One Minute to Midnight

CHAPTER Ten



New Year’s Eve, 2001

Paris



Resolutions:

1. Send copies of A British Tragedy, plus CV, to BBC, Channel 4 and major production companies



2. Move house! Go east again? Hackney/ Dalston?

3. Backpack across Cambodia/Vietnam



4. Lose half a stone



5. Learn to speak French

‘UNE SOIRÉE SUR une peniche! Nous sommes invités a une soirée sur une peniche! Une peniche sur la Seine! C’est formidable!’

Julian found it unbelievably hilarious to repeat this little phrase (A party on a houseboat! We have been invited to a party on a houseboat! A houseboat on the Seine! It’s wonderful!). The rest of us had begun to find it tiresome before we left Waterloo. Us: Alex and Mike (the professional rugby player), Julian and Karl (the naked German), Aidan and I. The six of us had boarded the Eurostar for Paris that morning, bound for une soirée sur une peniche, thrown by Bertrand et Laure, friends of Aidan’s. Subjects of Aidan’s in fact: they had featured in a film his production company made about the work of Médecins Sans Frontières in west Africa.

Aidan was a bit nervous about it – so nervous he’d actually tried to get out of the whole trip claiming that he didn’t feel very well, but there was no force on this earth that was going to deny Julian a New Year’s Eve party sur une peniche sur la Seine, so there we were.

I understood Aidan’s nerves. He’d been invited to this party by people he knew from work. They had insisted that he bring friends, but five ‘might be pushing it’, he’d said to me the previous night. Plus, he just wasn’t sure how we were all going to get along. Or, more accurately, how we were all going to get along with Mike, who was taciturn to the point of rudeness. And, by his own admission, he didn’t ‘think much of the French’.

I was nervous, too. For months now I’d been hearing about Bertrand and Laure: Aidan talked incessantly about the fantastic (and dangerous) work they’d been doing in Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone, about their passionate commitment to improving the lives of people in Africa, about their radical politics, their fantastic relationship.

‘It must be so amazing,’ he’d said, ‘to be able to work with your other half like that, to travel together, to do everything together, to have a real partnership’. I loved it when he talked like that, because that’s what I wanted, too, and that’s exactly what I saw developing between us. As soon as I managed to establish myself as a director of serious work, he and I could take off around the world to film together. In my fantasies I even had us establishing our own production company: Blake Symonds Films. Or Symonds Blake Films. Or something.

Back in the real world, I was nervous. Bertrand and Laure sounded like a lot to live up to, and I was desperate to make a good impression. I’d been trying to improve my schoolgirl French in the weeks before the trip – it would be nice to be able to hold the most basic of conversations with them. At least then they wouldn’t be able to see me as the typical lazy English person who couldn’t be bothered to even try speaking a foreign language (although that was precisely what I was). It would make me look so parochial.

We’d all checked in to a fairly ropey guest house just off the Boulevard St Germain. Mike, in particular, was not impressed.

‘We can afford better than this,’ he complained as we trudged up four flights of stairs (the lift was hors service) to our dingy rooms.

‘We’re not going to be here long,’ Alex said, ‘we’ll just be crashing here for a few hours after the party. Then we’ll go for breakfast and get back on the train. It would be a bit ridiculous to get rooms at the Georges Cinq for a few hours’ kip, wouldn’t it?’

‘I’m not asking for the Georges Cinq, Alex,’ he replied grumpily, ‘but I’d settle for clean.’

Mike may have had an annoying habit of refusing to look on the bright side, but in this case, he had a point, as we discovered when Aidan and I took a quick look around our room. The windows, which looked out onto a rather drab courtyard at the back of the building, were filthy. The carpet was threadbare, the bathroom smelled odd.

‘It’s not that bad,’ I said, unconvincingly.

Aidan shrugged. ‘Seen worse,’ he said, but it wasn’t an auspicious start to our trip.

Not wanting to linger too long in the hotel, the six of us dumped our bags and met downstairs in the lobby. Mike wanted to go for a drink. Alex wanted to go shopping at Galeries Lafayette. Julian and Karl fancied the Musée Rodin.

‘What do you feel like doing?’ I asked Aidan.

He shrugged. ‘I’m easy,’ he said, but he didn’t seem it. Quite the opposite: uneasy summed him up perfectly. I slipped my hand into his.

‘Well,’ I said, consulting my map, ‘why don’t the arty boys go to the Musée Rodin, Alex and I will go on a brief shopping spree and we can all meet up afterwards for a drink?’

‘Sounds good,’ Julian said. ‘Where shall we meet?’

‘How about the Marais?’ Karl suggested. ‘Lots of good bars there.’

‘Isn’t that the gay bit?’ Mike asked. Julian flinched, but didn’t say anything.

‘It’s a bit out of the way,’ I said diplomatically, ‘given that we’re going to have to come back here afterwards to change for the party.’

‘Look, there’s a bar on the corner there, just down the road,’ Mike pointed out. ‘That’ll do.’ We all looked over at a rather sorry-looking café tabac with a tatty red awning.

‘Oh hell no,’ Julian said. Mike gave a sigh of irritation. Aidan yawned.

‘Buddha Bar, Place de la Concorde,’ Alex said decisively. ‘Look,’ she went on, pointing at the map. ‘It’s about twenty minutes’ walk from the Rodin place and five minutes’ walk from Hermès. Perfect. We’ll see you there at six.’

Alex, Julian, Karl and I headed off towards the metro station, leaving Aidan and Mike standing awkwardly on the pavement, unsure of what to do next. It was perfectly obvious to me that Aidan would have preferred to go to the art gallery with Jules than spend the afternoon drinking with Mike. He was being weirdly polite. It really wasn’t like him.

And, as Alex and I discussed as we tried on dresses at Galeries Lafayette, it wasn’t a very good idea.

‘They’re going to be pissed by the time we leave for the party,’ Alex said. ‘God, I hope Mike’s not going to start up on the cheese-eating surrender-monkey business. He’s not really all that keen on the French, you know.’

‘So I’ve gathered.’

‘And what’s up with Aidan, anyway? He was so quiet on the way over. Not his usual self at all.’

‘He’s just nervous, I think.’

‘Thinks we’re going to show him up in front of the great Laure and Bertrand?’

‘Something like that.’

Drinks at the Buddha Bar were subdued. Thankfully, Aidan and Mike had not had too much to drink (they’d spent a couple of hours ‘wandering aimlessly’, according to Aidan). Karl chatted enthusiastically about the Rodin Museum; Julian was quiet. Still annoyed about the ‘gay bit’ comment from Mike, probably. All in all, the trip was not shaping up to be the carefree funfest I’d been hoping for.

Still, there was the main event to come, and I was delighted with my purchase from Galeries Lafayette for the purpose: a pretty sixties print dress and Mary Janes. Très chic, I thought. Back at the hotel, Aidan watched me getting dressed.

‘You look very cute,’ he said, when I was done, coming up behind me and slipping his hands around my waist. I’d been aiming for drop-dead gorgeous, but cute was okay. He kissed me on the top of the head. ‘You look lovely.’ That was better, only when he said it he looked sad, almost mournful.

‘Are you all right, Aidan?’ I asked, turning to face him, kissing his neck.

‘I’m fine, Nic.’ He didn’t sound it.

We set off for the party. Alex looked ravishing in a very short black dress that showed the tops of her stockings when she bent over.

‘You may as well not bother with a skirt at all,’ Mike grumbled.

‘I think she looks hot,’ Julian said.

‘Yeah, well, it’s not you I’m worried about,’ Mike replied, casting menacing glances at any passing Frenchman who looked in Alex’s direction.

Julian opened his mouth to say something but Karl squeezed his hand, shaking his head almost imperceptibly. We descended into the metro in silence.

We took the train from Saint Michel-Notre Dame to Champ de Mars-Tour Eiffel, emerging into the chilly night in the shadow of the Tower itself, illuminated by thousands of white lights. The unease, the awkwardness which had settled over us all dissipated, and we stood and gawped, excited at last, thrilled by the beauty of Paris at night.

We walked along the river to the Quai de Grenelle where Laure and Bertrand docked their houseboat. As we approached we could see the lanterns strung up on the deck at the rear of the boat, we could hear the chatter of French voices in the night. I gripped Aidan’s hand, my nerves all of a sudden in overdrive. Aidan led us across the gangway onto the boat; as I stepped down onto the deck, I slipped. He caught me.

‘Steady on,’ he said with a smile. Good start.

We descended into the cabin of the boat, a long, narrow room with a low ceiling, a fireplace at one end, low slung benches on either side, bright African prints adorning the walls.

‘Christ, you can barely stand up in here,’ Mike muttered, stooping to avoid smacking his head on a beam as we entered.

The cabin was hot and crowded, a thick fug of smoke hanging over the heads of the guests, most of whom seemed casually attired in jeans and tailored jackets or crisp, sheath-like dresses. By contrast I felt garish, overdressed.

‘Salut, Aidan!’ a voice called out from the crowd. A stocky, deeply tanned man with a shock of wiry dark hair emerged from the throng, holding his hands out in greeting.

‘Bonsoir, Bertrand!’ They embraced, Bertrand kissing Aidan on both cheeks.

He turned to me. ‘And this is Nicole?’ he asked, turning to kiss me, too. Dishevelled, unkempt and friendly, he wasn’t the suave, stand-offish Frenchman I’d been expecting. I felt incredibly relieved.

The six of us lost ourselves in the party. Julian and Karl were talking property with a couple of goatee-bearded hipsters in one corner (Paris, London or Berlin – where was the best place to buy?); Alex and I found ourselves chatting to a couple of incredibly charming French theatre actors; Mike skulked in a corner, drinking a beer. Aidan disappeared into the crowd.

It was only when I realised that I hadn’t seen him for well over an hour that I decided to go looking. I weaved my way through the party guests, from one end of the boat to the other, but there was no sign of him. Back I went, all the way to front to aft. I found him outside on the deck, talking to a small, slight woman wearing jeans and a black vest with a silver chain around her neck and large silver rings on her delicate fingers. They were sharing a joint. When Aidan spotted me, he waved me over.

‘Hi, Nic, come and meet Laure,’ he said.

The woman turned. Her dark hair was cropped close to her head, she had enormous dark eyes and elfin features. The skin on her shoulders and breastbone was lightly freckled.

‘Hello,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘Nicole? It’s nice to meet you.’ She looked me up and down, turned to Aidan, raised an eyebrow and smiled. ‘Elle est mignonne,’ she said. She’s cute. My French wasn’t great, but I understood that much. There was something in the way she said it I didn’t like. Aidan grinned a little sheepishly and looked away. We chatted for a minute about the programme Aidan had been making about them, which was due to air in a few weeks. We talked about her next posting – there was a possibility she and her husband might go to Afghanistan, though she was desperate to avoid that, not wanting anything to do with the Americans’ ‘dirty war’. Then she asked me what I did for a living. I told her I was freelancing as an assistant producer, though I really wanted to direct.

‘You follow in Aidan’s footsteps?’ she said with a laugh.

‘Not exactly,’ I replied, ‘he was a cameraman.’

She turned to Aidan. ‘And is she any good?’

Aidan looked embarrassed. My hackles were rising.

‘She’s great, actually.’ He put his arm around my shoulders, steering me back towards the cabin. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘there’s someone here you should meet. Simon Carver, the head of programming at Breakthrough. You remember I mentioned him before? Well, I sent him the film you made, the one on the British relatives of 9/11 victims, the British Tragedy thing …’

‘Aidan!’

‘Well, someone had to get it out there. You’ve re-edited it a hundred times, you’ve been dragging your heels for weeks. In any case, he was impressed. He wants to meet you.’

As we climbed back down to the cabin, I glanced over my shoulder at Laure, who was watching us leave. I caught her eye, but she didn’t smile.

‘She seems nice,’ I lied, as I allowed Aidan to lead me back into the crowd. He didn’t reply – whether he was embarrassed by her rudeness or he hadn’t heard what I’d said I wasn’t sure.

We found Simon Carver at the other end of the party, leaning against a long wooden table that served as the bar. Large and overweight with a face turning from pink to puce, you could have picked him out as English in this crowd from a hundred paces.

‘Ah-ha!’ he boomed when Aidan introduced us. ‘The next Nick Broomfield, the next Michael Moore. Only much better-looking.’ I blushed to my roots, more thanks to the Broomfield comparison than the compliment on my looks. ‘Come and sit here next to me,’ he said, patting the space next to his ample arse, ‘and tell me what you want to work on next.’

I inched forward and leant, as lightly as I could, against the table. I wasn’t sure it would bear my weight as well as his.

‘Well …’ I said, my mind immediately going blank, wishing Aidan had given me a little more warning. ‘There’s a short film I’ve been working on in my spare time. It’s about the illegal sex traffic industry.’

‘Spicy.’

‘Not really. I volunteer at a refuge, and I’ve met some women who are prepared to talk. It’s fairly horrific really.’

‘Strictly post-watershed, eh? They attractive these women?’

I was tempted to tell him to piss off, but this was Simon Carver – head of programming at Breakthrough Productions. He might be a misogynist arsehole, but he was an influential misogynist arsehole. Through gritted teeth, I told him about my idea.

Three-quarters of an hour later, I had my first-ever commission. A thirty-minute film, to be completed by the end of February, for which Breakthrough would provide a small budget. Carver obviously couldn’t guarantee that it would show anywhere, but it was paid work, with a respectable company. It might lead on to other things, it might even lead to a proper job. This could be it! This could be my big career break.

Ridiculously excited, I went in search of Aidan to tell him the fantastic news. I found Julian first.

‘You’re not going to believe this!’ I squeaked at him. ‘I’m a director! I’m going to be a director!’

The two of us commandeered a bottle of red and toasted my imminent directorial debut.

‘This is amazing, Nic! I’m so proud of you,’ Julian gushed at me, downing his first glass and pouring us each another.

‘Lucky for me I’ve got contacts,’ I said.

‘Oh, bullshit. You totally deserve this. The guy’s seen your film and he loves it – he’s not commissioning you because you know Aidan.’ Julian put his arms around me, squeezed me tight and lifted me off my feet. ‘This is so exciting! This is so bloody exciting!’

Light-headed, intoxicated with the wine and buoyed by Julian’s genuine delight, I went once more in search of Aidan. I spotted him back near the bar, talking to a small group of people, including Laure and Bertrand. I was just about to go bouncing up to him, to fling my arms around him, to thank him for sending Carver my film, for his confidence in me, when I stopped. I watched him as he talked animatedly about something, then Laure replied, and I noticed something odd. Something off. Aidan, who looks everyone in the eye, wouldn’t look at her. When she spoke, he was obviously listening, but he was looking at his feet or over her head. And then I noticed, as she turned away to pour another drink for her friend, that he placed his hand in the small of her back, and I knew. She looked up at him, she smiled, and I knew. And at that moment, he saw me. He saw the look on my face, and he knew that I knew.

Fresh air. I needed fresh air. I pushed my way through the hip, hot and happening Parisians, and climbed out of the stifling cabin onto the deck, feeling as though my legs would buckle beneath me. There was no one else out there, it was almost midnight. Everyone else was below, waiting for the countdown, the kisses, the champagne. There would be none for me. There would be no Blake Symonds Films, there would be no perfect partnership. And suddenly everything became so very clear to me. It was obvious, really – how could I have been so stupid? It wasn’t the miserable flat in Battersea that was making Aidan unhappy, it wasn’t the constant noise of trains, the cockroaches, it wasn’t even the commitment thing. He just didn’t love me any more. Pure and simple. He’d fallen in love with someone else.

He found me leaning up against the railing on the deck, gulping deep breaths of cold air, biting back tears. He put his hand on my shoulder, trying to turn me to face him, but I shrugged it off. I couldn’t look at him.

‘Nic, I—’

‘How long?’

‘Nicole—’

‘How long has this been going on, Aidan?’

‘I didn’t mean for it to happen.’

‘Are you in love with her?’ I asked the question, though I didn’t want to hear the answer.

‘We didn’t mean for it to happen.’

I started to cry

‘I love you,’ I said, my voice husky with tears.

‘I’m sorry.’ He took me in his arms, pulled me away from the railing, turned me around to face him, held me tight. ‘I didn’t mean for it to happen. I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry.’

I pushed him away, started up the steps to the gangway, slipped. Again. This time he didn’t catch me. He tried to help me up, but I pushed him away a second time. I staggered to my feet, half blind, desperate to get away, to be anywhere else but here.

On the quai, I stopped for a second, disoriented, not sure which way I should be walking. I wasn’t sure I’d find the hotel on my own. I wanted to be sick. I could feel the mix of champagne and the cheap red wine rising in my gullet. That was it, I was the drunk girl, throwing up outside at the New Year’s Eve party. This was not what I’d imagined for New Year’s Eve in Paris, this was not the impression I’d wanted to leave on sweet Bertrand and hateful Laure.

Laure, with her perfect skin and her skinny arms, her insouciant French style, her supercilious looks. I hated her. I hated her. I wanted to go back into the party, tell her husband, her lover, whatever the f*ck he was, that she’d been cheating on him – with a man he counted as a friend. I wanted to tell him that their partnership meant nothing. But what would be the point? He probably already knew. They were probably one of those nauseating French couples who had a completely relaxed attitude to adultery, for whom sexual jealousy was an absurdity. They probably came home from their respective lovers and compared notes in bed.

I knew I wasn’t getting back onto that boat, I didn’t have the guts and I didn’t want to give the patronising, smug bitch the satisfaction of showing her how crushed I was. I started to walk away, heading back towards to the sodding Eiffel Tower and all of a sudden all I could hear was Julian. Julian yelling at Aidan. I turned back. He was standing on the deck, with Karl at his side, Karl pulling at his arm, trying to get him to walk away, but he wouldn’t. He was up in Aidan’s face, shouting at him.

‘This is the last f*cking time, Aidan. This is the last time you break her heart. You stay away from her. Do you understand what she means to me? You break her heart; you break mine. We’re done, you and me. I don’t want to see you any more, not after this.’

Then Aidan was grabbing his arm, trying to say something, but Julian shouted. ‘Will you f*cking grow up? Will you ever grow up?’

I started to walk away again, but Julian caught up with me, grabbed me violently and pulled me into his chest. We stayed like that for a moment and then, with his arm firmly around my shoulder, he marched me away from the boat.

We walked in silence for what seemed like ages, me stumbling along beside Julian on the cobbles, him holding me up. From the apartments on the riverside and the boats on the quai we could hear the sound of people carousing, the cheers as the clock struck midnight. People greeted us as we passed, wishing us bonne année. I attempted to reply, Julian said nothing.

‘Where are we going?’ I asked him eventually. ‘What about Karl? And Alex?’ He stopped marching for a second, looked around.

‘There,’ he said, and pointed up a side street to a bar fifty yards or so up the road.

Le Rendezvous, a tiny dive stinking of stale beer and Gitanes was not a place I would have picked to celebrate the arrival of the new year. In fact, it appeared it wasn’t a place anyone would have picked to celebrate the arrival of the new year, since apart from a sullen barmaid and a couple of drunks at the bar, we were the only people there. Still, I didn’t care: it was warm and I could sit down. My feet were killing me.

Julian ordered a pitcher of red from the girl behind the bar. We sat in the corner and toasted the occasion.

‘Happy New Year, Nic,’ Julian said, clinking my glass. I burst into tears again. When I’d finished crying, and had been to the (disgusting) toilet to clean myself up, I sat back down at the table, smiled my brightest smile and said, ‘Okay. I’m done. No more tears. For tonight anyway.’

Julian looked relieved, but he just slid his hand over the table and covered mine. ‘You cry all you want, sweetheart. Not that he deserves your tears. He doesn’t deserve anything from you. Shithead.’

‘What about the others? We just left without saying anything.’

‘It’s okay. I told Karl we were leaving, I said that he should find Alex and they should go straight to the hotel when they were ready to leave.’

‘I’m sorry, Jules …’

‘For what?’

‘Ruining your perfect soirée sur une peniche.’

‘You didn’t ruin it, Nic. Aidan did. Anyway,’ he said, pouring us each another glass, ‘the night isn’t ruined. It’s not over yet.’

I raised an eyebrow, then raised my drink.

‘To us,’ Julian said, clinking his glass against mine. ‘You and me, Nic. We never need anything more than you and me.’

‘And Alex,’ I said, ‘and Karl.’

‘But not Mike …’ Julian said, and we both started to giggle, and found we couldn’t stop. Tears streaming down our faces, we laughed hysterically. The sulky barmaid and the drunks eyed us with disdain. We didn’t care. Eventually, when we had regained our composure, Julian said, ‘I love Karl, and I love Alex, but you’re the most important thing in the world to me, Nic. As long as there’s you and me, everything will be fine.’

The barmaid started putting chairs on tables just after three, at three-thirty she opened the door and pointed to it. We left. We walked hand in hand along the Seine, stopping to admire the Place de la Concorde on the other side of the river. Its obelisk illuminated, it looked as though it were made of gold. We walked all the way along the Quai d’Orsay (I, abandoning all pretence of dignity and self-respect, took off my shoes and walked in stocking feet), swapping New Year’s resolutions as we went.

‘Well, I’ve got my film commissioned,’ I told Julian, ‘so I can chalk that one off.’

‘You see?’ Julian said, squeezing my hand, ‘in a few years’ time we won’t remember this New Year for him, we’ll remember it as the start of your brilliant career.’

‘Let’s hope so. In the meantime, I suppose I can put finding somewhere to live as number one. Not so much a resolution as a necessity.’

‘Move in with us!’

‘Into your love nest? I think not.’

‘Temporarily, anyway.’

Knowing I had the offer, knowing I wouldn’t have to sleep another night in the flat in Battersea, made me feel a million times better.

‘I resolve to try and do some more serious work,’ Julian said. ‘I’m tired of snapping models in their scanties. Even male models. It feels kind of soulless.’

We were walking along Quai Voltaire. We passed number nineteen, a hotel that, according to Julian’s guidebook, had welcomed Oscar Wilde and Baudelaire among others. Across the river, you could just make out the pyramid of the Louvre.

‘Oh my god, wouldn’t you just love to live here?’ Julian sighed dreamily.

‘Nope, I’ve gone off Paris. And the French. In fact, I’m crossing number five off my list, too. I think I’ll learn Italian instead.’

We turned down Boulevard Raspail, the last leg of the journey home. A car passed us, honked its horn, shouted something inaudible. God only knows what we looked like. I didn’t care.

‘There’s another resolution you need to make,’ Julian said, dropping my hand and putting his arm around me instead. He pulled me closer so that my head rested on his shoulder.

‘I know. I’m done with him now. I won’t see him any more, won’t even speak to him. He’s out of my life now.’

‘Mine too.’

‘You can’t cut him off, he’s your cousin. Plus, you love him, and he’s been good to you.’

‘I don’t care, Nic. You mean more to me than he ever will.’

We slept for a few hours in Julian’s room, me sandwiched in between the two boys. I couldn’t face going back to my room, couldn’t bear to hear his excuses, his self-justifications. Couldn’t bear his pity. I needn’t have worried, though. When I woke, just after nine, and went back to my room, I discovered that the bed was still made, it hadn’t been slept in, and Aidan’s things were gone.