From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually (8 page)

‘Well the forecast for Memorial Day weekend is fantastic, sunny in the high eighties. What more could you want?’

Oscar and I smile at each other across the back of the cab.

‘What’s Memorial Day weekend?’ I ask. ‘Is it one of your public holidays?’

‘Yep. Boy, have you hit New York City at a great time.’ He surveys me in his rear-view mirror. ‘Single, are you?’

‘I have a boyfriend, but I’m not married. Why?’

‘Because, honey, it’s Fleet Week right now.’

Oscar and I exchange blank looks.

‘Fleet Week is held every year in the city,’ our tour-guide taxi driver continues, speaking to me. ‘It’s a tribute to our good seafaring guys and gals. Huge warships sail into the harbour, and more importantly for you,’ he pauses for a quick inspection of Oscar in his rear-view mirror, ‘and I’m guessing by the look of it, you as well, fella, you’ll be appreciating this – thousand of sailors and marines come ashore for the week, too.’

‘Oh my God, oh my
God
,’ Oscar squeals into my ear. ‘It’s like that episode of
Sex and the City
!’

‘What are you talking about, Oscar?’
Oscar was a huge
Sex and the City
fan. He’d already got us signed up on some bus tour of the sights à la Carrie Bradshaw and the girls while we were here.

‘The episode where Carrie, Samantha and Charlotte go to the party with all the sailors, and then Carrie ends up outside with one, but turns him down and instead tells him how much she loves Manhattan.’

I shake my head. ‘Oscar, you know far too much about that show. No, I haven’t seen that episode, I must have missed it.’

Oscar flicks his head back in disgust and holds up a hand. ‘Scarlett, you disappoint me.’

‘I’m more of a movie buff, remember?’

‘Movie buff, eh? Then have you seen
On the Town
?’ the cab driver asks, glancing in his mirror at me again.

I stare blankly at him.

He tuts and rolls his eyes. ‘Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and some other guy – never remember his name – dancing their way across New York dressed as sailors? No? Perhaps this will help you remember, then.’ The cab driver clears his throat. ‘They sing this song as the opening number to the movie …’ and from the front of our yellow cab, flying across the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, our driver launches into the song. ‘New York, New York it’s a helluva town / The Bronx is up, but the Battery’s down / The people ride in a hole in the groun’ …’ while on the back
seat Oscar and I try to stifle our giggles.

‘So, have you seen it?’ he asks enthusiastically when he’s finished serenading us. ‘It’s a classic.’

‘That scene does ring a bell now you mention it,’ I answer politely. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t think I’ve seen the whole movie.’

‘It’s a classic Hollywood musical,’ he huffs. ‘You really haven’t lived, doll. Forget all your state-of-the-art special effects and three-D nonsense. You need to watch some Bing, Frankie and Gene, them’s ya guys.’

After that, the cab driver decides that with our poor taste in cinema viewing we’re not worth bothering about and turns on the radio, delighting in some easy-listening show tunes for the rest of the journey to the hotel, while Oscar and I delight in trying to spot some famous New York landmarks as we get ever closer to the city centre.

Eventually we pull up outside a very nice-looking hotel, with large elegant blue canopies hanging over the windows and a uniformed doorman waiting by a revolving glass door to usher the guests in and out. He rushes over to open my cab door.

‘Thank you,’ I say shyly, as I climb out feeling like a celebrity. ‘That’s very kind.’

While Oscar pays the driver, the doorman proceeds to unload
our bags from the boot of the cab and onto a trolley before pushing them up a slope into the hotel, while we follow gazing about us in awe at the foyer of the Park Avenue hotel we are staying in.

Inside, it’s very tastefully decorated in shades of purple and black, and the moment we step away from the heat of the pavement (no, make that sidewalk!) it’s a calm and relaxing haven to welcome the busy, fraught traveller. As we approach the reception desk, I’m aware the doorman is still hovering. I look at Oscar and incline my head back in his direction.

‘Darling, he wants tipping,’ Oscar whispers as the receptionist comes over and Oscar begins dealing with her in his best Notting Hill manner.

‘Ah, OK … erm.’ I delve into my bag and find some dollars. I don’t know how much you tip a doorman, and I hope this will be sufficient. ‘Thanks very much,’ I say, thrusting them into his hand.

The doorman glances quickly at the notes, his eyes open wide. ‘No problem, miss. You just let me know if there’s anything you need while you’re here. Anything at all …’

‘How much did you give him?’ Oscar asks as I join him at the desk. ‘He looked mighty happy.’

‘I don’t know, I just grabbed some notes from my purse.’

‘Scarlett,’ Oscar shakes his
head. The receptionist has turned away for a moment to fetch our keys. ‘It’s supposed to be a dollar a bag!’

‘Oh, I think I only had tens and twenties.’

Oscar rolls his eyes. ‘This trip will cost you a fortune, darling, if you carry on like that. You’d better get used to tipping – everyone does it here. And get used to how much, as well!’

The receptionist hands us our keys and, deciding we can handle our bags ourselves, we make our way up to our rooms. There had been some debate before we left as to whether we should share a room, but Oscar said he was prone to snoring and didn’t want to keep me awake at night. I had a feeling it was more likely that Oscar didn’t want me cramping his style if he managed to score with a good-looking New Yorker, and now we knew about Fleet Week and all the sailors being in town I was doubly glad we weren’t sharing. I imagine I’d have been constantly fed dollars to ‘go to the cinema’, like an awkward younger brother or sister you wanted out of the way for a few hours.

My room, like the rest of the hotel, is beautifully decorated; burgundy is the main colour scheme, with hints of silver, black and grey. I’ve got a double bed, a huge wardrobe and chest of drawers to store the many clothes I’ve brought with me, plus an elegant dressing table-come-desk. There’s also a small high-backed armchair in the corner
of the room with a tall lamp standing next to it, and a minibar. It’s much bigger than I’d expected it to be: I’d been led to believe from reviews I’d read on the internet that New York hotel rooms were quite tiny, but this isn’t at all, it’s very roomy indeed. Oscar and I really seem to have fallen on our feet with this hotel; it’s lovely.

I’ve just finished unpacking when there’s banging on my door. I take a quick look through the peephole and see Oscar outside, hopping impatiently from one foot to the other.

‘Ready yet, darling?’ he asks as I open the door.

‘Not quite, come in for a moment.’

I’m not surprised to find that Oscar has changed outfits as he bounds energetically into my room. He’s now wearing black designer jeans with zebra-print patch pockets and a white t-shirt with a black bolt of lightning emblazoned across the chest.

‘Hurry up, sweetie. We’re in New York now, we’ve just got time to go and explore this evening! What are you going to wear?’

‘Er …’ I glance down at the jeans and Gap t-shirt I’ve travelled from London in. I suppose I should change, really.

‘Let me look in your wardrobe.’ Oscar leaps over to my newly hung wardrobe. ‘These robes are simply to die for!’ he says, pulling out one of the leopard-print bathrobes that the hotel has supplied
for us. ‘The ones in my room are zebra print!’

‘They’re OK, I suppose. Different to your usual white towelling numbers.’

‘Different is good, Scarlett. When are you going to start believing that? Why be the same as everyone else when you can be unique!’

‘Well, you certainly are!’

Oscar spins around on the carpet. ‘And proud of it. Now get in this wardrobe and find a unique first-night-in-NYC outfit to wear, girlfriend. We’re going Out On The Town. And I don’t mean like that lame movie the cab driver was singing us the score to!’

When I’ve changed into what I think is an appropriate outfit – black jeans, black boots and a cowl-neck River Island top – we set off into the evening.

The doorman smiles as he holds the door open for us to leave.

‘You’ve made a friend for life, there,’ Oscar winks as we set off into the street.

Oscar, who has visited New York before to see Jennifer, leads the way down Park Avenue.

‘Ooh, what’s that?’ I ask, looking up at a large ornate building which dominates the junction at the bottom of the road.

‘That’s Grand Central Station. If you think it’s grand on the outside, wait until you go inside. Train travel
back in the UK will never be the same, darling, I promise you! But not now – I’ve got more important places to take you tonight.’

As we walk along 42nd Street – just the name alone sends a little thrill through me – with bright yellow taxis constantly swarming by us like noisy canaries flying low along the street, and an equally large number of people bustling past us on the sidewalk, the reality that I’m actually in New York suddenly hits me. In wonder, I tilt my face upwards, gazing at the soaring skyscrapers above my head that seem to stretch endlessly up into the now darkening night skies, and just as quickly snap it back down again when the rest of my body suddenly collides with something round and soft.

‘I’m
so
sorry, officer,’ I say as an NYC policeman retrieves his cap from the sidewalk and begins dusting it down. ‘I was just looking up at the buildings.’

‘Tourist?’ he enquires, eyeing me warily.

‘Yes, I just arrived this afternoon.’

‘Well, miss,’ he says, placing his hat back on top of his thinning brown hair. ‘Let me give you a little tip while you’re here. Keep your eyes in front of you, behind you and to the side. But definitely not up above you, because there’s a lot more to worry about down here on the streets than there is up in them there skies!’

‘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.