One Minute to Midnight Read online

  A fact which was confirmed in brutal fashion on Valentine’s Day, a date that I had been anticipating with feverish excitement and not a little anxiety. For the first time ever I was going to get a Valentine’s card. A real one, not one written in my mother’s poorly disguised hand. I might even get flowers. The anticipation was killing me. The post hadn’t arrived by the time I left for school that day, but that didn’t matter. He’d probably give me the card when I saw him anyway, and that would be even better, because then I’d have an excuse to show everyone. It was the complete contrast to the first day of term: me desperately hoping to bump into him, searching him out all day, failing to find him. I hung around the school gates for half an hour after classes, convinced that he’d be along any minute, but no such luck. I went home, deflated.

  Until I pushed open the front door, and saw there on the mat, peeking out from under a large, official-looking manila envelope, a corner of brilliant vermilion. My heart leapt. I threw my bag onto the floor and scooped up the mail, flinging the bills and junk mail back onto the carpet. I ripped open the envelope and was surprised to see an impressionist scene on the front of the card: Monet, the artist’s garden at Giverny. Not very Julian. I flipped open the card and read: Dearest Elizabeth, Happy Valentine’s Day. With love, C.

  It was only then that I looked at the front of the envelope, which I hadn’t even checked in my haste to get to the card. It was addressed to Mrs E. Blake. It wasn’t for me, it was for Mum. And it wasn’t even from Dad, it was from Charles. Were they lovers now?

  Feeling sick to my stomach, I ripped the card to pieces and threw it in the bin, making sure to cover the evidence with banana skins and tea bags. I couldn’t believe it. Nothing from Julian for me, something from Charles for Mum. It was the worst possible combination. I dragged myself upstairs, stuck Nowhere on the stereo, turned ‘Dreams Burn Down’ up to ten, and flung myself face down onto the bed.

  I was still lying there, in my school uniform, face buried in the pillow, when I heard the doorbell go downstairs. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. What if it was Charles? What if it was Dad?

  ‘Nicole?’ I heard a voice call out. ‘You there?’

  Julian! I was so delighted to hear his voice, I didn’t even worry about the fact that I was still in uniform, that I looked like hell. I tore down the stairs and yanked open the door, grabbing him around the waist and kissing him until I noticed that he wasn’t kissing me back.

  Something was wrong. He didn’t meet my eye as he pushed past me into the house. He seemed agitated, distracted. In the kitchen, I poured us both a glass of juice. He waved me away as I offered it to him.

  ‘Stick something stronger in there for me, will you?’ he said.

  ‘Jules,’ I laughed, ‘it’s five-thirty in the afternoon. Mum’s going to be home soon. She’ll kill me if—’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Nicole.’

  ‘What? What’s wrong?’ I reached out my hand to take his. He pulled away.

  ‘Nothing. I’m just … I felt like having a drink.’

  ‘Well, you can’t have one here.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll go elsewhere then.’

  ‘Julian …’ I reached out for him again, but he was already heading out into the hallway.

  At the front door, he turned. He looked straight at me, unflinching, direct, and said: ‘This is just not working, is it? You and me. You’re a great girl, Nic, but this isn’t right …’

  ‘Jules, please don’t …’ I said, already starting to cry.

  ‘Oh don’t …’

  ‘Julian, I love you.’ It was the first time I’d ever told him that, and I meant it.

  ‘No you don’t, Nic,’ he said sadly, and turned to go, leaving me sobbing on the stairs.

  And that was the last time we spoke. And it was so awful, because although it sounds silly (as Emma Bradley never tired of pointing out), we’d become so close in those weeks together, it was like Jules and I were best friends, which is probably why Emma was always so down on me when I talked about him. So it wasn’t like I’d just lost my boyfriend, I’d lost my friend, too, and that was so hard. He was the one person I wanted to talk to about how I was feeling, the only person who would understand, and of course he was the one person I couldn’t talk to about it.

  When he called me in the summer, I was tempted to speak to him, I really was. The thought of being able to chat to him again, to talk about the books I’d been reading and find out what he thought of Kill Uncle was almost irresistible. Plus, I wanted to know if he was okay. That sounds weird, I know, because after all he dumped me, but there had been all kinds of rumours about him at school, and I was actually a bit worried.

  He’d been bunking off school a lot lately, more and more as the year went on. At first it was a relief: the fewer chance encounters in the halls at school the better as far as I was concerned, but after a while it just seemed strange and out of character. I knew he had a rebellious streak but I also knew that it meant a lot to him to do well in his exams because he wanted to get into a good art school. Mum, who was still close friends with Julian’s mother, told me that skipping school was just the start of it. He’d been getting into loads of trouble, she said, he’d been coming home drunk or high or not at all, he’d been in fights, he barely spoke to his parents at all. ‘Sheila’s at the end of her tether,’ Mum told me. ‘She just doesn’t know what to do about him.’

  Rumours at school were rife: Julian Symonds had got into serious drugs; Julian Symonds was a Satanist; Julian Symonds had become a complete loner, a weirdo, a drop out. Deep down, I was anxious that this was somehow all my fault. Had he been shunned by the cool set as a result of his inexplicable decision to go out with a nobody from Year Eight? And there was a part of me – the uncharitable part, I suppose – that thought it served him right. He’d broken my heart; I’d ruined his life. No more than he deserved. Except I didn’t really believe that, not at all. The part of me that had been his best friend for those five glorious weeks was terribly worried about him. Still, I resisted the temptation to seek him out and tried, as best I could, to put him out of my mind.

  On New Year’s Eve, however, that was never going to be possible. Particularly as I had nothing more exciting than dinner at home with Charles and Mum to distract me. They’d been seeing each other since the summer. Well, that was the official line, anyway. They’d been ‘spending time together, just as friends’ since about five minutes after Dad left. It was a bit unseemly. In the early days, particularly in the wake of my break-up with Julian, Mum and I had fought about it quite a bit. It only took a couple of drunken late-night visits from Dad to get me back on her side, though. Why wouldn’t she want to be with someone like Charles – quiet, considerate, with a surprisingly dry sense of humour (and a doctor, too) – when the alternative was my permanently pissed-off, unreasonable father?

  Plus it was hard not to like Charles. He’d been really nice to me, and not in an annoying, I’m-trying-to-replace-your-father or (even worse) an I’m-trying-to-be-your-best-friend way. He was just friendly. He included me. When he and Mum were going to the cinema, he always asked if I wanted to come along too, even if the film was an 18 and I wasn’t really allowed, and even though he knew I’d say no (seriously, who goes to the cinema with their parents?), and whenever I did say no, which was always, he never pressed the point. He just said, ‘All right then. Shall we bring you some wine gums?’

  And he’d lent me a ton of books. He had a much better selection than had ever been available in our house, including loads of stuff I’d never heard of, like The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis which was really shocking and explicit. I actually wasn’t all that sure I liked it very much, but it was probably the sort of challenging thing I ought to be reading.

  Best of all, though, he made Mum really happy. It wasn’t until I saw her with him, completely relaxed, always laughing, that I realised just how unhappy she’d been before. I suppose I hadn’t noticed it, because it crept up on us ove
r the years, but we’d become quite fearful in our day-to-day lives. And now Dad was gone we both became louder, messier, more chaotic, more ourselves.

  Even so, I was still annoyed that Charles was coming for dinner on New Year’s Eve. I’d imagined it would just be Mum and me, and that would be something different. Maybe we could talk a bit, about Dad, maybe Mum could help me understand why whenever I called him he sounded disappointed. He’d pick up and go, ‘Hello?’ and I’d say, ‘Hi Dad, it’s Nicole’ and then he’d go, ‘Oh.’ And he never asked how I was getting on at school, or anything like that. He always said, ‘How’s your mum? She doing all right is she?’

  Charles arrived just before seven brandishing a copy of Marco Pierre White’s White Heat.

  ‘Makes a change from Delia Smith, don’t you think?’ he asked cheerily. ‘You want to help out with the cooking?’ In a low voice he added, ‘I won’t even bother asking your mother.’

  ‘Not really,’ I replied grumpily. For god’s sake! Wasn’t it bad enough that I had to stay in on New Year’s Eve with my mother and her boyfriend? Now I had to help in the kitchen?

  ‘Oh, go on, Nic,’ Charles said. ‘We’re having scallops and langoustines with cucumber and ginger, followed by noisettes of lamb with fettuccine of vegetables and tarragon jus.’

  ‘All right then,’ I said, trying my best not to roll my eyes at him (Mum hated that). I didn’t like to admit that I had no idea what he’d just said.

  And to my surprise, as I chopped shallots and thinly sliced a thumb of ginger (ingredients entirely alien to our kitchen), and as Charles poured me half a glass of champagne and talked to me about The Handmaid’s Tale, which I was due to study in English next term, I found myself having quite a good time. Dinner turned out to be delicious, Mum was in a great mood, we had a Keanu Reeves double bill on video (My Own Private Idaho and Point Break – a special treat for me), so it really wasn’t so bad after all.

  And then, just before eleven, the doorbell rang and my stomach churned. Dad. It had to be. And he’d have been in the pub a good few hours by now. Charles paused the video and got up to go to the door, but Mum stopped him. I tried to follow her out, but Charles put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Let’s give it a minute, eh?’ The pair of us stood in the living room, just behind the door, poised to spring out and save her.

  She opened the door and then I heard her cry out, ‘Oh my god!’ and my whole body went cold. Something very bad was about to happen. Charles charged out into the hallway in front of me, I grabbed the phone, ready to dial 999. I heard her say again, ‘Oh my god, what happened to you?’

  Phone in hand, I ran into the hall. Mum and Charles were in the doorway, blocking my view.

  ‘What is it?’ I called out, trying desperately to quell the panic in my voice. ‘Is Dad all right?’

  ‘It’s not Dad, love,’ Mum said, and as she did she and Charles parted slightly, allowing the person at the door to step into the hall. I watched, dumbstruck, as she and Charles ushered Julian into the house. Julian, dirty and dishevelled, his shoulders heaving, his right eye swollen shut, blood all over his face. I burst into tears.

  Mum took him upstairs to clean him up. I hopped around outside the bathroom, calling out. ‘What happened? What’s going on? Open this door! Mum! I need to see him. He’s my friend!’

  Eventually Charles came upstairs, handed me a cup of tea and persuaded me to go downstairs, and an agonising ten or fifteen minutes later, Mum and Julian joined us in the kitchen. The four of us sat around the kitchen table for a minute or two, nobody saying anything, everyone sipping their tea. Julian looked horrendous. The right side of his face was swelling up, his skin turning an angry purplish red. His lower lip was split; he dabbed at it occasionally with a tissue. I couldn’t take my eyes off him; he hadn’t once looked over at me.

  After what seemed like an age, Mum spoke. ‘I think I should call your parents, Julian.’

  ‘Please don’t, Mrs Blake.’ He looked stricken. ‘I don’t want to talk to them now.’

  ‘They’ll be worried about you,’ Mum said.

  ‘No they won’t. Not yet. They won’t be expecting me till after midnight.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to have phone them some time.’

  ‘Not yet, please.’

  There was another moment or two of silence interrupted by tea slurping, and then Charles said, ‘At any rate we ought to call the police.’

  ‘No!’ Julian jumped to his feet. ‘You can’t do that. It’ll only make it worse.’

  ‘Julian, you’ve been badly beaten, you can’t just let this go …’

  ‘I won’t press charges,’ he said. He looked as though he might start to cry.

  ‘Julian …’

  He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘Thanks for the tea, Mrs Blake. I’ll get out of your hair now.’

  I grabbed his arm as he turned to leave. ‘Just hang on,’ I said, and for the first time he looked straight at me. ‘Maybe Jules and I could have a chat alone for a minute,’ I said. He reached out his hand and brushed away the tear rolling down my cheek. ‘Please, Mum?’

  So there we were again. Julian and I, sitting on my bed at a few minutes from midnight. We sat in silence while he smoked a cigarette, then he threw it out of the window and took my hand.

  ‘How are you, Nic?’ he asked, staring down at the bedspread.

  ‘Julian, what on earth is going on? Who did this?’

  ‘I’m so sorry I hurt you,’ he said, still not meeting my eye, ‘I never wanted to. I just … I just didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘What to do about what?’

  ‘Everything.’ He let go of my hand and got to his feet.

  ‘Don’t go, Jules. Please tell me.’

  He stood with his back to me, all attention apparently focused on the Klimt on the opposite wall.

  ‘I went to a party at Craig’s house,’ he said at last.

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘Yeah. And … I’ve been thinking about this for ages … I needed to talk to someone … It was totally the wrong time of course, it was fucking stupid, but I had a couple of beers and just thought, you know what? Fuck it. Craig’s a friend, we’ve known each other for ages.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, completely mystified as to what the hell he was talking about.

  ‘So, we went outside for a spliff and I told him.’

  ‘Told him?’

  ‘That I’m gay.’ He turned around and smiled at me, the saddest smile I’d ever seen. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. ‘But then, you knew that already.’

  ‘No I didn’t,’ I said, finally finding my voice. ‘I had no idea …’

  ‘Nic. You must have known …’

  ‘Is that why … that’s why you broke up with me. That’s why you didn’t want me …’

  He sat back down on the bed and put his arms around me. ‘I wanted to want you,’ he murmured into my hair. ‘I really wanted to.’

  For a while we stayed like that, our arms wrapped tightly around each other, both of us crying a little. Finally, we broke the embrace, blew our noses and giggled a bit, embarrassed. From downstairs I could hear the countdown to midnight on the television.

  ‘Happy New Year, Nic,’ Julian said as they reached zero, gingerly giving me a kiss.

  ‘I can’t believe Craig did this to you,’ I said, gently touching his lip.

  ‘Oh, he didn’t. He was totally cool about it. He was actually really nice, told me he was quite relieved – they’d been worried that I’d become a Christian or something.’

  ‘So who then?’

  ‘Turns out Craig’s brother, who is an absolute fucking tool, overheard the whole conversation. He was lurking in the bushes or something, the complete freak. Anyway, he was there with a bunch of his retarded mates who apparently don’t like gay boys all that much. When Craig and Al went to the offie to get some more beers, his brother and the rest of the cowardly Cro-Magnons took me outside and gave me a good kicking.’ />
  ‘Bastards! You have to tell the police, Jules.’

  ‘It’ll make it worse, Nic. It’ll create all kinds of hassle between me and Craig – his brother might be a prat but he’s still his brother. I’m going to need my friends, Nic. You know what it’s going to be like at school. I really don’t want to get the police involved. Okay?’

  ‘All right,’ I said, feeling that I was letting injustice prevail, ‘but there’s no way Mum’s not going to ring your parents.’

  ‘I can’t face my dad yet,’ he said in a small voice. ‘That’s why … that’s why I came here. I knew I could count on you, I knew that even though I hurt you and even though we haven’t spoken for ages, I knew you’d understand, because that’s just the kind of person you are. I knew that if I was with you, I’d be okay.’

  I left Julian in my room and went downstairs to persuade Mum to ring Julian’s parents to ask if he could stay with us for the night.

  ‘If you just say that he’d had a couple of beers and got into a bit of a fight, but that he’s fine, he’s just sleeping it off …’

  ‘Nicole, I am not lying to Julian’s parents.’

  ‘But … it isn’t even really a lie. He did have a couple of beers, he did get into a fight. He doesn’t want to talk to his dad yet.’

  Mum chewed on her nails nervously. To his credit, Charles stayed out of it. I’d just about got her to agree when there was another knock on the door.

  ‘Shit,’ my mother and I said in unison.

  ‘Don’t answer it,’ I whispered to her.

  ‘He’ll have seen the lights …’

  ‘Hello?’ a voice called out from the porch, and it wasn’t my father’s.

  ‘Maybe it’s Craig,’ I said, edging in front of Mum to get to the door first.

  It wasn’t Craig. On the doorstep stood a tall, dark-haired man holding a motorcycle helmet in his hand. I’d never seen him before, but he was instantly familiar to me, with Julian’s high cheekbones and long lashes, just situated on an older, more world-worn face. And while Julian’s eyes were brown and soulful, this person’s eyes were green. Bleary, a little bloodshot, but definitely green.