The To-Do List (29 page)

       
For those of you who have never been, Dean and Deluca is pretty much the delicatessen-cum-homewares store to end all delicatessen-cum-homewares stores. It’s like a temple dedicated to the creation and consumption of food and is a wonderful way to kill an afternoon if all you want to do is stare and drool.

       
Staring and drooling is what Claire and I did over all of the amazing prepared food that they had on display. When we hit the homewares section Claire officially fell in love with a mug, a cream-coloured mug with thick contours and a solid-looking handle. Printed on the side of it in tasteful script were the words: Dean and Deluca.

       
I should point out here that Claire doesn’t have many vices. She doesn’t do expensive shoes or handbags. She doesn’t really like shopping for clothes and has little to no interest in jewellery. With the exception of her hair (which she takes very seriously indeed) she is pretty much the definition of a cheap date. Her one Achilles heel, however, is mugs. She loves them. Claire’s idea of a perfect day would be spent perusing the shelves of a shop called ‘Mugs, Mugs, Mugs’, while drinking from a mug only interrupting her perusing/drinking to look through the ‘Mugs, Mugs, Mugs’ catalogue for anything that they didn’t have in store.

       
In the eleven years that we’ve been together I have seen Claire buy more mugs than any sane woman could want. She’s bought tall mugs, small mugs, wide mugs and deep mugs; she’s bought plain mugs and mugs with every kind of pattern. But I had never seen her look at a mug the way that she looked at that Dean and Deluca mug. It was mug at first sight. And unlike other mugs that, over time, tended to fall out of favour to be replaced by yet another of its kind, the Dean and Deluca mug was always number one. So when I managed to break it the summer before last by knocking it off the counter while making myself a cup of tea to go with my fried breakfast, Claire wasn’t just saddened by its loss, she was devastated. And though I tried to find a replacement, purchasing several near-identical mugs from Heals, Habitat, the Conran Shop and John Lewis, to Claire’s eyes none of them came close. I even scoured the internet but discovered the Dean and Deluca website didn’t deliver to the UK. And that was when I realised that, excessive contributions to the world’s carbon dioxide output notwithstanding, there was no option but to jump on a plane and get one in person.

Stepping out of the tranquil air-conditioned calm of the Muse hotel into the hustle and bustle of New York in the morning rush hour was like stepping from an old black and white movie into a full-on stereophonic Technicolor extravaganza. The yellow cabs, the skyscrapers, the pretzel sellers, the commuters dressed for business from the ankle up and for jogging from the ankle down – there was no doubt that I was in New York.

       
I opened my map of central Manhattan and tried to get my bearings. As far as I could remember there were only two Dean and Deluca stores in the area. The first was a smaller operation just off Rockefeller Plaza. Claire and I had visited it for lunch one afternoon and I had infuriated many busy office workers behind me in the queue by taking ages to formulate my order because I’d been distracted by the sight of Wesley Snipes walking past. It wasn’t actually Wesley Snipes but just some random bloke who on closer inspection didn’t even remotely resemble the actor in question, but it was enough to make me momentarily forget that I hardly ever imbibe hot drinks, let alone the tall skinny mochaccino that I seemed to be in the process of ordering. The second store, in SoHo, was the larger of the two and the one where Claire had bought the mug. Given that the Rockefeller centre was closer than SoHo I headed there first.

       
Walking through the busy New York Streets I tried to adopt a confident strut as though I were a native and not a daft tourist with a funny walk. There’s something about being in strange countries and not being sure of how things work that makes me self-conscious, so in a spot of reverse psychology I try to act the opposite of how I really feel.

       
My confident strut and I barely raised an eyebrow on my way to the Rockefeller centre, which I took as a good sign. Pausing outside the shop I peered in: they had mugs, but tall latte-types like the ones you get in Starbucks rather than the good solid diner-style mug that Claire loved so much. I thought about asking one of the girls at the tills, but even though it was only mid-morning there was a long queue and I didn’t want a bunch of New Yorkers tutting at me for holding up the queue. My best bet was to head to SoHo and have done with it.

       
Although yellow cabs are a great way of getting around New York, nothing beats walking. The sights, the sounds, the tastes, the smells, they’re all there to be witnessed first hand if you take to the streets. Heading down Sixth Avenue I made my way towards Broadway and then down into SoHo. On the way I passed a middle-aged woman in a fur coat and sunglasses walking six Yorkshire terriers, a group of school children heading into Madison Square Park and a man who may or may not have been the actor who used to play Dr Carter on
ER
.

       
It felt good to be here. Seeing the sights. Hearing the sounds. Walking the streets. And all for a good cause. Claire and I would definitely be back here soon, I told myself.

       
At the SoHo store, I took a deep breath and walked in. It had barely changed. There was still the café at the front and the amazing delicatessen counter to the right. Determined to claim my prize as soon as possible I headed to the rear of the store to the mug section and began scouring. I looked high and I looked low, repeating my actions several times over before throwing myself on the mercy of one of the store’s assistants, giving her a detailed description of the mug. But to no avail.

       
It simply wasn’t there.

Chapter 27: ‘No matter how hard things get . . . no matter how fed up you are . . . make sure you don’t give up.’

As dozens of New Yorkers buzzed around in my vicinity doing their shopping, the magnitude of my folly dawned on me: I’d flown over 17,000 miles in search of a mug that wasn’t there in order to tick it off on a 1,277-item To-Do List that I now felt like ditching on the spot. Having overcome chicken pox, the Bollywoodisation of one of my novels, my wife booking random holidays without my knowledge, and losing the List, my mission was going to come to an end because of a simple $12 mug. It was more than I could take.

       
On the pavement outside Dean and Deluca I drew up a mental list of reasons why it would be completely okay for me to give up:

Reasons why it’s completely okay for me to give up on the To-Do List this close to the end:

 1. I’d given it my best shot.

 2. I missed my kids.

 3. The To-Do List had been a stupid idea from the very beginning.

 4. I was on my own in New York.

 5. It was practically my birthday (and no one should have to work this close to their birthday).

 6. I’d almost reached the deadline anyway.

 7. I could save myself the hassle of having to spend months on end turning the To-Do List into a book.

 8. I wouldn’t have to carry on pretending that I was getting anything out of
War and Peace
.

 9. I’m already reasonably comfortable with the idea of failure so giving up on the List would be a great way of reacquainting myself with the notion.

10. I was tired. Really tired. Tired of trying. Tired of giving things my all. I wanted to stop racing round like a nutter trying to do everything and getting nowhere fast. I wanted to just stop and do a whole big hunk of nothing.

For balance, I then wrote a list of reasons why it
wasn’t
okay to give up.

Reasons why it’s not completely okay for me to give up on the To-Do List:

 1. I’ve worked too hard to give up now.

 2. One day my kids might read the To-Do List and be inspired.

 3. The To-Do List is probably the best idea I’ve ever had.

 4. So what if I’m on my own in New York? It’s New York!

 5. Why give up this close to my birthday and cast a shadow over something that should be fun?

 6. I’d practically reached the deadline anyway.

 7. The book version of the To-Do List could become a huge international bestseller and I could end up being endorsed by Oprah.

 8. I’m already more than halfway through
War and Peace
.

 9. I’d like to become reacquainted with the notion of perseverance.

10. Yes, I’m tired, but it was the good kind of tired. The kind of tired that you get from going the extra mile.

I weighed up my two lists in the hope that an answer might present itself to me. It didn’t. And though I hoped that there might be a fortuitous conversation with a kind and mysterious beggar; or an inspirational inscription scribbled on the edge of a discarded newspaper; or even a well-timed transatlantic call from my wife telling me: ‘This is what you should do.’ The truth was there was none of the stuff of films and all of the stuff of regular old reality: a difficult decision to be made and a lack of certainty about the right course to take. And so without any help I made the decision myself. It could be right or wrong but it was mine and mine alone. A mature decision, dare I say it an adult decision: mug or no mug I was going to carry on to the bitter end.

What do you do when you’ve got six hours left in New York and a seven-hour plane ride ahead of you and not a single thing planned? Well, if you’re me you walk across the road to a nearby coffee house, get in line, order yourself the largest fruit smoothie in the house, and once you’ve found yourself somewhere to sit you reach into your rucksack and pull out your brick-like copy of
War and Peace
and start reading.

It was just after seven in the morning when Continental Airlines landed at Birmingham International. I looked out of the window to see bright British sunlight sparkling over the wet tarmac. It looked like a cold but crisp day. The kind of day, especially when you’ve been away, that makes you appreciate the fact that you live in a country with distinct seasons.

       
As everyone around me began unbuckling their belts even though the seatbelt sign was still on, I reached over to the seat pouch in front of me, and plucked out
War and Peace
. Pausing only to smirk at the cover (a portrait of a camp-looking Colonel Yergraf Davydov, of the Household Troops, wearing a short red military jacket, ludicrously tight white leggings and calf-length boots) I used my thumb to flick rapidly and noisily through the pages then flipped it over and put it back again. This book, my sole companion for the last who knows how many hours, wasn’t coming back home with me. I was done with it. I had conquered it by reading it from cover to cover and would now set it free in the hope that it would find a new home with someone who might love it more than I did. But the bottom line was this: this book had saved me in a way that a year ago I would never have thought possible.

From the moment that I opened up
War and Peace
in that Manhattan café right through to the concluding page of the second epilogue as the plane (according to the map on my mini TV screen) came in over Southampton, I had wanted to abandon it pretty much every hour on the hour. That wasn’t to say that it was a bad book. There were some killer lines that I probably would have underlined with a pen had I not worried that I would then proceed to poke out my own eyes with it.

       
I got it, Tolstoy, I understood what you were trying to say and why. But the thing is, mate, having spread the whole story over the best part of 560,000 words, you’d made me cease to care what was happening to whom and why. Still, I’d got my
War and Peace
tick, and I felt good . . . in fact, I felt great. Part of that was that I’d just polished off a big fat book by a dead Russian bloke but mostly it was that I had defeated my demons and got through to the end. In personal terms this was my London Marathon, my journey to the South Pole. In fact, it was probably my Everest. And I’d conquered it. There wasn’t anyone or anything that could take this achievement away from me. This brand-new tick had given me a new impetus, a new desire to conquer the To-Do List once and for all. But for the moment, all I had the strength to do was keep awake long enough to collect my bags, make it through customs and find a taxi. I barely remember the journey home, or even seeing Claire and the kids on the door step. The desire to crawl into bed and close my eyes was so powerful I couldn’t resist.

‘Dad! Wake up!’ I opened my eyes and looked around. I was lying underneath a duvet. There was a picture of Audrey Hepburn on the wall. Two small children were bouncing on my chest and a woman was standing behind them smiling. Was I back in my New York hotel? I looked around at the room. The remnants of a slight damp patch over the chimney breast (Item 125: ‘It’s been three years since you got the damp in the chimney breast sorted so finish the job and re-paint.’); the eighties-style Chinese lantern light bulb cover (Item 918: ‘Replace eighties-style Chinese lantern lampshade’); and rows of books lining the trio of IKEA bookshelves (Item 409: ‘Take books that you’ve read and don’t want, or haven’t read and don’t want, or even will never read and don’t want, to Oxfam.’). If this was a New York hotel, I thought to myself, then it was a very poor one and I would be checking out as soon as possible.