Page 45 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
I passed the next couple of days with more visits to Bond Street.
I completed the second side of the street fairly quickly on Tuesday morning, but although I felt more positive as I entered the stores and asked my questions, the answers I received were still the same.
Spending the day in and out of all these designer stores should have been fun. It should have been like something from theSexandtheCitymovie. But I didn’t feel much like Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, or Miranda as I trailed in and out of the shops. They’d have been parading up and down here in designer outfits and high heels. I had chosen comfort and was sporting TopShop jeans, a Gap hoodie, Next down vest, and Nike trainers.
After I’d had lunch, I popped into Fenwick’s just in case Bill had made a miraculous recovery, and was wandering about the shop with a screwdriver in his hand once more. But the answer from Sheila was still negative, so I left, promising to return again tomorrow, and headed back home.
The same happened on Wednesday morning. Still no Bill. I asked Sheila if it might be possible for Personnel to give mehis telephone number so I could ring him. But after a very brief phone call up to Janice again, the answer was a very definite no, they could not possibly give out personal details on a member of staff.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Sheila apologized. “They say he probably won’t be back until next week now either. Perhaps you could try again then.”
I returned to the house once more, dejected and completely fed up with life. Not only was finding out any further information on my mother proving to be virtually impossible, but nothing new was happening to me on the movie front either. This was probably because I’d spent most of the last three days trailing up and down Bond Street. But after the first week’s successes I’d been lulled into the false belief that proving you could live your life like a movie would be easy. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
That afternoon I flicked through all 400 channels on the TV. When I didn’t find anything to watch, I looked once more through Belinda and Harry’s collection of DVDs to find someone to spend my evening with—and then I ran yet another bath, hoping that would pass half an hour until dinner.
I was just about to climb into the hot soapy water when the doorbell rang. I tried to ignore it and hoped they’d go away. All I needed was Oscar or Ursula checking up on me again. They’d both popped round several times since we’d arrived back from Glasgow on Sunday night, and even though I was grateful for their interest and concern, I really didn’t feel like relaying yet another day’s disappointment to them. But instead of myintruder taking the hint that no one was going to answer, the doorbell rang again, this time for longer.
I rolled my eyes, pulled on a white toweling robe that hung on the back of the bathroom door, and hurried downstairs.
“Yes?” I snapped, as I flung open the door. I guess I should have used the peephole first, but I hadn’t got used to all this security stuff just yet.
“Oh sorry, am I disturbing you?” It was Sean. He stared down at the bathrobe.
“I was just about to take a bath actually,” I said, pulling the toweling collar around me protectively.
“Oh, I see.” His eyes rose up level with mine again. “I just wondered how you’ve been getting on. I imagine you’ve been up and down Bond Street for the last few days. I’ve been away on business or I’d have called round sooner.”
So that’s why I hadn’t seen him about.
“Yes, I have.”
“And? Any luck?”
“Actually, it’s been a complete disaster…” I told him everything that had happened. “Most of the assistants were so snooty—they weren’t interested in helping me at all. Just because I wasn’t wearing Jimmy Choo shoes or carrying a Gucci handbag…” I paused mid-sentence and stared at Sean, and then smiled as a thought dawned on me.
“What’s up?” he asked, looking puzzled.
“PrettyWoman,” I said, grinning. “That’s what! Oh, Sean, it may have been information I was after and not clothes, but they still made me feel the same as her.”
“What on earth are you talking about now?”
“PrettyWoman—it’s another movie. The one I was telling you about on the train. The one where you were a bastard?” I helpfully reminded him.
“Oh, that one.”
“In the film Julia Roberts is a hooker, and Richard Gere gives her some money to go out and buy clothes on Rodeo Drive—but the assistants won’t help her because she doesn’t look the part.”
“OK…”
“That’s been me over the last few days, but I wasn’t in Beverly Hills, I was in London’s equivalent—Bond Street.”
“If you say so,” Sean said with a quizzical expression.
“Yes, I do—I’ve got to take something positive out of all my efforts. And another movie scene to add to my list will do nicely!” I folded my arms over my dressing gown.
“But what of this woman in Fenwick’s—Sheila?”
“I won’t be able to do anything about that until Bill comes back to work. So until then I’d better try and forget about my mother and get on with my movie business, and if you don’t mind, just now, my bath.”
