Nearby was Gimbels’, another department store, now defunct, but still the skeleton remnants remain, a copper, Art Deco crosswalk in the sky connecting 32nd to 31st Streets…I assume – or suspect – no longer usable, still, who knows why some spots, places, things remain in New York when others are ripped down, vanished forever? Pennsylvania Station, an architectural crime of the 1960s, is gone forever, while its sister-twin, Grand Central Station (42nd and Lexington) remains intact, renovated, nurtured and appreciated…My grandparents lived in Flushing, Queens People think New York City is Manhattan. These city buildings were haunted; by former governments like “Boss Tweed” of Tammany Hall, LaGuardia, Ed Koch, Abe Beame; mayors whose names no one quite remembers.And now, when with my daughter I pass the splendid wedding cake that is City Hall, she always says: “Mom, isn’t that where you and Dad got married…?” So, we too have added to the ghosts of the city: this building has become ghost space for my daughter.Although I didn’t grow up in New York City, I am from a long line of New Yorkers, at least on my mother’s side. Those days are long gone.After the ceremony I asked a City Hall worker where the ladies’ room was located, only to be told: “It’s one flight up – but be careful, somebody was raped in there yestiddy.”That was before the days of metal detectors in all government buildings. Still, even then they were inhabited by ghosts – the ghosts of former Justices of the Peace, and those couples married there, or those who had blood tests there and discovered their dread disease, things that once would not have been mentioned in polite society: syphilis, TB The ghosts of the Lavatory Rapists. He still has an English accent but he has learned a foreign language.

When we got married at City Hall I had to translate for him after the Justice of the Peace asked: “Do youse…Tay-ma – Jan – Jan – ‘No Witz – take yous, Timoty John Hunt as yu lawful wedded…” etc. ” One last go: “With her, he was the most connected to a normal life.” Phew.It is apt that Watson should attach so much anxiety to this question of sanity, while wondering if her own profession isn’t slightly crazed. She was doing a play recently, she says, and she’d get home and find she herself fussing over the lights. “I’d been on stage all night with these incredible lights, so bright. And I’d go around the room, rearranging ours.”Self-conscious to a fault (she’s listening to herself even more carefully than I am) she looks across at me anxiously “It sounds like I’m complaining.

Besides, the “madness” surrounding Hilary and Jackie had made the actress wary of “non-fiction” stories. And this one had already caused trouble – Hopkins’ off-the-cuff reference to Sellers as a “loony” apparently infuriated the comedian’s son, Michael. (Now, having seen the film, the Sellers’ only criticism is that the portrait isn’t dark enough). So Watson is determined not to be embroiled in fresh scandal when she says of Sellers’ relationship with Anne, “With her, he was the most rooted, and the most sane.” Then she looks at me, startled. “And that’s a very, very dangerous word to use.” A stern pout “And I don’t mean that …

” She starts again: “I don’t want you to imply that I didn’t mean … When you’re between harvests, it’s an excuse if nothing else, for in-depth product familiarisation. Pinot Noir has long been a favourite of New Zealanders and Oregonians, riesling and grenache have had their moments under the international spotlight, and the Barossa Valley recently hosted its inaugural Shiraz Alliance.
Never before to my knowledge though has anyone remotely considered getting down on one knee to the carignan grape other than to pull it out of the ground. Has she forgiven him? Like a flesh and blood human going through life without a script, Watson keeps us guessing till the very last beat.It’s a supporting turn (Charlize Theron, as Britt Ekland, gets just as much screen time; Sellers’ other two wives disappeared in the edit) and director Stephen Hopkins admits that he “couldn’t believe” Watson would want to do this role. Then she buries her face in his, making the audience hold its collective breath. In one scene, she tells her outrageously demanding spouse (played by Geoffrey Rush) that she’s “fucking bored” of his little-boy act.