‘No, I’ll go. This is a holiday together. I’m looking forward to it.’
‘Liar.’
‘OK, so I’m not a massive art lover. But I do want to see the Met.’
‘There’s so much to see,’ she told him as they wandered a bit aimlessly. ‘Not just the major venues, but other things – the Whitney, The Met Cloisters, I want to see street art in Freeman Alley, Eduardo Kobra’s technicolour murals around the city.’
‘The what?’
After she explained, he concluded, ‘You mean graffiti.’
‘It’s not graffiti, it’s art. It’s a whole project; they’re huge, iconic works. One is of Gandhi and Mother Teresa, there’s one of Albert Einstein. He did another called ‘The Braves of 9/11’ – it’s a seven-storey work of art depicting a kneeling firefighter, and the number on the fireman’s helmet is the number of firefighters who lost their lives.’
Nathan registered her frown at his apparent ignorance and the personal angle she’d hit him with to perhaps try to persuade him not to dismiss art as frivolous, something that didn’t matter. ‘You’ve done your research, and we will make time for as much as we can.’ But he wanted to head off any argument about her future career aspirations, at least for the time being. ‘It’s the first night, we need to do something we’d both like.’
‘How about checking out some movie or TV locations?’
‘Anything in mind?’
‘We could see Carrie’s brownstone on the way back to the Inglenook Inn, and theFriendsapartment building is down that way too.’ She took out the paper fold-up map of the city he’d given her that she’d resolutely refused to use but that she’d soon changed her mind about when she realised using an app on her phone would deplete the charge and she wouldn’t be able to take so many photos.
He turned the map the right way up. ‘Remember we’re here for a month. Perhaps we don’t need to do it all tonight.’
‘What should we start with?’
‘Central Park.’
‘Central Park is huge.’
‘I’m not suggesting we do all of it right now.’
‘I hate to point out the obvious, but it’s dark.’ Although her frown lifted quickly when she said, ‘We could ice-skate.’
‘I was thinking more of a horse and carriage ride.’
‘One of those too, but ice-skating tonight. Please, Dad. I watchedSerendipitylast week and they were at the Wollman Rink and I really want to go. We’d be seeing Central Park plus a movie location so we’re both happy.’
He had no desire to attempt balancing on two thin blades and end up spending more time on his arse than upright, but he wanted to make her happy. ‘I wouldn’t class it as something I want to do, but…go on, let’s do it. But it’s only fair to warn you that I’ve never done it before.’
‘Not even on all those ski holidays you’ve been on with mates over the years?’
Ouch. Those ski holidays had been when she was younger; he’d left her with her mum and just buggered off. He was older and wiser now, but back then nobody had been able to get through to him. Not Dawn, not his parents and definitely not Scarlett, even when she’d been upset that Daddy was going away. ‘Not even then. We skied, we ate, but a load of blokes hitting the ice-skating rinks?’ He screwed up his nose.
‘About time you gave it a try then. Live a little, Dad.’
He frowned and, with an accepting shake of her head that indicated she was already anticipating the cringeworthy dad behaviour she was about to endure, she helped him scoop up their rubbish to drop in the bin on their way past. ‘It’s going to be fun watching you.’
*
‘This isn’t like the movies,’ Scarlett declared as they ventured onto the rink, her standing freely, him gripping hold of the sides for dear life. ‘In the movies the couple usually has the rink pretty much to themselves, or else they have a lot of free space, and one of them isn’t afraid to let go of the edge.’ She moved out the way of a group of lads who surely must play ice hockey in their spare time given how adept they were at zigzagging their way around, twisting and turning whenever it took their fancy. ‘Come on, let go, you can do it.’
‘I’m not ready,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘I’m going to do a lap.’ She was laughing, he could tell, and not making a very good job of hiding it.
When Scarlett turned fourteen he’d taken her and three of her closest friends up to Bath for the Christmas markets and he had hung out in coffee shops while they perused the stalls. They all met up near the Circus and they’d begged him to extend their leaving time and go to the outdoor rink in the park. Every one of them had taken to the ice and within minutes made it look so easy.
Right now, with these wretched blades on his feet, he swore it was the bravery of youth versus the loss of courage with each year you grew older that made him so useless at this.
