Page 8 of From Notting Hill with Love…Actually
“Look, Maddie, I really do have to go. David is waiting for me at a restaurant. What are we going to do this weekend? You pick something if you don’t think I can.”
There was silence at the end of the line for a moment and I just knew that one of Maddie’s more wacky ideas was about to be revealed. Well, it would seem wacky and off-the-wall to me, but completely sane and normal to Maddie.
“How do you fancy an art gallery?” came back her casual reply.
“An art gallery?” I answered cautiously. Our hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon was famous for many things but art wasn’t usually one of them.
“Yes, there’s a touring exhibition I’d quite like to go and see. It’s only here for a week.”
“A touring exhibition of…?”
“Russian Jewish painters.”
There it was—the sting in the tail. “The Madness of Maddie,” as I liked to call it, escaping once more. I’m sure there were plenty of fine works of art by both Jewish and Russian artists, but I couldn’t think of any off the top of my head. Why couldn’t it have been a Monet exhibition or even the guy that cut off his ear? At least I knew some of his paintings—but I had to admit that was only really because I’d once watched an old movie about him that starred Kirk Douglas.
But it had been so long since I’d seen her properly that I decided even a day looking at obscure paintings would be worth enduring.
“Right then, you’re on; the art gallery it is. I’m supposed to be going DIY shopping with David tomorrow but it should be OK—especially since there’s no films involved either.”
Maddie laughed. “Yes, Scarlett. Evenyoucan’t find anything to do with movies at an exhibition of Russian Jewish art.”
***
“And did you find anything?” Oscar asked, bringing me back to the present day again. “And what about the meal, Scarlett? You still haven’t told me whether you made it on time.”
I couldn’t believe someone was finding my mundane life so interesting. “All in good time, Oscar,” I smiled. “I’m just coming to that.”
Three
I dashed into the restaurant just as the first course was being served.
Hastily I apologized to our Japanese guests and slipped into my seat while David frowned at me from across the table. As I took a good swig of the wine which the waiter had very efficiently poured into my glass the moment I sat down, I noticed that David was doing something strange with his hand. It was almost as if he’d got some sort of nervous affliction. He kept brushing his hand across the side of his head in very small, swift movements—almost as if he didn’t want anyone else to see.
I looked at him oddly—whatthehellwashedoing?It was a most effeminate gesture, like he was trying to smooth his hair down. But David’s very short hair was, as always, immaculately presented, so I couldn’t understand what he was up to at all.
I turned my head to one side as I tried to figure it out. But David just continued to get redder and redder, and his eyes wider and wider as he stared across the table at me. Now he was actually flicking his head to one side—back across his shoulder.
He looked like a very camp advertisement for hair conditioner.
“Escuss, Miss,” the Japanese man sitting next to me said as I turned toward him. “I think Mr. David is trying to tell you this.” He reached into my hair and pulled out a very large piece of fluffy white popcorn.
“Oh…oh right. Er, thank you,” I said, nodding at the Japanese gentleman.
“My pleasure,” he said, giving a small bow in return.
I turned to look back at David who’d stopped doing his Black Beauty impression, but now was doing animal impersonations of a different kind as he growled silently across the table.
I sighed and took another large gulp of my wine.
Perhapstonightjustwasn’t meant to go well…
After the popcorn incident, the gentlemen from Japan were very pleasant and polite to me in the little bit of conversation we had together through the rest of the evening, but they were there primarily to talk business with David, and talk business is what they didallthrough dinner.
The topic of their conversation was, strangely enough, my favorite subject, but it was the business side of the cinema they were discussing not the fun part, and they weren’t really interested in a little company that supplied popcorn makers to local cinemas.
I tried to sit there being the dutiful hostess for David’s sake—looking pretty and smiling in all the right places—really I did. But I soon got bored and I began to look around for something to amuse myself as I sat there. None of the waiters looked like movie stars; neither did any of the other diners. I’d tried to accept my Oscar earlier in the evening and that had gotme into trouble. Plus, I felt Johnny Depp should probably wait for another night when we were less likely to be disturbed.
And unfortunately for me, there were not even any snails on the menu, so I couldn’t have any fun shooting them across the room and calling out “slippery little suckers” as a passing waiter expertly caught them in his outstretched hand à la Julia Roberts inPrettyWoman.
