From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually (13 page)

‘You won’t use this in your report, will you?’ I ask Jamie at one point, while we watch Oscar being helped down off a table.

‘Are you kidding me? No one would believe it!’ He smiles. ‘Have you had enough of this floor show yet? It’s a bit over the top in here for me now. Do you want to get out of here, go somewhere a bit quieter?’

I hesitate.

‘It’s OK, you’re safe with me. Now I know you have a boyfriend back in London, I wouldn’t dare put a foot wrong.’ He winks. ‘It’s fine; honestly. I’m only trying to wind you up.’

‘Oh, go on, why not?’ It is getting a bit hot and claustrophobic in here now, and even though we’ve been in a small group for over an hour, we all keep being hit on by different sailors. Which is actually starting to be rather tiresome. Well, it is for some of us. Not for others …

‘Oscar,’ I call over to him in the middle of a group of young seamen. ‘I’m going to head back to the hotel. Jamie will see me there safely. I’ll catch up with you in the morning.’

‘Sure, darling!’ Oscar waves his red
neckerchief in the air with a flourish as a departing gesture. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’

Was there anything?

Jamie and I exit the club and gladly breathe in the fresh air of the New York evening once again.

‘Do you want to get a taxi, or take a walk?’ he asks.

‘Depends where we’re walking to.’

‘Hmm … funny. Have you been down to the Hudson River yet? It’s beautiful at night.’

We walk across town through Chelsea, and Jamie is right about two things: he doesn’t put a foot wrong, and he is the perfect night-time tour guide as we walk along the lamplit streets. As we reach the piers and gaze out at the view from Manhattan over towards New Jersey and down towards the point where the Hudson meets the East River, I get my first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. Although tiny from where we are standing, she still glows like a welcoming beacon from her viewing point in the water, dominating the New York skyline that she watches over and protects.

‘I see you’ve spotted Lady Liberty,’ Jamie says, looking over at me silently watching the statue in awe. ‘She’s quite something, eh? Even at this distance.’

‘Yes, I can’t wait to visit her properly. Oscar and I are hoping to go in the next couple of days.’

‘Make sure you get off the boat
at Ellis Island, too. A lot of tourists only go to the statue; it’s such a waste. Ellis Island is really interesting, even if you haven’t got American roots to trace.’

‘That’s the place where all the immigrants had to come through originally, wasn’t it, to get into New York?’

‘That’s right. Some of their stories are fascinating.’

‘Fascinating as long as you don’t find out your relative is a mass murderer like Eva Mendes does when Will Smith takes her there.’

Jamie looks at me quizzically.

‘In the film
Hitch
, that’s where Will Smith, the Hitch character, takes Eva on their first date to impress her, but it all goes horribly wrong when they find out that her ancestor is a serial killer.’

‘I know,’ Jamie nods. ‘I have seen the movie.’

‘Have you? Sorry.’ I’ve spent too much time with Sean. Sean hardly ever watched romcoms, or any other movies for that matter. ‘I thought you didn’t know it.’

‘It’s a good film. Just wondered why you used a movie to describe the place.’

I give him a wry smile. ‘I do that a lot; you’ll get used to it.’

‘Will I, now?’

‘So,’ I hurriedly change the subject, ‘why did you go over there? Did you film a report?’

‘No, I
actually went over to try to trace my family.’

‘Do you have American roots, then?’

‘My mother’s family have American roots, but I didn’t find anything out when I went over to Ellis.’

‘What about your father?’

Jamie shrugs. ‘Never knew him.’

‘That’s sad.’ I pause for a moment, wondering whether I should tell him my tale about finding my mother after years of not knowing her. ‘I never knew my mother either, until last year.’

Jamie turns towards me. ‘Really?’

‘Yes. It’s a really long story though, if you want to hear it. Shall we find somewhere to go and I’ll tell you if you like?’

We find a little coffee shop that’s still open, and both decide to order milkshakes rather than coffee. Surprisingly, we both opt for banana.

‘Wow, that’s some tale,’ Jamie says when I tell him all about how I went to Notting Hill to house-sit for a month and ended up not only leaving my then fiancé, David, but meeting Sean and finding my mother again after over twenty years.

‘Yes, it was a pretty huge turning point in my life. But Mum and I are very close now.’

‘How is your dad with it?’

‘He was difficult at first, which is understandable. But now it’s all fine. I don’t think Mum
and Dad will ever be best buddies, but they tolerate each other for my sake. No, that’s not fair; they get on slightly better than that. It somehow works when we’re all together, which isn’t too often of late since Dad’s come over to New York.’

Jamie takes a long slow sip through his straw. ‘You were quite lucky in the end, finding your mum like that.’

‘We did a fair bit of chasing around first, and finding her wasn’t just down to luck. Remember what I told you about Sean, and how he helped?’

‘Yeah, he sounds like quite a guy.’

‘He is.’

We both drink from our milkshakes.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be that lucky,’ Jamie says. ‘With finding my own dad, I mean.’

‘Doesn’t your mum have any idea where he is?’

‘Not now. Apparently he was some actor with a fake name, you know, one of those they change to get an Equity card. That’s why I can’t trace him. Mum got pregnant with me, and by the time she realised, the guy was long gone.’

‘That’s terrible.’

Jamie shrugs. ‘It’s no big deal. I’ve lived with it most of my life, why should I let it start bothering me now?’

‘I felt like that until I started looking for my mum. But don’t you feel
as though there’s something not quite right all the time?’

Jamie nods. ‘I guess. It feels a bit like—’

‘A piece of the jigsaw is missing,’ we both say at the same time.

‘That’s exactly it!’ I say, excitedly pointing my finger at Jamie. ‘That’s how I’d felt my whole life, and then when I found her it was like it all fitted together.’

Jamie sits backs resignedly in his seat. ‘You’re one of the lucky ones then, aren’t you? That sort of thing doesn’t happen for me, or the many other thousands of people trying to trace lost relatives.’

I feel a strange sensation pulling around my heart. For a moment I can almost liken it to the feeling I used to have when I first met Sean. I used to say it felt like gymnasts leaping all over my heart doing backflips and somersaults. But this is odd, this feels like … oh, what does it feel like? It’s just different, somehow.

‘Anyway, on to happier topics,’ Jamie says, keen to change the subject. ‘When do you want me to arrange a meeting with Harry about your brooch?’

‘Any time. I don’t have any definite plans while I’m here. Oscar and I were going to Central Park tomorrow. But I’m really keen to visit the Statue of Liberty now I’ve seen her all lit up.’

‘By the look of your friend when we left the bar, I don’t think he’ll be in
any sort of state to get up early tomorrow to board a boat to Liberty Island, do you?’

‘Good point. Maybe a nice quiet day in Central Park might be just what the hangover doctor ordered.’

Jamie smiles.

‘What?’

‘Scarlett, I’ve only known you five minutes, and it appears to me that a day spent with you is
never
going to turn out to be a “nice quiet day”.’

It turns out Jamie
is right: Oscar is in no state when I knock on his door at eight a.m., our usual meeting time for breakfast, to be heading off to the Statue of Liberty ferry down at Battery Park.

‘Unnhhh,’ he grunts, standing in front of me in his black and white silk polka-dot pyjamas with a pink fluffy sleep mask pushed up onto his forehead. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s breakfast time, Oscar,’ I reply brightly.

‘Don’t even mention that word to me.’ He waves his hand in my face and staggers back into his room. I follow him and close the door.

‘What time did you get in last night?’ I ask, picking up a pair of abandoned braces off the carpet. I’m almost expecting to see
a half-naked sailor come staggering out of the bathroom, but it seems Oscar is alone.

‘Oh, I don’t know, three, maybe four …’ Oscar sits on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands.

‘Alone?’

‘Er … no.’

‘So where …?’ I look around the room: in addition to the braces, the rest of Oscar’s clothes from last night are strewn all over the floor too, so I know he must have been pretty worse for wear when he came in. He’s always so fastidious about hanging and folding things.

‘They have a curfew on the ship. Got to be back by morning. He didn’t stay long.’ Oscar manages to look up at me and wink. ‘Long enough, though.’

‘Oscar!’ I screw my face up. ‘Please, I don’t wish to know the details, thanks. Look, are you getting up now, or what? I need to get breakfast even if you don’t.’

‘Oscar just needs a little bit more beauty sleep and then he’ll be raring to do whatever you see fit for us today, darling.’ Oscar’s whole body tips to the side in one swift movement and he’s back under the duvet with his mask down over his eyes before I can blink. ‘Come back and wake me when you’ve had your lovely breakfast …’

‘Don’t you worry, I’ll be back. You’re not letting me down again today, Oscar St James!’

After I’ve breakfasted alone
and passed a few more minutes on my daily phone call to Sean, I’m about to head up to see Oscar again when my phone rings.

‘Jamie,’ I say, surprised to hear from him so soon. We’d exchanged numbers last night so that he could contact me when he’d arranged a meeting with Harry at the museum.

‘Hi Scarlett, sorry to call so early but I’ve spoken to my friend this morning and Harry has a free appointment at ten-thirty, if you can make it uptown to the Met by then?’

‘Erm …’ I glance at my watch.

‘Sorry it’s such short notice, but Harry’s off to Paris tomorrow for a few days to do some work at the Louvre. Can you rearrange your plans at all? I know you were thinking of heading into Central Park today. The Met is right next door.’

‘It just so happens …’ I begin thinking of Oscar, still sleeping off his hangover in his bed across the hall. ‘That could fit in perfectly with my plans this morning.’

I climb the vast wide stairs outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art and enter through the doors, avoiding getting involved with the queue to buy tickets. Now, where had Jamie said I should meet him? Oh yes, over here by these big Grecian-looking pillars. There’s no sign of him, so I stand next
to them and wait. It’s nice and cool in the museum, unlike outside where the temperature is already rising into the eighties even this early in the morning. And although it’s already beginning to fill with eager tourists, there’s an air of calm and tranquillity inside its great walls, which I like.

‘Hey,’ Jamie says, as I gaze up at the ornate building’s wide ceilings. ‘How are you?’

My head drops back down. ‘Hi again. I’m good, thanks.’

‘You found it OK, then?’

I smile at him. ‘A building this size? I couldn’t exactly miss it.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’ Jamie is wearing black jeans and a white Calvin Klein t-shirt. I’m glad to see he’s dressed casually, because I’m not exactly overdressed this morning. I’ve walked all the way uptown to get here, so I’m wearing trainers, cut-off denim shorts and my Take That tour t-shirt from last year. ‘So,’ he says, looking around him. ‘Now we just have to find Harry. Ah, there she is.’

She?
I turn to where Jamie is looking to see a tall, attractive blond woman walking gracefully towards us.

‘Jamie,’ she says in greeting, kissing him on both cheeks. ‘How lovely to see you again.’ Then she waits politely to be introduced to me.

‘Harry, meet Scarlett,’ Jamie says, smiling at us both.

We shake hands.

‘Lovely to meet you, Scarlett. I can’t wait
to see this brooch of yours. Jamie has told me all about it.’

Harry, or Harriet I now realise, leads us through some security doors and up the stairs to her office. Then we take a seat at her very ornate and clutter-free desk. In fact, her whole office is pretty much clutter-free, as is Harriet herself. She cuts a very elegant figure in her no doubt designer, powder-blue sleeveless dress and shoes. I feel very drab and scruffy sitting opposite her.

‘So,’ Harriet says, pulling up her own chair after she’s offered us refreshments. ‘Let’s take a look at this brooch.’

I take the brooch out of my bag and hand it over to her.

‘Mmm,’ she says, examining the dragonfly carefully. ‘It’s a very good copy.’ She takes one of those magnifying eyeglasses that experts often use and inserts it into her right eye. ‘A very good copy indeed.’ She allows the glass to fall from her eye and catches it in her hand. ‘Where did you say you got it from?’

‘It’s my father’s. I don’t know where he got it from, I’m afraid. I’m going to ask him about it while I’m over here, but I haven’t had the chance yet.’

Harriet nods, still inspecting the brooch. ‘Well, I can tell you it definitely is a fake, like you were informed back
in the UK. No Tiffany original would have unmatched eyes like this. But it’s a very good one. I would go so far as to say that it may even have been made by one of the same craftsmen who worked for Tiffany at the time, it’s that good.’

‘Really?’

She nods. ‘Whoever owned this may have thought it actually was genuine.’

‘Wow, so it’s definitely old then. They thought it was, back in the UK.’

‘Yes, it would have been made at the turn of the century alongside the other genuine Tiffany brooches of the time, then sold on the black market and possibly traded back into the mainstream. It’s difficult to know exactly with fakes like this. But I can tell you, even though it’s fake, it’s worth several thousand dollars.’

‘Wow,’ I say again. ‘I never thought about it being worth anything, I was just interested to know more about it.’