Page 29 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
“I was just wondering what all that was about back there on the platform—with your eye?”
“It was nothing, I told you it’s gone now.”
“Was it ever there in the first place?”
I sighed. Oh, what was the point in lying to him?
“No,” I said quietly.
“Then why would you say…wait a minute, was that charade something from a movie by any chance?”
“Maybe.”
“I should have known—which one?”
“Brief Encounter, if you must know.”
“Isn’t that the one about aliens?”
I laughed. “No! That’sCloseEncounters.BriefEncounteris a wonderful love story, set mainly in a railway station. It stars Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard.”
“Oh, I see.” Sean thought for a moment. “And let me guess—this Celia gets something stuck in her eye, and good old Trevor gets it out, right? And then they fall madly in love?”
I tried hard to suppress a smile. “There’s a bit more to it than that, but yeah, that’s the general gist.”
“Sounds riveting.”
“It is, actually. It’s a wonderful piece of black and white film-making—it’s based on a play by Noel Coward.”
“Quite the little film buff, aren’t we?” Sean said, grinning at me. “It doesn’t surprise me though—about Noel Coward, I mean. Mostgoodfilms were originally books or plays. Either that or they’re based on true stories or real events.”
I thought about this for a moment. “Some are, I suppose—but not all.”
“Go on then, name some well-known,qualityfilms—you know, the type that have won Oscars—that haven’t been based on one of those things.”
I thought again. But annoyingly he was right—every film that immediately sprang to mind fell into one of those categories.
“There aresomeexceptions, obviously,” Sean continued. “But the ones you always think of first are all just copies. Although I’m sure they would rather be known as a homage to someone else’s work.”
I smiled wryly.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked, grinning.
“Well, I can’t think of any right now—so for the minute, yes, I guess you are.”
We sat in silence for a moment as the train began to pull out of the station. As it started to pick up speed and the towerblocks of London turned into the hedges and fields of the country, Sean spoke again.
“If we’re going to be spending over six hours on a train together, Scarlett, we may as well get to know each other a bit better. So you first, why don’t you start by telling me the story of your life?”
I turned my gaze back from the window, thrown off course by his innocent question. Without realizing it, Sean had given me another movie moment for my list. InWhenHarryMetSally, Harry asks Sally virtually the same thing when they’re traveling to New York together at the beginning of the film.
“Er…there’s not that much to tell really. I’m almost twenty-four years old. I live in Stratford-upon-Avon, and I work in the family business.”
“Which is?”
Here we go, I thought—more fodder for ridicule.
“We manufacture and sell popcorn machines.”
