From Notting Hill to New York . . . Actually (28 page)

‘I know you do. But it sounds as if he’s got to be quite a close friend over the last couple of weeks, and I think I’m a tiny bit jealous.’

‘You know something?’ I whisper, smiling up at him. ‘I think you are too. But at least I know you care.’

Sean pulls me into his arms and kisses me. ‘I would have hoped you knew that anyway,’ he says, holding me close as he looks down into my eyes.

‘I do, but a girl likes to see evidence of it from time to time.’

‘Do you think I’ve been neglecting you then?’

‘Possibly,’ I shrug. ‘Just a bit, maybe. But it’s fine. I know you’re busy,
and I knew what I was letting myself in for when we got together last year. We’ll work it out, though.’

Sean pulls me even closer to him. ‘I’m sorry, Scarlett, I didn’t realise. Maybe you’re right, maybe I have let that side of things go a little. But I’m going to make it up to you, just you wait and see.’

Later that day, I’m sitting in my hotel room trying to do some research using Google on my phone, and wishing I’d got my little MacBook with me, when my phone rings. I answer it straight away thinking it’s Sean who, true to form, has managed to find ‘a bit of business’ to do while he’s in New York, even though he’s promised me he’ll be back as soon as he possibly can. So I’m surprised to hear a woman’s voice speaking at the other end of the line.

‘Hello, is that Scarlett?’ she asks.

‘Yes it is. Who is this?’ I ask, thinking as I speak that I recognise the voice.

‘This is Eleanor, Jamie’s mother. We met this morning.’

‘Yes, hello again. What can I do for you?’

‘I was wondering, Scarlett, if we could meet up sometime while I’m here for a little chat.’

Oh. I’m immediately on my guard. What does Eleanor want to talk to me
about? It could only be that Jamie’s told her about my helping him search for his father, and she doesn’t want me digging around in her past.

‘Yes, that would be lovely. When were you thinking of?’

‘How about breakfast tomorrow?’

Wow, she certainly doesn’t mess around.

‘Yes, I can do breakfast.’

‘I know it sounds a little bizarre,’ Eleanor explains, ‘but Jamie says he’s doing a live over to the UK tonight, so I know he’ll be sleeping in in the morning.’

So it’ll be just the two of us …

‘Then breakfast sounds great. There’s a little diner not far from Jamie’s apartment that does a good breakfast.’ I bite my tongue. That might sound odd, me knowing that, but it’s where I went with Dad for breakfast.

‘Yes, I know it,’ Eleanor says, not sounding at all bothered. ‘Shall we say nine?’

‘Nine is great.’

‘See you tomorrow, then. Bye for now. Oh, and Scarlett, not a word about this to Jamie if you speak to him before then, OK?’

‘Sure, yes, that’s fine.’

‘Good. The morning it is, then.’

And she’s gone.

The next morning I’m waiting patiently
for Eleanor in the diner where I’d had brunch with my father a few days ago, although now it seems like much longer. Had I only been in New York for nine days … really? It seemed like for ever.

I’ve read the menu about ten times, and know exactly what I’m going to order. Although how I’m going to eat anything when I feel this nervous I don’t know. But why should I feel nervous? I haven’t done anything. What’s the worst that can happen? Eleanor could ask me to cease searching for Jamie’s father. I think about this for a moment. There’s something that has secretly been bugging me about that. Maybe she did know where Jamie’s father was, but she didn’t want him to find out. Maybe his long-lost father was a criminal, or a murderer or an international terrorist wanted in several countries for crimes against—

‘Good morning, Scarlett,’ Eleanor says, breaking into my spiralling conspiracy theories. ‘I do hope I’m not late.’

‘Hi … hello,’ I stutter, hurriedly standing up and dropping the menu in the process. ‘I didn’t see you come in. No, not late at all.’

Eleanor slides elegantly into the seat opposite me wearing another brightly coloured outfit, this time it’s a dress with red and pink roses all over it. She takes a quick glance
at the menu. ‘Do you know what you’re having?’ she asks.

‘Yes, yes I do.’

‘Good, then let’s order.’ She lifts her hand and a waiter comes scuttling over.

After we’ve placed our orders – both for pancakes – Eleanor clasps her hands together and places them on the table in front of her.

‘Now, down to business.’

I don’t know whether to be intimidated by this no-nonsense approach she has to everything or whether I quite like it, but I don’t have too long to dwell on the matter because she continues talking.

‘You’re probably wondering why I want to meet with you like this this morning.’

I nod.

‘It’s quite simple, Scarlett. It’s to do with Jamie’s father.’

I knew it. Here we go.
I fiddle with the corner of my napkin.

‘I think I know where he is,’ she continues.

‘And you don’t want me to go looking for him, is that it?’ I interrupt. ‘You want me to back off my search and leave him alone.’

Eleanor looks puzzled. ‘What are you talking about – back off your search?’

‘My search to find
Jamie’s father. He told you about it, didn’t he, last night? That’s why we’re here this morning. You’re going to ask me to stop looking because you don’t want Jamie to see him again.’

Eleanor shakes her head. ‘You’ve lost me now, Scarlett. Why wouldn’t I want Jamie to see his father again after all these years? That’s why I’m here with you today.’

Eleanor and I sit and stare at each other as the waiter brings Eleanor’s herbal tea and my coffee.

As he leaves the table, Eleanor speaks first.

‘I don’t know why you think we’re here today, Scarlett, but Jamie hasn’t said anything to me about you searching for his father.’

‘He hasn’t? Then what are you talking about?’

‘I saw you on one of Jamie’s clips he sent me with a brooch, a brooch shaped like a dragonfly.’

‘Yes, that’s right, I was taking it into Tiffany’s.’

‘Do you have it with you, by any chance?’ Eleanor looks towards my bag hopefully.

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t. Why?’

‘Oh, that’s a shame, I wanted to take a closer look just to make sure.’

‘To make sure of what?’ This was getting odder by the moment.

The waiter brings our pancakes now, and sets them
down on the table with a jug of syrup for me and blueberries and cream for Eleanor.

‘To make certain if it had got one blue eye and one black. It was difficult to see on the TV screen, it was only on for a few seconds, and it doesn’t matter how many times I play that bit over and over, I still can’t tell.’

‘The dragonfly does have one blue eye and one black,’ I say carefully. ‘Well, it did.’

‘What do you mean,
did
?’ Eleanor says in an urgent voice. Her hands grip the edge of the table tightly.

‘I don’t have the brooch now; it was sold in a charity auction. It raised quite a bit of money.’

Eleanor releases her grip on the table as her face drops into her outstretched hands.

‘What’s wrong? Look, Eleanor, I’m not really following all this. What has the brooch got to do with anything, and how would you know it had got one black eye and one blue, unless’ my voice trails off as I realise what I’m saying. Then, as the rest of the jigsaw begins to fall into place in my brain, my hand claps over my mouth as I suck my breath in sharply. ‘You’d already seen it before up close.’ My hand falls limply back down into my lap.

Eleanor looks across the table at me; her blue eyes stare back into mine.

‘Did the brooch belong to you originally?’ I ask. ‘Were you the person who gave it to my father?’

Eleanor nods.

‘You’re the woman from Stratford?’

She nods again, and there’s sadness
in her eyes.

‘But you left suddenly, Dad said. Why?’

‘I think you’ve already worked all this out, Scarlett. But I’ll honour you with a proper explanation. I was pregnant.’

‘With Dad’s baby?’

Eleanor nods.

I think about this for a moment. ‘But why, why didn’t you stay? You could have at least told him, even if you didn’t want to stick around.’

‘I was young, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Your father was a very attractive man, Scarlett, but he was just out of a bad relationship, your mother had not long left and he had you. He didn’t want to be lumbered with another child to look after.’

I shake my head. ‘No, you’re wrong. Dad would have looked after you and another baby. He wouldn’t have turned you away.’

‘Yes, I knew that deep down, but like I said, I was young and foolish then, and I thought I’d be trapped. So I left, and Jamie was eventually born in London after I’d travelled around for the next few months.’

‘Jamie!’ I shout. My hand flies up to cover my wide-open mouth.

‘Yes, Scarlett,’ Eleanor says calmly. ‘Jamie. Who did you think I was talking
about when I mentioned a baby?’

‘I … I don’t know. I’d just assumed you’d had more than one child, that it was another baby. But that means that Jamie could be my brother.’

‘Half-brother, yes, if it’s the same brooch. Is your father’s name Tom?’

I nod.

‘Then it’s definitely him.’ She smiles. ‘I knew it the first time I saw you on the TV screen. You remind me very much of Tom.’

‘Do I?’

‘Definitely. The way you spoke to Jamie with such passion about the brooch, and your love of the movies, it’s just like your father used to be. He had a great passion for life did Tom, back then. Life had knocked it out of him a bit, and understandably so, given what he’d been through, but it was still there, lurking.’

I think about this. Then my hand covers my mouth for a third time as something else occurs to me.

‘But that’s just the same as it’s been for me with Jamie since I met him here in New York … he’s constantly reminded me of someone too, but I couldn’t think who it was. Now I know – it’s
Dad
.’

Eleanor smiles.

‘The two of you seem to have
really hit it off. Jamie was talking about you a lot at dinner last night.’

‘Was he?’ I smile. Suddenly my feelings for Jamie all make sense. Now I know why it feels like we have a connection but aren’t actually attracted to each other. Apart from the incredible shock at finding out I’ve got a half-brother, I’m also feeling a massive sense of relief about why I’ve been feeling the way I have.

‘But telling you all this is the easy part,’ Eleanor says as she picks up a fork and begins prodding at her pancakes.

‘What do you mean?’ I ask, realising that I haven’t even touched my own food yet.

‘Our next and biggest problem is how to go about telling Jamie that you’re his half-sister, and your father that he has a son he knows nothing about.’

‘He’s your
what
?’ Oscar yelps as I have lunch that same day with him and
Sean on a rooftop restaurant overlooking Central Park. ‘How can this possibly
be
? Details, darling, and fast!’

‘Calm down, Oscar, people are looking.’ Actually people were doing nothing of the sort. Oscar’s antics were nothing if not normal in New York, but I wanted to see how Sean was taking this news. I glance across at him. Calm is how I’d describe his demeanour right now. So nothing new there.

‘Care to explain further, Red?’ Sean enquires, leaning back in his seat. ‘Or is this another one of your flights of fancy, brought on by a little too much of this glorious New York sunshine?’

‘No, it’s not, actually. As you know, Sean,’ I give him a meaningful look, ‘I met up with Jamie’s mother this morning
and she has explained everything.’

I go on to tell them what Eleanor told me, and as I do Oscar’s eyes grow wider at the same time as Sean’s get narrower.

‘In the name of Carrie Bradshaw, you couldn’t make this stuff up!’ Oscar cries at the end of my story. ‘That is incredible, darling, and all because of your silly brooch.’

‘I know, amazing, isn’t it?’ I look towards Sean.

He simply shakes his head. ‘How do you do it?’ he asks.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I send you over here for a simple break, some time away and a bit of a catch-up with your dad, and you end up with all this going on!’ He shakes his head again. ‘Your poor father, that’s all I can say.’

‘What do you mean, “my poor father”? I’ve found his long-lost son. He’s going to be so happy when I reunite them.’

Sean opens his eyes wide now, not in amazement like Oscar’s are, but in disbelief. ‘Scarlett, for one, he doesn’t even know he has a “long-lost son”, let alone that he’s even looking for him. And two, he might not want to
be
reunited.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Do you remember what happened
last time you tried to reunite your father with someone he hadn’t seen for years?’

Sean is of course referring to the time I held a dinner party to reunite my two estranged parents after they hadn’t seen each other for over twenty years. It didn’t exactly go well. I seem to remember there was a lot of shouting and a fair bit of broken glass.

I shake my head. ‘That was different. My parents had unresolved issues they needed to work through.’

Sean laughs. ‘It was like a scene from the
Jeremy Kyle Show
, only slightly prettier.’

‘Stop it. It worked out all right in the end, didn’t it?’

‘Yes it did, luckily for you. But this is different. You need to tread carefully; this is someone your father doesn’t know exists, remember? And what of this Eleanor woman? He might not be too pleased to see her, either.’

I’d already thought of that. But I won’t let Sean’s sensible, practical ways win out.

‘It will be fine; I’ll make sure of it. We’ll all pitch in and
make
it fine. You’ll help me, won’t you, Oscar?’

Oscar puts down the drink he’s been sipping while Sean and I have been arguing our points. ‘Of course I will, darling. Just name it!’

‘Right,’ I deliberately turn away from Sean. ‘Well, first we’ll need
to find a way to get everyone together without causing too much suspicion.’

‘Hmm …’ Oscar drums his fingers on the table while he thinks.