One Minute to Midnight Read online

  I ended up settling on an elegant (I hoped) but rather dull combination of white trousers, dark green chiffon top and wedge heels. Not particularly practical, but I could always take off the shoes when we went to the beach. I showered, washed my hair and took a despondent look at myself in the mirror (I looked exactly like what I was: an English girl who hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours). I slapped on as much make-up as my pale complexion could take, summoned up my courage, and tried not to fall over as I walked up the stairs.

  At that moment, I felt a sudden pang of longing for Julian. With Jules at my side, I always felt invincible. He was almost always the best-looking man in any room he entered, so he was the perfect person to have on your arm. Perhaps I should just pop back downstairs and give him a call? After all, I didn’t want to miss him. I had to speak to him on New Year’s Eve. It was tradition.

  I turned and was just about to skulk back below stairs when I was accosted by yet another incredibly tall person: a woman with cropped dark hair, wearing the perfect strappy sundress for the occasion.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ she asked. ‘You saw us all and decided to make a run for it, did you?’ She laughed. ‘Seriously, it’s not going to be that terrible. Just get a couple of beers down you and you’ll be fine. I’m Kate, by the way. You must be Nicole.’

  ‘I must be,’ I murmured, following the Amazonian girl out onto the terrace, where the beautiful people were gathering.

  Alex was standing on the far side of the terrace, drinking champagne with two other girls, both of whom were slender and long-limbed and appeared to have wandered out of the pages of a fashion magazine. One of them, of course, had.

  ‘This is Lisa,’ Alex said, indicating the taller of the two, ‘and Jo.’

  They beamed at me and said hello, but they were sizing me up, too. I could feel their eyes run ever so quickly and almost, almost imperceptibly, from my head to my toes and back again. I felt like a midget. A rather pale, slightly overweight midget.

  ‘You have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen,’ Lisa said to me, immediately making me feel better. ‘Is that colour real or out of a bottle?’

  A man appeared at my elbow, a black man. He was serving drinks. ‘This is Solomon,’ Alex said.

  ‘Hello!’ I said, a little too brightly, holding out my hand for him to shake, but since he was carrying a tray of drinks he clearly couldn’t shake my hand, so he just grinned toothsomely and nodded.

  ‘Pleasure to meet you, madam,’ he said. ‘Would you like champagne or perhaps a beer?’

  I took a glass of champagne and thanked him and thought about the child on the road, and looked around and noticed that the only black people at this party were the ones carrying trays, and I felt uncomfortable. Alex caught the look on my face and smiled.

  ‘Plus ça change,’ she said in a terrible French accent. ‘It’ll be better later, on the beach. It won’t be so … monochromatic. Promise.’

  We hung around for a couple of hours making polite conversation with Alex’s parents and their guests, and were just inching towards the front, about to ditch the cocktail party and head for the real action, when we spotted Robert heading purposefully in our direction.

  ‘Oh crap, he’s going to try and make us stay …’ Alex muttered, but in fact he wasn’t.

  ‘There’s a telephone call for you, Nicole,’ he boomed at me, brandishing a cordless phone in my direction. ‘An English bloke. Charles, I think he said his name was.’

  Alex grinned. ‘Jules.’

  I grabbed the phone with unseemly haste from Robert’s hand.

  ‘Julian!’ I squealed excitedly, ignoring the sideways glances of the assembled guests. ‘Just … say … new year …’ he said. I could barely hear him over the crackle on the line.

  ‘What?’

  ‘… wanted … say … Happy New Year!’

  I scuttled inside in search of better reception.

  ‘How are you?’ I shouted.

  ‘I’m still pissed off with you for leaving me here, all alone in London. What’s it like there?’

  ‘Hot,’ I said. ‘Scary. Exotic. Did I say hot?’

  ‘Yeah, you did, and you can shut the fuck up about it too, because it’s minus two and raining here.’

  ‘I wish you were here, Julian.’

  ‘God, me too, but I’ve barely got enough cash to keep me in beer and poppers.’

  ‘Behave yourself tonight.’

  ‘Don’t I always? Have an amazing time, take lots of pictures and give Alex a big kiss for me. I’ll be thinking of you at midnight.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘Happy anniversary, Nic.’

  ‘Oh shit, Jules, we haven’t done resolutions …’

  ‘Quickly, I’ll go first—’

  But then the phone cut out, there was some beeping and some crackling and I just stood there saying, ‘Hello? Hello?’, and for just a second or two, I felt bereft, but then I looked up and saw Alex out on the terrace, grinning at me, gesturing for me to join her, and behind her the sun was just starting to dip into the ocean, lighting it on fire, and my heart leapt. I realised that for the first time ever I was doing something exciting and extraordinary, and I had to hang onto every moment, I had to remember what everything looked like and sounded like, I needed to remember the smells and the textures and tastes, because this – new, exotic, terrifying – this is what I wanted my life to be like.

  A few minutes later I found myself squashed into the back seat of Kate’s Mercedes, with Lisa on one side and Jo on the other, long legs folded up so that their knees almost reached their chins. Alex sat in front with Kate, because she had to have control of the stereo.

  ‘Seriously,’ she told me, ‘if it were up to Lisa, we’d be listening to the Spice Girls. She has the worst taste.’

  I wasn’t overly concerned about the music. I found myself gripping my seatbelt in terror as the car careened along a windy coastal road cut into the side of the mountain. Out of the window to my left I could see sheer cliffs dropping away to the sea. My stomach lurched.

  ‘Just don’t look down,’ Jo said with a grin.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Lisa reassured me. ‘Kate’s never had an accident in this car. She wrote off the last one, but she’s never crashed the Merc.’

  ‘Don’t tell her that!’ Kate protested from the front seat. ‘Honestly, I’m a great driver. The other accidents were always the other guy’s fault.’

  ‘Let’s talk about something else, shall we?’ Alex suggested.

  ‘Of course. What are you guys going to get up to for the next few days?’ Jo asked.

  ‘We haven’t really made any firm plans …’ I said.

  ‘Typical Alex,’ Lisa said. ‘So disorganised.’

  ‘Spontaneous,’ Alex corrected her.

  ‘Well, you have to climb the mountain,’ Jo said. ‘It’s an amazing hike.’

  ‘I’m not really much of a climber …’

  ‘There’s an easy route,’ Lisa reassured me. ‘Only takes a couple of hours. I’ve done it with my grandparents. Anyone can do it.’

  ‘Oh, and you must go and see the penguins at Boulders Beach …’

  ‘And you should go to Robben Island …’

  ‘Go shopping in Green Market Square …’

  ‘Take a drive out to Stellenbosch to do some wine tasting …’

  ‘Actually,’ Alex interjected, ‘We’d quite like to spend some time just lying on the beach doing bugger all.’

  ‘Don’t let her drag you into her pit of apathy Nicole,’ Kate warned me. ‘If it’s left to Alex, you’ll go back to England in a week’s time having seen nothing but the abs on the lifeguards on Clifton Beach.’

  Kate dropped us off in the packed car park at Clifton at around ten. As far as the eye could see, the beach was lit by bonfires, around which hundreds of (mostly scantily clad) young things were dancing. Others thronged at one of the makeshift bars that had been set up at various intervals, emerging from heaving crow
ds with cans of beer or plastic glasses. From an enormous sound stage a little way down the beach, boomed the unmistakeable hook to Faithless’s ‘Insomnia’.

  Alex grabbed my arm and we made our way down some rickety wooden steps to the beach. With each barefoot, bikini-clad girl we passed, I regretted my outfit choice more keenly.

  ‘Right,’ Alex said, surveying the scene as we got to the bottom of the stairs, ‘let’s head for the sound stage. Anton’s DJing tonight and there’s bound to be a good crowd there.’

  ‘Who’s Anton?’ I asked her, stumbling along at her side, shouting to make myself heard over the noise of the crowd and the music.

  ‘Met him on Christmas Eve,’ she yelled back. ‘Very nice guy,’ she added with a wink.

  Anton, it turned out, was not the only guy Alex knew at the party. She also knew Steve and Michael, Danny and Graham, Wayne and Tod … a seemingly endless parade of good-looking young men. They greeted her enthusiastically, shook my hand politely and then ignored me. I clung to Alex’s side, feeling awkward and intimidated. Eventually, I volunteered to go and get us drinks. Copious alcohol consumption, I reasoned, might be the only way to get through this party alive.

  Abandoning my wedge heels, I trekked back across the dunes towards a bar. Walking barefoot was not a great deal easier, since I was now stumbling over the hems of my trousers. The crowd at the bar was ten deep. For a moment I considered giving up before I started. After all, Alex would almost certainly be able to suggest that one of the boys fetch drinks for us. Not wanting to seem defeatist, though, I pushed myself into the fray.

  What seemed like hours, but was probably more like fifteen minutes, later, I emerged victorious with four gin and tonics balanced on a plastic tray. Two for Alex, two for me. There was no way I was going to go back to the bar again any time soon. Gripping the tray as though my life depended on it, I started to make my way back towards the sound stage. I had got about three yards when I managed to put my left foot on my right hem, stumbled, righted myself, and was breathing a sigh of heartfelt relief that I hadn’t gone arse over tit when a teenage boy, chasing after a Frisbee, came flying out of nowhere and charged straight into me. The drinks, and I, went flying. The teenage boy didn’t even break stride. A roar of laughter went up from the nearest gaggle of people, although one kind soul grabbed my arm and helped me to my feet. I dusted myself down and grinned ruefully at the laughing crowd. I may have been hoping fervently for the ground to swallow me up, but I wasn’t going to show it. I picked up my tray and went back to the bar.

  I was just steeling myself for another assault on the bar crowd when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘That was unlucky.’ I turned around and found myself looking into the sleepy green eyes of a lithe, dark-skinned man with a mop of unruly black hair. He was wearing baggy, boarding shorts and a dirty white T-shirt. A cigarette hung from his bottom lip. I inhaled sharply, my mouth opened, but I was actually speechless.

  ‘Of all the beach parties in all the world …’ he said with a lazy smile.

  ‘Aidan?’ I said, eventually finding my voice. ‘Aidan? Is that really you? What are you doing here? I thought you were in India. Or Pakistan. Somewhere in Asia.’

  ‘I was, for a while. Now I’m here.’ He spread out his arms and gave me a hug. I was still struggling to get to grips with the fact that I had just bumped into someone I know roughly six thousand miles from home, but Aidan didn’t seem in the slightest bit fazed by the coincidence.

  ‘Shall we have another go at getting you a drink?’ he asked.

  Inwardly I cringed. You don’t see someone for years and the first time you do, you’re falling over and throwing drinks everywhere. Typical. That would never happen to Alex. It would never happen to Julian. Only to me.

  ‘What can I get you?’ Aidan asked me.

  ‘Gin and tonic,’ I replied, ‘but I’m not just buying for me …’

  ‘Oi, Joe!’ Aidan yelled, incredibly loudly, over the heads of the crowd.

  One of the barmen looked over at us. ‘Yes, chief!’ he yelled back.

  ‘Gin and tonic and a Castle!’

  ‘Yes, chief!’

  ‘Make it two Castles!’

  ‘Yes, chief!’

  He turned to me and grinned. ‘You are old enough to drink, aren’t you?’

  A second or two later, I had a gin and tonic in my hand.

  ‘Easy when you know how,’ I said to him.

  ‘Yeah, Joe tends bar at the hotel I’m staying at. He’s moonlighting tonight. Twenty-three with three kids and a fourth on the way. Needs the money. Come on, let’s find somewhere to sit.’ He placed his hand between my shoulder blades, guiding me towards a quieter section of beach.

  ‘Alex – the friend I’m with – will be waiting,’ I said, not quite resisting.

  ‘But I’ve bought you a drink now! You have to talk to me. You’re obliged to talk to me. For five minutes at least. It’s the law.’

  We found ourselves a spot next to one of the less crowded bonfires and sat down.

  ‘So,’ he said, looking me up and down, ‘Nicole Blake. Look at you, all grown up.’

  He was running his eyes all over me. I could feel the colour rising to my cheeks. He grinned, that annoying, I-know-what-you’re-thinking kind of grin, and asked, ‘Didn’t you know you were coming to a beach party?’

  ‘I was at a cocktail party before,’ I said, a little stiffly, ‘and I didn’t have time to change.’

  ‘Oh, a cocktail party,’ he said, putting on a posh English accent. ‘Rather.’ He lit himself a cigarette and offered me one. I declined.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said, patting my arm.

  Patronising git. What was it about this man? Why was I simultaneously seized by the impulse to slap him across the face and rip his clothes off? Well, it was clear why I wanted to slap him, but the attraction was less obvious. Yes, fine, he was good-looking, yes, okay, he looked exactly like Julian, but there was something else, something underneath all that which made me want to get to know him. He had an air of dissolution, a raggedness around the edges that was somehow irresistible to me. I had an overwhelming urge to kiss him.

  ‘I should go,’ I said, swigging down as much of my gin and tonic as I could in one gulp, because if I stayed there any longer I wasn’t going to be able to resist that urge. ‘Alex will be waiting.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ he protested. ‘I haven’t seen you in … how long’s it been? Five years?’

  ‘It was much more recent than that,’ I said, a little disappointed that he couldn’t remember the exact moment he’d seen me last, because I could. ‘It was Julian’s eighteenth.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ he said, starting to laugh. ‘You and Jules took a couple of Es and you just about chewed a hole through your lip. Remember?’

  I looked away, embarrassed. ‘I remember.’

  ‘And you told me I was quite good-looking for an old guy.’

  ‘I did not,’ I protested, feeling the blush rise to my roots.

  ‘Yes you did,’ he replied, laughing at the memory. ‘You were off your face, though.’

  Why was it that he made me feel like an idiot whenever I saw him? And why was it that he seemed to enjoy it so much? And why in god’s name did I let it get to me?

  ‘So tell me about this Alex, then,’ Aidan said, thankfully changing the subject. ‘Who’s he? Captain of the rowing crew?’ Ever so casually, he draped an arm around my shoulders, leaning in to whisper, ‘I hope he’s not the jealous type.’ My stomach flipped, a shiver ran through me. He pulled me closer.

  ‘You’re not cold are you? I’ve got a jacket somewhere …’ he looked around. ‘… not sure where I left it though …’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said, ‘I’m not cold.’

  ‘Sure?’ He turned to look at me, his face was just inches from mine, he reached across and pushed my hair away from my face. My heart was pounding.

  ‘You look good, you know?’ he said. ‘You look really good …’ He leaned in
closer, slipping his arm all the way around my waist – this was happening, this was really happening …

  ‘Aidan Symonds!’ And then it wasn’t happening. A loud, harsh voice rang out, tearing through my perfect moment.

  ‘Hey, hello!’ Aidan called out, letting go of me and getting to his feet. He was immediately enveloped in the arms of an incredibly tanned blond girl with beads in her hair and a bright orange kikoi tied around her slender waist. She knew how to dress for a beach party. She was whispering something in Aidan’s ear, he was laughing. I turned away and got to my feet.

  ‘I really ought to go, Aidan,’ I called out to him. ‘It was nice seeing you.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, we should meet up again, you can introduce me to Alex,’ he replied, half-heartedly attempting to disentangle himself from the clutches of the blonde. I just smiled, and waved, and walked away, furious with myself for feeling so disappointed.

  Back in the shadow of the sound stage, I found Alex dancing up a storm.

  ‘Thank god!’ she yelled when she saw me, flinging her arms around me. ‘I thought I’d lost you. It’s almost midnight! Where the hell are our drinks?’

  ‘Long story!’ I yelled back as she dragged me onto the decking which served as dance floor.

  ‘Never mind! I’ll have one of the guys get us some champagne!’

  By midnight, I’d forgotten all about my sartorial failure, the embarrassing fall on the beach, even Aidan and his annoying blonde. Intoxicated with champagne, dance-induced adrenalin and the simple joy of being with my second-best friend in the whole world, the only thing that could have improved my night would have been if Julian had been there too. At the stroke of midnight itself, Alex and I were jumping up and down, hugging each other tightly, a huddle of boys behind her waiting patiently for their New Year’s kiss. As I let her go, I found myself spun around and, before I could protest, Aidan had planted a kiss on my lips.

  For a moment or two, everything slowed down. That’s how it felt, as though the rest of the world went into slow motion, the music was turned down, the noise of the crowd abated and the colours faded to black and white. There was nothing except for me and him, standing together on the beach, his arms around my waist, his lips on my mouth. And then he pulled away and the world came back, bright and loud.