by Ali McNamara
‘Yes sir, thank you, sir,’ I say, hurrying to catch up with Oscar, who is waiting a few paces ahead of me, grinning from ear to ear at my embarrassment.
‘I don’t know, Scarlett,’ he says as I reach him. ‘You’ve only been here five minutes and you’ve already had a run-in with the cops!’
‘Stop it, Oscar. It’s late and I’m getting tired. Well, it’s late in the UK.’ I glance at my watch and add on five hours. ‘It’s one in the morning back home!’
‘You need to forget about that,’ Oscar says, linking his arm through mine, ‘or you’ll never get on US time and you’ll be permanently jet-lagged while you’re here. Right, let’s find somewhere to eat.’
We wander farther along 42nd Street and then – so exciting! – turn onto Fifth Avenue.
‘Ahhh,’ Oscar sighs, almost curtseying before the steps of a large building which has two stone lions, much like the ones in Trafalgar Square, guarding the entrance. ‘The New York Public Library …’
I feel like I’m supposed to know what the Aaah is for.
‘Why are you aaahing?’ I ask bluntly.
Oscar looks horrified. ‘Scarlett, have you watched no Sex and the City?’
‘Not this episode, obviously.’
‘You of all people should know this one. It’s from the first movie. The New York Public Library is where Big jilts Carrie on their wedding day.’
‘Ah, I see.’ I look up at the strikingly ornate white building. ‘Can we go inside?’
‘Not now,’ Oscar says, looking at his watch. ‘It’s too late. But we will, if only to glide down the heavenly marble staircases.’
We find an Italian restaurant just off Fifth Avenue, although Oscar assures me the best Italian food is to be found in Little Italy on the Lower East Side.
‘My family originally emigrated from Italy to New York many years ago,’ he tells me as we tuck into our pasta and pizza.
‘Did they? I never knew you were Italian.’
‘On my mother’s side, yes. My great-great-grandfather emigrated here in the early 1900s from Italy. It was my wild grandmother who later came to England, and brought disrepute and shame to the family by moving there with a man she wasn’t married to. That’s how we ended up in London with the surname St James.’
‘That’s your real name?’ I ask in surprise. ‘I always thought it was for effect.’
Oscar purses his lips. ‘Darling, I cannot deny that I do many, many things for effect in my life. But my name is not one of them. I’m proud of my family. What’s left of them.’
Oscar never spoke that much about his family. I knew that his house in Notting Hill had been left to him by a rich aunt, and that from the rest of her estate he’d bought and set up his shop on the King’s Road. But other than having a sister, Jennifer, I knew little else about him, aside from the fact that his parents had both passed away some years ago. Oscar was one of those people who left nothing to the imagination on the outside, with his bright, bold clothes and flamboyant personality, yet kept an awful lot hidden on the inside.
‘So what was your Italian name, then? Do you know?’
Oscar pushes the last of his pizza crust around his plate.
‘You do know, don’t you?’ I press him. ‘What was it? Come on, tell me.’
‘Promise you won’t laugh?’ Oscar says, eyeing me across the table.
‘Why would I laugh? Italian names aren’t normally funny. They’re usually romantic and exciting like Ferrari, or Maserati, or Lamborghini,’ I suggest weakly, beginning to struggle.
‘How about Fiat, if we’re going for makes of Italian sports car?’ Oscar laughs.
‘I must have spent too much time watching Top Gear with Sean. Come on, tell, what is it?’
‘De Costa,’ he says, taking a sip from his glass of white wine.
‘What’s wrong with … oh wait,’ I clasp my hand to my mouth to try and stifle a giggle. ‘So you would have been called …’ I literally have to bite my lips together now.
‘Just get it over with,’ Oscar says, rolling his eyes. ‘Oscar de Costa, yes.’
‘Oh, Oscar, I’m sorry, it’s not really that funny,’ I try to say seriously as I feel a fit of giggles begin to build inside of me. But, as we all know, the more you try and stifle laughter like that, the worse it gets, and the hand-over-mouth technique really isn’t hiding anything now as I convulse, the supressed giggles erupting inside me.
‘Please, miss, allow me,’ I hear a calm yet forthright voice behind me say as I feel two strong arms tighten themselves around my waist. ‘I know the Heimlich manoeuvre.’
I feel myself being forcefully lifted from my chair. ‘No, wait!’ I shout before the two arms can squeeze even tighter. ‘I’m not choking!’
The arms immediately loosen their grip. ‘Oh, do pardon me. I’m so sorry.’
I turn around and see a tall, grey-haired man wearing a suit and tie. He’s in his mid-to-late forties, and by the feel of his grip just now, and the fit of his suit, it looks like he works out regularly.
‘It’s fine, really,’ I say with a half-smile. ‘You thought you were trying to help me.’
He still looks mortified by his mistake. ‘It’s just, when I saw you convulsing with your hand over your mouth, I thought …’
‘Please, really, just forget about it. I was trying not to laugh at my friend’s name, that’s all.’
The man looks puzzled. I can’t say I blame him; I’m not really making much sense. ‘Well, as long as you’re OK, I’ll leave you to return to your dinner. Again, my sincerest apologies.’
I smile properly at him now as he returns to his table, and I take my seat with Oscar again.
Oscar shakes his head. ‘I don’t know how you do it, darling! We only arrived a few hours ago, and you’ve already had an encounter with the police and had a strange and,’ he cocks his head on one side and ogles the table where my rescuer is now continuing with his dinner, ‘rather handsome man’s arms around you! What’s the rest of our time going to be like in New York, if this is what you get up to on your first evening?’
Eight
The next morning after breakfast I decide to ring my father.
‘Dad, how are you?’ I squeal excitedly on hearing his voice.
‘Scarlett, I’m well. Did you have a good flight?’
‘Great, thanks. Do you know, they have over a hundred movies to choose from on the plane now, and you can stop, pause and rewind whenever you want?’
Dad laughs. ‘You don’t change, do you?’
‘So, when can we meet up? I’m dying to see you again.’
‘Ah, there’s been a slight hitch there, Scarlett.’
‘What do you mean, a slight hitch?’ I feel my heartbeat start to quicken.
‘I’m not in New York at the moment, I’m in Dallas.’
‘Dallas!’ A brief vision of my father wearing a Stetson floats into my mind.
‘Yes, I’m afraid I’ve had to dash across here on business.’
‘But Dad, you knew I was flying out this week. I’ve come all the way over here especially to see you.’ The vision begins to turn from Dad wearing a simple Stetson into a full-blown image of him as J. R. Ewing, drawn from the repeats of Dallas Oscar and I have been watching recently on UK TV Gold.
‘And you will see me, Scarlett. I’ll be back in a few days, I promise. This is a very important three-day leisure conference. It will mean a lot of revenue for the US side of the business if we get the contract I’m hoping for from this visit.’
I sigh. My father was sounding more like Sean by the day.
‘OK, Dad, but I do need to see you, I’ve got some stuff I need to talk to you about.’
There’s a pause at the end of the line. ‘That sounds ominous, Scarlett. What sort of stuff?’
‘Don’t worry about it now; it can wait until we meet up.’
As we end the phone call, for the first time in my life I feel let down by my father. I’d flown all the way over here to see him, and h
e couldn’t even be bothered to be here when I arrived?
There’s a knock at the door. I don’t even need to look through the peephole to know that it’s Oscar on the other side. Even his knock is unique.
‘Hey, I’ll just be a minute,’ I say, letting him in as I look around the room for my bag. ‘I’ve just been speaking to Dad. You’ll never guess what? He’s not even in New York, he’s in Dallas!’
‘I can just see your father in a Stetson,’ Oscar muses, mirroring my own thoughts. ‘Very J. R. Ewing.’
‘He may as well be JR for all the affection I’m feeling for him right now. I can’t believe he’s not here when I’ve flown all this way, Oscar. I feel let down.’
‘Ah,’ Oscar says, twisting the toe of his bright green Kurt Geiger shoe around on the hotel carpet. ‘You may be feeling much the same about me in a minute, then.’
I stare at him. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
‘Jen just called. She’s in a similar predicament to your dad, only the opposite way around. The fashion house she works for now are flying her somewhere exotic for a photo shoot in a couple of days, so if I’m to see her it’s got to be sooner rather than later. I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to pull the cord on our plans for the next couple of days, darling.’
I try not to let my disappointment show too much, but to be ditched twice in the space of a few minutes, first for a bunch of cowboys and now for my boyfriend’s ex, was almost too much to bear.
I pretend to look for my errant bag, which annoyingly immediately appears in front of me on the bed. Typical.
‘Are you mad at me, darling?’ Oscar asks as I feel his hand stroke the back of my hair.
‘No,’ I reply in a tight voice. ‘Why would I be mad? You need to see your sister, like I need to see my dad.’
‘Will you be OK on your own today then, sweetie?’ Oscar swings himself around onto the bed now so he’s looking up at me. ‘What will you do?’
‘Oscar, this is New York. I only have to wander down the street and I can find loads to do. You proved that to me last night.’
‘And you proved that you only have to step out of the hotel room and you find trouble. Dare I leave you on your own for a whole day? Sean will skin me alive and eat me for breakfast if anything happens to you on this trip.’
‘Well, Sean isn’t here, is he, and it was his idea I come in the first place, so Sean will have to put up with whatever New York has to throw at me.’
Oscar stares up at my defiant attitude open-mouthed.
‘Don’t worry, Oscar, I’m not going out looking for trouble.’
‘No, but is it out looking for you?’ Oscar enquires with a knowing look in his eye.
Armed with a map and strict instructions from Oscar on what not to do and where I was definitely not to venture in the city, I set off from the hotel later that morning on my own.
The doorman swings open the door wide for me. ‘Can I get you a cab, miss?’ he enquires hopefully.
‘That’s kind, but no thank you, er … Sam,’ I note, looking at his name badge. ‘I’m walking today.’
‘Great idea, miss. Have a nice day, won’t you?’
Wow, they actually say that? ‘Thanks, Sam, I intend to. See you later.’
I walk the same route Oscar led me along last night, but decide this time to walk the entire length of Fifth Avenue. I stare in awe at the shops that I pass along the way. Names I’ve only ever seen and heard on television and in movies, like Saks, Bergdorf Goodman and Barnes & Noble are now right in front of me, beckoning me in. They tempt me into their lair with the promise that if I spend the wad of green dollars hidden in my purse, I too can experience the same glamorous lifestyle I’ve seen on my cinema and TV screens. I explore FAO Schwarz, the huge toy store, and find the Big Piano; the same one Tom Hanks danced and played chopsticks on in the movie. I want to have a go myself, but it’s full of children having a fun time, and when the occasional adult is brave enough to take a turn, there’s always a friend or partner close by to take a souvenir snapshot of them so they don’t feel like a prize idiot dancing in the middle of toyshop on a giant piano, and suddenly I feel lonely again.
I leave FAO Schwarz and debate whether to go into Central Park, but Oscar and I had said we’d go there together one day as he’d never had a chance to visit it properly before, so I turn back onto Fifth Avenue. And it’s then I spot it across the street: an iconic movie moment standing elegantly right in front of me. Tiffany’s.
There’s the very spot where Audrey Hepburn would have pulled up in front of the store in a now vintage yellow taxi, eating her breakfast and then pausing to glance at the jewels in the window.
I’m still gazing in awe at the opulent-looking building as I cross over the road, then one by one I wander around all of Tiffany’s tiny windows, each displaying an exquisite diamond in its best light. Wow! This is fantastic – I have to go inside. I mean, obviously I won’t buy anything, it will all be too expensive. I just want to have a quick look … and then there’s the brooch to think about. My Roadshow buddy did say that it was a Tiffany replica; someone in there might be able to help me trace its history.
I’m about to go towards one of the doors, when a microphone is thrust under my nose.
‘Excuse me, I wonder if I could ask you a question?’
My eyes run along the arm holding the microphone, up a shirt-covered body and finally, at the top, they find a pair of dark-chocolate eyes staring back at me intently.
The brown eyes then smile, as does the mouth below them.
‘What sort of a question?’ I ask, looking suspiciously at the microphone again.
‘We’re asking people just why they’re here visiting Tiffany’s today.’
‘Why? I ask again. ‘And who’s we?’
Mr Brown Eyes laughs now. ‘Well, that’s more response than I get from most New Yorkers, even though you haven’t actually answered my question. Allow me to introduce myself. We’re from Morning Sunshine, it’s a TV breakfast show over in the UK. Do you know it?’
I nod at him. I did know the show, but the truth was I usually watched their rival in the mornings. Well, I had, until I’d got myself banned … but I thought it was perhaps best not to mention that right now.
‘Good,’ he says smiling. ‘We, that’s my cameraman here and myself, are just filming quick reactions from people to make up a small piece that will go out on tomorrow morning’s show.’
I suddenly notice another man holding a camera standing a little way behind me. He’s wearing a red t-shirt with a Union Jack flag that says I ♥ London and khaki combat shorts. He waves casually with his free hand.
‘So would you be prepared to say why you’re going into Tiffany’s?’ my questioner asks again. ‘You’d be doing me a huge favour; we have loads of trouble getting people to stop for vox pops.’
‘Vox pops?’ I ask, looking at him with a puzzled expression. ‘What’s that?’
‘That’s what we call what we’re doing here, asking people questions on the street.’
I shrug. ‘Sure, go on then, why not?’
‘Great! Max,’ he calls out to the man with the camera. ‘We’ve got one!’
Max moves a bit closer to us and arranges his camera on his shoulder. ‘OK, Jamie, ready when you are.’
‘So,’ Jamie says, looking at me, ‘if you can just tell me why you’re here today, and why you’re going into Tiffany’s, that would be great. I’ll nod when we’re ready for you to speak. Oh, and don’t look into the camera, look at me, OK? Don’t worry if you dry up or stutter; we can cut it to make it look good for the final piece.’
‘Sure,’ I say with certainty, but I’m trying to remember when I last brushed my hair. I run my hand casually through it.
‘Right, then,’ Jamie says. He opens his eyes wide and looks towards Max, who nods at him from behind the camera. Then he nods pointedly at me and thrusts his microphone under my chin.
I blink a couple of times before I find my voic
e. ‘I’m visiting Tiffany’s today because for one, I absolutely adore movies, and I love the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, it’s just so romantic, and Audrey Hepburn is so elegant in it. I mean, she’s elegant in all her films, but in this one in particular her clothes are just wonderful. And then of course there’s the scene at the end where they get out of the cab to find the cat, that’s just so sad, and then so joyous at the same time, it makes me cry every time I see it, and I must have watched that film over a dozen times.’ Jamie nods at me, so I take this as a good sign and continue.
‘And the other reason I’m here today is that I’m trying to trace the heritage of a brooch that has been in my family for years. It’s a Tiffany replica from the early 1900s, a dragonfly – really pretty, but fake, apparently.’ I quickly open my bag and pull out a black velvet pouch containing the brooch, then I hold the dragonfly up so the camera can see it. ‘The weird thing is, I don’t understand why my dad would ever have something like this. I’ve actually come over to New York to ask him about it, but he’s not here at the moment, he’s over in Dallas. We own a popcorn-machine company and—’
Out of the corner of my eye I see Max making a slitting action across his throat and I realise that Jamie has dropped the mic away from my mouth.
‘Oops, did I go on a bit too much?’
‘Just a tad,’ Jamie says, but he smiles. ‘Interesting story though, about the brooch.’
‘Yes, it is all a bit odd.’
‘Can I take a look?’
‘Of course, ‘I carefully place the brooch onto the palm of my hand. ‘I’m going into the store in a minute to ask them about it.’
Jamie inspects the dragonfly. ‘Wow, nice. Certainly looks real.’
‘It does, doesn’t it?’
He lifts the brooch up towards the sunlight, and the cobalt blue of its body sparkles against the sun’s rays.
‘And you say it’s not a genuine Tiffany?’
‘Yep, I had it valued on the Antiques Roadshow back in the UK.’
He stops examining the brooch and turns his intense gaze towards me. ‘Antiques Roadshow?’ he says with a serious expression. ‘You don’t do things by halves, do you?’
