One Minute to Midnight Read online

  ‘Hello, young lady,’ the man said, giving me a rakish smile. ‘You’re up past your bedtime, aren’t you?’

  Past my bedtime? ‘Who the hell are you?’ I demanded, annoyed.

  He laughed. ‘Is your mum in?’

  ‘Seriously,’ I said, really pissed off now, ‘who are you?’

  ‘Name’s Aidan,’ he said, holding out his hand for me to shake. He had the faintest trace of a Glaswegian accent, that and something else, Manchester maybe. ‘I’m sorry to call so late, but I understand you’re giving refuge to my young cousin.’

  ‘You’re Julian’s cousin?’

  ‘That’s right. I was meant to pick him up from the party, but they told me he’d left. Said I might be able to find him here. I didn’t realise he had a girlfriend.’

  ‘I’m not his girlfriend,’ I said. ‘I’m his ex.’ Aidan found this inexplicably funny. ‘He’s staying here tonight,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Aidan said, stepping a little closer to me and peering over my shoulder into the house. He smelt of lemons and cigarettes. Weird combination. I stepped across him to stop him looking into the house, folding my arms across my chest.

  ‘He’s staying here tonight,’ I repeated.

  Aidan started to laugh again. ‘Any chance I could speak to him then?’

  ‘I’ll go and see if he wants to talk to you,’ I said, and turned on my heel, closing the door in Aidan’s face. Annoying bastard, I thought, and yet I could feel my face colouring and my heart racing. It’s just because he looks like Jules, I thought. He’s patronising and smug. And really old.

  Upstairs, I found Jules sitting at my dressing table, examining his facial injuries in the mirror.

  ‘Can I stay?’ he asked anxiously when I appeared.

  ‘I think so, but you have to go downstairs and talk to your annoying cousin first.’

  ‘Oh crap! Aidan. Shit, I forgot all about him. He said he’d pick me up after the party.’ Then he grinned at me. ‘Why did you say he was annoying? What did he do?’

  ‘He’s just … really patronising,’ I said, but I could feel myself blushing again.

  ‘Okay,’ Julian said, still smiling at me, a little quizzically. ‘I’d better go and talk to him.’

  Julian and his cousin talked outside. I watched them from behind the curtain in the living-room window. Jules telling his story, shuffling from foot to foot, every now and again pausing, his head in his hands; Aidan, leaning against his motorbike, smoking, listening passively. Until, presumably at the key point in the story, he threw the cigarette down and started to yell.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me? I would have come straight away.’ Then he put his motorcycle helmet on and swung one long leg over the bike

  ‘Where are you going?’ I could hear Julian ask him.

  ‘To sort those fuckers out,’ he replied, kick-starting the bike into life.

  After that, I couldn’t hear anything they were saying over the noise of the engines, I could just see Julian gesticulating, obviously pleading with him not to do anything stupid. Fat chance, I thought to myself. Aidan looked like the sort of guy for whom stupid – or at the very least reckless – came naturally.

  I was just wondering whether I ought to go out and intervene when I heard the front door slam and, to my horror, Mum strode out into the driveway, and I could hear her yelling over the engine noise.

  ‘Enough!’ she shouted, holding up her hands. Aidan cut the engine. ‘You,’ she said, addressing Aidan, ‘can get going now. And I don’t want to hear about you turning up at Craig’s parents’ place in the middle of the night. Julian, go inside. I’ve spoken to your mum, it’s all right for you to stay. But you can go to bed right now. I’ve made up the bed in the spare room.’

  Despite my embarrassment, I couldn’t help smiling. The two boys, instantly recognising they were no match for my mother, did exactly what they were told. Aidan started up his motorcycle once more, and rode off at a sensible speed, while Julian came back into the house and hurried straight upstairs to bed.

  It was about just after one when I heard my mother’s bedroom door close and realised it was safe to sneak out. I tiptoed down the hall, pushed open the door to the spare room and slipped inside.

  ‘Are you awake?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Do you want to talk?’

  Julian flung back the bedspread in reply, and I crept into bed, nestling myself up against him.

  ‘Shall we do resolutions?’ he asked me.

  ‘You first.’

  ‘Okay, at number one I had “come out to my friends”, so I’ve jumped the gun a bit on that one. Number two, “come out to my parents”.’

  ‘Your parents are good people, Jules, they’ll be fine.’

  ‘Mum will. Dad’s going to be disappointed. I know he won’t want to be, but he won’t be able to help himself.’

  I slipped my arm underneath his body and squeezed him.

  ‘Not too hard,’ he mumbled. ‘I might have a broken rib.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Number three: quit smoking.’

  ‘You had that last year.’

  ‘I’ll probably have it next year, too.’

  ‘Four: really concentrate on work. I really want to go to St Martin’s next year, and I’m going to need As to get in.’

  ‘You’ll have no problem getting in, Jules. You’re so talented.’

  He kissed the side of my head in the dark, squeezed me a little tighter.

  ‘And five: well … It was going to be to make things right with you. But maybe … I don’t know … Do you forgive me, Nic?’ There were tears in his voice, and I started to cry, too. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you …’

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t around when you needed me.’

  We lay in silence for a bit, arms wrapped around each other, my heart full, completely safe. I told him my resolutions, and then I got up to go back to my room.

  ‘I’d better not fall asleep here,’ I told him. ‘Mum will kill me.’

  ‘You did just tell her I’m gay, didn’t you?’

  ‘She’ll still kill me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Night, Nic.’

  ‘Night.’

  I tiptoed back to my room and crawled into bed, falling asleep almost instantly. I dreamed that Julian and I were on holiday, riding through a desert somewhere on a motorbike. The sun was setting and we stopped to take pictures, but when Julian took off his motorbike helmet I realised that his eyes were green, not brown. It wasn’t Jules at all, it was Aidan.

  Chapter Five

  27 December 2011

  I GET UP in darkness, again. This time there’s no time to walk the dogs. Hop in the shower, get dressed, get my notes together, drink my coffee, out the door. I need to be in Jericho, in Oxford, by nine-fifteen. If I leave at half seven I’ll make it.

  At seven forty I dash back upstairs to say goodbye to Dom. He’s just stirring.

  ‘You off already?’ he croaks sleepily.

  I kiss him on the head.

  ‘You’ll be back for dinner, yeah?’ he asks. I don’t say anything, I just kiss him again. ‘Have a good day, love,’ he says. ‘Good luck with the interview.’ On my way out of the front door I catch sight of myself in the hallway mirror and recoil slightly. My hair, which was cropped quite short in the summer, is now in that awkward neither short nor long phase. I could definitely do with some styling. And I look pale, a little tired. Like someone who’s been inside for too long.

  * * *

  I get stuck in traffic on the M40. Traffic. The day after Boxing Day? Where the hell is everyone going? Hopefully, I root around in the glove box. And there it is, contraband. A packet of Marlboro Lights, half full. Dom would kill me if he knew.

  I light a cigarette and flick on the radio. Some mindless chatter for a minute or two, then The Pogue
s with Kirsty MacColl, ‘The Fairytale of New York’. This, just as I’m passing the sign for the off ramp to High Wycombe. It feels like a sign, or a horrible cosmic joke. In reality, it isn’t so remarkable – after all, they play this song to death every single Christmas now, now it’s been voted Greatest Christmas Song in the World Ever.

  Still, for a moment all I can see is Julian, twirling my reluctant mother around the kitchen, singing at the top of his lungs in a terrible fake Irish accent. That was what, twenty years ago? Me, Mum and Jules, drinking illicit sparkling wine and scoffing mince pies, the year Jules’ parents went to visit his aunt in Australia, the first Christmas we ever spent together. I turn off the radio and put out my cigarette.

  The car in front of me moves a few yards, brakes, trundles a little further on, brakes again. I force myself to keep my eyes on the bank of red brake lights ahead, refusing to look over to the right hand side of the road, to my old hometown. The sky above looks ominously grey. Somehow the weather always seems miserable at this point in the road. I light a second cigarette (bad, bad girl) – anything to distract me. But as soon as I get past the turnoff to High Wycombe I start to feel better. Not going back there always feels like a little victory.

  I can hear my phone ringing from the depths of my handbag. As luck would have it, the traffic’s just started to move again, so I can’t answer. I’ve already got six points on my licence and I don’t fancy any more. As soon as we grind to a halt, I grab the phone and dial into my voicemail.

  ‘Hello? Ms Blake? It’s Annie here. Annie Gardner. I’m really sorry to inconvenience you, but I can’t do nine-fifteen. I’ve got a meeting here I can’t get out of. I could meet you for lunch though. Really sorry to cancel at such late notice. Please give me a call when you get this message.’

  My heart lifts a little. It’s like hearing you have a snow day when you’re supposed to have a test at school. A temporary reprieve. With the traffic still stationary, I ring Annie back to say that lunch will be fine. Browns at one o’clock.

  By the time I actually get into Oxford and find somewhere to park the car, it’s after ten o’clock, so it’s a good thing Annie had that meeting. I have a few hours to kill before lunch, but the good news is that the sky over Oxford is clear; it’s a bright, crisp winter day, the perfect sort for wandering around one of England’s loveliest cities. All the more so out of term time: with no students and not too much traffic, Oxford is a joy.

  I park at the shopping centre near the station and wander along George Street into town. Past Balliol, past Trinity, the Sheldonian theatre and the Bodleian Library, I turn right at the King’s Arms and walk through the heart of the university. On every street, around every corner, there are ghosts. Alex and I, reeling along Holywell Street, singing at the tops of our voices, arms linked, kebabs in hand, after a long, boozy afternoon in the Turf Tavern. Alex, stripped of her ball gown, right down to bra and knickers, jumping off Magdalen Bridge – in clear defiance of University rules – on a freezing May morning in our second year. Despite myself, I can’t help but smile. I found myself wandering along, laughing out loud, occasional passing tourists shooting bemused glances in my direction.

  I turn back, ending up, inevitably, walking down Parks Road towards our old college. There we were again, Alex and I, sunbathing in the gardens of Rhodes House or drinking wine in the university parks that sweltering summer that Julian came to visit, watching the boys play cricket. I reach the solid, dark oak doors of the college and, butterflies quivering in my belly, step inside.

  ‘Can I help you?’ A porter emerges from the lodge, a frown fixed upon his face.

  ‘I just wanted to take a look …’

  ‘College is closed to visitors,’ he says abruptly, indicating the sign to that effect.

  ‘I used to go here. This is my old college.’

  ‘Closed to visitors,’ he repeats. ‘It’s open in term time.’

  ‘I just wanted …’

  ‘We’re closed,’ he snaps, virtually pushing me out of the door. The porters always were miserable old bastards. As I walk slowly around the college, back towards St Giles, I have another flashback, of Alex and I getting a bollocking from the head porter for making a racket when we came back to college one night, and of her, hoiking up her skirt, bending over and showing him her arse in reply. I start to giggle again. With everything that’s happened over the past couple of years, sometimes I forget how happy we were. Back then, it was impossible to be miserable when Alex was around.

  There’s a coffee cart on the corner of Keble Road and St Giles – a new innovation, that certainly hadn’t been there in my day. I buy myself a large latte and find myself a quiet spot to drink it on a bench in the graveyard of St Giles Church. Protected from the wind by a line of firs, and with the sun on my face, it feels quite warm. I lean back on the bench, close my eyes and try not to think about the day ahead. After a while, I couldn’t really say how long, a shadow looms over me. I open my eyes.

  ‘Are you all right there?’ It’s the vicar.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say getting to my feet. ‘I suppose you don’t encourage loitering.’

  He laughs. He has a broad, open face and dreadful teeth, yellow and gapped. ‘Not at all. Loiter all you like.’ He gestures for me to sit back down on the bench and takes a seat beside me. ‘Bit warmer today, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm.’

  ‘Are you visiting?’

  ‘Just here for the day.’

  ‘Have you seen the sights? It’s quite a climb, but I’d recommend you try the top of St Mary’s tower. There’s a marvellous view.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been before. I actually studied here. A long, long time ago.’

  He smiles at me. ‘It can’t have been that long ago. You have good memories of the place?’

  ‘Wonderful,’ I say, and I can feel tears pricking my eyes. Ridiculous. I must be pre-menstrual. I grab a tissue from my bag. ‘Sorry,’ I say, embarrassed, ‘for some reason coming back to Oxford always makes me nostalgic – you know, lost youth, missed opportunities, all that.’

  ‘Lost youth?’ he laughs out loud. ‘I’m sixty-three.’

  ‘You know what I mean. It’s just … when you come here, when you’re that age – eighteen, nineteen, you know – you’re so convinced that you can do anything, that you will do something amazing, that you’re invincible. It’s ridiculous, obviously, but I just miss the way that felt.’

  ‘The way you feel before you learn to compromise,’ the vicar says with a wry smile. ‘Before real life gets you.’

  ‘Exactly. And I miss the friends I made here.’

  ‘You don’t see them any more?’

  ‘Some of them. Not all.’

  ‘Well, you should do something about that. You should never be careless about friendship. You will find, the older you get, that new friendships do not come around quite as often as they once did. You should treasure those you have, protect them fiercely.’ He nods sagely to himself. ‘Plus, these days you have all those social networking sites, don’t you? Spacebook, Myface, all that sort of thing. Makes it much easier to track people down.’

  We sit in silence for a moment, and then he gets up to leave.

  ‘My father has cancer,’ I blurt out all of a sudden, and he sits back down right away.

  ‘Oh my dear,’ he says, placing his hand on my arm, ‘I’m so very sorry. What’s his prognosis?’

  ‘I think it’s okay,’ I say. ‘I’m not really sure. We don’t talk. I haven’t seen him for years.’

  By the time I get to the restaurant, Annie Gardner is already there. A small, slight woman with a rather severe dark bob, she rises to her feet as I approach and holds out her hand for me to shake.

  ‘I’m sorry about this morning,’ she says, her voice so soft I can barely hear it, ‘it was unavoidable.’ She looks nervous and uncomfortable; she doesn’t quite meet my eye.

  ‘Not at all,’ I reply, beaming at her, ‘gave me a chance to wander around a bit. I haven’t been here f
or ages, so it was great to have the opportunity to see the sights again.’ Already, I’m a little too jovial, a little too eager to make her like me.

  We order lunch – a salad for her, fish and chips for me.

  ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ I ask her.

  ‘Oh no, I have to go back to work this afternoon, and I’m useless if I’ve had a drink at lunchtime.’

  ‘Oh go on,’ I say, cajoling, ‘just one?’ The more relaxed she is, the more likely I am to be able to talk her into this. Reluctantly, she agrees, and I launch into my pitch. I tell her how helpful the programme will be, how it will give her the opportunity to talk to qualified counsellors who can really help her to heal her family.

  She shakes her head sadly. ‘I just don’t know,’ she says, ‘I don’t know if it’s the right thing. You don’t understand …’

  ‘The thing is Annie,’ I jump in, interrupting her, ‘I do understand. I know how you feel.’

  She chuckles. She’s very pretty when she smiles. ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘No, I mean, I haven’t been in exactly your situation. But … my husband was unfaithful to me.’

  She looks up at me, quizzically. I can tell she isn’t quite sure whether to believe me or not. This was it, the critical point in my plan: the way to get Annie onside was to show her that she wasn’t alone. I knew what she was going through. I’d been there myself, and I’d survived. I knew how she could come out of it the other side, her marriage and dignity intact.

  ‘A couple of years ago. Okay, it wasn’t quite your situation, but he had an affair. With a friend of mine. A close friend. My best friend, in fact.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She looks stricken. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It was horrible. It was very painful.’

  ‘You left him?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ I take a slug of my wine and set the glass back on the table, ‘but I thought about it. I thought long and hard about it, in fact. We were separated for a while. But I love him very much, and I know he loves me, and I know that he made a bad mistake, a terrible mistake, and that he regrets it enormously. We had counselling, for several months, and we worked through everything. And, eventually, we were able to live together again, to be close again …’