‘Oh look!’ Meg pointed. ‘I can see a big wheel and a rollercoaster!’
‘Not just any rollercoaster, that’s the famous Cyclone!’ Edd announced.
‘Is it a theme park?’
Edd nodded. ‘There are rides, yep, but it’s not so much a theme park. Some of the best weekends of a boy’s life are spent in Coney Island.’
Meg took in the red-brick towerblocks that sat behind the slightly rusty big wheel and the imposing bent track of the rollercoaster that looked fresh out of the 1950s. A mini Eiffel Tower stood in the foreground. She raised her eyes and looked it up and down.
‘That’s the parachute jump – fancy a go?’ Edd nudged her with his elbow.
‘No way!’ She laughed, feeling a little faint at the idea. She cast her eyes over the slightly dilapidated fascias of the shops, cafés and gelaterias. The neon signs were unlit and tattered flags hung limply from stubby poles. Even at this time of year there were tables and chairs set outside for the more daring patrons and the hardened smokers. It looked like any other seaside resort that had been abandoned in favour of newer, shinier places. But it was still seaside and that was all that mattered. She was so ridiculously happy, she wanted to skip.
‘I love seaside food! Greasy burgers, candy floss, chips!’ Meg tried to ignore the rumble of hunger in her stomach.
‘Candy floss? You mean cotton candy.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. And chips come in a bag from the supermarket. What you mean is fries.’
She shook her head. ‘Yes, fries! And you know perfectly well what I mean – it’s not my fault if you guys talk wrong!’
‘Us that talk wrong? You are kidding me!’
‘No, I’m not kidding you. You even drive on the wrong side of the road, for Gawd’s sake!’
‘What is this “gourd” you speak of?’ Edd asked in an exaggerated tone.
‘It’s a mystic vegetable that we consult and it makes all the rules about driving, talking and eating in the UK. You could do with it over here to sort a few things out.’
‘Oh, please, don’t let it anywhere near our food. I can’t imagine having all our prime beef, spicy gumbo and the best apple pie in the world replaced with over-boiled cabbage and tasteless potatoes. No thanks!’
‘We don’t all live off boiled cabbage. And I guarantee nothing beats a good bacon butty made with thick white bread: four rashers fried to a crisp and a generous slosh of HP Sauce. You need to get the bacon grease soaked into the bread, that’s one of the rules.’
Edd shook his head. ‘That doesn’t sound half as good as a Philly cheese steak! Thinly sliced steak oozing melted cheese and topped with fried onions, stuffed into a long roll, not too soft, not too hard.’
‘What about British fish and chips? North Sea cod in a crispy beer batter, covered in salt and vinegar and eaten out of a newspaper.’
‘What? In preference to a Maine lobster with garlic aioli? I don’t think so!’ Edd countered.
‘Bangers!’ she shouted. ‘There’s nothing better on a cold night than a good British sausage served with onion gravy and mash!’
Edd shook his head. ‘Nope. No British sausage can come close to a good hot dog, eaten at a ball game with onions, ketchup and mustard.’
Meg was quiet, wondering whether to offer Devon scones with jam and cream next or a traditional Cornish pasty, when the idea of one of those hot dogs entered her head. She wanted one.
‘Ketchup and mustard?’ she asked. ‘I usually opt for one or the other.’
‘Both is the law. I shall take you to Nathan’s later and get you the best hot dog you have ever tasted.’
‘Yes, please.’ Meg grinned. ‘I do so love the seaside.’
‘You do? I thought maybe being a city girl, you might feel a bit queasy when you see water,’ he teased as they walked along the cold concrete of the almost deserted boardwalk.
‘I am a city girl, but I think that’s why the sea and beaches have always fascinated me. It’s like a whole other world. They sound different and smell different, they’re a place to escape to…’
‘I get that. When my dad wasn’t working weekends, he’d bring me here, give me a whole cup of quarters and I could stay till they ran out. I loved those days. I’d make those coins last for hours.’ Edd looked at her and smiled at the memory.
‘Where does your mum live?’ she asked.
‘Upstate, just under an hour away by train. About the right distance – not too close, but not too far either.’
‘It must have been hard for her, losing your dad.’ She hoped this wasn’t too personal.
Edd swallowed. ‘It was. It is. Thirteen years ago.’ He sucked his teeth and shook his head. ‘But there’s not a single day goes by we don’t miss him.’
Meg held his hand.
‘Ah, it’s strange, Meg. Meeting you, it’s kind of stirred up all my emotions. Like taking a lid off. It’s a very odd thing.’
‘Odd in a good way?’ she asked nervously.
‘Oh yes, odd in a great way.’
They walked briskly, with Edd steering them.
‘My dad would have loved you. Your accent and your funny little ways, so British.’
‘I don’t think I’ve got funny little ways!’ She sulked in mock protest. Then she stopped on the pavement. ‘Edd?’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m worried about something.’
‘What are you worried about?’
Meg paused, trying to find the right phrase. ‘I don’t think we are meant to feel this way, this quickly.’ She scuffed the pavement with the toe of her boot.
‘No?’ He looked at her.
Meg shook her head. ‘No. When I met Bill, he kind of swept me off my feet, but even that was a million times slower than this. We’ve only known each other for a matter of hours, a little blip in terms of the universe. I think we are supposed to have time behind us and to have gone through things together before we start to feel like this.’
Edd looked skywards. ‘Oh right.’ He placed his hand over his heart. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know the rules. What are we meant to have gone through?’ he asked, amused.
Meg sighed. ‘I don’t know… Things like… having lots of sex, going to church at least once, going out to dinner.’ She raised her arms and let them fall to her sides as she tried to think of more examples. ‘Meeting family, sharing books and movies, letting you see me without my make-up… Dance! Nurse each other when we’re ill. It’s all those things that bind a couple and it’s like we’ve taken a shortcut – bosh!’ She chopped the air with her arm extended.
‘Bosh?’ He laughed. ‘I think shortcuts are good. Look at the time we’ve saved!’
‘You know what I mean.’ She looked down at the ground.
Edd pulled her into him and whispered into her scalp, ‘I don’t know what you mean, but what I do know is that if anyone told me I might feel this way after knowing you for such a short period of time, I would have laughed at them. Things like this don’t happen – only it has. It has happened to me, to us and I couldn’t turn back now, even if I wanted to.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I’ve been on this planet for thirty years without knowing you existed and that in my mind is thirty years too long. So I intend to continue at this pace and not waste a single day going forward. I can’t change how I feel and I don’t want to.’
‘Sames,’ she whispered back. She felt the fabric of his shirt against her cheek and looked up along the deserted boardwalk.
Edd pulled away, holding her by the shoulders. ‘Okay, we need to do everything in the next twenty-four hours, catch up to where the universe thinks we should have been before we took a shortcut! Bosh!’ He repeated her arm chop from earlier.
‘Can we do that?’ She laughed.
‘Absolutely! We can do anything. And incidentally, we have already had quite a lot of sex. Although not nearly enough,’ he qualified.
Meg blushed.
‘And I wasn’t going to mention it, but you we
re sick outside my apartment last night, while I tried to find my keys.’
Meg slapped her hands over her eyes, splaying her fingers to look through the gaps. ‘Oh God! I wasn’t!’
‘Yes you were. That’s why you were in my baseball shirt. I took off your sweater and sponged it clean and hung it in the bathroom. I also held your hair away from your face while you threw up on the kerb. I didn’t even mind that you were sick on my boots.’ He raised the toe of his boot as if in proof. ‘So I guess I have nursed you while you were ill. Can we tick that off the list?’
‘I guess so. Thank you for looking after me.’ Her voice was weak with embarrassment.
‘No problem! You were even cute whilst being violently ill, stopping between each bout to apologise, so very polite.’ Edd looked at his watch. ‘Come on!’
Walking rapidly hand in hand along West 10th Street and past the impressive Cyclone, they eventually turned left on to the Boardwalk. Meg trod with caution, not wanting to trip on the frosty wooden planking. Edd suddenly stopped and pointed ahead of them. His boyish enthusiasm was infectious. ‘Here we are.’
Meg looked up to see the words ‘New York Aquarium’ set in the arc of a turquoise sign, with a variety of fish and other marine life picked out in gold. Edd bought the tickets and pulled her quickly past exhibits she would have liked to linger over. He steered her through the darkened corridors, between tanks whose fluorescent lights highlighted tropical fish that swum in mini shoals, darting back and forth with perfect timing as though choreographed.
Stopping abruptly at a large tank, he stood back and watched as Meg walked forward until her palms lay flat against the cool glass. She smiled into the depths, her eyes wide, misty with tears at the majesty and wonder of the creatures that hovered in front of her.
‘Seahorses!’ she breathed, turning to Edd and grinning over her shoulder.
He nodded. ‘I thought you’d like to see them.’
Meg beamed, tracing the outline of one of them with her finger. ‘Look at this little fella!’ A dark seahorse bobbed towards the glass, his large eyes fixed. He had tiger-like markings that seemed to flex in the mild current of the tank as he swayed. He was anchored to a tall plant by his tail, which was curled around the stalk.
‘He’s come to say hello to me!’ Fascinated, Meg bent low and placed her face inches from her new seahorse friend. ‘They do look like fairy-tale creatures, don’t they? Horsey faces and long, dragony tails. You can see why I got confused.’ She tapped the glass.
‘These are very special seahorses, rare pot-bellied seahorses,’ Edd said. He had read up on them.
‘Oh yes, look!’ Meg pointed at a soft, protruding tum. ‘I can see them now, they look a bit like mine.’ She rubbed her stomach beneath her woolly dress. ‘They all look like they’ve had one too many pies or too much cotton candy.’ She turned and smiled at Edd.
‘Or like they are all carrying babies – isn’t that what daddy seahorses do? Can they get pregnant? Or am I confused?’ Edd asked
Meg faced the tank again. ‘They don’t actually get pregnant. The mummy seahorse has the eggs and she puts them into his little pouch when they’re mating and then he carries them until they are fully developed but still tiny and that’s when he releases them. It’s quite lovely really. When they meet, they dance, sometimes for hours, with their tails entwined. And when they mate, they do it snout to snout, spiralling up towards the surface. It’s like they are ready to take on the world together.’
‘That’s quite nice, isn’t it? Sharing the load, making the daddy feel more involved.’ Edd contemplated this.
Meg flinched, thinking of Lucas’s early months with no dad at all, let alone one who wanted to be more involved.
It was as if Edd had read her thoughts. ‘It must have been tough for you having Lucas so soon after Bill died. I can’t imagine it. As I said, it’s been hell for my mum, still is, but at least I had my dad until I was older and I have a bucketful of memories. I’m so grateful for that.’
They stood in silence staring at the tank. Edd leant forward, resting his chin on Meg’s shoulder. It made her heart skip; being so close to him was a thrill. Her thoughts raced. She would love Lucas to have a wonderful man in his life, a man like Edd. She pictured them playing and laughing as she prepared a Christmas lunch, to be served on a white tablecloth—
‘I think it’s time we made our way to the corner of Surf and Stillwell – it’s hot dog time!’ Edd clapped his hands and brought her thoughts to the present.
They retraced their steps, giggling like school children as they made their way back out into the cold December day.
8
Meg wound down the window of the cab that ferried them back to Manhattan, enjoying the cool air that rushed in.
‘I’ve eaten far too much!’ she wailed.
‘I am almost speechless.’ Edd shook his head. ‘I have to say, I have some big friends – football players, firefighters, big guys with shoulders like this…’ He gestured with his hands wide apart. ‘And they would struggle to put away the lunch you just ate!’ He shook his head again.
‘Is that a bad thing?’
Edd laughed. ‘It’s an interesting thing. I keep picturing it: the chilli cheese dog with extra-large crinkle-cut bacon cheese fries, lemonade, bread and butter pudding.’
‘With cream,’ Meg added.
‘Yes, with cream,’ Edd acknowledged, raising his finger. ‘I had forgotten the cream.’
Meg placed her hand on her stomach. ‘I guess I was hungry. It was late for lunch, after all.’
Edd shielded her eyes. ‘No, Meg. Uh-uh, I was hungry – people get hungry and when they do, they grab a sandwich or a banana. What you just demolished was award-winningly super-human. The equivalent chow fest of a bear after hibernation, a gannet at an all-you-can-eat fish-farm buffet, man versus food on a back-to-back challenge. It was… impressive.’
‘Mmmnn. You say “impressive”, but you sound a little scared.’ Meg felt more than a little self-conscious. Should she have opted for a salad and appeared a bit more ladylike?
‘Most of the girls I know don’t eat much, if at all, and certainly nothing like…’ He thumbed towards the back window and the place they had just left. ‘… whatever that was!’
‘Does Flavia not eat then?’
Edd shook his head. ‘Nothing that isn’t carb- and protein-free, weighed to order, carefully rinsed and picked fresh from organic soil within the hour.’
Meg considered this and smiled, imagining Flavia to be an activist type who wore hand-knitted jumpers and Ban the Bomb badges and never shaved her armpits. ‘Do organic farmers ever grow crinkle-cut bacon cheese fries?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He smiled.
‘Then she is really missing out!’
They both laughed. Meg felt a flutter of happiness. It wasn’t just the fries Flavia was missing out on; anyone that had let Edd slip through their fingers must want her head examining.
The taxi pulled up on Rockefeller Plaza off Fifth Avenue.
‘Wow! Look at the tree!’ Meg clapped as she leapt from the cab, feeling an excited buzz in her stomach that was nothing to do with the gargantuan feast she’d just consumed. ‘It’s so beautiful. There must be a million lights on it!’
Edd watched, delighted by the expression on Meg’s face. He understood her reaction. No matter that he’d seen this tree countless times over the years, the magic never waned. He placed his hands in his pockets. ‘This represents Christmas for me. This tree right here. My dad used to bring me up every year to watch them switch on the lights.’ Edd shook his head and coughed, choked by the memory.
The vast Norway spruce stood majestically against the inky purple of the late afternoon. Its myriad lights dazzled and illuminated everything around it. On top of the tree sat a huge bright star. Meg vowed to bring Lucas to see this one day. Beneath the tree and in the shadow of the Rockefeller Center, set in a recess surrounded by buildings and walkways of dark marble and chrome
, was a rectangular skating rink. Throngs of New Yorkers and tourists were cautiously circling the ice. Then the session came to an end and nimble-footed marshals in matching red polo-neck jerseys ushered the skaters to the exits, taking the opportunity to practise a quick twirl as they did so, or come to an elaborate stop with a kick, arms raised, all terribly artistic.
‘Look! Poor chap.’ From her spot on the raised viewing platform, Meg pointed at the green corduroy trousers of a middle-aged man. He was the last to leave the rink and was making his way very slowly, with legs bowed and arms outstretched, to the edge of the ice. His bottom was sodden, his trousers misshapen, weighed down with water and sludge.
‘Oh dear!’ She turned to Edd, burying her head in his chest as she laughed. The poor bloke could hardly take a step without faltering, wobbling and threatening to fall again.
‘I shouldn’t laugh really, that’d be me!’ She grimaced.
‘Are you not a good skater?’ Edd asked. Meg felt the warm bass notes of his voice bounce down through her body. She liked listening to him very much.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never done it. But if my general balance is anything to go by, I think I’d be pretty rubbish! My best trick is falling up the stairs. I do that at least once a week, usually in a hurry to get to the loo after I’ve left it too long.’ She looked at her toes; this was probably too much detail.
‘Ah.’ Edd pursed his lips. ‘In that case, we might be in trouble.’
‘Why? Have you got some stairs you want me to run up?’ she quipped.
‘No, not exactly, but I do have these.’ Edd held up his hand in which sat two tickets to skate.
‘What? No! I can’t! I’ll fall over, I know I will.’ She laughed nervously into her palm.
‘Meg, firstly, if you were a professional skater it would be very boring with you going ahead pirouetting around the place while I stood like a jerk watching you. And secondly, you have to trust me, right? We agreed. I promise I won’t let you fall.’ He bent forward and kissed her gently.
Meg tingled with the joy and novelty of it all. ‘Okay,’ she agreed quietly, her stomach lurching with nerves and half-digested chilli cheese dog.
Christmas for One: No Greater Love Page 10