We were in our room only for as long as it took to deposit our luggage and slip the bellboy an extravagant tip, and then it was off again in the limo to Central Park, where Mr Steiner had arranged a horse-and-carriage tour.
‘You wanna get to know me?’ he said. ‘First you gotta get to know my city.’
For the second time in my life I felt like royalty. This time in the kind of open horse-drawn carriage I had seen convey the Queen and visiting heads of government along the Mall on State occasions. Steel-rimmed wagon wheels clattered over the metalled surface of roads that wound through this extraordinary rectangle of greenery in the heart of urban Manhattan. There was something timeless in the clip-clop of our horse’s hooves, and startling in the red-trimmed livery set against the shining chestnut of its flanks.
Mr Steiner told our driver that his spiel was not needed, and he gave us his own running commentary as we rounded the Pond and passed the Wollman Rink, which in winter, he said, would be alive with skaters in scarves and hats, wrapped against a cold which was unimaginable in this heat. Past the carousel and the children’s zoo. Skirting the literary walk, the sun slanting off all the angles of Shakespeare’s bronze. The Angel of the Waters Fountain, Cherry Hill and then, most poignantly, Strawberry Fields. This quiet area of the park dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, fresh flowers laid with love on the black and white circle of stone marquetry with the legend, Imagine, at its heart.
Only two-and-a-half miles long and half a mile wide, wherever you were in the park you could almost always see the skyscrapers pressing in all around its perimeter. And now, here we were, right opposite the distinctive Dakota Building where Lennon had been shot by a deranged fan. I was, I think, only four years old when it happened, but my dad had been a big Beatles fan, and we had watched all the VHS videos of The Beatles’ movies. A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, Yellow Submarine. I knew every song, and had treasured the twinkling-eyed John Lennon like some kind of big brother. I cried when I heard he was dead.
Mr Steiner took us then to Gold’s on Fifth Avenue, in Midtown. I’d had no real sense of what exactly to expect of Gold’s, and found all my preconceptions swept away by the discovery that it was actually a luxury department store. Its various departments occupied seven floors, with galleries that ran around a central well at the heart of the building.
The tailoring department was on the fifth floor, and staff had been expecting us. They lined up inside the door to shake our hands, each one meeting our eyes with such warmth that I have rarely been made to feel so welcome. Mr Steiner took us on a whistle-stop tour of the facilities. ‘We’ll come back tomorrow for the real work,’ he said. ‘But right now we gotta hurry. I’ve got us tickets to a dance musical at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway.’
Neither Ruairidh nor I were affected by the heat or the jet lag. Such was the adrenalin rush of our first day in New York, that we could have stayed up all night. And now we were going to a show on Broadway! I felt like I had just stepped into my own private movie.
The show was called Come Fly Away, an exuberant production starring people I had never heard of. Keith Roberts, John Selya, Ashley Tuttle. The story followed four couples as they searched for love. Amazingly, it was built around a selection of Frank Sinatra songs featuring his actual voice backed live by an orchestra of eighteen instrumentalists. Mr Steiner had reserved us the best seats in the house. Neither of us was a big Sinatra fan, nor particularly interested in dance, and we would never have bought tickets for a show like this, but I was totally spellbound by the spectacle. And when I glanced at Ruairidh I saw that he was, too.
Afterwards, Mr Steiner took us backstage to introduce us to the perspiring performers, radiant and animated, breathless among the flowers that bedecked their dressing rooms after another successful show. They all seemed to know him, and greeted us as if we, too, were stars.
As first days in New York go, this one must have been up there among the best. And it wasn’t finished yet.
After the show it was on to dinner. Torrisi’s was a little Italian restaurant in Mulberry Street at the top of Little Italy. As we got out of the limo Mr Steiner said, ‘This city is full of great and expensive restaurants. But Torrisi’s? For good Italian-American food you can’t beat it. Hard to believe, but it’s a sandwich shop during the day. They do great chicken parm, or turkey hero, and they got some cool beers. Then at night, it transforms itself into this classy little restaurant. Twenty seats. Fixed price. Impossible to reserve a table. You just gotta turn up and hope.’ He grinned. ‘Except that I reserved us a table.’
Inside, booths and tables were set around a red-painted brick wall, with more plain wooden tables and tubular chairs pushed into the centre of the floor. A black-and-white portrait of a young Billy Joel clutching a pair of boxing gloves jostled for wall space with shelves laden with cans of peeled tomatoes and bottles of Manhattan Special espresso soda.
We had just squeezed into our seats beneath Billy Joel, when a voice called a loud greeting from across the room. ‘Hey Jake!’ Mr Steiner turned and looked towards a booth at the far side. Four men wearing expensive haircuts above tanned faces and designer suits that folded neatly over Gucci shoes sat around a table eating pasta and drinking champagne. Amazingly, even though it was dark by now, two of them wore sunglasses and looked like extras from The Godfather.
Mr Steiner excused himself and stood up to hurry over and shake their hands. He almost bowed as the one to whom all the others deferred stood up to shake his hand and slap his shoulder. He was an older man, dyed hair receding, belly expanding into his waistcoat. But no shades. After a few words, Mr Steiner turned and waved us over. It was only as we got nearer that I saw that all their suits were cut from one of the darker and more conservative weaves of Ranish Tweed. Mr Steiner said, ‘Mr Capaldi, meet Niamh and Ruairidh. These are the good folks that made the cloth you’re wearing. In fact, as I understand it, Ruairidh himself might well have woven the very stuff you got on your back.’
Capaldi shook our hands vigorously. ‘Well that just doubles the pleasure in meeting you,’ he said. He felt the cloth at the cuff of his jacket between thumb and forefinger. ‘This is just the most amazing material I’ve ever worn. Like silk with balls. It’s got class. When we was ordering our suits, Jake here suggested we try it. And hey...’ He spread his arms wide. ‘Look at me now. Best-dressed man in New York City. This calls for more champagne.’ He waved a hand in the air, and somehow, as if by magic, fresh chairs appeared and we found ourselves wedged in around their table.
Glasses foamed, and we drank toasts. To Ranish. To Scotland. To Jake Steiner. ‘One day I gotta get to Scotland,’ Capaldi said. ‘But I hear the weather ain’t so good.’
I said, ‘Well, if you ever got too hot, which is most unlikely, you could always cool yourself down with some Capaldi’s ice cream.’
There was a strange and immediate silence around the table. Mr Steiner looked uncomfortable, and Ruairidh jumped in quickly to explain. ‘You’ve heard of the Scottish actor Peter Capaldi?’
‘Sure,’ Capaldi said uncertainly.
‘Well his grandfather came from Italy. Bought a ticket to New York but somehow ended up in Glasgow, where he set up an ice-cream company.’
I held my breath, feeling that in some way I had managed to put my foot in it. Then to my relief Capaldi burst out laughing. ‘Made a big mistake then, didn’t he? Should have come to New York as he planned. Then maybe he woulda ended up wearing a jacket like this instead of peddling the cold stuff like some back-street nobody.’ And he tugged at his lapel.