Page 112 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
“Oh right, one of your movies again.”
“Yeah, I haven’t notched one up for a while. But you’ve given me another scene this afternoon with all your cooking efforts.”
Sean thought for a moment. “Wait, haven’t I been him before? This Darcy fellow?”
I considered this. “Yeah, I said you and David’s water fight at Maddie’s wedding was like the one out of the secondBridgetJonesfilm.”
“What about when I was in the boat, on the Small World ride at Disneyland? I’m sure you mentioned it then?”
“No, that was Hugh Grant’s character—Daniel Cleaver—I compared you to.”
“Ah, I see—I think. Which one’s better? To be compared to, I mean?”
I thought again. “Mark Darcy. Yes, definitely Mark.” After all we were talking Colin Firth here—and no woman who ever saw him emerge from that lake ever quite got over it.
“You had to think about it though. Why?”
“I…I’m not sure. Colin Firth is this quite staid, reserved character in the film, a bit like the real Mr. Darcy—the Jane Austen version. But you just know that deep inside he’d be really passionate and sexy once you got his guard down. And Hugh Grant—that’s Daniel—his personality is out there from the start—there are no hidden depths with him. He’s a bit of a cad…a smooth talker…a ladies’ man, I guess you’d call him. They both have their attractions from a female perspective, just in different ways.”
“But you liked Colin better?”
Sean had stopped what he was doing at the stove and was giving me his full attention during this questioning.
“Yeah, I think so. What is all this anyway? I thought you hated the cinema—why the sudden interest?”
“No reason,” Sean said mysteriously, turning back to his saucepan. “I just wondered, that’s all.”
I opened my mouth to question him further, but the doorbell rang again. I never had visitors—mainly because I only knew Sean, Ursula, and Oscar in London. Who could this be?
I excused myself from the kitchen, walked through the hall, and pulled open the front door without my now customary glance through the peephole.
“Surprise!” my father called from the top of the steps with his arms outstretched.
“Dad! What on earth are you doing here?”
“What sort of welcome is that for your old dad?”
“He came with me, Scarlett,” David said, appearing from behind Dad on the steps. “I hope you don’t mind?”
“No…no, of course I don’t. I’m just surprised to see you, that’s all.”
“Good surprise or bad?” Dad asked.
“Good, obviously.”
“You’re a good liar, Scarlett—I know you hate surprises.”
“Not always,” I said vaguely. I was trying to think which film the lines we had just inadvertently spoken had been from. Oh, it was on the tip of my tongue…Oh yes,NottingHill, of course! The part where Alec Baldwin turns up to surprise Julia Roberts at the Ritz hotel.
“Aren’t you going to invite us in?” David asked.
“Yes…yes, come in.” I stood back, and they piled in, David with an overnight bag but my father, rather more worryingly, with a suitcase.
“How long are you here for, Dad?” I asked, suddenly remembering who was coming to dinner tonight.
“Just for a few days, Scarlett. It’s been ages since I’ve been down to London, and David had some sort of rail voucher that if you bought one rail fare you got one half price. So we split the cost, and I thought I’d come and see how you were getting on.”
Now David and the railcard made sense, but my father rarely took time away from the business, and for both of us to be away at the same time was unheard of.
