Dear Diary,
Oh dear, dear diary. I didn’t get the chance last night to tell the full story of yesterday… I’m desperate to write the rest of it down so here I am, tucked away in my hotel room with one lamp for light and the sounds of New York City humming in the background. I’m tired after a day of preparing for the gig. We went down to the see the venue today – it’s the biggest one yet, like a massive underground cave with enough space for what seems like thousands.
Anyway, what happened yesterday, after Leo and Farley met? Well, the two of us, Farley and I, went off together even though I knew Leo probably wouldn’t like it. Judging by his face he definitely didn’t. I don’t know what to say about that… Farley is in my life now, he came out to New York to see me, that in itself means a lot to me.
We walked down Fifth Avenue hand in hand as Leo and Marilyn watched us from near the subway station. Once we were quite a way down the street, probably hardly even visible to Leo anymore, I squeezed Farley’s hand, saying:
‘Well, how was that then?’
He looked down at me through a couple of strands of hair.
‘Terrifying,’ he said.
‘Seriously?’ I said.
‘Very seriously,’ he said. ‘Your brother is one scary dude.’
‘Really? It was that bad?’ I said.
‘You didn’t notice how he looked like he wanted to crush my head between his bare hands?’ he said.
I couldn’t help giggling.
‘He wouldn’t have done that! He’s just not feeling too good at the moment,’ I said, biting my lip.
‘Right. So he’s having an off day? Hmmm…’ he said.
‘Er, well, you know, it’s the first time. I’m sure he’ll come round,’ I said.
‘Yes, then we can be best friends,’ he said, raising an eyebrow.
‘Aw, come on,’ I said, smiling up at him and grabbing hold of him round the waist. ‘It’ll get better, he’s really a nice person, honest.’
‘Hmm,’ he said, reaching down to put his arms over mine. ‘Well, I hope I don’t meet him down one of these New York alleyways in the night.’
I laughed.
‘Aw, I’ll protect you, don’t worry my little cutie pattootie,’ I said.
‘Cutie what?’ he said.
‘Cutie pattootie!’
‘Are you trying to strip me of my manhood?’ he said.
‘Nooo!’ I said, ‘I heard someone say it to their dog in the dog park. I like it.’
He laughed, then swooped me up off the ground and put me back down again.
‘Right then,’ he said, stopping us on the pavement. ‘You are coming with me. Right now. To Chinatown. Help me hail a taxi.’
‘What?’ I said.
‘Come on, stick your arm out and stop asking questions,’ he said, walking to the edge of the pavement and waving his arm about.
‘Taxi!’ he said.
I just laughed. A great big English boy shouting down the street with his Northern accent, flopping about in his ridiculous jumper. A cab pulled up and he flung open the back door, gesturing for me to get inside.
‘See!’ he said. ‘I’ve only been here a day and I’m already a pro.’
‘Hmm,’ I said, as I jumped into the back seat. ‘Impressive.’
He followed me in and told the driver to take us to Chinatown. We nestled into the back seats as Fifth Avenue began to whiz by.
‘What are we going there for?’ I said.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I met this guy on the airplane and he said I would like Chinatown. I mean, I definitely like Chinese food. There’s that one in Brocksburn Ching Wong’s – I went there the day after I met you. Delicious stuff. Pork ribs. Mmmm,’ he said.
‘Well, OK, I guess I’ll do whatever you want. I’ve only ever had Chinese food once and that was because Leo brought it home as a takeaway, must’ve been from Ching Wong’s. There’s no Chinese in Ellwood,’ I said.
‘Trust me on this, petal,’ he said.
‘Petal?’ I said.
‘Yeah. You call me cutie whatsit, so I call you petal. Or petal bums if you prefer,’ he said.
‘Petal bums? Er, petal is fine,’ I said.
‘Ah good,’ he said, cuddling my arm nearest to him.
We both sat back to watch the streets whir past. It was all flashes of neon lights and signs and people. Eventually we nudged our way into Chinatown and got dropped off on a street that was so busy we could hardly get out.
‘Here we are. Chinatown,’ he said, eyes sparkling, arms out to the side.
I grinned.
‘Come on, petal. Let’s see what we can find,’ he said, grabbing me by the arm.
It was like the whole place was splashed in bright colours and the air had a thousand different smells. There were shops all down the street, each one with a market stall outside.
Farley led me along, pointing out the funny looking ornaments – dragons, monkeys, birds and cats with one moving paw. Rows of gold and red lanterns hung across the street, lighting up the early evening air. The stalls had piles of jewelry, rows of strange vegetables, multi-coloured boxes of perfume. There was even a real life Chinese looking building right at the end of the street, like a temple or something.
We ambled along, marveling at all the stuff, trying not to get knocked down by the hoards of people heading in all directions at once. I couldn’t help noticing how much we stood out amongst the crowd. Most of the people were Chinese and quite tiny. Farley was at least a head above most people and I wasn’t far off. It meant I didn’t have to worry about losing him. I just kept looking for the blonde hair and the red and black stripes of his jumper.
At some point we arrived outside a restaurant with lots of Chinese writing on the outside, no English whatsoever. There was a large menu with pictures of all the food on it. Farley pointed, saying:
‘Oh, let’s go here. This looks great. Ah, yeah, dumplings.’
‘Here? But what is all that stuff?’ I said, pointing to the menu. ‘It’s not even in English.’
‘That’s cos it’s in Chinese!’ he said.
‘Yeah, but…’ I said as he nudged me along inside.
He went behind me so I led the way through the front door and down the stairs into the restaurant below. There were plenty of steps and it took a while to actually get down there. Finally we got to the bottom, walked along past a number of other rooms full of people, following the arrows which I could only presume would lead us to the restaurant. Thankfully they did and we ended up in a big space lined with tables and diner style seats either side. A Chinese man came straight up to us, smiling and bowing.
‘You. Sit here,’ he said, pointing at a table with plastic plants all round it.
‘Ah yes, thank you,’ said Farley, bowing his head before we went over to the table.
I laughed.
‘You’re acting all Chinese,’ I said.
‘Well, when in Rome…’ he said.
He grabbed the menu and began scouring it, running his finger across the pictures. Some of it looked out of this world weird but I liked the looked of the dumpling type things. I could only assume they were dumplings by the look of them, there was nothing else to confirm it.
Farley did the ordering and we ended up with a table overflowing with the bizarrest collection of food I ever saw. He taught me how to use chopsticks which he said I was amazing at. It was pretty easy really, actually makes more sense than a knife and fork.
I tried everything even though neither of us knew what it all was. Mine were definitely dumplings. I also got a watery type soup with seaweed in it. Surprisingly enough I enjoyed it. Farley seemed to more than enjoy his; he seemed to be in some kind of blissful zone of eating for the duration of the meal.
I didn’t want to disturb him so it wasn’t until all the food had gone and we were left with just a Chinesey teapot with a big flower in the middle of it that I decided to talk properly. We sat back and smiled at each other. I felt his foot slide next to mine under the table. He reached forward and stroked the hair at the side of my face, tucking it behind my ear.
‘Can I ask you something?’ I said.
‘Sure thing, doll,’ he said in a mock American accent.
I laughed.
‘Why didn’t you like Marilyn?’
‘Er,’ he said, taking his hand away from my face. ‘Well, I just recognized her name.’
‘Yeah…?’
‘She’s Marilyn Crombie…’ he said.
‘Ah ha?’ I said.
‘Let’s not talk about this now,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘Oh, you know, all that stuff from home,’ he said. ‘Let’s just have tonight for us.’
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘But you just seemed to have a strange reaction to her. I mean, I know she’s annoying. God knows, she’s been hanging around all my life. Just because she’s a friend of the family and all that. But I’ve never seen anyone react to her as strongly as you did, at least not straight off – it usually takes a while before the repulsion begins!’
He smiled.
‘Listen, Amber. I do have something to say to you but...’ he said.
‘Yeah?’ I said, my mind galloping ahead. ‘What is it?’
‘But… Now isn’t the right time. You have the gig coming right up. We’re here in New York, there’s nothing we can do now. Let’s talk after the gig,’ he said.
‘Talk about what?’ I said. ‘I need to know!’
He leaned forward over the table, gently holding onto my arms with his hands.
‘Come here,’ he said, pulling me forward until we were inches apart.
‘Do you trust me?’ he said.
‘Yes, of course I do,’ I said.
‘Good. Now trust me on this – it can wait and I will tell you in a few days. I just want us to enjoy this time right now. It’s nothing to worry about.’
I inspected his face, refusing to let his beauty distract me. My first reaction was to squirm and squabble until he told me. I had the inkling that it was something to do with our investigation, what else could it be?
That whole thing seemed a million miles away from where we were right then. I almost didn’t even want to think about it. Being here in New York is kind of like a new lease of life, everything seems possible, a new existence is within reach and for the first time I’m not hung up in the sorrows of the past.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll trust you, Farley. So long as you tell me after the gig.’
‘Good girl,’ he said, breathing a sigh. ‘Now let’s get the bill for this little lot and get back out there!’
We paid the bill and made our way through the corridor back along to the stairs. Loud music blared from the first room on the left. I couldn’t help but have a nosy in there, pulling Farley along too. We popped our heads in and saw a room packed with Chinese people, four of whom were in front of the rest, holding microphones and singing along to a Whitney Houston song. Everyone in the room waved at us.
‘Hi!’ we said.
‘You should get involved!’ said Farley.
I just laughed.
‘What? Whitney Houston?’ I said. ‘Not quite my thing, is it?’
They gestured to us to come in so we nudged ourselves into the room and soon a miniscule cup of strong Chinese liquid was in each of our hands and we were singing along with the crowd. We kept bursting into laughter as we found ourselves further and further enmeshed into this group of enthusiastic people.
It took about twenty minutes to extract ourselves from the room, if we hadn’t done it then I suspect we would have been there all night! They waved like mad as we left the room and we came out on the corridor again almost breathless with laughter. Farley led the way up the stairs and eventually we popped out onto the busy street above.
‘Where to now, my fair Princess?’ he said.
‘What’s that over there?’ I said, pointing to a big dragon dancing it’s way up the street.
‘I don’t have the foggiest but I think we should find out,’ he said, grabbing my hand.
We weaved through the crowd to get as close as we could to the dragon which was rising and falling in waves. I could see the little legs of the people underneath the dazzling body.
‘It’s a procession I think,’ said Farley. ‘Look at all those guys coming out of that kung fu place.’
I looked to where he was pointing and saw a whole bunch of men, all looking pretty hardcore, wearing hoodies with the same symbol that was on the front of the building they were coming out of. It looked like a kung fu fighting school of some kind.
They all started following the dragon and then loads of other people seemed to come out of the woodwork and follow as well. We had no idea where we were going or what the procession was about but we started following. What these Chinese fighting machine type people must’ve thought of us tagging along for the ride I do not know but they didn’t seem to mind.
There was too much noise and movement for us to talk so we just kept hold of each other’s hands and tripped along the street, soaking it all in. We must’ve walked for about ten minutes and I had absolutely no idea where we were by the time Farley nodded at me to indicate we should come away. We sort of jumped out of the procession onto the road and let the whole thing move on past us.
‘That was fun!’ I said, smiling up at him.
‘It was,’ he said, touching my face.
‘Where are we?’ I said.
‘I have no idea my little chicklet, but I can’t be lost if you’re here,’ he said.
‘Aw, so corny...’ I said.
He laughed.
‘Come on,’ he said.
We crossed the street and saw what looked like a comic shop.
‘Awesome,’ he said. ‘Comics.’
We waked into the shop and it was like entering another new world. This time it was a universe of all things comicstrip. Hundreds, if not thousands of comics lined the walls and rows of cabinets. The shop was almost completely empty apart from one or two customers and an overweight guy behind the counter. Farley practically ran to the back of the shop and picked up a comic.
‘Ah, Batman,’ he said.
I laughed from where I stood.
‘I didn’t know you liked Batman,’ I said.
‘It’s kind of cool, you know,’ he said as I walked towards him.
‘You seem to love it,’ I said, reaching right up to him.
‘Are you teasing me for my childhood obsession?’ he said.
‘No, I think it’s cute,’ I said.
He scoured the shelf for a while, mumbling to himself about various numbers and dates. After a while, he turned to me and took both my hands in his.
‘Amber,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I want to tell you something…’
‘Mmmm… You’re actually Batman?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Robin?’ I said.
‘No! Jeez, just listen to me…’ he said.
‘Sorry, sorry, yes? What is it?’ I said.
‘Look, there's something I've been wanting to say...’ he said.
'Yeah... Ah ha...' I said.
'I love you,' he said, looking out at me from underneath his hair.
‘Oh,’ I said, letting out a nervous laugh.
‘You’re laughing?’ he said, looking crestfallen.
‘No, no, sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to say that,’ I said, almost falling over into a nearby comic stand.
‘Oh, OK,’ he said.
‘Um, I love you too,’ I said, steadying myself.
‘You do?’ he said, breaking out into an unforgattable smile.
‘Yeah, Farley, I really do,’ I said.