From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually (27 page)

So here I am, walking across town towards the address he’s given me on the West Side. I know Jamie will be OK with the idea of me trying to trace his father. I don’t know how I know this, I just do. So I don’t feel at all nervous when I reach the red-brick apartment block and press the buzzer with his name on.

‘Yep,’ comes the familiar voice back through the intercom.

‘It’s me, Scarlett.’

‘Hi, I’ll just buzz you in.’

The door opens and I’m allowed access to the building. I climb the stairs to Jamie’s apartment on the second floor, where I find he’s already waiting for me at the door.

‘Hi,’ he says, opening the door wide for me to come in. ‘Sorry about asking you to come here, but I’m waiting for a new sofa to be delivered this morning, and have to wait in.’

I look around the apartment. ‘What’s wrong with the old one?’

Jamie’s apartment is surprisingly quite
big. There’s an open-plan kitchen and living area with a couple of doors leading off it, I presume to the bathroom and bedroom.

‘Nothing really,’ he shrugs. ‘I just fancied a new one.’

‘Oh, cool.’

‘You can sit on it for now, though,’ Jamie says, gesturing towards a brown leather sofa. ‘It’s quite safe.’

‘From … you, you mean?’ I joke, then immediately regret it. After what happened the other night at the party, and Sean’s reaction to Jamie, I didn’t really want to go down that road today.

‘Er … yes,’ Jamie says, his cheeks flushing slightly. ‘I think we can avoid a repeat of the swing-seat incident as long as we stay off the cocktails this morning, don’t you?’

‘I’m so sorry about that, Jamie.’ My own face reddens too. ‘I don’t know what happened.’

Jamie shrugs. ‘You drank too much. We both did. You poured your heart out to me about many things, and then you crashed out on my lap. I wasn’t far behind you, I reckon.’

‘And then after we were disturbed you took me back to my hotel?’ I ask hesitantly.

‘Yes, but you crashed out again as soon as your face hit the bed. And I mean, hit the bed. I had to turn you
around to get you up the right way so I could pull the covers over you.’

A huge sigh of relief escapes from within me.

‘Why, what did you think had happened?’ Jamie asks quizzically.

‘Nothing. I mean, I assumed that’s what you’d done. You’re my friend, after all.’ I smile back at him.

‘Yes. Your friend, that’s all,’ he repeats. ‘Look, Scarlett, no offence. You’re a very attractive woman, but I just don’t feel that way about you.’

‘You don’t?’ I exclaim, sounding a bit too pleased. ‘I mean, you don’t,’ I lower my voice an octave.

Jamie smiles. ‘You obviously feel the same way.’

I nod. ‘Yes, it’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, I really like you and everything, but I don’t fancy you, if that makes sense.’

‘Perfectly. Although after I met your boyfriend the other night I think that’s just as well, don’t you?’

‘I’m really sorry about Sean; he’s not normally like that at all. I think it was just finding you in my room like that, and the camera, and me dressed the way I was.’

‘No, that probably didn’t help much.’ Jamie grins. ‘It was like something out of a movie, wasn’t it?’

I roll my eyes. ‘Why, just when I don’t want it to, does my life choose that very moment to resemble a movie scene? Oh, it doesn’t matter now,’ I say, waving my hand dismissively
at Jamie. ‘It wasn’t just finding you two in the room that day; Jen has been stirring up trouble, too.’

‘Jen? Do you mean Jennifer from the other night?’

I nod. ‘That’s the one. She’s Sean’s ex. Jennifer has always had it in for me after Sean knocked back her advances after they’d broken up. She thinks it was because he wanted to be with me. It really wasn’t – there was more to it.’

‘Oh,’ Jamie says, then he screws up his face, ‘Uh-oh …’

‘Uh-oh what?’

‘I think I might have done something similar to her.’

‘What? How?’

Jamie comes and sits next to me on the sofa. ‘She was coming on to me really strongly, and to get away from her I told her I was going outside for some fresh air. When she wanted to come with me I told her I was going to find you.’

I screw up my own face now. Jennifer would have loved that. Not. No wonder she delighted in phoning Sean.

‘Why weren’t you interested in Jennifer?’ I ask. ‘Much as I hate to say it, she’s an attractive woman.
Was
she coming on too strong for you?’

‘Not my type,’ Jamie says, sitting back on the sofa.

‘What is your type then?’ I ask, starting to wonder if Oscar might be wrong and Jamie
is
gay.

‘Funnily enough,
usually someone like you, Scarlett. Pretty, bright, easy-going, yet challenging too.’

I was quite enjoying his description of me until he got to the challenging part.

‘I’m challenging?’

Jamie smiles. ‘Come on, you know you are!’

‘I prefer “interesting to be with”,’ I grimace, then I smile at him. ‘But not your type this time, eh?’

‘Nope, not this time,’ Jamie grins. ‘Ah, well, there’s a first time for everything. I now have a proper female friend I don’t fancy.’

‘That’s great! I think?’

‘Just like in the movie
When Harry Met Sally
,’ Jamie suggests helpfully.

‘They end up sleeping together and getting married.’

‘Yes, they do, don’t they?’ Jamie pulls a face. ‘So not the best of examples, there. But the basic principle is the same, and until I can think of a better movie scenario it will have to do for now.’

‘Deal,’ I say, holding out my hand to him.

‘Deal,’ he says, taking hold of it.

As we shake hands, we catch each other’s eye for a split second and I feel that same connection again. And by the look on Jamie’s face, he feels it too.

*

Jamie returns from the kitchen
a few minutes later with an ice-cold Pepsi for us both, and we settle down again on his sofa and begin to discuss the real reason I’ve come over here today.

‘Do you really think you can find my father?’ Jamie asks, after I’ve explained everything. He drains the last of the Pepsi from his glass. ‘If I’ve never had any luck, why should you?’

‘I really don’t know, but it’s my chance to prove to Sean that my idea can work.’

‘Why does it matter what he thinks?’ Jamie asks. ‘If you want to do it just go ahead, you don’t need his approval.’

‘No, you’re right, I don’t. But I could do with some backing to help me start up, and his company could provide it.’ I think about what I’ve just said. ‘Actually, that’s not fair; I do want Sean’s approval on this. I want him to think I can do it, that it’s not just about the money.’

‘Fair enough,’ Jamie shrugs. ‘Then let’s go for it. What do you want to know?’

I get my notepad out and begin taking notes on everything Jamie tells me about what he knows of his father so far. After about twenty minutes, his door buzzer rings.

‘That will be the new sofa,’ he says, leaping up. ‘Back in a min.’ He goes over to the intercom. ‘Yes?’

‘Jamie?’ a female voice comes crackling
through the speaker. ‘Is that you?’

‘Mother?’

‘You don’t need to be quite so formal,’ the well-spoken English voice replies. ‘And you might at least sound pleased to hear your mother’s voice.’

‘Of course I’m pleased,’ Jamie says, sounding shocked. ‘You … you’d better come up.’

Jamie presses a button on the intercom and turns to face me. ‘That’s my mother,’ he says, his face pale.

‘Yes, I gathered that.’

‘But she’s supposed to be in Australia right now.’

‘Ah, that is a bit of a shocker then. I wonder what she’s doing here?’

‘That’s just what I’m thinking.’ Jamie looks towards the door just as there’s a tap on it, and he rushes over to open it.

An elegant-looking woman glides into the room. She’s got long brown curly hair, tied up at the side with a bright blue butterfly clip, and she’s wearing loose white trousers and a navy and white kaftan top with more colourful butterflies fluttering prettily over it. At first glance you might mistake her for someone much younger, but on closer inspection I realise from the abundance of laughter lines around her eyes and mouth that she’s likely to be somewhere in her late forties to early fifties.

‘Jamie, darling.’ Jamie’s mother wraps her
arms tightly around him in a warm embrace. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

‘Mum, it’s good to see you too. But what are you doing here? You never said you were coming.’

‘I thought I’d surprise you, darling.’ She looks over in my direction and smiles. ‘And who might this be? Oh, wait, I know who you are. You’re Scarlett, aren’t you?’

‘Er … yes, that’s right, I am. But how did you know?’

Jamie’s mother reaches out a hand garlanded with silver bangles. ‘I’m Eleanor,’ she says, shaking my hand firmly, her wrist jangling as she does. ‘I saw you on one of Jamie’s reports. The one outside Tiffany’s?’

‘Of course, yes. That seems ages ago now.’

‘I send Mum all my TV stuff so she can see it,’ Jamie explains. ‘But what it doesn’t explain is why you’re here, Mother.’

‘I just wanted to pay you a little visit, Jamie. Nothing wrong in wanting to see my son once in a while, is there?’

‘No … I guess not.’

‘Look, I should go,’ I say, gathering up my notebook and pen. ‘And leave you two to it. You must have a lot to catch up on. We can finish this another time, Jamie.’ I suddenly feel awkward talking about the search in front of Eleanor.

‘Sure,’ Jamie nods knowingly. ‘Let me see you out.’

‘It was nice to meet you, Eleanor.
Perhaps I’ll see you again while you’re here.’

‘Oh, I’ll make sure of it, Scarlett,’ she replies, fixing me with her bright blue eyes.

‘Right, OK then.’ I head towards the door, where Jamie is already waiting. ‘Is your mother OK?’ I ask him quietly as I step outside.

‘She’s what you’d call a creative type, if that’s what you mean? She’s an actress, isn’t she? She’s meant to be a bit unhinged. They’re all a bit like that.’

‘Of course she is, sorry, you’ve only just told me about her properly.’

Jamie nods. ‘Yes, of course, I forgot. Sometimes, Scarlett, it feels like I’ve known you a lot longer than I actually have.’ We hold each other’s gaze for a brief second. ‘Anyway, I’d best get back; find out the real reason she’s here. Because there will be one, knowing my mother – just you wait and see.’

‘This is nice – just the two of
us, at last,’ Sean says as we stroll hand in hand through Central Park later that afternoon. ‘I wondered for a while if we were ever going to get to be alone here for any length of time. What with Oscar, your TV friends and your father earlier.’

We’d had lunch with Dad in a restaurant in Greenwich Village and, as I thought it might, the topic of my possible new business venture had cropped up over the main course.

‘But who will run the business in London if you come and live over here?’ Dad asked, putting his knife and fork down. ‘We can’t both be in New York at the same time.’

I sigh; I knew this would happen. ‘It’s not a permanent arrangement, Dad, it’s just for a bit, to see if I can make it work. Tammy
and Leon have been great while I’ve been away – they’ve really come into their own, haven’t they, Sean?’ I ask, looking at him for back-up.

‘Not that I want Scarlett to come and live here, Tom,’ Sean replies, looking at my father seriously. ‘But she’s right; they’ve done a great job in the short time Scarlett’s been in New York. Better than I thought they would.’

‘Sometimes you just need to give people a chance to prove themselves,’ I say, giving them both a meaningful look. ‘So they can show what they’re truly capable of.’

Dad smiles knowingly. ‘The last time I did that, Scarlett, you disappeared to Notting Hill, where you proceeded to find your long-lost mother, ditch your then fiancé and ride off into the sunset with Sean, never to return.’

Sean grins now. ‘So not an altogether bad result.’ Then he becomes serious again. ‘Tom, I really think we need to give Scarlett a chance with this one. The idea is very important to her – for many reasons. Let her at least give it a go. If it works out, the rest we can take from there.’

I reach across the table and squeeze Sean’s hand. I’ve missed him.

‘OK, then,’ Dad says, nodding. He picks up his knife and fork again. ‘Prove to us that you can do it, Scarlett. Reconnect a
family that has been separated for years. Just don’t involve me in all the tearful reunions when you do.’

‘Don’t you worry, Dad,’ I smile, ‘the chances of you being anywhere near one of my reunions is about as likely as me declaring my undying love for Jeremy Clarkson.’

Dad looks baffled and turns to Sean for an explanation.

‘
Top Gear
,’ Sean states. ‘Scarlett has issues with it.’

‘I don’t have issues, I just don’t see the point.’

‘There’s a point to everything in life, Scarlett,’ Dad says. ‘Sometimes you just need to find out what it is.’

As we continue our walk though Central Park, I give Sean’s hand a little squeeze. ‘Yes, it’s lovely to get to spend some time with you again. I’ve missed you.’

‘Have you?’ Sean asks in surprise. ‘You seem to have been awfully busy while you’ve been here, with everything that’s been going on. I bet you’ve not even given me a second thought.’

We stop walking and pause at the top of the Wollman Rink.

‘Don’t be daft, of course I have.’

Sean gazes down at the funfair and the brightly coloured rides. ‘I didn’t know there was a funfair in Central Park.’

‘Not
all year round; this is where the famous ice rink is set up in the autumn and winter. Jamie was telling me all about it when we came here.’

Sean’s face snaps back towards me. ‘You came here with Jamie. Why?’

‘Er … because we’d just been to see his friend at the Met Museum about my brooch; and we came here for a bit of a wander afterwards. He was telling me about all the movies that have scenes set here. There are so many I didn’t even know about. Jamie’s a bit of a movie buff, like me.’

‘Is he really?’ Sean says with indifference.

‘Sean, you’ve got to stop this. Jamie is just my friend, I keep telling you.’