Hayley watched her daughter dipping her head at the warty frog, shifting closer and inspecting its ears. Angel was enjoying every second of this trip already. If only she could get her the icing on the Christmas cake. Her father, gift-wrapped. Maybe Carl from the gallery had already sent the email. Perhaps there was someonein another gallery already typing a response with Michel’s details attached. She just had to keep looking and keep hoping.
She walked the ramp to join Angel.
‘Not a patch on Kermit, is he?’ Hayley said, nudging Angel’s elbow.
‘His name is Roderick P Frog and he was sculpted by Henry Von Elderstein.’
‘Ooh a blind artist,’ Hayley said, running her hand over the frog’s bumpy head.
‘Mum!’ Angel exclaimed.
‘What?’
‘The sculptor isn’t blind and you’re not appreciating its unique style.’
‘To be honest, I’ve got pots you made at pre-school that look better than this.’
Angel scowled. ‘You aren’t having fizzy wine until we’ve been in every section.’
‘I hope they do very large bottles.’
They didn’t do large bottles and everything on the menu was expensive. Hayley watched Angel biting into her slice of carrot cake while swinging her legs from the high white leather stool she was perched on. They’d looked at pictures, information screens, sculptures, models and even some living art for over two hours. And Angel had provided a running commentary from the guidebook the whole way round, so much so that a couple of Japanese tourists walking behind them had ditched their audio and relied solely on the enthusiasm of a nine-year-old. Here she was worrying about getting a job as ahygiene operativewhen herdaughter had already carved out her own career as a museum curator.
Hayley took a sip of her cappuccino and turned to the view outside. Even with a layer of snow over the ground of Central Park, the paths were filled with joggers, walkers, people going about their business as usual. It wouldn’t happen in England. In England, a couple of flakes of the white stuff and the whole country fell apart. Cars skidded, buses stopped running, schools closed and people hid under their duvets. New York wasn’t just a different city; it was a whole different world. But it was a world she definitely wanted to get to know better. She turned back to her ideas book, open on the table in front of her. Warty frogs and pigs with multiple tails weren’t something to inspire the fashionista in her but perhaps the architecture of the building was. She smoothed her pencil over a page.
‘Do you want to share?’ Angel asked, pointing to a portion of cake on her plate.
Hayley shook her head. ‘No, you go for it. I have plans for hot dogs and roasted nuts.’
‘I wish Uncle Dean could have come with us today,’ Angel said, crumbling part of her cake with her fingers.
‘He’s going to finish early, remember? So you can go crazy with the dog.’ Being English, she felt she couldn’t say Randy too much in public. She drew a little more, curving a neckline like the exterior of the building.
Angel clamped her hands over her mouth, Macaulay Culkin style. ‘We forgot to phone Nanny!’
Hayley looked up from her book and replicated her daughter’s look but with less of the sentiment. She hadn’t forgotten; she had avoided it. ‘She’s fine. She texted Uncle Dean.’
‘I feel bad,’ Angel said, propping her head up on her elbow on the table.
‘Don’t feel bad. It was my fault I didn’t remember to remember.’
‘You mean you forgot.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Do you think Nanny would have liked this museum?’ Angel asked.
Hayley smiled. ‘I think she would have moaned about the toilet facilities and the prices and she would have hated that painting of the dustbin.’
Angel laughed. ‘Shall I send her a postcard of it?’
Hayley closed the book and put her pencil down. ‘Angel Walker, that’s something I would do. And if you turn out like me, Nanny will call the vicar and get you exorcised.’
Angel frowned. ‘Like make me go running?’
‘Ah ha! Special dictionary required. E-X-O-R-C-I-S-E-D.’
Angel picked up her rucksack and dug her hands inside.
