Page 54 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
“I know what they’re here for, woman. I’d have to be deaf to not hear you prattling on, wouldn’t I?”
I smiled at Bill. “I’m sorry to bother you when you’re not well,” I said, approaching him, and for some reason I felt I needed to kneel down beside his armchair. I’d been trying so hard to stop comparing people to movie stars since the Sean incident, but I just couldn’t help it with Bill, because there was just no mistaking it. He was so obviously a dead ringer for the late James Stewart, only a bit heavier around the middle—probably much to do with Betty’s home cooking, I suspected. “Only I’m looking for my mother, and we think she used to work at Fenwick’s between ten and twelve years ago. I can’t be more specific than that, I’m afraid. But I do have a very old photo of her.” I reached into my bag, but Bill stopped me by placing his hand over mine.
“No need,” he said. “It’s Rosie you’re looking for, am I right?”
“Yes, yes we are. How did you know?”
“Because she’s sitting in front of me right now.” He smiled. “Well, someone who looks very much like her is anyway. You, my dear, are the spit of your mother. The hair, no, but your eyes and your coloring—they’re an exact match.”
“So you knew her well?” I couldn’t believe it! Someone sitting here in the same room as me that had actually known my mother.
“Everyone knew Rosie. She was the life of that place while she was there—always up for a good time, she was.”
I smiled as I tried to imagine. “When did she leave, Bill?”
“Oh let me see, nine, maybe ten years ago now. It’s difficult to say, time goes by so fast these days.” Bill looked wistfully into the distance as he considered this thought. Then he smiled down at me before continuing with his story. “She gota job offer out in America, from one of them designers whose frocks we used to sell. Rosie was always wanting more for herself. I didn’t get the feeling she was one to settle for long. So she took him up on his offer, and was gone within a week. It was all very sudden.”
“Do you happen to know which part of America?” Sean asked, while I was still thinking about my mother.
Bill looked up at Sean. “New York, I seem to recall. Yes, it was definitely New York, because we joked about her finding herself in the middle of a movie set one day. Rosie loved the movies.”
“And the designer?” I asked, coming back to the real world again. “Do you remember the designer’s name?”
“Oh now, you’re talking, dear. I don’t think I do.”
“Please…please try and think.”
“Hmm, now let me see.” Bill’s brow furrowed. “It was definitely a man’s name. Because I remember the person that came and offered her the job didn’t look like his name at all.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell Bill that it would definitely have been an assistant to the designer that offered my mother a job, not the designer himself. But we’d narrowed it down to a male name, so that was something.
“You’re sure it was a man’s name?” I asked, trying to think of some male fashion designers. “It wasn’t a one-word name like…Chanel, or…or Gucci, for instance?”
“No, it was definitely a man’s name.”
I looked at Sean for help.
“Er…” he struggled. “Jean Paul Gaultier?”
Bill shook his head.
“You’ll get nowhere with this,” Betty said. “He has enough trouble remembering our grandchildren’s names, let alone a fashion designer’s.”
“I’ll have you know, woman,” Bill defended himself, “my brain is as sharp today as it was…” But his voice faded rapidly, as a nasty coughing fit took over.
Betty rushed to his side to comfort him as he tried to regain his breath.
“Perhaps we’d better go,” I said, worrying we’d pushed Bill too far with all our questions.
Bill held up his hand. “Just…wait…a moment…will you?”
Betty rubbed Bill on the back. “He gets like this occasionally,” she said. “Takes him a few minutes to recover.”
Sean and I stood awkwardly in the room waiting, as Bill’s breathing slowly returned to normal.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said at last. “This damn flu’s taken me real bad, it has. And I’m sorry I can’t remember this fella’s name that your mother went to work for either, but it was definitely her, I’m certain of it. You really are the spit of her, dear. Be in no doubt of that.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you anyway, Bill—and you, Betty, you’ve been a great help, really you have.”
