Page 24 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
“You’re a Martian from outer space?” Vanessa mocked.
“Look, it’s really not that exciting,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed now.
“Oh it is—it is!” Oscar enthused. “Well, I think it is anyway. It’s a shame more people don’t stand up for what they believe in. Do let me tell, Scarlett?”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said, more out of relief than anything else now Oscar had made me sound like some sort of saint.
“Well,” Oscar began, his eyes glinting in the candlelight. “Scarlett is really here under false pretenses…”
I glanced around the table while Oscar eagerly explained everything. Everyone listened intently to what he was saying—he was a born storyteller and made it sound much more interesting than I would have done. Even Sean seemed to be taking it all in. He glanced across at me while I was watching him, and I quickly averted my gaze.
“…so that is why Scarlett has moved in across the road—why I’m holding this dinner party—andwhy I wanted the last brownie!” Oscar finished triumphantly.
“Oh, like inNottingHill?’ Ursula said. “I love that movie.”
“Me too,” Patrick agreed. “Hugh Grant is divine in it.”
A conversation then followed about the joys ofNottingHill, and this quickly moved on to a rather heated debate about the rest of Hugh Grant’s films. Sean was strangely silent throughout all of this.
“What’s up, Sean—nothing to contribute to our conversation?” Oscar teased. “That makes a change.”
“I can’t talk about something I know nothing about,” Sean responded coolly.
“You’ve never seenNottingHill?” Brooke asked in astonishment.
“Nope, nor any other of this Grant fella’s films.”
“You must have seenFourWeddings?” Vanessa asked. “Everyone’s seen that one.”
“Nope.”
“But why not?”
“Sean hates the cinema,” Ursula answered for him. “Don’t you, Sean?”
“I don’t hate it—just can’t see the point. I’d rather read a good book or go to the theater.”
“But a good movie is just another extension to the art of storytelling,” I suggested, joining in. “If you like both of the mediums you mentioned, why not the cinema too?”
Sean shrugged.
“It’s Dad,” Ursula said, nodding matter-of-factly. “He’s put him off it.”
“But why?” I was enjoying the apparently self-assured and confident Sean becoming decidedly uncomfortable for once.
Sean shrugged again.
Ursula tutted. “Oh, he can be so rude sometimes, Scarlett. Dad’s crazy about James Bond, always has been since before we were born. Drove our mother mad—that’s one of the reasons they got divorced in the end. But our stepmother, Diana, she’s different, absolutely adores movies like Dad. We sometimes laugh that the only reason Dad married her was because of her name.”
We all looked blankly at Ursula.
“Oh sorry, when you’ve lived with James Bond as long as we have, you assume everyone knows the history. Diana Rigg played the only Bond girl 007 ever married.”
“Oh I remember that one,” Lucian piped up. “OnHerMajesty’s Secret Service, right?”
Ursula nodded. “So that is why Sean hates movies, because we’ve had to live with them as part of the family since we were small. Well, he says he does. Knowing all about 007 didn’t dohim any harm when he was younger though, eh, Sean? Go on, tell them your chat-up line.”
“This,” said Sean, rolling his eyes, “is just why you don’t go out for dinner with your sister in tow.”
