From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually (15 page)

‘Oscar! We don’t all think like you, you know.’

Oscar shrugs merrily. ‘Life would be a lot simpler if people did sometimes! At least I know what I want and just go out and get it.’

‘Even if that something doesn’t know it wants to
be had! Come on you,’ I say, linking my arm through his. ‘Let’s go get that coffee, I could do with a drink.’

‘In this heat, darling, better make it iced,’ he winks. ‘We both need to cool off.’

As we continue our wander back along Fifth, my eyes are drawn, not for the first time, to a huge cathedral standing quite at odds, yet very elegantly, amid the modern architecture of the shops and offices.

‘That’s St Patrick’s,’ Oscar says, seeing me looking over towards it. ‘It’s New York’s, I think in fact America’s, largest Catholic cathedral.’

‘How odd that something as regal and splendid as that is squeezed in amid all the tackiness and flamboyance of the Fifth Avenue shops.’

‘That’s very poetic of you, darling.’ Oscar grins at me.

‘Yes, I suppose it is. Shall we go in and take a look?’

‘You want to go into a cathedral?’ Oscar says with a look of horror. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, I’d just like to, that’s all. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

‘But I thought we were heading over to the Rockefeller Center now, and going for a drink up in the Rainbow Room?’

‘I just found out the other day it’s closed at the momment. Jamie told me.’

Oscar pouts.

‘But we can find
somewhere else to go just as exciting after?’

‘Oh, all right then.’ Oscar rearranges the many carrier bags on his arm. ‘If you insist, darling; I shall put my best holier-than-thou face on and accompany you into the cathedral.’

As we enter through two great bronze doors adorned with religious figures, we find the inside of St Patrick’s Cathedral to be a calm haven away from the hustle and bustle of Fifth Avenue. Great neo-gothic archways line the whole length of the aisle, finally forming a huge dome above the altar. While Oscar takes a look around at the tiny individual chapels that adorn the edges of the cathedral, I take a seat in one of the many long pews that spread down the length of the nave.

As I sit in the peaceful surroundings, I feel immediately calm and comforted by the great building. I look up at the vast yet intricate architecture and then around at my fellow ‘worshippers’, most of whom are tourists, like me, sitting down for a few minutes’ break away from life, allowing this wonderful building to soothe their tired bodies and busy minds.

The man sitting in front of me is deep in prayer right now. Well, I assume that’s what he’s doing; his head is bent and his suited body is very still. He’s been like that since I sat down. I’m just beginning to
wonder if he’s OK when the grey hair on his head moves a little and his head lifts.

Phew, thank goodness for that, I think, he is actually alive.

The man turns his head a little to the side, distracted from his thoughts by a child being scolded by his mother for running down the aisle of the cathedral, and suddenly he looks familiar. Where have I seen him before?

Oh yes … As he stands up to leave the cathedral, and I can see his whole face now, I realise it’s the same man who tried to give me the Heimlich manoeuvre in the restaurant the first night we were here.

He notices me staring up at him, and the same look of half recognition crosses his face too.

‘The restaurant,’ he says, pointing at me.

‘Yes, that’s right. Small world.’

‘Isn’t it?’ He looks around him. ‘Getting some peace and quiet, are you, away from the madness outside?’

‘Yes, something like that. It’s very beautiful in here, I’ve never visited before.’

‘I try to drop in as often as I can after work. It calms me down after a stressful day at the office.’

‘What do you do?’ I ask, to be polite. I immediately regret it, as the man now walks around the end of the pew and slides into the seat next to me.

‘Do you mind?’ he asks. ‘It seems
disrespectful to remain standing, both to you and to the cathedral.’

‘No; you’re in a free country, aren’t you?’

He laughs. ‘Yes, we sure are. Are you here on holiday?’

I notice he hasn’t actually told me what he does. ‘Yes, I am. My friend is just over there looking at the chapels,’ I add, in case he’s a weirdo trying to latch onto me.

‘Ah, yes, you were in the restaurant with him the other night.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Having a good time so far?’

‘Yes I am. Very good, thanks.’

‘Good. That’s good.’ He stands up again. ‘Well, it was nice meeting you again …’

‘Scarlett, my name is Scarlett,’ I offer without thinking.

‘And I’m Peter. Well, Scarlett, maybe we’ll meet again. They say everything happens in threes.’

‘Yes, that’s true, they do. I prefer “Everything happens for a reason”, though.’ I could kick myself.
Just why am I telling him this?

‘Well,’ Peter says, smiling. ‘If you believe everything happens for a reason, and I believe everything happens in threes, we’ll definitely be seeing each other again very soon.’

‘Perhaps …’ I whisper as I turn and watch him walk away down the aisle. ‘But in a city this size, what are the chances of that happening?’

‘I cannot believe you have
dragged me out of my bed at this time of the morning on holiday,’ Oscar says as we walk towards Grand Central Station to catch the subway down to Battery Park.

‘We have to leave early, Oscar. We’re going to visit just about
the
biggest tourist attraction New York has to offer. If we don’t get one of the early ferries, the queues are horrendous later on.’

We’re finally off to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and I’m really excited. Partly because I’ve been looking forward to visiting Lady Liberty since I saw her for the first time with Jamie; and partly because I hope today I might be able to find out something about my family history at the Ellis Island Immigration
Museum, and at last begin to trace the history of the brooch.

Dad was in Chicago now. Infuriatingly, he’d flown there from Dallas as a result of some business he’d picked up at the conference, with a promise he’d be back in the next couple of days. I never thought I’d say it, but my father was starting to remind me of Sean. When we lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, running our business together, I couldn’t get him out of the house. Now it seemed I couldn’t stop him jetting all over the country just when I wanted him with me in one place. So I still hadn’t had a chance to ask him anything about the dragonfly, or to surprise him with my news about the brooch and its history.

As we walk into Grand Central Station, I gasp.

‘Wow, this can’t be real, can it?’ I ask, spinning around me as I gaze in amazement at the chandeliers hanging above my head, and at the intricately painted green and gold ceiling.

‘Yep, this is Grand Central. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?’ Oscar says, taking an admiring glance around him too.

‘For a subway station, it’s incredible.’

‘It’s a train station, too.’

‘But it’s so ornate.’

‘I know, and you’re here when it’s pretty quiet, so you’re seeing it at its best.’

We’re standing on a central concourse by a large gold clock,
and on either side of us two vast cream staircases stretch up to a mezzanine that encircles the entire station.

‘It’s like something out of a movie,’ I gasp again.

‘I think Grand Central has been in quite a few movies,’ Oscar says, thinking. ‘You should know, darling, you’re the expert.’

‘Yes, I’m pretty sure it has.’ But I’m so taken aback by the beauty of this utilitarian building that, for once, all movie thoughts have been erased from my mind.

‘Come along; we need to get a move on if you want to catch this ferry and be the first to step onto Liberty Island this morning,’ Oscar says, grabbing hold of my arm and leading me towards the subway.

‘Yes, you’re right. I’m just so stunned by this interior, Oscar.’

‘Told you you would be. I remember when Ursula came here for the first time, she was stunned by it too.’

Ursula was an interior designer, Sean’s sister and Oscar’s best friend. But Oscar didn’t see her as much these days since she’d started travelling a lot with her work.

‘You miss Ursula, don’t you?’ I ask him as we walk towards the subway.

‘Oh, I do!’ Oscar says as he pops his ticket into the barrier
and skips through. I push mine in too, then follow him. ‘Much like you miss mad Maddie,’ he continues. ‘But it means we’ve got to spend lots of fab time together, darling, since the two of them have been jetting off around the globe on their adventures. And you know what they say; every cloud has a Scarlett lining!’

I slip my arm through his as we make our way down into the New York subway, knowing that as long as Oscar is by my side there can never be too much wrong in life.

When we reach Battery Park there is a very short queue just starting to form to buy tickets for the ferry, but it doesn’t take us long before we’re down by the waterside going through the very stringent security checks before we can board the boat.

We manage to get a seat on the right-hand side of the upper deck. I’d done my research, and knew that this was the best side to get a great view of Lady Liberty as we sailed across the bay towards Liberty and Ellis Islands. As we wait for the boat to fill up and set sail, I leave my seat for a moment to take a look around at the view of Lower Manhattan. What is it about this place, I wonder, as I look across at the skyscrapers and buildings all huddled together across the water? What makes it so special?

Before I’d come here, everyone had said, ‘You’ll love New York so much’. Not one person had had a bad word to say about it, but now I am here I realise they’re right; I am falling in love with this
city of extremes and opposites. The streets are filled with the tallest, most contemporary skyscrapers you can find anywhere. They dominate their older siblings; the smaller, almost antiquarian buildings that really don’t seem to fit in with the city’s plan at all. One minute you see someone running in a pair of high heels or a suit because they’re late for work, and the next, you see someone doing exactly the same thing in more appropriate attire, just for fun. And everywhere you go there are people – diverse, unique, individual people living their own lives, each with their own problems, but all living here crammed into this wonderful city together.

‘What are you looking at?’ Oscar calls from his bench.

‘The Staten Island ferry,’ I reply, seeing the bright orange ferry sail across the water next to us. ‘It’s the same one Melanie Griffith rode every day in
Working Girl
.’

‘Trust you to find a movie,’ Oscar says as I sit down again next to him.

‘Can’t help it here, can I? They’re everywhere.’

‘It’s such a fab city.’ Oscars claps his hands in excitement as the ship’s horn sounds and we finally set sail for the islands. ‘I wonder what thrills Lady Liberty will bring us today.’

Our first stop is Liberty Island, where most of the passengers including Oscar and I alight to go and visit the great lady herself. We’d had
our first glimpses of the statue as we sailed over from Manhattan. It was breathtaking then, but standing beneath her now looking up, both Oscar and I are open-mouthed at her feet.

‘Wow,’ I whisper in awe.

‘You can say that again, darling. The folds on her gown are simply gorgeous.’

I drag my face down from Liberty to look at Oscar. ‘Trust you to notice that. I expect you’ll be wanting a crown like hers, too.’

Oscar tilts his head to one side as he observes Liberty’s crown. ‘I could sell something similar to certain members of my clientele, I won’t deny it.’

‘You could sell anything to anyone, you.’

‘In the garment line, yes, I have to agree that matching the right outfit to the right person is definitely my forte.’

‘Maybe it’s in your blood. Maybe generations of De Costas have been dressing people for years.’

Oscar laughs. Then he looks serious. ‘Do you really think so, Scarlett?’

I shrug. ‘Don’t know, but we could find out today, couldn’t we, when we go over to Ellis Island. We could try and trace your history as well as my brooch’s.’ I’m trying to spark Oscar’s interest; I know he isn’t particularly enthralled by the second part of today’s excursion.

‘It might be fun to take a
look, I guess. What harm could it do?’

We spend the next hour or so wandering around the statue, having our photo taken in front of Lady Liberty and visiting the island gift shop. Basically, just being your average overexcited tourists. Oscar does indeed buy a crown, but one of those green-foam joke ones, which he immediately places on his head. I buy a t-shirt and a small statue to put on my desk at work. Somehow I think I’m going to miss this place when I’m back at the office day in, day out, and this will remind me of being here.

We head back to the ferry to travel across to Ellis Island. The immigration museum is housed in the original station building where the immigrants would have arrived when they set foot on US soil for the first time. On the outside it’s a huge red and cream brick building, and when we venture inside we find a great hall lined with Stars and Stripes flags, and an exhibition showing photos and items of luggage from some of the original immigrants.

We take a wander around. ‘Look, there’s a movie,’ I say, seeing a board advertising a short information film with a showing every forty-five minutes.

‘That’ll be exciting,’ Oscar says flatly, continuing to walk on. ‘Do you think we get popcorn?’

I look
at my watch.
Damn: we’ve just missed it.
‘We’ll come back in half an hour. I think it might be good.’

‘Darling, you and your movies, we don’t have to see
every
one, do we? It’s not compulsory.’

‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll go and look at the records for now, then we can come back for the film in a bit.’

‘Sure, whatever,’ Oscar says, inspecting a large carpet bag in one of the displays. ‘Ooh, I do like that bag. I wonder if Harvey Nicks does something similar?’