Alice-Miranda In New York 5 Read online

  ‘It’s a special birthday,’ Hugh winked at Alice-Miranda in the rear-vision mirror.

  Alice-Miranda grinned. ‘Gosh, I hadn’t realised that Aunty Gee was turning forty.’

  ‘Ha, more like ninety,’ her father laughed. Cecelia gave him a playful smack on the leg. ‘Darling, don’t be so mean. You know a lady never reveals her age. And she’s nowhere near ninety, you rude thing!’

  With the help of Aldous Grump’s guidebook gift, the trio spent the rest of the journey to the airport planning all the spots they would visit in New York City. Hugh said that he and Cecelia hadn’t played tourist there since they were in their early twenties and it would be a novelty to hop on the sightseeing trail.

  ‘Can we ride the subway, Daddy?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ her father replied. ‘I’m not sure that it’s safe.’

  ‘“The subway is a perfectly good option for getting around the city”,’ Alice-Miranda read from her guidebook.

  ‘But darling, we have a town car at the store,’ her mother frowned. ‘And there’s the Highton’s limousine as well.’

  ‘That’s lovely, Mummy, but I want to experience the real New York and I’m certain not everyone has a town car or a limousine. Please, can we go on the subway?’ Alice-Miranda begged.

  Hugh glanced at his wife and then at his daughter in the rear-vision mirror. ‘I’m game if you are.’

  ‘And I think we should go to the Empire State Building and the Top of the Rockefeller Center and Staten Island and . . .’ Alice-Miranda began.

  ‘Slow down, darling,’ her mother laughed. ‘Why don’t we take a proper look at that book of yours on the plane?’

  Hugh parked on the edge of the tarmac. ‘Looks like we’re nearly ready to go.’ He hopped out of the car and was greeted by Cyril, their multi-skilled pilot who not only flew the family helicopter but also Kennington 1, the company jet.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir, good to see you,’ said Cyril, offering his hand.

  ‘And you, Cyril,’ Hugh replied. ‘How are we looking?’

  ‘Very good, sir. Should be ready for take-off in about thirty minutes.’

  Alice-Miranda leapt from the car and raced over to her father.

  ‘Hello!’ She rushed forward and gave Cyril a hug.

  ‘And hello to you too, miss,’ the pilot smiled.

  ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ Cecelia called as she collected Alice-Miranda’s suitcase from the back of the four-wheel drive. ‘Let’s hop on and get settled. Dolly must be on board already. Ambrose was dropping her off. Daddy and Cyril need to talk.’

  ‘Leave that, ma’am,’ the pilot nodded at the luggage. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  ‘Thank you, Cyril.’ Cecelia took Alice-Miranda’s hand and mother and daughter boarded the plane.

  Alice-Miranda couldn’t wait to get to New York and start their adventures, although she had a strange feeling that there was going to be a lot more excitement on this trip than she had first imagined.

  Lucinda Finkelstein glimpsed her reflection in the hall mirror. Despite an hour of torturous straightening, her hair was already rebelling back to its natural state of frizz. Lucinda’s mother Gerda had silken black tresses, which her older brothers, Tobias and Ezekiel, had inherited. Lucinda, on the other hand, took after her father. Morrie Finkelstein was proud of the fact that he had never owned a hairbrush or a comb. His wiry greying locks sat atop his head like a Brillo pad.

  ‘Lucinda, hurry up, your father wants to see how beautiful you look,’ her mother called from the sitting room.

  Lucinda tried in vain to flatten the rogue ringlets that were appearing around her forehead but the more she pulled, the more they escaped, mocking her with their springiness.

  ‘I’m coming, Mama,’ the girl sighed, and headed for her appraisal. But she didn’t need to anticipate her father’s reaction. Morrie Finkelstein was nothing if not predictable. Lucinda would walk into the room where her father would be drinking a strong cup of tea with today’s New York Post on the side table next to him. He would look up and gasp and then he would say the exact same thing that he said every Saturday at 2 pm, just before Lucinda and her mother took the town car to the store for afternoon tea in the Salon, with the usual gaggle of twenty or so of her mother’s friends and their daughters.

  Each week her father would say, ‘Oh, Lucinda. Look at you, my gorgeous girl. That’s a lovely dress – you know, I picked it out myself. Come and give Papa a kiss, and you and your mother enjoy your afternoon tea.’

  Lucinda entered the room. She looked around expecting to see her mother but she wasn’t there. The gangly child stood a few metres inside the doorway and waited for her father to greet her. His steaming cup of tea sat idle beside him. Morrie Finkelstein had his head buried in The Post. He didn’t set the paper aside nor did he look up.

  ‘Hello Papa,’ Lucinda said quietly.

  But there was no response. Lucinda frowned. Every weekend for as long as she could remember, her father had arrived home on a Friday evening with a new dress from the store and admired her in it on Saturday afternoon. The routine was only broken twice a year, when the Finkelsteins went on holiday to their estate in Southampton.

  ‘Papa? Are you all right?’ Lucinda tried again.

  Morrie finally looked up. ‘Oh, I didn’t hear you come in, Lucinda.’ He folded the paper and put it to the side.

  ‘Is everything all right, Papa?’ Lucinda’s stomach twisted. By this time her father should have been midway through his usual farewell speech.

  ‘Everything’s fine, Lucinda. Now run along. You don’t want to keep your mother waiting, do you?’

  Lucinda walked towards her father, leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. The knot in her stomach tightened. It felt strange not to have her father comment on her appearance. And while her hair was misbehaving, her dress was particularly lovely and, she thought, quite flattering for someone whose limbs were growing way too quickly for the rest of her body.

  As she turned to leave, her father picked up the newspaper and in a loud voice said to no one in particular, ‘Just like your father, your grandfather before that and your great-grandfather too. We’ll see who’s boss of this town, Cecelia Highton-Smith!’

  Lucinda was puzzled by his outburst. She knew that the Finkelsteins and Hightons didn’t get on for some reason but her father’s voice was angry. She retreated to the doorway and peered back inside to see him depositing the newspaper into the huge fireplace, where the glowing embers erupted into flame. Lucinda scurried along the hallway to the apartment’s grand foyer to wait for her mother. Her father was acting strangely, for sure.

  Alice-Miranda sat in the back of the limousine as it snaked its way from Teterboro Airport to the city.

  ‘Oh, Daddy, we can’t be far now!’ she exclaimed as the car approached the signpost for the Lincoln Tunnel.

  ‘No, not far, but I suspect the traffic in the city could slow us down a little,’ her father replied.

  ‘But it’s not bad at all,’ said Alice-Miranda as the car sped through the tunnel and emerged onto West 38th Street and straight into a bank-up of cars a mile long.

  ‘Oh, I think I spoke too soon.’ Alice-Miranda stared wide-eyed out of the window at the lights of Manhattan. On the flight she and her parents had made lots of plans about the places they would visit and sights they wanted to see. She’d made Mrs Oliver promise to come with them as often as she could, too.

  ‘Look at all those yellow taxis, Mummy,’ Alice-Miranda observed as their car turned into Sixth Avenue, heading towards Central Park. As far as the eye could see, yellow cabs clogged the street, peppered with black town cars. ‘Does anyone drive their own car in New York?’ Alice-Miranda was trying to spot other vehicles among the bumblebee-coloured swarm.

  ‘No, most New York
ers don’t bother with a car. There’s hardly any parking and what there is costs a king’s ransom,’ her father replied.

  A group of pedicabs darted by, weaving their way in and out of the traffic, their young drivers shouting offers of cheap rides to the pedestrians on the footpaths.

  ‘That looks like fun. Are you game, Mrs Oliver?’ Alice-Miranda pointed at the bicycles with their pedestrian carts behind.

  ‘Count me out, my dear,’ Dolly replied, shaking her head. ‘I prefer my arms and legs attached.’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr O’Leary, do you know what the hold-up is?’ Alice-Miranda asked the uniformed driver.

  The kindly man glanced at Alice-Miranda in the rear-vision mirror and said in his lovely Irish lilt, ‘Oh lass, this is just the regular Saturday night. This place never stops, you know. Three o’clock in the morning and there are still thousands on the streets.’

  ‘It’s electric!’ Alice-Miranda bubbled. ‘There’s something about this city. I can’t wait to start school on Monday.’

  ‘I know Jilly is looking forward to it too,’ Cecelia replied.

  For the next month or so, Alice-Miranda would be attending Mrs Kimmel’s School for Girls, on East 75th Street. The headmistress just happened to be an old friend of Cecelia’s from her own school days. With a diplomat father, Jilly Hobbs grew up attending schools in several different countries before returning to the United States to go to college. Jilly had made a career teaching girls in New York City and was now headmistress of the prestigious Mrs Kimmel’s.

  The car continued up Sixth Avenue and into Central Park.

  ‘Oh, Mummy, look at the carriages. Aren’t the horses beautiful? Can we ride in one? Please?’ Alice-Miranda begged.

  ‘Don’t you remember? We did that last time we were here,’ her mother replied.

  ‘Yes, but that was when I was only four,’ Alice-Miranda reminded her. ‘And now I’m almost eight.’

  ‘Of course,’ her mother smiled. ‘It doesn’t seem that long since we last came together but, yes, you’re right.’

  The car wound its way through Central Park, exiting at the 65th Street Transverse and crossing Fifth Avenue. Veiled in scaffolding, Highton’s department store took up the entire block between East 64th and East 65th, with its frontage on Fifth Avenue. A grand set of gates at the rear of the building opened automatically. Hidden behind the gothic facade, a circular driveway led through a formal garden and spiralled downwards. Another set of elaborate metal gates, adorned with cherubs and vines and other creatures among the ironwork, slid open to reveal a private parking garage and equally decorative subterranean entrance to the building.

  ‘Well, here we are.’ Cecelia Highton-Smith slid forward and gathered her handbag and jacket. Seamus O’Leary held open the door as the group alighted from the vehicle.

  ‘Good evening all.’ An impeccably dressed man emerged from the entrance. He had a shock of wavy white hair and wore a red polka dot bow tie.

  ‘Mr Gruber!’ Alice-Miranda raced towards the gentleman and immediately launched herself at his middle.

  He lifted her up in one swift action and Alice-Miranda gave him a smacking great kiss on the cheek.

  ‘Oh, my dear girl, you do make an old man happy.’ Gilbert Gruber put Alice-Miranda back down. ‘I think you are just the tonic I’ve needed.’

  ‘I’m so excited to be here, Mr Gruber. I’m starting school on Monday and then Mummy and Daddy are going to take me all over the city after school and we’re going to ride the subway and pedicabs and have the best time ever and I think Mrs Oliver might even let me eat hot dogs from the street stalls and giant pretzels and we’re going to the Museum of Natural History and the Met and I don’t remember where else but I’m not going to waste a minute.’

  ‘Whew! I’m tired just hearing it,’ Gilbert grinned.

  Cecelia Highton-Smith greeted the old man with a kiss on each cheek. He embraced Mrs Oliver like a long-lost friend and firmly shook Hugh’s hand.

  ‘How are you, Gil?’ Hugh Kennington-Jones slapped the old man on the back.

  ‘Well, I have to be honest, Hugh, I think this renovation has almost done me in. I suspect that daughter of yours will give me just the boost I need, although I might require a vacation once you’ve gone.’

  The group laughed.

  ‘I imagine you’d like to head straight upstairs?’ Mr Gruber offered.

  ‘Actually, Gilbert, I wondered if you might give Hugh and me a quick tour. I’m dying to see what you’ve done with the ground floor since I was last here,’ Cecelia Highton-Smith suggested. ‘Dolly, why don’t you take Alice-Miranda upstairs and get her settled.’

  ‘May I come with you instead, Mummy?’ Alice-Miranda asked.

  Dolly Oliver nodded at Cecelia. ‘I’ll go up and put the kettle on.’

  ‘All right, we won’t be long,’ Cecelia smiled.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to wait until Monday?’ Gilbert asked Cecelia.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she shook her head. ‘It can’t be that bad.’

  The old man frowned. He led the family through a long hallway and up a short flight of steps. Gilbert pushed open a large door and spread out in front of them was a muddle of counters, boxes, signage and general disarray. Lights not yet attached to the ceiling dangled from long cables and there seemed to be a whole wall of plasterboard missing.

  Down among the muddle, the high-pitched whine of a drill started up.

  ‘Goodness, someone’s working late,’ Alice-Miranda said.

  A head popped up from beside a counter.

  ‘Haven’t you got a home to go to George?’ Gilbert joked with the young man.

  The man seemed startled. ‘Oh, hello Mr Gruber. I . . . I just thought I’d get a couple of things done before heading off,’ he called back.

  ‘George, you know Cecelia, of course,’ Gilbert began, ‘and this is her husband Hugh and daughter Alice-Miranda.’

  ‘Hello.’ The fellow waved. Alice-Miranda and her father waved back.

  ‘George is Tony’s site foreman,’ Gilbert explained. ‘I think that man works harder than anyone.’

  George held his drill aloft. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not. Don’t let us hold you up,’ Gilbert replied. He turned to Cecelia and noticed that her face had drained of colour. ‘It’s a work in progress, Cee,’ he said gently.

  She gave a clenched smile.

  ‘Is that what you call it, Gil? I’d say it’s a dirty great mess,’ Hugh laughed.

  ‘I’m sure it will come together,’ Alice-Miranda said and slipped her hand into her mother’s.

  ‘I hope so,’ Cecelia whispered.

  ‘Don’t worry, dear. You know we’ll get there,’ Gilbert reassured her.

  ‘Let’s go upstairs, Mummy. You look like you could do with a cup of tea.’

  The four of them walked back through the large door and into the private corridor towards the elevator.

  ‘Tony assures me that George will have all trades on deck first thing Monday, and I guarantee you won’t know the place by the afternoon,’ Gilbert said.

  ‘I’m not concerned,’ Cecelia protested. ‘Really, I’m not.’

  ‘Then what are those?’ Hugh reached out and touched his wife’s forehead. ‘They look like worry lines to me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Cecelia smiled and the lines disappeared. ‘Goodnight Gilbert,’ she said and kissed the old man.

  ‘Goodnight all,’ he replied.

  Alice-Miranda reached out and pressed the elevator button. There was only one option for the carriage they stood in front of: P for penthouse.

  Alice-Miranda’s eyelids fluttered open.

  ‘Good morning, sleepyhead, we thought you were going to snooze the day away.’ Hugh KenningtonJones drew back the c
urtains and sunlight flooded the room.

  The Highton-Smith-Kennington-Joneses’ penthouse covered the two top floors of their iconic department store. Built almost one hundred years ago, the building was hailed as a stunning example of gothic architecture along what was then called Millionaires’ Mile. The glorious apartment, which had been part of the original design of the building, boasted six bedrooms and as many bathrooms, a formal sitting room, dining room, chef’s kitchen and a media room complete with home theatre. There was an enormous library and study too. On the rooftop a small garden gave a wonderful view of Central Park.

  Alice-Miranda’s bedroom was decorated with the palest of lemon and pink striped wallpaper. Floral curtains adorned the two double-height windows and a silk Chinese rug covered the bare polished boards. Two single beds jutted out from the long wall opposite the door and a bookcase packed full of Alice-Miranda’s favourite volumes stretched half the length of the room. A cedar armoire and antique chest of drawers contained a lovely set of clothes her mother had chosen especially from Highton’s on Fifth’s new collection. There was an ensuite off the end of the room with a deep roll-top bath and a shower. The apartment had undergone a major renovation only a couple of years before and was headquarters for Cecelia and Charlotte or their mother Valentina whenever they were in town.

  ‘Ahhh.’ Alice-Miranda yawned and stretched her arms above her head. ‘Good morning, Daddy.’

  Her father sat down on the side of her bed and stroked his daughter’s hair. ‘So, what would you like to do today?’ he asked. ‘What about a tour of the New York City Sanitation Depot?’

  ‘I don’t remember that being on my list,’ Alice-Miranda frowned. ‘I thought we were going to the park.’

  ‘Of course we are – I was just teasing,’ her father smiled.

  ‘Do you have to work?’

  ‘No, darling. Today Mummy and I are all yours,’ Hugh smiled.

  Alice-Miranda leaned forward and hugged her father.

  ‘Well, come along. Why don’t you hop out of bed and have a quick shower to help you wake up. Dolly will fix you some breakfast and then we can get moving.’