriously, it belongs to a friend of my sister,” she explained. “I remember Jojo saying a while back that Belinda and Harry needed someone to house-sit for a month while they’re in Dubai visiting Harry’s parents, and they were having such trouble finding someone reliable. They leave in less than a week, so you, my dear Scarlett, could be the answer to their prayers!”
I thought about this for a few seconds, about trying to live out The Holiday for myself. I’d always fancied being Cameron Diaz—or would I be Kate Winslet? Then something occurred to me. “You said two movies, Maddie?”
“Yes.” Maddie grinned. “The Portobello Road, Scarlett…it’s where?”
“Oh my God!” I said as the penny dropped. “But that’s only one of my absolute all-time favorites.”
“Yep, I know,” she said, her eyes shining. “Notting Hill!”
***
I looked at Oscar.
He’d been sitting listening to me for over an hour now, completely enraptured by my tale. Obviously I’d only told him a condensed version and not the parts that were too personal, but he got the gist.
“So it’s your fiancé and your best friend that have driven you here to seek refuge?” Oscar asked.
“There’s my father as well. But he pretty much seems to have the same opinion as the other two.” If not more so… “I just want to prove them wrong, Oscar. Prove to them there’s nothing wrong with me loving the cinema so much, and that life isn’t so far removed from the movies as they all seem to think it is.”
“Well I think you’re already living your dream without even coming here, my darling. It all seems very Hollywood to me!” Oscar said, his eyes wide with amazement. “I can see it all now,” he said, waving his hand in the air with a flourish. “Beautiful young girl sets out into the world to seek revenge for an injustice she feels has been cast upon her by her cruel family. I can hear Red Pepper doing the voiceover as I speak.”
I had to laugh; Red Pepper was the chap with the really deep gravelly voice who did all the dramatic movie trailer voice-overs. “It’s not quite that bad, Oscar. And actually it isn’t very Hollywood at all. It’s been a bit of a disaster since I arrived.” I meant losing the address, but the guy in the travel bookshop’s attitude from earlier was still bugging me.
“But you’ve only just got here, darling. You’ve yonks of time if you’re here for a month.” Oscar thought for a moment and then he smiled. “Actually you’ve had a pretty good start today, haven’t you, if you’re looking for proof that movies happen in real life?”
“Have I—how?”
“Oh my dear, what sort of use are you going to be if you can’t recognize an opportunity when one arises? For one thing, someone knocked into you today and spilled orange juice all down you…”
He left a long pause while he waited for the penny to drop. When he saw recognition strike, he continued, “That same person invited you back to his home to change…” Again the pause.
“And OK, I may not be Hugh Grant—although in a certain light…” Oscar stood up and admired himself in the mirror above the mantelpiece.
I laughed.
“And,” he continued, “to top it all, that same person is going to invite you to a dinner party tonight!”
“You’re having a dinner party?”
“Well, I wasn’t. But what the hey, I shall have to now, won’t I? Just to give you another movie scene to help you on your way!”
“Really—you’d do that for me, a total stranger you’ve just met on the street?”
“My darling Scarlett,” Oscar said with his hands on his hips. “You can’t be a total stranger now, can you? No total stranger would be sitting in my lounge, eating my biscuits, and wearing my T-shirt, now, would they?”
***
I left Oscar’s house with a spring in my step, and a Fortnum & Mason shopping bag swinging from my arm, complete with my clean white shirt inside. Along with some very precise instructions from Oscar on how I should continue to dry it out when I got to the new house.
As I whizzed along the streets and finally found my way to my new home, I felt confident that at last things were looking up. I’d actually met someone nice here, someone who wanted to help me, plus I was going out to dinner tonight!
Maddie had phoned with new instructions on how to get to the house, but now as I looked at the scribbled notes on the crumpled piece of paper in my hand I wondered if I’d misheard her.
“This can’t be right,” I said, looking around me. “I must have got the wrong area.” I was sure Maddie had said a little house off the Portobello Road; these all looked like mansions. But the street sign at the top of the road had the correct name, so I slowed down and continued trundling my case along the pavement, carefully inspecting the numbers on the houses as I passed.
At last I came to a house that matched the number on my note and stared up at a large cream-fronted residence, much like all the others on the street. I reached for the black iron gate and cautiously pushed it open. I was sure my new neighbors would be twitching their net curtains (if they had anything so common) at the sight that was creeping up Belinda and Harry’s steps right now.
I stood on the doorstep and rummaged in my handbag. Belinda had had some keys couriered over to me by motorbike the day before, saying she couldn’t possibly trust anyone else to let me in when I arrived.
There was obviously a good neighborly spirit in the area, then.
I really must get a new bag, I thought, as my hand groped around for the keys.
“Good evening,” I heard a voice call from the next house.
I looked across at the voice, and standing in the same place I was, on the steps next door reaching for his own keys, was the young man from the travel bookshop earlier. He wasn’t wearing his coat now or carrying a shopping bag, but was dressed casually in a brown leather jacket, white T-shirt, and jeans.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out.
He looked surprised. “I could ask you the same thing. Where are Belinda and Harry?”
“They’ve gone away on holiday for a few weeks. I…I’m house-sitting for them.”
I’m not surprised they didn’t want their neighbors letting me into the house if you’re anything to go by, I thought as at last I found the keys.
“That sounds a plausible excuse, I suppose.”
How very neighborly of you, I thought sourly, as I put the key in the lock. “If there’s nothing else?” I inquired, turning to face him and raising my eyebrows in what I hoped was a haughty, “I really don’t have time for your silly questions” kind of way.
“Actually yes, there is. Why did you think I worked in the bookshop earlier? Do I look like a shop assistant?”
He looked anything but as I stood face to face with him now. His attitude was definitely much more “Don’t mess with me” than “Can I help you?” My new neighbor was tall, with tousled, sandy hair, and as he stood looking accusingly at me, with one of his eyebrows raised in a quizzical manner above his pale blue eyes, there was almost a look of The Holiday-ing Jude Law about him. I quickly shook this vision from my head. No, that was taking this movie thing a bit too far.
“No, I mean yes, you did back then obviously, or I wouldn’t have said it. Look, my head’s been all over the place today;
it’s my first day here and everything is new to me.”
I hoped he’d feel sorry for me and embarrassed that he’d been so mean. But instead he just continued his interrogation.
“This head of yours,” he asked, slowly looking me up and down. “Is it often all over the place? Do you often have problems putting your thoughts in a sensible order?”
OK, I’d thought Oscar had been a bit off the wall to begin with, but he now seemed positively sane in comparison to this dude.
“Not usually, no, why do you say that?”
“No reason,” he said, turning away. He unlocked his own door and pushed it slightly ajar. “It’s just your T-shirt suggested to me otherwise.” He gave me a smug smile as he stepped into his house and swiftly closed the door behind him.
I looked down between the lapels of my jacket. I’d been so engrossed in everything that Oscar and I had been talking about earlier that I hadn’t paid any attention to what was on his T-shirt.
It was navy, and emblazoned across it in big bold white letters was the phrase: I CAN’T EVEN THINK STRAIGHT.
Five
After I’d successfully unlocked the door a piercing, high-pitched wail bombarded my eardrums. The alarm—Belinda had warned me about that.
I ran over to the small black box that sat on the wall opposite the doorway, realizing that I’d had the alarm code earlier on my original piece of paper, but Maddie had only given me the address over the phone.
Think, Scarlett, think.
I knew the six-digit code was something personal to me—I’d thought that when Belinda had told me it the first time, now what was it again?
The wailing seemed to be getting louder. How long did I have before the police would come out? I couldn’t remember what Belinda had said now. If only that damn wailing would shut up for a minute so I could think. Oh, that was the point.
I thought hard.
Now…the first two numbers were my birthday—that was easy, I could remember those. The next was…oh, my bra size minus the cup, yep, got it. And the last two…come on, Scarlett…think…oh, of course, how many times I’d seen the movie Notting Hill!
Hastily I reset the security code, all the time praying I’d remembered it in the correct order. Within seconds of pressing the buttons, the wailing ceased.
I breathed a sigh of relief, pulled my suitcase in off the step, and shut the door behind me. It was only then that I noticed the elegant surroundings I found myself in.
“Wow,” I exclaimed as my eyes ran over the coffee and cream decor of the hall. “Triple wow!”
I quickly explored the house, opening doors and expelling further sounds of pleasure as I became more and more excited.
Belinda and Harry certainly had plenty of money, that was for sure—but I thanked the Lord they had taste too. Plain walls were simply adorned with bold works of art, and every room was light and airy but managed to remain warm and cozy too. Everywhere was decorated in a chic, minimalist style, and I loved it.
I selected one of their five bedrooms to sleep in. It had a lavish purple and lilac theme. There was a beautiful silk duvet cover and scatter cushions on the bed, with full-length raw silk curtains at the window. This will do nicely, I thought, as I launched myself face down on to the bed, arms and legs outstretched just like Kate Winslet had done in Cameron Diaz’s mansion in The Holiday. Then I flipped over and lay back on the bed for a moment, admiring my new surroundings. “Ha ha, you lot,” I said to the empty room. “Strike one! There’s my first completely spontaneous and totally harmless movie moment and I’ve only been here five minutes!”
My intention was to go back home at the end of my month away with a list of evidence of things that had happened to me that were the same as things that happened to people in the movies, therefore proving my point to those that doubted me. I was determined to show that what they considered my strange little obsession was not as eccentric and bizarre as they thought it was.
Movies weren’t that different from real life a lot of the time—I just had to find a way of proving that.
I mean, obviously there wasn’t any chance of me sailing on a 46,000-ton passenger liner when it hit an iceberg, but what was to stop me from going to as many weddings as I could find, in the hope that the best man would forget the rings or the bride would be jilted in sign language by the brother of the groom?
OK, those might not be the best two examples, but it couldn’t be that hard to find movie scenes in everyday life. And after all I was in Notting Hill, which had already given me a good start in meeting Oscar.
I know the others just thought I needed some time away-to get my head together, to think about my life and what I really wanted from it. Dad had seemed especially keen that I do just that.
I thought about my father.
I’d only mentioned him casually to Oscar, saying he felt the same as Maddie and David. But the truth was Dad had just as much to do, if not more so, with me being here as they did.
The day after I’d gone to the art gallery with Maddie, David and I had spent a very awkward day in the house together, desperately trying to spend as little time as possible in each other’s company, therefore ruling out any possibility of needing to discuss the argument of Friday evening.
So for once, when Monday morning came and I found myself climbing the concrete stairs in the plain gray building that housed our tiny two-room offices, I actually felt quite relieved to be coming into work.
The building I seemed to spend most of my life in these days had once been home to a psychiatric hospital, or mental asylum as they were called back then, until a forward-thinking architect in the 1970s had converted the then derelict building into offices. As I passed through the corridors on a daily basis, I could sympathize wholeheartedly with how the past inmates must have felt at being incarcerated here all those years ago. At least I got to leave this drab institution for a few hours at the end of every day. They would have been stuck here permanently, with no light at the end of their tunnel.
Mrs. Jameson was our part-time secretary, or Miss Moneypenny, as I secretly called her when I was trying to inject some interest into my long, boring days, and I would pretend these rather boring, tiny offices were the hub of MI6. She was already hard at work when I arrived. She smiled at me over her gold-rimmed spectacles as I opened the door.
“Morning, dear, how are we today?” she asked, looking up from her typing. “There’s an awful wind out there this morning; fair blew me away when I got off the bus.”
“Yes,” I agreed, as I hurriedly unbuttoned my coat. “It is a bit brisk. Is Dad in yet?”
“Yes, dear, he’s in already. I believe he’s on the phone just now.”
“Oh, right. Thanks, Mrs. J,” I said as I hung my coat up on the old wooden coat stand in the corner of the room. I’d hoped to get in early today and make a good impression on Dad. It might have helped soften the blow a little when I mentioned the possibility of taking up Maddie’s offer.
The office door burst open—my father had obviously finished his phone call.
“Morning, Scarlett, glad to see you made it in at last,” he said, brushing past me. He placed some papers on Mrs. Jameson’s desk. “This is the account I was telling you about, Dorothy. Can you check the invoices back from August, please?”
“I’m not late,” I said, looking at my watch. “Actually I think you’ll find I’m early, Dad.”
“That makes a change,” he mumbled as he searched through a filing cabinet.
Mrs. J rolled her eyes at me and mouthed the words “bad mood” while my father had his back to her. So I carried on through to the tiny room Dad and I shared as an office. I heard the door close behind me.
“Good weekend?” my father inquired, as he thumbed through the files he was carrying.
“Er, not too bad,” I answered cautiously. I figured this was probably not the best of times to mention Maddie’s idea. In fact, now I was back here again, I realized it was likely there never was going to be a good
time. So I decided that the best plan for now was just getting on with some work. I would bide my time and wait and see if a better moment arose later.
For the rest of our Monday morning, I chased up a few unpaid invoices while Dad spoke to potential clients about the benefits of installing a popcorn machine in their refreshment areas. Then, while Dad phoned the bank to talk to them about extending our business loan, I surfed the net while pretending to type a letter. It was virtually the same as any other mind-numbing day at the office.
I’d soon exhausted all the movie websites I had bookmarked and was just about to log on to robbiewilliams.com when I noticed Dad was watching me from his desk.
Quickly I closed the Internet down.
“Scarlett?” he said slowly.
“Yep,” I said, opening the letter I was supposed to be typing again.
“Is everything all right with you lately?”
“Yeah,” I said, concentrating hard on the screen.
“Are you sure?”
I looked up from the monitor. What was going on? Dad never usually inquired about my state of mind during work hours.
“Yes.”
My father sighed. “Scarlett, I do have eyes, you know; you’ve not been your usual self lately. What’s wrong?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
My father raised his eyebrows.
“It’s nothing, really, Dad.”
“Is it David?”
“Maybe.”
“Scarlett, come on; you’ve got to give me more than that. I’m a man; I’m not good at this relationship stuff.”
I half smiled. “You always coped all right before when I had problems.”
“I had to, didn’t I?” Dad said in a gruff voice. “There was no one else to. Have you two had a fight?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” I lied.
“Really?” Dad said, his brown eyes watching me closely over the top of his reading glasses.
“Yes…” I began. Then I stopped. Wait, something wasn’t adding up here…
“He’s been to see you, hasn’t he?” I said suddenly, as the missing link clicked into place.
