The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York. Peter Godwin

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ active. Physically active. Today I decide to go rollerblading along Riverside Walk. This stretch of sidewalk from Chelsea Piers down to Battery Park must be one of the most congenial rollerblading courses in the world. It is a safe, level, cement strip with views on one side across the Hudson River and on the other over to Greenwich Village then TriBeCa, City Hall and the World Trade Towers.

      I am a reasonable blader, about intermediate level, I think. I very seldom fall, but I take no chances, strapping myself into my matte black safety gear: helmet, elbow pads, wrist protectors with Velcro fasteners and plastic reinforcers, mittens, and knee pads with black plastic cups over the joints themselves. Thus attired, I can blade for about fifteen minutes before I need to rest, or else I risk cramping up. I think there is something wrong with my blading posture. I have even been to blading school at Chelsea Piers, once. I went to the intermediate class, where I found myself surrounded by large middle-aged women and small children. I was the only adult male. Since then I have tried to self-tutor by watching other, more advanced bladers and attempting to ape them, straightening my back and assuming a more open, balletic posture. Invariably I soon revert to my clenched, bent stance.

      There is one physical barrier that seriously blights my blading enjoyment. It is the West Side Highway, the eight-lane stream of traffic that I am forced to cross to get to the river walk. Although there is a pedestrian crossing, the flashing green man has been wrongly adjusted by the Traffic Department. For intermediate bladers like myself, he provides an inadequately fleeting window of opportunity in which to blade across, and the impatient traffic sits on the line revving up for their green, like racing cars waiting for a chequered starting-flag to fall. Nor is it unknown for them to jump the lights. I find that under the close scrutiny of eight rows of New York drivers, my blading deteriorates significantly. I wobble nervously and falter like a beginner. Once I reach the other side I feel triumphant, liberated. Until the time approaches to cross again, as it always does.

      But today, today is my last crossing of the West Side Highway. Today I have almost reached the other side when, unaccountably, my left skate jams and I fall heavily – just as the lights turn in favour of a grid of trucks. The Mack truck nearest me releases its brakes with a menacing pneumatic wheeze, kicks into gear and advances. I look up desperately, but my perspective is too low to allow me to see the driver, too low to fix him with pleading eyes. The truck looms dangerously and then emits a vast, throaty, customized hoot. My whole body resonates, right to the fillings in my molars. I scuttle desperately to the kerb, a spidery, Gothic figure in my matte black safety outfit and the goat’s hooves of my black skates. I felt that I must look like one of those Calcutta pavement cripples, cosmetically enhanced by callous relatives for more proficient begging. I haul myself up over the concrete lip to safety, where I sit, feeling the laughter of the driver wash over me. Fast, proficient skaters, the ones I have been trying to emulate, blade gracefully past me.

      ‘Bad blades, man. You OK?’ yells one cheerily, as he whisks past shirtless, and without any safety gear, casually ramping some substantial obstacle. He is well out of earshot before I can reply.

      I bend down to examine my recalcitrant skate, expecting to find a shard of gravel from the nearby roadworks, wedged in my axle. Instead I find a used condom has wrapped itself around a wheel with the aid of a puce blob of chewing gum. I gingerly peel off the condom and its attendant gluey tendrils of gum, remove my skates and hobble home in my socks.

      I check for phone messages, but my test results still aren’t in.

      Monday, 18 May Joanna

      Though part of me wants to sit and obsess until the next set of results comes through, Peter persuades me that I would be better kept busy and so, at 7 p.m., we set off for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s summer fund-raiser organized by Tina Brown, the editor of the New Yorker. It takes place at the Manhattan Center, a vast indoor stadium in midtown. As we arrive, a motorcade of stretch limos is disgorging its passengers.

      ‘Oh God, I don’t know if I can face this,’ I grumble.

      ‘Well, we can go if you like,’ says Peter reasonably. We are about to leave when I hear a low mellifluous rumble of a voice behind me. Could it possibly be? … Is it really? … I turn around. It is. Alan Rickman is standing fewer than ten feet away.

      ‘Oh well, I suppose we’re here now,’ I say. ‘Let’s just see how it goes.’

      Originally, the RSC had earnestly planned to perform a play in its entirety, but Tina Brown, conversant with New Yorkers’ bantam attention span, has cleverly persuaded them to offer us a medley of the Bard’s Greatest Hits instead.

      The audience is huge, there are at least 1,000 of us, with many having paid $20,000 a table. As usual, however, we have slipped in on a press freebie. To my right sits a cheerful man called Christopher Buckley, who tells me he is the author of a book called Thank You for Smoking. He is in a state of some excitement because the place card next to him reads ‘Susannah York’.

      To my left sits Garth Drabinsky, the legendary Broadway producer of Showboat and Ragtime, which has just picked up four Tony awards. The Drabinsky legend stems from his almost magical ability to stay financially afloat, confounding his many naysayers. He is a huge, darkly brooding presence, and seems depressed.

      I feel depressed too. What did Dr Beth mean, ‘You’re certainly something but it’s not pregnant’? I look around for Peter, who has been placed at a different table. Curiously, when I finally spot him, he is sitting next to Susannah York.

      ‘Have you seen The Horse Whisperer yet?’ asks Drabinsky morosely.

      ‘Yes, very disappointing,’ I start. ‘What’s Robert Redford’s problem? How could he have cast himself as the romantic lead? He’s far too old! His mouth’s all lined, he looked ridiculous opposite Kristin Scott Thomas. And as for all those schmaltzy, sentimental shots of Montana …’

      ‘Really?’ he interrupts. ‘I loved the movie.’ He raises a heavy eyebrow. ‘And I consider Robert one of my greatest friends.’

      Monday, 18 May Peter

      I am not at my best at these society events. I seem to revert to my African childhood, dumbstruck and gauche, radiating rudeness to mask social incompetence. I tend to lean on Joanna, using her as a social battering ram, as she possesses complete candour and an effrontery to make me blush. Tonight, however, we are split up, but this is fine since Susannah York is at my table. In the course of the evening I do not manage to exchange a single word with her, however, so intense and exclusive is her conversation with the man on her left, apparently an old friend. Once I think she smiles at me, but I cannot be sure.

      When we leave we are besieged by a squadron of publicity girls, who hover around the foyer to present us with our goody bags. I am still at a stage where I am enticed by goody bags. To me they are like unseasonal Christmas stockings. The prospect is exciting, though the contents seldom fail to disappoint. Tonight’s freebies, which we examine in the cab on the way home, are the usual random medley of sponsors’ offerings: a copy of the New Yorker, a volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets, a tube of Callard and Bowser’s liquorice toffees. On the drive home we declaim sonnets while chewing liquorice until our teeth have blackened.

      The best gift is a small radio from Bloomberg, the financial rival to Reuters. But to our chagrin we discover that the radio has a strictly limited repertoire – it is permanently pre-tuned to Bloomberg’s own station, and can receive no other.

       Tuesday, 19 May Joanna СКАЧАТЬ