Page 14 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually (Actually #1)

We arrived in Glasgow Central station at about teatime, where we duly queued for a taxi and made our way to the hotel Ursula had booked for us.

Basically Ursula had organized the whole trip.

She’d rung her father the night of the dinner party and told him what was happening.

The next morning, while I’d gone along to Oscar’s boutique on the King’s Road to choose an outfit for the wedding, she had booked us two return train tickets for later that same morning and hotel rooms for the next two nights.

Without Ursula we definitely wouldn’t have got to Glasgow.

She was one of life’s organizers (and also a hopeless romantic, she’d admitted to me) and reveled in providing us with everything we needed for the weekend ahead.

Although Sean had insisted he should choose and pay for our hotel—in fact he had offered to pay for our whole trip—I, of course, declined his kind, yet surprising, offer, and insisted I at least paid for my own train ticket.

The Radisson in central Glasgow was a beautiful, modern hotel.

I was impressed—I hadn’t really thought about where we’d stay.

I’d assumed maybe a Travelodge, or a similar sort of hotel—that’s where David and I usually ended up.

But Sean didn’t seem the type to stay in hotels where the adjacent restaurant had laminated menus or an all-day breakfast.

“Shall I meet you back down here in, say, an hour?” Sean asked after we’d checked in. “Is that long enough for you to unpack and do whatever you need to?”

“Yes, that’s plenty of time,” I said, a little bit distracted by the hotel manager, who was currently dealing with a problem behind the check-in desk.

He looked exactly like Barney, the hotel manager from the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Pretty Woman .

Immaculately dressed, gray hair, pointy little gray beard…

“I know an excellent restaurant just down the road from here,” Sean continued. “Would you like to go there for dinner this evening?”

“Yes.” I pulled my attention away from “Barney” and suddenly felt shy. Sean made it sound like we were going on a date. “I’m sure that would be lovely.”

“Good. I’ll catch up with you later then.” He smiled at me, and for the first time since we’d met, it was not a smile of mockery or laughter. It was a genuine smile that reached all the way up to his eyes.

“Yes,” I said, coyly smiling back. “I’ll look forward to it.”

The restaurant Sean had spoken of was a lovely little Italian—it had oak beamed ceilings, checked cloths covering the tables, and waiters scurrying about brandishing huge pepper grinders.

After we had ordered, Sean took a sip of his wine and then leaned casually back in his chair and watched me .

“What?” I asked. “What is it this time? You keep doing that—you were doing it on the train too.”

“You remind me of someone,” he said. “Trouble is I can’t think who.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t been expecting that sort of answer. I thought it was going to be one of Sean’s usual smart remarks.

“I hope that’s a good thing,” I said, thinking he might say I reminded him of a film star—then we’d actually have something in common.

I was hoping for Anne Hathaway or Julia Roberts, and not the obvious Vivien Leigh.

Even Angelina Jolie would have done, though I’d never quite forgiven her for stealing Brad’s heart.

Talking of Brad, was Sean starting to resemble him too?

No, he could never be a Brad—a Matthew McConaughey maybe at a push, but never a Brad Pitt.

“Who knows?” Sean continued, still thinking, but his eyes twinkled mischievously. “It could be someone I hate.”

“Thanks a lot.” I took a sip of my own wine. “Talking of people you hate—I’ve been meaning to ask why you and Oscar seem to dislike each other so much.”

“Hmm…Oscar…now there’s a tricky one.”

“Why? He seems OK to me.”

“He is, I guess. He’s been a friend of Ursula’s for years, but we’ve never really seen eye to eye.”

“Why not?”

Sean twiddled the stem of his wine glass around in his fingers. “Like I said—it’s tricky.”

“Come on, Sean, we’ve got all night. And judging by our past conversations, I really don’t think we’re going to have that many subjects in common to last the whole evening. ”

Sean grinned. “Now that is very true. OK, I used to go out with Oscar’s sister.”

“Oh, I get it.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“I can guess. You broke her heart, right, and now Oscar can’t forgive you for doing it?”

“No, the other way around actually, she broke mine.”

“Oh.” I felt guilty for judging him. “Oh right. I’m sorry.”

“No need, it’s not your fault she fell for some Yankee bastard.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I sat quietly in the hope Sean would continue.

He didn’t. Instead, he picked up his wine again, and this time drank the glass dry. “More?” he offered, as he held up the bottle from the table and hovered its neck above my glass.

“Just a little,” I said, not wanting him to suffer further rejection.

For the next few minutes we sat in silence. I politely sipped at my wine while glancing surreptitiously at the other diners. Sean’s interest was held solely by the contents of his glass.

“Look, just tell me to bugger off if you want, Sean—and I know you would,” I said, hoping to lighten the moment.

I smiled across the table at him, hoping he would see the funny side and smile back.

But he didn’t; he just stared down at the tablecloth.

So I carried on anyway. It couldn’t get any worse.

“But why would Oscar hate you because of that? It wasn’t your fault. ”

Sean sighed and placed his glass purposefully back down on the table in front of him.

He was quiet again for what seemed like ages while I watched his face gradually darken until it was so black that I half expected he was going to throw his wine over me and storm out of the restaurant.

“I introduced them,” he said finally, looking up at me, his eyes full of anger. “I bloody well introduced her to him! ”

I didn’t dare say anything, so Sean continued.

“Rob was a work colleague of mine. They both did the dirty on me for a couple of months before deciding the only decent thing to do was to continue doing the dirty—but to do it as far away as they possibly could and move to the States. He already had a job to return to, and she had some family over there, so they just upped and left one day. So that’s why Oscar and I don’t see eye to eye.

His sister screwed me over, and as far as Oscar’s concerned, I was the cause of her going to live as far away from him as she possibly could.

” He paused to reflect on this. “So, Scarlett,” he said, leaning forward and looking me right in the eyes, “now do you see why we’re not best buddies? ”

I nodded, this time choosing to return his intense glare.

The waiter appeared at the table and began to serve our meals. While he was doing this, Sean silently downed yet another glass of wine.

“Look, Sean,” I said bravely, when the waiter had gone.

“This is none of my business, I know. But I believe everything happens for a reason in life, and it may not seem like it now, but there will be a reason you introduced them to each other. You may not know why just at this moment in time, but I promise you, you will in the end.”

Sean stared at me again. “Did you just say everything happens for a reason? ”

I nodded. “Yes, it’s a great motto to live your life by. I’ve always thought—”

Sean interrupted, “That’s exactly what my stepmother said to me when it happened too.”

“What, everything happens for a reason?”

“Yes…and I’ve just realized, she’s who you remind me of.”

“I guess that must be a good thing…” I started to say, pleased he seemed to have calmed down a bit now. But then something occurred to me. “Didn’t you mention when we were at Oscar’s how your stepmother was mad about the movies?”

“Yes, I said that’s why she puts up with Dad so easily.”

“My mother loved the movies too, and you just said I reminded you of Diana.”

“Yes, you do remind me of Diana in that way. And so? Wait, you’re not saying what I think you are? Are you?”

“It could be, Sean—although I know it seems like a huge coincidence.”

“No, you’re just getting carried away, Scarlett. My stepmother and your mother are not one and the same person.” Sean picked up his knife and fork.

It was my turn to glare across the table now.

“Look, your mother’s name,” Sean said, pausing before he cut into his steak. “Was it Diana?”

“No, it was Rosemary, but—”

“So, you’re suggesting that my stepmother changed her name by deed poll before she met my father, and she never chose to tell him?”

“Well, she might have told him , but why would she need to tell you or Ursula? ”

Sean shook his head. “I’m beginning to see where your family was coming from when they said you needed some time away. You’ve got one hell of an imagination, Scarlett. That script sounds like something a Hollywood film studio would churn out!”

He grinned now. But instead of smiling back, I sat back in my chair and folded my arms.

“It’s all right for you, Sean. You’ve been lucky enough to have two mothers in your life. I’ve never even had one—not that I can remember anyway.”

Sean put down his cutlery again and this time had the good grace to look sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Scarlett—about your mother. I don’t want to sound harsh, but I don’t think pinning your hopes on some crazy idea that my stepmother is also your mother is going to do you any good at all.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, pouring my Bolognese sauce—which I’d asked to be served separately—over my pasta. I picked up my fork and began twisting it around in my spaghetti. “Just forget I ever said anything.”

Sean nodded as the atmosphere between us calmed once again, and he happily began to tuck into his steak.

Well you can forget about it, I thought, as I lifted a forkful of spaghetti up from my plate. But I certainly won’t…

***

That night, before I went to bed, I opened up my purse and pulled out a tatty, folded photo that I’d always kept with me for the past fifteen years.

I’d found it at the back of a wardrobe Dad and I had been sorting out for a Brownie jumble sale one day and, on realizing what it was, I’d quickly shoved it in my pocket so he didn’t see.

Now, I carefully unfolded it again as I had so many times before over the years, and looked at the creased up photograph that was lying in my hand.

It was a picture of a couple holding a newborn baby. My father was definitely the man in the photo, I could see that easily. I was the baby, and the woman holding me was my mother.

And the reason I knew that it was definitely my mother and me was handwritten in black ink on the back of the photo.

Tom,

Us & our darling Scarlett—March 1986

Now at last we are a family.

All my love for ever,

Rosie x